• The Society of the Federal Republic of Germany
• Nation and Society
• Theory and History of Violence
• Fellows' Research
• Doctoral Candidates
• Completed Projects

Rules for Ensuring Good Academic Practice (PDF)

Research and scholarship at the Hamburg Institute for Social Research are organized within research units, which are intended to be contexts for discussion and cooperation. These research units have emerged in the course of the Institute’s development, rather than reflecting predefined intentions or research objectives. The heterogeneity of these units is designed to promote intersecting and overlapping research interests. Currently, there are three such units:

The Society of the Federal Republic of Germany

The various research projects pursued in this research unit aim to achieve a better understanding of the Federal Republic of Germany, a society that must deal with a unique historic burden and with immense challenges for the future. What this perspective reveals is a process of social transformation, in which previously unquestioned assumptions fade and new social orders take shape. This transformation pertains to Germany’s entire societal structure, from the organization of the social security system, to the structure of the civil service sector, to the regulation of labor relations. 
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Nation and Society

The projects pursued in this research unit relate to the processes of political societalization (Vergesellschaftung) and political community building (Vergemeinschaftung); they address the theoretical, historical, and current empirical conditions influencing these processes and focus on their historical and contemporary trajectories and practical use as well as on how they are defined, formulated, and institutionalized. Key issues of both empirical observation and theoretical interest include the changing organization of political power in societies and communities and the interplay of these organizational forms with the justification and maintenance of collective moral systems and the bonds, values, and commitments that accompany them.
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Theory and History of Violence

This unit focuses on violence and how it has been experienced in the twentieth century as well as on the analysis of military, political, and societal developments that are frequently referred with the formula “terror and war in the twenty-first century”. Studies on various aspects of these themes aim to promote dialogue between historians and social scientists; this goal is also pursued in workshops and (international) conferences convened by the unit’s staff.
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