EXC 2035: The Politics of Inequality: Perceptions, Participation and Policies

不平等作为一种社会现象，受到政治结构和过程的深刻影响。政治和政策可以加剧、延续或缓解不平等。对不平等的研究是社会科学中一个久负盛名的领域，但现有的研究忽视了不平等的政治原因和后果。出于这个原因，我们的卓越集群将专注于不平等政治。我们的基本研究目标是了解哪些社会、政治和制度条件解释了为什么给定的资源分配在某些情况下变得政治化，而在另一些情况下不变。更具体地说，我们的目标是解释公民何时以及为什么认为特定的分配是“不平等”的，以及这些感知在多大程度上塑造了个人对政府政策的偏好。我们将考察与不平等相关的公众不满通过政治参与和动员表达的条件，探索政治家对公众诉求和政治动员努力的反应，并确定政治决策对结构性不平等的影响。当代时期将是调查的主要时期。我们的集群将采用全球视角，而不是将其分析范围仅限于西方民主国家。为了通过对政治进程的跨学科关注来扩大不平等经典研究的视角，我们的分组将整合康斯坦茨大学政治学、社会学、经济学、经验主义教育研究、语言学和心理学研究人员的现有专业知识和努力。此外，社会科学和语言学之间的合作有望提供关于语言在关于不平等的政治话语中的作用的新见解。我们的杰出课程《不平等的政治：认知、参与和政策》将建立在康斯坦茨大学现有结构的基础上，并进一步发展。不平等问题已成为决策科学研究生院(GSDS)研究方案的一个贯穿各领域的中心主题，该方案自2012年以来一直由德国卓越倡议资助。我们建议的联网所涉及的主要调查员，大部分都是政府物料供应处的首席调查员。他们不仅对从不同角度研究不平等作出了个人和国际上可见的重大贡献，而且已经在跨越部门和学科界限的联合研究项目中进行合作。我们的集群将整合这些研究倡议，进一步加强科学合作，并通过在康斯坦茨推进创新和跨学科的顶级研究来提升大学的国际研究形象。

Inequality as a social phenomenon is profoundly influenced by political structures and processes.Politics and policies can exacerbate, perpetuate or mitigate inequality. The study of inequality is a well-established field in the social sciences, but existing research has neglected the political causes and consequences of inequality. For this reason, our Cluster of Excellence will focus on the politics of inequality. Our fundamental research objective is to understand which social, political and institutional conditions explain why a given distribution of resources becomes politicised in some instances, but not in others. More specifically, we aim to explain when and why citizens perceive particular distributions as “inequality” and the extent to which these perceptions shape individual preferences regarding government policies. We will examine the conditions under which public grievances related to inequality are expressed through political participation and mobilisation, explore politicians’ reactions to public demands and political mobilisation efforts, and determine the effects of political decisions on structural inequalities."Perceptions", "participation" and "policies" are the three research areas of the cluster. The contemporary period will be the principal period of investigation. Instead of restricting its scope of analysis to only Western democracies, our cluster will adopt a global perspective. In order to expand the perspective of classical research on inequality through an interdisciplinary focus on political processes, our cluster will consolidate the existing expertise and efforts of researchers in political science, sociology, economics, empirical education research, linguistics and psychology at the University of Konstanz. Furthermore, the collaboration between social science and linguistics promises to deliver new insights regarding the role of language in political discourses about inequality.Our Cluster of Excellence "The Politics of Inequality: Perceptions, Participation and Policies" will build on and further develop existing structures at the University of Konstanz. The topic of inequality has emerged as a central cross-cutting theme in the research programme of the Graduate School of Decision Sciences (GSDS), which has been funded through the German Excellence Initiative since 2012. The majority of the principal investigators (PIs) involved in our proposed cluster have been PIs in the GSDS. Not only have they made significant individual and internationally visible contributions to the study of inequality from different perspectives, they are already collaborating in joint research projects that span departmental and disciplinary boundaries. Our cluster will integrate these research initiatives, further intensify scientific collaboration, and enhance the university’s international research profile by advancing innovative and interdisciplinary top-level research in Konstanz.