Emerging from the SCRIPTS project “Objects From Afar”, the issue brings together nine research articles by scholars from three continents, alongside a methodological introduction.

The Special Issue advances materiality as an analytical perspective for political science and examines cultural restitution not merely as a legal question of ownership, but as a political struggle over history, identity, power, and competing normative orders. In doing so, it contributes to SCRIPTS’ research on contemporary challenges to liberal order.

Across a diverse range of case studies, the authors show how cultural objects can become political actors in their own right. Restitution debates are revealed as arenas in which states, museums, communities, and international organizations negotiate questions of historical injustice, sovereignty, recognition, and global status. Rather than focusing solely on who legally owns an object, the contributions explore how material objects shape political relationships and claims to legitimacy.

The issue develops several key arguments. First, it demonstrates that restitution has become a central site of contestation over the legacies of colonialism and the meaning of historical responsibility. Second, it highlights how changing norms are transforming the political significance of cultural objects: items once displayed as symbols of imperial prestige increasingly function as reminders of colonial violence and inequality. Third, the contributions show that restitution can serve as a form of diplomacy, creating new opportunities for political cooperation while also generating conflicts over authority, representation, and cultural sovereignty.

By bringing together perspectives from political science, cultural policy, anthropology, and legal studies, the Special Issue offers a novel framework for understanding restitution as a political process that reaches far beyond museums and heritage institutions. It demonstrates how debates about cultural objects reflect broader struggles over the organization of the international order and the norms that govern it.

The Special Issue The Politics of Cultural Restitution is available in the International Journal of Cultural Policy.