Values: Foundation, Fault line, or Fabric of Social Cohesion?

Sharing similar values is a foundation of communities and societies. It has been an implicit common sense that individuals in socially cohesive societies share the same values or are tolerant enough to respect other values than their own ones. Most concepts and analyses of social cohesion focus on the quality of relations between individuals, social groups and the state while leaving out values. It remains an open question, which and how values hold societies together. How much divergence of values is tolerable for societies and what are the institutions that mediate between social groups with different value orientations in a society? These fundamental questions are not new in social sciences but have been poorly addressed so far. In this workshop, we aim at discussing these fundamental questions and identify avenues for further research on the topic.

Speakers:
•    Phillip Öhlmann (Humboldt-University Berlin)
•    Nils Holtug (University of Copenhagen)
•    Mariko Klasing (University of Groningen)
•    Sellah King’oro (National Cohesion and Integration Commission Kenya)