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

RU Science analyses contestations of the liberal script as epistemic contestation. Questions about what counts as valid knowledge, who can credibly speak for “truth,” and how epistemic authority and scientific expertise underpin political order have become central to the contemporary crisis of liberalism. Projects focus on contestations over epistemic authority are playing out across three levels—science actors and institutions, society, and the state. At stake is not only policy effectiveness, but the very capacity of liberal democracies to sustain shared foundations for deliberation and decision-making.

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 Temporalities studies how time, progress, and the future are imagined and politicized in liberal societies. It investigates how contestations over growth, sustainability, and historical responsibility reshape liberal conceptions of progress, and how shifting temporal frameworks affect the legitimacy and resilience of liberal democracy.

The first research stream, Technology and Global Capitalism, explores the nexus of technology and labour market polarization, the super-rich and new forms of colonialism. The second research stream, Technology and Democracy, examines how digital technologies reshape the media and public sphere, influence populist attempts to undermine the liberal script, and enable governments to defend or recalibrate liberal norms. It also analyzes how these dynamics play out in non-liberal contexts where core elements of the liberal script are openly contested.

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.