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The fall of the Communist regime in the USSR and Russia's search for a democratic and prosperous market-based future is one of the most compelling episodes of the end of the twentieth century. A central part in this drama is being played by political elites. These essays, written by some of the leading scholars in the field, analyse various aspects of the role being played by elites and leaders in Russian politics. Among the issues dealt with are: the origins of the Russian elites, including the issue of continuity with the Soviet past; the relationship between political and economic elites; the means taken by elites to structure politics and their relations; the dynamic of elite politics, and the nature of post-communism. These essays deal with many of the crucial questions facing Russia today.

This book contains fresh approaches to the interaction between regime and society in twentieth-century Russia. It offers new answers to familiar questions: • How useful is'totalitarianism'as a model to categorise authoritarian regimes? • What chances existed for tsarism to establish itself as a constitutional monarchy? • Were Trotsky and Lenin dictators in waiting? • How did the Bolsheviks make the Lenin cult? • What opposition did intellectuals offer in the Soviet regime? • What is the nature of contemporary Russian constitutionalism? It is required reading for historians, political scientists, sociologists and everyone interested in modern Russia.

On September 4, 1971, the office of Lewis Fielding, a psychiatrist practicing in Los Angeles, was broken into. It looked like a run of the mill drug raid. A month later, a homeless man was charged with burglary and the case was considered closed. On June 17, 1972, five men were charged with breaking and entering at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. With these two burglaries, one seemingly innocuous while the other was more serious because of the venue, the scandal known as Watergate was born. As the tale of Richard Nixon and his Plumbers began to unfold, it was discovered that one of Lewis Fielding's patients was Daniel Ellsberg, the man who released the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times. Ellsberg was high on Nixon's list of enemies and he vowed to destroy him at all costs. In Wild Man, Tom Wells explores the life of Daniel Ellsberg to discover what makes an individual enact the most severe breach of government security ever to occur in the United States. As Wells follows Ellsberg from his early days as a piano prodigy to his years of great promise at Harvard, we see the development of a volatile, narcissistic loner with a voracious sexual appetite, a highly developed intelligence and, most importantly, the overwhelming need to take centre stage in the pageant known as America. In Wild Man, Tom Wells creates an unforgettable picture of Daniel Ellsberg, an American Everyman for the seventies who embodied the promise and paranoia of that uncertain time. This is a thrilling piece of biography that will stand as one of the great American portraits.

The global energy transition will be a game-changer for global politics. The field of energy geopolitics hence is changing fast, providing challenges, opportunities and variable outcomes for states across the world. The academic scholarship on the geopolitics of renewables has expanded exponentially over the last decade focusing on winners vs losers, conflict vs cooperation and establishing initial expectations and general propositions regarding the outcomes of the global energy transition. Cases studies, however, have been far and few, and appear in book chapters or, more rarely, journal articles. Overall, there is a dearth of academic monographs examining in depth how specific actors in the global system approach new energy geopolitics, how they are impacted by the global energy transition, and how this links with their grand strategy. This short monograph aims to fill this gap by offering an up-to-date case study of EU energy geopolitics. Grounded upon the sub-field of energy geopolitics, it produces a conceptual framework linking the global energy transition with EU grand strategy to assess how it impacts EU's position in the global system, as well as the strategic gains, trade-offs and risks implicated. The book takes as its starting point and reviews systematically the main assumptions of the geopolitics of the global energy transition literature and the EU energy and climate policy that drives and shapes the EU energy transition. It subsequently focuses its attention on the impact of the EU energy transition on EU energy security, economic competitiveness and foreign policy/ power position and the potential it generates for more conflict or cooperation. The discussion is anchored in the different forms of power the EU operationalizes and showcases the strengths, limits and antinomies of the EU power toolbox in EU energy geopolitics. The originality, significance and contribution of this monograph lies in the cross-fertilization of fossil divestment and clean energy geopolitics, energy and climate policy, energy transition and EU as a power scholarship, with an eye to provide a comprehensive, up-to-date account of new EU energy geopolitics. In all, this monograph dissects the prospects and geopolitical implications of the new energy geopolitics, and the foreign policy ramifications engendered by the global energy transition. This book is aimed at academics and students in the areas of International Relations, International Political Economy, European Studies, Geopolitics, and Energy Politics. It aspires, moreover, to become a reference point for the scholarship in the field of energy (geo)politics. Moreover, it will be of value to think-tanks and policy-makers working in the fields of foreign, energy and climate policy.

Die Gesellschaft befindet sich derzeit in einem Zustand, der von zahlreichen und akuten Krisen geprägt ist. Der Band erörtert verschiedene gesellschaftlich relevante Krisen und stellt Projekte vor, die sich diesen Herausforderungen stellen und pädagogische Umgangsweisen entwickeln. Darüber hinaus werden innovative Methoden für Lehr- und Lernkonzepte mit einem interdisziplinären und vor allem europäischen Ansatz zusammengeführt. Internationale Perspektiven auf (Weiter-)Bildung, die im Rahmen europäischer Zusammenarbeit entstanden sind, werden vorgestellt und bieten einen globalen Blick auf verschiedene Themenfelder. Alle Beiträge ziehen Schlussfolgerungen und entwickeln Ideen zur Weiterentwicklung der politischen (Weiter-)Bildung, die für Didaktiker•innen unterschiedlichster Bereiche – darunter Lehrkräfte, Praktiker•innen der politischen Bildung sowohl aus dem schulischen als auch außerschulischen Bereich sowie Dozierende der Erwachsenenbildung – von Bedeutung sind.

