Christoph Hönnige

Christoph Hönnige is Professor and Chair for Comparative and German Politics at the Institute of Political Science, Faculty of Philosophy, Leibniz University Hannover. He also holds leadership roles including Chair of the Joint Examination Committee for Political Science degree programmes, Deputy Director and Deputy Managing Director of the Institute, and represents professors on several faculty bodies. He is additionally affiliated with the Leibniz Center for Science and Society (LCSS) and the Center for Inclusive Citizenship (CINC).

Education

• PhD, University of Potsdam (supervisors: Herbert Döring & André Kaiser)
• Graduate studies, University of Konstanz

Research Focus

Hönnige’s scholarship centres on three interconnected areas: Judicial Politics (comparative analysis and the German Federal Constitutional Court), Legislative Politics (expert consultation and decision-making under institutional constraints), and Higher Education (ethics, administration, and student behaviour). Across these fields he investigates how formal and informal institutional rules shape individual and collective behaviour, and how citizens’ trust in institutions and decision-making procedures is formed and maintained.

Recent Publication Trends

Since 2020 his peer-reviewed output has addressed four principal themes: (1) governance and organisational diversity in German universities, (2) temporal strategies in bicameral legislatures, (3) legitimacy and public perceptions of constitutional courts, and (4) integrity and assessment practices in digital higher-education settings. Methodologically, the work blends large-N quantitative analysis, survey experiments, and text mining, often with cross-national comparative designs.

Scientific Awards & Recognitions

While no standalone prizes or medals are explicitly listed, Hönnige’s continuous funding by the German Research Foundation (DFG)—including co-leadership of the project "The Federal Constitutional Court as a Veto Player"—testifies to peer recognition of his research excellence.

Advising & Grants

As principal investigator on the DFG-funded project on the Federal Constitutional Court he supervises doctoral and post-doctoral researchers. He also mentors BA and MA thesis students through weekly colloquia and is responsible for curricular design within the Politics programmes at Hannover.

Labs & Research Groups

He leads the Comparative and German Politics research group housed in the Institute of Political Science, coordinates the Constitutional Court Database (CCDB) project, and collaborates closely with interdisciplinary teams at LCSS and CINC that focus on science-society relations and inclusive citizenship respectively.