RTG 1410: Negotiating Processes of the Civil Society from the 19th Century to the Present - Germany and the Netherlands Compared

Basic data for this project

Description

In an age of European integration and globalisation, European societies are confronted with challenges that have a serious impact on social, economic and political institutions, structures and processes. The concept of civil society provides an analytical framework and a solution-oriented perspective for global, European, national and regional problems. The civil society represents the self-regulating society beyond the state and the market, and it stands for the voluntary commitment of the individual in the interest of the community. The over-arching research perspective of the Research Training Group is the question of the genesis and development of processes of social negotiation in the context of civil society in the past and the present in Germany and the Netherlands. Emphasis is put on the interaction between the self-organisation of citizens as actors of the civil society, the state and the market in the context of differing and changing political systems. Of equal importance is the connection between processes of political governance, organisations of civil society, political culture and the consolidation of civil society-networks in the past and the present. Finally, the Research Training Group will conduct research on the success and failure of civil interaction, which helps establish democratic procedures and enhances the ability of democratic regimes to integrate and provide identity for their constituency. The comparative and interdisciplinary Research Training Group shall stimulate basic research, deepen scientific networks among (young) scholars in Germany and the Netherlands and work for the diffusion of expert knowledge. Three areas of research are central to the Research Training Group: Firstly, the relation between the state, the nation and civil society is studied via the connectedness of a certain political culture, situations of social conflict and processes and organisations of civil society in the past and the present. The second field of research concentrates not only on the market itself as situated at the interface of civil society, but also on the different national market regimes as a condition for civil society. Finally, the third research area is supposed to deliver insight into the processes of an Europeanisation of political cultures and the role that actors of civil society play in these processes.