Project acronym aidsocpro
Project Aiding Social Protection: the political economy of externally financing social policy in developing countries
Researcher (PI) Andrew Martin Fischer
Host Institution (HI) ERASMUS UNIVERSITEIT ROTTERDAM
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2014-STG
Summary This research proposal explores the political economy of international development assistance (aid) directed towards social expenditures, examined through the lens of a particular financial quandary that has been ignored in the literature despite having important economic and political repercussions. The quandary is that aid cannot be directly spent on expenditures denominated in domestic currency. Instead, aid needs to be first converted into domestic currency whereas the foreign exchange provided is used for other purposes, resulting in a process prone to complex politics regarding domestic monetary policy and spending commitments.
The implications require a serious rethink of many of the accepted premises in the political economy of aid and related literatures.
It is urgent to engage in this rethinking given tensions between two dynamics in the current global political economy: a tightening financial cycle facing developing countries versus an increasing emphasis in international development agendas of directing aid towards social expenditures. The financial quandary might exacerbate these tensions, restricting recipient government policy space despite donor commitments of respecting national ownership.
The proposed research examines these implications through the emerging social protection agenda among donors, which serves as an ideal policy case given that social protection expenditures are almost entirely based on domestic currency. This will be researched through a mixed-method comparative case study of six developing countries, combining quantitative analysis of balance of payments and financing constraints with qualitative process tracing based on elite interviews and documentary research. The objective is to re-orient our thinking on these issues for a deeper appreciation of the systemic political and economic challenges facing global redistribution towards poorer countries, particularly with respect to the forthcoming Sustainable Development Goals.
Summary
This research proposal explores the political economy of international development assistance (aid) directed towards social expenditures, examined through the lens of a particular financial quandary that has been ignored in the literature despite having important economic and political repercussions. The quandary is that aid cannot be directly spent on expenditures denominated in domestic currency. Instead, aid needs to be first converted into domestic currency whereas the foreign exchange provided is used for other purposes, resulting in a process prone to complex politics regarding domestic monetary policy and spending commitments.
The implications require a serious rethink of many of the accepted premises in the political economy of aid and related literatures.
It is urgent to engage in this rethinking given tensions between two dynamics in the current global political economy: a tightening financial cycle facing developing countries versus an increasing emphasis in international development agendas of directing aid towards social expenditures. The financial quandary might exacerbate these tensions, restricting recipient government policy space despite donor commitments of respecting national ownership.
The proposed research examines these implications through the emerging social protection agenda among donors, which serves as an ideal policy case given that social protection expenditures are almost entirely based on domestic currency. This will be researched through a mixed-method comparative case study of six developing countries, combining quantitative analysis of balance of payments and financing constraints with qualitative process tracing based on elite interviews and documentary research. The objective is to re-orient our thinking on these issues for a deeper appreciation of the systemic political and economic challenges facing global redistribution towards poorer countries, particularly with respect to the forthcoming Sustainable Development Goals.
Max ERC Funding
1 459 529 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-05-01, End date: 2020-04-30
Project acronym AIDSRIGHTS
Project "Rights, Responsibilities, and the HIV/AIDS Pandemic: Global Impact on Moral and Political Subjectivity"
Researcher (PI) Jarrett Zigon
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2011-StG_20101124
Summary "This project will undertake a transnational, multi-sited ethnographic study of moral and political subjectivity in HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs from the perspective of socio-cultural anthropology. The main research question is: what kinds of politico-moral persons are constituted in institutional contexts that combine human rights and personal responsibility approaches to health, and how these kinds of subjectivities relate to local, national, and global forms of the politico-moral represented in health policies? In particular, this research will be carried out in Indonesia (Jakarta and Bali), South Africa (Western Cape), USA (New York City), and various locations throughout Eastern Europe in HIV/AIDS programs and institutions that increasingly combine human rights and personal responsibility approaches to treatment and prevention. This project is the first anthropological research on health governance done on a global scale. Until now most anthropological studies have focused on one health program in one location without simultaneously studying similar processes in comparable contexts in other parts of the world. In contrast, this project will take a global perspective on the relationship between health issues, morality, and governance by doing transnational multi-sited research. This project will significantly contribute to the current anthropological focus on bio-citizenship and push it in new directions, resulting in a new anthropological theory of global bio-political governance and global politico-moral subjectivities. This theory will describe and explain recent transnational processes of shaping particular kinds of politico-moral subjectivities through health initiatives. By doing research in comparable world areas this project will significantly contribute to the development of a theory of politico-moral governance with global reach."
