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.     

Die Bewältigung wirtschaftlicher Unsicherheit. Zum Pragmatismus der Soziologie der Konventionen

In which way exactly is the New French Pragmatic Sociology pragmatic? The specific “pragmatic anthropology” of the French Convention School is based on two theoretical concepts: The concept of the reality test and the concept of change between regimes of action. It is argued that the pragmatic quality of the reality test depends on the concept of change between regimes of action. This argument is situated in an examination of the historical pragmatism of William James and John Dewey and is then methodically demonstrated by an economic sociological case study on CO₂-trading. The concept of change between regimes of action allows the observation of peoples’ movements between the public and the private in order to resolve the inescapable uncertainty of the collective situation. In doing so, the French Convention School enhances the understanding of economic action and the paradoxical processes of order.     

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.     

Die Osterweiterung der Europäischen Union und die Bedeutung kollektiver Identitäten

Auf der Grundlage eines historisch-soziologischen Ansatzes stellt dieser Beitrag eine Analyse der Osterweiterung der Europäischen Union und der darin eingebetteten kollektiven Identitäten in einem west- und osteuropäischen Vergleich vor. Er geht grundsätzlich davon aus, dass der Prozess der Osterweiterung im Kontext der Rekonstitution der europäischen Zivilisation als einer Rekonstruktion ihrer historischstrukturellen: sozioökonomischen, politischen wie kulturellen Ungleichheitsmatrix analysiert werden muss. Für den Prozess der Osterweiterung, seine Grundlagen, Sequenzen und zukünftige Entwicklungsrichtung spielen dabei vor allem auch die kollektiven Identitäten und ihr wechselseitiger Bezug auf der west- wie osteuropäischen Seite eine zentrale Rolle. Auf der westlichen Seite zeigt die vergleichende Analyse Frankreichs, Deutschlands, Großbritanniens und Schwedens gegenüber Osteuropa eine grundsätzlich westlich-zivilisierende, allerdings je nach Struktur der nationalen Identitäten und politischen Kulturen unterschiedliche Ausrichtung auf. Auf der östlichen Seite zeigt sich dagegen im Vergleich zwischen Polen, Tschechien, Ungarn und Russland eine ebenfalls je nach Struktur der nationalen Identität unterschiedliche, aber ambivalente: imitative wie defensive Orientierung auf Westeuropa. Diese kulturelle Ungleichzeitigkeit zwischen West- und Osteuropa wird — so die Grundthese — eine entscheidende Rolle in dem faktischen Verlauf der Osterweiterung der Europäischen Union spielen.     

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.     

Formen politischen Handelns der kleve‐märkischen Landstände 1640–1660

Summary

Affected by the political influences from America and France, Poland's constitution of 1791 revised the electoral ordinance for the gentry, modified the administration of the cities and gave them representation in the Seym, and finally instituted a hereditary monarchy with checks and balances between the branches of government. The opposition of domestic conservatives, aided by armed foreign intervention, secured the repeal of this constitution in 1793. The result was a national insurrection in 1794 the defeat of which led to the final partition of Poland. Napoleon's 1807 Prussian campaign led to the creation of the Duchy of Warsaw, whose constitution was based on French egalitarian ideas and whose civil law was the Code Napoleon. The constitution separated executive and legislative functions and placed constitutional matters in the hands of the executive. In 1815 the Poles secured from tsar Alexander I the establishment of a hereditary constitutional monarchy with an appointed senate, an elected Seym and an extensive Bill of Rights. The system eventually failed when tsar Nicholas I violated the constitution and public dissatisfaction with the conduct of his brother, Constantine, precipitated the revolution of 1830.     

Gewalt in Ordnungskonflikten als Problem der erklärenden Soziologie

The article argues that the uprisings during the Arab Spring as well as the riots in either the banlieues of French cities or in London have to be considered as violent conflicts that pose a serious threat to the social orders in which they emerge. These different kinds of social resistance have in common that they communicate more or less developed alternative conceptions of social orders that challenge what has been considered legitimate so far. Until now, sociology has neither successfully explained such kinds of conflicts nor the way they are triggered. Therefore, the article discusses crucial problems of a sociology of violence, i.e. violence as term and concept, theoretical and methodological deficits and, finally, assumptions about the role of violence in conflict-ridden processes of modernization and civilization in general. The article argues that a sociology of violence should concentrate on the nexus of social order and violence in order to explain how and why violent conflicts emerge in specific social contexts. Thus, a sociology of violence should take an effort to reconstruct the crucial social mechanisms that underlie the dynamics of emerging violence in processes of production and reproduction of social order.     

