SOS4democracy: Social sciences for democracy: A training program for improving research on illiberal systems and finding ways to build more robust democracies

ABOUT THE PROJECT

The turn to illiberalism, often combined with populist anti-European Union rhetoric, represents a serious threat to the future development of the European community. Although most of the recent research on illiberal politics focused on Poland and Hungary, we have seen how illiberal trends emerged in many other countries, including Slovenia, Italy, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Turkey.

Despite the persistent presence of illiberal practices, there is still limited research capacity to address these issues in South-Eastern Europe. The main reasons for the limited research on illiberal trends are the lack of institutional support for new interdisciplinary research programs for studying illiberalism, the lack of support for intersectoral cooperation to include the non-academic sector in research, and the lack of training programs to better equip staff members from the academic and non-academic sector for conducting research on illiberalism.

The project “Social Sciences for Democracy: A training program to improve research on illiberal systems and find ways to build more robust democracies” aims to create an alliance of research and higher education institutions, civil society associations and media organizations to strengthen scientific research on the recent turn to authoritarian systems in South-Eastern Europe. In addition, the project will develop a new training program that will strengthen the critical research of the recent turn to authoritarian systems. This four-year project is coordinated by Vasja Badalič.

Project Type: HORIZON Coordination and Support Action

Project duration: 1. 9. 2023 – 31. 8. 2027

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WORK PACKAGES

The project is divided into seven work packages:

illiberal systems, emergency politics, and the centralization of power,
illiberal systems and the suppression of opponents,
illiberal systems resistance, and the rule of law,
transfer of know-how: advanced research methods, practical skills, public advocacy, media training,
training to build R&I capacity,
dissemination, Exploitation, and Communication,
management.