Dieses Buch bietet eine vergleichende Untersuchung islamischer Wohlfahrtsaktivitäten in städtischen Gebieten sowohl in der Schweiz als auch in Italien, um allgemeine Fragen im Zusammenhang mit dem Wohlfahrtsengagement islamischer Organisationen in Europa zu behandeln.„Wohlfahrtsaktivitäten der neuen religiösen Akteure“ beschreibt, wie islamische Organisationen in Genf, Mailand, Rom und Zürich koordiniert und strukturiert wurden - vier Städte, die in der Literatur über islamische Wohlfahrt noch nicht analysiert wurden. Untersucht werden auch die institutionellen Möglichkeiten und Beschränkungen, die Formen sozialer religiöser Aktivitäten auf lokaler und internationaler Ebene beeinflussen können, indem es zwei Forschungsbereiche zusammenbringt, die selten miteinander sprechen: die Analyse sozialer Netzwerke und die Theorie politischer Möglichkeiten. Das Buch richtet sich an Soziologen, Anthropologen und Religionswissenschaftler, die sich mit der sozialen und politischen Integration von Muslimen in Europa und den sozialen Aktivitäten islamischer Organisationen in westlichen Ländern beschäftigen

This book is one of the first attempts to directly explore the relationship between law and acculturation. By exploring the theoretical basis of the concept of culture, the ideas of law and various models of acculturation, it brings a nuanced theorization and problematization of the intricate connection between law and acculturation. It does this through theory and then presents the findings of the author's qualitative empirical study conducted with a group of long-term Slavic migrants residing in Poland. The book culminates by demonstrating how the law can be integrated into one of the theoretical models of acculturation, specifically the Relative Acculturation Extended Model.

Since its existence in the 1950s, consumer policy in Germany has been understood and pursued primarily as a bundle of actions and measures initiated and institutionalised by the state. In many cases, the state has also issued corresponding mandates and set up support models, which has created the impression that we are basically dealing with a'consumer policy from above'imposed by macro-politics. Not that there have not been repeated attempts in the past decades to give impetus to consumer policy from the middle of civil society - often in the form of small citizens'initiatives. And in recent years in particular, a number of new consumer organisations have emerged which operate much closer to the grass roots. Nevertheless, the impression seems to have taken root among the large, government-related'players'in the field, who have been in the'business'for decades, not to mention government-internal consumer policy, that consumer policy concerns a policy field that is essentiallyordered by a collaboration of the state on the one hand, and consumer protection organisations representing all consumers equally on the other, while the many small consumer initiatives, not even started by individual committed consumers, regularly fall behind in comparison. This perspective refers largely to the view of and from the centre of politics. This volume is intended to go some way towards countering the institutionally prevailing impression that, in principle, there is only'consumer policy from above'that is really effective and assertive.The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence. A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content.

Gibt es eine ostdeutsche Identität? Bezeichnet „ostdeutsch“ analytisch treffend spezifische Lebensumstände oder ist sie eine politische Erfindung? Der Band informiert hierzu aus wissenschaftlicher Sicht. Politikwissenschaftliche, soziologische, wirtschafts- und finanzwissenschaftliche Beiträge untersuchen dies z.B. anhand der Wirtschaftskraft, des Wahlverhaltens, der Parteien, der Zivilgesellschaft, von Bürgerdialogen, Demokratieförderprogrammen oder Elitenbildern. Die Analysen zeigen Ostdeutschland und ostdeutsch als weiterhin sinnvolle analytische Kategorien, die auch gesamtdeutsche Entwicklungen zu verstehen helfen. Zwar ist ein Teil von Ost-West-Unterschieden auf feingliedrigere soziale und regionale Differenzen zurückzuführen (Kompositionseffekte). Dennoch verbleiben auch unter Berücksichtigung dieser Merkmale genuine Besonderheiten Ostdeutschlands (Kontexteffekte). Vor diesem Hintergrund bildet Ostdeutschland eine sozial relevante Lebenswelt und ein kontroverses Identitätsangebot.

Dieses Buch untersucht das Phänomen der gesellschaftlichen Angst und die hierauf ausgerichtete Angstpolitik. Die Angst in der Gesellschaft wird von vielen sozialwissenschaftlichen Untersuchungen angeführt, bleibt aber theoretisch und vor allem analytisch auffällig unbestimmt. Dies gilt ebenso für gesellschaftliche Diskurse: Ob nun alltägliche Unsicherheiten oder die Furcht, Sorge oder Angst gemeint sind, bleibt entweder unklar oder die Begriffe werden synonym verwendet. Das Buch setzt sich deshalb zum Ziel, verschiedene Formen der Unsicherheit in der Gesellschaft deutlicher zu bezeichnen, um soziale und politische Bedingungen und Folgen von Angst genauer fassen zu können. Die Beiträge der Autor•innen reflektieren aus unterschiedlichen Disziplinen (Geschichtswissenschaft, Philosophie, Politikwissenschaft, Soziologie) und über verschiedene Anwendungsgebiete der Sicherheitspolitik das Angstphänomen. Das Buch richtet sich an Forscher•innen, die das Phänomen der gesellschaftlichen Angst theoretisch, analytisch und empirisch untersuchen möchten.