Sigitas Geda: Metaphorizität als Prinzip der Textkohärenz im Poem Strazdas

Abstract

This study focuses on the cycle of poems “Strazdas”, written by the Lithuanian poet Geda (1945–1992). It shows how the understanding of the reader changes with every verse. In the centre of the analysis we find the word strazdas. On the one hand, it is the name of a Lithuanian romantic poet, on the other it means thrush. Both the poet and the bird are keys to understanding these poems. The study shows the interdependence of these lines of interpretation and connects them with a third line: Lithuania. The interpretation lines are founded on semantic and syntactic analysis, using Nekvapils' concept of compounded formations.

Die sprachliche Form ist erhaben und vermeidet das Gewöhnliche <tt>o idiotikon</tt>, wenn sie fremdartige Ausdrücke <box>enikoi</box>verwendet. … Doch wenn jemand nur derartige Wörter verwenden wollte, dann wäre das Ergebnis entweder ein Rätsel {ainigma} oder ein Barbarismus <b>arbarismos</b>: wenn das Erzeugnis aus Metaphern besteht, ein Rätsel, wenn es aus Glossen besteht, ein Barabarismus. Denn das Wesen des Rätsels besteht darin, unvereinbare Wörter miteinander zu verknüpfen und hiermit gleichwohl etwas wirklich Vorhandenes zu bezeichnen.     

Die Ausbildung bäuerlicher Landschaften im Raum der Eidgenossenschaft

Summary

The Development of Peasant Communities in the Helvetic Confederation

Traditional Swiss historiography saw the history of the cantons as a fight by burghers and peasants for freedom against feudal rule. More recently this black and white picture has been modified by showing that the urban cantons, notably Bern, Zurich and Lucerne, pursued a traditional city‐state policy of territorial expansion and subjection of the peasantry. This picture, in its turn, is now being shown as too extreme since it does not account for the development of the Swiss Confederation and for its evident attraction to communities beyond its borders. A study of the Oberland of Bern shows that, especially in the fifteenth and the early sixteenth century, village and peasant communities were able to get rid of serfdom and acquire from their local feudal lords extensive rights of self‐government and judicial authority, with a displacement of feudal law by common law (Landgesetz). The city of Bern supported these developments. While more detailed studies are required for other parts of Switzerland, it looks as if this development may well have been common.     

Disziplinäre Rituale – Bericht zum Jubiläumskongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie

Mitteilungen und Berichte

Disziplin?re Rituale – Bericht zum Jubil?umskongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie     

Von Westfalen nach Kosmopolis? Die Problematik kultureller Identität in der europäischen Politik

?Westfälisch“ inspirierte Analysen des europäischen Integrationsprozesses behaupten, dass kulturelle Heterogenität die Bildung eines gemeinsamen politischen Willens der Europäer verhindert. Demgegenüber leitet sich für ?kosmopolitische Demokraten“ der normative Reiz der EU gerade aus der Notwendigkeit ab, eine politische Gemeinschaft neuen Typs zu konstituieren, die historisch erstmals tatsächlich rein ?zivile“ Wurzeln hat. In Abgrenzung zu diesen Positionen geht der folgende Beitrag davon aus, dass die Regulierung des kulturellen Pluralismus auf europäischer Ebene von den Widersprüchen gekennzeichnet ist, die der institutionellen Entwicklung der EU generell zugrunde liegen: Während das intergouvernementale Prinzip die Rolle der Nationalstaaten hervorhebt und dem Schutz der entsprechenden ?Nationalkulturen“ einen hohen Stellenwert beimisst, eröffnet der europäische Transnationalimus auf der anderen Seite jedoch auch Möglichkeiten für die Artikulation kultureller Identitäten unterhalb und jenseits der Nationalstaaten und trägt damit in gewissem Umfang zu einer ?enationalisierung“ politischer Kulturen bei. Am Beispiel der Sprachpolitik lässt sich diese Situation gut illustrieren. Im Schlussteil befasst sich der Beitrag mit dem Potenzial des Subsidiaritätsprinzips für ein ?reflexives Identitätsmanagement“ in der EU.     

