„Integration“ als Exklusion?

Dieser Beitrag versucht, sich auf der Grundlage einer Medienanalyse, qualitativer Interviews und Gruppendiskussionen dem gesellschaftlichen Umgang mit dem Integrationsbegriff anzunähern. Den Ausgangspunkt der empirischen Untersuchung bildet die Beobachtung, dass sich in der öffentlichen Auseinandersetzung um die legitime inhaltliche Besetzung dieses Begriffs die konfligierenden Ansprüche der Mehrheitsgesellschaft und die Selbstwahrnehmung der von Integrationsgeboten betroffenen Immigrantengruppen spiegeln. Auf dieser Grundlage geht es nicht darum, nach den Motivationen und Strukturen von Integration zu fragen, sondern ?Integrationsrahmungen“ zu untersuchen, d.h. empirisch nachzuvollziehen, wie in deutschen Medien und von den Immigranten selbst der Begriff mit Bedeutung versehen, symbolisch aufgeladen und zur Grundlage politischer Forderungen herangezogen wird. Die Ergebnisse der diskurstheoretisch orientierten Untersuchung zeigen, dass sich ?Integration“ empirisch nicht nur als neutral-deskriptive Kategorie erweist, sondern soziale Lagen von Gruppen ?be-zeichnet“ und auf sie symbolische Macht ausübt, die Gegenstrategien auslöst. Die komparativen qualitativen Fallanalysen verschiedener Migrantengruppen in Deutschland verdeutlichen, dass ?Integrationsrahmungen“ nicht nur Konflikte in Einwanderungsgesellschaften sichtbar machen, sondern sie paradoxerweise auch reproduzieren.     

Exzessive individuelle Gewalt. „School Shootings“ und „Lone Wolf Terrorism“ als soziale Phänomene

Since the middle of the 1990s both, school shootings as in Littleton 1999 or Newtown 2012 and terrorist attacks by lone offenders (lone wolf terrorism) as in Oslo 2011 or Aurora 2012 are perceived as extremely disputed social phenomena. They have not only shocked and unsettled the western world but triggered public debates about arms control and school safety. Despite these broad debates, academic analyses of the phenomena are still in their early stages. Thus, the article discusses the current status of research and discusses problems as well as blind spots of previous approaches in the social sciences. Following this criticism, it suggests a new conceptual approach that conceives school shootings and attacks of lone offender terrorism phenomenologically as manifestations of “excessive individual violence”. Further, the article argues that the communicative meaning of this kind of violence is of utmost significance, it outlines the social embeddedness of the social phenomenon of excessive individual violence and describes crucial fields of further research.     

„Die Macht des Heiligen“ als eine Alternative zur Entzauberung? Zu Hans Joas’ Religionstheorie

Berliner Journal für Soziologie - Um die Säkularisierungsthese hat sich in den letzten Jahrzehnten eine hitzige und kontroverse Debatte entwickelt. Anschließend daran hat Hans Joas...     

Schönheitschirurgie-Patientinnen als „ugly dopes“? Zur Medialität der Entscheidungsfindung für plastisch-chirurgische Eingriffe

The mass media’s view on the current practices of aesthetic surgery is typically negotiated in the social sciences within the realm of ideology critique: The claim is that the mass media culture industry encourages particularly female consumers to undergo surgical interventions in order to optimize their body and thus instructs them to better market themselves (their entrepreneurial self). Furthermore, this process is not sufficiently reflected by the patients; according to the discourse in social science, they mutate to “ugly dopes” who are not truly aware of the conditions to which their decision for physical optimization is subject. This paper proposes a different reading of the mediality of plastic surgery, based on an empirical analysis of interviews with plastic surgery patients. The media certainly play a crucial role as carriers of format templates for body images, but they also are being translated in particular practical contexts. There is no continuum between the body images that are displayed by the media and their individual acquirement. The medial format templates must be actively incorporated into the conflictual everyday contexts of decision making. The effect of the media is therefore accounted for by their connectivity to life-world and has a permanent, continuous irritation as a result, caused by body images.     

