Center for Political Practices and Orders (C2PO).

The C2PO serves as a communication space for interdisciplinary questions of political order formation. It is open for social theoretical, social scientific and religious scientific questions (whereby this list is not to be understood exclusively, but inclusively. The disciplinary question is not in the foreground and does not constitute the inclusion feature). In contrast to previously thematically oriented existing Research Training Groups (DFG), the C2PO is open to different empirical fields: the focus is not on an empirical issue (e.g., energy security), but on the way in which theories are formed and thus also on the implications for education. The C2PO therefore serves to foster interdisciplinary dialogue and is open to other members and interested observers. There is also a decided interest in recruiting further members from different disciplines for this purpose.

Profile

The Centerfor Political Practicesand Orders(C2PO) is an interdisciplinary research context that focuses on questions of political practice and global order formation. Although the Center is primarily located in political science, its orientation is genuinely interdisciplinary. In recent years, political science in particular has increasingly engaged with questions and approaches from the fields of cultural theory, social theory, and religious studies. This reception forms the starting point of this Center. The Center is not a 'center' in the German sense and does not aim at institutionalization. The C2PO does not promote parallel structures or institutions.

Rather, 'center' merely denotes a communication space (in the Anglo-American sense) that is intended to work in three ways:

Thematic

The C2PO serves as a communication space for interdisciplinary questions of political order formation. It is open for social theoretical, social scientific and religious scientific questions (whereby this list is not to be understood exclusively, but inclusively. The disciplinary question is not in the foreground and does not constitute the inclusion feature). In contrast to previously thematically oriented existing Research Training Groups (DFG), the C2PO is open to different empirical fields: the focus is not on an empirical issue (e.g., energy security), but on the way in which theories are formed and thus also on the implications for education. The C2PO therefore serves to foster interdisciplinary dialogue and is open to other members and interested observers. There is also a decided interest in recruiting further members from different disciplines for this purpose.

In the area of training

The C2PO is based on a practice-theoretical education and offers doctoral students a structured research space to reflect on actions, practices and events from a social-theoretical perspective

 

In the field of research

The C2PO develops, applies for, and executes externally funded projects.

Workspaces

Grass Roots Studies (GRS)

The current problems and conflicts of world politics can no longer be reduced to one level of analysis. Rather, they are characterized by their simultaneous presence of different level logics and practices. Grassroot Studies take up the idea that local approaches to solutions are insufficiently heard and often suppressed by international projects. Grassroot Studies analyze the different logics, conflicting rationalities, and trace the disparate local responses. Grassroot studies therefore resolutely seek dialogue with local groups such as NGOs and reconstruct their significance for global structural change.

International Political Economy (IPE)

At Erfurt C2PO we challenge the conventional definition of IPE as the discipline that studies the interaction between political and economic dynamics in the international order.

We explore instead how the 'political' and 'economic' are constructed as part and parcel of a broader human experience.

Our critical IPE approach aims at transcending the disciplinary division of modern social sciences.

We are inspired by the pre-disciplinary era of classical political economy and aspire to create a post-disciplinary space where to undertake innovative research on issues such as finance, trade, labor, development and the environment.

Theories and Practices of Power (TPP)

In the mainstream of international political theory, "justice" is seen as the answer to the problems of global politics. However, the associated attempts at universalistic concepts of justification repeatedly show in practice how political problems are generated in this way in the first place. Under the conditions of global politics, it thus becomes clear that the formation of order is first and foremost a question of power. Practices of power and their theoretical reflection therefore form a further focus at C2PO.

Horizons Beyond the West (HBW)

The classic geographical 'West', which has dominated world politics and the world economy, but also the global knowledge and cultural horizon, since the end of the Cold War, is currently facing large-scale tectonic changes. Particularly economically, but increasingly also politically, the balance of power is shifting more and more to the global South and the geographic East, and Europe and North America are experiencing a profound crisis of their models of state and society. The classic Western 'model' of the market-liberal democratic constitutional state now only conditionally represents the norm for the development process of the 'rest' of the world; in reality, locally adapted, hybrid forms of government and economy prevail.

Paradoxically, the ideal of a "Western way of life" still forms the horizon of expectations, especially of those lower middle classes that profit particularly from the rise of the global South. Thus, while the geographical West has suffered a dramatic loss of weight, it remains as a den-centered cognitive horizon. In order to understand and process these global changes, an analytical frame of reference is needed that goes beyond the Western-influenced conceptions of state and society and that can grasp the various local contexts in their complexity and difference. The aim of this specialization module is to develop this framework methodically and empirically.

Statutes

Name of the research group

The research group formed according to EPPP guidelines at the University of Erfurt is called "Center for Political Practices and Orders" (C2PO).

Tasks

The tasks of the research group are described in the specifications of the University of Erfurt for the EPPP; the focus is on active research as well as junior researcher training.

Organs

The organs of the research group are the general meeting and the speaker and deputy speaker.

Members

Members of the research group are the applicants in the university EPPP accreditation procedure as well as other scientists accepted by the speaker upon application.

General meeting

The general meeting consists of all members admitted to the research group.

  • It is convened by the speaker at least once a year.
  • It elects the speaker of the research group and a deputy for a period of 3 years by a majority of those present.
  • The general meeting discusses and decides on the programme of the research group.
  • A quorum exists if at least two members from the group of the
  • and one further member of the research group are present.

Speaker and deputy

The speaker of the research group has the following tasks:

  • Representation of the research group externally and towards university committees and bodies.
  • Management of the current tasks according to the regulations of the EPPP at the University of Erfurt.
  • Convening and chairing the general meeting.
  • Preparation of the annual reports.
  • Coordination of the resources of the research group.
  • Resolution on the admission of new members.

 

The deputy takes over the tasks of the speaker if he/she is prevented from doing so.

Only one member from the group of professors of the University of Erfurt can be elected as speaker. The deputy must belong to the group of applicants of the research group.

 

Contact