Here you can find an overview of the 39 work packages being addressed in the current funding period of RISC (2024 – 2029).
For an overview of the 109 research projects that were implemented during the first funding period (2020 – 2024), please refer to our German website.
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36 results
A_01 - Democratic Cohesion Between Inclusion and Exclusion: Theoretical Foundations, Legal Constitution, and Political Dynamics
06/2024 – 05/2029
A distinctive feature of RISC’s research program is its differentiation between a general, non-normatively defined concept of cohesion and more specific conceptions. This allows for a more precise theoretical and empirical analysis of such conceptions, particularly with regard to their…
» View detailsA_02 - Trust in Democracy, Populism, and Voting Behavior in Times of Transformation
06/2024-05/2029
The aim of this work package (WP) is to determine, through analytical and empirical methods, the effects of social cohesion on trust in the institutions of a pluralistic and liberal democracy under conditions of crisis. Of particular interest is the question of how the effects of…
» View detailsA_03 - Polarization and Political Legitimacy
06/2024 – 05/2029
By addressing the relationship between polarization and political legitimacy, this work package (WP) subjects the widespread thesis that tendencies toward polarization inevitably endanger the legitimacy of political institutions to critical scrutiny. Its aim is to specify more precisely…
» View detailsA_04 - Policies of Social Cohesion in Africa: Entangled Governance in Post-Trauma Societies and the Role of International Organizations
06/2024 – 05/2029
As part of the focus area on cohesion policies and the conditions of political legitimacy, this work package (WP) empirically examines top-down and bottom-up governance strategies and practices for producing social cohesion in Ethiopia, Rwanda, and South Africa. In all three countries,…
» View detailsA_05 - Social Cohesion in China – Traditions and New Challenges
The Communist Party of China (CPC) claims that one of its greatest achievements lies in securing social cohesion within the Chinese nation of 1.4 billion people. Not infrequently, the concept of democracy is invoked in the same breath, even though, from an external perspective and…
» View detailsA_06 - Local Protests and Cohesion in a European Comparison
06/2024 – 05/2029
Protests are a form of political participation that has increasingly become part of everyday political life in Western democratic societies. They can function both as expressions of voice — and thus as signs of lived democracy—and as exit -reactions in the sense of a withdrawal from…
» View detailsA_07 - Ecological Transformation and Anti-Democratic Crisis Mobilization
06/2024 – 05/2029
In this work package (WP), a comparative analysis is conducted of how the transformation of production systems, the expansion of renewable energy, and the regulation of ways of living and consumption are used for anti-democratic protest mobilization against climate policy and…
» View detailsA_08 - Democratic Participation in the World of Work Between Compromise and Conflict
06/2024 – 05/2029
The work package (WP), in cooperation with and complementary to A_06 and A_07, examines the contribution of different forms of civil society participation between voice, exit, and loyalty to democratic cohesion. In doing so, it focuses on collective labor relations as a central pillar of…
» View detailsA_09 - Politicized Gender Issues Between Voting Behavior and Online Communication
06/2024 – 05/2029
The work package (WP) investigates processes of politicization and polarization surrounding gender issues on three levels: individual attitudes, social media discourses, and party positions. It examines whether divergent political attitudes give rise to societal conflicts and polarization…
» View detailsA_10 - Social Cohesion in Times of War: The Effects of Military Conflicts on Politicization and Polarization
Research Area A analyzes the relationship between politics and social cohesion, with a particular emphasis on the conflictual dimension of political negotiations. Violent conflicts constitute a particularly relevant field in this regard, as they directly affect people’s sense of security…
» View detailsA_11 - Polarization Dynamics on Social Media
06/2024 – 05/2029
This work package (WP) examines current dynamics of politicization and polarization on social media, their emergence, and their effects. It is based on the observation that digital media in particular function as opportunity structures for politically extreme actors and, due to their…
» View detailsB_01 - Milieu Conflicts and Social Cohesion
06/2024 – 05/2029
Within the context of the first research focus of Research Area B, this work package (WP) examines the effects of socioeconomic and cultural divisions on social cohesion using the concept of social milieus. It subjects the hypothesis of a “drifting apart of society” to a systematic…
