IW

Comparisons of military forces as comparisons of power in the international system from the eighteenth to twentieth century

Project A01 of the Collaborative Research Center 1288 Practices of Comparing. Ordering and changing the world

Funded by: German Research Council (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG))

Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr. Mathias Albert

Post-Doctoral Researcher: Dr. Thomas Müller

Doctoral Researcher: Kerrin Langer

Project Duration: 2017–2020

Project Description:

The project studies two interrelated questions: firstly how and through which practices did states compare themselves and others regarding their military capabilities and power, and secondly: how did these practices of force comparisons interact with the evolution and globalization of the international system? Combining approaches from History and International Relations the project conceptualizes force comparisons as part of broader practices of power comparisons through which the international system and its evolution was structured, assessed and interpreted in terms of comparative orders such as the balance of power.

Empirically, the project seeks to reconstruct the co-evolution of force comparisons and the international system from the middle of the 18th century to the end of the Cold War. During this period, the co-evolution was in particular characterized by three transformative phases: the emergence of the modern European system of great powers since the middle of the 18th century, its gradual development into a global system of powers in the late 19th and early 20th century, and the trends towards more sophisticated and institutionalized practices of force comparisons in the context of the superpower competition in the Cold War. Additionally, the project highlights the new and growing role of think thanks – notably the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) and the Stockholm Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) – as influential producers of force comparisons in the Cold War.

Making practices of comparison illegitimate

Project B06 of the Collaborative Research Center 1288 Practices of Comparing. Ordering and changing the world

Funded by: German Research Council (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG))

Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr. Ulrike Davy

Doctoral Researcher: RA’in Malika Mansouri

Project Duration: 2017–2020

Project Description:

In December 1965, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. When the process of decolonization was at its height, human rights law moved to delegitimize practices of comparison that were deeply rooted in what is called European modernity or the European expansion. We assume that racial discrimination – outlawed by the convention – is intrinsically linked to practices of comparing, in particular comparisons that mark a difference implying less worth and backwardness. Therefore, we investigate: Was there, in the run-up to the convention, a phase where certain practices of comparing came under critique and became inacceptable? We also assume that the convention, by prohibiting racial discrimination, indeed aims to undercut certain practices of comparing for the time to come. If so, what are the practices of comparing that are meant to be eliminated, because they constitute racial discrimination? Finally, we investigate the methods the committee (established under the convention) takes resort to when it seeks to identify whether or not an act of racial discrimination has occurred in the particular setting of a case. We assume that the committee, when assessing the facts of a case, needs to rely on comparisons and that, when doing so, the committee creates practices of comparing of its own kind. Hence, we shall face two different sets of practices of comparing. For one, practices that ought not be. For another, practices that are necessary to identify the practices that ought not be. The former will help us clarify and structure the notion of racial discrimination, the latter will contribute to theorizing judicial review in discrimination cases. In a historical perspective, we will give an account on the rise of a global standard that links postcolonial thinking with the human rights discourse.

Publications:

Mansouri, Malika (2021): Mit Recht oder trotz Recht gegen Rassismus? In: Melter, Claus (Hg.), Diskriminierungs- und rassismuskritische Soziale Arbeit und Bildung, 2. Aufl. Beltz Juventa: Weinheim, S. 63–79.

Castro Varela, María do Mar / Mansouri, Malika (2020): Das Erbe kritisch betrachten: Verflechtungen von Kolonialismus, Rassismus und Migrationsrechtsetzung. In: Darkow, Jekaterina / Harbou, Frederik von (Hg.), Philosophie des Migrationsrechts. Mohr Siebeck: Tübingen, S. 291–316.

Davy, Ulrike (2019): Wenn Gleichheit in Gefahr ist. Staatliche Schutzpflichten und Schutzbedürftigkeit am Beispiel des Minderheitenschutzes und des Schutzes vor rassischer Diskriminierung. In: Zeitschrift für öffentliches Recht 74(4): S. 773–844.

Davy, Ulrike (2019): Refugee Crisis in Germany and the Right to a Subsistence Minimum: Differences that ought not be. In: Georgia Journal for International and Comparative Law 47(2): S. 367–450.

