SFB 584:  The Political as an Area of Communication in History

• Subject Area: Humanities ; Social and Behavioural Sciences
• Term: from 2001 to 2012
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5484503

The collaborative research centre 584 is attempting a new approach to political history. It does not determine a priori what is and what is not "political" but will analyze precisely this opposition and its historical background. The research concept is based on the assumption that politics can be seen as a specific area of communication. Its contents and limits are defined temporally, spatially and substantially; they are symbolically shaped in varying ways. Communication stands out as the central dimension of politics and serves as a key concept in historical investigation. Twelve projects are working together; they come from the humanities (history, literary studies), law and sociology; they cover the period of classical Antiquity to the present. They all address three dimensions:
(1) those who participate in political communication by virtue of certain economic, social, and cultural power resources;
(2) the strategies, semantic systems and media through which people politicize problems and interests;
(3) the internal structure of political communication, its rules, procedures and limitations. During the first phase of investigation, the collaborative research centre concentrates on representations of politics as well as on mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion. It tries to overcome the traditional dichotomy between structural analysis and interaction theory and favours a participant-centered, interpretative perspective. It thus draws on recent debates in the humanities and social sciences to which it intends to contribute both theoretically and empirically.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• International Connection: Italy

Completed projects

• A02 - Aesthetic and Rhetorical Strategies of Political Communication. Presentation, Rhetoric and Self-Dramatization of Politics in the History Plays of the 18th and 19th Century (Project Head Braungart, Wolfgang )
• A3 - Inszenierungen der Macht vor wechselndem Publikum: Hochadelige Selbstdarstellung in Kurorten als Form politischer Kommunikation (Project Head Haupt, Heinz Gerhard )
• A4 - Die Politisierung des Privaten und die Familiarisierung des Politischen in der Sowjetunion der 20er und 30er Jahre (Project Head Günther, Hans )
• A05 - 1968 An Event in Communication? a) 1968 in Memories: Collective Representations of the Protests Following the End of the Protest Movement b) 1968 in Editorial Offices: Competive Struggle over Classification Schemes and Participation (Project Head Gilcher-Holtey, Ingrid )
• A06 - Die Nation in politisch-religiösen Diskursen Frankreichs während des 18. Jahrhunderts (Project Head Mager, Wolfgang )
• A08 - Demokratisches Denken in der Weimarer Republik: Weimarer Staatsrechtler als politische Akteure, Politiker, Politikberater und Politikwissenschaftler (Project Head Gusy, Christoph )
• A9 - Das Politische in der Selbstverständigung der Literatur: Westdeutschland und Frankreich im Vergleich (1945 bis 1965) (Project Head Haupt, Heinz Gerhard )
• A10 - Politische Konversionen im 20. Jahrhundert (Project Head Haupt, Heinz Gerhard )
• A11 - Zur politischen Sprache in transzendent begründeten Gesellschaften: Ordnungssemantik in der christlichen lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters (Project Head Jussen, Bernhard )
• A12 - Historical Semantics of the Political in Germany, England and France (16th - 20th Century) (Project Head Steinmetz, Willibald )
• A13 - Narratives of Politics and Gender: Securing the Future, Protecting Spaces a) Narrating the Future: The Meaning of Gender in Projections of the Future (1945-2000 b) Superior Spaces? Gender and the Coding of International Spheres (1945-2000) (Project Head Kessel, Martina )
• A14 - Vertrauenspolitik. Deutsch-französische Beziehungen seit 1949 (Project Head Albert, Mathias )
• A17 - Die semantische Konstruktion des Politischen im Spätmittelalter: Städte und Reiche, Päpste und Kaiser (Project Head Meier, Ulrich )
• B1 - Zur politischen Konstruktion von Rechtsräumen (14.-16. Jahrhundert) (Project Head Bulst, Neithard )
• B02 - Politische Zahlen. Statistik als neues Medium politischer Kommunikation im letzten Drittel des 18. Jahrhunderts: Deutschland und Frankreich im Vergleich (Project Head Suter, Andreas )
• B4 - Altersgrenzen politischer Partizipation in Antike und Moderne (Project Heads Frevert, Ute ;  Schmitz, Winfried )
• B7 - Krisen politischer Inklusionen: Zur Form des modernen Staates. Deutschland, Großbritannien, Frankreich nach 1945 (Project Head Stichweh, Rudolf )
• B08 - Consumption as a Political Problem a) Studies in the Discourse on Consumption in England, France and the "Reich" from 16th to 18th Century b) Consumption in the Space of the Political: Germany and France in Comparison (1870-1914) (Project Heads Bulst, Neithard ;  Haupt, Heinz Gerhard )
• B09 - Politisierung der Natur - Moralisierung der Politik. Tierschutz als Politikum (Deutschland zwischen Ende des 19. und Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts) (Project Heads Haupt, Heinz Gerhard ;  Requate, Jörg )
• B10 - Politisierungs- und Entpolitisierungsprozesse in der DDR. Thematisiert, tabuisiert, (ent-)politisiert? Das Thema Reisen in der DDR, 1949-1989 (Project Head Gilcher-Holtey, Ingrid )
• B11 - Petitions as a Form and a Means of Political Communication in Russia (Project Head Merl, Stephan )
• B12 - The Construction of Political Space through Semantics of Inclusion and Exclusion. The Evolution and Function of the 'International Community' in Politics and International Law (Project Head Albert, Mathias )
• B13 - Ethnicization and De-Ethnicization of the Political. Media, Actors and Semantics of Ethnicity in Transnational Communicative Space (Project Heads Büschges, Christian ;  Pfaff-Czarnecka, Joanna ;  Raussert, Wilfried ;  Thies, Sebastian )
• B14 - Spätantike Häresien. Orthodoxie und Heterodoxie als Inklusions- und Exklusionskriterien des politischen Raumes (Project Head Rebenich, Stefan )
• B15 - Transnationale soziale Räume und demokratische Legitimität (Project Head Faist, Ph.D., Thomas )
• B16 - History, Polis, and Actuality in Archaic and Classical Greece (Project Head Walter, Uwe )
• B17 - Political Corruption in the Early Modern Period: Practices and Discourses in England and Germany Compared (1550-1750/1800) (Project Heads Slanicka, Simona ;  Steinmetz, Willibald ;  Suter, Andreas )
• B18 - Constitution of the Political Space: The Role of Constitutional Jurisdiction (Project Head Gusy, Christoph )
• C01 - Violence as a Method and Content of Pre-Modern Political Communication - Protest Movements and their Repression in Late Medieval France and England (Project Head Bulst, Neithard )
• C02 - Political Violence in Germany and France (1870-1914) (Project Head Haupt, Heinz Gerhard )
• C03 - Violent Acts and Political Communication. The Autonomous - A "Guerilla of Communication"? (1978-1995) (Project Head Gilcher-Holtey, Ingrid )
• C05 - Discourses on Violence and Discourses of Violence. La Violencia in Colombia 1946-1964 (Project Head Büschges, Christian )
• D01 - The Political as Communication: Results of a Research Group (Project Heads Gilcher-Holtey, Ingrid ;  Haupt, Heinz Gerhard ;  Pfaff-Czarnecka, Joanna ;  Steinmetz, Willibald ;  Welskopp, Thomas )
• Z - Administrative Office (Project Head Steinmetz, Willibald )

• Applicant Institution: Universität Bielefeld
• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Willibald Steinmetz