Project acronym AFRIGOS
Project African Governance and Space: Transport Corridors, Border Towns and Port Cities in Transition
Researcher (PI) Paul Christopher Nugent
Host Institution (HI) THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH2, ERC-2014-ADG
Summary AFRIGOS investigates the process of 'respacing' Africa, a political drive towards regional and continental integration, on the one hand, and the re-casting of Africa's engagement with the global economy, on the other. This is reflected in unprecedented levels of investment in physical and communications infrastructure, and the outsourcing of key functions of Customs, Immigration and security agencies. AFRIGOS poses the question of how far respacing is genuinely forging institutions that are facilitating or obstructing the movement of people and goods; that are enabling or preventing urban and border spaces from being more effectively and responsively governed; and that take into account the needs of African populations whose livelihoods are rooted in mobility and informality. The principal research questions are approached through a comparative study of port cities, border towns and other strategic nodes situated along the busiest transport corridors in East, Central, West and Southern Africa. These represent sites of remarkable dynamism and cosmopolitanism, which reflects their role in connecting African urban centres to each other and to other global cities.
AFRIGOS considers how governance 'assemblages' are forged at different scales and is explicitly comparative. It works through 5 connected Streams that address specific questions: 1. AGENDA-SETTING is concerned with policy (re-)formulation. 2. PERIPHERAL URBANISM examines governance in border towns and port cities. 3. BORDER WORKERS addresses everyday governance emerging through the interaction of officials and others who make their livelihoods from the border. 4. CONNECTIVE INFRASTRUCTURE looks as the transformative effects of new technologies. 5. PEOPLE & GOODS IN MOTION traces the passage of people and goods and the regimes of regulation to which they are subjected. AFRIGOS contributes to interdisciplinary research on borderland studies, multi-level governance and the everyday state.
Summary
AFRIGOS investigates the process of 'respacing' Africa, a political drive towards regional and continental integration, on the one hand, and the re-casting of Africa's engagement with the global economy, on the other. This is reflected in unprecedented levels of investment in physical and communications infrastructure, and the outsourcing of key functions of Customs, Immigration and security agencies. AFRIGOS poses the question of how far respacing is genuinely forging institutions that are facilitating or obstructing the movement of people and goods; that are enabling or preventing urban and border spaces from being more effectively and responsively governed; and that take into account the needs of African populations whose livelihoods are rooted in mobility and informality. The principal research questions are approached through a comparative study of port cities, border towns and other strategic nodes situated along the busiest transport corridors in East, Central, West and Southern Africa. These represent sites of remarkable dynamism and cosmopolitanism, which reflects their role in connecting African urban centres to each other and to other global cities.
AFRIGOS considers how governance 'assemblages' are forged at different scales and is explicitly comparative. It works through 5 connected Streams that address specific questions: 1. AGENDA-SETTING is concerned with policy (re-)formulation. 2. PERIPHERAL URBANISM examines governance in border towns and port cities. 3. BORDER WORKERS addresses everyday governance emerging through the interaction of officials and others who make their livelihoods from the border. 4. CONNECTIVE INFRASTRUCTURE looks as the transformative effects of new technologies. 5. PEOPLE & GOODS IN MOTION traces the passage of people and goods and the regimes of regulation to which they are subjected. AFRIGOS contributes to interdisciplinary research on borderland studies, multi-level governance and the everyday state.