Davy, Ulrike (2018): Sozialleistungen für Nicht-Deutsche: Zugang durch globale Gleichheitsrechte, in: Christian Rolfs (Hg.), Migration und Sozialstaat. Schriftenreihe des Deutschen Sozialrechtsverbandes. Erich Schmidt Verlag: Berlin, S. 9–38.

Regional and Transnational Cooperation in Central Asia and between Central Asia and Europe - A Research-Based Professionalization Project

Funded by: Volkswagen Foundation
Project leaders: Prof. Dr. Andreas Vasilache and Dr. Chiara Pierobon

Globalised governance norms and local management and business practices in Africa and on the Arab peninsula

Funded by: EU_H2020-MSCA-RISE, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research and Innovation Staff Exchange
Principal investigators: Prof. Dr. Ulrike Schürckens and Prof. Dr. Detlef Sack

Post-Doctoral Researcher: Dr. Christian Steuerwald

Project Partners: Institut des Sciences et Industries du Vivant et de l’Environnement – AgroParisTech, The University of Manchester, The University Court of the University of Abertay Dundee, University of Ghana, Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar

Project Team: Sebastian Fuchs, Prof. Dr. Detlef Sack, Dr. Christian Steuerwald

Project Duration: 1998-2020

Project Description:

The joint project investigates the diffusion and translation of global management concepts and economic policies into the local practices of companies in Morocco, Senegal, Cameroon, Ghana and the United Arab Emirates. The project is funded under the EU Horizon 2020 programme. The duration is 2019-2022. In addition to Bielefeld University, Rennes 2 University and the research institutes CNRS and AgroParisTech (France), Manchester and Abertay Dundee Universities (United Kingdom), Mohammed VI Polytechnique University, ISCAE Business School and Magreb Steel and Phone Assistance (Morocco), Zayed University (United Arab Emirates), Dakar University (Senegal), Douala University (Cameroon) and Ghana University are involved in the project. The University of Rennes 2 is coordinating the project. We are happy to welcome junior and senior scholars for secondments (at least one month) at the University of Bielefeld from the Universities involved.

The Bielefeld team (Detlef Sack, Christian Steuerwald, Sebastian Fuchs) led the editorial board of the Working Paper Series and is responsible for the communication and publication of the project results. The research of the Bielefeld team focuses primarily on comparative socio-structural and political-economic context studies, comparative policy analyses and ethnographic studies in various organizations (business associations, companies, international and local political organizations).

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Turkey's social security system in a European context

Funded by: Stiftung Mercator
Principal Investigator: Prof. Lutz Leisering PhD
Project Partner: Asst. Prof. Dr. H. Tolga Bölükbasi (Bilkent University, Ankara)
Postdoctoral Researcher: Kerem Gabriel Öktem
Research Assistant: Cansu Erdogan
Project Duration: 01.01.2017 - 31.12.2019

Project Description:

Social security and welfare state are key institutions of Western post-war societies, absorbing 20-30% of GDP and shaping basic social structures like labour markets, socio-economic inequality, gender, and the relationship between state, markets and civil society (Castles et al. 2010; Leibfried/Mau 2008, Esping-Andersen 1990, T.H. Marshall 1950). Social policy is about fundamental normative understandings of society, constituting a social contract and underpinning social cohesion. Moreover, social policy may impact on a country?s international economic competitiveness. At the level of the European Union, the notion of a `social Europe´ is seen by some as an essential element of Europeanization and the ?European model? (Kaelble/Schmid 2004). As a pre-accession country that has graduated to the ranks of upper middle-income countries, Turkey is increasingly exposed to Europeanization pressures. Standing between Europe and Asia, Turkey remains at the intersection of the developing world and advanced industrialized countries, and has not conventionally figured in comparative welfare state research which centres on either advanced or developing countries.
The project brings together leading social policy researchers from Germany and Turkey in order to put Turkey on the map of comparative welfare state research, and to broaden the scope of Turkish studies in Germany. The project uses state-of-the-art theories and quantitative as well as qualitative research methods to a) locate Turkey?s experience in the field of social security in the broader world of welfare states (Work Package 1) b) to trace specific social policies and their political and ideational backgrounds in four key areas of social security (Work Package 2) and c) to depict the overall shape of the Turkish welfare state and explain its rise (Work Package 3). Academically, the case of Turkey will also enrich existing data and refine conceptual tools of comparative welfare state analysis, and add to the more recent global research on middle income countries (for welfare statism beyond its European origins see Gough/Therborn 2010; Gough 2008). In particular, the project inquires whether Turkey is a welfare state in a strict sense. Outside academia, the project aims to contribute to a better understanding of Turkey's society, economy and politics in Germany. There is a dearth of knowledge on Turkey's social policy in German academia and public. Although the country declared itself a welfare state in the 1961 Constitution, and more than a third of all government expenditure is spent on social provisions, such as healthcare and pensions, popular imagination in Germany would not normally associate Turkey with welfare statism. But besides political and civil rights, the state of social rights in Turkey, too, is a crucial factor for the accession process of Turkey to the EU and for German-Turkish relationships. Can Turkey relate to the European family of welfare states and to `social Europe´?
The project is part of the programme 'Contemporary Turkey Studies. Strengthening research on Turkey in Germany' (`Blickwechsel. Studien zur zeitgenössischen Türkei´), launched and funded by the Stiftung Mercator.