Wissenschaftliche Arbeiten zu politischem Wissen der Bevölkerung in Deutschland konzentrieren sich zumeist auf die Analyse vorhandener Faktenkenntnisse und stellen diesen die zusammengefassten fehlenden und falschen Antworten gegenüber. Damit wird die Differenzierung zwischen Fehlvorstellungen (falsche Antworten) und Ignoranz (fehlende und „weiß nicht“ Antworten) vernachlässigt. Die Beiträge dieses Bands greifen diese Differenzierung mit unterschiedlichen Untersuchungsdesigns und zu verschiedenen Politikbereichen auf. Die Befunde zeigen, dass falsche und fehlende substanzielle Antworten nicht zusammengefasst werden sollten, da sie sowohl mit unterschiedlichen Determinanten als auch verschiedenen Folgen verbunden sind. Neben der Begutachtung durch die beiden Herausgeber haben alle Beiträge ein double-blind Begutachtungsverfahren durchlaufen. Deshalb möchten sich die Herausgebenden an dieser Stelle nochmals herzlich bei den Gutachtern für ihre Hinweise und Kommentare bedanken: Ursula Hoffmann-Lange, Toni Ihme, Raphael Kruse, Jürgen Maier, Uwe Remer, Rüdiger Schmitt-Beck, Christian Schnaudt, Harald Schoen, Thomas Schübel und Ulrich Sieberer.

Dieser Band analysiert das Selbstverständnis politischer Berater bezüglich ihrer Rolle in politischen Beratungsprozessen sowie ihre Sicht auf die Maßstäbe für die Legitimität und Legalität unterschiedlicher Beratungsvorgänge im politischen Entscheidungsprozess in Deutschland und Polen im Vergleich. Zudem werden auch weitere Aspekte aus dem Bereich der Politikberatung und Lobbyismus, wie die zunehmende Rolle der Medien in Beratungsprozessen, die Unterschiede in der Struktur und Beratungsressourcen der Abgeordnetenbüros, die Wahrnehmung des sogenannten „Drehtür-Effekts“ in beiden Ländern sowie die Möglichkeiten der Bürgerbeteiligung an politischen Konsultationsprozessen, aufgegriffen.

The Council of the EU is a powerful institution whose centrality has been challenged by the Treaty of Lisbon. More than ten years after this major institutional revision, this book examines its role within the EU political regime and its interactions with other institutions. It explores how the Council Presidency has navigated major crises over the past decade and addressed internal challenges. The various chapters discuss key timely questions: How has the relationship between the Council and the European Council evolved over time? To what extent have the recent crises reshaped the relationship between the Council and the European Parliament, as well as its interactions with the Commission? Is the Council Presidency still a powerful mediator? What are its internal challenges? What are the prospects for the rotating presidency system?

This book examines the ways in which the European Union's administrative structures have changed over the last decade in response to several significant political events, including Brexit, the refugee crisis, and the Covid-19 pandemic. Whilst much has been written about the responses to these events at both national and European level, less attention has been given to the internal transformations they have brought about within the EU's institutions. Multidisciplinary in approach, the book brings together leading scholars to assess the ways in which key organizations such as the European Council, the European Parliament and the European Central Bank have changed over the last ten years. It also throws light on the impact these events have had on policy actors within the EU administrative system, as well as its policy processes. It will appeal to all those interested in European public administration, political sociology, European politics, and EU studies.

This book analyses political leadership, addressing key questions central to the ongoing debate on the transformation of contemporary democracies. What exactly is political leadership? How does the relationship between leadership and power shape democratic transformations? What role do individuals play in broader historical processes? How does the personalisation of politics manifest, and how does it differ between leader democracy and populism? Is there still room for charismatic leadership in modern democracies and societies? These are some of the critical questions explored in this volume. The book traces the sociological relationship between leadership and power from foundational theories in the social sciences, through the personalisation of politics, to the rise of leader democracy and populist leadership. This book will be of interest to scholars, students, and practitioners in the fields of political sociology, political science, and leadership studies, as well as anyone engaged in understanding the evolving dynamics of leadership in contemporary democracies.

This book provides an in-depth analysis of the voting criteria of selectors in Greek political parties'leadership elections, focusing on open and semi-open primaries. It examines seven multi-candidate leadership contests organised by the centre-left PASOK, the centre-right New Democracy, and the radical left SYRIZA during 2007 – 2023, from the theoretical perspective of the Stark model and the three ordered selection criteria. Drawing on polling evidence and interviews with candidates, party officials and their aides, the book argues that the model helps explain the results of Greek parties'six in seven leadership elections.

This volume explains the behavior of the European Union (EU) towards Central Asia. In so doing, the responses of regional actors which impact the EU's regional conduct, and the effects of competing external governance providers (particularly Russia and China), are considered. The current literature – often from an interdisciplinary, descriptive area studies angle – reveals some research gaps. Scholars chiefly explore the impacts of the EU on Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan, while action of the EU itself with its decision-making, preferences, and underlying drivers, remains underspecified. Focusing more explicitly on the EU, chapters in the book are systematically organized along a set of shared, overarching questions. Ultimately, the authors depict and explain EU action and assess how successful the organization has been in achieving its stated regional objectives in a number of policy fields: Economic Development and Trade; Security; Democratizationand Human Rights; Water; and Education.

Politische Bildung bezieht ihren Sinngehalt u. a. aus der Idee einer gelingenden Begegnung mit dem Zukünftigen. Im 3. Jahrtausend muss sie sich allerdings – jenseits der Alternative zwischen einer unausweichlichen, düsteren Katastrophe und einem naiven Machbarkeitsoptimismus – der Frage nach der (un)möglichen Gestaltbarkeit der Zukunft stellen. Denn im Anthropozän wird die Zukunft zunehmend brüchig. Das wirft Fragen von zentraler Bedeutung auf. Wie kann sich die politische Bildung zukünftig auf das Zukünftige beziehen? Welche Themen und Fragen werden zukünftig wichtig sein? Welche didaktischen Methoden und Prinzipien sind zukünftig noch tragfähig? In den Beiträgen wird mit unterschiedlichen Schwerpunkten nach Antworten gesucht.