Max ERC Funding
2 491 364 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-01-01, End date: 2020-12-31
Project acronym AnCon
Project A Comparative Anthropology of Conscience, Ethics and Human Rights
Researcher (PI) Tobias William Kelly
Host Institution (HI) THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH2, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary This project is a comparative anthropology of conscience, ethics and human rights. Numerous international human rights documents formally declare their commitment to protect freedom of conscience. But, what is conscience and how do we know it when we see it? How do we distinguish it from self-interest or fanaticism? And what happens when the concept, often associated with a distinct Christian or liberal history, travels across cultural boundaries? The project will examine the cultural conditions under which claims to conscience are made possible, and the types of claims that are most persuasive when doing so. The project addresses these issues through the comparative analysis of three case studies: British pacifists, Sri Lankan activists, and Soviet dissidents. These case studies have been carefully chosen to provide globally significant, but contrasting examples of contests over the implications of claims to conscience. If claims of conscience are often associated with a specifically liberal and Christian tradition, mid-twentieth century Britain can be said to stand at the centre of that tradition. Sri Lanka represents a particularly fraught post-colonial South Asian counterpoint, wracked by nationalist violence, and influenced by ethical traditions associated with forms of Hinduism and Buddhism. Soviet Russia represents a further contrast, a totalitarian regime, where atheism was the dominant ethical language. Finally, the project will return specifically to international human rights institutions, examining the history of the category of conscience in the UN human rights system. This project will be ground breaking, employing novel methods and analytical insights, in order to producing the first comparative analysis of the cultural and political salience of claims of conscience. In doing so, the research aims to transform our understandings of the limits and potentials of attempts to protect freedom of conscience.
Summary
This project is a comparative anthropology of conscience, ethics and human rights. Numerous international human rights documents formally declare their commitment to protect freedom of conscience. But, what is conscience and how do we know it when we see it? How do we distinguish it from self-interest or fanaticism? And what happens when the concept, often associated with a distinct Christian or liberal history, travels across cultural boundaries? The project will examine the cultural conditions under which claims to conscience are made possible, and the types of claims that are most persuasive when doing so. The project addresses these issues through the comparative analysis of three case studies: British pacifists, Sri Lankan activists, and Soviet dissidents. These case studies have been carefully chosen to provide globally significant, but contrasting examples of contests over the implications of claims to conscience. If claims of conscience are often associated with a specifically liberal and Christian tradition, mid-twentieth century Britain can be said to stand at the centre of that tradition. Sri Lanka represents a particularly fraught post-colonial South Asian counterpoint, wracked by nationalist violence, and influenced by ethical traditions associated with forms of Hinduism and Buddhism. Soviet Russia represents a further contrast, a totalitarian regime, where atheism was the dominant ethical language. Finally, the project will return specifically to international human rights institutions, examining the history of the category of conscience in the UN human rights system. This project will be ground breaking, employing novel methods and analytical insights, in order to producing the first comparative analysis of the cultural and political salience of claims of conscience. In doing so, the research aims to transform our understandings of the limits and potentials of attempts to protect freedom of conscience.
Max ERC Funding
1 457 869 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-08-01, End date: 2020-07-31
Project acronym ARTEFACT
Project The Global as Artefact: Understanding the Patterns of Global Political History Through an Anthropology of Knowledge -- The Case of Agriculture in Four Global Systems from the Neolithic to the Present
Researcher (PI) INANNA HAMATI-ATAYA
Host Institution (HI) THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH2, ERC-2016-COG
Summary Knowledge is an anthropological constant that is indissociable from the birth and interactions of human societies, but is at best a secondary concern for scholars of international relations and globalization. Contemporary global studies are thus unable to account for the co-constitution of knowledge and politics at a macro-scale, and remain especially blind to the historical patterns of epistemic development that operate at the level of the species as a whole and have shaped its global political history in specific, path-dependent ways up to now.
ARTEFACT is the first project to pursue a knowledge-centered investigation of global politics. It is uniquely grounded in an anthropological approach that treats globalization and human knowledges beyond their modern manifestations, from the longue-durée perspective of our species’ social history. 'The global as artefact' is more than a metaphor. It reflects the premise that human collectives 'make' the political world not merely through ideas, language, or norms, but primordially through the material infrastructures, solutions, objects, practices, and skills they develop in response to evolving structural challenges.
ARTEFACT takes agriculture as an exemplary and especially timely case-study to illuminate the entangled global histories of knowledge and politics, analyzing and comparing four increasingly inclusive 'global political systems' of the Ancient, Medieval, Modern, and Contemporary eras and their associated agrarian socio-epistemic revolutions.
