The overall goal of this research is to examine how territorial sovereign states and their institutions interact with the transnational (in particular, human migration, transnational movements, diffusion of ideas, and structural changes), and determine the impact of the latter on the former and vice versa, and also their limits, in comparative empirical analyses. We rely on international relations, comparative politics, political sociology, and comparative historical analysis as our primary disciplinary frameworks. We also aim to contribute to the construction of new "relational studies" on global crises through our analytical works.

Our group is composed of researchers who have worked extensively on Iran, Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, and Indonesia. While conducting individual researches and joint workshops on or related to these sovereign states and their institutions and their interaction with the transnational, we will maintain our comparative perspectives as well as an eye on theoretical construction for our overall relational studies.