EXC 2055:  Contestations of the Liberal Script (SCRIPTS)

• Subject Area: Social Sciences ; Educational Research ; History ; Philosophy ; Jurisprudence ; Economics
• Term: since 2019
• Website: Homepage
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 390715649

The liberal script is under increasing pressure. Originally, the Cluster of Excellence identified expansionist authoritarian and illiberal states as well as violent non-state actors as the most severe challenges faced by liberal democracies. These actors reject liberal values and norms. They also pose a threat within liberal societies by empowering extremists of all sorts and home-grown terrorism. The global rise of authoritarian populism has broadened our attention towards domestic movements and groups that claim to adhere to liberal values but contest their meanings. Such contestations manifest themselves in the resurgence of antisemitism and Islamophobia, the negation of the diversity of lifestyles, the challenging of open borders, and the rejection of international institutions. SCRIPTS has identified a widening and deepening wave of contestations across the globe, involving increasing polarization and radicalization. This wave is driven by the perceived failure of the liberal script to deliver on its own promises. Polarization and radicalization pose a threat to the liberal script as they tend to increase the severity and frequency of contestations that question core liberal principles. In the second funding period, the Cluster will continue to investigate the nature of contestations of the liberal script and their causes. Yet, we will place special emphasis on the consequences of deep contestations for the liberal script and its varieties. Accordingly, we have refined our research agenda in the following way: 1. Contestations: How do increasing polarization and radicalization as indicators of deep contestations relate to and interact with each other? 2. Causes: How do exogenous factors, such as crises, interact with endogenous causes that lie in the liberal script itself (broken promises, hypocrisy)? When do endogenous causes reinforce each other and become decoupled from specific grievances related to broken promises and hypocrisy? 3. Consequences: How resilient is the liberal script in its different spatial and temporal varieties? To what extent does the capacity to cope with the deepening of contestations without compromising core liberal principles vary among these varieties? What are the scope conditions of resilience? To tackle these questions, SCRIPTS will reinforce its commitment to excellence through diversity by expanding its international partnerships. The Cluster will continue to prepare early-career researchers for their next career steps inside and outside of academia. SCRIPTS will focus its research data management on the collection, preservation, and dissemination of research data from unstable and authoritarian contexts. Finally, the Cluster will deepen its institutionalized knowledge exchange and develop transdisciplinary formats with government organizations, political foundations, and cultural actors.

• DFG Programme: Clusters of Excellence (ExStra)
• Applicant Institution: Freie Universität Berlin
• Participating Institution: Hertie School; The University of Governance in Berlin; Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin; Kiel Institut für Weltwirtschaft (IfW Kiel); Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung gGmbH (WZB); Zentrum für Osteuropa- und Internationale Studien (ZOiS)
• Spokespersons: Professorin Dr. Tanja A. Börzel; Professor Mark Hallerberg, Ph.D.; Professorin Yasemin Soysal, Ph.D.
• Participating Researchers: Professorin Dr. Gülay Caglar; Professor Dr. Philipp Dann; Professorin Anette Eva Fasang, Ph.D.; Professorin Dr. Anita Gohdes; Professorin Dr. Dorothea Gädeke; Professor Macartan Humphreys; Professor Dr. Swen Hutter; Professor Dr. Robert Kindler; Professorin Dr. Heike Klüver; Professorin Dr. Genia Kostka; Dr. Julia Langbein; Dr. Pola Lehmann; Professor Dr. Philipp Lepenies; Professor Dr. Alexander Libman; Professor Steffen Mau, Ph.D.; Professor Dr. Christoph Möllers; Professorin Dr. Anja Osei; Professorin Dr. Diana Panke; Professorin Gwendolyn Sasse, Ph.D.; Professor Dr. Christoph Trebesch, Ph.D.; Professorin Lora Anne Viola, Ph.D.; Professor Dr. Michael Zürn