Previous Research Unit (Funding Period I)

Coordinators:

Principal Investigators:

In the first funding period the research unit Orders examined how the liberal script foundations had been contested through challenges to state authority, democratic equality, universal rights, and global governance. It identified populism, authoritarianism, nationalism, religious fundamentalism, postcolonial critiques, inequality, governance failures, globalization, climate change, migration, and the rise of successful non-liberal models such as China and the BRICS as major sources of these contestations. The research unit compared current disputes with historical ones, analyzed their internal and external causes across time and regions, and assessed whether they represented novel threats or recurring tensions within liberal orders. It also investigated the consequences of these struggles, including possible rewritings of liberal institutions, new political cleavages, changes to the EU and global multilateralism, and impacts on fairness, legitimacy, welfare, and inequality.

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 Race and Multilateralism: The Anatomy of a Complex Relationship (RAM)
Prof. Dr. Lora Anne Viola
Sep 01, 2022 — Aug 31, 2025 Varieties of Diversity Scripts
Prof. Dr. Gülay Çağlar, Prof. Dr. Yasemin Soysal, Prof. Dr. Kathrin Zippel
Sep 01, 2022 — Aug 31, 2025 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 Science Friction: 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
Sept 01, 2021 – Aug 31, 2024
Regional Conferences on Contestations of the Liberal Script With the Cluster's International Partners
Prof. Dr. Tanja A. Börzel, Prof. Dr. Michael Zürn , Prof. Dr. Thomas Risse
Apr 01, 2021 — Mar 31, 2024 Negotiating the Future of Education: The UNESCO’s Futures of Education-initiative and the OECD’s Future of Education and Skills 2030-initiative
Prof. Dr. Florian Waldow , Prof. Dr. Tobias Berger , Prof. Dr. Marcelo Caruso
Feb 01, 2021 — Feb 14, 2024 Liberal Order, Legitimate Authority and Disagreement: On the limits of legitimate disagreement (LOLAD)
Prof. Dr. Matthias Kumm, Prof. Dr. Stefan Gosepath
Jan 01, 2020 — Dec 31, 2023 The ecology of individuals’ disposition for scientific populism
Prof. Dr. Yasemin Soysal
Jan 01, 2023 — Dec 31, 2023 ‘Transformative Constitutionalism’ and the Borderlines of Liberalism
Prof. Dr. Tobias Berger, Prof. Dr. Philipp Dann, Uday Vir Garg, Vikram Aditya Narayan
Sep 01, 2019 – Dec 31, 2023 Towards a Typology of Contestations
Prof. Dr. Michael Zürn, Prof. Dr. Stefan Gosepath, Prof. Dr. Andrew Hurrell, Dr. Johannes Gerschewski, Nieves Fernández Rodriguez, Lena Röllicke, Max Weckemann, Sukayna Younger-Khan
Sep 01, 2019 – Oct 14, 2023 Does it pay off for authoritarian regimes to organize major sports events?
Dr. Johannes Gerschweski, Dr. Heiko Giebler, Prof. Dr. Michael Zürn, Research collaborators: Dr. Eda Keremoglu (Universität Konstanz) Dr. Sebastian Hellmeier (WZB)
Nov 01, 2022 — Apr 30, 2023 Who wrote the Liberal International Order script? Contributions from the Global South to the international human rights architecture
Prof. Dr. Tobias Berger, Dr. Luis Aue
Oct 01, 2021 — Mar 31, 2022 China-inspired Digital Industrial Policy as a Challenge to the Liberal Script?
Prof. Dr. Katharina Bluhm
Jul 01, 2021 – Dec 31, 2021 Pandemic Rationalities: Sources and Dynamics of Uncertainty and Non-Compliance in Germany
Dr. Anne Menzel, PD Dr. med. Michael Knipper
May 01, 2021 — Dec 31, 2021 Making sense of girls empowerment in Sierra Leone: a conversation
Dr. Anne Menzel, Dr. Aisha Fofana Ibrahim
May 01, 2021 – Dec 31, 2021 Restrictions of civil liberties and their political legitimation in context: a cross-national survey experiment on citizens’ acceptance of pandemic countermeasures
Dr. Johannes Gerschweski, Dr. Heiko Giebler
May 01, 2021 — Dec 31, 2021