During the first research period, two projects have been carried out as collaborative research between Vienna and Malmö. The results of both projects are summarised in two book publications.

Migration & Memory: Representations of Migration in Europe since 1960

From 2006 to 2008, the research work of this research field was sponsored by Österreichische Lotterien, in the context of the "European Research Fellowship".

For the finished project "European Pictorial Memory" see

http://www.demokratiezentrum.org/themen/europa/europaeisches-bildgedaechtnis.html

Theory driven questions

The research field Cold War & European Public Spheres has two research focal points: the connection between public spheres and identity is examined on the one hand, and the timeline based research from 1945 to the present is evaluated on the other, with regards to the increasing shift of the political powers from national states to the EU, and whether and to which extent a European public sphere and a European identity has been constituted. Both are conducted on the basis of the arena theoretic model of public communication that is based on the theory of social change.

"Authoritarian and Totalitarian Experiences, Authoritarian Potential and Democratic Values in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Austria"

This project was sponsored by Zukunftsfonds Österreich and partly by Österreichische Lotterien.

As shown in the chart below the research team assumes that the sociodemographic characters and the cultural context of a nation are decisive for the weight of the independent variables "individual authoritarian disposition", "anomy" and "cognitive conversion of history". These independent variables are then exerting influence on dependent variables listed on the right side of the chart.