Global Sociology
Global Sociology research program focuses on the globalized scripts of society and the development of economic and political governance structures and cultural systems around them. At its core, the program is concerned with the creation, global institutionalization and diffusion of models and standards and the transformation and further elaboration of national actors, organizations and policies in interaction with such global frameworks. Importantly, the internal inconsistencies of globalized scripts that generate conflict and change are brought into focus.
A current research interest is the liberal, and then neo-liberal, script of citizenship that accompanied the globalization trends since the mid-twentieth century, and its prospects (in collaboration with the SCRIPTS research cluster). Specifically, the research is organized around three analytical nodes: a) the processes and agencies of the diffusion of the global scripts in an increasingly fragmented and multi-polar world order, b) the scripts and institutions of liberal citizenship and their societal underpinnings and contradictions in comparative (and beyond Western) contexts and c) the paradoxical implications and challenges of the increasing gap between the globalized scripts and their realization.
Starting from a macro sociological and neo-institutionalist perspective GS closely links with international relations, macro political science approaches, legal studies, and engages with them theoretically, conceptually, and empirically. GS conducts empirical research in a number of fields (including citizenship, human rights, international migrations, education, science and knowledge economy) integrating different levels and scales of analysis. Methodologically, the program uses a variety of methods: longitudinal and cross-national comparative methods, large-scale and experimental surveys, qualitative interviews, archival research, web data mining and text analysis.