In publica commoda

New in Göttingen in April 2017: Prof. Dr. Simon Fink

On April 1st 2017, Simon Fink joins the University of Göttingen as Professor for the Political System of Germany. During the last years, Simon Fink was assistant professor for comparative politics at the University of Bamberg, and Postdoc at the graduate school "Markets and Social Systems in Europe". Moreover, he founded a company offering political science trainings and simulations for various German and international customers.

Simon Fink´s research is focused on the analysis of public policy. His last major project studied the diffusion of privatization policies in the OECD world and elucidated how learning, emulation and competition drive the spread of new policies. His dissertation dealt with religious influence on embryo research policies and showed that cultural factors do indeed influence public policies.

Currenty, Simon Fink is working on a project studying public participation in German electricity grid expansion policies. The question is whether public participation really causes changes in policy decisions about electricity grids.
The teaching focus of Simon Fink is the political system of Germany and its embeddedness in the European multilevel system, as well as policy analysis. Moreover, his courses always emphasize the discussion of research logic, research design and (quantitative) methods.