地方党政关系的宪政思考

地方党政关系是中国地方政治结构的重要组成元素之一,地方党政关系的发展对于地方政治发展具有重要影响。从宪政视角看,地方“党”与“政”之间要形成和谐稳定的党政关系,需做好两方面的工作：在法治方面,通过法治形成对地方党政关系的刚性规范;在制度安排方面,重新分配地方党委和地方政府的权力和职能,地方党委享有决策权,地方政府拥有执行权。     

论交通肇事罪的主体

在犯罪主体方面,交通肇事罪的主体是一般主体。从刑法对交通肇事的罪状规定、交通运输管理法规的规定及实际情况看．无论是机动交通工具运输人员还是非机动交通工具运输人员、行人,都可以因自已的违反交通运输管理法规行为而造成重大事故,因而非机动车辆的驾驶人员及行人应当包括在交通肇事罪酊主体范围之内。     

Open Immigration Policies and Liberal Discomfort

Consequentialist cosmopolitanism, Peter Higgins argues, enables closed border liberals to evade charges of moral hypocrisy despite their commitment to moral equality of individuals, once we recognize that open border arguments rely on cosmopolitanism’s individualism requirement, which ignores social realities relevant to a realistic assessment of the social consequences of an open immigration policy. Higgins is mistaken, however, in contending that cosmopolitan individualism entails attention to people only in their capacity as the abstract atomic individuals populating Charles Mills’ idealized social ontologies. Conversely, if cosmopolitan individualism does compel us to think of people as abstract atomic individuals, we are not obliged to think of them as relatively privileged. Under liberal cosmopolitanism, however, which prohibits state discrimination between citizens and non-citizens, open border policies are subject to no such consequentialist objections.

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.     

Arbeit, Strafe und der Freiraum der Subjekte*

Over the last decades labour has changed considerably; now individualization and personal enterprise are beginning to shape its character and meaning. In this way, labour has acquired a kind of narrative, which is shown in examples of online-recruiting by German companies. On the other hand, punishment nowadays does not focus on rehabilitation and is, it may be said, handled without any narrative. A comparison of both developments suggests significant changes in social integration and control.     

Ein romantisches Gehirn – Zum <Emphasis Type="Italic">cerebral turn</Emphasis> der strukturalen Anthropologie

Sociology has so far discussed the results of neurobiological research with regard to two different aspects: normatively, as the question for the creatorship of actions, and methodologically, as the question for their relevance in explaining social actions. In doing so, it often ignores the fact that neurobiological naturalism particularly challenges theoretical sociology to account for (socio-)ontological questions of constitution. This paper suggests that, as to this matter, sociology by itself makes advances to the natural sciences. With the help of the example of Lévi-Strauss‘ structural anthropology, it will be shown why and to what range this demand is met. The beginning of the paper explains the extent to which Lévi-Strauss’ programmatic naturalism is romantically motivated. At the level of practical realisation, the next part follows the question to what extent a naturalist position can actually be deduced from the general context of the empirical fields of research within structural anthropology. Finally, the concluding part of the paper discusses the socio-theoretical, cardinal question for the relation of emergence and reduction on the basis of the example of Lévi-Strauss.     

Felder und Institutionen. Der soziologische Neo-Institutionalismus und die Perspektiven einer praxistheoretischen Institutionenanalyse

The rise of new institutionalism in American sociology and its quest for a theoretical foundation has improved attention to Bourdieu’s theory of practice. The article examines chances of a combination of new institutionalism and practice theory as well as prospects of a practice-theoretical analysis of institutions. With some exceptions, it is revealed that neither in theory nor in empirical research Bourdieu’s theory of practice is properly considered by new institutionalism. Nevertheless, fruitful connections between new institutionalism and practice theory are identified especially with regard to basic problems of institutional analysis: the ambiguity of the concept of rule and the delimitation of social institutions as a sociological object of research.     

Amtliche Statistik,Sichtbarkeit und die Herstellung von Verfügbarkeit

This essay analyses the programmatic dimension (?Normalerzählung“ or ?normal account“) of official statistics as a social institution and identifies the two concepts of visibility (?Sichtbarkeit“) and availability (?Verfügbarkeit“) as basic principles of modern official statistics. Up to the 18th Century, the proto-statistical attempts at the quantification of the social can still be described as producing ?visibility without availability“. But with the birth of official statistics as an institution in 19th Century the two basic principles are closely coupled. This coupling in statistic visibility regimes of different ranges and depths appears to be unbroken up to the 1970s and 1980s. Towards the end of the 20th Century, however, these principles are increasingly put to the question. This article argues that this can be interpreted as an indication of a reflexive modernization of the official statistics. These developments will finally be illustrated by empirical examples from the public discourse of unemployment statistics.     

Moderat bevorzugt, extrem gewählt. Zum Zusammenhang von Präferenz und Wahlentscheidung in räumlichen Modellen sachfragenorientierten Wählens

This article demonstrates, on the basis of survey data from the 2005 German national election, that voters often systematically choose more extreme parties than warranted by their own preferences. Estimation of Grofman’s (1985) spatial discounting model reveals that party preference and vote decision follow different utility functions. Preferences turn out to be purely proximity driven, i. e. voters prefer parties with positions close to their own. Moving from preference to the vote of the top-ranked alternative, a devaluation of party positions and a significant shift in voter utility towards more extreme parties is observed. These results show that voter behaviour may change, even though voter preferences remain unchanged. Results also suggest that the remarkable success of FDP and Linke in the 2005 election is more likely due to shifting behaviour by moderate voters rather than to sweeping changes in the German electorate’s preferences toward welfare policy.     

Kritik und Neubewertung politischer Repräsentation: vom Hindernis zur Möglichkeitsbedingung politischer Freiheit

In participatory democratic theory we see a positive reassessment of political representation these days. Whereas until recently representation has at best been accepted as an unavoidable substitute for direct democracy, newer theories regard representation as constitutive for democratic political action. Such a turn in the assessment of representation has become possible by dismissing an autonomy-oriented concept of democracy that goes back to Rousseau, and of which a modified version is represented by Jürgen Habermas today. The new interpretations understand representation not in the sense of an as perfect as possible transmission of the will of the represented to the representative, but as a relation of difference which allows for plural acting and political judgment in the first place. Although the discussion of these theories shows that they can offer an interesting theoretical reconstruction of representative democracy, they remain very vague in specifiying concrete possibilities of political action and democratic participation for the represented.