Transnational Political Networks – Early Career Scholars Field-Research Grant ($2,000)

Call for Proposals: Transnational Political Networks & the Future of Global Order

Deadline for proposals: December 31, 2024, Deadline extended to February 1, 2025

Transnational political networks – groups of individuals who transcend national boundaries – are major forces shaping global order, even despite great power competition and polarization.  These networks have championed groundbreaking ideas for international cooperation across a wide range of issue areas, such as climate change, nuclear weapons, outer space, and artificial intelligence.  This project aims to break new ground in the investigation of transnational political networks (at both the societal and elite levels) through its focus on the types of networks that matter and how they gain influence.

We invite early career scholars who are advanced PhD candidates or within three years of completing the PhD to submit research proposals on transnational political networks.  Selected scholars will receive US$2,000 in seed funding to support field research and the opportunity to participate in an Early Career Scholars Working Group on Transnational Political Networks that will meet regularly over Zoom.  The Working Group will foster fresh research on transnational political networks and provide peer feedback with the aim of eventually publishing a special issue or edited volume of case studies.

The starting point for this project, led by Mai’a K. Davis Cross, is that groundbreaking ideas are more likely to succeed when they have transformative potential, optimism, and the capacity to harness “ultrasociality” – the human inclination to be empathic, cooperative, and socially-oriented (Cross 2024).  Thus, this project investigates case studies of transnational political networks that are (1) ultrasocial in worldview, (2) global or at least regional in scale, and (3) transformational, rather than transactional, in their ideas for international cooperation.

This call for proposals is open in terms of issue area under investigation and region(s) of the world.  Priority will be given to under-investigated case studies that have the potential to shed new light on pathways to breakthroughs in international cooperation, particularly those that have a bearing on the future of global order.  Case studies that examine how transnational political networks fall short of sparking cooperative breakthroughs or lead to tribalism (i.e. an us vs. them dynamic) are also welcome.

To be considered for a seed grant, please submit a 500-word proposal, field research budget on how you would spend the US$2,000, and CV.  Each proposal should clearly indicate: (1) the name of the specific transnational political network under investigation (societal or elite-level), (2) the transformational idea championed by the network, and (3) evidence of the transnational political network’s impact on outcomes in international relations.

Please send proposals to Diana Atoui, Administrative Coordinator of the Center for International Affairs and World Cultures: d.atoui@northeastern.edu by February 1, 2025.

Any questions can be directed to Mai’a K. Davis Cross: m.cross@northeastern.edu.

Support for this project is provided by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York.  Carnegie Corporation of New York is a philanthropic foundation created by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 to do “real and permanent good in this world.”