Current Research Projects
Contestations of the Liberal Script (SCRIPTS) - Global Challenges for the Model of Liberal Democracy and Market Economy [Link]
After the end of the Cold War, liberal democracy seemed to have prevailed for good. Today, 25 years later, however, the liberal model of political and economic order faces a profound crisis. The Cluster of Excellence Contestations of the Liberal Script (SCRIPTS) [Link] analyzes the contemporary controversies about the liberal order from a historical, global, and comparative perspective. What are the causes of the current contestations of the liberal script, and what are the consequences for the global challenges of the 21st century? The Cluster connects the academic expertise in the social sciences and area studies in Berlin, and thereby bridges prevailing methodological and institutional divides. In addition to Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and the WZB Berlin Social Science Center, the Centre for East European and International Studies, the German Institute for Economic Research, the German Institute of Global and Area Studies, the Hertie School of Governance, and the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient are participating in the Cluster. Based on research collaborations with universities in all world regions, SCRIPTS addresses the diversity of the contestations and their inter-connections. At the same time, the Cluster maintains close cooperative ties with major political and cultural institutions.
Spokespersons: Tanja Börzel, Michael Zürn
Research Unit Coordinators: Sebastian Conrad, Anette Eva Fasang
Funded by: Deutsche Forschungsgesellschaft
Start date: 2019
High hopes and broken promises: Young adult life courses in Senegal [Link]
The research project investigates the demographic, historical and sociological conditions of Senegal that may give rise to contestations of the liberal script, particularly by its young adults. Many post-colonial countries in Africa have followed the liberal script – implementation of democracy, free markets and expanded education – yet have failed to achieve the liberal promises of meritocracy and prosperity. Such failed promises may lead to disillusioned youths that question the liberal script, resulting often in emigration that in turn threatens the borders and stability of the destination liberal democracies.
Principal Investigators: Anette Eva Fasang, Noella Binda Niati
Cooperation Partner: Sokhna Ndiaye
Funded by: Deutsche Forschungsgesellschaft
Start date: 2019
Households' labor supply arrangements and in-work poverty: longitudinal dynamics in a cross-country comparison
This research project aims to address two questions from a country-comparative perspective: 1) how decision-making processes about the labor supply of household members are related to the poverty risk of employed persons and 2) how the labor supply of households influences poverty risks of employed persons over the life course in different welfare states. The labor supply of households should be particularly decisive for the poverty risk of working people when decommodification is declining and defamilization is underdeveloped. This project compares Italy and Israel, with strongly declining decommodification and weak defamilization in the 1990s and 2000s, with Germany, where the decline in decommodification was much weaker and was accompanied by increasing defamilization. Empirically, the first part of the project consists of conducting a survey experiment to determine work and working time preferences of household members in different household types under different social policy conditions. This will reveal whether activating or compensatory social policy measures are more effective in reducing the poverty risk of employed persons given the labor supply preferences of households. Secondly, the project will trace the longer-term paths of working people into and out of poverty that result from adjustment strategies in the labor supply of households. Using representative survey data and new methods that combine sequence and event data analysis, allows to identify longitudinal dynamics of in-work poverty risk in different socio-political contexts. This analytical approach enables an approximation of causal processes that lead to in-work poverty and provides empirical evidence for the development of theory on the dynamics of social inequality over the life course and for the formulation of social policy recommendations. Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, it can be assumed that both the overall poverty rate and the poverty rate of those in employment will increase as a result of rising unemployment, short-time work and marginal employment. The results of the project are thus of particular relevance in post-COVID-19 labor markets to protect vulnerable households from long-term and extreme poverty.
Principal Investigators: Anette Fasang, Asaf Levanon, Emanuela Struffolino
Financed by: Deutsche Forschungsgesellschaft
Start: 1. October 2022