Disciplines

• Economics

  Economic factors such as value added or job figures are a reflection of countless individual decisions made by a large number of actors operating in numerous realms of life. The task of economics is to reveal the conditions, impulses and mechanisms underlying these decisions and the corresponding outcomes, and to elucidate their dynamics in order to help design and shape conditions facilitating rational economic policy decisions. These tasks pose a considerable challenge since the circumstances in which both economic choices are taken and their analysis has to be conducted are subject to inexorable, incessant change. We are still far from completely understanding phenomena such as artificial intelligence and the declining importance of multilateralism as well as their economic and societal repercussions. Such changes call for a compass to guide economic policy.

  Due to the complex interactions between variegated individual choices and other factors, the identification of causal relations poses a particular challenge for economists. Most importantly, in the social sciences empirical research on causes and effects is frequently only able to employ a non-experimental study design. State-of-the-art methods of empirical economic research, econometrics and, not least, experimental economics offer a wide spectrum of tools, however, to confront these identification problems. Against this background, the Fritz Thyssen Foundation supports the analysis of economic relations that are not yet sufficiently understood as well as their consequences for the economy, society and political system. At the heart of support are theoretical works or empirical projects with convincing strategies for identifying causal relationships. The investigation of fundamental economic questions are at the forefront of funding action. Crucial aspects include relevance to society and the novelty of insights generated by funded research.

  Economics inherently overlaps with neighbouring disciplines such as social sciences, jurisprudence or political science. Interdisciplinary research is therefore assigned eligibility for support on par with distinctly economic research projects.

• Jurisprudence

  Jurisprudence scholarship today faces tasks that are difficult to reconcile with one another. While traditional systematic and doctrinal work on statutory texts continues to be of great practical and scholarly importance in light of the proliferation of legislation and the abundance of case law in systems governed by law and the possibility of legal remedies, the law’s function as an instrument with which to shape, structure and design is increasingly coming to the fore. How can lawmakers effectively achieve their objectives? Where are laws and regulations needed in the first place? To what extent are deregulation and self-regulation required? Which sanctions – judicial and extra-judicial – hold out the promise of success?

  The answers to these and other questions can today only be provided by the field of jurisprudence in a theoretically informed manner and through an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary discourse. This discourse in particular encompasses economics, political science, philosophy, and sociology.

  At the same time, Union law is gaining increasing influence within the European multi-level order. The European Union is a complex association of states, constitutional, administrative and judicial actors that is over and over again instilled with life through the intricate interplay of diverse actors, integration techniques and instruments. Indeed, it must be continually reconstituted in this way. The resulting process of Europeanisation of national legal orders is far from complete.

  International and transnational law also remain of great importance, not least because of numerous agreements and important international organisations to which Germany is a party. The global resurgence of political authoritarianism, however, has in many countries led to a weakening of democratic and rule-of-law structures as well as a relativisation of international legal standards. Jurisprudence science must engage with these developments and reflect on counter-strategies.

  Driven on by digitalisation and globalisation, institutional change and transformation are taking place not only in Central and Eastern European countries, but also in Germany and Western industrialised states – above all the United States – as well as in Asia, particularly in regions dominated by China and India. In this respect as well, jurisprudence research faces entirely new challenges.

  The Fritz Thyssen Foundation assigns priority to projects that go beyond traditional, domestic, systematic-dogmatic work and engage with cross-border issues in a broader sense. Inter-, trans- and intradisciplinarity, internationalisation, comparative law, and engagement with fundamental principles are key terms in this respect. Whether projects are primarily focused on private, criminal, or public law, or on substantive or procedural law, is of no relevance. What matters is a functional perspective: the foundation seeks to contribute to a deeper understanding of the role of law in a modern, diverse, and internationally interconnected industrial and knowledge-based society.

• Political Science

  At the close of the twentieth century, the triumphal advance of liberal democracy seemed unstoppable, and the resolution of global problems within a rule-based international order appeared within reach. Just one generation later, however, it is authoritarian systems that are registering the strongest growth; multilateral organizations find themselves called into question; and with Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, interstate violence has once again become a problem of European politics.

  At the same time, liberal democracies also find themselves exposed to that internal challenge known as authoritarian populism, which is bound up with the erosion of rule-of-law institutions in member states of the European Union as well as with the questioning of democratic procedures in the United States of America.

  In this context, the digital transformation of the political public sphere has taken on particular urgency, for platform economies, algorithmically structured attention, generative artificial intelligence, and the attendant possibilities for disinformation are altering the conditions of democratic will-formation and, in authoritarian regimes, are advancing into instruments of surveillance.

  In light of this, the question arises as to what capacity for influence politics retains in the globalized world of the twenty-first century: How can it deal with the intensifying climate crisis, whose ecological ramifications have long since been felt across many other policy areas? How does it respond to recurring economic and financial crises and to migratory movements that raise questions of distribution and identity alike? How does it cope with the acceleration of processes of social change – from demographic developments through the transformation of values to the question of intergenerational justice? What future awaits an international order grounded in the norms of international law, in the face of terrorist threats and imperial tendencies? And how can liberal democracy overcome the challenges to its legitimacy and contribute to solving the problems named above?

  Answering these questions calls not only for comparative studies but also for interdisciplinary approaches. For if the rationality of action can be presupposed less and less, and is supplanted by affective, identity-political polarization, then liberal democracy – oriented as it is toward reasoned procedures – must close its emotional-political gap, and to do so it must gain clarity about its own social-psychological preconditions.

• Sociology

  Ever since its inception, sociology has viewed itself as a key discipline for exploring, in particular, the transformation of modern societies. The concepts and categories of sociology largely originate in the apogee of industrial society. In this respect, sociology itself is a phenomenon that not only investigates social change in modern societies, but is also itself part and parcel of this very change. Especially now, many of its categories are coming under pressure to change due to radical transformations in various areas of society – not only scientific categories, but also forms of societal self-perception ranging across a number of fields.

  The Fritz Thyssen Foundation aims to take this period of watershed change seriously and, in particular, to support social science research projects that address this pressure for change both at the level of the research subject matter and at the level of research itself. All the repercussions of this transition need to be explored; not only the world of work is affected, but also, for instance, biographical careers and family structures are being altered, dramatic changes in mentality are taking place, while new lifestyle patterns and modes of conduct are emerging. Investigations of new forms of earning a living and new vocational paths, as well as of changes in traditional biographic patterns, leisure-time activities, gender relations and public debates are all part of this complex.

  Of particular importance at the same time are relations between the economic, political, legal, scientific, educational, technical and cultural logics underpinning societies, whose complexities are making them increasingly unmanageable and facing them with new challenges. Studies are accordingly encouraged that address these general dimensions of change through concrete research topics. A wide variety of theoretical, methodological, and methodical orientations should be employed. In the ideal case, sociological research projects should devote particular attention to reflections on their own position as observers. Both very specific studies as well as those that are of a more basic, fundamental nature are equally welcome.

  In the field of sociology the Fritz Thyssen Foundation assigns high priority to projects which can contribute to our understanding of present-day social change in the light of possible future developments.