In 2024, nearly half the world’s population, including citizens of the eight most populous nations, voted or will vote in elections. While this signals democratic engagement, many elections are run by autocratic or illiberal regimes pursuing self-serving agendas. Paradoxically thus, as elections are generalising as a practice, democracy is met with growing defiance. On closer scrutiny, however, it appears that it is not only the indicators of democracy but also those of elections that have been declining over the past decade. This dossier, produced with the Albert Hirschman Centre for Democracy, examines the essential role of elections in the construction of democracy today.
© Miriam Périer
What does the experience of combining art and science bring to the study of international relations? Why blend sensibility with reason to think about the evolution of the world? How does aesthetic and/or creative performance nourish the production of academic knowledge? If thinking about creation and integrating art with the Humanities and Social Sciences is nothing new, the challenges of the 21st century call for new analyses and creative approaches that give a voice to frequently neglected perspectives, and contribute to a more nuanced and multidimensional understanding of the world. The dialectic of art and research can be approached through the artistic dimension of the object of study, proximity to artists, experimentation with new forms of fieldwork and writing, or through the cultural mediation of the results. In this special issue of the digital magazine Global Challenges, jointly produced by the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (Geneva Graduate Institute) and the Centre de recherches internationales (Sciences Po), the contributors shed light on the role of art in research.
-
I
Art and the Social Sciences: Between Research, Creation and Social Commitment
Reading time: 6 min -
1
On the Academic Aesthetic
Reading time: 6 min -
2
Scholarship, Art, Practice, and the Universal We
Reading time: 5 min -
3
Art, Anthropology, and All That Lives Between
Reading time: 5 min -
4
« Quand la musique est bonne… » pour penser les relations internationales
Reading time: 4 min -
5
Animal Language or Animal Communication? Art from the Archives
Reading time: 6 min -
6
Voices on the Cutting Room Floor: A Filmmaker’s Lens on Climate Finance Research
Reading time: 5 min -
7
Montage, a Craft and Thinking Tool for Political Sociology
Reading time: 5 min -
8
« Doux Amer », une ethno-fiction entre art, recherche et activisme sur les travailleuses sexuelles chinoises en France
Reading time: 7 min -
9
Karachi dans le viseur: enquêter avec la photographie sur une ville en conflit
Reading time: 6 min -
10
Allegories of Remoteness: Migrant Images and Ethnographic Distance
Reading time: 4 min -
11
Remember Me(me): Memes as Historical Sources and Memetic Histories
Reading time: 4 min -
12
Artistic Research to Inspire the Multilateral Imagination
Reading time: 6 min -
13
Why Art? Exploring the Role of “Art and Social Science” Approaches to the Interdisciplinary Study of Multilateralism
Reading time: 6 min -
14
Between Mapping and Art: The Tubas Master Plan in the West Bank
Reading time: 7 min -
O
L’art de comprendre : quand la recherche dialogue avec la création
Reading time: 6 min
This bilingual special issue of Global Challenges has been jointly produced by the Geneva Graduate Institute’s Research Office and the Centre for International Studies (CERI – Sciences Po – CNRS). Coordination was provided by Miriam Périer for CERI and Marc Galvin for the Geneva Graduate Institute.




















