Dr. Eric Langenbacher is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Society, Culture & Politics Program at AGI.
Dr. Langenbacher studied in Canada before completing his PhD in Georgetown University’s Government Department in 2002. His research interests include collective memory, political culture, and electoral politics in Germany and Europe. Recent publications include Comparative Politics: Mapping Institutions, Power, and Legitimacy (2025), Shifting Paradigms in Contemporary German Politics and Policy (edited volume, 2024), The German Polity, 12th ed. (2021), and Twilight of the Merkel Era: Power and Politics in Germany after the 2017 Bundestag Election (edited volume, 2019).
Dr. Langenbacher remains affiliated with Georgetown University as Teaching Professor and Director of the Honors Program in the Department of Government, as well as the Director of the Master in European Studies Program in the School of Foreign Service. He has also taught at George Washington University, Washington College, The University of Navarre, and the Universidad Nacional de General San Martin in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and has given talks across the world. He was selected Faculty Member of the Year by the School of Foreign Service in 2009 and was awarded a Fulbright grant in 1999-2000 and the Hopper Memorial Fellowship at Georgetown in 2000-2001. Since 2005, he has also been Managing Editor of German Politics and Society, which is housed in Georgetown’s BMW Center for German and European Studies. Dr. Langenbacher has also planned and run dozens of short programs for groups from abroad, as well as for the U.S. Departments of State and Defense on a variety of topics pertaining to American and comparative politics, business, culture, and public policy.
Another Unmasterable Past?
The Humboldt Forum Part II As I wrote over a year ago, the new museum and cultural complex in central Berlin, the Humboldt Forum, has gradually opened since late 2020 …
Episode 47: False Information, Conspiracy Theories, and Right-Wing Extremism
Since the Covid 19 pandemic began in many countries, conspiracy theories and political extremism have grown but particularly in the United States and Germany. False information has flourished, leading the …
Not So Boring After All
The Bundestag Campaign One Month Before Election Day Lately, there have been two emerging narratives regarding the September 26th election for the German Bundestag. On the one hand, commentators are …
The 2021 Bundestag Election and Results
AGI Project
The Political and Electoral System of Germany
The Federal Republic of Germany is a constitutional republic with the Federal President (Bundespräsident/in) as the Head of State with limited political power. The incumbent is Frank-Walter Steinmeier (formerly a …
Understanding the German Electoral System
German voters will go to the polls on September 26th to elect a new lower house of parliament, the Bundestag. Although each one of these elections held every four years …
A Guide to German Elections
AGI Project
AGI Experts Preview Merkel’s Visit to Washington
Securing a Transatlantic Legacy Jeff Rathke, President Chancellor Merkel makes her last official visit to Washington just weeks before the September 26 Bundestag election will punctuate her path-breaking career as …
What Happens in Magdeburg Does not Stay in Magdeburg
Saxony-Anhalt’s 2021 Landtag Election In the weeks preceding Sunday’s elections for the Landtag in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, there was a rising sense of dread that the right-populist Alternative …
Episode 42: A New Direction for Germany?
The German federal election campaign is heating up after Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) and the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) finally chose Armin Laschet as the bloc’s …
With the Chancellor Candidates Selected, the Election Campaign Heats Up
Postwar German politics has been characterized by long periods of stability associated with dominant chancellors (Adenauer, Kohl, Merkel, Brandt/Schmidt) followed by a shorter period of upheaval and transition (Erhard/Kiesinger, Schröder), …
