IOS Think Paper Series
Institutions for Open Societies (IOS) proudly presents their Think Paper Series. A series of inspiring articles by researchers connected to strategic theme IOS. The Think Papers are meant to address academic topics that are of general interest to the community of our scholars.
The papers mean to stimulate and enhance debate, and try to shed light on more generic questions that researchers in the various sub communities of IOS may have come across. The IOS Think Papers are not full-fledged journal articles, but relatively informal papers, that provide intermediate reports of ongoing (academic) debates.
#6: Language and Institutions
This sixth IOS Think Paper is edited by Professor Norbert Corver and Professor Hans Hoeken, and the chapters are authored by several scholars of the Institute for Language Sciences (ILS). With language variation as the core concept they point out some directions on how they can join forces with IOS to tackle current societal and scientific issues at the intersection of language in institutions and language as an institution.
#5: Behavioral Insights on Governing Social Transitions
In the fifth edition of our Think Papers series, Professor Denise de Ridder and several other researchers affiliated to the Behaviour & Institutions Platform argue that effective and legitimate governance of societal transitions requires social and behavioral arrangements that facilitate local and regional ecosystems of citizens, community initiatives, service organizations, social enterprises and companies in contributing to these transitions under a shared framework of values and long-term goals.
#4: Advancing interdisciplinary research on institutions
The fourth edition in our Think Paper series focuses on different types of interdisciplinary research into open societies. Professor Ingrid Robeyns highlights some of the epistemic challenges to doing multi- and interdisciplinary research, and discusses the necessary conditions for conducting high-quality research on institutions for open societies.
#3: Contested Institutional Legitimacy
The third Think Paper is on contested institutional legitimacy. Taking recent experiences in the Netherlands as empirical examples, scholars Georg Frerks (Humanities) and Niels Terpstra (Utrecht School of Governance) address processes of delegitimation and counter-legitimation by which existing forms of governance and their claimed legitimacy are challenged by a variety of actors.
#2: Institutional Legitimacy in Open Societies
The second volume in the IOS Think Paper series is dedicated to the topic of legitimacy of institutions in open societies. The paper is written by researchers connected to the Stream Legitimacy and Institutions, part of strategic theme Institutions for Open Societies: Mark Bovens, Judith van Erp, Elaine Mak, Kees van den Bos, Annelien de Dijn, Dorothea Gädeke, Liesbeth van de Grift and Amy Nivette. Researchers Scott Douglas and Beatrice de Graaf from the IOS Platform Security in Open Societies contributed to the paper as key authors as well.
#1: The Open Society and its Future
In September 2020, the first edition of the Series was published: 'The Open Society and Its Future'. This special volume is dedicated to the open society, one of the core concepts of Utrecht's research expertise IOS. The articles by prof. Mark Bovens, prof. José van Dijck, prof. Anna Gerbrandy, Dr. Giuseppe Feola, Drs. Arno Visser and prof. Henk Kummeling (Rector Magnificus of Utrecht University) find their inspiration in the 2019 IOS Toogdag, our yearly conference.
Are you interested in contributing to the series? UU researchers can apply for IOS funding and support, more information is available at the UU Intranet. Please contact one of the editors: prof. Mark Bovens, prof. Joel Anderson and Constant van der Putten.
The articles in the IOS Think Paper series are published under ISSN-number 2666-8483; E-ISSN 2666-8491.