ARTEFACT ultimately aims to 1) develop an original theory of the global, 2) launch Global Knowledge Studies as a new cross-disciplinary domain of systematic empirical and theoretical study, and 3) push the respective boundaries of the anthropology of knowledge, global history, and international theory beyond the state-of-the-art and toward a holistic understanding that can illuminate how past trends of socio-epistemic evolution might shape future paths of global life.
Summary
Knowledge is an anthropological constant that is indissociable from the birth and interactions of human societies, but is at best a secondary concern for scholars of international relations and globalization. Contemporary global studies are thus unable to account for the co-constitution of knowledge and politics at a macro-scale, and remain especially blind to the historical patterns of epistemic development that operate at the level of the species as a whole and have shaped its global political history in specific, path-dependent ways up to now.
ARTEFACT is the first project to pursue a knowledge-centered investigation of global politics. It is uniquely grounded in an anthropological approach that treats globalization and human knowledges beyond their modern manifestations, from the longue-durée perspective of our species’ social history. 'The global as artefact' is more than a metaphor. It reflects the premise that human collectives 'make' the political world not merely through ideas, language, or norms, but primordially through the material infrastructures, solutions, objects, practices, and skills they develop in response to evolving structural challenges.
ARTEFACT takes agriculture as an exemplary and especially timely case-study to illuminate the entangled global histories of knowledge and politics, analyzing and comparing four increasingly inclusive 'global political systems' of the Ancient, Medieval, Modern, and Contemporary eras and their associated agrarian socio-epistemic revolutions.
ARTEFACT ultimately aims to 1) develop an original theory of the global, 2) launch Global Knowledge Studies as a new cross-disciplinary domain of systematic empirical and theoretical study, and 3) push the respective boundaries of the anthropology of knowledge, global history, and international theory beyond the state-of-the-art and toward a holistic understanding that can illuminate how past trends of socio-epistemic evolution might shape future paths of global life.
Max ERC Funding
1 428 165 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-09-01, End date: 2022-08-31
Project acronym COMPEN
Project Penal Policymaking and the prisoner experience: a comparative analysis
Researcher (PI) Benjamin Crewe
Host Institution (HI) THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH2, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary Recent years have seen renewed interest in the political economy of punishment, yet almost no attention has been given to the factors that translate socio-political arrangements into penal practices or the specific nature of imprisonment in different political-economic systems. Based on research in England & Wales and one Nordic nation, the project goals are to expose the dynamics of the penal state and the nature of penality in countries that are considered ‘exclusionary’ and ‘inclusionary’ respectively in their socio-economic and penal practices. These goals will be achieved through four comparative sub-projects: first, a study of penal policymaking and the ‘penal field’ (the players and processes that shape penal policy and practice); second, an exploration of the texture of imprisonment for women and sex offenders, groups presumed to experience inclusionary and exclusionary penal practices in distinctive ways; third, a study of how these prisoners experience entry into and exit from the system; fourth, a study of the ‘deep end’ imprisonment in both countries.
A central aim is to interrogate widespread assumptions about the relative mildness/severity of penal practices in inclusionary and exclusionary nations. The research will employ an emerging framework that conceptualises the prison experience through notions of ‘depth’, ‘weight’, ‘tightness’ and ‘breadth’. It will foreground the roles of shame and guilt in shaping prisoners’ orientations, concepts that feature in theories of offending and reintegration, but are absent from the sociology of imprisonment. Through the concept of ‘penal consciousness’, the project will also explore the interaction between the punitive intentions of the state and prisoners’ perceptions of the purposes and legitimacy of their punishment. The research will be groundbreaking in several ways, reshaping the field of comparative penology, and linking macro issues of the penal state with the lived realities of the prison landings.
