Programme leaders: John Grin and Marlies Glasius

Since the late 20th century, there has been a growing divergence between societal dynamics and the conceptual framework of the 20th century political sciences. ‘Globalisation' of production networks, the transnationalisation of policy-making, and a decoupling of identity and territory have changed the configuration of politics and thereby impel conceptual shifts. A conceptual reorientation or a rethinking of the core axioms in the ‘science of politics' would imply ‘opening up' the research field and including of a wider range of sites where politics become manifest.

This programme group has two interlinked core research areas: conflict and institutional transformation. Both research areas re-examine established notions of identities, categorizations and boundaries defined by classical political science concepts.

The first core research area concerns conflicts at every level: from neighbourhood conflicts to civil war and interstate conflict. It concerns the negotiation or escalation of different forms of objective or subjectively experienced inequality and exclusion. These conflicts are in part a consequence and further cause of transnationalisation processes.

The second core research area concerns institutional transformation, again as a consequence and further cause of transnationalisation processes. We are concerned with the contested legitimacy of these institutions, the norms they propagate and the outcomes they generate. One central theme in this research sub-cluster is the relation the European Union has with its international environment and immediate periphery. Others include global intergovernmental organisations; direct engagement of citizens and non-state actors with international institutions; an the engagement of a range of western political actors with authoritarian and conflict states.