Summary
"This project will undertake a transnational, multi-sited ethnographic study of moral and political subjectivity in HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs from the perspective of socio-cultural anthropology. The main research question is: what kinds of politico-moral persons are constituted in institutional contexts that combine human rights and personal responsibility approaches to health, and how these kinds of subjectivities relate to local, national, and global forms of the politico-moral represented in health policies? In particular, this research will be carried out in Indonesia (Jakarta and Bali), South Africa (Western Cape), USA (New York City), and various locations throughout Eastern Europe in HIV/AIDS programs and institutions that increasingly combine human rights and personal responsibility approaches to treatment and prevention. This project is the first anthropological research on health governance done on a global scale. Until now most anthropological studies have focused on one health program in one location without simultaneously studying similar processes in comparable contexts in other parts of the world. In contrast, this project will take a global perspective on the relationship between health issues, morality, and governance by doing transnational multi-sited research. This project will significantly contribute to the current anthropological focus on bio-citizenship and push it in new directions, resulting in a new anthropological theory of global bio-political governance and global politico-moral subjectivities. This theory will describe and explain recent transnational processes of shaping particular kinds of politico-moral subjectivities through health initiatives. By doing research in comparable world areas this project will significantly contribute to the development of a theory of politico-moral governance with global reach."
Max ERC Funding
1 499 370 €
Duration
Start date: 2012-05-01, End date: 2017-04-30
Project acronym Becoming Men
Project Becoming Men: Performing responsible masculinities in contemporary urban Africa
Researcher (PI) Eileen Marie Moyer
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH2, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary This anthropological study examines the reconfiguration of masculinities in urban Africa over the last 30 years. Focusing on how practices and discourses of empowerment and equality shape male subjectivities, this study builds upon a significant body of nuanced research on masculinities in Africa. Since the mid-1980s academic and public discourses have depicted African masculinity as both precarious and predatory. Economic insecurity, urbanization, shifting gender norms, and growing gender parity have accompanied claims that African masculinity is ‘in crisis’. More recently, new stories of urban men embracing responsible fatherhood, condemning intimate partner violence, and demanding homosexual rights have emerged as exemplars of progressive possibility. To disentangle these seemingly competing claims about African masculinities and shed light on the scientific, political, and economic projects that shape them, this research theorises that the discourses and practices that pathologise and politicise masculinity are simultaneously performing and producing gendered selves on multiple scales in the name of gender equality. Recently, ‘male involvement’ has become a rallying cry throughout the vast global development assemblage, around which governments, NGOs, research networks, activists, and local communities fight gender inequality to promote health, economic development, and human rights. In this research, a range of male-involvement initiatives provides a lens through which to study how masculinities are diversely imagined, (re)configured, and performed through men’s engagements with this assemblage, in both its local and global manifestations. Multi-sited ethnographic research will focus on six cities where the PI has active research ties: Nairobi and Kisumu, Kenya; Johannesburg and Durban, South Africa; and Dar es Salaam and Mwanza, Tanzania.