» View detailsB_02 - The Social Integration Paradox: Gender-Specific Forms of Social Integration
This work package (WP) addresses core questions of the research focus “Effects of Status and Distributional Orders on Social Cohesion,” namely (1) social cohesion among unequal groups as reproduced by men and women in household and employment contexts, and (2) the tension between…
» View detailsB_03 - Family Inequalities and the Evaluation of Social Justice
This work package (WP) addresses evaluations of fundamental status and distributional orders—such as the principles of equality, need, merit, and entitlement—and thereby contributes to the first guiding question of Research Area B concerning cohesion among unequal groups, for which the…
» View detailsB_05 - Experiences of Marginalization and Expectations of Social Cohesion: Sociospatial Perspectives
This work package (WP) examines the cohesion-threatening and cohesion-generating effects of social marginalization, with a particular focus on the tension between political invocations of social cohesion and subjective experiences of economic disadvantage and cultural misrecognition.…
» View detailsB_06 - Collective Responses to Socioeconomic Status Threat
This work package (WP) is situated within Research Focus 2 of Research Area B and aims to investigate responses to socioeconomic status threats at the level of social groups. It seeks to develop a deeper understanding of which social groups individuals turn to in response to perceived…
» View detailsB_07 - Solidarity Practices in Processes of Societal Transformation
While responses to (actual or perceived) marginalization are often characterized by withdrawal or regressive revolt (exit), this work package (WP), situated within Research Focus 2 of Research Area B, centers on solidarity practices within and alongside marginalized milieus. The core…
» View detailsB_08 - Segmentation of Social Milieus and Their Mutual Evaluation
This work package (WP) is situated within Research Focus 3 and aims to expand the existing data from the project BRE_F_03 through an additional mixed-methods study with a particular focus on marginalized groups and migrants. Within the research area and its focus, the WP makes a…
» View detailsB_09 - Intergroup Conflicts and Symbolic Boundary-Drawing Practices in Digital Social Networks
This work package (WP) builds on research on so-called “perceived polarization” and on the implicit assumption that diagnoses of societal division must always be understood as mediated by communication and perception. Unlike survey-based studies and group discussions on perceived…
» View detailsB_10 - Qualitative Panel: Milieu-Specific Practices of Endangering and Safeguarding Social Cohesion
06/2024 – 05/2029
This work package (WP) has been conducted since June 2020 in close cooperation between the sections Bremen and Göttingen and is being continued in the second funding phase of RISC with the inclusion of the Hamburg section. Building on international research on political polarization and…
» View detailsC_01 - Social Cohesion as a Local Question of Power
06/2024 – 05/2029
The aim of this work package (WP) is to examine social cohesion as an expression of local power relations. These power relations manifest themselves in the form and design of public goods and infrastructures and are shaped in particular by the capacity of individual local actors to assert…
» View detailsC_02 - Social Infrastructures in the Neighborhood Nexus: Perceptions and Practices of Social Cohesion in Urban Space
06/2024 - 05/2029
This work package (WP) examines how social infrastructures influence social cohesion in neighborhoods and how differing state and municipal frameworks for infrastructure provision affect cohesion at the local level. Through an international comparison between the city of Hanover and the…
» View detailsC_03 - Cooperative Reconfigurations of Infrastructure as a Societal and Legal Development
06/2024 – 05/2029
Against the backdrop of the infrastructural challenges identified in Research Area C, this work package (WP), situated within Research Focus 2, examines practices of infrastructure self-organization (voice) and investigates citizens’ willingness to participate in the improvement or even…
» View detailsC_05 - Planning for Climate-Neutral Cities as a Factor of Social Cohesion
This work package (WP) addresses the pressing societal challenge of planning climate-neutral cities and examines the role that social cohesion plays in urban development planning, as well as the effects that the implementation of such plans has on social cohesion. In doing so, the WP also…
» View detailsC_06 - Distribution and Perception of Environmental Burdens and Natural Resources and Their Significance for Social Cohesion
Situated within Research Focus 3 on social cohesion in socio-ecological transformation, this work package (WP) examines the influence of natural resources and environmental burdens on social cohesion, with particular attention to socio-ecological justice. Central to the analysis are…
» View detailsShowing 1–25 of 36 results