Due to the mutitude of research projects in the Department of Political and Social Sciences we can only introduce you to a small sample of the current research activities here. More projects will be presented on the web pages of the department´s institutes and their respective research units.

Cluster of Excellence "Contestations of the Liberal Script (SCRIPTS)"

After the end of the Cold War, liberal democracy seemed to have prevailed for good. Today, 25 years later, however, the liberal model of political and economic order faces a profound crisis. The Cluster of Excellence "Contestations of the Liberal Script (SCRIPTS)" analyzes the contemporary controversies about the liberal order from a historical, global, and comparative perspective. What are the causes of the current contestations of the liberal script, and what are the consequences for the global challenges of the 21^st century? In addition to the Freie Universität Berlin seven further research institutions participate in the cluster. More information...

CRC 1171 "Affective Societies - Dynamics of Social Coexistence in Mobile Worlds"

In the Collaborative Research Centre "Affective Societies - Dynamics of Social Coexistence in Mobile Worlds" scholars from eleven disciplines investigate the affective and emotional dynamics associated with social and cultural mobility in 16 individual projects grouped into three main research areas in order to establish a new understanding of societies. The research programme in social sciences and cultural studies plans to analyse the dynamics of emotions in various environments and identify forms of emotional communication and tensions between social groups. Researchers will focus on contemporary phenomena where the role of social media is being investigated in terms of the cycle of and change in emotional repertoires in various social and cultural contexts. More information...

Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society

Scholars of the Department of Political and Social Sciences are among the founding members of this research consortium which has been established through the collaboration of five universities and two non-university research institutions. Social scienctists, economists and jurists interact closely with experts in design research and computer science with a view to investigate the current changes in all aspects of society occurring in response to digitalisation. The key research questions deal with issues of participation and democratic selfdetermination in a networked society; the research areas include work, innovation and value creation, contracts and responsibilities on digital markets, knowledge, education and social inequality, democracy, participation and the public sphere, governance and norm setting as well as technological change. More information...

Center for Civil Society Research

The Center conducts research on the foundations, self-understanding, and transformation of civil society in contemporary democratic societies. Using an integrative research approach, it systematically combines protest and social movement research with the empirical analysis of political conflict structures and social capital research. By analyzing political conflicts and transformations in civil society over long periods of time, the Center provides answers to fundamental questions about the future of democracy and social cohesion. The Center is a joint initiative of the WZB and Freie Universität Berlin launched in 2017 with funding from the Stiftung Mercator and the Volkswagen Foundation.  More information...

Research Center for Sustainability (FFN)

People transform their environment. It’s always been like that. But the way we consume and produce has changed the world so radically that we are destroying our own livelihoods. Nevertheless, we firmly believe that by becoming more sustainable, we will be able to prevent the worst, perhaps even make the future more livable for everyone. Sustainability is not a buzzword. Achieving sustainability is humanity’s most pressing task. Sustainability can only be the result of a comprehensive economic, ecological and social transformation. The transformation process towards this goal, sustainable development, is the subject of the research of the Research Center for Sustainability FFN. More information...

Mobility Regimes of Pandemic Preparedness and Response: The Case of Covid-19 (MoRePPaR)

This project explores, from a decolonial perspective, the impact of COVID-19-related mobility regimes on people's lives and their affective embodiments beyond acute pandemic situations in South Africa, Germany, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and South Korea. More information...

TRANSNORMS - Translating International Norms between the Global and the Local

TRANSNORMS´ main research question is: How and under what conditions are norms translated “between the global and the local? Theoretically, we integrate compliance and diffusion research with work on legal transfers and on cultural translations. So far, these literatures have been largely disconnected, partly because of allegedly incompatible ontological and epistemological assumptions. Methodologically, we explore to what extent automated content analyses are suitable to understand subtle differences in meanings, and how these techniques can be paired with qualitative analyses. The project thus introduces concepts from computational social science (text as data, quantitative text analysis, e.g. topic modeling) to international norms research. Empirically, we investigate processes of norm translation in two policy areas. First, we study the global politics of climate change, with norms being translated between the global (UNFCCC) and the domestic level (national and local policy formulation). Second, we analyze norm translation in the area of human rights and the rule of law. More information...

Migration and adaptation capabilities, aspirations and strategies of displaced Ukrainians in Berlin, Warsaw and Budapest

In this project, we investigate migration and adaptation capabilities, aspirations, and strategies of Ukrainians who fled from their home country after the Russian invasion on the 24^th of February 2022. Together with a team of Ukrainian research assistants, we conducted in summer 2022 semi-structured interviews with a sample of displaced Ukrainians who came to Berlin, Budapest and Warsaw. The interviews cover the topics of further migration plans, adaptation experiences, aspirations, and strategies in multiple social and economic aspects, and the resources they can draw on for navigating as displaced migrants in their place of residence. We aim to repeat these interviews twice a year over the next years to better understand change over time in displaced Ukrainians´ experience and strategies.  More information...