Summary
This anthropological study examines the reconfiguration of masculinities in urban Africa over the last 30 years. Focusing on how practices and discourses of empowerment and equality shape male subjectivities, this study builds upon a significant body of nuanced research on masculinities in Africa. Since the mid-1980s academic and public discourses have depicted African masculinity as both precarious and predatory. Economic insecurity, urbanization, shifting gender norms, and growing gender parity have accompanied claims that African masculinity is ‘in crisis’. More recently, new stories of urban men embracing responsible fatherhood, condemning intimate partner violence, and demanding homosexual rights have emerged as exemplars of progressive possibility. To disentangle these seemingly competing claims about African masculinities and shed light on the scientific, political, and economic projects that shape them, this research theorises that the discourses and practices that pathologise and politicise masculinity are simultaneously performing and producing gendered selves on multiple scales in the name of gender equality. Recently, ‘male involvement’ has become a rallying cry throughout the vast global development assemblage, around which governments, NGOs, research networks, activists, and local communities fight gender inequality to promote health, economic development, and human rights. In this research, a range of male-involvement initiatives provides a lens through which to study how masculinities are diversely imagined, (re)configured, and performed through men’s engagements with this assemblage, in both its local and global manifestations. Multi-sited ethnographic research will focus on six cities where the PI has active research ties: Nairobi and Kisumu, Kenya; Johannesburg and Durban, South Africa; and Dar es Salaam and Mwanza, Tanzania.
Max ERC Funding
1 999 830 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-09-01, End date: 2020-08-31
Project acronym CHILE
Project A Comparative History of Insurance Law in Europe
Researcher (PI) Phillip Hellwege
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITAET AUGSBURG
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH2, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary The objective of the project is to work out interactions between the national developments of insurance law in Europe, to explore the possibility of common historical roots of European insurance law, and to reassess the history of insurance law in Europe. The project does, thereby, aim at creating a historical basis for a European legal scholarship in the field of insurance law.
Today’s state of research in the field of the history of insurance law is unsatisfactory: with the exception of maritime insurance, modern research focuses on national developments and the history of insurance law is told differently in the European countries. Even though modern research suggests that there have been interactions between the national developments these interactions often appear to be only footnotes to a mainly national development.
For the first time, the project takes these points of interactions as a starting point for an in depth research into the history of insurance law in Europe. It is, to take an example involving England and Germany, known that English life and fire insurers where present on the German market since the late 18th century and that those who, in the beginning of the 19th century, were involved in founding the first commercial life and fire insurers in Germany had been working for English insurers. What needs to be explored is what impact this had on the practice and standard contract terms of German insurers. On the basis of the research into this and other points of interactions it will, for the first time, be possible to research into the doctrinal history of insurance law on a European level.
The project will help to reassess the history of insurance law in Europe and it will create a historical basis for a European scholarship in the field of insurance law: the harmonization of European insurance contract law is on the agenda. Comparative historical research will help to understand the existing differences between the insurance laws in Europe.
Summary
The objective of the project is to work out interactions between the national developments of insurance law in Europe, to explore the possibility of common historical roots of European insurance law, and to reassess the history of insurance law in Europe. The project does, thereby, aim at creating a historical basis for a European legal scholarship in the field of insurance law.
Today’s state of research in the field of the history of insurance law is unsatisfactory: with the exception of maritime insurance, modern research focuses on national developments and the history of insurance law is told differently in the European countries. Even though modern research suggests that there have been interactions between the national developments these interactions often appear to be only footnotes to a mainly national development.
For the first time, the project takes these points of interactions as a starting point for an in depth research into the history of insurance law in Europe. It is, to take an example involving England and Germany, known that English life and fire insurers where present on the German market since the late 18th century and that those who, in the beginning of the 19th century, were involved in founding the first commercial life and fire insurers in Germany had been working for English insurers. What needs to be explored is what impact this had on the practice and standard contract terms of German insurers. On the basis of the research into this and other points of interactions it will, for the first time, be possible to research into the doctrinal history of insurance law on a European level.
The project will help to reassess the history of insurance law in Europe and it will create a historical basis for a European scholarship in the field of insurance law: the harmonization of European insurance contract law is on the agenda. Comparative historical research will help to understand the existing differences between the insurance laws in Europe.