This book reflects on the nature of the rule of law in the European Union and the present and future consequences of the attacks that are undermining it. Presenting various case studies, it analyses violations of the rule of law and their impact on the quality of European democracy and on the workings of civil and political society. Written from an interdisciplinary perspective, the book connects legal aspects related to infringements of the rule of law with their political and sociological consequences at both a general and the EU level.The book is divided into three parts. The first focuses on the rule of law in the European context and the threats to democracy posed by its violations. It examines how populist movements and parties utilize the erosion of the checks and balances in liberal democracies to weaken resisting intermediate bodies, such as dissenting civil society groups. The second part concentrates on the political perspectives, which it approaches both in terms of its general features and through a set of case studies related to violations of the rule of law. The third part provides a legal perspective on these issues and examines the impact of the rule of law and its infringement in several areas, impacting both the internal and external dimensions of the EU.

Right after the Gezi Resistance, a new tendency of authoritarianism rapidly emerged in Turkey and AKP government started targeting anyone it perceives as a threat to its rule, especially academics, journalists, politicians, actors, directors, i.e. the intellectuals who produce oppositional art and critical knowledge, criminalizing them as enemies of the state. The authoritarian regime has permeated every aspect of economic, social, cultural, and political life, institutionalized primarily through the ongoing state of emergency declared in the wake of the July 15, 2016 coup attempt (one might also consider this as a controlled and manipulated toxoid coup). This new climate has started to limit the opportunities of production and reproduction for the intellectuals and artists, and even holding a dissident stance became a source of risk on its own. The Republic of Turkey limited, oppressed and punished the means of expression by giving one of the harshest (and maybe the most violent) reactions of its history against critical thought and opposition. The culture of democracy, which was almost already non-existent, has been completely abolished through the suspension of democracy on the ostensible level. This ongoing period is one, in which producers of critical knowledge and opposing artists are being faced with immense oppression and penal sanctions. One of the outcomes of this process is a kind of new-nomadism that we can sketch out as “leaving behind”. And one of the forms of this leaving is (voluntary or involuntary) exile. The majority of those whom we call “new-exile intellectuals” today have relocated generally to Western Europe, Great Britain, the United States, and especially to Germany. This new wave of political forced migration, which started in the aftermath of the Gezi uprisings and gained momentum following the coup attempt, has been defined by the editors of the book as “new-exile”', in order to draw a framework, as it has some unique characteristics different from the previous waves. The fundamental property of this experience is the simultaneous mobilization of intellectual capital and (bi-polar) opposition. This oppositional stance is both against the dominant global order and against German-style authoritarianism as well as Turkish-style fascism. It is bi-polar in the context of exile. The form of the opposition in question has the ability to take root in the lands it arrives at. It does not point towards a single direction (forward or backward) and a single place (the place it was ruptured); it is here/now and multidirectional. This state of new-exile bears the efforts of existing critical knowledge and art producers in the “heim” to which they have relocated, as critical knowledge and art producers are opposed to the dominant world system as well as to fascism in Turkey. As political subjects of the resistance against authoritarianism, they are continuously and collectively fighting against the structural fate of displacement. As both subjects and researchers of this current state of new-exile, it is our primary responsibility to understand and produce knowledge of these intellectuals'responses in this new life, to monitor the creation processes of the new mechanisms to cope with the challenges, and to understand/investigate the effects of all these on the transnational social space. We have tried to determine the content of this book based on our own experiences as new-exiled intellectuals. We believe that in this period of new-exile we are subjects and witnesses of a historic period due to our individual struggle for existence as well as our modes of organization and solidarity as a group of new-exiled intellectuals. On one hand, we know that while transforming ourselves, we pave the way for mutual interaction and the transformation of the structures in which we relate. This is precisely why the motivation behind th

This book explores how to identify and understand moral emotions—shame, guilt, pride, and hubris—in political messages and news media. Recognizing these emotions is crucial for assessing morality's role in public discourse, particularly as moral debates have deepened public divides on issues like abortion, migration, LGBTQ+ rights, and freedom of speech. These debates fuel political struggles between groups with different social values and moral intuitions, especially during election campaigns where moral conflicts are used to distinguish opposing forces. In these moral conflicts, each ideological camp seeks to affirm its legitimacy while questioning its opponents'reputations. Thus, understanding morality is vital for those interested in contemporary public discourses in divided nations. This book stimulates discussion on emotion-based morality, moral language, and discursive moral regulation in politics. It offers innovative analytical frameworks to study how political communication contributes to public moralization. The book combines descriptive, explorative, and comparative approaches to summarize findings from mixed-method analyses (qualitative and quantitative, textual and visual, content and survey) of moral emotional messages and media portrayals of prime minister candidates during Hungary's 2022 General Election Campaigns. Hungary serves as an illustrative case due to increasing concerns about the moral status of its political elite and extreme hostility between political blocs, leading to polarized views on governance. This book will be of interest to academics specializing in empirical moral studies and investigating public discussions in contentious and polarized societies.

This book explores how different Chinese social groups portray or discuss the European Union. The authors engage with issues such as trade, populism, EU crises, systemic rivalry and the Chinese media's representation of European integration and Brexit. They use qualitative, quantitative and mixed-methods empirical research to show that, despite China's authoritarian political system, social actors construct complex representations of the EU that may influence government policy. Rather than dismissing Chinese scholars as little more than state agents, one can benefit from their unique insights by analysing the prisms through which they view the world. In doing so, Western scholars can better understand the distinct institutional and cultural traditions that filter their own views of China.

