Biographische Erfahrungen und politische Einstellungen zwischen Jugend und Lebensmitte

The research aims at explaining the development of political attitudes between youth and midlife by biographical experiences. The sample is a cohort of 1596 former German high school students. The social origin and the political socialization of this cohort has been surveyed at age 16, and the life history as well as political attitudes at age 30 and 43; because of its educational privilege the cohort could extend its youth until age 30. As for political attitudes which may typically change between youth and midlife, value claims and their counter-part, the acknowledgement of societal constraints, are examined. The aim of the research is attained through three steps. First, it is examined if biographical experiences up to age 30 determine value claims, over and above the starting conditions of the “formative years”. As expected, occupational experiences lower value-claims, even if social origin and political socialization are controlled for. Second, it is examined if value-claims shrink between age 30 and 43 and the acknowledgement of societal constraints grows — which is confirmed. Third, it is examined, if at age 43 value claims are determined by occupational experiences between age 30 and 43 even when value-claims at age 30 are controlled for — which again is confirmed. The conclusion is that political attitudes after the “formative experiences”, in spite of their high stability, are still determined by occupational experiences.     

Soziale Herkunft, politische Sozialisation und Wählen im Lebensverlauf

In this paper the influence of social origin as well as both the political communication and the religious education in the family on the voting behaviour in the life course have been investigated. Furthermore, we investigate the intergenerational transmission of parental party identification and the duration of its impact on the children’s voting patterns. For the empirical analyses, retrospective longitudinal data are employed. The empirical results confirm the significant impact of the social origin, the religious education, and the parental party identification on voting. However, their impact decreases in the later stages of the life cycle. Furthermore, the intergenerational reproduction of parental party identification has decreased significantly over consecutive generations.     

Kooperative Politikberatung. Ein neues Beziehungsgeflecht zwischen Politik und Politikberatung?

The institutional and societal framework of policy-advice-giving is changing and so are the worlds of political consultants and policy experts in Germany and other advanced democracies. While there are several new developments which are challenging established forms of policy-advice and political consulting, the present article focuses its attention on the impact of new governance structures on policy advice and political consulting. The main argument of the article is that when government becomes governance and the number of actors and venues involved in the decision-making process increase, a new cooperative and discursive mode of policy-advice giving complements or sometimes even replaces more established forms of policy-advice-giving. We review the evolution of the debate about the role of policy-advice-giving from different perspectives, and particularly explore possible consequences of the changing nature of the state as well as of newly emerging modes of cooperative policy-advice and political consulting — both for empirical as well as conceptual research in the field. Through this, we attempt to generate a debate on the future direction of different modes of policy-advice and political consulting within a changing framework of governance structures in advanced democracies.     

Clemens Kauffmann: Strauss und Rawls. Das philosophische Dilemma der Politik

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Durch den Balkan nach Europa? Deutschland und Frankreich in den Jugoslawienkriegen

Starting from very different positions on the outbreak of violence in Slovenia and Croatia in 1991, French and German policies slowly converged over time and even reached a similar position on the Kosovo crisis. Yet, both foreign policies did not concentrate on the conflict solution as such but were rather concerned with preventing any negative spill-over on the European integration process and Franco-German relations respectively. The first part of the article summarises the two foreign policies in three phases of the Yugoslavian drama: First, the recognition of Slovenia and Croatia, second, the Bosnian war and third, the Kosovo crisis in 1998–99. By means of two heuristic criterea (behaviour towards institutions and conflict perception), both foreign policies are then compared analytically. Moreover, the striking differences in policies towards institutions and conflict perceptions motivate the generation of hypotheses in the next part. For France, we hold that identity theory might present a good approach in order to understand why French foreign policy was primarily driven by self-perceptions. Germany, by contrast, seems to be better suited to the application of role theory with its strong emphasis on alter-expectations. The article concludes by focusing on the perspectives of European integration and the Franco-German relations.     

Wahlen in Europa

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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Wahlen in Europa

     

Sozialstaatsreform und die soziale Gerechtigkeit

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Die Agenda 2010 und die soziale Gerechtigkeit

Ohne Zusammenfassung