Max ERC Funding
1 992 500 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-09-01, End date: 2020-08-31
Project acronym CIRCODE
Project Cell-type specific mechanisms regulating rhythms in leukocyte homing
Researcher (PI) Christoph Andreas Scheiermann
Host Institution (HI) LUDWIG-MAXIMILIANS-UNIVERSITAET MUENCHEN
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), LS6, ERC-2014-STG
Summary Leukocytes are the key components of the immune system that fight infections and provide tissue repair, yet their migration patterns throughout the body over the course of a day are completely unknown. Circadian, ~24 hour rhythms are emerging as important novel regulators of immune cell migration and function, which impacts inflammatory diseases such as myocardial infarction and sepsis. Altering leukocyte tissue infiltration and activation at the proper times provides an option for therapy that would maximize the clinical impact of drugs and vaccinations and minimize side effects.
We aim to create a four-dimensional map of leukocyte migration to organs in time and space and investigate with epigenetics techniques the molecular mechanisms that regulate cell-type specific rhythms. We will functionally define the daily oscillating molecular signature(s) of leukocytes and endothelial cells with novel proteomics approaches and thus identify a circadian traffic code that dictates the rhythmic migration of leukocyte subsets to specific organs under steady-state and inflammatory conditions with pharmacological and genetic tools. We will assess the impact of lineage-specific arrhythmicities on immune homeostasis and leukocyte trafficking using an innovative combination of novel genetic tools. Based on these data we will create a model predicting circadian leukocyte migration to tissues.
The project combines the disciplines of immunology and chronobiology by obtaining unprecedented information in time and space of circadian leukocyte trafficking and investigating how immune-cell specific oscillations are generated at the molecular level, which is of broad impact for both fields. Our extensive experience in the rhythmic control of the immune system makes us well poised to characterize the molecular components that orchestrate circadian leukocyte distribution across the body.
Summary
Leukocytes are the key components of the immune system that fight infections and provide tissue repair, yet their migration patterns throughout the body over the course of a day are completely unknown. Circadian, ~24 hour rhythms are emerging as important novel regulators of immune cell migration and function, which impacts inflammatory diseases such as myocardial infarction and sepsis. Altering leukocyte tissue infiltration and activation at the proper times provides an option for therapy that would maximize the clinical impact of drugs and vaccinations and minimize side effects.
We aim to create a four-dimensional map of leukocyte migration to organs in time and space and investigate with epigenetics techniques the molecular mechanisms that regulate cell-type specific rhythms. We will functionally define the daily oscillating molecular signature(s) of leukocytes and endothelial cells with novel proteomics approaches and thus identify a circadian traffic code that dictates the rhythmic migration of leukocyte subsets to specific organs under steady-state and inflammatory conditions with pharmacological and genetic tools. We will assess the impact of lineage-specific arrhythmicities on immune homeostasis and leukocyte trafficking using an innovative combination of novel genetic tools. Based on these data we will create a model predicting circadian leukocyte migration to tissues.
The project combines the disciplines of immunology and chronobiology by obtaining unprecedented information in time and space of circadian leukocyte trafficking and investigating how immune-cell specific oscillations are generated at the molecular level, which is of broad impact for both fields. Our extensive experience in the rhythmic control of the immune system makes us well poised to characterize the molecular components that orchestrate circadian leukocyte distribution across the body.
Max ERC Funding
1 497 688 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-09-01, End date: 2020-08-31
Project acronym CIRCUMVENT
Project Closing in on Runx3 and CXCL4 to open novel avenues for therapeutic intervention in systemic sclerosis
Researcher (PI) Timothy Radstake
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITAIR MEDISCH CENTRUM UTRECHT
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), LS6, ERC-2011-StG_20101109
Summary Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is an autoimmune disease that culminates in excessive extra-cellular matrix deposition (fibrosis) in skin and internal organs. SSc is a severe disease in which fibrotic events lead to organ failure such as renal failure, deterioration of lung function and development of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). Together, these disease hallmarks culminate in profound disability and premature death.
