Heiko Giebler received his doctorate in political science from Humboldt-University. He worked as a researcher at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center and he was a guest researcher at the University of Sydney as well as at the University of Exeter. He joined SCRIPTS in January 2020 as the Head of the Research Group "Comparative Survey", which is conducting the comparative survey "PALS – Public Attitudes towards the Liberal Script”. Since July 2023, he is also the Head of the Data and Methodology Center (DMC) of SCRIPTS.
Heiko Giebler is involved in the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES) and the Comparative Candidates Survey (CCS). He is a permanent guest research at the WZB. He is currently also running SCRIPTS-related projects of democratic resilience in times of crisis, sports-whitewashing as a tool for autocratic regimes, and evaluations of electoral integrity in Berlin.

Current Research projects at SCRIPTS:

The research group led by Dr. Heiko Giebler will primarily work on two tasks: First, the group will be in charge of developing, implementing and analyzing a global mass survey on varieties of and attitudes toward the Liberal Script. The survey will cover at least 15 countries from all regions of the world. Case selection is crucial as the data should as best as possible allow to draw a global map of attitudes toward the Liberal Script. Due to its global perspective, issues like contextual applicability, cultural sensitivity and measurement equivalence will be of utmost concern when developing the instrument. All in all, the survey will produce high quality data to answer the following, rather general research questions: (1) How do different individuals define the Liberal Script? (2) To which degree do individuals accept the Liberal Script and its different aspects? (3) Do individuals perceive tensions and trade-offs between different aspects of the Liberal Script? (4) How do attitudes toward the Liberal Script relate to other individual-level and contextual factors?
Second, the project will relate these mass attitudes to (political) elites’ attitudes and investigate how certain types of congruence/incongruence between the two groups affect the Liberal Script and its persistence. The guiding research question is, whether certain configurations of mass and elite attitudes have different effects on the persistence or adaption of the Liberal Script. Building on cleavage theory, the group will develop a framework on how certain configurations of mass and elite attitudes lead to a manifestation of conflict regarding the Liberal Script in terms of its meaning, relevance and potential contestation. Empirical analysis will be based on a sub-set of the countries selected for the mass survey as this requires additional data collection efforts.

Giebler, Heiko / Giesecke, Johannes / Humphreys, Macartan / Hutter, Swen / Klüver, Heike 2025: Mobilizing Europe’s Citizens to take Action on Migration and Climate Change. Behavioral Evidence from 27 EU Member States, Journal of European Public Policy: 1–29. https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2025.2512032.

Giebler, Heiko / Wagner, Aiko 2024: Eine Frage der Perspektive. Zur Einordnung von Wahlergebnissen aus Anlass der Europawahl 2024, Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft 34: 503–513. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41358-024-00395-5.

Giebler, Heiko 2024: What citizens expect from Europe. Evaluation of a comparative population survey in Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Spain and Sweden, Bonn: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung e.V. https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/international/21069.pdf.

Giebler, Heiko 2024: Erwartungen der Bürgerinnen und Bürger an Europa. Auswertung einer vergleichenden Bevölkerungsumfrage in Deutschland, Frankreich, Italien, Polen, Spanien und Schweden, Bonn: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung e.V. https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/international/21055.pdf.

Rauh, Christian / Giebler, Heiko / Heisig, Jan Paul 2024: System unter Druck. Zur Krisenfestigkeit demokratischer Ideale, WZB Mitteilungen no. 183, Berlin: Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung gGmbH. https://bibliothek.wzb.eu/artikel/2024/f-26064.pdf.

Giebler, Heiko / Antoine, Lukas / Ollroge, Rasmus / Gerhards, Jürgen / Zürn, Michael / Giesecke, Johannes / Humphreys, Macartan 2024: Public Attitudes towards the Liberal Script (PALS) Survey. Wave 2 [Dataset], Berlin: Cluster of Excellence 2055 "Contestations of the Liberal Script (SCRIPTS)", http://dx.doi.org/10.17169/refubium-41374 (accessed 15 July 2025).

Giebler, Heiko / Antoine, Lukas / Ollroge, Rasmus 2024: Wertekonflikte in Deutschland [Dataset], Berlin: Cluster of Excellence 2055 "Contestations of the Liberal Script (SCRIPTS)", http://dx.doi.org/10.17169/refubium-44777 (accessed 15 July 2025).

Giebler, Heiko / Rauh, Christian / Heisig, Jan Paul 2024: Regime and Cultural Determinants of the Acceptance of Political Decisions in Times of Crisis (DAPEK) [Dataset], Berlin: Cluster of Excellence 2055 "Contestations of the Liberal Script (SCRIPTS)", http://dx.doi.org/10.17169/refubium-45755 (accessed 15 July 2025).

