Universalism and Particularism in European Contemporary History
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Human Rights

The postulate of human rights became attractive as a concept throughout the world in the 1970s and was a major driver of political protest in the pre-1989 dissident movement. With the democratization of post-communist societies, the issue of human rights seemed to become less important. On the other hand, recourse to human rights formed a decisive element in the universalistic draft of the world order of liberal internationalism that triumphed in 1989–91. At the same time, this policy increasingly met with opposition. Since the 2010s, the EU has been confronted with the serious problem of maintaining a uniform standard of civil rights in Poland and Hungary. The modern authoritarian and populist regimes of East (Central) European countries question the universality of human rights by trying to unmask them as a particular ideology that is directed against traditional family or cultural values.

Research Projects

  • "Alienation" in Human Rights Protection - a New Split between East and West? (Angelika Nußberger, distinguished fellow)
  • War and Law: Responses to Military Conflicts in Eastern Europe (Angelika Nußberger, distingushed fellow)
  • Between Particular Nationalism and Universal Human Rights: Štefan Polakovič and Slovak Catholic Nationalism after the 1970s (Michaela Lenčéšová, junior fellow, winter term 2023-2024)
  • 'Women's Rights are Human Rights': Gendering Universalism and Particularism in (post-) socialist Europe (Celia Donert, senior fellow, summer term 2024)
  • Anti-Westernism of Knowledge Production in Russian Social Science in the State of War: Marginalization of the Epistemic Justice and Prospects for Eastern Epistemology (Ivan Kislenko, junior fellow, summer term 2024)
  • Human Rights and Authoritarianism (Caroline von Gall, senior fellow, winter term 2024-25)
  • Hidden class particularism in human rights discourse? Polish case and global right-wing populist strategies (Krzysztof Świrek, junior fellow, winter term 2024-25)
  • Claims to Universality in the Late Cold War: Intersections of Human Rights Discourse and Holocaust Memory in Western Activism on Behalf of Soviet Jewry (Ida Richter, junior fellow, summer term 2024)
  • The Underside of the European Revolutions of 1989 (Paul Betts, senior fellow, winter term 2024-2025)
  • Human Rights and Authoritarianism (Caroline von Gall, senior fellow, winter term 2024-2025)
    Hidden Class Particularism in Human Rights Discourse? Polish Case and Global Right-wing Populist Strategies (Krzysztof Świrek, junior fellow, winter term 2024-2025)
  • Human Rights: A modern History (Stefan Ludwig Hoffmann, senior fellow, summer term 2025)
  • Russia and Challenges to Liberal Democracy within the European Regional Order (Sevanna Poghosyan, junior fellow, summer term 2025)
  • Visions of Accountability. The Emergence of the International Criminal Law Regime, 1989-2002 (Alexa Stiller, junior fellow, summer term 2025)
  • Universalism and Its Discontents: Toward A Provincialized History of Political Thought in Europe (Till van Rahden, senior fellow, summer term 2025)
  • Constructing Universalisms and Particularisms: Discourses of Human Rights in Socialist Yugoslavia (1960s-1980s) (Una Blagojević, junior fellow, winter term 2025-2026)
  • “Decolonization of Russia” as a universalist project or particularist claims? (Guzel Yusupova, junior fellow, winter term 2025-2026)

Further projects are following.

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