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The project aims at a comprehensive and systematic computer-assisted compilation and analysis of data on protest events. The information is primarily drawn from newspapers.

First, the data bank will allow for longitudinal and cross-section analyses of protest events. General theories and hypotheses about the genesis, developmental dynamics (e.g. waves and cycles) of protest and protest movements will be tested. Moreover, the distribution of protests in terms of their content, form, duration, location, targets, socio-structural characteristics of the carriers, etc. will be studied. Finally, these features of protest will be correlated.

My research explores self-perception, social conflict and city reform in two metropolitan cities between 1890 and 1920. Chicago and Moscow exemplify two different ways to modernity: the American and the Russian. Both cities expanded rapidly during the period under investigation. In their midst, social conflict was more pronounced than in other places. But conflict also led to dynamics of reform that will be explored in a comparative perspective. The study is an effort in comparative and transnational urban history.

The project investigates how and under which social, cultural and economic conditions specific models of preventive health have developed since the interwar period. It aims to investigate how chronic diseases were handled, here in particular the prevention of cardio-vascular diseases, which is paradigmatic of today’s preventive health model.
Methodically the project takes up current approaches from the History of Science and administration, and additionally from Oral History. Concerning the national-comparative questions approaches from comparative and transfer history are to be taken into account. The investigation is based on a critical analysis of archival material and published documents.

Theoretical background and objectives

Incidents that happened several hundred years ago still have a great influence on the world we live in today. For example, Nunn (2008) found a direct connection between the degree of African slave trade between 1400 and 1900 and the current economic situation of a region today. Other studies found a positive link between the presence of a missionary before 1904 and literacy rates in villages in Africa and South America today (Cage & Rueda, 2016; Caicedo, 2014).

Christoph Haug was a doctoral researcher in the research group on "Civil Society, Citizenship and Political Mobilization in Europe" from 2005 - 2010. His PhD-Thesis at Freie Universität Berlin is about decision-making in meetings of the global justice movement and financed by a grant from the Hans-Böckler-Foundation. At WZB Christoph Haug was working with the German team of the international DEMOS-Project (http://demos.iue.it/).

Taking into account the increasing demands of institutional reforms – especially on the EU level – approaches towards a participatory democracy stemming from the global justice movement will be observed in six European countries (UK, ES, FR, CH, DE, IT) and on the transnational level. Object of research is the movements’ criticism of existing democracy and the counter model of a „globalization from below“. At the same time social movements’ capacity to deploy participatory models in their processes of self organization will be analyzed. Thus the project aims at contributing to the knowledge about viable realizations of deliberative democracy. Structural prerequisites to effective models of deliberation shall be disclosed by transnational comparison.

Die Wahrnehmung von Protesten ist vermittelt durch ihre Spiegelung in Massenmedien. JournalistInnen können in der Berichterstattung über Protest notwendigerweise nur einen Ausschnitt des Geschehens abbilden. Wie dieser Ausschnitt gewählt wird, bestimmt das Bild von Protestereignissen in großen Teilen der Bevölkerung. Dabei versuchen die beteiligten Akteure, d.h. in erster Linie Protestierende, Polizei und politische EntscheidungsträgerInnen, ihre Deutung der Ereignisse durchzusetzen. Selten wurde Protesten so viel mediale Aufmerksamkeit zuteil wie im Kontext des G8-Gipfel in Heiligendamm im Juni 2007. Ziel des Projektes ist es, die mediale Konstruktion der Proteste gegen das Regierungstreffens nachzuvollziehen.

Das Projekt behandelt die Verbindung zwischen:

1. ethnischer Migration und Bevölkerungsverschiebungen,

2. der Bildung von Nationalstaaten und

3. Systemen des Eigentumsrechts in Form eines historisch angelegten Vergleichs zwischen Polen, der Tschechoslowakei und Israel/ Mandatsgebiet Palästina.