The Transformations of Citizenship Leibniz Research Group focuses on questions of citizenship, migration, democratic inclusion, and the relationship between im/mobility and global inequality.

Our research is motivated by some of the most pressing challenges of our time: how to develop regional and global approaches to facilitate mobility in an age of rising geopolitical tensions and climate change, how to live together in our increasingly diverse societies, how to grant rights to those who lack formal access to citizenship, and how to tame the ever-expanding reach of borders and migration control in a world of persistent inequality. Bringing together theoretical and applied perspectives, we aim to revisit the democratic boundary problem, imagine new forms of membership and belonging, and contribute to normative as well as public policy debates.

The Transformations of Citizenship Leibniz Research Group, hosted by the Normative Orders Research Centre, is generously funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

The Leibniz Research Group “Transformations of Citizenship” is directed by Ayelet Shachar.

Contact: office-shachar@uni-frankfurt.de

News from the research center

Publication
21.11.2025 | Anthology

Handbook of Leadership. Applied Business Psychology for Managers

Felfe, Jörg; Dick, Rolf van (eds.) (2025): Handbook of Leadership. Applied Business Psychology for Managers. Springer.

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News
20.11.2025

Voluntary or compulsory? Military service, peace and democratic responsibility

Review of the 58th "Römerberggespräche". The topic of compulsory military service and the question of what a democratic state is allowed to demand of its citizens were at the center of the 58th "Römerberggespräche" "Conditionally ready for action? Military service and the duty to serve the state", which took place on November 15 in cooperation with the Research Centre Normative Orders in the Chagallsaal at Schauspiel Frankfurt.

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News
13.11.2025

Goethe Lecture Offenbach on ableist discrimination

Regina Schidel presented a critique of ableist discrimination as part of the Goethe Lectures Offenbach. In her lecture "I can, therefore I am? / Ich kann, also bin ich?", she discusses the practical manifestations and philosophical origins of ableism.

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Event
10.02.2026 | Frankfurt am Main

Satanic Politics. Democracy after Liberalism

Lecture, Lecture Series

Lecture by Michael Rosen (Harvard University) as part of the lecture series "At the Crossroads? On the crisis of democracy" in the winter semester 2025/2026

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Event
04.02.2026 | Frankfurt am Main

Demokratien verteidigen. Zur Aktualität des Gewaltbegriffs bei Camus und Derrida

Lecture Series, Lecture

Vortrag von Christine Abbt (Universität St. Gallen) im Rahmen der Ringvorlesung "Am Scheidepunkt? Zur Krise der Demokratie" im Wintersemester 2025/2026

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Event
29.01.2026

Civil Geopolitics and the Dilemmas of the Democratic State

Lecture Series, Lecture

Vortrag von David Owen (Universtiy of Southampton) im Rahmen der Ringvorlesung "Am Scheidepunkt? Zur Krise der Demokratie" im Wintersemester 2025/2026

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Event
14.01.2026 | Frankfurt am Main

Vom Retten der Welt zum Vorbereiten auf den Kollaps: Neuorientierungen in katastrophischen Zeiten

Lecture Series, Lecture

Vortrag von Christine Hentschel (Universität Hamburg) im Rahmen der Ringvorlesung "Am Scheidepunkt? Zur Krise der Demokratie" im Wintersemester 2025/2026

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Event
10.12.2025 | Frankfurt am Main

How Democracy Relies on the Future

Lecture Series, Lecture

Vortrag von Jonathan White (LSE) im Rahmen der Ringvorlesung "Am Scheidepunkt? Zur Krise der Demokratie" im Wintersemester 2025/2026

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Event
27./28.11.2025 | Frankfurt am Main

Reconsidering Legal Subjectivity In and Through the Anthropocene

Conference

Internationale Konferenz organisiert vom Wissenschaftsnetzwerk Recht im Anthropozän (RiA) in Kooperation mit dem Forschungszentrum Normative Ordnungen.

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