Research Program RETHINKING POLITICS

Research topics

Research undertaken under the first edition of Rethinking Politics has shown a wide range of new organizational arrangements in between classical institutions to be emerging along-side traditional (inter-) governmental arrangements in an attempt to deal with these problems. Such arrangements reflect novel forms of problem solving or conflict management and new ways of coordinating and implementing policies. But their often transitory nature and lack of transparency may render them incapable of authoritatively articulating values and interests, adjudicating conflicts and identifying solutions to pressing problems in a way that is compatible with democratic legitimacy. As if these two trends weren’t challenging enough, confusion exists concerning the responsibilities and accountability of different (types of) actors, given multiple political identities and the sometimes overlapping, sometimes clashing political arrangements in which they emerge. These various developments, of course, raise difficult questions about what the actual or desirable relations are between different institutional arrangements operating in the same issue area.

There is, in short, an urgent need to understand the ongoing shifts in (various) domains of politics in response to (various) contemporary problems. It is the core business of our political science to better understand the re-ordering of the political landscape, the changing manifestations of the political, and to ask which conceptions of democratic governance for just and sustainable societies may fit contemporary socio-political circumstances. This implies the need to investigate changing political identities, (the recognition of) new inequalities and, related to that, new modes of political mobilisation, from government-initiated consultation processes to initiatives that are reflect different modes of ‘bottom-up’ or personal politics.

The Rethinking Politics programme, thus, studies the interaction and confrontation of traditional and new organizational arrangements that entail big changes in the nature and possibilities of politics. Such a conception of politics raises particular theoretical challenges that broadly guide the research program. 

(1) Manifestations: We must describe, explain and interpret the evolving and varying manifestations of the political in terms of emerging social movements and identities and their interaction with the established arenas and practices of politics. We also need to make sense of the evolution of established political institutions as well as newer practices of governance, and how the changing face of the political shapes the ways in which they arise and interact . 

(2) Outcomes: We need to examine how these interacting and evolving institutions and practices yield outcomes that affect the values and interests of actors. This means understanding how politics yield policies, and vice versa; and how both give rise to institutions or arrangements that may more or less successfully solve problems, that may yield winners and losers in some settings, and that may also lead to varying patterns of self-realization and identity formation.

(3) Legitimacy: We need to address how, at a more generic level, the evolving interaction between different arenas and their problem-solving, distributional and identity consequences challenge the legitimacy of governance; and how these challenges may be dealt with. This means being aware of and trying to improve how particular political struggles shape the quality of societies in terms of democratic representation and participation and of social and economic justice.

Taking these challenges seriously means that some crucial concepts from the canon of political science must be re-assessed or rethought.  It also means that classical political concepts acquire new significance and meaning. And it means developing new conceptualisations of politics and socio-political relationships, such as the ‘state-market condominium’, the ‘discursive polity’, or ‘reflexive governance’. 

In the years to come, the three theoretical challenges identified above will be taken up in a variety of research projects, concentrated in four programmes:

 

The sub-programmes

1. Transnationalization and integration: the evolving world of politics

Much of contemporary politics is affected by processes of transnationalization, by which we mean increasing and institutionalizing interaction across national boundaries, be it by governments, interest groups, or other political and economic actors. This can entail changes in international relations, such as cooperation and conflict in relations between sovereign states.  Transnationalization processes, frequently have an integrative force, by establishing patterns of cooperation, or even new polities, which tend to at least partially shift the locus of decisionmaking to higher levels of governance. At the same time, counter-movements of devolution, even disintegration, are part and parcel of transnationalization processes, as appropriate loci of decisionmaking and mechanisms of accountability are constantly (re-)negotiated. 

Central to our research on “the evolving world of politics” is the changing political geography of our times: shifts in the contexts in which politics take place, such as the changing position, dissolution, or creation of new borders between polities and communities; and changes in the definition of political group membership, which increase the difficulty of defining the political community relevant for any polity or set of political decisions.

