GRK 2225:  World politics: The emergence of political arenas and modes of observation in world society

• Subject Area: Social Sciences ; History ; Jurisprudence
• Term: since 2017
• Website: Homepage
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 281493513

The Research Training Group focuses on the emergence of world politics as a distinct field of the political embedded in a world society environment. Rather than reducing world politics and its history to a range of dominant organisational forms, such as nation-states or empires, and the relations between them, the group adopts a comprehensive perspective covering the processes and practices that underpin the emergence of world politics as a highly complex social realm. Accordingly, it builds on the expertise of different fields – International Relations, Sociology (world society theories), Global History, and International Law, in order to situate itself in, as well as contribute to, a fast-growing international research landscape of ‘global historical sociology’. Informed by a variety of disciplinary inputs, the group as a whole continues to apply what has proven to be a highly fruitful analytical heuristics, namely the distinction between modes of observation and modes of organisation as perspectives on linked but separate aspects of world political evolution. Reflecting the individual (post)doctoral research projects that the group has attracted during two out of a possible total of three application rounds, it has also specified two thematic fields within its research programme that will guide future collaborative efforts. These fields cover, firstly, world politics as a horizon of comparing that links geographically and socially distant structures and processes and, secondly, global models, ‘scripts’ and ‘blueprints’ of specific practices and actors in world politics.With its research and qualification programme, the primary aim of the group remains to foster high-quality individual research outputs completed in a limited amount of time, to support junior researchers in the best ways possible in order to achieve this and to help them develop ‘research personalities’, as well as to produce collaborative output as a group. With a high degree of built-in internationality, the group seeks to increase its own international visibility as a group, and, more particularly, that of the individual (post)doctoral researchers who belong to it.

• DFG Programme: Research Training Groups
• Applicant Institution: Universität Bielefeld
• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Mathias Albert
• Participating Researchers: Professorin Dr. Ulrike Davy; Professorin Dr. Angelika Epple; Professor Thomas Faist, Ph.D.; Professorin Dr. Alexandra Kaasch; Privatdozent Dr. Martin Koch; Professor Dr. Franz C. Mayer; Professorin Dr. Christina Morina; Professor Dr. Martin Petzke; Professor Dr. Detlef Sack, from 10/2017 until 2/2022; Professorin Dr. Angelika Siehr, since 2/2022; Professor Dr. Willibald Steinmetz; Professor Dr. Holger Straßheim; Professor Dr. Andreas Vasilache; Professor Dr. Tobias Werron