IMAGINE - Observatory on Political Imaginaries and Democratic Contestation

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Research Center on Democracy

The Observatory on Political Imaginaries and Democratic Contestation (IMAGINE) is an interdisciplinary research initiative bringing together the social sciences and the humanities to study the transformation of democracy in contemporary societies.

IMAGINE focuses both on the ideas and movements that challenge existing democratic arrangements and on the political imaginaries through which alternative futures are conceived. Its approach combines attention to political ideas with the study of political and social change.

The Observatory develops its work through two complementary initiatives. Illiberalism.org, developed in partnership with The George Washington University and Inalco in Paris, examines the forces reshaping liberal democracy and the emergence of illiberal political projects across different societies. Vivatopia.org turns toward the future, exploring new political imaginaries and the alternative ways of organizing collective life that are taking shape beyond established ideological divides.

Together, these two initiatives connect the study of democratic contestation with the study of political imagination: one asks how existing democratic orders are being transformed; the other asks what new political futures are becoming thinkable.