SCRIPTS in the Media
"Europe is expanding into a fortress"
In an interview with monthly magazine Cicero about the Polish-Belurisian border, principal investigator Steffen Mau explains why fortified borders are booming in the age of globalization and how digitalization will help governments to better distinguish between welcome and unwelcome travelers. Read the full interview here (behind a paywall). Available only in German.
Nov 30, 2021
Mandatory vaccination and the constitution
Would mandatory vaccination be compatible with German Basic Law? And how can it be implemented? Principal investigator Christoph Möllers discusses with daily newspaper Zeit Online. Read the full interview here (behind a paywall). Available only in German.
Nov 30, 2021
"70 percent of those who have not been vaccinated are afraid of long-term consequences and side effects"
Principal investigator Heike Klüver discusses in an interview with daily newspaper Berliner Zeitung about why vaccine skepticism is so prevalent in Germany; characteristics of unvaccinated people and what kind of incentives are most effective to increase peoples' willingness to get vaccinated. Read the full interview here (behind a paywall). Available only in German.
Nov 30, 2021
"Borders can no longer be understood in terms of territory"
"Today, the border can no longer be understood only in terms of territory, as a borderline around a national territory [...] it is wherever control is exercised", says principal investigator Steffen Mau in an interview with Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung. In this interview, Mau discusses his new book Sortiermaschinen where he outlines the nature of borders in a continously globalising world. Read the full interview here . Available only in German.
Nov 30, 2021
Institutional Conditions of Euroscepticism
'First the almost Grexit, then the actual Brexit. The EU [...] has a popularity problem. This is also due to their institutional structure' explains Principal Investigator Christoph Möllers in his lecture. Möllers lecture Institutional Conditions of Euroscepticism was held on 23 June 2021 at the Hamburg Institute for Social Research. It was recently republished on public radio program Deutschlandfunk Nova. Listen to the full lecture and read its synopsis here . Both available only in German.
Nov 09, 2021
How East German Identity Can Help Unification
'The reunification produced disappointments on both sides, it is not a failure story' argues Principal Investigator Steffan Mau in an article on digital newspaper Vorwärts. In this article, Mau recommends 'understanding and accepting East Germany as a region with a special history can even be part of future German-German normality'. Read the full article here . Available only in German.
Nov 09, 2021
How to reduce vaccine skepticism?
A third of the total German population is still not vaccinated: the majority of them not for medical or age reasons, but of their own free will. On the radio program Radioeins, Principal Investigator Hieke Klüver talks about how it might still be possible to increase vaccine willingness under these circumstances. Listen to the full interiview here . Available only in German.
Nov 09, 2021
Liberal Tax Policy: Run to the top percent
Principal Investigators Jürgen Gerhards and Michael Zürn discuss how the FDP gets away with its 'no tax increase' mantra without betraying its brand essence in a guest post on German daily Tagesspiegel. Within the context of FDP's stance against a tax increase, the authors argue: 'inherited wealth is a feudal relic of descent-based privileges and has nothing in common with individual performance. A party that focuses as much on the principle of individual self-responsibility and performance as the liberals should prove to be open to the increase in the top tax rate and the inheritance tax if it does not want to be suspected of acting against its own normative principles and to pursue clientele politics for the privileged'. Read the full article here . Available only in German.
Nov 08, 2021
Prof. Dr. Michael Zürn receives the Berliner Wissenschaftspreis 2021
Director of SCRIPTS Prof. Dr. Michael Zürn was awarded the Berliner Wissenschaftspreis 2021 (Berlin Social Science Award) for his outstanding analyses of international relations and his contribution to the development of Berlin as a centre of science. More information can be found below.
Nov 08, 2021
Contemplating the concept of peace
What criteria does the Stockholm Committee use to award the Nobel Peace Prize? What is the idea of peace behind it? In an interview on public radio station Deutschlandfunk Kultur, Principal Investigator and philosopher Stefan Gosepath explains the range within which people make a concept of peace. He argues that the Nobel Prize committee cultivates an extremely broad concept of peace and therefore awards the prize to personalities who do good for other people. From Gosepath's perspective, we are called to support them in this. He emphasizes that everyone is responsible for creating peace. Listen to the full interview here . Only available in German.
