Die Entwicklung der Europasoziologie aus der Differenz national/europäisch

The terms ?national“ and ?European“ mark different spacial frames which are relevant for the interpretation as well as political regulation of the society. In the case of progressive European integration, these spacial frames are increasingly compete. Attitudes and interests of different actor groups relate to these spacial frames, thus turning ?national“ and ?European“ into the poles of a conflict relationship. In this way tensions become visible, which are crucial for the Europeanization of society hence fundamental for the development of the Sociology of Europe. Sociology needs to be adapted to this constellation by overcoming its nationally framed categories and by understanding spacial frames that develop in practice as empirical data and thus as a part of its subject.     

Markt oder Schließung? Zu den Ursachen der Steigerung der Einkommensungleichheit

This article examines which factors contribute towards the increase in the income inequality that can be observed in Germany since the 1990’s. While economists believe that the qualification of employees is becoming more and more important for the generation of income inequality, sociologists conceive social closure, implemented in institutional structures, class conflicts and mechanisms of discrimination, as responsible for rising inequality. Analyses of “Gehalts- und Lohnstrukturerhebung”-data show that closure mechanisms are especially important in West Germany, while qualification-related factors enhance inequality in East Germany.     

Die Koordination von Raumplanung und Verkehrspolitik in urbanen Räumen der Schweiz: Determinanten der politischen Geographie,der politischen Kultur oder der institutionellen Struktur?

Der Beitrag befasst sich mit den exogenen Bestimmungsfaktoren der Koordination raumwirksamer Politiken anhand der vier Agglomerationen von Basel, Bern, Lausanne und Genf. Ein Vergleich von entsprechenden Outcomes zeigt markante Unterschiede zwischen den vier Städten. Nach einer kurzen Kritik der Binnenorientierung gängiger Governance-Ansätze werden die drei exogenen Erklärungsansätze der politischen Geographie, des Institutionalismus und der politischen Kultur in vier Thesen beschrieben. Deren Exploration weist die Wichtigkeit von Kontextvariablen bei der Untersuchung von Ressourcen-Regimen aus. So ist eine Abhängigkeit der inhaltlichen Koordination von soziokulturellen, geographischen und historischen Faktoren auszumachen. Dagegen ist der Zusammenhang mit der Einschätzung der institutionalisierten Koordination nicht eindeutig, was die Vermutung nahelegt, dass im Falle der prozeduralen Koordination die endogenen Faktoren stärkere Erklärungskraft besitzen und die Regime Analysis mithin das geeignetere Mittel zu ihrer Untersuchung darstellt.     

Zur Europäisierung der Handlungs- und Einstellungshorizonte: Ein makrosoziologischer Vergleich der EU-Mitgliedstaaten

Building on the transactionalist paradigm in the tradition of Karl W. Deutsch as well as on Arndt Sorge’s theory of tiered social spaces, this study examines why everyday actions and attitudes are more centered on Europe (i.?e. “Europeanized”) in some EU member states than in others. Analyzing a variety of survey data on the EU-27 countries with partial correlation models, it is shown that the macro-level determinants of Europeanization differ between actions and attitudes. While actions are more Europe-centered in small and affluent countries, attitudes are more Europe-centered in post-communist states as well as in countries that are located in the geographical center of the EU and that do not have a protestant religious tradition. Contrary to transactionalist theory, the Europeanization of actions does not coincide with the Europeanization of attitudes: “doing Europe” and “feeling Europe” do not go hand in hand.     

Stand der chinesisch－deutschen ZusammenarbeitinderBerufsbildung

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Von der Organisation Krankenhaus zum Behandlungsnetzwerk?

The following paper is based on ethnographic studies in German hospitals and focuses on medical actions and decision-making. As the investigation was conducted as a panel, it is possible to perceive of how the organizational changes have affected the medical work in hospitals. In the first part of the study, from 2000 to 2002, field research took place in four different types of departments in several hospitals. In the second part of the study, in the year 2004, the general ward and the department of abdominal surgery were revisited. In the time period between the two field-research phases the hospitals in Germany were experiencing an extensive process of organizational change. On the one hand, the introduction of the new “Diagnose Related Groups” (DRG) brought a new cost accounting structure. The base for calculating the cost is now no longer length of hospital stays, but a billing system related to diagnosis. On the other hand, connected to the ongoing privatization of hospitals, concepts of modern management (computer based “controlling”, “outsourcing” and centralization of important functions) are beginning to enter into hospital life. These processes are significantly changing the context of medical work and also the way in which medical decisions are processed.     

