Professorship of Empirical Political Science (acting professor)
Contact: lars.lott@fau.de
Short Bio
Lars Lott is Professor of Empirical Political Science (acting) at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg. Since 2022, he has been a postdoc at the Chair of Human Rights Politics at FAU, and he will continue his research as a postdoc after his temporary position as a professor. In 2021, he received a PhD from Heidelberg University (summa cum laude). Lars Lott is also a Research Associate at the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg. His research (also published as Lars Pelke) has been published in over 15 journals or volumes, including Perspectives on Politics, Democratization, Political Studies, European Policy Review, Swiss Political Science Review, Higher Education, Contemporary Politics, and International Area Studies Review. He is also responsible for the Academic Freedom Index as the project coordinator.
His research focuses on different areas in comparative politics, namely conceptualization and measurement of regime transformations, political economy of inequalities, the development and trajectories of academic freedom and its consequences for academia and politics. Additionally, he focuses on the conceptualization and measurement of democratic resilience. Empirically, Lars Lott applies quantitative methods (e.g., multilevel models, difference-in-differences estimators for time-series cross-sectional data, survey experiments) and adopt a comparative perspective (cross-national comparisons) in my research projects.
- Croissant, Aurel & Lott, Lars, (2026). Democratic Resilience in the Twenty-First Century. Search for an analytical framework and explorative analysis. Political Studies, 74 (3), 901-928. doi:10.1177/00323217251345779.
- Lott, Lars, Kinzelbach, Katrin, & Lindberg, Staffan I. (2025). Can free academia withstand democratic backsliding? Why some universities wither while others survive. International Political Science Review. doi:10.1177/01925121251366162.
- Lott, Lars, & Spannagel, Janika (2025). Quality Assessment of the Academic Freedom Index: Strengths, Weaknesses, and How Best to Use It. Perspectives on Politics. doi:10.1017/S1537592724001968.
- Lott, Lars (2024). Academic freedom growth and decline episodes. Higher Education, 88, 999–1017. doi:10.1007/s10734-023-01156-z.
- Pelke, Lars. (2023). Academic Freedom and the Onset of Autocratization. Democratization, 30 (6), 1015-1039. doi:10.1080/13510347.2023.2207213.
- Fundamental Academic Values Award, 2nd prize, German Academic Exchange Service