Development of co-operative structures at the Hannah Arendt Institute at the TU Dresden and the Research Institute on Social Cohesion at Leipzig University

The Saxon Ministry of Science and Art (SMWK) is funding a nine-month project for developing co-operative project structures in ‘Social Cohesion, Populism and Social Exclusion, Leipzig’, in which the HAIT is also participating.

The project, headed by Prof. Dr. Gert Pickel (Leipzig University) and Dr. Steffen Kailitz (HAIT) bears the short title ‘Development of Co-operative Structures of the Hannah Arendt Institute for Totalitarianism Studies at the TU Dresden and the Research Institute on Social Cohesion at Leipzig University’. The central aim is to develop co-operative structures of the two institutions so as on the one hand to support the endeavours of the line of research on ‘Social Cohesion, Populism and Social Exclusion’, coordinated by Pickel at Leipzig University, to assume the functional co-ordination of the line of research on ‘Populism’ in connection with the Research Institute on Social Cohesion at Leipzig University. On the other hand, the expansion of co-operative structures will interweave with corresponding endeavours by the Research Institute on Social Cohesion extending beyond its Leipzig branch into Saxony. These endeavours include the establishment of co-operative structures in the measurement of levels of populism and extremism and in the co-radicalisation processes of Islamophobia and Islamism.

The aim is to report the status of research in both areas during the funding period and to conduct expert workshops with prominent national and international researchers.

In addition to the HAIT, the co-operating partners are the Research Network on Integration, Xenophobia, and Right-Wing Extremism in Saxony (IFRiS) and the Research Institute on Social Cohesion at Leipzig University.