From the IGN

The IGN is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.

In September, the institute will host its 5th international research conference. As part of this conference, we will be presenting our latest book at a public evening event on 24 September. The book features contributions not only from current and former IGN staff but also from many renowned social scientists from across the German-speaking world (and beyond).

We warmly invite all members of the Department of Socioeconomics, as well as all colleagues at WU, to this event and look forward to raising a glass with you afterwards to celebrate the IGN’s anniversary.

In mid-July 2026, Julian Niederhauser joined the team at the Institute for Social Change and Sustainability (IGN) as a postdoctoral researcher. His research focuses on socio-ecological transformation and authoritarianism from a social science perspective.

In his doctoral thesis, recently submitted to Goethe University Frankfurt am Main under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Dennis Eversberg, he examines anti-transformative attitudes in the context of the climate crisis. Prior to joining the IGN, Julian Niederhauser was a doctoral fellow and, subsequently, coordinator of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation's Research Training Group "Crisis and Socio-Ecological Transformation". He has also taught as a lecturer at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Vienna and at the BFI Vienna University of Applied Sciences. He is co-editor and contributing author of the edited volume “Struggles for Transformation: Critical Analyses and Interventions on the Socio-Ecological Crisis”, and has recently published the book chapter “The Potential Fossil Fascist: Traits of a Climate-Rebellious Attitude Syndrome”. His current research explores subject-related dimensions of societal militarisation.

We warmly welcome Julian to the IGN and look forward to our future collaboration!

NEU: Institutsportrait

Das IGN hat ein aktuelles Institutsportrait herausgegeben, das einen Überblick über das wissenschaftliche Selbstverständnis des IGN, dessen Mitarbeiter*innen, sowie die Forschungsprojekte und Publikationen der letzten sechs Jahr beinhaltet.

Eine PDF-Version des Institutsportrait kann über diesen Link heruntergeladen werden.

NEW PUBLICATION

Issue: "Kurswechsel 2/2021 – Ambivalente Demokratie" Herausgeber: Felix Butzlaff

Haben Par­la­men­te und Par­ti­zi­pa­ti­on in Zei­ten von Popu­lis­mus und Pan­de­mie aus­ge­dient? In wel­chem Ver­hält­nis ste­hen Demo­kra­ti­sie­rungs­for­de­run­gen und auto­ri­tä­re Ten­den­zen? Wie hat das Kri­sen­jahr 2020 unse­re Vor­stel­lun­gen von Demo­kra­tie ver­scho­ben? Die­se Fra­ge wer­den im Kurs­wech­sel 2/​​2021 the­ma­ti­siert und kri­tisch analysiert.

The table of contents and the Edi­to­ri­al can be found online.

Call for Papers

The IGN is glad to adverise and to circulate this Call for Papers for an international, two-day research workshop on the topic of Can we Experiment ourselves out of the Crisis? Scope, Limits and Blind Spots of Urban, Experimental Responses to Climate Change, which will take place on November 18-19, 2021. As the title suggests, the workshop is concerned with understanding, locating, and theorizing current portrayals of the city as a key laboratory for tackling social-ecological crises – climate change in particular. Some distinguished speakers like Harriet Bulkeley, Cordula Kropp and John Meyer have already confirmed their participation. Here you can find the detailed program.

The deadline for abstracts is April 15, 2021. If you have any questions, please contact Margaret Haderer(margaret.haderer@wu.ac.at) or Hauke Dannemann (hauke.dannemann@wu.ac.at).

Should you find this event to be of interest for other colleagues, feel free to share it.

02/07/2020

2nd EDITION

Ingolfur Blühdorn / Felix Butzlaff / Michael Deflorian / Daniel Hausknost / Mirijam Mock

Nachhaltige Nicht-Nachhaltigkeit. Warum die ökologische Transformation der Gesellschaft nicht stattfindet. Transcript Verlag, 2020.

Auch wenn Umweltbewegungen »Weiter so ist keine Option! Wende oder Ende!«fordern und der Begriff der Nachhaltigkeit voll im Mainstream angekommen ist – diemoderne Gesellschaft verteidigt ihren Wohlstand und Lebensstil entschiedener denn je. Beharrlich wird eine Politik der Nicht-Nachhaltigkeit betrieben, und die Konjunktur des Rechtspopulismus signalisiert zudem eine deutliche Abkehr vom ökologisch-demokratischen Projekt vergangener Jahrzehnte. Dieser Band stellt grundlegende Annahmen der Nachhaltigkeitsdebatte in Frageund skizziert neue sozialwissenschaftliche Forschungsperspektiven, um die eigenartige Fortdauer der Nicht-Nachhaltigkeit zu erhellen.

Hier finden Sie den Link zur neuen Leseprobe.

NEW PUBLICATION

Ingolfur Blühdorn / Felix Butzlaff / Michael Deflorian / Daniel Hausknost / Mirijam Mock

Nachhaltige Nicht-Nachhaltigkeit. Warum die ökologische Transformation der Gesellschaft nicht stattfindet. Transcript Verlag, 2020.

Auch wenn Umweltbewegungen »Weiter so ist keine Option! Wende oder Ende!«fordern und der Begriff der Nachhaltigkeit voll im Mainstream angekommen ist – diemoderne Gesellschaft verteidigt ihren Wohlstand und Lebensstil entschiedener denn je. Beharrlich wird eine Politik der Nicht-Nachhaltigkeit betrieben, und die Konjunktur des Rechtspopulismus signalisiert zudem eine deutliche Abkehr vom ökologisch-demokratischen Projekt vergangener Jahrzehnte. Dieser Band stellt grundlegende Annahmen der Nachhaltigkeitsdebatte in Frageund skizziert neue sozialwissenschaftliche Forschungsperspektiven, um die eigenartige Fortdauer der Nicht-Nachhaltigkeit zu erhellen.

Please find here the video

NEW PUBLICATION

Special Issue: "Democratization beyond the Post-Democratic Turn. Political Participation between Empowerment and Abuse" Guest Editors: Ingolfur Blühdorn & Felix Butzlaff (2020)

In the issue, we explore changing understandings of participation in contemporary Western representative democracies through the analytical lens of the concept of the post-democratic-turn. We investigate technology-based, market-based, and expert-led innovations that claim to enhance democratic participation and to provide policy legitimation. We review these changing understandings of participation in light of their contribution to further democratization. The issue addresses how under post-democratic conditions the simulative performance of autonomy and subjectivity has become central to democratic participation. It emphasizes that what in established perspectives on democratization might appear as an abuse of participation, through the lens of a post-democratic-turn might be perceived as emancipatory and liberating.

NEW PUBLICATION

Special Issue: "Beyond the environmental state? The political prospects of a sustainability transformation" Guest editors: Daniel Hausknost & Marit Hammond (2020)

About half a century ago, modern democratic states started to respond to environmental pressures that had arisen in the wake of rapid industrialization. Initially, governments set up environmental ministries and agencies and issued legislation to control the pollution of air and water and to manage industrial processes, waste and toxic substances. Later, states expanded their activities to intervene more deeply into the energy and resource flows of their countries, for example by setting up recycling schemes, promoting and subsidizing environmentally efficient technologies and investing in the environmental education of their citizens. Typically, they also released budgets for environmental research activities and created more nature reserves and national parks. More recently still, states began to horizontally integrate environmental concerns into other policy areas, to set up mechanisms for public participation in selected environmental policy decisions and to commit to national goals for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Overall, states have developed a host of coordinated activities to manage and steer societal-environmental interactions on various scales.