Democratic societies disagree not only over public affairs, but also over who counts as part of the demos, how political power should be organised and how political opinions are formed. The project reconstructs such deep disagreements from the perspective of lived experience and examines the practices through which they are played out in public. Building on the monograph Demokratischer Streit, this approach is currently being extended through the concept of the political field. It asks how historically sedimented institutions, material orders and power relations structure what becomes visible and what courses of action appear possible. The project focuses on democratic judgement, public protest and civil disobedience, and asks which forms of conflict open up possibilities for democratic transformation and which entrench existing exclusions.