Over the past three years several crucial observations by my group changed the landscape of our thinking about the ethiopathogenesis of this disease. First, plasmacytoid dendritic (pDCs) cells were found to be extremely frequent in the circulation of SSc patients (1000-fold) compared with healthy individuals. In addition, we observed that pDCs from SSc patients are largely dedicated to synthesize CXCL4 that was proven to be directly implicated in fibroblast biology and endothelial cell activation, two events recapitulating SSc. Finally, research aimed to decipher the underlying cause of this increased pDCs frequency led to the observation that Runx3, a transcription factor that controls the differentiation of DC subsets, was almost not expressed in pDC of SSc patients. Together, these observations led me to pose the “SSc immune postulate” in which the pathogenesis of SSc is explained by a multi-step process in which Runx3 and CXCL4 play a central role.
The project CIRCUMVENT is designed to provide proof of concept for the role of CXCL4 and RUNX3 in SSc. For this aim we will exploit a unique set of patient material (cell subsets, protein and DNA bank), various recently developed in vitro techniques (siRNA for pDCs, viral over expression of CXCL4/RUNX3) and apply three recently optimised experimental models (CXCL4 subcutaneous pump model, DC specific RUNX3 KO and the SCID/NOD/rag2 KO mice).
The project CIRCUMVENT aims to proof the direct role for Runx3 and CXCL4 that could provide the final step towards the development of novel therapeutic targets
Summary
Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is an autoimmune disease that culminates in excessive extra-cellular matrix deposition (fibrosis) in skin and internal organs. SSc is a severe disease in which fibrotic events lead to organ failure such as renal failure, deterioration of lung function and development of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). Together, these disease hallmarks culminate in profound disability and premature death.
Over the past three years several crucial observations by my group changed the landscape of our thinking about the ethiopathogenesis of this disease. First, plasmacytoid dendritic (pDCs) cells were found to be extremely frequent in the circulation of SSc patients (1000-fold) compared with healthy individuals. In addition, we observed that pDCs from SSc patients are largely dedicated to synthesize CXCL4 that was proven to be directly implicated in fibroblast biology and endothelial cell activation, two events recapitulating SSc. Finally, research aimed to decipher the underlying cause of this increased pDCs frequency led to the observation that Runx3, a transcription factor that controls the differentiation of DC subsets, was almost not expressed in pDC of SSc patients. Together, these observations led me to pose the “SSc immune postulate” in which the pathogenesis of SSc is explained by a multi-step process in which Runx3 and CXCL4 play a central role.
The project CIRCUMVENT is designed to provide proof of concept for the role of CXCL4 and RUNX3 in SSc. For this aim we will exploit a unique set of patient material (cell subsets, protein and DNA bank), various recently developed in vitro techniques (siRNA for pDCs, viral over expression of CXCL4/RUNX3) and apply three recently optimised experimental models (CXCL4 subcutaneous pump model, DC specific RUNX3 KO and the SCID/NOD/rag2 KO mice).
The project CIRCUMVENT aims to proof the direct role for Runx3 and CXCL4 that could provide the final step towards the development of novel therapeutic targets
Max ERC Funding
1 500 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2012-08-01, End date: 2017-07-31
Project acronym ComBact
Project How complement molecules kill bacteria
Researcher (PI) Suzan Rooijakkers
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITAIR MEDISCH CENTRUM UTRECHT
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), LS6, ERC-2014-STG
Summary This proposal aims to provide insight into how bacteria are killed by the complement system, an important part of the host immune response against bacterial infections. Complement is a large protein network in plasma that labels bacteria for phagocytosis and directly kills them via the formation of a pore-forming complex (Membrane Attack Complex (MAC)). Currently we do not understand how complement activation results in bacterial killing. This knowledge gap is mainly caused by the lack of tools to study the enzymes that trigger MAC formation: the C5 convertases.
