The research area Work, Welfare State, Inequality focuses on the public regulation of market-induced and life situation-related inequalities and the associated conflicts. Our research programme understands social security as a core element of political culture and investigates welfare state regimes as central social norming and relational mechanisms of modern societies and arenas of social opportunity distribution. It thus profiles security and inequality as leading categories of contemporary historical social analysis.

The research focus examines the contemporary history of art and the art business in its democratic-historical, socio-historical and socio-political contexts. The research program analyzes artists, the art trade and art recipients as social and economic actors in the field of tension between aesthetics, market events and public attempts at regulation. It also focuses on the social structure and interest politics of art associations and agents of public and private art promotion.

European history since 1945 has been shaped by an array of multilateral developments: international politics, European integration, the effects of decolonisation, the Cold War, and a fundamental diversification of European societies. Our research projects analyse how European societies struggled to establish conceptual orders and interpretive authority in their encounters with these various influences.

The projects in this field of research examine the formation of unequal geopolitical relations between European societies and the states in Africa and Southeast Asia that have become independent since the 1950s. Focusing on expert knowledge, access to raw materials and (post-)colonial production structures, our research examines how and in what form the power asymmetries between Europe and the now sovereign states continued in the context of their partly fragile sovereignty and the genesis of development aid policies.

Migration and mobility are themes that are central to society’s self-understanding. We examine these subjects from a historical perspective and ask how the mobility of people – be it labour migration, displacement or student mobility – has transformed societies in Germany and Europe since 1945. We focus on questions of belonging and unequal treatment, as well as the distinction between ‘desirable’ and ‘undesirable’ forms of mobility.

In der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts wurde vieles, was später als „populäre Kultur“ oder „Massenkultur“ galt, noch als Devianz skandalisiert. Um 1956 wurden diese neuen Ausdrucksformen als Jugenddelinquenz skandalisiert und kriminalisiert.

Economic processes always involve the consumption or conversion of energy. Historically, the composition of primary energy sources has changed significantly. Since the emergence of the environmental movement and mounting concerns about global resource limits in the 1970s, the relation between economy and ecology has become a central social and political concern. Recently, its relevance has become even more pronounced due to the effects of climate change. How did national governments and international organizations try to ensure sufficient energy supplies?

What role did ideology and rule play in the everyday lives of GDR citizens? What social and cultural transformation processes can be observed? The topics examined here include, for example, the social history of the SED dictatorship, the transformation of the GDR state party, the history of the BND after 1968 and ideals of beauty.