Just Societies: People, Power, Politics

This theme examines political processes and systems through diverse disciplinary lenses, from local to supranational levels. It combines normative and empirical perspectives, with particular attention to vulnerable groups, indigenous peoples, and gendered aspects. The research addresses contemporary challenges to modern democratic societies, including democratic backsliding, polarisation within public debate, increasing inequalities, and climate change impacts. Key concepts explored include justice, equality, access, populism, polarisation, forms of citizenship and democratic participation, analysed within contexts of new technologies, climate change impacts, and shifts in global power dynamics. The theme also investigates arts and culture’s role in politics and participatory democracy.

Members

• Ritumbra Manuvie
• Martijn Boot
• Richard Jong A Pin
• Marlieke Wilders
• Yavuz Tuyloglu
• Huiyuan Pang (PhD student)
• Rimvyde Muzikeviciute-Oud (PhD student)
• Ao Yin (PhD student)

Project Showcases

Between 2022-2026, Dr. Ritumbra Manuvie will be a consortium partner in ELSA -NN Lab with multiple partners at UCG, UMCG, Hanze Uni.

The ELSA AI Lab Northern Netherlands (ELSA-NN) is committed to the promotion of healthy living, working and ageing. It is one of the five labs established under the NWO and Netherlands AI Coalition call to establish ‘Human-centred AI for an inclusive society - towards an ecosystem of Trust’.The consortium led by Senior Researcher  Mirjam Plantinga  from the UMCG and co-applicants from the University of Groningen, and the Hanze University of Applied Science is awarded a  2.2 million euro  grant for the lab. UCG lecturer  Dr. Ritumbra Manuvie  along with  Prof. Jeanne Mifsud Bonnici  (Faculty of Law) will be co-leading the research on legal and socio-political aspects.

In 2024, Dr. Marline Wilders and Dr. Marian Counihan have been awared an Erasmus+ grant for their project ACT UP! Active Citizenship through Theatre for Urban Politics.

The project aims to promote civic engagement and participation in response to the climate emergency and associated social impacts, thereby critically exploring how citizenship can be 'performed' in new ways focusing specifically on urban space as a site for democratic expression and negotiation of common values. In doing so it contributes to fostering a sense of common values and common humanity while negotiating the many different perspectives, values, interests and tensions that condition the fight against climate change in urban arenas. ACT UP! uses innovative theatre-based educational methods within a transdisciplinary context and develops and implements the ACT UP! methodology, in the cities of Groningen, Viljandi, Narva, Oslo and Cape Town. Urban spaces in these cities provide key learning arenas, moving educational approaches from the academy into the streets, developing capacity for navigating urban climate politics ‘on the ground'.

Dr. Yavuz Tuyloglu has been awarded the prestigious NWO SSH XS Grant for a project exploring a timely and increasingly important question: who is shaping the global energy transition?

This research project shows that beyond superpowers, countries such as Turkey play a crucial role. It investiagtes how "middle powers" use energy policy not only to reduce dependence on imports, but also to strengthen their regional influence and stimulate new industries.

Through combining fieldwork and innovative mapping methods, the research develops a new way to understand these strategies. The results will form the basis for comparing Turkey with other middle powers like Brazil and Indonesia, shedding light on how energy transition in emerging economies influences global politics, security, and opportunities for cooperation in a changing world.

Publication Overview