War in Ukraine, Russia’s potential decoupling from the global internet and the changing perspective of emerging powers on internet and data governance

Projektteam: Ewa Aleksandra Dąbrowska, Katharina Bluhm, Gwendolyn Sasse

Laufzeit: September 2022 - August 2025
Förderung: Cluster of Excellence “Contestations of the Liberal Script (SCRIPTS)"

Russia’s war against Ukraine, the reaction of Western states, information intermediaries, such as Meta, Apple or Google, and the prospect of Russia disconnecting from the global internet have shaken the world-wide consensus on internet governance. The war demonstrated that digital and economic interdependence is a risk factor for countries that break international law and disrespect human rights. As a result, emerging powers increasingly perceive digital interdependence as a source of fragility and embrace the notion of digital sovereignty. The project aims at examining both the trajectory of Russia’s political project of internet and data sovereignty as well as the embrace of sovereigntism by some emerging powers before and due to the war in Ukraine and its repercussions. The growing popularity of the concept of internet and data sovereignty, especially in its authoritarian variant, constitutes a challenge to the liberal script inherent in the idea of global connectivity and internet governance as embodied by multistakeholder governance. At the same time, it has potential to improve representation of emerging powers’ interests in the structures of this governance.

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D.Rad - Deradicalisation in Europe and Beyond

Projektteam: Mihai Varga (Principal Investigator), Volodymyr Ishchenko, Julia Glathe, Ignacio Sar Chavez - Projektleitung: Umut Kurkut (Lead Principal Investigator), Glasgow Caledonian University

Förderung: EU (Horizon 2020)

Laufzeit: Dezember 2020 - November 2023

D.Rad is a comparative study of radicalisation and polarisation in Europe and beyond. It aims to identify the actors, networks, and broader social contexts driving radicalisation, particularly among young people in urban and peri-urban areas. D.Rad conceptualises this through the I-GAP spectrum (injustice-grievance-alienation-polarisation) with the goal of moving toward measurable evaluations of de-radicalisation programmes. We intend to identify the building blocks of radicalisation, which include a sense of being victimised; a sense of being thwarted or lacking agency in established legal and political structures; and coming under the influence of “us vs them” identity formulations. D.Rad benefits from an exceptional breadth of backgrounds. The project spans national contexts, including the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Finland, Slovenia, Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo, Israel, Iraq, Jordan, Turkey, Georgia, Austria, and several minority nationalisms.

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ENDURE. Inequalities, Community Resilience and New Governance Modalities in a Post-Pandemic World (Forschungsverbund)

Projektteam an der FU Berlin: Mihai Varga (Lead Principal Investigator), Soner Barthoma, Christian Fröhlich, Ignacio Sar Chavez; weitere Principal Investigators: Prof. Leda Maria Caira Gitahy, University of Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Prof. Philippe Bourbeau, University Laval, Québec, Canada, Dr. Emilia Elisabeth Palonen, University of Helsinki, Finland, Prof. Tania Pérez-Bustos, National University of Colombia, Bogota, Colombia, Dr. James Foley, Glasgow Caledonian University, UK, Dr Mateusz Karolak, University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw, Poland, Dr. Eric C. Jones, University of Texas Houston, El Paso, Texas, USA, Dr. Senada Šelo Šabić, Institute for Development and International Relations (IRMO), Zagreb, Croatia

Förderung: DFG; FAPESP; AKA; MINCIENCIAS; NCN; NSF; HRZZ; SSHRC; ESRC; FRQSC

Laufzeit: Juni 2022 - Mai 2025

This project examines the short- and long-term consequences of COVID-19 from a comparative perspective and studies the COVID-19 crisis holistically as a new source for the mobilization of societies and political systems. Drawing on insights from a transatlantic team experienced in studying inequalities, gender, resilience, migration, crisis management, and
radicalisation, this project is guided by four objectives:
1. Exploring drivers of inequalities and new forms of (de-)mobilizations: To identify how inequalities in their various dimensions (ethnicity, class, migratory status, gender, and age) have been reinforced and challenged and to map how new forms of (de-)mobilization evolved during and after the pandemic.
2. Governance and (De-)Mobilization: To analyse the governance of Covid-19 at local, national, and global levels from a comparative, transatlantic perspective, and to explore the societal, political, and ethical consequences of these governance practices on social inequalities, on political systems, people’s rights, and freedoms as well as in the context of the increasing divide between Global North and South.
3. Community resilience and building back better: To understand community resilience practices through the study of grassroots solidarity movements and the mobilization of social groups and communities to generate social and political collective action.
4. (Dis and mis)information, Conspiracy theories, and Social media: To analyse the sources and promotion of dis and mis-information in social and mainstream media and to assess social media’s empowering and repressive roles in the context of COVID-19

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Prisma Ukraïna: War, Migration and Memory

Projektteam: Viktoriya Sereda

Laufzeit: ab 2022

Förderung: Berlin Senate Department for Higher Education and Research, Health, Long-Term Care and Gender Equality. The non-resident Fellowships are funded by the Marga and Kurt Möllgaard Foundation, and  the Zeit-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius.

The project offers a multi-scalar perspective on the transformational effects of war and dislocation on people’s memory and sense of belonging for both those on move and receiving communities. It will be conducted by an interdisciplinary research group meeting regularly online and making use of collaborative digital working spaces, and formats for collective writing process that have been developed by the Forum.

The established working group will collaboratively run a monthly on-line series of discussions aimed to engage different publics – from the academia, and different think tanks in the East or West of Europe is envisaged. Depending on the focus of the online event, audience might be broadened to the representatives of government, media, and politicians. The project also aims at small-scale data collection and production of shorter texts/interviews/short essays or research papers that will be published with the TRAFO space and later be reworked either into a special issue in one of the leading academic journals or as an open access publication in the Forums Dossier Series.