Center for Advanced Studies (CAS) Research Focus Global Capitalism (LMU) - HD

According to the study released by Oxfam on 18 January 2016, the 62 richest people own as much as the poorest half of the world's population. It is thus no coincidence that the scholarly debate on worldwide inequality, its structural patterns and its process dynamics, has flared up once again. However, old instruments of analysis either strictly based on national societies or one-dimensionally focused on material resources no longer seem to be effective. The CAS Research Focus will center around the complex inequality dynamics in global capitalism. These are a result of the interplay between both intra and inter-societal inequality constellations. The Research Focus will center on questions of interdependency, connections and reciprocity between national and global inequality dynamics – both in the OECD world and in the "global south": are intra and inter-societal inequality reductions mutually exclusive? Must the reduction of inequalities in certain regions of the world go hand-in-hand with their increase in other societies? How do democracies (but also dictatorships) and capitalism function together? What descriptions can develop from an analysis of the capitalist (post-)modern era? And which concepts are suitable from an interdisciplinary perspective for describing, understanding and explaining them? | Laut der am 18. Januar 2016 veröffentlichten Oxfam-Studie besitzen die 62 reichsten Menschen so viel wie die ärmere Hälfte der Weltbevölkerung. Nicht von ungefähr ist auch die wissenschaftliche Debatte über die weltweite Ungleichheit, ihre Strukturmuster und Prozessdynamiken, neu entbrannt; gleichzeitig scheinen alte, streng nationalgesellschaftlich gerahmte oder eindimensional auf materielle Ressourcen fokussierte Analyse-Instrumente nicht mehr zu greifen. Im Mittelpunkt des CAS-Schwerpunkts stehen die komplexen Ungleichheitsdynamiken im globalen Kapitalismus. Diese ergeben sich aus einem Zusammenspiel inner- wie zwischengesellschaftlicher Ungleichheitskonstellationen. Der Fokus des Schwerpunkts wird auf Fragen der Verflechtungen, Verkopplungen und Wechselwirkungen zwischen nationalen und globalen Ungleichheitsdynamiken – sowohl in der OECD-Welt wie im "globalen Süden" liegen: Schließen sich inner- und zwischengesellschaftliche Ungleichheitsreduktion wechselseitig aus? Muss der Abbau von Ungleichheiten in bestimmten Weltregionen mit deren Zunahme in anderen Gesellschaften einhergehen? Wie gehen Demokratie (aber auch Diktatur) und Kapitalismus zusammen? Welche Beschreibungen kann eine Analyse der kapitalistischen (Post-)Moderne entwickeln? Und welche Konzepte sind aus einer interdisziplinären Perspektive geeignet, um diese beschreiben, verstehen und erklären zu können?

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Tradition and Transmission

Since the demise of state socialism in the late 1980s and early 1990s, global capitalism has changed its face and has developed with a dynamic unknown in previous decades. However, confronted with this dynamic of change, it seems that the social sciences have not adapted their analytical toolkit and are mostly operating with much the same categories as they did twenty years ago. The much questioned, but still dominant “methodological nationalism” may be the most prominent example of social sciences sticking to the concepts, categories, and perspectives developed in the course of post-WWII history – however, it is not the only case in point. Bringing together scholars from sociology, political science, economics, history, and literary studies, the conference aims at a critical reflection on and a collaborative revision of the analytical apparatus for the study of global capitalism in the 21st century.

11-15