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 for Civil Society Research is a collaborative project of the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB) and the Freie Universität Berlin. In its integrative research approach it systematically combines research on political protest and social movements with the empirical analysis of political conflict structuration and social capital. The research programme includes the analysis of long-term changes of political conflict structuring, of changes in the organizational landscapes of civil society and the dynamic interaction of different political actors and arenas. The center is funded by the Stiftung Mercator and the Volkswagen Foundation, a Lichtenberg Chair will be established in the Department of Political and Social Sciences. More information...

Environmental Policy Research Centre (FFU)

The Environmental Policy Research Centre (FFU), founded in 1986, focuses on societal and political processes of transformation, particularly environmental policy, energy policy, and social and economic aspects of sustainable and equitable development. Thanks to its internationally recognized expertise in global environmental issues, including climate change, environmental and energy security, resource policy, biodiversity, and sustainable development with an emphasis on inequality and poverty reduction, the FFU frequently acts in consultative capacity to ministries and governments in Germany and various other countries as well as to international institutions. The FFU also collaborates with numerous research institutions, universities and non-governmental organizations in Europe, Asia and the Americas.

The FFU team of researchers, staff, post-doctoral fellows, affiliates, visiting fellows, and student assistants offer a vibrant community for education and research related to the many critical environmental and energy challenges facing the global community as well as one of the broadest social science educational programs on energy and the environment for undergraduate and graduate students in Europe. 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...

Opinion Polarization on Identity Politics and Denationalization Issues: A Longitudinal Comparative Perspective

Political issues of identity politics and denationalization have become pivotal in shaping the success of right-wing populist parties and—at the opposing end—green parties and other parties with a cosmopolitan program. Furthermore, these issue domains have been increasingly politicized by political actors of Western democracies in the last decades. This, in turn, is likely to translate into increasingly polarized opinions and a resulting political mobilization among citizens along these issue domains. This project will investigate the extent to which opinion polarization on identity politics and denationalization issues have increased since the 1980s in a selection of Western consolidated democracies. More information...

Weather warnings: from EXtreme event Information to COMunication and action (WEXICOM III)

WEXICOM III is a research project funded within the Hans-Ertel-Center for Weather Research which is conducted in collaboration between different research institutes and work groups of the Freie Universität Berlin and the Max-Planck-Institute for Human Development. In an interdisciplinary approach combining meteorology, social sciences and psychology the project contributes to an optimal use of weather forecast, with focus on severe weather and warnings. The ultimate goal is to facilitate a transparent and effective communication of risks and uncertainties for individual user groups. Social circumstances such as education, age, sex, income, health, or family background do not only affect human behaviour, in fact, they already form people's perceptions of and their response to weather related hazards. Along side this reality, people are additionally exposed to dangers in differing degrees as a result of social and spatial factors. People are likewise equipped with and make use of differing levels of preparedness, opportunities, and strategies to protect themselves from such dangers. 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...

Shiny Happy Universities? A Comparative Analysis of Diversity Politics in International Higher Education

All around the world, higher education institutions (HEIs) highlight the importance of creating a cosmopolitan and diverse space based on values that include equal participation of university members regardless of factors such as age, disability or health impairment, gender and sexual orientation, social background and social/family status, nationality, ethnicity, religion, and worldview. The project critically explores the successes and pitfalls of several international HEIs in their paths to transform this idea from mere mission to tangible change in order to prioritize diversity.
Building on discursive institutionalism, we explore what meanings are given to diversity within the institutional framework of higher education from a comparative transnational perspective. Furthermore, we inquire about the similarities and dissimilarities in the way different HEIs address questions such as how a non-discriminatory space can be created and how structures can be reorganized accordingly. More information...

RAPID-COVID: Receiving and Accepting Public Information Despite Polarization - Key to Overcoming COVID-19

RAPID-COVID is designed to produce insights about the information level about COVID-19 and the willingness to accept authoritative decisions to cope with the pandemic among the public. The project is located at the intersection of political communication, political psychology, and political culture studies. We link research on media usage, campaign effects, populism and protest studies, in order to enhance our understanding how the general information landscape interacts with individual predispositions to structure response patterns to the current pandemic. Our aim is to provide insights into the processes at work - insights that can be rapidly used against the spread of the virus. More information...

Social Cohesion and Civil Society. Interaction Dynamics in Times of Disruption

How, and under what conditions, do civil society actors engage in interactions that foster or break cohesion? The initiative’s aim is to investigate cohesion as driven by, and constantly negotiated in social interaction. It considers cohesion not just as a normative ideal, but as a property of social relations and interactions across multiple scales and modalities, unfolding in face-to-face encounters, groups, and society at large. Our team will develop a new conflict and interaction-based theory of cohesion in contemporary society, integrating perspectives from the social sciences, humanities, and computer science, as well as from partners in civil society and politics. More information...

Higher Education Dialogue „Media Literacy in the Arab World and Europe“

In this network, research and mobility project we cooperate with 10 Arab univerisities to foster media literacy education. The project builds on the AREACORE network that was founded in 2013 at Freie Universität. In the project, several subprojects take place such as summer schools, joint courses, joint research projects and webinars. More information...