DEVIANT – Democracy, Elites, Values, and Individuals’ Attitudes toward Norm Transgressions

• Giovanni D’Agostino, Tobias Kleineidam, Hannes Bey 

This project will study how citizens' norms shape their reactions to political campaigns, particularly when politicians engage in negative campaigning and violate democratic or cultural norms. By examining these interactions, we aim to understand how different forms of norm transgressions influence trust in politicians, political evaluations, and voting intentions. The findings will enhance our understanding of the role of social norms in political behavior and the broader impact of campaign strategies on democratic attitudes.

How Extremist Content Filters into Mainstream Information Diets

• Dr. Ernesto de León, Mónika Simon

Does what happens in the darkest corners of the internet stay in the shadows? This project explores how extremist narratives and content on Dutch Telegram channels during the COVID-19 pandemic infiltrated individual-level information consumption. By tracing the key information sources linked within these channels, we investigate whether and how (if at all!) they make their way into individuals’ information diets. This effort not only contributes to our understanding of problematic content by combining aggregate and individual-level behavioural data that are usually analyzed in isolation, but it helps in mapping existing hyperpartisan, alternative, and conspiracy media in the Netherlands.

Di/WAR

• Dr. Beste Işleyen

Dî/WAR (‘wall’ in Kurdish) is interested in understanding how the recently erected Syria-Turkey wall is perceived and experienced by citizens of Turkey living in the country’s Kurdish-majority border towns. It combines academic research (interviews + participant observation) with artistic work in the form of a documentary entitled ‘Dî/WAR. Beste İşleyen will be responsible for the overall coordination of the project, while Ahmet Hakan Akar will be the director of the documentary and the leader of the documentary team.

Teaching Peace: Enhancing future Teachers’ Readiness and Competencies to teach about Conflict

• Dr. Line Kuppens

Teaching Peace" explores how professional development can better equip teachers to critically and constructively address conflict in the classroom through multi-perspective pedagogies. By comparing the cases of Kenya and the Netherlands, the study further examines how geographical proximity and the passage of time since a conflict's end shape teachers' attitudes toward teaching about past or ongoing violence.

In-group Humiliation, Conspiracy Beliefs, and Support for Violence

• Dr. Liesbeth Mann, Myrto Pantazi

Conspiracy beliefs are disruptive as they are associated with intergroup conflict, radicalisation, rejection of democracy, and violence. In this project we will test, in different cultural contexts, whether feelings of humiliation of the in-group caused by an out-group predict conspiracy beliefs. Additionally, we test whether an out-group apology about the humiliating event reduces conspiracy beliefs, by restoring the power relation between groups.

Investigating Suicide as a Social Outcome of Anti-Black Racist Violence

• Jan Mendes

This research examines whether and how a sense of anti-Black racism’s endlessness might lead some Black people in Canada to commit suicide. What I propose here is that racist violence is averted by willfully enacting violence against the self through an autonomous Black Death. In this way, this research explores how the “group conflict” of structural inequity that fuels violence amongst individuals (e.g. everyday racism in public space) results in suicide as an individual response to conflict.

State of Extraction: The Militarization of Environmental Governance in Ecuador

• Jorge Nuñez Vega

State of Extraction investigates how Ecuador’s declaration of “domestic armed conflict” under the war on drugs has been used to delay compliance with a democratic referendum to stop oil extraction in the Amazon and restrict mining in the Andean Highlands. The project examines how environmental governance has been militarized and criminalized, making the defense of the rights of nature and Indigenous territories increasingly dangerous.

BRIDGES: Feminist Bridging Intersectional Divides to GEnerate Solidarity and Reduce Polarization

• Dr. Conny Roggeband, Aurora Perego

Rising political conflict in liberal democracies is marked by increasing polarization within civil society and political institutions. Gender-related issues and feminist politics not only shape ideological and affective polarization but are also polarized fields of contention. The project 'BRIDGES: Feminist BRidging Intersectional Divides to GEnerate Solidarity and Reduce Polarization' examines the roles of European feminist civil society organizations in polarization, particularly on social media, by exploring whether feminist CSOs bridge divides and foster solidarity to reduce polarization, or exacerbate political divisions. Combining a meta-analysis of existing literature with social media analysis, the project aims to examine cross-country patterns and to develop a theoretical model that deepens our understanding of the drivers of polarization, with specific insights into the role feminist CSOs play in political conflicts.

Contested Objects, Connected Histories

• Dr. Olga Sezneva

Contested Objects, Connected Histories explores the divergent paths of a pottery produced in Lower Silesia, a territory transferred from Germany to Poland in 1945. Positioned as ‘war restitution’ and embedded in both everyday life and collective memory, the pottery embodies the political process of forging two distinct collectives: Polish settlers and German expellees. In examining these paths and their differences, the project seeks to understand how the pottery may archive memory and mediate identity after occupation and displacement.

The new normal? Citizens’ Perceptions of digital aggression against politicians and journalists

• Dr. Emma van der Goot, Kathleen Beckers

This project examines citizens' perceptions of online aggression targeting politicians and journalists. Through an experimental design, we manipulate various forms of online aggression and investigate citizens’ acceptance of such behavior. We also analyze how witnessing aggression against an actor reflects not only on that actor but also on their medium or party, and on media and politics more broadly. We aim to provide insights into the public’s tolerance, the normalization of aggression, and its societal consequences.

Land-based accommodations at the Racial Commodity Frontier in South Africa

• Dr. Yves van Leynseele