„LET'S TALK STRAIGHT“

YouTube premiere "From Kreisky's living room"

Rudolf Scholten in conversation with Nikolaus Kowall

„LET'S TALK STRAIGHT“
On political culture and co-determination in times of crisis

Nikolaus Kowall, born in Vienna in 1982 and raised in Lower Austria, has been passionate about politics since his youth. At grammar school in Lilienfeld, he was head boy and set up a local group of the SPÖ-affiliated Action of Critical Pupils (AKS). In 2000, he and his team won the elections for the regional student council and were elected as the first social democratic AHS regional school spokesperson in Lower Austria and shortly afterwards as deputy federal school spokesperson. In 2001, he took over the chairmanship of the AKS. During his studies at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, he was active in the Association of Socialist Students. In 2008 (?), he founded „Section 8“ in the Viennese district of Alsergrund as a social democratic NGO, which was intended to provide space for civil society involvement within a party.

After completing his doctorate at the Vienna University of Economics and Business in 2014, Kowall moved to Düsseldorf, where he headed the office of the Research Institute for Social Development, which is funded by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. He then worked as a deputy professor for International Economics at the Berlin University of Applied Sciences. Nikolaus Kowall has been back in Vienna since 2019 and holds an endowed professorship for International Macroeconomics at the BFI School of Economics, Management and Finance. His research focuses on the significance of the effects of free trade, location competition and globalisation on political polarisation in western industrialised countries and the European Union's socio-economic capacity to act in this context.

Since May 2021, he has been running the political video blog „Kowall talks straight“, he has been Vice-Chairman of the SPÖ Alsergrund since September 2021.

Rudolf Scholten has invited Nikolaus Kowall to Kreisky's living room for a chat. They discuss political culture and co-determination, rampant democratic fatigue and what can be done about it, as well as topics that concern people in these crisis-ridden times.

Nikolaus Kowall, economist, lecturer in international macroeconomics at the BFI School of Economics, Management and Finance in Vienna, deputy chairman of the SPÖ-Alsergrund, operator of the political video blog „Kowall redet Tacheles“ (Kowall talks tough)“

Rudolf Scholten, President of the Bruno Kreisky Forum for International Dialogue