GRK 2852:  Standards of Governance

• Subject Area: Social Sciences
• Term: since 2023
• Website: Homepage
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 471257853

The proposed Research Training Group (RTG) will study standards of governance, how they are negotiated, operationalized and implemented in practice, and how they relate to the crisis of representative democracy. The notion of “good governance” has gained global traction as it is propagated by international organizations. It refers to general norms of good government, such as transparency, participation and accountability, but also to more specific norms, such as gender equality, the fight against corruption or the systematic evaluation of policies. In this RTG we will analyze collectively and in global perspective, how, why and with what consequences it is attempted to codify universally valid practices of “good governance.” Unique about this RTG is its ambition to also systematically evaluate the ideas and practices found in our empirical research from a normative perspective. In particular, we will discuss how standards of good governance relate to the ideal of democracy, understood as self-government on the basis of equality. The twofold perspective of our planned research (empirical-analytical and normative) requires an interdisciplinary composition of our group of principal investigators. The group brings together expertise from the fields of political science, sociology, philosophy and law. The combination of empirical and normative perspectives of research also has a great tradition in Darmstadt and Frankfurt. The two participating universities are already collaborating in joint research projects and offer joint degree programs. Our research training strategy is geared towards early scientific independence of our doctoral researchers and at their international competitiveness, but it also seeks to foster their sense of societal responsibility. The training program envisaged will enable our doctoral researchers to concentrate on their own dissertation project and its timely completion. It will allow them to create an individual research training portfolio that combines a focused program of mandatory courses with elective components chosen from a broad range of trainings on offer. The RTG thus aims at a research training that is structured and flexible at the same time, and that remains always oriented towards the individual needs of the doctoral students and their dissertation projects. Part of our strategy is also an internationalization module that should give our junior researchers insights into other traditions of research and access to the international academic labor market. To this end, the RTG requests funding for hosting international conferences and inviting guests from abroad as Mercator fellows. The RTG will also sponsor international research stays of our own doctoral researchers, inter alia at the home universities of our Mercator fellows. It will also support their efforts to present their work at international conferences and to publish in peer-reviewed international journals.

• DFG Programme: Research Training Groups
• Applicant Institution: Technische Universität Darmstadt
• Co-Applicant Institution: Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main
• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Jens Steffek
• Participating Researchers: Professorin Dr. Nathalie Behnke; Professorin Dr. Barbara Brandl; Professor Dr. Alexander Ebner; Professorin Dr. Petra Gehring; Professor Dr. Dirk Jörke; Professor Dr. Markus Lederer; Professor Dr. Andreas Nölke; Professorin Dr. Ute Sacksofsky; Professorin Dr. Sandra Seubert