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Herausforderungen an den Schnittstellen der Klima-, Verbraucher-, Mobilitäts- und Energiepolitik

Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr. Holger Straßheim

Principal Investigators: Dr. Dagmar Simon, Dr. Martina Franzen and Prof. Dr. Holger Straßheim

Strategies - Processes - Consequences

Funded by: German Research Council (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr. Ursula Mense-Petermann
Members of the Project Team: Christoph Seidel, Junchen Yan
Project Duration: 2016–2018, prolonged 2018-2020

Project Description:

Beginning with the opening up of the Chinese economy in the 1970s, Chinese foreign direct investments (FDI) have steadily been rising. During the past decade, however, China´s FDI have developed extraordinary dynamically and Chinese investments have become one of the largest sources of FDI in emerging economies. Nowadays, the advanced industrialized economies of the West increasingly become targets of Chinese FDI, too. Chinese firms do not see themselves as extended workbenches for MNCs from the USA, Western Europe and Japan anymore. Many of them - state-owned enterprises as well as private-owned enterprises - have become `global players´ themselves and their globalization strategies drive Chinese FDI to ever higher levels.

The largest proportion of Chinese FDI in Europe goes to Germany. In Germany, Chinese FDI mostly targets the mechanical engineering and automotive supply industry. Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are regarded as the most suitable means to acquire production technologies, management knowhow and access to European markets and global brands.

International business and management literature has labeled Chinese FDI "emerging market firms´ globalization", pointing to the fact that acquisition of firms in advanced industrialized home countries by firms from emerging economies is quite a new phenomenon and cannot be analyzed with the theoretical frameworks developed from Western MNCs´ globalization. Scholars have pointed to the specific challenges for Chinese firms acquiring Western firms, namely their lack of international experience and management knowhow as well as cultural differences and imagined hierarchies (post-colonialism) that may lead to conflict. Post-merger "task integration" and "human integration", hence, were expected to cause substantial conflicts and were deemed prone to failure.

While the Chinese M&A activities in Germany were first considered very skeptical, press articles and research on Chinese acquisitions in Germany surprisingly reported smooth negotiations, well-functioning collaboration and a high degree of mutual respect and recognition between the two parties in most of the cases. However, existing research mainly relies on survey data or on single interviews with top managers. There is no in-depth investigation into the day-to-day operations and collaboration and into the post-merger processes of "task integration" and "human integration" at the shop-floor and office level. Our research project aims to filling this gap. Adopting a case study approach targeting M&As in mechanical engineering, automotive supply and the photovoltaics industry we aim to delivering "thick descriptions" of the post-merger processes and thereby also intend to contribute to theory building on "emerging market firms globalization".