Summary
Recent years have seen renewed interest in the political economy of punishment, yet almost no attention has been given to the factors that translate socio-political arrangements into penal practices or the specific nature of imprisonment in different political-economic systems. Based on research in England & Wales and one Nordic nation, the project goals are to expose the dynamics of the penal state and the nature of penality in countries that are considered ‘exclusionary’ and ‘inclusionary’ respectively in their socio-economic and penal practices. These goals will be achieved through four comparative sub-projects: first, a study of penal policymaking and the ‘penal field’ (the players and processes that shape penal policy and practice); second, an exploration of the texture of imprisonment for women and sex offenders, groups presumed to experience inclusionary and exclusionary penal practices in distinctive ways; third, a study of how these prisoners experience entry into and exit from the system; fourth, a study of the ‘deep end’ imprisonment in both countries.
A central aim is to interrogate widespread assumptions about the relative mildness/severity of penal practices in inclusionary and exclusionary nations. The research will employ an emerging framework that conceptualises the prison experience through notions of ‘depth’, ‘weight’, ‘tightness’ and ‘breadth’. It will foreground the roles of shame and guilt in shaping prisoners’ orientations, concepts that feature in theories of offending and reintegration, but are absent from the sociology of imprisonment. Through the concept of ‘penal consciousness’, the project will also explore the interaction between the punitive intentions of the state and prisoners’ perceptions of the purposes and legitimacy of their punishment. The research will be groundbreaking in several ways, reshaping the field of comparative penology, and linking macro issues of the penal state with the lived realities of the prison landings.
Max ERC Funding
1 964 948 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-09-01, End date: 2020-08-31
Project acronym COMPROP
Project Computational Propaganda:Investigating the Impact of Algorithms and Bots on Political Discourse in Europe
Researcher (PI) Philip Howard
Host Institution (HI) THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH2, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary Social media can have an impressive impact on civic engagement and political discourse. Yet increasingly we find political actors using digital media and automated scripts for social control. Computational propaganda—through bots, botnets, and algorithms—has become one of the most concerning impacts of technology innovation. Unfortunately, bot identification and impact analysis are among the most difficult research challenges facing the social and computer sciences.
COMPROP objectives are to advance a) rigorous social and computer science on bot use, b) critical theory on digital manipulation and political outcomes, c) our understanding of how social media propaganda impacts social movement organization and vitality. This project will innovate through i) “real-time” social and information science actively disseminated to journalists, researchers, policy experts and the interested public, ii) the first detailed data set of political bot activity, iii) deepened expertise through cultivation of a regional expert network able to detect bots and their impact in Europe.
COMPROP will achieve this through multi-method and reflexive work packages: 1) international qualitative fieldwork with teams of bot makers and computer scientists working to detect bots; 2a) construction of an original event data set of incidents of political bot use and 2b) treatment of the data set with fuzzy set and traditional statistics; 3) computational theory for detecting political bots and 4) a sustained dissemination strategy. This project will employ state-of-the-art “network ethnography” techniques, use the latest fuzzy set / qualitative comparative statistics, and advance computational theory on bot detection via cutting-edge algorithmic work enhanced by new crowd-sourcing techniques.
Political bots are already being deployed over social networks in Europe. COMPROP will put the best methods in social and computer science to work on the size of the problem and the possible solutions.
Summary
Social media can have an impressive impact on civic engagement and political discourse. Yet increasingly we find political actors using digital media and automated scripts for social control. Computational propaganda—through bots, botnets, and algorithms—has become one of the most concerning impacts of technology innovation. Unfortunately, bot identification and impact analysis are among the most difficult research challenges facing the social and computer sciences.
COMPROP objectives are to advance a) rigorous social and computer science on bot use, b) critical theory on digital manipulation and political outcomes, c) our understanding of how social media propaganda impacts social movement organization and vitality. This project will innovate through i) “real-time” social and information science actively disseminated to journalists, researchers, policy experts and the interested public, ii) the first detailed data set of political bot activity, iii) deepened expertise through cultivation of a regional expert network able to detect bots and their impact in Europe.
