The focus

The world is going through a triple crisis of finance, development and environment. These areas seem disparate, but interact with each other in powerful ways, and reflect major structural imbalances between finance and the real economy; between the developed countries and poor developing societies, between actors on local and national levels; and between human political and economic systems on the one hand and the earth’s ecosystems on the other.

The triple crisis is further compounded by demographic shifts in which massive numbers of unemployed youths migrate from less developed countries in search of improved livelihoods, while developed countries face the challenge of aging populations and shortages of labour. The imbalances at stake lead to geopolitical conflict, food shortages, threats to human security and political unrest. New forms of governance and new economic powers, which challenge existing hegemonies, are emerging. The evolving polarities, scope and dynamics of politics on a global scale bring new actors, alliances and modes of engagement into play, which are in urgent need of investigation and research.

On this background the research priority initiative has its thematic focus on three broad areas:

• New global actors
• Dynamics of fragility and struggles over public authority
• Global inqualities

These three topical issues are in urgent need of investigation and research: the shifting balance of economic and political power in a rapidly changing the world as well as the new social actors including, the impact of the new social medias, are dimensions of the new social realities at global, national and regional level; dynamics of fragility lead to struggles over public authority in many parts of the world and challenge a state-centred view of the world; and processes of globalisation produce not just income inequality but also new social and political inequalities along dimensions such as gender, ethnicity and religion that have challenged the existing social order and fuelled new collective responses.

The three areas can be understood and analysed in isolation, but they are also strongly linked. New global actors are part of the dynamics of fragility and have an impact on global and local inequality. The dynamics of fragility and the rise of new forms of public authority lead to formation of new global actors, just as new patterns of inequality set the scene for new global actors and alliances.

The objective

The research activities planned within the research initiative on "The Dynamics of Globalisation, Inequality and New Processes of International Interaction" will bring together and strengthen research activities on processes of globalisation in joint efforts among scholars from four Departments at RUC. The research priority area brings together groups of researchers from the four Departments who have agreed to cooperate within the above-mentioned three thematic areas. By doing this and by bringing in new PhD students and post-docs scholars through the research applications we aim at placing globalisation and its consequences for the citizens high on the research agenda at Roskilde University as well as establishing a stronger research-based teaching on globalisation and its social, economic and political implications at the curriculum of the university.