Ines Schäfer has been working as a predoctoral researcher since April 2021 in the project "Is Europe Growing Together? Convergence and Divergence of Political Attitudes in Europe" (WEZ) at the Institute of Sociology at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main.

Ines studied sociology in the Bachelor's programme at the University of Bremen and completed a semester abroad at the Université de Lausanne in Switzerland. In March 2021, she completed her Master's degree in Sociology with a focus on European societies at the Free University of Berlin. During her Master's studies, she worked as a student assistant at the Chair of Political Sociology, also at the Free University of Berlin, where she contributed to projects on Corona and civil society, protest events in Germany, political parties in Europe and cleavages in post-crisis Europe, among others. In her Master's thesis, she dealt with politicisation and Europeanisation dynamics in France and Germany in the course of European integration. Specifically, she analysed the effects of the politicisation of European integration on the Europeanisation of political actors in the public debate on 15 steps of integration since the 1970s until the Schengen crisis in 2015/16.

Currently, Ines Schäfer is researching the polarisation of public opinion in a European comparison as part of the WEZ project. She is investigating the alignment of various issue attitudes (including economic redistribution, gender relations, immigration/cultural diversity and European integration) in order to identify potential social divides and political conflict lines. The project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Further information on the project can be found here: Goethe-Universität — Prof. Dr. Daniela Grunow - Research (uni-frankfurt.de)

Schäfer, Ines (2023): 'Ever more politicized and Europeanized? Public debates over European integration in France and Germany'. In:Houde, A.-M., Laloux, T., Le Corre Juratic, M., Mercenier, H., Pennetrau, D., and A. Versailles (eds.), The politicization of the European Union: from processes to consequences. Brussels: Éditions de l'Université de Bruxelles, pp. 107–127. https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/59861  

Schäfer, I. (2022): Ever More Politicized and Europeanized? Public Debates Over European Integration in France and Germany. Sociology Blog of the MA program "Sociology - European Societies". Available from: https://blogs.fu-berlin.de/sociology/2022/01/10/ever-more-politicized- and-europeanized-public-debates-over-european-integration-in-france-and-germany/ [10.01.2022].

Hutter, S., Teune, S., Daphi, P., Nikolas, A., Schäfer, I., Sommer, M., Steinhilper E. and S. Zajak (2021): Die Zivilgesellschaft in der Krise. Einblicke aus einer Organisationsbefragung zu den Herausforderungen der COVID-19 Pandemie. Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewegungen. https://doi.org/10.1515/fjsb-2021-0024

Hutter, S. and I. Schäfer (2021): 'Cleavage Politics and European Integration'. In: Brack, N. and S. Gürkan (eds.), Theorising the Crises of the European Union. London: Routledge, pp. 63–80.

Hutter, S. and I. Schäfer (2020): Politischer Protest im wiedervereinigten Deutschland. Dossier: Lange Wege der deutschen Einheit. bpb – Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung. Available from: https://www.bpb.de/geschichte/deutsche-einheit/lange-wege-der-deutschen- einheit/47408/politischer-protest [02.06.2020].

Schäfer, I. (2019): 'Olivier Rozenberg: Les députés français et l'Europe. Tristes hémicycles?', In: Deutsch-Französisches Institut (dfi) (ed.), Frankreich Jahrbuch 2018. Wiesbaden: Springer VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp. 177–182.