In my lab, we recently established a novel assay system for C5 convertases that allows us for the first time to study these enzymes under purified conditions. This model, combined with my expertise in microbiology, places my lab in a unique position to understand C5 convertase biology (Aim 1), determine the enzyme's role in MAC functioning (Aim 2) and elucidate how the MAC kills bacteria (Aim 3). Thus, I aim to provide insight into the molecular events necessary for bacterial killing by the complement system.
I will use biochemical, structural and microbiological approaches to elucidate the precise molecular arrangement of C5 convertases in vitro and on bacterial cells. I will generate unique tools to study how C5 convertases regulate MAC insertion into bacterial membranes. Finally, I will engineer fluorescent bacteria and labeled complement proteins to perform advanced microscopy analyses of how MAC kills bacteria.
These insights will lead to fundamental knowledge about the functioning of complement and will create new avenues for blocking the undesired complement activation during systemic infections and acute inflammatory processes. Furthermore this knowledge will improve desired complement activation by therapeutic antibodies and vaccination strategies in infectious diseases. Finally, this work opens up new possibilities to understand how both humans and bacteria regulate complement.
Summary
This proposal aims to provide insight into how bacteria are killed by the complement system, an important part of the host immune response against bacterial infections. Complement is a large protein network in plasma that labels bacteria for phagocytosis and directly kills them via the formation of a pore-forming complex (Membrane Attack Complex (MAC)). Currently we do not understand how complement activation results in bacterial killing. This knowledge gap is mainly caused by the lack of tools to study the enzymes that trigger MAC formation: the C5 convertases.
In my lab, we recently established a novel assay system for C5 convertases that allows us for the first time to study these enzymes under purified conditions. This model, combined with my expertise in microbiology, places my lab in a unique position to understand C5 convertase biology (Aim 1), determine the enzyme's role in MAC functioning (Aim 2) and elucidate how the MAC kills bacteria (Aim 3). Thus, I aim to provide insight into the molecular events necessary for bacterial killing by the complement system.
I will use biochemical, structural and microbiological approaches to elucidate the precise molecular arrangement of C5 convertases in vitro and on bacterial cells. I will generate unique tools to study how C5 convertases regulate MAC insertion into bacterial membranes. Finally, I will engineer fluorescent bacteria and labeled complement proteins to perform advanced microscopy analyses of how MAC kills bacteria.
These insights will lead to fundamental knowledge about the functioning of complement and will create new avenues for blocking the undesired complement activation during systemic infections and acute inflammatory processes. Furthermore this knowledge will improve desired complement activation by therapeutic antibodies and vaccination strategies in infectious diseases. Finally, this work opens up new possibilities to understand how both humans and bacteria regulate complement.
Max ERC Funding
1 497 290 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-03-01, End date: 2020-02-29
Project acronym CORPNET
Project Corporate Network Governance: Power, Ownership and Control in Contemporary Global Capitalism
Researcher (PI) Eelke Michiel Heemskerk
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2014-STG
Summary The character of global business networks has long fascinated but continues to divide scholars of global markets and governance. A well-established perspective looks at the changes in global networks and sees an emerging cohesive transnational capitalist class. However, a rival line of inquiry sees the rise of competing corporate elites. Scholars also disagree on the origins of emergent patterns of corporate networks. Do they reflect institutional preferences of corporate and political elites? Or are they unintended by-products of corporate conduct? Third, there are fundamental differences of opinion on how patterns of global corporate ownership relate to actual power in the governance of such networks.
Past research has been unable to adjudicate these debates in part due to insufficient data clarifying the full breadth of corporate interactions globally, and insufficient analytical tools for analysing that breadth. This project seeks to do what has so far eluded existing scholarship: to fully explore the global network of corporate ownership and control as a complex system. Network structures may appear to be the result of a grand design at macro level, but are the outcome of the sum of the actions of a large set of interdependent actors. Using cutting-edge network science methods, the project explores for the first time the largest database on ownership and control covering over 100 million firms. Exploiting the longitudinal richness of the new data in combination with state-of-the-art methods and techniques makes it possible to model and empirically test generating mechanisms that drive network formation.
