Gesellschaftlicher Zusammenhalt- Umrisse eines Forschungsprogramms

Abstract

Begriff und Vorstellung des »Gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalts« deuten auf einen komplexen Gegenstand, der in all seinen Facetten von einer einzigen Disziplin kaum gefasst werden kann. Um die sozialen Herausforderungen der Gegenwart zu analysieren, ist daher ein interdisziplinäres Zusammenwirken erforderlich. Das im Jahr 2020 neu gegründete »Forschungsinstitut Gesellschaftlicher Zusammenhalt« nimmt diese Aufgabe an. Die Autor_innen dieses Bandes gehen den Leitfragen des Instituts nach Begriff, Entstehungsbedingungen, Gefährdungen und Wirkungen gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalts nach. Die Themen reichen von neuen sozialen Konflikten über das Auseinanderdriften von Stadt und Land bis hin zum Populismus und zunehmenden Antisemitismus.

Biographical Note

Matthias Middell (SFB 1199 & Leipzig University, Germany)

Matthias Middell is a professor of cultural history at Leipzig University as well as a speaker of the SFB 1199 and director of the Global and European Studies Institute at Leipzig University. He studied history earning his PhD from Leipzig University with his research focusing on the French Revolution. Since 2013, he has served as the director of the Graduate School Global and Area Studies in Leipzig and is currently the head of the Erasmus Mundus Global Studies Consortium. He teaches regularly at partner universities and co-supervises PhD candidates with colleagues from France, South Africa, and Ethiopia. His current research interests include the history of the French Revolution from a global perspective, history of cultural transfers around the world, and the role of space in the understanding of the current world being the result of long-lasting global connections.

Nicole Deitelhoff (Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany)

Nicole Deitelhoff has held the professorship of International Relations and Theories of Global Orders at Goethe University Frankfurt since 2009. She is the designated director of the Frankfurt Research Network “The Formation of Normative Orders” at Goethe University, spokesperson of the Research Institute for Social Cohesion (FGZ) and spokesperson of the Frankfurt sub-institute. She is also the designated co-spokesperson of the Hessian excellence funding initiative “ConTrust: Trust in Conflict”.

Since April 2016, Nicole Deitelhoff has been the Executive Director of the Leibniz Institute Hessian Foundation for Peace and Conflict Research (HSFK). She currently heads Program Area II “International Institutions” and (co-head) Program Area III “Transnational Actors” at the HSFK. Previously, she was a research professor at the University of Bremen in the Collaborative Research Center “Statehood in Transition”, at the Technical University of Darmstadt, and as a visiting professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

She conducts research on contests and crises of institutions and norms, foundations of political rule and its legitimation, forms of opposition and dissidence, and democracy and cohesion. Her best-known publications include “Überzeugung in der Politik” (Suhrkamp 2006), for which she received, among others, the Heinz Maier Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation (DFG). Her more recent publications include ‘Keeping Your Enemies Close? The Variety of Social Movements’ Reactions to International Organizations’ Opening Up” (International Studies Review 2021, with Felix Anderl and Priska Daphi), “Rules and Resistance in Global Governance” (International Theory 2020, with Christopher Daase), and “What’s in a Name? Contestation and Backlash Against International Norms and Institutions” (British Journal of Politics and International Relations 2020).

Olaf Groh-Samberg (University Bremen, Germany)

Olaf Groh-Samberg is a professor at the University in Bremen, Germany and part of the research center for inequality and social politics (SOCIUM) where he is at the deparment of methodology research as well as inequalities in welfare societies.

Cord Schmelzle (Forschungsinstitut Gesellschaftlicher Zusammenhalt, Leipzig University, Germany)

Cord Schmelzle is a political scientist with a focus on political theory and philosophy. At the FGZ, he heads the sub-project FRA_F_07 Disintegration through Morality? Moral Argumentation and the Accusation of Moralism in Public Debates and is also the scientific coordinator of the Frankfurt sub-institute. His research addresses conceptual and normative issues of political legitimacy and authority, political institutions in general and states in particular, just war theory, and the status of moral arguments in politics. His first book, Political Legitimacy and Disintegrating Statehood (Campus 2015), was awarded the prize for the best first work by the German Political Science Association (DVPW).