Ideational and historical foundations of social policies in Brazil, India, China and South Africa

Research Group at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research, Bielefeld University

Principal Investigators: Prof. Dr. Ulrike Davy and Prof. Lutz Leisering, PhD

Project Duration: 2014–2019, including five conferences and a residential period

Project Description:

The twentieth century was a century of expanding social policy and the rise of the 'welfare state'. During that century, Western nation states turned into 'democratic welfare capitalism' (T.H. Marshall), with social expenditures reaching 20-35% of GDP, and coverage of the population by social security provisions verging towards 100%. In the twenty-first century, the countries of the global South play an increasingly important role in terms of population growth, their share in the global economy, and potential or real global political power. Which route have Southern countries been taking regarding the 'social' side of society?

Since the 1990s, economic liberalization and dramatic growth rates in some Southern countries have been at the forefront of public debates. But it has often gone unnoticed that social policies have been expanding in the global South at the same time. Research on social policy in the global South still is at an early stage. While there is a plethora of reports and studies on the implementation and the outcomes of welfare programmes, the Research Group seeks to advance this field of research by investigating in-depth the ideational and historical foundations of social policies, which are neglected in the dominant approaches from welfare economics and political economy. The Research Group aims at 'understanding' Southern welfare, inquiring into the perceptions, beliefs and ideas of domestic actors, rather than imposing preconceived categories.

The Group focuses on Brazil, India, China and South Africa since the 1920s. These countries have been among the pioneers in the recent expansion of welfare policies, which started in the 1990s. The four countries accentuate the relationship between social policy and economic growth.

The Fellows of the Research Group come from the countries under investigation or have roots in them. The Fellows represent a variety of disciplines, including law, sociology, social policy research, global and comparative history and development economics.

While family and kin, subsistence production and informal economic activity continue to be important avenues of welfare production in the South, the Research Group focuses on the growing area of state-led welfare production. Some Fellows look into social rights and values, investigating the range of ideas of the social that crystallize in processes of constitution-making, constitutions, adjudication and major statutory law. Other Fellows focus on social security, including social insurance, social assistance, child benefit and health services.

Publication:

Lutz Leisering (2021) (ed) One hundred years of social protection: The changing social question in Brazil, India, China, and South Africa. Cham: Springer Nature/Palgrave Macmillan. (Open Access)

How does Global Environmental Change (GEC) cause a transformation of political relationships between and within the circumpolar Argentina, Canada, Chile and the U.S.?"

Project Coordinator: Prof. Dr. Mathias Albert
Doctoral Researcher: Dorothea Wehrmann
Funded by: Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung

Project Description:

Environmental change caused by continuing global warming and the melting of sea ice has precipitated growing political interest on the part of various state and non-state stakeholders in the polar regions. With new access to formerly ice-covered areas, economic opportunities (particularly the prospect of resource extraction and the use of new seaways) have arisen. This has put policy makers in a double bind: While, on the one hand, collective measures are needed to protect the environment; on the other hand, the exploitation of valuable and limited resources serves national economic interests.

Against this background the research project deals with the question of whether this political challenge is leading to more cooperation between pivotal political actors in the Arctic and in the Antarctic region or supports the return to and/or development of stronger national “Polar identities” in four selected countries.

In a first step, the main political actors involved in polar politics will be identified. Due to their geographic proximity to both regions, the project focuses on actors from Argentina, Chile, Canada, and the USA that are particularly affected by the impact of global warming and on developments in the Arctic and the Antarctic. In a next step follows the examination of their positions as explicated in official documents (laws, strategy and policy papers, campaigns). The comparison of their diverse national interests (also considering assumed legitimations) will reveal if political actors are envisaging cooperation in the polar regions or not. Moreover, comments on far-reaching governmental decisions by important national print media will be examined in order to, first, clarify the perception of polar politics in the media and, second, to compare how specific mental images are used by political actors and the media with regard to polar politics.