Preis der Fritz Thyssen Stiftung für sozialwissenschaftliche Aufsätze

Mitteilungen und Berichte

Preis der Fritz Thyssen Stiftung für sozialwissenschaftliche Aufs?tze     

„…den Dämon finden, der seines Lebens Fäden hält.“ Theoretische Beiträge zur Funktionslogik von Lebensführung

Mitteilungen und Berichte

     

Kapitalismus und Gender. Eine Auseinandersetzung mit der kapitalismuskritischen Intersektionalitätsforschung

In intersectionality research capitalism is often analyzed as a social order that systematically produces social inequalities. Particularly the feminist literature describes capitalism as a set of gendered institutions that enforces patriarchal control structures. This paper does not engage in a critique of capitalism. Instead, it follows a strictly analytical perspective in order to discuss the basic structure, the culture and the institutions of modern capitalism with respect to gender equality. The paper argues that modern capitalism in general is neutral in respect of gender issues. Discriminations against women are caused by traditional gender stereotypes and concrete institutional settings that can be changed without tearing at the very fabric of modern capitalism.     

Geordnete Verhältnisse? Vielfalt und Einheit relationalen Denkens in der Soziologie

The concept of relationality has become a fixture in current sociological discussions. At the same time, we are confronted with an uncharted terrain of differing views on what ?relational sociology“ exactly means. Against this background, this article aims to provide insights into relational sociology’s diversity and unity, thereby contributing to a systematic understanding of its fundamental principles. To this end, the paper first reviews the most important sociological traditions and lines of thought relevant for this debate. In a second step, the variety of motives and arguments identified in this process are sorted in order to propose a scheme that distinguishes between four dimensions of relational sociology: 1) ontology-epistemology, 2) social theory, 3) theory of society, and 4) research practice. Finally, in the last section of the paper, the differences and similarities of the respective approaches serve as a basis for the reconstruction of ideal types of relational thinking.     

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.     

Ost und West, Nord und Süd: Zur räumlichen Verteilung und theoretischen Erklärung der Gewaltkriminalität in Deutschland

The research reported here follows up on the long-standing discussion concerning the regional distribution of violent crime in Germany. It focuses on assault and robbery rates reported by the official German crime statistics for the years 2005–2007 in each of the 413 communal districts (“Kreise”). The discussions commonly contrast the eastern region (till 1990 the territory of the communist ruled “German Democratic Republic”) with the northern and the southern region of the (now) western part of the “Federal Republic of Germany”. It becomes obvious, however, that crime rates vary much more within than between these regions. More than half of the overall variation can be explained by two composite measures of relative deprivation and the level of urbanization. A number of additional variables have been tested for their explanatory power, including a newly constructed measure of disintegrative individualism. It successfully identifies a specific criminogenic potential associated with certain structural elements of a developing “knowledge society” and the rapid expansion of higher education. Apart from ordinary regression analyses various techniques of spatial data analysis have also been applied.     

Politische Redekultur in der Vormoderne. Die Oratorik europäischer Parlamente in Spätmittelalter und Früher Neuzeit

SUMMARY

Procedural delaying tactics (Obstruktion), including filibustering, have been used by parliamentary minorities overwhelmed by large majorities supporting a government. English in origin, they were widespread in Europe by the turn to the twentieth century as a consequence of liberal interpretations of the right to freedom of speech. Apart from England and the United States, the practice was especially prevalent in Austria and Hungary. Barna Mezey examines this issue in Hungary from 1846 until 1939, reviewing the historical, constitutional and legal aspects of obstructive measures and the steps taken against them within a comparative context. The Hungarian manifestation may be divided into simple obstruction (filibustering for several hours per speaker, days for the whole operation), technical (procedural delays, for which frequent lengthy votes were needed), and violent forms such as shouting and the throwing of objects. Only in the last case did Hungarian Speakers not hesitate to take countermeasures, including summoning the police.

After the Dual Monarchy was established, the minority in the Hungarian parliament claimed that its blocking actions were justified as the Compromise of 1867 led the government of Austro-Hungary to pursue policies not in the national interest. The Hungarian parliament was divided between those favouring the dynasty's attempt to create a more unified kingdom and those adhering to the principles of 1848. The latter were deprived of the chance of ever achieving office by the powers granted to the monarch in the Compromise. They felt driven to employ delaying tactics in an organized manner from 1872 onwards, when a proposed change in voting criteria would have greatly restricted the franchise. Another major conflict from 1896 was over measures to reduce the influence of the Church on marriage and to widen freedom of religion, including that for the Jews. An attempt to impose more discipline on debates in 1904 led the opposition to destroy all the furnishings of the debating chamber and precipitated the fall of the government. In 1912 the Speaker, acting for the government, used the police to remove the opposition from the chamber and push through a law introducing a two-year term for military service and other army reforms. Legislation at that time also prohibited procedural delaying measures, and in 1928 severe restrictions were placed on filibustering. The author also analyses the debate at the time among legal experts over the validity of these tactics, at the heart of which lay disagreements on the nature and limits of freedom of speech.