COMPROP will achieve this through multi-method and reflexive work packages: 1) international qualitative fieldwork with teams of bot makers and computer scientists working to detect bots; 2a) construction of an original event data set of incidents of political bot use and 2b) treatment of the data set with fuzzy set and traditional statistics; 3) computational theory for detecting political bots and 4) a sustained dissemination strategy. This project will employ state-of-the-art “network ethnography” techniques, use the latest fuzzy set / qualitative comparative statistics, and advance computational theory on bot detection via cutting-edge algorithmic work enhanced by new crowd-sourcing techniques.
Political bots are already being deployed over social networks in Europe. COMPROP will put the best methods in social and computer science to work on the size of the problem and the possible solutions.
Max ERC Funding
1 980 112 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-01-01, End date: 2020-12-31
Project acronym ConflictNET
Project The Politics and Practice of Social Media in Conflict
Researcher (PI) Nicole STREMLAU
Host Institution (HI) THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2016-STG
Summary Over the next five years an unprecedented number of initiatives will coalesce, contributing to an extension of the reach of the Internet to the world’s most remote regions. While previous efforts to expand Internet access have focused on urban areas, current initiatives are leveraging new technologies from drones to satellites to provide affordable access to the worlds poorest, many of whom are in Africa and live in regions where the state is weak and there is protracted violent conflict. Current debates have largely focused on technical issues of improving access, or assumed ways that technology will help ‘liberate’ populations or improve governance. This project focuses on a key puzzle that is often overlooked: How does increased access to social media affect the balance between peace-building efforts and attempts perpetuate violence in conflict-affected communities?
With a focus on Africa (and particularly on religious and political violence in Eastern Africa), this project will investigate the relationship between social media and conflict through three research questions at the macro, meso and micro level: how are social media altering the transnational dimensions of conflict and peacebuilding? How are public authorities reacting to, and appropriating, social media to either encourage violence or promote peace? And in what ways are social media changing the way people experience, participate in, or respond to violent conflict? It will examine these questions in the context of dangerous speech online; the exit and entry of individuals away from, and into, conflict; the tactics and strategies actors adopt to shape the Internet; and how governance actors are leveraging social media in conflict-affected communities.
Summary
Over the next five years an unprecedented number of initiatives will coalesce, contributing to an extension of the reach of the Internet to the world’s most remote regions. While previous efforts to expand Internet access have focused on urban areas, current initiatives are leveraging new technologies from drones to satellites to provide affordable access to the worlds poorest, many of whom are in Africa and live in regions where the state is weak and there is protracted violent conflict. Current debates have largely focused on technical issues of improving access, or assumed ways that technology will help ‘liberate’ populations or improve governance. This project focuses on a key puzzle that is often overlooked: How does increased access to social media affect the balance between peace-building efforts and attempts perpetuate violence in conflict-affected communities?
With a focus on Africa (and particularly on religious and political violence in Eastern Africa), this project will investigate the relationship between social media and conflict through three research questions at the macro, meso and micro level: how are social media altering the transnational dimensions of conflict and peacebuilding? How are public authorities reacting to, and appropriating, social media to either encourage violence or promote peace? And in what ways are social media changing the way people experience, participate in, or respond to violent conflict? It will examine these questions in the context of dangerous speech online; the exit and entry of individuals away from, and into, conflict; the tactics and strategies actors adopt to shape the Internet; and how governance actors are leveraging social media in conflict-affected communities.
Max ERC Funding
1 499 450 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-08-01, End date: 2022-07-31
Project acronym CSRS
Project A Comparative Study of Resilience in Survivors of War Rape and Sexual Violence: New Directions for Transitional Justice
Researcher (PI) Janine Clark
Host Institution (HI) THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH2, ERC-2016-COG
Summary The profound trauma associated with rape and sexual violence in conflict has been extensively explored within existing scholarship. The fact that many survivors exhibit remarkable post-trauma resilience, however, remains critically under-investigated. CSRS will address this fundamental gap by undertaking a paradigm-shifting empirical study of the underlying conditions for resilience. It will then use this data to pioneer a new, survivor-centred model of transitional justice – the process of redressing the legacy of massive human rights abuses.
