ZenTra is the name of the new academic centre for transnational studies at the Universities of Oldenburg and Bremen. ZenTra Director Prof Dr Hans-Michael Trautwein explains what transnational processes are and why it is so important to research them.
QUESTION: Mr Trautwein, transnational processes are the focus of ZenTra, the new joint research institution of the Universities of Oldenburg and Bremen. What exactly does that mean?
TRAUTWEIN: By "transnationalisation" we mean cross-border activities of companies and other non-governmental organisations, but also of individuals and their social networks. In particular, activities that remove national restrictions on room for manoeuvre.
QUESTION: For example?
TRAUTWEIN: Transnational companies, for example. They produce in different countries and orientate themselves towards global corporate strategies. In doing so, they change both the local corporate cultures and the institutional structure in the regions involved. Or the internet: With social media, it creates cross-border public spheres, enabling protest movements to be organised much more quickly and extensively than before. Just think of the "Arabellion", "Occupy" or the so-called "shitstorms" - transnationalisation can therefore also be "globalisation from below", for better or for worse.
QUESTION: Why is it so urgent to research this?
TRAUTWEIN: The financial crisis shows us that we know far too little about the global interconnections of loans and risks that have developed in transnational banking and shadow banking systems. We know too little about the diverse forms of transnational law that private actors create on goods and labour markets. And we still know too little about how transnational activities, for example in shipping and air transport, affect the global climate - and what the opportunities for transnational climate protection networks to exert influence look like. There are many other gaps in our knowledge. We urgently need to close them.
QUESTION: Why is this so difficult?
TRAUTWEIN: On the one hand, there is the particularly high complexity and speed of the processes to be observed. And secondly, there are limitations to the perspectives in the social sciences. In almost all disciplines of the social sciences, which should actually be dealing with transnationalisation, the thinking is either too national or too detached. This means that globalisation from below cannot be brought into the field of vision. Law, Economics and Political Science in particular have always focussed on nation-state systems or intergovernmental action. This is reflected not only in the analytical categories, but also in the structure of the data that is collected.
QUESTION: Does that mean that transnationalisation is not recognised at all?
TRAUTWEIN: At the very least, the recognition of new patterns that arise through transnationalisation is made more difficult. We need to find new approaches and data sets or combine existing ones in new ways.
QUESTION: Which key aspects of transnationalisation will you focus on?
TRAUTWEIN: ZenTra has a flexible and open structure. But one central question is already now: How do non-state actors in cross-border relationships change the rules of the game set by the state? How do they implement completely new rules? This involves new forms of coordination in companies and corporate networks, self-regulation, standardisation and herd behaviour on markets and in social networks, as well as transnational law. What at first sounds like very different topics actually has some common or similar basic structures.
QUESTION: ZenTra working groups are currently being created, some are already working, for example the "Transnational Corporations and Regulation" working group since the beginning of the year.
TRAUTWEIN: The spectrum in this group ranges from comparing specific cultures in transnational companies to problems of knowledge transfer and combating corruption through to the regulation of and by auditing companies and rating agencies. I myself am working with colleagues on research into how the major rating agencies have contributed to the transnationalisation of finance and how they influence the scope for action of state economic and social policy.