This book discusses theories of crisis management and the radical right, to shed light on how responses to crisis influence radical right parties in their presence, discourse, and evolution. The book offers a comparative perspective by examining case studies with various traditions of radical right actors, presenting data on how crisis exploitation can assist in exploring, reconsidering, bargaining, and learning about the prospects of change of political parties. The book focuses on the debate on radicalization and crisis management. Similar to the already existing economic, political, post-Brexit, and migration crises in Europe, discourses of fear around the latest health crisis are paving the way for further radicalised discourse from the far right. The book looks into how radical right parties in Europe have responded to these crises. It monitors and explores how crisis exploitation impacts political strategies, opportunity-seeking behaviours, and the evolution of the discourse of radical right parties in the contemporary political landscape. Therefore, this book is a must-read for researchers, students, and policy-makers, interested in a better understanding of populism, radical right parties, electoral studies, as well as comparative politics in general.

Fern – so erscheinen vielen Menschen, insbesondere Ostdeutschen und Menschen mit Migrationshintergrund, die Eliten in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Die Beiträge des Bandes untersuchen aus sozialwissenschaftlicher Perspektive, ob dieser verbreitete Eindruck zutrifft und warum es ihn gibt. Die Analysen zeigen einerseits auf, in welchen Sektoren der Gesellschaft und warum Ostdeutsche und Menschen mit Migrationshintergrund unterrepräsentiert sind. Andererseits wird diskutiert, welche Folgen das für die politischen Einstellungen hat und wieso das ein gesellschaftliches Problem ist. Dafür wurden u.a. mehr als 2.800 Lebensläufe von Inhaber•innen wichtiger Führungspositionen erhoben sowie Interviews mit Elitenangehörigen und eine repräsentative Bevölkerungsbefragung durchgeführt. Den Band beschließen Handlungsempfehlungen für den weiteren gesellschaftspolitischen Umgang mit der Unterrepräsentation dieser, aber auch anderer unterprivilegierter Bevölkerungsgruppen.

Dieses Buch liefert neue Erkenntnisse über das Wahlverhalten und die politische Kultur im Freistaat Bayern, indem es die Ergebnisse der Landtagswahl2018 aus verschiedenen Perspektiven analysiert. So ist die prädominante Stellung der CSU durch die deutlichen Gewinne von Bündnis90/Die Grünen und der AfD nicht mehr existent. Der Band profitiert von einer umfassenden Datenbasis im Rahmen eines Lehrforschungsprojektes, an dem drei bayerische Universitäten beteiligt waren.

Unter Schlagworten wie'Armutszuwanderung aus Südosteuropa'entwickelte sich verstärkt seit 2013 ein politischer Abwehrdiskurs in Bezug auf die EU-Binnenmigration aus Rumänien und Bulgarien in deutsche Großstädte. In diesem Buch gehen die Autoren anhand einer Einzelfallstudie der Frage nach, wie dieser Diskurs die kommunale Praxis in einer westdeutschen Großstadt strukturierte. Durch umfangreiche empirische Erhebungen konnten sie einen Prozess des institutionellen Antiziganismus rekonstruieren, in dessen Zuge die Diskriminierung von sogenannten'Armutszuwanderern'– ein verwaltungssprachliches Substitut für das Stigma'Roma'– sukzessive ausgeweitet wurde. Dieser Prozess besteht aus wechselseitig sich verstärkenden Grenzziehungs- und Ausschlusspraktiken, die aus Geschichte und Gegenwart des Antiziganismus bestens bekannt sind und an die Tradition kommunaler Gefahrenabwehr anknüpfen.

Since its existence in the 1950s, consumer policy in Germany has been understood and pursued primarily as a bundle of actions and measures initiated and institutionalised by the state. In many cases, the state has also issued corresponding mandates and set up support models, which has created the impression that we are basically dealing with a'consumer policy from above'imposed by macro-politics. Not that there have not been repeated attempts in the past decades to give impetus to consumer policy from the middle of civil society - often in the form of small citizens'initiatives. And in recent years in particular, a number of new consumer organisations have emerged which operate much closer to the grass roots. Nevertheless, the impression seems to have taken root among the large, government-related'players'in the field, who have been in the'business'for decades, not to mention government-internal consumer policy, that consumer policy concerns a policy field that is essentiallyordered by a collaboration of the state on the one hand, and consumer protection organisations representing all consumers equally on the other, while the many small consumer initiatives, not even started by individual committed consumers, regularly fall behind in comparison. This perspective refers largely to the view of and from the centre of politics. This volume is intended to go some way towards countering the institutionally prevailing impression that, in principle, there is only'consumer policy from above'that is really effective and assertive.The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence. A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content.

Using Marxist and Polanyian frameworks, this book examines the structural and discursive transformation that can explain the polarization of migration debates and within the rise of nationalist anti-migrant discourses in Europe with a special attention to Eastern Europe and Hungary. It goes beyond the mainstream explanations of these phenomena that uses nationalist propaganda as causal factors and instead argues that the rise of anti-immigration currents cannot be understood without a dialectical and historical analysis of the material and discursive transformations, most importantly marketization and related reification. Drawing from thinkers such as Lukács, Polanyi, and Gramsci as well as diverse empirical sources including demographic studies, historical modelling, and discourse analyses, Migration Turn and Eastern Europe is a unique and rigorous study of one of the most pressing and puzzling political and sociological questions of ourtime.

The German Federal Election of 2021 was one of the most open and competitive in the post-war era. This book provides a systematic analysis of its domestic and international context, the shifting balance of the political parties, the election strategies and campaign themes, along with the challenges of government formation. An international array of scholars from Europe, North America and Australasia have contributed specially commissioned chapters on their principal areas of research. The discussion of individual topics is combined with sufficient background information so as to be accessible to readers who may not have detailed knowledge of German politics. In addition, by including links to multimedia election-related content we enhance the value of this volume and make it an indispensable reference tool.