Die strafpreussen: Mecklenburg und der bund der deutschen absolutistischen fürsten, 1648–1719

SUMMARY

It is the common opinion of Whig historians, and not a few recent revisionists, that James VII and II undermined the parliamentary cultures of England and Scotland before the revolution of 1688–89. At the extreme end of this approach he is declared to have usurped parliamentary authority in a drive for absolute power. Some of this is now seen as rhetorical exaggeration but James certainly developed a particular understanding of the power of parliaments in relation to monarchy. In some respects this was a return to a late medieval Stewart and Tudor outlook, that of James V of Scotland and Henry VIII of England, which saw parliaments as the personal vehicles of royal authority. The difficulty for James, of course, was that the Scottish and English Parliaments had become ‘modernized’ over the seventeenth century, growing a strong sense of independence and legitimacy as representative institutions. In this essay both the practical engagement James had with Scottish affairs and his philosophical opinions as revealed in his own writings will be explored in an attempt to better define this monarch's view of the Scottish Parliament and its workings. Through this, his reactions to the notions of unionism and nationalism will become more apparent.     

Die Vereinigung der Freunde der Tongji-Universitt e.V.und die Tongji-Universitt

In der vorliegenden Arbeit dokumentiert der Geschftsführer der Vereinigung der Freunde der Tongji-Universitt e.V.den Entstehungs-und Entwicklungsprozess der Vereinigung sowie ihren Beitrag zur Tongji-Universitt und zum Bildungs-und Kulturaustausch zwischen China und Deutschland.     

Zwischen „der Eurokratie“ und „den Leuten“: Zum Problem der professionellen Vermittlung von Europapolitik

EU politics is strongly shaped by the activities of experts and professional actors with special knowledge of EU-specific rules, standards, semantics and institutional procedures. These EU professionals serve as important transmitters and brokers of European affairs in national contexts. They bundle and represent interests, provide information on EU policy proposals or support local and national organizations in their attempts of obtaining EU funding. In this way, these specialized actors have an important intermediary position between the “Eurocracy” and national citizenries as well as local addressees of EU policymaking. Building on classical and contemporary sociological discussions on the problem of professionalization in politics and on interview data the article analyzes the activities of these actors and scrutinizes what particular practices and strategies of interest mediation and policy transfer look like. What types of transmission and mediation can be found? Can EU professionals really be regarded as mediators and transmitters between European and local interests, or should they rather be seen as a relatively closed and self-referential group of specialists using their special competences mainly for their own sake and for positioning themselves within closed expert circles? Which difficulties and limitations can be seen with regard to practices and strategies of mediation in contemporary EU affairs?     

Über Sklaverei,Rassismus und die Segmentierung der Gesellschaft. Tocquevilles Analyse sozialer Ausgrenzung in der Demokratie

In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville gives an explanation why the liberation of slaves was promoted in the northern states of the US in the Jackson era and why, nevertheless, the overwhelming majority of the blacks still remained excluded from society. He thoroughly describes the different forms of social distinction that enabled the Whites to maintain social hierarchies, even if the legal barriers fall. Not only privileges, educational differences and lifestyles create social hierarchies, but also language, taste and an awareness of tradition. Tocqueville clarifies these manners of boundary making on a concrete example: the attitude of the white Americans towards labor. The paper presents Tocqueville’s differentiated picture of those hidden social mechanisms that preserved and even intensified the existing social differences.     

Parlament und Verfassungsgerichtsbarkeit in der österreichischen Monarchie

SUMMARY

In this article Maria Sofia Corciulo discusses the dissolution of the recently elected ‘Chambre introuvable’ by Louis XVIII, following his second restoration in 1815. The king had been completely surprised by the outcome of the elections, which returned an ultra-royalist majority. This put severe pressure on the king and his ministers who were committed to moderate, conciliationist policies, in which they were supported and pressured by the representatives of the Allied powers. The Ultras found themselves in confrontation with the ministers and policies of the king. This created a paradox, in that the Ultras, who wished to reinstate features of the ancien régime, could only do so by imposing parliamentarianism on the king, and use their majority to force him to change his ministers and adopt policies that they knew he opposed. On the other hand, the king felt he could only save the liberal constitutional values, which he and the ministers considered necessary if civil war was to be avoided, by a dissolution of the Chamber, for which there was no clear constitutional justification. The article discusses whether Louis XVIII, by his dissolution, which his critics claimed was a coup d'état, in fact secured the future of liberal constitutional government in France.     

Der Verein – ein blinder Fleck der Organisationssoziologie

As a local voluntary association the club (Verein) is the most common type of organizations in modern civil societies, but still a neglected subject in organizational sociology. The following article starts with an elaboration of a sociological concept of the club taking into regard its diverging legal definition and its changing semantics over time. This is followed by a rough historical account of its eminent role in the process of the emancipation of the bourgeois class as well as in the first associational attempts of the working class and the women’s movements. As a terminological exercise Richard Scott’s five structural elements of organizations – social structure, members, technology, goals, environment – are applied for the type of club, before three key examples of local associations – sport club, art association, environmental group – are outlined with empirical data. The following section delineates the historical deviations between club and federation (Verband). Ultimately a contemporary agenda for organizational-sociological research on clubs is outlined.     