Funded by: Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy
Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr. Werner Abelshauser, Prof. Dr. Jan-Otmar Hesse, Apl. Prof. Dr. Christopher Kopper
Project Team: Tristan Graefen, Raphael Hennecke
Project Duration: 2012 - 2015

Project Description:

On November 1, 2011, the German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs appointed Werner Abelshauser as part of the ministry’s independent historical commission. This commission is tasked with researching the history of German economic policy featuring the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and its predecessor organizations as main actors. Starting with the history of the establishment of the Reich Office of Economic Affairs in 1917, the research project covers the period until German reunification in 1990 with a perspective to present time. The results will be published in four volumes. Abelshauser will be the managing editor of the fourth volume (Federal Republic of Germany from 1945 to 1990). He has asked colleagues from German and British Universities with extensive research experience in German economic history (in Bielefeld Jan-Otmar Hesse and Christopher Kopper) to contribute to this volume. The group of investigators also takes part in volume II. For research into source materials, the authors will travel not only to the Federal Archives in Berlin and Koblenz, but also to the State, Federal and European Archives in London, Paris, Washington, D.C. and Florence/Italy. The fourth volume will be focused on the very character of German economic policy on two empirical fields. How is German economic policy placed between the single European market and world market strategies? And what is its position between economic governance (Ordnungspolitik) and process policy: i.e. regulatory economic governance (Produktive Ordnungspolitik).

Habitus, Everyday Practices, and Networks

Funded by: German Research Council (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
Central Project Coordination (Bielefeld University):
Prof. Dr. Ursula Mense-Petermann (Project Leader)
Principal Investigators:
Dr. Anna Spiegel, Bielefeld University
Dipl.-Soz. Yan Junchen, Bielefeld University
Kathleen M. Park, PhD, Sloan School of Management,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Members of the Project Team: Franziska Richter (Research Assistant)
Project Duration: 2011 - 2015

Project Description:

The project considers a social figure that has increasingly become an object of attention in recent times, whenever questions of economic globalization, the development of transnational social spaces and questions of social inequalities on a global scale are discussed: the expatriate manager. Notwithstanding the growing interest in global assignments and the figure of the global manager in the International Business and Management Literature, little is known to date of how expatriates deal with the exacting demands in their everyday work and life at their places of assignment. Under which circumstances do globally mobile managers develop a cosmopolitan habitus – if at all? How do they arrange their everyday life? What kind of networks do they establish in order to cope with the professional and private challenges connected with a global assignment? And last but not least: Are there differences in the ways in which expatriates deal with the challenges of a global assignment connected with their national origin or with their place of assignment (home country and host country effects)? These questions are addressed by a systematic comparison of two different groups of expatriate managers from different national business cultures – German managers and US American managers - at three different locations of assignment (Germany, USA and China), which are differently positioned in global constructions of cultural difference. This project - taking a critical look at the ‘strong’ theses concerning the ‘global manager’ as protagonist of a new global elite (Sklair, Kanter) – aims at an in-depth study into the processes of structuration of the lifeworlds and of (re-)shaping of the habitus of expatriate managers abroad.

Funded by: Project Segment of SFB 882 (Collaborative Research Centre) „From Heterogenities to Inequalities“
Principal investigators:
Prof. Dr. Mathias Albert (Bielefeld University)
Dr. Martin Koch (Bielefeld University)
Project member: Dr. Katja Freistein
Project Duration: 2011 - 2015

Project Description:

The project traces the emergence of the semantics of global inequality in world society. It empirically reconstructs the ways and means in which, in the context of the discourse on development, ideas of global inequality were formed within international organizations, understood as the entrepreneurs of global semantics. Within this framework, the project is particularly interested in the question of whether semantics of global inequality were primarily formed through discourses on, for example, global justice, climate change, environment, or security.

The Conditions and Consequences of the Globalization of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

Funded by: Hans Böckler Foundation (Hans-Böckler-Stiftung (HBS)
Central Project Coordination (Bielefeld University):
Prof. Dr. Ursula Mense-Petermann (Principal Investigator)
Project Team:
Dipl.-Soz. Christoph Seidel, Bielefeld University
Dipl.-Soz. Andre Meyer, Bielefeld University
Project Duration: 2012 - 2015

Project Description:

This project considers the long-term impact of globalization on the organizational structure, human resource management and employees interest representation of small and mediumsized enterprises (SME). Although SMEs do have a high relevance for the German economy, so far the consequences of their globalization for the whole SME and their employees have been understudied. In particular, this project explores how SMEs cope with the challenges of long-term globalization processes despite their limitations in organizational knowledge and capital. Various studies, however, have already shown that SMEs choose unique paths of entering into foreign markets. This, and the observable high degree of informal reconciliation of interests between employers and employees within SME structures, points to peculiarities of the globalization practices of SMEs as compared to “global players”. This research project aims to reconstruct the special logics and typical paths of SME globalization in its own complexity and in its implications for the employees and their representation of interests. The three questions that guide this project are: (1) What are the specific risks and chances of the globalization of SMEs? Can we understand SME globalization as an “ongoing Globalization” (i.e. as an extension of the economic processes of globalization by the involvement of more and more SMEs), or is SME globalization only a „short-term adventure“ which eventually leads to a re-re-location of foreign direct investment back home? (2) What are the typical resources that SMEs use for this process of globalization? (3) What are the consequences of this unique lobalization path for the employees and their representation of interest within SMEs? How do these process of globalization transform the typical „social world“ (Kotthoff/Reindl 1990) of SMEs? To answer these questions, we compare SMEs from machine builder and automobile supplier industries within the framework of a qualitative case study approach. As an exemplary field for our research, we choose to analyze the establishment of subsidiaries in China.

The Social Life of the Democracy Concept in Bangladesh and Senegal

Funded by: German Research Foundation (DFG)
Central Project Coordination: Bielefeld University, Faculty of Sociology, Transnationalisation and Development Research Centre, Research Group Social Anthropology
German Partner: Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Principal Investigators:
Prof. Dr. Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka, Professor of Social Anthropology, Faculty of Sociology, Bielefeld University
Prof. Dr. Eva Gerharz, Assistant Professor (Juniorprofessor) of Development Sociology and Internationalization,
Faculty of Social Science, Ruhr-University Bochum
PD Dr. Christian Meyer, Visiting Professor of Media Theory,
Siegen University
Members of the Project Team, Bielefeld, Germany:
Dr. Sandrine Gukelberger (researcher & project coordinator), Bielefeld University
Sambalaye Diop (PhD student), project: “The participating audience: the notion of democracy in the appropriation of media in Senegal”, Bielefeld University
Éva Rozália Hölzle (PhD student), project: “Dynamics of land politics and the hermeneutics of democracy in Bangladesh”, Bielefeld University
Katrin Renschler (research assistant), project: "Challenges of Diversity – Practices of Conviviality in Northeast India", Ruhr-University Bochum
Term: March 2011- November 2014

Project Description:

The project „Microdynamics of Political Communication in World Society. The Social Life of the Democracy Concept in Bangladesh and Senegal” examines the global spread of the terms democracy/democratization on the basis of their local appropriation. It is assumed that the concept of democracy has penetrated remote regions of the world, where it experiences unexpected enrichment due to specific connotations. Such reinterpretations are negotiated in interactions, characterized by different positioning acts, and in constellations of actors, shaped by asymmetries of power. The main interest of the project is to explore how the global norm of democracy generates local realities through social practices: To what extent and in which ways are the globally circulating notions of democracy and democratization - for example through development channels – re-interpreted in local contexts, debated, modified, used strategically, appropriated or rejected? To answer these questions, the project focuses on culturally embedded notions of the "good life", that is happiness, law and handling violence. The comparative analysis investigates the negotiation processes of the local understanding of democracy and in particular their relevant current domains in both research regions.

Principal Investigators: Prof. Dr. Michael Huttner, Dr. Dagmar Simon and Prof. Dr. Holger Straßheim
2011 - 2014

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The Global Construction and Diffusion of Civic Minima

FLOOR = Financial Assistance, Land Policy, and Global Social Rights

Funded by: German Research Foundation (DFG)
Principal Investigators:
Prof. Lutz Leisering, PhD
Prof. Dr. Benjamin Davy
Prof. Dr. Ulrike Davy
Project Duration: 2010 - 2015

Project Description:

Social policy and the welfare state – conceived as the formal adoption by government of a political responsibility for the well-being of its citizens – originated in European nation states. Can we expect a similar development on the global level, particularly if we consider the absence of a global government, cultural diversity and unrelenting economic globalization? We propose to inquire into the emergence of social policy, maybe even elements of welfare statism, on the global plane. Yet, what could ‘global social policy’ mean? What could ‘global’ mean in this context, and what could ‘the social’ mean on the global level? We choose social security as subfield of social policy to be investigated, focussing on the moral minimum – basic social security – as the test case of global social policy. Is there a global social minimum? Remarkably, three forms of basic social security have recently been gaining attention in world politics but are still under-researched: Social human rights, social cash transfers, and secure land rights for all. We examine the social construction and the global diffusion of the three kinds of basic social security from an interdisciplinary perspective (law, sociology, land policy), aiming to shed new light on some aspects of world culture theory and on the citizenship debate: Is basic social security part of world culture? Can we identify the rise of global social citizenship?
We are looking into global macro and micro policies at the interface of global, national, and sub-national actors, with a focus on processes of diffusion and the emergence of syncretic forms of policies. This includes an analysis of global politics as well as national case studies (in Bangladesh, China, Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America). Our approach is distinctly novel for its human rights study of basic social security (including the analysis of all state party reports under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, CESCR, and an analysis of all Constitutions), for its analysis of social cash transfers in the global South, and for its examination of the relationship between social cash transfers and secure land rights for all.
Regarding methods, we use analysis of documents, expert interviews, participant observation, case studies; quantitative analysis of all state party reports under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and multivariate analysis. Regarding theories, we draw on policy research, theories of social policy, theories of global social policy, theories of global diffusion and world society theory.

The case of the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI)

Funded by:
German Foundation for Peace Research
Principal Investigator:
Prof. Dr. Mathias Albert
Project Team:
Dipl. Soz. Kerstin Eppert, Bielefeld University
Mitja Sienknecht, M.A., Bielefeld University/Viadrina, Frankfurt/Oder
Project Duration:
2012 - 2014

Project Description:

The current project focuses on the impact which a ‘security overlay’ may have on the implementation of an international intervention. Using the case of the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), the project comprises two main areas of research. Connecting organizational and sociocultural dimensions of international interventions, the project asks, firstly, how contextual frameworks of securitization and peacebuilding shape and guide decision‐making processes of international interventions in (post‐) conflict environments. It analyzes decision‐making strategies that are used in order to manage contextual uncertainty that emerges from the conflictive logics of securitization and peacebuilding. Secondly, the findings will be contextualized in view of the interrelation between world society (theory) and the construction of the ‘Other’.
The primary aim of the project is to contribute to a better understanding of the interdependence between the international political context, the parameters and operations of international assistance missions and the relevance of the normative frameworks of securitization and peacebuilding for the implementation of the missions. The secondary aim is to provide concrete input to the improvement of oversight mechanisms of international organizations involved in the missions by explaining the interdependence of the ‘re’‐ or ‘deconstruction’ of conflict and organizational decision making.

Publications:

• Eppert, Kerstin/Sienknecht, Mitja (2017): Engaging with the "Threat"? Tracing De-securitization between UN Security Council and the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI)
• Eppert, Kerstin/ Sienknecht, Mitja/ Albert, Mathias (2015): UN-Missionen als Strukturen internationaler Interventionen - organisationale Autonomisierungsprozesse aus weltgesellschaftstheoretischer Perspektive. In: da Conceição-Heldt, Eugénia/ Koch, Martin /Liese, Andrea (Eds.): Internationale Organisationen: Autonomie, Politisierung, interorganisationale Beziehungen und Wandel, Politische Vierteljahrsschrift, Sonderheft 49 (with financial support from the German Foundation for Peace Research).

The Production of Geopolitical Images through Aid Organizations

Principal Investigators: Prof. Dr. Mathias Albert, Prof. Dr. Paul Reuber
2011 - 2013

Human Rights approaches to Global Social Policy

Cooperation group at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research, Universität Bielefeld
Principal Investigators: Prof. Dr. Benjamin Davy, Prof. Dr. Ulrike Davy, Prof. Dr. Lutz Leisering
2011

The Contribution of International Statistics and UN World Conferences to the Rise of a Global Comparative Order, 1949-2009

Funded by: German Research Foundation (DFG)
Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr. Bettina Heintz
Project Team:
Dr. Marion Müller (co-investigator)
Hannah Bennani, graduate sociologist
Miriam Rosin, graduate sociologist
Student assistants:
Konstanze Reinecke