Abstract

Empirical electoral research in Germany has reached a high level of quality both with regard to theoretical approaches and methodological issues. Moreover, it is strongly linked to other disciplines in political science such as comparative political studies or political communication and also highly integrated in international electoral research. However, a changing context of voting and internal deficits are imposing challenges on electoral research in Germany which should be met in the next years and decades. Still, these challenges can also be regarded as perspectives for future electoral research. This paper thus describes the current standing of empirical electoral research in Germany and gives a detailed account of the challenges resulting from this. Further, using the example of the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES) we show how these challenges can be and are actually met.