By doing so the project bridges the hitherto disjoint fields of social network studies in socio-economics and political science on the one hand, and the growing body of literature on network science in physics, computer science and complexity studies on the other.
Summary
The character of global business networks has long fascinated but continues to divide scholars of global markets and governance. A well-established perspective looks at the changes in global networks and sees an emerging cohesive transnational capitalist class. However, a rival line of inquiry sees the rise of competing corporate elites. Scholars also disagree on the origins of emergent patterns of corporate networks. Do they reflect institutional preferences of corporate and political elites? Or are they unintended by-products of corporate conduct? Third, there are fundamental differences of opinion on how patterns of global corporate ownership relate to actual power in the governance of such networks.
Past research has been unable to adjudicate these debates in part due to insufficient data clarifying the full breadth of corporate interactions globally, and insufficient analytical tools for analysing that breadth. This project seeks to do what has so far eluded existing scholarship: to fully explore the global network of corporate ownership and control as a complex system. Network structures may appear to be the result of a grand design at macro level, but are the outcome of the sum of the actions of a large set of interdependent actors. Using cutting-edge network science methods, the project explores for the first time the largest database on ownership and control covering over 100 million firms. Exploiting the longitudinal richness of the new data in combination with state-of-the-art methods and techniques makes it possible to model and empirically test generating mechanisms that drive network formation.
By doing so the project bridges the hitherto disjoint fields of social network studies in socio-economics and political science on the one hand, and the growing body of literature on network science in physics, computer science and complexity studies on the other.
Max ERC Funding
1 497 764 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-09-01, End date: 2020-08-31
Project acronym DATACTIVE
Project Data activism: The politics of big data according to civil society
Researcher (PI) Stefania Milan
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2014-STG
Summary With the diffusion of ‘big data’, citizens become increasingly aware of the critical role of information in modern societies. This awareness gives rise to new social practices rooted in technology and data, which I term ‘data activism’. While activists see massive data collection by governments and businesses as a challenge to civil rights, big data also offer new opportunities for collective action.
This research will investigate civil society’s engagement with massive data collection by addressing three research questions: How do citizens resist massive data collection by means of technical fixes (re-active data activism)? How do social movements use big data to foster social change (pro-active data activism)? How does data activism affect the dynamics of transnational civil society, and transnational advocacy networks in particular?
The project will develop a multidisciplinary conceptual framework integrating social movement studies, science and technology studies and international relations. It will analyze organizational forms, action repertoires and the enabling role of software in data activism, and will identify emerging structures and strategies of transnational advocacy networks. Data will be collected via qualitative (interviews with activists, field observations, infrastructure ethnography on software platforms) and computational methods (such as data mining in online repositories).
This research is groundbreaking in four ways: 1) by analyzing civil society’s engagement with massive data collection, it evaluates risks and promises of big data; 2) by addressing an uncharted but rapidly growing field of human action, it sets the basis for understanding future civic engagement; 3) by integrating adjacent disciplines that seldom interact, it magnifies their ability to understand the interplay between society, information, technology and power; 4) by developing dedicated data collection tools, it adds to methodological innovation in big-data analytics.
Summary
With the diffusion of ‘big data’, citizens become increasingly aware of the critical role of information in modern societies. This awareness gives rise to new social practices rooted in technology and data, which I term ‘data activism’. While activists see massive data collection by governments and businesses as a challenge to civil rights, big data also offer new opportunities for collective action.
This research will investigate civil society’s engagement with massive data collection by addressing three research questions: How do citizens resist massive data collection by means of technical fixes (re-active data activism)? How do social movements use big data to foster social change (pro-active data activism)? How does data activism affect the dynamics of transnational civil society, and transnational advocacy networks in particular?