Zur Charakteristik Italiens als „verspätete Nation“. Helmuth Plessners Idealtypus und die Diagnose der Gegenwartslage eines EU-Gründungsmitglieds

Italy’s current crisis conceals a sociological issue that deserves qualified attention: The plurality of European modernity. Starting from a critical assessment of Shmuel N. Eisenstadt’s concept of multiple modernities the paper deals with the internal differentiation of the classical model of European modernity. Plessner’s concept of “belated nation” allows a survey of different components and speeds of modernisation processes. Applying Plessner’s model to Italy’s current situation presupposes however to work out more precisely its ideal typical structure and sociological foundation. Furthermore, the normative bias of Plessner’s study on Germany has to be put methodologically in parenthesis, so that Plessner’s analytical frame can be used beyond its original context. First, the article elaborates Plessner’s model ideal typically and differentiates between its political-, economical-, religious-, intellectual- and culture-sociological issues. In the second step, the implicit references to the sociological work of Karl Mannheim and Max Weber are reconstructed. In the third step, the paper evaluates the fruitfulness of Plessner’s approach with regard to its application to Italy’s current crisis. Concluding it retraces the limits of Plessner’s analysis and indicates which further inquiries are necessary to develop an ideal typical concept of the plurality within the European modernity.     

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?     

„Care“ leisten und „Care“ erhalten zwischen Individualisierung und Refamilialisierung<Superscript>1</Superscript>

In industrialized, capitalist welfare states, men could be de-familialized because they could also abandon their caring needs and obligations to women, who therefore remained bound to the family. The focus on women, and precisely on the reasons why they remained bound to the family, has increasingly highlighted that not only incomplete individualisation was at issue, but the overall issue of care. There is a need to reformulate the concept of autonomy in order to include the relationships of interdependence that develop around care giving and care receiving along the life course and to incorporate care giving and care receiving both conceptually and in practice in the structure of social rights and social citizenship themselves. The author discusses how different countries are addressing the issue of care following women’s increasing labour market participation and the ageing of the population, showing that there are contrasting trends both across and within countries.     

Bedingungen und Formen „gütlichen Einvernehmens“

Compromises are the creative result of a peaceful handling of conflicts. They become possible if the conflicting parties are held together by mutual dependencies and if some facilitating conditions exist, most importantly the divisibility of the object the fighting parties compete for, possibilities for compensation, and the “enlarging of the shadow of future” (Axelrod). However, compromises can remain contested and instable if one of the participating parties thinks they do not accord to the principle of “fair exchange” or, furthermore, if relevant “third parties” believe their externalities not to accord to “public welfare”. Political regulations thought to inhibit these effects do inhibit the working out of compromises, too. Making compromises stable in effect limits the chance that they come about.     

Logiken urbaner Polarisierung. Der Blick „von unten“

In allen Großstädten der westlichen Industriestaaten zeichnet sich die Etablierung eines neuen Regimes städtischer Marginalisierung ab. Im Unterschied zu den Armutsphänomenen des fordistischen Zeitalters handelt es sich dabei nicht um eine konjunkturabhängige, zyklische Erscheinung, sondern um eine langfristige und persistente Krise. Die folgende Analyse befasst sich mit den Gründen dieser ?neuen Armut“ in den Metropolen und versucht eine Systematisierung der zugrunde liegenden wirtschaftlichen, politischen und sozialen Ursachen. Der Vergleich zwischen den USA und den westeuropäischen Ländern zeigt darüber hinaus, dass die prominenten Theorien einer ?Amerikanisierung“ Europas wie auch das lamentierte Ende des Nationalstaates einer empirischen Grundlage entbehren.     

Die ostasiatische Moderne – eine Moderne „eigener“ Art?