Das Buch hat es sich zur Aufgabe gemacht, eine systematische Bestandsaufnahme der neuesten Entwicklungen der Parteien unter Einschluss der Bundestagswahl 2021 und ihrer Folgen für die Parteienlandschaft zu liefern. Es enthält sowohl einen Überblick über die Entwicklung des Parteiensystems insgesamt als auch ausführliche Analysen aller relevanten Parteien in Einzelbeiträgen.

This profound and insightful handbook aims to promote critical reflection on the way we conceptualise and study the radical left and to advance research by asking new questions. Radical left parties in Europe have been the subjects of significant study in the last decade, aided by the demonstrable success of newer parties like the Greek Syriza and Spanish Podemos, as well as the persistence of more established actors like the German Die Linke. Nevertheless, the emergent literature remains patchy and many elements of the party family still poorly understood. This handbook brings together a range of leading analysts to provide a definitive compendium, one that provides both students and scholars with an informative and easy-to-use guide to the radical left in Europe. Through utilising a common analytical framework to analyse the radical left in 19 European countries (within and outside the EU), the Palgrave Handbook of Radical Left Parties in Europe provides a wealth of comparable data on a wide number of cases to provide a sound basis for future studies. This rigorous comparative framework, allied with the unprecedented in-depth overview of the development of the European radical left over the past two decades, makes this handbook an essential starting place for those interested in all aspects of the radical left as a party family.

How does the dominant understanding(s) of the demo(i)cratic subject in the EU, and of democracy more broadly, shape the EU's democratic innovations on ‘citizen participation'? What are the politically and normatively preferable alternatives, both in terms of the conceptualisation of the democratic subject in the EU and in the ensuing political practices? The book addresses these questions combining a political theory with a political sociology perspective, contrasting the ‘democracy without politics'approach of the EU in the context of the Conference on the Future of Europe with that of ongoing transnational activist processes. In doing so, it develops an agonistic alternative to ‘the people(s)'as the political imaginary of democracy in the EU, which is based on the idea of the ‘decolonial multitude'. Thus, the book puts forward a diagnosis of current debates on EU democratic legitimacy as well as proposing an alternative.

This book examines different dimensions of digital communication and populism in times of the COVID-19 pandemic. While doing so, it discusses views, opinions, and research results regarding the conditions, experiences, constraints, benefits, and challenges related to the topic - not only using theoretical and methodological approaches but also practical perspectives. The COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic significantly accelerated the technological revolution presenting many social, economic, and political challenges, as it pushed the world into cyberspace to ensure social distancing. At the same time, many populist protests expressed in the digital public sphere massively gained importance during the lockdowns. As a result, one of the most significant consequences of using electronic tools is not only greater e-participation of citizens, but - especially evident through elections during a pandemic - even greater transfer of political communication and election campaigns into the space of new media. The book broadly analyses various contexts of digitalization of communication processes and populist politics from both theoretical and empirical perspectives in various case studies on the digitalization of information, communication, or participation processes during the COVID-19 pandemic in selected European countries and beyond. This book will appeal to students, researchers, and scholars of political communication, political science, electoral studies, digital politics, and democracy, as well as policy-makers interested in a better understanding of digital communication and populism during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mit dem Telekompaket und der TSM-Verordnung wurden auf europäischer Ebene zwischen den Jahren 2005 und 2016 zwei Policies zur sukzessiven Stärkung der Netzneutralität erlassen. Dieses Buch untersucht vergleichend die Wege zu Politikwandel in der Netzneutralität auf EU-Ebene. Es zeichnet gleichzeitig die Etablierung des Subsystems der Netzneutralität im Zeitverlauf nach und leistet ein umfassendes Mapping aller beteiligten Akteure und Positionen im Kontext der EU-Telekommunikations- und Netzpolitik. Mittels des Advocacy-Koalitionen-Ansatzes (ACF) und einer Methoden-Kombination samt Prozess- und Diskurs-Netzwerk-Analyse ist der Wandel der EU-Politik über eine Kombination von Wegen festzustellen: Unterstützer-Mobilisierung, Subsystem- und Koalitions-Veränderungen, Policy-Lernen sowie Broker als vermittelnde Akteure begünstigten in beiden Fällen auf unterschiedliche Art und Weise die Politikveränderungen beim Policy-Problem der Netzneutralität.

This volume examines the origins, ideology, organisation, leadership, political alliances, electoral performance and institutional role of the right-wing party Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d'Italia, Fdl). FdI's meteoric rise is only the latest in a series of shocks that have hit Italy's unstable political system in recent years. However, it would be a mistake to brand FdI as yet another Italian anomaly. Indeed, the party stands at the crossroads between an established political tradition, that of the post-fascist and conservative right, and the more recent populist waves that have affected many mature democracies. By placing Giorgia Meloni's party in a comparative analytical framework, the author shows that its success stems from a mix of past legacies and current developments seen in much of Europe (and beyond): the growing role of right-wing female leaders and their reliance on new media; the mainstreaming of the far right mixed with populist repertoires; the de-alignment and (partial) re-alignment of voters; the reconfiguration of electoral geographies; and ultimately the emergence of an illiberal model of democracy. In short, rather than being an exception, FdI can be seen as one of the most recent and advanced manifestations of a broader process of political change sweeping the West.