Using the three comparative case studies of Bosnia-Hercegovina (BiH), the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Colombia, and adopting a social-ecological approach that emphasizes the interactions between individuals and their environments, CSRS consists of two inter-linked parts. The first part will involve extensive fieldwork, using a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods, to generate a rich cross-cultural dataset that identifies and explains the key micro, meso and macro factors that foster resilience in survivors of war rape and sexual violence.
The second part of CSRS will use this dataset to build an innovative, bottom-up model of transitional justice that prioritizes the long-term needs of survivors, reflecting the project’s hypothesis that a positive correlation exists between fulfilment of needs and resilience. This model will be developed with the input of survivors in BiH, the DRC and Colombia and in consultation with transitional justice scholars and practitioners. CSRS aims to transform transitional justice theory and practice. The project outputs will therefore include both academic publications and policy reports to communicate the model to the governments of the case study countries, the United Nations and a wider international audience with the overall aim of making empowerment and resilience part of a new transitional justice agenda.
Summary
The profound trauma associated with rape and sexual violence in conflict has been extensively explored within existing scholarship. The fact that many survivors exhibit remarkable post-trauma resilience, however, remains critically under-investigated. CSRS will address this fundamental gap by undertaking a paradigm-shifting empirical study of the underlying conditions for resilience. It will then use this data to pioneer a new, survivor-centred model of transitional justice – the process of redressing the legacy of massive human rights abuses.
Using the three comparative case studies of Bosnia-Hercegovina (BiH), the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Colombia, and adopting a social-ecological approach that emphasizes the interactions between individuals and their environments, CSRS consists of two inter-linked parts. The first part will involve extensive fieldwork, using a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods, to generate a rich cross-cultural dataset that identifies and explains the key micro, meso and macro factors that foster resilience in survivors of war rape and sexual violence.
The second part of CSRS will use this dataset to build an innovative, bottom-up model of transitional justice that prioritizes the long-term needs of survivors, reflecting the project’s hypothesis that a positive correlation exists between fulfilment of needs and resilience. This model will be developed with the input of survivors in BiH, the DRC and Colombia and in consultation with transitional justice scholars and practitioners. CSRS aims to transform transitional justice theory and practice. The project outputs will therefore include both academic publications and policy reports to communicate the model to the governments of the case study countries, the United Nations and a wider international audience with the overall aim of making empowerment and resilience part of a new transitional justice agenda.
Max ERC Funding
1 790 580 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-09-01, End date: 2022-08-31
Project acronym EUDEMOS
Project Constrained Democracy: Citizens’ Responses to Limited Political Choice in the European Union
Researcher (PI) Sara Binzer Hobolt
Host Institution (HI) LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH2, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary National governments operate under the growing constraints of European integration that limit the choices they can offer citizens and the policy instruments they can use. Yet, despite the centrality of political choice to the functioning of electoral democracy, we know very little about the consequences of constrained political choices for citizens’ engagement in democratic processes. Across Europe, an increasing number of citizens are supporting extreme parties or declining to take part in democratic elections. This project offers the first systematic examination of how the range and substance of political choices offered to citizens in the EU shape democratic perceptions and electoral behaviour. Understanding how citizens perceive and react to the growing constraints on domestic politics is crucial to a diagnosis of European democracy and for an evidence-based debate on reform of EU institutions. Building on the Principal Investigator’s award-winning research on electoral democracy and extensive experience of designing and analysing cross-national surveys and experiments, this project is a pioneering study of the consequences of constrained democracy. It uniquely combines a large-N cross-national analysis of citizens’ responses to mainstream party convergence and case studies of the ‘emergency politics’ of the Eurozone crisis with micro-level experimental work. This project aims to transform the study of citizens’ democratic attitudes and behaviour by focusing on the importance of political choice. By developing and testing a theoretical model of heterogeneous citizen responses to the constrained political choice, the project provides insights into why citizens turn against mainstream parties or exit democratic processes altogether. This further allows EUDEMOS to develop proposals for how institutions can be designed to facilitate citizens’ participation in and satisfaction with democratic processes in a multi-level European Union.