The project will develop a multidisciplinary conceptual framework integrating social movement studies, science and technology studies and international relations. It will analyze organizational forms, action repertoires and the enabling role of software in data activism, and will identify emerging structures and strategies of transnational advocacy networks. Data will be collected via qualitative (interviews with activists, field observations, infrastructure ethnography on software platforms) and computational methods (such as data mining in online repositories).
This research is groundbreaking in four ways: 1) by analyzing civil society’s engagement with massive data collection, it evaluates risks and promises of big data; 2) by addressing an uncharted but rapidly growing field of human action, it sets the basis for understanding future civic engagement; 3) by integrating adjacent disciplines that seldom interact, it magnifies their ability to understand the interplay between society, information, technology and power; 4) by developing dedicated data collection tools, it adds to methodological innovation in big-data analytics.
Max ERC Funding
1 498 352 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-09-01, End date: 2020-08-31
Project acronym DEMSEC
Project Democratic Secrecy: A Philosophical Study of the Role of Secrecy in Democratic Politics
Researcher (PI) Dorota Maria Mokrosinska
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITEIT LEIDEN
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2014-STG
Summary Transparency in politics is the mantra of democratic governance. Should state secrecy, such as classified intelligence programs or closed-door political bargaining be abolished? Despite its revered status, many feel that complete transparency would undermine effective functioning of governments. Take the public responses to the Wikileaks disclosures: many of the disclosures were assessed favorably, but few people defended the idea of total transparency that inspired them.
If both complete secrecy and complete transparency are to be rejected, what ratio of secrecy and transparency in politics should we seek? Democratic theory leaves this question unanswered: no systematic assessment of the role of secrecy in a democracy is available. This project solves this problem. By employing the tools of analytic political philosophy, social choice and game theory, we develop a theory of democratic secrecy centred around three theses:
1. Secrecy in exercising executive and legislative power can be democratically authorized;
2. Secrecy protects the integrity of democratic decision-making processes;
3. Balancing secrecy and transparency is an exercise in balancing the values underlying democratic authority and democratic decision-making mechanisms.
The results of this philosophical study set a new course in democratic theory by demonstrating that democratic governance requires less openness than traditionally assumed. To complement the theory, criteria for political accountability for wielding political secrets and criteria for assessing responsibility for their unauthorized disclosure are designed. Our results have practical relevance: understanding when and why secrecy is morally acceptable may change the policy approach to transparency provisions, and provide a better fit between the “public right to know” and the needs of governments. Scholars from Poland and the Netherlands assess the use of governmental secrecy in these two, respectively old and new, EU member states.
Summary
Transparency in politics is the mantra of democratic governance. Should state secrecy, such as classified intelligence programs or closed-door political bargaining be abolished? Despite its revered status, many feel that complete transparency would undermine effective functioning of governments. Take the public responses to the Wikileaks disclosures: many of the disclosures were assessed favorably, but few people defended the idea of total transparency that inspired them.
If both complete secrecy and complete transparency are to be rejected, what ratio of secrecy and transparency in politics should we seek? Democratic theory leaves this question unanswered: no systematic assessment of the role of secrecy in a democracy is available. This project solves this problem. By employing the tools of analytic political philosophy, social choice and game theory, we develop a theory of democratic secrecy centred around three theses:
1. Secrecy in exercising executive and legislative power can be democratically authorized;
2. Secrecy protects the integrity of democratic decision-making processes;
3. Balancing secrecy and transparency is an exercise in balancing the values underlying democratic authority and democratic decision-making mechanisms.
The results of this philosophical study set a new course in democratic theory by demonstrating that democratic governance requires less openness than traditionally assumed. To complement the theory, criteria for political accountability for wielding political secrets and criteria for assessing responsibility for their unauthorized disclosure are designed. Our results have practical relevance: understanding when and why secrecy is morally acceptable may change the policy approach to transparency provisions, and provide a better fit between the “public right to know” and the needs of governments. Scholars from Poland and the Netherlands assess the use of governmental secrecy in these two, respectively old and new, EU member states.
Max ERC Funding
1 075 109 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-08-01, End date: 2020-07-31
