Helmut Anheier founds new social science journal, Global Perspectives

Professor of Sociology and Hertie School Past President Helmut K. Anheier has founded the new social science journal, Global Perspectives, published by the University of California Press. Anheier is Editor-in-Chief of the journal. Four faculty members of the Hertie School are on the editorial board at large: Johanna Mair, Professor of Organization, Strategy and Leadership, Arjun Appadurai, Professor of Anthropology and Globalisation, Claus Offe, Professor Emeritus of Political Sociology, and Dennis Snower, Professor of Macroeconomics and Sustainability. 

Global Perspectives is based on the premise that the world that gave rise to the social sciences in their present form is no more. The national and disciplinary approaches that developed over the last century are increasingly insufficient to capture the complexities of the global realities of a world that has changed significantly in a relatively short period of time.  With his team of editors, Anheier co-wrote “Introducing Global Perspectives: An Editorial Essay”, which provides the rationale for the journal, an overview of the development of the social sciences and the current challenges they face, and lays out the vision for what Global Perspectives wants to achieve.  

Global Perspectives is published by the University of California Press, one of the leading academic publishing houses in the world.  The journal, online-only and peer-reviewed,  seeks to advance social science research and debates in a globalising world, specifically in terms of concepts, theories, methodologies, and evidence bases. As a multimedia publication, Global Perspectives takes full advantage of the opportunities of modern publishing.

The journal features eight sections, each with a dedicated section editor and editorial board: communication and media; culture, value and identities; global change and sustainability transformations; global epistemologies; political economy, markets and institutions; politics, governance and the law; security and cooperations, international institutions and relations; as well as social institutions, organizations and relations.

Next to Anheier, the section editors are Payal Arora (Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands), Thomas J. Biersteker (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland), Miguel Centeno (Princeton University, USA),  Sara Curran (University of Washington, USA), Dirk Messner (German Federal Environment Agency, Germany), J.P. Singh (George Mason University, USA), and Hagen Schulz-Forberg (University of Aarhus, Denmark). 

With eight editorial boards and an editoral board at large, the journal constitutes a network of about 100 leading academics from around the world.  In addition, over twenty postdocs and assistant professors are part of the Emerging Scholar Forum and actively involved in the journal.

The works of several members of the Hertie School community are already featured in Global Perspectives; Dennis Snower, Professor of Macroeconomics and Sustainability at the Hertie School and President of the Global Solutions Initiative, and Katharina Lima de Miranda co-authored the paper “Recoupling Economic and Social Prosperity” for Global Perspectives, in which they explore a new theoretical and empirical approach to the assessment of human well-being.

In the coming weeks, Global Solutions will publish an article by Christian Joerges, Professor Emeritus of Law and Society at the Hertie School, an essay by Claus Offe on populism as well as an interview with him about the state of democracy in Europe and his views of the social sciences today.

You can read Global Perspectives here.

If you are interested in Global Perspectives and would like to find out more, please contact Helmut K Anheier at anheier@hertie-school-org.