Projects / Programmes
Social contract in the 21st century
January 1, 2020
- December 31, 2027
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 6.06.00 |
Humanities |
Culturology |
|
| 6.10.00 |
Humanities |
Philosophy |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| S213 |
Social sciences |
Social structures |
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| 6.04 |
Humanities |
Arts (arts, history of arts, performing arts, music) |
| 6.03 |
Humanities |
Philosophy, Ethics and Religion |
contract, citizenship, national identity, art, memory, media, Europe, postsocialism
Data for the last 5 years (citations for the last 10 years) on
June 28, 2024;
A3 for period
2018-2022
| Database |
Linked records |
Citations |
Pure citations |
Average pure citations |
| WoS |
94 |
255 |
236 |
2.51 |
| Scopus |
126 |
476 |
427 |
3.39 |
Researchers (18)
Organisations (3)
Abstract
This program investigates transformations of the key modern interpretative philosophical, sociological and communication/media studies models of citizenship, membership and belonging as derived from the notion of social contract. Social contract is a key Enlightenment legacy of legal, political and social basis of the relationship between the individual and society. In contemporary society, as explored by the research group in the previous period,many of the Enlightenment foundations have been challenged.
In the next research period, the program adds to the research of the fate of the social contract the specific context of the “European contract”, that is a contract about the unified Europe after the crises (financial, refugee, Brexit). The post-crisis development is illuminated in (1) regional (post-Yugoslav, post-socialist) space; (2) in relation to the most recent theories of revival of democratic social development; and (3) with the help of concrete empirical research of the role of media, art and popular response to the crises. The work packages (WP) include:
WP1: Post-crisis condition and postsocialist European contract.
WP2 Media, public culture and the contract
WP2a: Mediatization of memory
WP2b Cultural consumption and symblic bonds of class distinctions:
WP2c: Publics, algorithms and popular genres
WP4: Post-crisis Enlightenment morality
The Program group is committed to developing the research agenda on the future of the society in the 21st century by bridging theoretical debates that usually are separated by disciplinary boundaries in humanities and social sciences.The key point of departure is that the understanding and modelling of the social contract of the 21st century needs to include the perspective of historical deconstruction of modern social contract (or to use the method of conceptual history, according to Habermas) while aiming to explain its articulation in relation to multiple social subsystems. This research program responds to this theoretical challenge with the method of socio-historical analysis of civil society and the past trends that have developed around a common core of solidarity and social equality --, together with the models of inclusion and empowerment of disadvantaged social voices groups. The emphasis is on media, art and literature.
Significance for science
This program investigates the state of the social contract in contemporary democracies. Conceptually, the social contract is based on the epistemological grounds of discursive contructionism (Banhabib, Delanty, Yuval Davis). This means that the contract is theorized as always temporary, involving processes of negotiation among various stakeholders, i.e., collective agents, individuals and institutions. The main mechanism of negotiation is derived from the notion of democratic deliberation (Habermas, Rawls) which accounts for differences in power positions and argumentative strength of the participants in the deliberation (Young, Walker). This calls for approaches that acknowledge actual structural and historic states of social relations of (in)equality (variable part); and ethical philosophical foundations (a constant).
The research group treats the idea and practice of social contract as a civilizational accomplishment of political and ethical history of humankind. In the previous period, the main emphasis was on the legacy of solidarity and its fate in the context of post-humanist consumer society. In the next period, the group will focus on the condition of social contract in the context of the emerging public culture, spread between social media, anti-intellectualism and the rise of the radical populist movements. The researchers will consider the most up-to-date interdisciplinary insights in the fields of ethics, psychology, critical political science, and the intellectual revival of ideas of the Enlightenment. The key innovative approach is in studying ethnic radicalism and anti-intellectualism from the conceptual standpoint of "post-social subjectivity". The program's contribution to science will be in addressing questions of how to strengthen the presence of scientific reason in public debates; how to identify and empower various agents of democratic progressive development in transnational and transhistoric perspective (the role of memory!), how to democratize social media debates and critical journalism, and make them resistant to "moral tribalism" and populist truism.
Significance for the country
Over the last two decades, international academic sphere has been intensively exploring the possibilities for transforming collective bond of belonging and solidarity, which will create the conditions for a democratic and just society. In this framework different social alternatives have been developed, such as the theory of transnationalism, ethical cosmopolitan social order and a European perspective of postnational constellation and cosmopolitan empire.
In particular in the context of European (EU) perspective, there has been a strong theoretical and sociohistorical lack of integration of the postwestern perspective, i.e. a perspective that would attract the experience of postsocialist societies and the emancipatory history of Central European nations in the creation of a transnational European society.
The aim of this program, then, is to create a public deliberative platform for raising awareness through the use of national history and memory while at the same time placing national history into a broader transregional, European and cosmopolitan democratic order and pluralist coexistence. At the same time, it maintains and strengthens the collective self-image and confidence in the direction of understanding of its own role and responsibilities in the formation of a global human history. This implies the creation of social consciousness which will be able to critically use national history in order to promote the cultural development of one's country. At the beginning of the 21st century, this development cannot ignore the facts of multiculturalism, fluidity, and intersectionality of citizenship, belonging and identity. The research program therefore aims to develop a solidarity based model of social contract as the obligatory element of the development of citizenship and human rights that is integrated in multiple spheres of public and private life.
Socioeconomic aims of the Research Program (summary)
-development of a new conceptual model of citizenship and ethical entity of Slovene postnational society;
-development of a responsible social attitude of national and transnational coexistence;
- development of the parameters for an active, emancipatory and solidarity based
aspects of cognitive, communicative and ethical parameters to both implement and promote the cohesiveness of a postnational society;
- critical reflextion, evaluation and promotion of the Enlightenment ideals of scientific revolutionizing of knowledge and empowerment of humanist perspectives in light of specific challenges to national culture
