Cluster of Excellence "Contestations of the Liberal Script": Homepage

Contestations of the Liberal Script (SCRIPTS)

The Cluster of Excellence SCRIPTS analyzes contemporary controversies about the liberal order from a historical, global and comparative perspective. What are the causes of the current contestations? How do they differ from earlier crises? What are the consequences for democracy and the global challenges of the 21st century? In operation since 2019, SCRIPTS is hosted by the Freie Universität Berlin and unites eight major Berlin-based research institutes.

Selected SCRIPTS Working Papers:

SCRIPTS Lecture Series 2023/2024: Kritik und Zukunft des liberalen Skripts | FU Berlin

Calendar

SCRIPTS Arguments by Florian Waldow: How education (re-)produces and stabilises social inequality within liberal societies

News from the Cluster

Video — SCRIPTS Lecture Series at FU Berlin, Ep. 01: "The Liberal Script: Does it exist and what could it be?"

In the first episode of the SCRIPTS lecture series, Michael Zürn presents the concept of the liberal script - in its basic features, contradictions, and challenges (in German).

SCRIPTS in the Media

SCRIPTS Research Units (RU)

RU Borders

Borders determine who belongs to a group or society and who can be legitimately excluded. The liberal script grants a nation-state control over its borders while also limiting the extent to which it can be exercised. This control stands in an uneasy relationship with ideas of personal and economic freedom and mobility and, generally, universal human rights.

RU Orders

Orders refer to the institutional core of the liberal script, which enables political and social coordination within a given society. This RU addresses orders as principles and institutional arrangements that structure expectations and practice in social and political areas. These arrangements have an impact on social and political areas, such as the making of binding rules, policing and jurisprudence, economic exchange, and gender relations.

RU (Re-)Allocation

The liberal script involves rules and goals for the (re-)allocation of goods and life chances in the face of social and material scarcities. The free market is assigned as the key mechanism of (re-)allocation, which results in uneven outcomes. The welfare states attempt to reduce these. Against this background, the RU (Re-)Allocation investigates contestations, causes and consequences of unequal market outcomes and how they combine with other allocation pressures on the liberal script.

RU Temporality

Understandings of temporality and of progress provide information on time scales, imaginations of transience and eternity, and the reproduction of social structure. Time, in the liberal view, moves linearly toward a future of progress, and it presumes that rational actors optimally allocate time to market and non-market activities. The RU Temporality investigates challenges to the liberal notion of time and alternative notions of temporal horizons.

Research Output

Scientific publications

A selection of outstanding scientific, peer-reviewed publications in scientifc journals, published by SCRIPTS members in the course of their work at SCRIPTS and/or arising from the research projects.

SCRIPTS Working Paper Series

The series allows SCRIPTS- as well as visiting researchers to disseminate their research and pre-publication “works in progress” that contribute to the debate on contestations of the liberal script.

SCRIPTS Arguments

A compilation of various contributions from Principal Investigators responding to one of the core questions of the SCRIPTS research programme. It also acknowledges the diversity of academic viewpoints, traditions and approaches.

SCRIPTS Blog & Think Pieces

SCRIPTS blog & think pieces assemble a variety of analytical views, opinions, and commentaries by members and guest authors and are written in an accessible rather than an academic style.

Knowledge Exchange Lab (KEL)

Short Talks | DEMOCRACIES UNDER PRESSURE

On three evenings, SCRIPTS researchers discuss with the journalist Christoph D. Piorkowski at the Humboldt Lab Berlin.

Exhibition in the Humboldt Lab

"After Nature" at the Humboldt Forum exhibits research of the seven Clusters of Excellence in Berlin.

KEL Toolbox (PDF)

To learn more about what we mean by knowledge exchange, see our Toolbox.

Futuring the Liberal Script

Conversation series live from the silent green in Berlin-Wedding. SCRIPTS-Researchers and guests discuss crises of liberal societies and democracies from diverse perspectives.

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