Die 195 in der Weltwirtschaft neuentstandenenFaktorenundihreEinflüsseaufChina

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Kommunale Repräsentation auf den Landtagen Schwäbisch-Österreichs. Eine Prosopograhie der Abgeordneten aus der Grafschaft Hohenberg und der Landvogtei Schwaben,Schriften zur Südwestdeutschen Landeskunde

Anthony Fletcher: Reform in the Provinces: The Government of Stuart England. (Yale University Press, 1986; pp.xiv, 386; ISBN 0521 330637; £22.00.)

J.C.D. Clark: Revolution and Rebellion: State and Society in England in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. (Cambridge University Press, 1986; pp.x, 182; ISBN 0521 33710 0; pb, £6.95 ($9.95.))

J.M. McEwen (ed.): The Riddell Diaries, 1908–1923. (The Athlone Press, London and Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1986; pp. xviii, 430; ISBN 0 485 11300 7; £25.00.)     

Ausbruch aus dem Gehäuse der Economic Governance. Überlegungen zu einer Soziologie der Wirtschaftsdemokratie in transformativer Absicht

The New Economic Governance (NEG) in the European Union is a core element of a neoliberal crisis constitutionalism that has to be seen as blatantly deficient when measured with democratic yardsticks. Strongly normative criticism generates important findings, but ignores the economic dimension of damage to democracy. From the perspective of capitalism theory, the NEG can be recognised as a product of a capitalistic land grab (“Landnahme”) of the political field and as a system of institutions whose functional logic corresponds to the imperative of a crisis-ridden economy characterised by the financial markets. In this context, viewpoints are confirmed that regard the integration of the economic causes of blatant deficits of democracy as an essential element of a new type of inclusive democracy project. The work on a new economic democracy as a core element of such a democracy project thus also becomes a desideratum for a public sociology that wishes to contribute evidence-based knowledge to social disputes.     

An den Grenzen der Demokratie – Citizenship und Flucht

Current diagnoses of the crisis of democracy mostly refer to a specific type of mass democracy as it was characteristic of the second half of the 20th century. Its political space is the nation state. The presence of refugees in receiving countries now raises the basic democratic question: How can people participate in political decisions that determine their own living conditions? Refugees, lacking citizenship status, hardly have any formal political influence. The article discusses the relationship between democracy, citizenship, and forced migration in three steps. First, it presents the core arguments of the current debates on the crisis of democracy and outlines the main characteristics of democratic welfare capitalism. Thereupon, it analyzes current transformations of citizenship with regard to forced migration. It will be shown that citizenship is differentiated in the course of transnationalization and economization processes. Finally, the paper shows that potentials for democratization become visible when refugees come into view as “activist citizens” who politicize and scandalize the discrepancies between moral and legal norms as well as the limitations of democracy.     

Bewertungskonstellationen. Theoretische Überlegungen zur Soziologie der Bewertung

The article discusses central research questions currently prevailing in the sociology of valuation. It argues that the perspective of “methodological situationalism”, which currently dominates within valuation studies, overemphasizes “moments” of valuation, and thus ignores trans-situational forces, which are highly consequential in processes of valuation. On the basis of this diagnosis, the article puts forth the concept of “valuation constellations” which allows observing valuations’ transsituativity in a systematical manner. The concept distinguishes different positions – valuee, valuator, and audience – and emphasizes the relevance of their relations in shaping valuations. Moreover, the article underscores that valuation constellations always unfold against the background of trans-situationally valid rules as well as technological infrastructures operating on a trans-situational level. Ultimately, the concept facilitates new research questions for the sociology of valuation.     

?Klassengesellschaftlichkeit�� nach dem Ende der Klassengesellschaft?

The new attention for (long time ??invisible??) social classes is related to an increase in the inequalities between rich and poor. Especially in Germany it seemed that (reinforced by sociological theories) the class structures were replaced by a ??middle-class society?? (Helmut Schelsky), by individualized social positions (Ulrich Beck) or by varying milieus. However, the class structures are also made invisible statistically. The structural role of the persisting dominant (even if often not experienced directly)??the distribution of the ownership of means of production??is manifested in the economic growth imperative, in the increasing concentration of capital, in the application of capitalist principles in other social contexts and in limited agency of non-economic fields, especially in politics. The existence of classes??contrary to popular perceptions??requires neither a collective class consciousness or class struggles, nor is it explained by the mere fact of social inequalities. A theoretical socio-economic analysis of the production and appropriation of values as a basic theory of social inequality is still missing.     

Die Konstruktion der soziologischen Realität durch Forschungsrating

The article subjects the research rating of sociology, published in 2008 and carried out by an evaluation group on behalf of the German Science Council, to a secondary analysis. It is shown that the research rating constructs a reality of sociology which does justice neither to the variety of sociological knowledge production nor to its own claim of multidimensionality. Unwillingly, the peer reviewed article has imposed itself as the dominant criterion for assessing the research quality of research units against other types of publication and other activities such as externally funded research, knowledge transfer for practical problem-solving and knowledge diffusion in the public sphere. This preference also affected the assessment of entire research institutions with regard to their impact and efficiency as well as the devaluation of knowledge transfer and diffusion. In this way, sociology is limited to the type of professional sociology, while critical, public and policy-oriented sociology are displaced.