Organisation for Research and Publications
Understanding
The process of civilisation and social change
Research conducted within Open Civitas focuses on the psychosociological mechanisms underlying social stability and social change.
Individuals do not enter society as fully formed and autonomous actors. From birth onwards they acquire conceptions about reality, norms and values, behavioural repertoires, goals and ideals through interaction with other people, organisations, institutions, media and increasingly also technological information systems. At the same time, individuals are not merely passive products of their social environment. They interpret, select, modify, reject and transmit what they encounter.
This continuous interaction between individual formation and the social environment is central to the research programme.
Particular attention is given to questions such as how ideas spread between individuals and social groups; why some ideas become socially dominant while others disappear; how shared ideas become embedded in institutions; how institutions contribute to the reproduction and legitimation of existing social arrangements; how social power develops from institutionalised ideas; why established social orders may remain stable even when individuals increasingly question them; and under what conditions social and political change becomes possible.
The research is deliberately not restricted to politics or the state. The same mechanisms can be studied within families, associations, businesses, universities, movements, religious communities, political organisations and states.
This provides the basis for a more general scientific theory of civilising and social change.
Research
Independent research into civilisation, social change, institutions and the social power of ideas and AI
Open Civitas is an independent organisation for social-scientific research and publication. Its central field of interest is the formation, persistence and transformation of societies: how people develop and share conceptions of reality, norms and values, patterns of behaviour, goals and ideals; how these become embedded in social relations and institutions; and how they change over time.
The research programme takes a psychosociological approach to social change. It studies the interaction between individuals and the social circles in which they live and act, and the processes through which ideas are transmitted, internalised, institutionalised, reproduced and contested.
A major intellectual point of reference is the work of Norbert Elias, particularly his analysis of civilising processes and the interdependence between individual formation and changing social structures. Open Civitas does not seek to reproduce Elias’s theory, but continues the underlying research problem: how can long-term social change be explained by investigating the reciprocal relations between individuals, social relations, institutions and historically developing patterns of thought and conduct?
Investigating social change also leads to questions about the future development of artificial intelligence and its influence on changing societies. Open Civitas examines how AI may affect the production and circulation of ideas, the organisation of knowledge and work, and relations of power and institutional authority. At the same time, it asks how social conditions, prevailing values and institutional choices shape the development and use of AI. This research also addresses the ways in which AI challenges established conceptions of intelligence and human agency, and how those challenges may influence social thought and conduct.
The purpose is explanatory rather than normative. Research should help us understand how societies change, without presupposing which political, moral or ideological outcome ought to prevail.
Publications
From theoretical research to testable propositions
Open Civitas publishes research papers, theoretical studies and essays arising from its research programme.
The central project currently being developed is The Art of Revolution: A Formal Scientific Theory of Social Change.
See the Publications page for all available publications. New publications and revised versions are announced on the Updates page.