Politische Soziologie transnationaler Felder

• Applicant: Dr. Christian Schmidt-Wellenburg
• Subject Area: Sociological Theory
• Term: from 2016 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 310605213

How can transnational processes of sociation and accompanying new forms of governing people be understood and explained from a political sociology perspective? The network does not share the popular diagnosis of politics in decline. Instead we focus on agents engaging in those political processes that lead to the establishment of transnational forms of order. Such political processes are to be found in politics proper as well as other social fields in nation state contexts and beyond. These processes of sociation result in a wide range of governance forms rooted in transnational fields. The different transnational governance forms can be distinguished along two dimensions: according to their organizational form they might be more state centered or independent; according to their logics of legitimization they might be more democratic or expertocratic. The network pursues three goals: First, the range of politics-related transnationalisation processes is to be charted; second, adequate methods for analysing these have to be distinguished; third, generalizable statements on the identified process-patterns of transnationalisation are to be inferred. To attain these goals, the network gathers young German speaking researchers who have previously investigated different politics-related phenomena of transnationalisation using a field-analytical approach and is aimed at creating a durable transnational research context by intensifying collaboration with researchers rooted in French field-theoretical European studies as well as in US-American field-centered neo-institutionalism.

• DFG Programme: Scientific Networks
• Participating Person: Dr. Stefan Bernhard