Oct 18, 2021
Generation Greta: the young ones have grown up
In this article on the national weekly Die Zeit, Principal Investigator Steffen Mau discusses voting preferences of young people during the recent ferderal elections and provides a sociological classification of today's youth in Germany. The article is available only in German and is behind a paywall.
Oct 18, 2021
New historians' dispute: What role did colonialism play in leading the way to the Holocaust?
In an interview with public radio station Deutschlandfunk, Principal Investigator Prof. Dr. Sebastian Conrad discusses the suppression of colonial crimes in historical research in Germany. Prof. Dr. Conrad argues that the debate as to why the holocaust happened from the 1980s is reappearing again however currently it is being considered under the context globalization, which is bringing to fore colonial crimes in German history. Listen and read the full interview here . Both available only in German.
Oct 11, 2021
The election that musn't be one - Russia votes in its parliament
Principal Investigator Gwendolyn Sasse discusses the Russian elections on public radio channel Hr-info. Against the context of protests in Belarus for constitutional reform, Sasse says Putin is afraid that he won't be able to control the legislative branch effectively, a factor that is vital for a strong autocratic state. Listen to the full interview here . Only available in German.
Sep 21, 2021
Discussing peripheral liberalism
In an episode on Transformative Podcast, Principal Investigator Tobias Rupprecht talks about his recent project on peripheral liberalism, economic reform debates in socialist countries and the history of globalisation in the 1990s. The audio interview is available only in English. Listen in here .
Sep 21, 2021
Scholz appeals to the East German disposition
The SPD can score points in East Germany with its candidate for Chancellor Olaf Scholz, says Principal Investigator Steffan Mau in an interview on public radio station Deutschlandfunk Kultur. He argues this is due to Scholz's appearance and because of the East German understanding of "respect". Listen and read the full interview here . Both only available in German.
Sep 20, 2021
“Americans were willing to give up their freedom for the sake of security”
Recalling the tradegy that was 9/11, Principal Investigator Jessica Gienow-Hecht gives a personal account of that day and discusses how this attack changed American society on public radio station Deutschlandfunk. Listen to the full audio interview here . Available only in German.
Sep 20, 2021
"The fundamental values of the EU are increasingly being contested, not only in Central and Easter Europe."
Co-director Tanja A. Börzel gave an interview to the Georgian Institute of Political Sciences, a non-profit, non-partisan Thinktank based in Tbilisi. Börzel evaluates Georgia's diminishing prospects for an EU membership and the backsliding on democracy among the Eastern Partnership countries, as well as the impact of broader international relations on the level of EU engagement with Georgia and other Eastern European countries. Even if Georgia's membership is unlikely in the near future, the expert on EU politics says that "existing research shows that a credible membership perspective is pretty much the only thing that can effectively support democratization processes". Read the full interview in English or see the video recording here .
Sep 07, 2021
"The Chinese path has never been a realistic, let alone a desirable option for Russia"
Postdoctoral researcher Dr. Tobias Rupprecht has written a commentary for the blog "Russland verstehen" (Understanding Russia), in which he analyses Gorbachev's economic policies and opposes the view voiced by today's Russian leadership that the Soviet Union should have followed the Chinese model of state-controlled markets instead of liberalising. "Russland verstehen" is a project by the federally funded think tank "Zentrum Liberale Moderne". Read the article here . It is only available in German.
Sep 03, 2021
Has the course of corona policy been sufficiently negotiated?
Principal Investigator Stephan Gosepath , along with other social scientists, was asked to comment on the course of corona related policies in Germany. Topics are the necessariness of lockdowns, political consensus and the question of a mandatory vaccination. Read the full article by the public radio station Deutschlankfunk or listen to it here . Available only in German.
Sep 02, 2021
Why the Hamburg 2G model is an opportunity
Principal Investigator Steffan Mau comments on the "2G model" (vaccinated or recovered) advocated by Hamburg's authorities. The report is only available in German and is behind a paywall .
Aug 25, 2021