The article casts doubt on the claim of Eisenstadt and other culturalists that East Asia constitutes a distinct modernity, one that differs fundamentally from Western modernity. Following a brief reconstruction of key modernization theoretical premises against which this claim is directed, it compares the five largest Western countries with the currently most advanced exemplars of East Asian modernity. The findings show that the two regions are remarkably similar in virtually all respects that matter from a modernization theoretical viewpoint. The article then goes on to assess the relevance of the evidence held against modernization theory by Eisenstadt and his followers. As it turns out, this evidence presents no challenge to modernization theory whatsoever. Moreover, its epistemological status is dubious given that multiple modernists lack a sufficiently worked-out theory of modernity in whose light the social theoretic significance of empirical observations could be assessed. Drawing upon the differentiation theoretical tradition, an alternative approach is outlined that addresses multiple modernists’ substantive concerns without falling into the trap of essentializing diversity. However, utilizing this approach for the comparison between Western and East Asian modernity subverts the very idea of a uniform West against which the notion of a distinctly East Asian modernity is posited.     

„Nationalliteraturen nach 1945: Autonomisierung,Professionalisierung, Internationalisierung“

Mitteilungen und Berichte

„Nationalliteraturen nach 1945: Autonomisierung, Professionalisierung, Internationalisierung“     

Richard Rorty und die Reanimation des Pragmatismus im „Zeitalter der Komposition“

In recent years, pragmatism is experiencing a renaissance. Classic authors like George Herbert Mead, William James or John Dewey are entering sociological discussions and neopragmatistic approaches as the actor-network theory or the sociology of conventions are gaining influence. But under what social circumstances is the reanimation of pragmatism happening and what analytical use do pragmatistic tools have? In order to answer this research question the article develops a general model of social order that distinguishes between the states of collision, composition, institution and deconstruction. On this basis, a social diagnosis is articulated, making the currency of the pragmatistic vocabulary understandable. It appears that pragmatism is focused on experimental, creative and hybrid processes of becoming that are typical for the current age of composition. With the help of the often neglected Richard Rorty, the added value of a pragmatistically-informed sociology is shown in an exemplary manner. Therefore, Rorty is introduced as an integrating figure of pragmatistic ideas, from which important impulses for a Darwinian, relational, symmetrical and ironically-engaged sociology could exert.     

Geschlechtergleichheit oder „exklusive Emanzipation“? Ungleichheitssoziologische Implikationen der aktuellen familienpolitischen Reformen*

Focusing on gender and social inequalities, we analyse two current reforms in German family policy: the 2007 parental leave reform and the discussion on a reform of the joint taxation of married couples. These reforms lead to changes in policy instruments and objectives that are not adequately described by the thesis of a change towards an adult worker model. Rather, so our first argument, the reforms lead to a thoroughgoing change of the interplay between (de-)familialization and (de-)commodification, as they not only put a stronger focus on labour market activation, but also try to increase birth rates via financial incentives. However, both reform projects mainly provide incentives for higher labour market participation and birth rates among highly qualified women, which means an important shift away from the objective of redistribution that has been an important impetus for German familiy policy so far. This development has severe consequences for social inequalities, as it promises an ?exclusive emancipation“ for highly qualified women only.     

Zur Bedeutung „transnationalen Sozialkapitals“: Sind Grenzgebiete Laboratorien sozialer Integration in Europa?

The article focuses on transnational relations in border regions. Social capital theory assumes that in border regions special opportunity structures exist for the social integration of the population of old and new member states of the European Union based on the specific possibilities for cross-border cooperation. Border regions may be seen as “laboratories of social integration”. The article discusses whether “transnational social capital” actually develops and to what extent it adds to the social integration of the regions and of Europe. Representative survey data from the German-Polish, German-Czech, and German-French border regions – gathered on both sides of the border – serve as the basis of the analysis. Results show that currently – especially on the old outer borders of the EU – the accumulated transnational social capital adds very little to social integration at the regional and European level.