Journalism Challenged: Understanding Performative Publics through Media Practice

Based on a practice- and gender-theoretical framework, the project investigates the emergence of performative publics around the #metoo debate in Germany (Case Study I) as well as gender-politically relevant discourse formations in the context of the Corona crisis (Case Study II). Journalism has partly lost its exclusive function in society to set the agenda and accord relevance to issues of common concern. New kinds of actors, whether they are activists or private individuals, have emerged who are using quotidian digital media platforms to promote controversial issues and stir public debate in certain directions. These actors voice their views and concerns independently of journalism and actively promote the formation of new networks of like-minded actors. More information...

Should I stay or should I go? State Exits from Regional Organizations

The withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union (EU) recently made headlines and attracted a lot of public and academic attention. BREXIT is not the only case in which a member state has left a regional organization (RO). This project therefore aims to uncover the reasons behind the phenomenon of state exits from ROs by answering two specific research questions. More information...

PLEDGE Politics of Grievance and Democratic Governance

PLEDGE (Politics of Grievance and Democratic Governance) is a Horizon Europe funded project focusing on the emotional dynamics of political grievances and their implications for democratic politics. The PLEDGE project engages researchers, policymakers, and citizens in a collective effort to better understand citizens’ emotions and develop practices and tools that promote emotionally responsive democratic governance and political communication, and foster pro-democratic forms of civic engagement. More information...

Comparing Forest Governance Performances of Regional Regimes. A Comprehensive Analysis

Globalization, internationalization and an increasing number of transboundary environmental challenges such as climate change and biodiversity have led political actors to recognize the need for forest governance beyond the national level. The project contributes to closing knowledge gaps on regional regimes with a comparative approach. To this end, three research questions on performance, output, outcome and impact of forest governance in regional areas are investigated. More information...

Longitudinal study on Ukrainian refugees in Germany (SUARE)

The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine triggered the largest refugee displacement in Europe since the end of the Second World War. More than one million people have fled from Ukraine to Germany since the beginning of the war in February 2022, thus, Ukrainian refugees currently represent the largest group of asylum seekers in Germany. The forced displacement from Ukraine differs from previous displacements in terms of institutional frameworks (e.g., open EU borders due to the exemption from the visa requirement, activation of the mass influx directive). In addition, it is characterized by a high number of women with care responsibilities, a high level of education among refugees and possibly a greater acceptance of Ukranian refugees by the majority society. More information...

Change as a permanent state? Party systems and political competition in contemporary democracy

In his DFG-funded project, PD Dr Aiko Wagner investigates the current transformation of party systems in European democracies. The central concern of the project is to clarify whether this change is a transitional phenomenon that leads to a re-stabilisation of the ties between the parties and their voters (realignment), or whether it is a permanent change that favours a de-institutionalisation of the party systems. By combining comparative analyses and detailed case studies, especially on the Federal Republic of Germany, and integrating perspectives from research on political competition (including party-specific differences, non-spatial factors and the micro-level of voting behaviour), the project aims to better understand the nature and causes of party system change in order to shed light on the effects on the legitimacy, quality and stability of representative democracy. More information...

Transdisciplinary research on the disposal of high-level radioactive waste in Germany (TRANSENS)

TRANSENS is a collaborative project in which 17 research teams from nine German and two Swiss universities and institutions are working together. Research in TRANSENS is transdisciplinary: The interested public and other non-academic actors are integrated in a planned way into research contexts, specifically into Transdisciplinary Work Packages (TAP):
HAFF: Capacity for action and flexibility in a reversible process
SAFE: Safety Case: Stakeholder Perspectives and Transdisciplinarity
TRUST: Technology, uncertainties, complexity and trust
DIPRO: Dialogues and Process Design in Interaction of Law, Justice and Governance
More information...

Political Protest and Radicalization (ProtestMonitoring)

Since the 1990s, the protest scene in Germany has been shaped by issues such as migration, the environment and welfare. These issues have often led to violent mobilisations and counter-mobilisations on the streets. The aim of the WZB ProtestMonitoring is to monitor the German protest landscape in a systematic way. On an ongoing basis, we analyse the temporal and spatial contexts of protest events, the discursive opportunity structures of protest, as well as the radicalisation processes of individual protest actors. More information...

Network Public Anthropology

Current societal challenges have raised new questions about the public role of social and cultural anthropology: Topics such as displacement and migration, climate change and the rise of populist movements are just as much in the focus of the discipline as health crises or postcolonial inequalities. In the scientific network „Public Anthropology: Knowledge Practices and Social Interventions of the Ethnological Disciplines“, twenty scholars from European and non-European Social and Cultural Anthropology cooperate on various aspects of public-oriented research and teaching.  In addition, the network, which has been funded by the German Research Foundation since the beginning of 2022, strives to develop perspectives for closer long-term cooperations between the two anthropological disciplines in Germany. More information...