Parallel Orders as a Challenge for Complex Governance Regimes
Project Leader
Department
Political Science
Project Summary
The research project is based on the provisional hypothesis that parallel orders do not seek to replace the liberal-democratic constitutional state. One example taken from Western legal frameworks is the partial applicability of the Shari’a in civil law. Different from the revolutionary projects of European modernity, such structures of parallel orders are not revolutionary but rather subversive. Instead of openly designating alternatives, they lead to a hollowing-out of the existing order by establishing seemingly innocuous deviations. In the end, however, such processes of fragmentation concerning the political order are not less dangerous than overt systemic opposition. From this point the question is how adequate answers may be found in order to address the challenges posed by parallel orders. This question has to be informed by empirical evidence and political-science approaches: can we understand the emergence of parallel orders as a phenomenon resulting from fragile statehood in Western democracies? Is it possible to explain their problems in areas of structure and reform as a result from parallely coexisting elements of party democracy, media democracy and negotiation democracy, which in turn lead to parallel allegiances in the sense of merely shared loyalties within the liberal order? May some of the problems and contradictions of post-socialist transition societies be explained as a result of established constitutional democracies that at the same time retain, firstly, authoritarian practices of governance and, secondly, corrupt networks stemming from the days of their ancien régimes? Finally, can the controversy over »multilateral governance«, »global empire«, »US hegemony« or »international community of states« provide us with a clue regarding the parallel coexistence of all those orders at whose borders conflicts may arise?