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General Research Projects

De-Centering Human Rights: Liberalism, Human Rights, and the Global South

Prof. Dr. Tobias Berger, Prof. Dr. Anna Holzscheiter, Prof. Dr. Thomas Risse

Sep 01, 2022 — Aug 31, 2025

Project Description The project examines how representatives of the Global South have engaged with liberal ideas in debates over human rights, both historically and in contemporary institutional settings. Instead of narrowing them down to their liberal enunciation, this approach treats human rights as a conflictual terrain where multiple normative scripts (including liberal ones) intersect and potentially clash with one other. In so doing, it aims to unveil the agency of actors from the Global South in shaping human rights as a central component of the current international order. The project focuses on several areas of global governance in which the boundaries of human rights norms have come under intense scrutiny. In the context of policy fields such as trade and global health, for instance, actors of the global South have challenged the compatibility between human rights and economic (neo)liberalism, as well as between human rights and the international regime of intellectual property protection.

Leader Types and (Liberal?) Narratives of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Prof. Dr. Amrita Narlikar , Prof. Mark Hallerberg, PhD, Prof. Dr. Slava Jankin

Sep 01, 2021 — Aug 31, 2024

This project compares the key decision-makers in the pandemic, with a focus on leaders,  their health ministers, and their finance ministers and the narratives used during the pandemic. We take into account the role of health and finance ministers because much political and public debate on the ...

Objects from Afar and Sustainable Liberal Identity - The Contestation of Material Representation in National Museums of the Global North

Prof. Dr. Philipp Lepenies, Prof. Dr. Marianne Braig, Prof. Dr. Gülay Çağlar, Prof. Dr. Andreas Eckert, Prof. Dr. Jessica Gienow-Hecht

Nov 01, 2022 — Aug 31, 2025

Museums are places in which artefacts or artworks are publicly exhibited. Museums constitute a specific “scene.” Objects play the role of “actors” and interpret specific “plots.” Visitors are guided by a “script” that deliberately captures and directs their attention into ...

Race and Multilateralism: The Anatomy of a Complex Relationship (RAM)

Prof. Dr. Lora Anne Viola

Sep 01, 2022 — Aug 31, 2025

The project “Race and Multilateralism” (RAM) studies the ways that multilateralism, an institutional form of cooperation central to the liberal international order, has been implicated in creating, recreating, or overcoming the racialized nature of that order. The project examines the ...

Reinterpreting the alternative script? War in Ukraine, state-sponsored narratives of block building in authoritarian countries and their public perception

Prof. Dr. Genia Kostka, Prof. Dr. Alexander Libman

Sep 01, 2022 — Aug 31, 2025

The project analyzes the construction of ‘alternative’ narratives by authoritarian governments competing against the liberal script and the way these narratives are perceived, reinterpreted and negotiated by the population of their countries. We focus at Russia and China and the narratives ...

Science Friction: Patterns, Causes and Effects of Academic Freedom Contestations

Prof. Dr. Tanja A. Börzel, Prof. Mattias Kumm, S.J.D. (Harvard), Prof. Dr. Katrin Kinzelbach, External research collaborators: Prof. Kwadwo Appiagyei-Atua , School of Law, University of Ghana Prof. Andrés Bernasconi , Faculty of Education, Pontifical Catholic University of Chile Prof. Hualing Fu , Department of Law, University of Hong Kong

Sep 01, 2021 — Jan 31, 2025

Academic freedom, both as an individual right and in the form of institutional autonomy, is under pressure in many countries across the world, as the Academic Freedom Index shows. Examples of attacks include the closure of institutions, funding cuts to specific research programs, prohibitions of ...

The Liberal Script in Ukraine's Contested Border Regions

Prof. Dr. Gwendolyn Sasse, Prof. Dr. Christian Volk, Dr. Sabine von Löwis

Oct 01, 2020 — Aug 31, 2024

The aim of this study, located between geography, political science and anthropology, is to analyse different challenges to the liberal script in border regions, in particular with regard to sovereignty, mobility and individual vs. group rights. The case of Ukraine offers an interesting ...

Varieties of Diversity Scripts

Prof. Dr. Gülay Çağlar, Prof. Dr. Yasemin Soysal, Prof. Dr. Kathrin Zippel

Sep 01, 2022 — Aug 31, 2025

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are sites of deep contestations over key values of the liberal script. Access to inclusion, resources, and power in the HE system is based on the ideal of meritocratic principles, but academic excellence is often constructed in ways that position democratic values of equality and diversity in opposition or in non-compliance with meritocracy. While universities have long been a bastion of training (national) elites and knowledge production, the liberalisation and democratisation of Western societies in particular since the 1960s led to the expansion of higher education. This was based on the proposition that an inclusive higher education (HE) is the foundation of an economically prosperous and democratic society. Since then, higher education systems should not only produce knowledge but also contribute to equality and diversity. "Diversity scripts" reflect debates over what counts and does not count as diversity and how it should be taken into account. Diversity scripts are defined as the ways in which ideals of pluralism, equality, inclusion, and participation are conceptualized in the context of higher education. The project seeks to theorize “varieties of diversity scripts” to explore the different tensions and contestations of equality and meritocracy in HE.

War in Ukraine, Russia’s potential decoupling from the global internet and the changing perspective of emerging powers on internet and data governance

Prof. Dr. Katharina Bluhm, Prof. Dr. Gwendolyn Sasse

Sep 01, 2022 — Aug 31, 2025

The project investigates authoritarian contestations of an important vehicle of liberal values – the open Internet – as well as of the liberal script in the domain of governance of the Internet and digital economy. It examines the models of “sovereign” Internet and “sovereign” digital ...