Veit, Susanne / Hirsch, Magdalena / Giebler, Heiko / Gründl, Johann / Schürmann, Benjamin 2024: Submission or Rebellion? Disentangling the Relationships of Anxiety, Attitudes Towards Authorities, and Right-Wing Populist Party Support, American Behavioral Scientist, doi.org/10.1177/00027642241240717.

Ackermann, Kathrin / Elff, Martin / Giebler, Heiko 2023: The federal election 2021. Germany at the crossroads?, Electoral Studies 86: 102697. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2023.102697.

Giebler, Heiko / Antoine, Lukas / Ollroge, Rasmus / Gerhards, Jürgen / Zürn, Michael / Giesecke, Johannes / Humphreys, Macartan 2023: Public Attitudes towards the Liberal Script (PALS) Survey. Wave 1 [Dataset], Berlin: Cluster of Excellence 2055 "Contestations of the Liberal Script (SCRIPTS)", http://dx.doi.org/10.17169/refubium-41265 (accessed 15 July 2025).

Li, Jianghong / Giebler, Heiko / Wetter, Rebecca / Kenyon Lair, Hannah / Ellingwood, Julia 2023: Unequal electoral participation: the negative effects of long work hours and unsociable work schedules in Europe, European Journal of Politics and Gender 6(1): 92-113, https://doi.org/10.1332/251510821X16602019188175.

Ackermann, Kathryn / Giebler, Heiko / Elff, Martin (eds.) 2023: Deutschland und Europa im Umbruch. Einstellungen, Verhalten und Forschungsperspektiven im Kontext der Bundestagswahl 2017 und der Europawahl 2019. Springer VS, https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-658-40884-8.

Giebler, Heiko / Antoine, Lukas / Ollroge, Rasmus / Gerhards, Jürgen / Zürn, Michael / Giesecke, Johannes / Humphreys, Macartan 2023: The “Public Attitudes towards the Liberal Script” (PALS) Survey. Conceptual Framework, Implementation, and Data, SCRIPTS Working Paper No. 33, Berlin: Cluster of Excellence 2055 “Contestations of the Liberal Script (SCRIPTS)”.

Petrarca, Constanza S. / Giebler, Heiko / Weßels, Bernhard 2022: Support for Insider Parties: The Role of Political Trust in a Longitudinal-Comparative Perspective, Party Politics 28(2): 329-341.

Heisig, Jan Paul / Giebler, Heiko / Rauh, Christian 2022: Eine Frage des Vertrauens. Warum Menschen die Corona-Impfung ablehnen, WZB Mitteilungen. https://wzb.eu/system/files/docs/sv/k/05-Mitteilungen-1-22.pdf.

Elff, Martin / Ackermann, Kathrin / Giebler, Heiko 2022: Wahlen und politische Einstellungen in Ost- und Westdeutschland. Persistenz, Konvergenz oder Divergenz? Wiesbaden: Springer.

Angelucci, Davide / De Sio, Lorenzo / Giebler, Heiko 2021: This Time it's the Economy, Mapping the Issues that Produced the German Federal Election Result, London: EUROPP Blog, http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/112832/1/europpblog_2021_10_01_this_time_its_the_economy_mapping_the_issues.pdf (accessed 14.06.2022)

Reinl, Ann-Kathrin / Giebler, Heiko 2021: Transnational Solidarity Among Political Elites. What Determines Support for Financial Redistribution within the EU in Times of Crisis?, European Political Sceince Review 13(3): 371-390.

Franzmann, Simon / Giebler, Heiko / Poguntke, Thomas 2020: It‘s no longer the economy, stupid! Issue Yield at the 2017 German Federal Election, West European Politics 43(3): 610-638 (open access).

Krause, Werner / Giebler, Heiko 2019: Shifting welfare policy positions: The impact of radical right populist party success beyond migration politics, Representation, online first (open access).

Werner, Annika / Giebler, Heiko 2019: Do populists represent? Theoretical considerations on how populist parties (might) enact their representative function, Representation 55 (4): 379-392 (open access).

Giebler, Heiko / Meyer, Thomas M. / Markus Wagner 2019: The changing meaning of Left and Right: Supply- and demand-side effects on the perception of party positions, Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, online first (open access).

Andreadis, Ioannis / Giebler, Heiko 2019: How to improve voting advice applications: Estimating the position of political parties using candidate surveys, Statistics, Politics and Policy 9 (2), 135-160.