Das Buch bietet eine umfassende empirische Analyse der Anhängerschaft der deutschen Parteien auf Bundes- und Länderebene. Aufbauend auf einführenden Kapiteln zur politikwissenschaftlichen Parteien- und Wählerforschung analysiert das Buch in sechs Einzelkapiteln die Anhängerschaften der im 20. Deutschen Bundestag vertretenen Parteien (CDU/CSU, SPD, Bündnis90/Die Grünen, FDP, Die Linke, AfD). Grundlage dafür ist eine repräsentative Erhebung in Kooperation mit dem Markt- und Meinungsforschungsunternehmen Civey.

This book explores how identities, public spheres and collective memories are being transformed in cross-border areas, contributing to the broad sociological context of Europeanization. Offering case studies on the German-Czech-Austrian, and Czech-Polish-German borderlands, the book introduces original primary data on cross-border cooperation. This data is interpreted using the concept of active borders, which approaches borders as a source of multicultural competence and cognitive capacity. In turn, the authors argue that Europeans need to treat borders, both territorial and symbolic, as specific cultural forms. Active borders allow an unprecedented level of cross-border cooperation and integration, and foster a better understanding of differences, rather than re-embedding them or constructing others. Accordingly, the authors contend that active borders promote more dynamic, open and resilient societies, and represent crucial prerequisites for the success of the European integration project.

Der Sammelband verfolgt das Ziel, eine erste umfassende Bilanz zur Rezeption und Wirkung der'Fridays for Future'-Bewegung vorzunehmen. Im ersten Teil stellen die Autor•innen in verschiedenen Kapiteln den Stand der sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschung zur Bewegung dar. Im zweiten Teil des Bandes widmen sich die Autor•innen den Wirkungen, die'Fridays for Future'auf unterschiedlichen Dimensionen der Gesellschaft hat. Die Beiträge in diesem Teil gehen der Frage nach, wie die Bewegung u.a. politische Parteien, lokale und regionale Akteure oder auch die Wissenschaft insgesamt beeinflusst hat, bzw. welche Impulse sie setzen konnte.

Dieses Handbuch bündelt umfassende Analysen zur Bundestagswahl 2021 in Deutschland. Die Beiträge thematisieren zentrale Forschungsbereiche der Wahl-, Parteien-, Kommunikations- und Regierungsforschung. Das Handbuch kann daher als ideales Nachschlagewerk dienen und richtet sich an Lehrende und Forschende sowie an Wissenschaftsinteressierte aus der politischen Praxis.

The textbook introduces the self-understanding, institutional structure and practice of the political system of the Federal Republic of Germany. The work provides a problem-oriented overview of the basic constitutional and foreign policy decisions that have constituted German democracy; the political field of forces formed by interest groups, citizens'initiatives, parties and mass media; the political institutions at the federal, state and local levels; the social reach and administrative enforcement of political decisions; the political culture including the structure of the political ruling class. The new edition also addresses, among other things, the consequences of the Corona crisis for the political system, the changing party system and the crisis of the EU after the 2021 federal election.

Ständig stoßen wir auf quantitative Daten, Statistiken und Diagramme im Internet, in Zeitungen und Fernsehen. Dieser Band beschäftigt sich mit dem „digital-forschenden Lernen“ mit offenen Daten und öffentlichen Statistiken im Politikunterricht. Es werden Datenquellen hinsichtlich ihrer Verwendbarkeit im Rahmen des Politik- und Wirtschaftsunterrichts anhand von fachdidaktischen Kriterien untersucht. Ziel ist die Förderung der politischen Mündigkeit der Schüler durch quantitative Daten bzw. Urteils- und Handlungsfähigkeit sowie Datenkompetenz.

This book provides a broad, interdisciplinary analysis of events impacting on North Macedonia since its independence, particularly during the last decade. In the past thirty years, the country has gone through deep political, social and economic transition, along with a name change from ‘Macedonia'to the ‘Republic of North Macedonia'following the Prespa Agreement signed with Greece. The contributors consider Macedonia's challenges, its multi-ethnic make-up and its ambition to enter the European mainstream through the auspices of the European Union and NATO. The volume includes chapters on international politics and North Macedonia's place in the region's security architecture as well as the difficulties of the privatisation of socially owned enterprises, political corruption, state capture and backsliding. The book also covers the controversial ‘Skopje 2014'project in addition to the impact of migration along the ‘Balkan Route'and the current wranglings with Bulgaria over identitypolitics.

This is a first book-long analysis showing how the notion of ‘hybrid warfare'was used to transform security policies and discourses in an EU/NATO country. Building on current debates in International Political Sociology, Critical Security Studies, and Critical Geopolitics, it provides a novel account of how crisis, geopolitics, uncertainty, and expertise are intertwined in the social construction of threats. Based on extensive and original empirical research of large textual archive and elite interviews in the Czech Republic and Brussels, the book shows how officials, bureaucrats, journalists, activists, and experts all participate in the reshaping of security in a new geopolitical environment. Zooming on the case of Czechia and its specific Central European context, it complements the predominantly Western-centric studies of insecurity with an account of how the liminal position on an East/West boundary influences security politics. As a first study of its kind and scope, it will be of interest to academics and students interested in Central European politics, practices and discourses of hybrid warfare, as well as critical approaches to security and geopolitics.

