Research programme

Research

Research

Institute for Migration & Ethnic Studies (IMES)

IMES unites researchers on themes such as transnationalism, citizenship and ethnic and religious diversity, political mobilization, radicalization, labor and entrepreneurship, urban public space, and social mobility and generational changes.

The IMES research programme is supported by the programme groups Dynamics of Citizenship and Culture, Moving Matters: People, Goods, Power and Ideas and Challenges to Democratic Representation.

Programme Groups

Challenges to Democratic Representation

What are necessary and sufficient conditions under which democratic regimes can maintain stability and safeguard basic principles of democratic accountability, representation and legitimacy. In this research program, we address this classic theme from the perspective of normative democratic theory and by way of empirical inquiry. Recognizing that democracy is also a historically contingent politically practice, issues of change over time will be embedded in our analytic approaches as well.

Dynamics of Citizenship and Culture

Researchers of the sociology Program Group Dynamics of Culture and Citizenship examine how globalization and the concomitant economic transformations, demographic changes and welfare state restructuring have given rise to new class differentials, new risks, and new deliberations and conflicts over citizenship and belonging in western nation-states in general and urban neighborhoods in particular.

Moving Matters: People, Goods, Power and Ideas

The social consequences of the mobility of people and goods constitute the central focus of this research programme. This group explores migrating people and moving commodities as well as the shifting networks (of solidarity, remittances, knowledge, meaning and power) that result from such practices. Their approach is sociological and anthropological, with an emphasis on the historical dimension.

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