Among other things, the formation and sudden dissolution of the traffic-light coalition drew attention to episodes of short-term and opportunistic political cooperation. Whilst it is generally not unusual to lament politics for myopia and opportunism, this apathy overshadows the complexity and diversity of the circumstances that lead political rivals to set aside their differences. To shed more light on this multifaceted topic, our Senior Research Fellows Afiq bin Oslan and Yixuan Shi organised a workshop on 9 and 10 April 2026 at the Harnack-Haus in Berlin to bring together researchers from around the world who study such collaborations.
An open call for papers was launched on this broad topic of ‘Strange Political Bedfellows’. Although the call was open to all academics, it was primarily aimed at students who could benefit most from the opportunity to present their work on unusual alliances to an audience from the same field. Alongside academic exchange, we also hoped to offer young academics a platform to discuss academic careers and make more informed decisions regarding a career in research.
The huge response to our call for papers enabled us to put together a diverse group of participants. This diversity was evident both geographically – with six continents represented – and in terms of experience – ranging from tenured professors to someone who is just completing their bachelor’s degree. They discussed unusual political alliances in the context of a wide variety of topics, from coastal resource management in the Philippines to abortion rights movements in Colombia.
To provide feedback to the participants, we also invited three expert discussants: Jeremy Siow (University of Oxford), Agata Rydzewska (University of Warsaw) and Yunyi Huang (UT Austin) generously took the time to engage in-depth with the presentations.
Our colleague Raisa Sherif, Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Public Economics, spoke about her work with the World Bank, conducting field experiments on building entrepreneurship skills in India. Her talk on “Experiments on Environmental Behaviours” gave the audience an impression of the depth of research possible in the social sciences and its very real impact on the world: the Indian government now plans to expand these capacity-building workshops. Such an impact is made possible in particular by an exceptionally effective partnership: the collaboration between academics and politics.
One measure of the success of academic events is, not least, their value for networking. To further promote this goal, the participants organised an excursion to eat kebabs and visit the Humboldt Forum at the end of the academic part of the workshop. Perhaps the most important insight from these two days is that one of the best forms of fellowship is still that which brings scientists together.
April 2026