Das Buch gibt einen systematischen Überblick über die Verbreitung, die Ursachen und die Stabilität von links- und rechtsextremen Einstellungen in Deutschland zwischen 1994 und 2017. Es zeigt, dass es viele Gemeinsamkeiten zwischen Links- und Rechtsextremisten gibt, sowohl in Bezug auf ihre Ideologien als auch auf ihre individuellen Erfahrungen. Insgesamt lassen sich diese Ursachen auf drei Faktoren zurückführen: unbefriedigte individuelle Bedürfnisse (z.B. Deprivation oder Politikverdrossenheit), der Zugang zu ideologischen Narrativen, die vereinfachte Lösungen für individuelle Probleme versprechen, und die größeren gesellschaftlichen Lebensumstände (z.B. Transformationsprozesse, Arbeitslosigkeit oder Zuwanderung). Obwohl extremistische Einstellungen relativ selten sind, erweisen sie sich als sehr stabil: Einmal erworben, sind sie nur schwer wieder auf den demokratischen Weg zu bringen. Dieses Buch vergleicht erstmals systematisch linksextreme und rechtsextreme Einstellungen, leistet einen intensiven methodischen Beitrag zur Messbarkeit solcher Einstellungen und setzt deren Ursachen und Stabilität in Beziehung.

Dieses Buch bietet eine vergleichende und historische Analyse des Totalitarismus und geht der Frage nach, warum Spanien während der Inquisition totalitär wurde, Frankreich aber nicht; und warum Deutschland im vergangenen Jahrhundert totalitär wurde, Schweden aber nicht. Der Autor verlegt das Konzept des Totalitarismus zurück in die Vormoderne und stellt Hannah Arendts Vorstellung von der Banalität des Bösen in Frage. Stattdessen stellt er einen alternativen Rahmen vor, der erklären kann, warum manche Staaten totalitär werden und warum sie Menschen zu bösen Handlungen verleiten.

Drawing on a selection of papers presented to the Fifth World Congress of Central and East European Studies held in Warsaw in August 1995, the book presents a broad cross-section of thinking about postcommunist developments in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Specialists from the region and the West apply their unique insights to challenge some conventional views on the transition. The book is both diverse and focused, suggesting that the experience of democratisation is an open-ended process in which those involved learn both from their own experience and from comparative transitions elsewhere. It provides a rich source for the comparative analysis of democratisation.

Zuletzt haben verschiedene Gruppen durch demonstratives Übertreten von Gesetzen Aufmerksamkeit auf ihre politischen Anliegen gelenkt, sei es die Verletzung der Schulpflicht bei Fridays for Future-Demonstrationen oder die Weigerung, sich an die Maßnahmen zur Pandemie-Eindämmung zu halten, bei Kritikern der Corona-Politik. In diesem Buch wird untersucht, was hinter diesen Regelbrüchen steckt: Unterstützer der Fridays for Future-Bewegung sind zwar unzufrieden mit der Klimapolitik, aber gut ins politische System integriert; Menschen, die sich nicht an die Corona-Regeln halten mögen, weisen dagegen zum Teil eine erhebliche Entfremdung vom und Misstrauen gegenüber dem politischen System auf.

Einführend werden die Ideologieelemente der „Querdenker“ besprochen, dort auch die Ergebnisse der ersten empirischen Studien zu „Querdenkern“ und Teilnehmern an Corona-Demonstrationen. Verschwörungserzählungen sind ein (potenzieller) Radikalisierungsfaktor und spielen für die Bewegung der „Querdenker“ eine wichtige Rolle. So werden verschiedene aktuelle internationale Verschwörungserzählungen von „Querdenkern“ aufgegriffen, darunter auch die antisemitische Verschwörungserzählung „QAnon“. In Reaktion auf die „Querdenker“-Bewegung haben die deutschen Verfassungsschutzbehörden einen neuen Phänomenbereich von Extremismus festgestellt, die „verfassungsschutzrelevante Delegitimierung des Staates“. Bei der Analyse der Szene der „Querdenker“ muss differenziert werden, weil eine komplexe Mischung aus Radikalismus, Verschwörungserzählungen und Extremismus festzustellen ist.

Von Haus aus Jurist und Staatsrechtslehrer, vertritt Hermann Heller einen demokratischen Konstitutionalismus, der die Wirklichkeit der Demokratie mit der Normativität des Rechts zusammendenkt. Was Hellers Werk dabei in besonderer Weise fruchtbar erscheinen lässt, ist die Verbindung von Staatsrechtslehre, Politikwissenschaft und Soziologie, die erst die komplexe Wirklichkeit der Demokratie erfahrbar macht. In seinen späten Weimarer Schriften – etwa zum Autoritären Liberalismus – zeigt sich Heller als Analytiker der Krise, der uns heute den Blick für die Herausbildung autoritärer Politikstrukturen insbesondere auf europäischer Ebene schärft. Neben dieser kritischen Perspektive auf die Konstellationen und Dynamiken der (zum Teil schleichenden) Autokratisierung politischer Prozesse lassen sich auf Grundlage des Hellerschen Werkes auch die Voraussetzungen gelingender demokratischer Stabilität benennen. Die Rekonstruktion dieses Ansatzes eines dezidiert demokratischen Konstitutionalismus steht im Zentrum des geplanten Sammelbandes.

Dieses Buch ist die erste vergleichende Studie über rechte Kommunikations- und Organisierungsbestrebungen auf betrieblicher Ebene sowie gewerkschaftliche Gegenreaktionen. Im Rahmen eines europäischen Sechs-Länder-Vergleichs (Belgien, Deutschland, Frankreich, Italien, Polen, Ungarn), der auch eine Betriebsfallstudie für jedes Land umfasst, wird eine Klassifikation rechter Aktivitäten und gewerkschaftlicher Reaktionen herausgearbeitet. Der Band beruht auf einem in Zusammenarbeit mit Gewerkschaften durchgeführten Forschungsprojekt und damit auf einem Theorie-Praxis-Dialog zu diesem hochaktuellen Thema.