Thomas Poguntke is Professor of Comparative Politics at the Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf and Co-Director of the Düsseldorf Party Research Institute (PRuF). Previously, he held chairs at the universities of Keele, Birmingham, and Bochum. He was Visiting Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence and at the Australian National University and is author and editor of numerous publications on political parties and comparative politics including The Presidentialization of Politics. A Comparative Study of Modern Democracies (Oxford University Press 2005; with Paul D. Webb), and Organizing Political Parties: Representation, Participation and Power (Oxford University Press, 2017 edited with Susan E. Scarrow and Paul D. Webb).
Wilhelm Hofmeister is a Fellow and lecturer at the Düsseldorf Party Research Institute (PRuF). From 1987 until 2022 he worked with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation as a political consultant in the area of political party cooperation and director of country offices in Chile, Brazil, Singapore, and Spain. He is author and editor of numerous publications on political parties and comparative analysis of political transition and system changes. His last monograph is Political parties shape democracy. Their role, performance, and organisation from a global perspective.