Dear Readers,
In this Quarterly Magazine we introduce you to ongoing research at the Centre that engages with a variety of political spaces and their implications for global cooperation. While often perceived geopolitically, there are many other important dimensions that structure political spaces. Research presented in this issue engages for example with the aspirational (Biswas), emotional and normative features of political spaces (Kluczewska, Sidhu), as well as with the meaning of this concept in the digital sphere (Aguerre and Canabarro). Spanning a wide range of topics, from the Indian-American Diaspora to women’s empowerment in Post-Soviet Tajikistan and public diplomacy in the international educational sector, as well as internet governance, these contributions show how these dimensions delineate political spaces and establish hierarchies within them by providing opportunities for inclusion and exclusion.
As further highlights, this issue includes an interview with Centre Co-director Tobias Debiel on the European Union’s ability to shape global politics and a special on the challenges posed by research cooperation with China in the current political situation (Ahlers and Heberer). Furthermore, you will find presentations of three fascinating fellow projects: critical fantasy studies as a new research agenda for investigating global crisis (Mert); internet governance of network neutrality and content – learning from German experience (Sautchuk Patrício); historical reflections on world order conceptions - liberal state, private property and legal reform in the late 19th century (Török). Conference reports on ‘Re-Imagining the Past’ and the Centre’s presentations at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) round off this issue.
We wish you a good read and a relaxing summer!
Sigrid Quack
Managing Director
Sigrid Quack is the Managing Director of the Käte Hamburger Kolleg/Centre for Global Cooperation Research (KHK/GCR21) and Professor of Sociology at the University of Duisburg-Essen. She can be reached at quack@gcr21.uni-due.de.
