GAAS PolSci Conference 2026: Crisis and Continuity: The Declaration of Independence 250 Years On

Project no.:

26-0611

Date:

Thursday, June, 11^th– Saturday, 13^th, 2026

Venue:

Studienhaus Wiesneck, Wiesneckstraße 6, 79256 Buchenbach

Partner:

Department of Political Science of the University of Freiburg
German Association for American Studies

Organizers:

Christoph Haas, Sarah Wagner & David Sirakov

Target group:

Political scientists, historians, sociologists as well as a larger interested audience

Participation fee:

(PhD) students: 80.00 euros
Working professionals: 120.00 euros

Wine tasting fee: 15 euros (due on location)

Registration:

You can register here.

General Information (program, arrival, accommodation, travel grants, business meeting):

All accommodations will be provided at Haus Wiesneck. 

Thursday, June 11

03:00 p.m.
Welcome Coffee

04:00 p.m.
Panel 1: Institutional & National Matters
Mike Cowburn – “Divided We Legislate: How Elite Polarization Shapes Legislative Design”
Philipp Leinenbach – “Reading the Constitution in the 21st Century: Structures of Decision Making at the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts”
Philipp Adorf/Julia Simon – “Defending 'Real America': Right-Wing Podcasts, National Belonging, and Coded Exclusion”

6:00 p.m.
Dinner

Friday, June 12

8:00 a.m.    
Breakfast

9:00 a.m.
Panel 2: Electoral Issues
Alyssa Fraser – “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: Electoral Integrity and Disinformation Warfare in the Digital Age”
Tanja Haupt – “German American Voting Behavior in the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election”
Karol Kozlowski – “40 Years of Make America Great Again. Speeches of the Republican Party Candidates for President in General Election Campaigns. Comparative Analysis of 1984 and 2024”

10:30 a.m.
Coffee Break

10:45 a.m. 
Panel 3: Welfare & Housing
Christian Lammert – “Equality as a Scarce Good? The Afterlife of 1776 in the Racialized American Welfare State”
Matthias Dehner – “The development, effectiveness and efficiency of federal and state homeownership promotion in the US”
Laura Kettel – “Crisis by Design: Homelessness Governance in the U.S.”

12:30 a.m.
Lunch

2:00 p.m.
Panel 4: Interest Groups / Immigration Policies
Emma Gerritsen – “Labor, Unions, and the Bible: Evangelicalism and the Politics of Industrialization in the U.S. South”
Natalia de Gravelles – “Implications of Young Men's Identity Construction in the Context of White Nationalist Groups”
Sebastian Dregger – “The Declaration of Independence and American Immigration Law – a Double-Edged Constitutional Tradition in Times of the Trump Presidency”

3:30 p.m.
Coffee Break

4:00 p.m. 
Panel 5: Foreign Affairs
Laura Smith – “The Monroe to the Donroe Doctrine? Isolationism to Modern Republican Interventionism
Harmen Singh – “Re-Coding Manifest Destiny: Trump-Era Neo-Expansionism and the Transformation of American Imperial Ideology”

6:00 p.m. 
Dinner with wine tasting

7:00 p.m. 
Wine tasting continued (15 euros (due on location))

Saturday, June 13

8:00 a.m.
Breakfast / Checkout

9:30 a.m.
Welfare Address – 250 Years and Beyond

10:00 a.m. 
Business Meeting
On the future of the Political Science Section in the GAAS

11:00 a.m. 
End of Conference

Optional for participants who would like to explore Freiburg: Freiburg city tour, Sat. 12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.. Includes a viewing of the facsimile world map by Martin Waldseemüller, the cartographer from Freiburg who gave "America" its name on his map in 1507.