Transregional Center for Democratic Studies
Building on The New School for Social Research's interdisciplinary tradition, the Transregional Center for Democratic Studies creates and conducts cross-departmental programs aimed at addressing special needs and opportunities for graduate study and advanced research in the new global world. Following the social and political transformations of the recent years, when two contradictory processes-globalization and increasing fragmentation into ethnic enclaves-have come to dominate the imagination of both scholars and policy makers, TCDS's integrated set of activities draws on the concept of a region as a promising perspective from which to examine the complex relations between the local and the global.
The center's programs, designed to foster a better understanding of how the concerns of "new" and "old" democracies are today beginning to converge, focus on the problems of democratic institutional design at the local, national, and above all, regional level, primarily in the four regions targeted by its activities-Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus; sub-Saharan Africa; Latin America; and North America.
Concepts and Concerns: TCDS's initiatives in its target regions rely on the center's long-standing overseas partnerships, dating from semi-clandestine collaboration between members of The New School and independent scholars in Central and Eastern Europe during the 1980s. Today, the center's expanded educational activities utilize a set of four analytical lenses to advance the study of the ways in which societies embedded in different cultural and historical contexts pursue their respective debates on, and solutions to, problems which they share in common: democratization, diversity, civil society and civic life, globalization, development, and equity. The center's programs facilitate collaborative discussion, study, and research on the issues of democracy and democratization. By assisting in mutual learning and sharing of intellectual and social experiences, the center helps to shorten distances between geographically or culturally distinct regions.
Toward New Social Science: While linking regions in order to enable a deeper and more textured understanding of the challenges of democracy in the contemporary world, TCDS's programs are also aimed at building bridges between academic research and the "real world" of democratic practice, where policies and local strategies are designed and civic innovation comes to life. For this reason, the center's partners and collaborators include scholars who are also actively involved in public life and in efforts to strengthen civil society.
Regions and Projects: TCDS's four target regions reflect the range of interests of the GF faculty who have cultivated links with these regions through more than a decade of scholarly contacts, academic partnerships, and collaborative partnerships. The center's main project, the Transregional Learning Network, consists of annual Democracy & Diversity Graduate Summer Institutes in the target regions, the New Social Science Training fellowship program at The New School for Social Research, Work-in-Progress workshop series, collaborative teaching, visiting professorships, annual conferences, TCDS lecture series, TCDS Electronic Learning Networks, and the quarterly TCDS Bulletin.
The region-based Democracy & Diversity Institutes are held annually, in January (in Cape Town, South Africa) and July (in Krakow, Poland). In these intensive three-week programs, an international body of participants examines critical issues of democracy and democratization as they manifest themselves in the host region and beyond. Each of the institutes brings together up to forty young scholars and civic leaders, mainly from the host region but also from the center's other target regions. Faculty are drawn from The New School and from universities in the host region. Students from The New School for Social Research receive full course credit for two seminars they select from the four courses offered at each of the institutes.
For program information contact:
Amy Sodaro, Program Associate
Transregional Center for Democratic Studies
The New School for Social Research
80 Fifth Avenue, Room 517
New York, NY 10003
Telephone: 212.229.5580 x3136
Fax: 212.229.5894
Email: sodaroa@newschool.edu
Web site: www.newschool.edu/tcds
East and Central Europe Program
Under the aegis of the Transregional Center for Democratic Studies, the East and Central Europe Program, which was established in 1990, continues its collaborative projects throughout the region. These include joint courses and research, faculty exchanges, workshops, and lecture series. The program's most widely known initiative is its annual Democracy & Diversity Graduate Summer Institute in Krakow, Poland, which is attended primarily by students from The New School for Social Research as well as from universities in Eurasia and other parts of the world.