Goethe-Universität Frankfurt – Normative Orders

The Normative Orders Research Centre and its associated research projects take an interdisciplinary approach, closely linking normative and empirical analyses to examine changes in orders and conceptions of order. The respective research projects range from new orders of digitality to questions of political trust, the democracy of the future, social cohesion, international cooperation, and global and climate justice. In the context of the Frankfurt branch of the Research Institute for Social Cohesion, particular emphasis is placed on researching social struggles for recognition and participation and the productive power that can arise from such social and political conflicts.

The Normative Orders Research Centre is at the heart of Goethe University's profile area ‘Global Orders and Social Transformations’ (Orders and Transformations for short), which deals with social orders and structures and their upheavals. Upheavals occur when existing structures no longer meet changing circumstances. This can be seen in areas as diverse as man-made climate change, financial crises, the coronavirus pandemic, growing social inequality and the global rise of right-wing populism, which is changing democratic orders, migration and the challenges associated with it, and the continuing inequalities between the sexes. The war in Ukraine will also bring about lasting changes to the international order. The research network examines the normative ideas that play a role in such processes and conflicts. The foundations of politics and law are analysed from the perspectives of the social sciences, law, economics and the humanities.