Meet the residents: More in Common

What does More in Common do? 

We research what holds our society together. We look through a particular lens: we ask about people's convictions and values, rather than demographic characteristics or party preferences. This allows us to make deeper-lying experiences visible and identify common ground in polarising debates. We pay particular attention to people whose voices are barely heard in public discourse. Another important part of our work is trying out effective approaches directly with partners from civil society, business, politics and the media. 

What worries you most after this year's state elections? 

Many people currently experience our country as stuck and unable to renew itself. This also undermines trust in representative democracy. More and more people feel they are no longer heard, regardless of where they stand politically. And yet the desire for cohesion and change remains: behind criticism and withdrawal there is often hope, not resignation. It's mostly about the question of how developments can be shaped fairly, with an eye to the future, and credibly. I see an opportunity in this for everyone who bears political and social responsibility. 

How are you responding to this in your projects? 

We're currently exploring the role of companies in social cohesion. How can companies in Germany strengthen people's trust and confidence? We're offering a webinar and a workshop for companies on this in the autumn. Our new foundational study on German society will then be published in November. Our research team surveyed more than 6,000 people for it and spent hours listening in 15 focus groups to how they experience Germany, their fellow citizens and their own role. 

What happens with the results? 

They feed directly into our partners' work – for example, into encounter programmes or citizens' dialogues, into the work of initiatives in the fields of climate, migration or democracy, and into the programme work of foundations and civil society organisations. As with our predecessor study from 2019, there will be webinars, training offers and working materials relating to our findings on the new "societal types". 

Your studies repeatedly show that people have more in common than what divides them. Why doesn't it feel that way for many people – and what would specifically need to change for them to experience more trust and connection again? 

That's precisely the perception gap: 62 per cent of people in Germany regularly think about cohesion in the country, but only 30 per cent believe that others do too. This gap between self-image and the image of others reinforces itself. If you expect nothing from others, you may end up behaving more selfishly yourself. What helps here is, for example, more everyday encounters – especially with people who don't seem similar to you at first glance. When we show what connects us in terms of values, concerns or visions for the future, it opens doors. This works best when people experience something together: through leisure activities or in the neighbourhood. But we also need new narratives and visions for the future of our society as a whole. We can and should trust each other more to renegotiate difficult topics together, such as the immigration debate or questions of identity. 

What's giving you a headache in your work at the moment? 

That we're measuring a society that barely trusts itself to change anything together any more. Less than half believe that citizens can change society through their actions. This particularly affects a part of society we call "the invisible ones". They fall through the cracks in public discourse in practice, because their perspectives have too little of a lobby and the usual formats of politics and civil society barely reach them. It's precisely this gap that gets filled by political extremes. We too, as associations, initiatives or NGOs, need to take our blind spots more seriously. 

What should people absolutely read or listen to right now?

I'd recommend the novel "Trost" by Angelika Klüssendorf – it's also available as an audiobook on the ARD Audiothek. It's set in Berlin and Brandenburg against the backdrop of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. I usually steer clear of such true-to-life material because it comes too close to my daily work. But here, the shifting perspectives, the quiet emotions and the laconic tone throughout moved me deeply.