About us
SCRIPTS Group Picture 2024
Contestations of the liberal script have not only grown in number, they are becoming increasingly polarized and radicalized, both at the domestic and at the international level. This deepening of contestations carries the danger of turning criticism of the liberal script into outright rejection of its core principles. The Excellence Cluster "Contestations of the Liberal Script (SCRIPTS)" is an interdisciplinary research consortium that examines the nature, causes, and potential consequences of deepening contestations in a global, comparative, and historical perspective.
SCRIPTS developed the concept "liberal script" to understand how and why liberal ideas and institutions for organizing societies have become increasingly under pressure, despite their political, economic, and social achievements and in the absence of an attractive alternative. In the next step, the Cluster will investigate how resilient the liberal script is in coping with deepening contestations. We want to find out why some varieties appear to be more effective in handling criticism and rejection than others.
SCRIPTS is a Cluster of Excellence funded by the German Research foundation since 2019. It is hosted by Freie Universität Berlin and involves seven other major research institutions in Berlin as well as 20 international partners. The Cluster also cooperates with institutions and actors in politics, culture and civil society.
Selected SCRIPTS Working Papers
Video | The SCRIPTS research programme: Contestations of the Liberal Script
The world has experienced a series of political shocks in the last two decades despite huge economic and social achievements that range from a decreasing number of interstate wars to a delcine of absolute poverty in many parts of the world. Through its research programme, SCRIPTS has set out to investigate the puzzle of an increasing number and and frequency of contestations of the liberal script.
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Scientists from more than 10 disciplines and numerous countries analyse contestations, contradictions, and developments of the liberal script worldwide. SCRIPTS research teams are made up of professors, postdoctoral, and doctoral researchers from social sciences and area studies. Research projects are linked to at least one thematic “Research Unit”, of which there are five (“Borders”, “Orders”, “Technology, Inequality and Freedomn”, “Temporalities”, and “Science”). The SCRIPTS Forum is a unique research format designed to build bridges betweendisciplines and towards public political debate. Each year, the SCRIPTS Forum highlights a cross-cutting theme, which gets explored in seminars, workshops, outreach activities, and an annual conference.
Find out more about SCRIPTS’ ResearchThe Center for Career Development (CCD) brings together researchers from around the world and at every career stage. It hosts the BGTS doctoral programme and integrates postdoctoral researchers and guests into the SCRIPTS community. The CCD equips all researchers at SCRIPTS for impactful global careers in academia and beyond
Webpage of the Center for Career Development (CCD)Beyond that, SCRIPTS is well connected with research institutes and knowledge exchange partners, including the Humboldt Lab at the Humboldt Forum Berlin and the German Federal Foreign Office, with whom the Knowledge Exchange Lab has partnered with on several projects. Such collaborative enterprises are aimed at fostering a mutual exchange of knowledge.
Webpage of the SCRIPTS’ Knowledge Exchange Lab (KEL)