Summary
National governments operate under the growing constraints of European integration that limit the choices they can offer citizens and the policy instruments they can use. Yet, despite the centrality of political choice to the functioning of electoral democracy, we know very little about the consequences of constrained political choices for citizens’ engagement in democratic processes. Across Europe, an increasing number of citizens are supporting extreme parties or declining to take part in democratic elections. This project offers the first systematic examination of how the range and substance of political choices offered to citizens in the EU shape democratic perceptions and electoral behaviour. Understanding how citizens perceive and react to the growing constraints on domestic politics is crucial to a diagnosis of European democracy and for an evidence-based debate on reform of EU institutions. Building on the Principal Investigator’s award-winning research on electoral democracy and extensive experience of designing and analysing cross-national surveys and experiments, this project is a pioneering study of the consequences of constrained democracy. It uniquely combines a large-N cross-national analysis of citizens’ responses to mainstream party convergence and case studies of the ‘emergency politics’ of the Eurozone crisis with micro-level experimental work. This project aims to transform the study of citizens’ democratic attitudes and behaviour by focusing on the importance of political choice. By developing and testing a theoretical model of heterogeneous citizen responses to the constrained political choice, the project provides insights into why citizens turn against mainstream parties or exit democratic processes altogether. This further allows EUDEMOS to develop proposals for how institutions can be designed to facilitate citizens’ participation in and satisfaction with democratic processes in a multi-level European Union.
Max ERC Funding
1 508 822 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-09-01, End date: 2021-01-31
Project acronym GREYZONE
Project Illuminating the 'Grey Zone': Addressing Complex Complicity in Human Rights Violations
Researcher (PI) Mihaela Mihai
Host Institution (HI) THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2014-STG
Summary The grey zone of bystanders, collaborators and beneficiaries of violence escapes the scope of main Transitional Justice (TJ) institutions and poses tough questions for scholars and architects of post-conflict societies. This interdisciplinary project shifts the focus of academic and political debates by pursuing three objectives: conceptually, it departs from the dominant victim-perpetrator paradigm and theorises the many faces in the grey zone by analysing the interplay between structure and agency; normatively, it argues that no account of TJ is complete without engaging the grey zone; empirically, it tests if, in tackling the grey zone, cinematographic and literary representations can supplement typical TJ mechanisms (trials, truth commissions, lustration). Four cases are analysed: authoritarianism plus military occupation (Vichy France), apartheid (South Africa), totalitarianism (Romania 1945–1989) and military dictatorship (Argentina 1976–1983). The cases provide a variety of contexts of complicity and feature the most frequently used TJ mechanisms. They serve to a) examine the relationship between the official story emerging from state-orchestrated TJ mechanisms and artistic narratives of complicity; b) contextually distinguish disclosive from obscuring artistic representations of the grey zone; c) explore the contribution of these representations to TJ efforts by studying their effect on public debates about—and institutional responses to—the past. Working at the frontiers between political science, philosophy, history, law, literature and cinema, this pioneering project has critical and institutional impact. Critically, it discloses the limits of current TJ theory and practice by emphasising the negative political effects of ignoring general complicity in violence. Institutionally, it seeks to enrich the toolkit of scholars and practitioners by pointing to the potential use of cinema and literature in civic education aimed at deterrence and reconciliation.
