D_02 - Transnational Ideological Transfer of the Populist and Extreme Right

06/2024 – 05/2029

This work package (WP) seeks to contribute to an understanding of the worldviews, images of others, and identity-based self-interpretations of the populist and extreme right. It undertakes a transnational analysis of the circulation of values, ideologies, and policies that are grounded in…

C_08 - Regional Panel

06/2024 – 05/2029

This work package (WP) continues the quantitative Regional Panel (RP) in the twelve study locations from the first funding phase. As a repeated survey, it enables causal analyses of changes in local social cohesion within a regionally contextualized multilevel design and serves as the…

C_07 - Social Cohesion in the Europe-Wide Energy Transition

By examining public participation procedures as institutionalized options of voice , this work package (WP) makes an important contribution to RISC’s overarching research question concerning social cohesion in democracies. The focus lies on social cohesion in cross-border regions in the…

C_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…

C_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…

C_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…

C_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…

C_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…

B_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…

B_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…

B_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…

B_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…

B_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…

B_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.…

B_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…

B_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…

A_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…

A_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…

D_10 - Migrant and Minority Conceptions of Social Cohesion: Transnational and Translocal Dimensions

06/2024-05/2029

This work package (WP) investigates which cohesion-relevant identities and imaginaries migrants and members of minority groups develop and how these shape their understandings and practices of social cohesion. Closely related to this are questions about the role of perceived and actual…

D_09 - Allyship: Solidary Engagement, Identity, and Social Cohesion

06/2024 – 05/2029

Democratic societies are characterized by ongoing processes of negotiation over interpretive authority, normative frameworks, identities, and participation, which require continual reconfigurations of collective action. As a specific practice of such action, this work package (WP) offers…

D_08 - Representation in Public Space: Inclusive and Diversity-Oriented Memory Culture in Museums

06/2024-05/2029

This work package (WP) explores the cultural dynamics of hegemony and counter-hegemonic practices by examining struggles over the representation of marginalized queer biographies within the museum as a site of memory culture. It investigates the reciprocal relationship between…

D_07 - Prototypes of Social Cohesion

Digital platforms and social media are typically perceived as problematic when it comes to questions of social cohesion. Facebook, X/Twitter, and TikTok are associated with radicalization and hate speech and are therefore considered a threat; platforms such as Airbnb, Deliveroo, and Uber…

D_06 - Transformation of the Societal Order of Deliberation

06/2024 – 05/2029

The aim of this work package (WP) is to contribute theoretical and conceptual groundwork that helps address the guiding questions of Research Area D concerning the foundations and conditions of societal debates over knowledge, values, and identities. Using the concept of a “deliberative…

D_03 - Racist West and Antisemitic Rest? Global Cohesion at the Tension between Postcolonial Critique and Critiques of Antisemitism

06/2024 – 05/2029

The relationship between postcolonial critique and critiques of antisemitism has long been marked by tension. In recent years, however, the two approaches appear increasingly irreconcilable. This is evident in memory-political controversies over the relationship between colonialism and…

B_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…