Forschungsprojekt

Transformations of Concepts and Institutions in the European Polity (TRACE)

  • Forschungsteam im Rahmen der Finnish Distinguished Professorship“ (FiDiPro), Academy of Finland
  • Laufzeit: 2015–2019
  • Antragstellerin: Prof. Dr. Kari Palonen
  • beteiligte Professor*innen: Prof. Dr. Niilo Kauppi, Prof. Dr. Claudia Wiesner, Dr. Taru Haapala

The University of Jyväskylä invites Research Professor Niilo Kauppi (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and University of Strasbourg, France) as a Finnish Distinguished Professor for the years 2015-2019 with the project “Transformations of Concepts and Institutions in the European Polity” (TRACE). The project will be led by a Research team. Its core consists of three persons at different career stages and with slightly different research profiles that relate to Kauppi’s work in manifold respects and different combinations. PD Claudia Wiesner will be Senior Research Fellow, PhD Taru Haapala is Postdoctoral Fellow, and Prof. Kari Palonen will be contributing as Professor Emeritus. All will be funded for the entire FiDiPro period in their research activities.

The title of the FiDiPro project summarizes the research profile for the upcoming years: “Transformations of Concepts and Institutions in the European Polity” refers to a constellation of mutually linked research topics that relate to the fields of higher education, knowledge production, transnational exchanges, EU and European integration, concepts, debates, and conceptual and intellectual history. Research will concentrate on four interrelated topics: 1) the analysis of the history and contemporary forms of political thought and concepts, 2) the analysis of debates as the uniting theme of parliamentary and university cultures, 3) the conceptual study of European Union politics with the focus on political agency and rhetorical strategies in the power struggles in the EU and in its relations to the member states, 4) the ‘new geopolitics’ of conceptual and intellectual transfers.

The project is associated with the Finnish Centre in Political Thought and Conceptual Change. It is directly connected to three interconnected research fields, namely conceptual transfers between different contexts, links between political and academic cultures as well as conceptualisation of the European Union as a new type of polity. In all fields there are first rank scholars at the University of Jyväskylä, who will be included in the broader group of cooperation partners.