Summary
The grey zone of bystanders, collaborators and beneficiaries of violence escapes the scope of main Transitional Justice (TJ) institutions and poses tough questions for scholars and architects of post-conflict societies. This interdisciplinary project shifts the focus of academic and political debates by pursuing three objectives: conceptually, it departs from the dominant victim-perpetrator paradigm and theorises the many faces in the grey zone by analysing the interplay between structure and agency; normatively, it argues that no account of TJ is complete without engaging the grey zone; empirically, it tests if, in tackling the grey zone, cinematographic and literary representations can supplement typical TJ mechanisms (trials, truth commissions, lustration). Four cases are analysed: authoritarianism plus military occupation (Vichy France), apartheid (South Africa), totalitarianism (Romania 1945–1989) and military dictatorship (Argentina 1976–1983). The cases provide a variety of contexts of complicity and feature the most frequently used TJ mechanisms. They serve to a) examine the relationship between the official story emerging from state-orchestrated TJ mechanisms and artistic narratives of complicity; b) contextually distinguish disclosive from obscuring artistic representations of the grey zone; c) explore the contribution of these representations to TJ efforts by studying their effect on public debates about—and institutional responses to—the past. Working at the frontiers between political science, philosophy, history, law, literature and cinema, this pioneering project has critical and institutional impact. Critically, it discloses the limits of current TJ theory and practice by emphasising the negative political effects of ignoring general complicity in violence. Institutionally, it seeks to enrich the toolkit of scholars and practitioners by pointing to the potential use of cinema and literature in civic education aimed at deterrence and reconciliation.
Max ERC Funding
1 349 481 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-09-01, End date: 2020-02-29
Project acronym HERITAGE
Project Cultural Heritage and Economic Development in International and European Law
Researcher (PI) Valentina Vadi
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY OF LANCASTER
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2014-STG
Summary Can states promote economic development without infringing upon their cultural heritage? Although economic globalization and international economic governance have spurred a more intense dialogue and interaction among nations - potentially promoting cultural diversity and providing the funds to recover and preserve cultural heritage - these phenomena can also jeopardize the cultural wealth of nations. Trade in cultural products can lead to cultural homogenization and even to cultural hegemony. In parallel, foreign direct investments have an unmatched penetrating force with the ultimate capacity of changing landscapes and erasing memory. At the same time, the increase in global trade, economic integration and foreign direct investment has determined the creation of legally binding and highly effective regimes that demand states to promote and facilitate trade and foreign direct investment. Has an international economic culture emerged that emphasizes productivity and economic development at the expense of cultural wealth? Does the existing legal framework adequately protect the cultural wealth of nations vis-à-vis economic globalization? Could existing mechanisms in international and European law constrain negative effects of globalization?
HERITAGE aims to map the interaction between economic globalization and each specimen of cultural heritage - world heritage, cultural diversity, intangible cultural heritage, indigenous heritage and underwater cultural heritage - in international and European law by investigating the relevant case law before international courts and tribunals. The study adopts an interdisciplinary approach; the relevant cases will be investigated in consideration of both their legal and cultural relevance. The main outcome of this research project will be a monograph written by the principal investigator to be published by a major international publisher; and a number of articles to be published in major international journals.
Summary
Can states promote economic development without infringing upon their cultural heritage? Although economic globalization and international economic governance have spurred a more intense dialogue and interaction among nations - potentially promoting cultural diversity and providing the funds to recover and preserve cultural heritage - these phenomena can also jeopardize the cultural wealth of nations. Trade in cultural products can lead to cultural homogenization and even to cultural hegemony. In parallel, foreign direct investments have an unmatched penetrating force with the ultimate capacity of changing landscapes and erasing memory. At the same time, the increase in global trade, economic integration and foreign direct investment has determined the creation of legally binding and highly effective regimes that demand states to promote and facilitate trade and foreign direct investment. Has an international economic culture emerged that emphasizes productivity and economic development at the expense of cultural wealth? Does the existing legal framework adequately protect the cultural wealth of nations vis-à-vis economic globalization? Could existing mechanisms in international and European law constrain negative effects of globalization?
HERITAGE aims to map the interaction between economic globalization and each specimen of cultural heritage - world heritage, cultural diversity, intangible cultural heritage, indigenous heritage and underwater cultural heritage - in international and European law by investigating the relevant case law before international courts and tribunals. The study adopts an interdisciplinary approach; the relevant cases will be investigated in consideration of both their legal and cultural relevance. The main outcome of this research project will be a monograph written by the principal investigator to be published by a major international publisher; and a number of articles to be published in major international journals.
Max ERC Funding
485 138 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-05-01, End date: 2018-08-31
