The Cluster of Excellence “Contestations of the Liberal Script (SCRIPTS)” investigates why liberal models of social and political order continue to come under intensifying pressure worldwide and how liberal democracies respond to these challenges. Building on the first funding phase, this second phase focuses on the consequences of deeply rooted contestations and examines how resilient different varieties of the liberal script are facing polarization, radicalization, and global crises.

The Liberal Script

SCRIPTS conceptualizes the liberal script as a historically evolving set of shared understandings about how societies should be organized. At its core lie two co-equal principles:

• individual self-determination – the freedom of all individuals to govern themselves

• collective self-determination – the right to collectively determine the rules of political order

Different combinations and balances of these two principles produce temporal and spatial varieties of the liberal script; therefore shaping the conflicts it provokes.

The 3-C Model

The Cluster continues to organize its research around the 3-C model:

• Contestations – How do internal contestations (within liberalism) and external contestations (from illiberal or non-liberal actors) evolve?

• Causes – How do endogenous tensions within liberalism interact with exogenous shocks and crises to intensify contestations?

• Consequences – What outcomes emerge from profound contestations? Stabilization, progressive or regressive re-scripting, replacement by illiberal alternatives, or de-scripting?

By examining the resilience of the liberal script, the second funding period focuses on consequences, in particular, the ability to adapt and transform without compromising core principles.Analytical attention is directed to institutional opportunity structures, the legitimacy of liberal orders, and the role of social trust.

Research Structure

SCRIPTS operates through an interdisciplinary approach spanning political science, sociology, history, law, economics, philosophy, education studies, and area studies. In the second phase, the Cluster’s research is organized into five Research Units:

• Borders – migration, boundaries, and belonging

• Orders – crisis, disorder, political protests, counterstrategies and resilience

• Allocation – technology, inequality and freedom

• Temporalities – broken promises, political responses, and narratives of past and futuretime, sustainability, and intergenerational responsibility

• Science –epistemic authority and contestations of science

Cross-Cutting Research Units, represented in the annual SCRIPTS Forum, provide theoretical integration and comparative methodologies across these domains.

A Global Perspective on Democratic Resilience

SCRIPTS combines Berlin’s academic landscape with an international research network spanning diverse world regions. Its uniquely integrated theoretical, interdisciplinary and empirical approach positions the Cluster as a leading hub for studying the global future of liberal orders.

At its core, SCRIPTS addresses a central question of the 21st century:

How can liberal democracies stay resilient in the face of deepening contestations—and what might a renewed liberal script look like in the decades ahead?