Three major projects are distinguished in this program, which all engage the above questions, in different ways: (a) Transnationalization of Governance within the EU; (b) The spread of policy frameworks and social norms which underlie transnationalization processes; (c) Security

 

2. Political Economy: Varieties of capitalism and welfare state transformation

This program focuses on the evolving nature, origins and consequences of national market institutions and of welfare states, interpreted broadly to include social policy and institutions regulating well-being of citizens. What distinguishes this programme from other Rethinking Politics clusters is the focus on economic relations, and the presumption that financial, industrial and labor-market institutions, and welfare states all reflect and lead to sharp distributional conflicts within and between polities, and that the terms of these conflicts are rapidly changing.

This research cluster focuses on changes in the nature of capitalist economies and their regulation, on the distributional and other causes and consequences of such political-economic development, and their broader implications for democracy and economic justice.  This implies an interest in the development of economic globalization, European integration, deindustrialization, partisan-ideological struggle, market liberalization (in both the developed and developing world) and other dynamics that have changed the power and preferences of social actors and government representatives struggling over the terms of economic life.  Cutting across these concerns are three broad projects that define the cluster’s principal research for the coming several years: (a) Globalization and Economic Governance; (b) Understanding the limits and possibilities of Social Europe; (c) The effects of domestic economic policies for domestic and international economy and politics

 

3. Challenges of  governance and democracy

This program sets out to investigate both (1) the ways in which the standing institutions of democratic governance adapt to the changing socio-political reality as well as (2) the new practices of citizenship, conflict resolution and ‘joint governance’ that can be discerned in today’s political practice. One key issue in this cluster is to understand the preconditions for a democratic governance in situations in which shared understandings and mutual trust cannot be assumed. Another key issue is how constitutional principles of democracy, such as freedom of speech and religion, non-discrimination, equal treatment and parliamentary representation are reinterpreted under conditions of insufficient trust and multiple identities in society.  Research questions in this program are:

• How do the standing institutions of democratic governance adapt to the changing socio-political reality and how are their constitutional principles reinterpreted? Which emerging practices of citizenship, conflict resolution and ‘joint governance’  can be discerned in today’s political practice. How do the two relate?
• How do new forms of governance and ongoing transformations of existing institutions, in their mutual interaction, privilege particular values and interests? How does that mutual interaction shape the identities and allegiances of citizens and newcomers? How does it affect perceptions of justice in procedures and outcomes?
• How are stabilizations and stability brought about in situations where the existing institutions are challenged by new demands? What is the particular politics of meaning (ordering and re-ordering) implied in the re-stabilizations?
• To what extent, and how, is joint governance possible in such a context and how may conflicts be resolved on the basis of some for of legitimate agreement? What are the promises and what the threats to democratic conflict resolution and trust building implied by new practices of governance?

Three projects will be undertaken in this programme: (a) New forms of governance and conflict resolution ; (b) Diversities, political mobilization and democracy; (c) The transformation of representative democracy

 

4. Governance of science and technology in risk society

The idea that we live in a risk society has become widespread over the past decade. Along with the progress for which the institutions of state, market, science and society and their relations were designed, risks and side effects have been produced, and natural and cultural diversity haven been largely ignored. These unintended effects and blind spots have led to a rapidly declining trust in and legitimacy of classical expert-based decision making arrangements. Understanding these phenomena also requires that we understand the changing ordering of experts, policy makers, politicians, citizens and firms, and the way in which these become constituted in and through processes of joint problem resolution. Similarly, also a new, ‘trialectic’ understanding of the role of material objects is needed as being constituted by, the object of and generative of governance practices and associate politics. Three projects will lead this program: (a) Knowing What to Do: the Politics of Knowledge, Learningand Joint Decision Making; (b) Governance of System Innovations; (c) Material objects within practices of science, society and governance.

 

For a complete overview of the research agenda click here.

 

Cluster directors: Maarten Hajer and Uwe Becker (UvA)

Cluster PhD coordinator: Brian Burgoon (UvA)

Cluster PhD student committee member: Jantine Grijzen (UvA)

 

 

Staffmembers and PhD Students in this Cluster