Louise K. Davidson-Schmich is Professor and Associate Chair of Political Science at the University of Miami, where she specializes in gender and politics and the political dynamics of long established democracies. She is the author of Gender, Crisis, and Leadership: Possibilities and Perils for Women Leaders (with Farida Jalalzai and Malliga Och; Oxford University Press, 2026). With Ross Campbell, she has also edited The 2021 German Federal Election: Negotiating a New Era (Palgrave, 2023) and the forthcoming volume The 2025 German Federal Election: A Polity Under Stress.
Davidson-Schmich is Editor of the journal German Politics and serves on the executive committee of the International Association for the Study of German Politics. She also sits on the editorial boards of Women, Politics and Policy and the European Journal of Politics and Gender. Her research has been supported by grants from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Fulbright, and the National Science Foundation’s ADVANCE program. In addition, since 2020, she has served as a Board Member of the American Friends of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
Men’s and Women’s Political Representation in the 2025 German National Election
The 2025 German national election entrenched men’s dominant position in German politics and represented a setback for women’s political participation in the Federal Republic. In terms of descriptive representation—the percentage …
Gender and Sexuality in the 2021 German National Election & Subsequent Coalition Agreement
As is common in European multi-party systems, the 2021 German national election featured a broad range of party-political positions on salient contemporary issues. Just as in the United States where …
AGI Asks: What is Angela Merkel’s Legacy on Gender Equality?
AGI Asks: What is Angela Merkel’s legacy on gender equality in Germany? Petra Ahrens, Phillip M. Ayoub, & Sabine Lang Tampere University, Occidental College, & University of Washington 2021 marks …
The AfD in the Run-up to the 2021 German National Election
Down but Not Out In 2017 the Alternative for Germany (AfD) entered the Bundestag, marking the first time in recent history a far-right populist party overcame the Federal Republic’s 5 …
Why Have Women World Leaders Performed So Well During the COVID-19 Crisis?
In 2019, UN Women reported that a mere 5 percent of heads of government around the world were female.[1] These handful of women, including German chancellor Angela Merkel, have dominated …
Germany on International Women’s Day 2020
With the departure of Elizabeth Warren from the U.S. presidential race, the “highest glass ceiling” in this country remains unbroken. Germany, however, has had a female chief executive since 2005. …
