WORK PACKAGES

The project reverses the gaze by applying three mid-level concepts derived from the Global South – “re-tribalisation”, “political society”, and “the cunning state” – to political crises in Europe. It asks how useful these concepts are to describe, analyse and interpret these crises. Our three European empirical case studies are Austria (right-wing populism), Italy (social welfare spending) and Switzerland (citizenship and migration). The case studies will offer innovative perspectives to the cases. The question we ask is whether and how the perspectives brought into view can help us shed more light on similar crisis phenomena. Methodologically, we seek to draw lessons from operationalizing an epistemological practice of reciprocal comparison. On a theoretical level, the project asks how reversing the gaze might contribute to particular relational approaches to area studies (and disciplinary comparison).