Papers are invited on the following issues:

• The rich get richer, the poor poorer. What kind of alternative will people look for when established political parties basically argue There Is No Alternative for the current process of globalization and the market economy?

• Immigration flows – is this an issue of the media, the loss of grip on economic and political processes, or because rich countries are rich? Is there a relation between the level of economic development and the willingness to help refugees? Do countries have the institutional capacity to deal with possible increasing refugee flows in the future?

• Armed conflict – will we see an increase in war, conflicts and terrorism?

• Increasing public, company and private debts – they have somehow to be paid back, some time, some day, somewhere, by someone. Is management of the existing debts possible without global collapse?

• In our monetary system, money is debt, the debt is owed to the banks, and the banks are owned by its shareholders (mainly from the private sector). The periodic shake-ups of the financial system are those moments when society at large has to cough up the unserviceable debt. Financial crises facilitate the quick accumulation of money. Are financial crises creating extreme inequalities, triggering off social action, armed conflict and migration?

• Is there a limit to the size of the market in order to function efficiently? Can such a market, in combination with different kinds of freedoms (Sen, 1999) such as freedom of speech, political freedom, freedom of press and freedom or organization, only create a high level of welfare for part of the world population?

• Social scientists, politicians and laymen have unsubstantial understanding of natural sciences. Because the underwriting of the causal link of Anthropogenic Climate Change (ACC) is derived from support of the natural sciences, and because this support in turn is vested on trust of natural scientists rather than the understanding of natural scientific theory, validity of ACC is granted only in so far as individual natural scientists are trusted. Without trust, simplification of causes and consequences of ACC is required in order to clarify the idea. What is the implication for acceptance of ACC, climate policy and the public discourse on ACC?

• Does the development of a “post-truth society” require the development of “safe space” for truth?

• And other important issues regarding the topic of the session.