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Zusammenfassung Die Ergebnisse zeitgeschichtlicher Forschung legen nahe, dass die deutsche Wiedervereinigung nicht moglich gewesen ware ohne die (antagonistische) Kooperation der Eliten in der Bundesrepublik und in der DDR in den Jahren der Teilung. Sie schuf die Voraussetzung fur die Integration der 1990 in der DDR neu etablierten politischen Eliten in die konsensual geeinte gesamtdeutsche politische Elite. Bis 1989 kooperierten die Eliten der beiden deutschen Teilstaaten trotz ihres grundlegenden Antagonismus, weil sie sich davon je eigene Vorteile versprachen. Eine nicht unbedingt intendierte Folge dieser Kooperation war die Aufrechterhaltung des sozialen und wirtschaftlichen Zusammenhangs der deutschen Gesellschaft in zwei Staaten. Schlagworter : Eliten, Elitenwandel, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung, DDR, Ostdeutschland ----- Bibliographie: Best, Heinrich/Vogel, Lars: Politische Eliten in der Deutschen Wiedervereinigung, GWP, 4-2015, S. 481-492. https://doi.org/10.3224/gwp.v64i4.21148

Der Thuringen-Monitor ist eine seit 2000 jahrlich stattfindende, reprasentative Bevolkerungsbefragung zur politischen Kultur im Freistaat Thuringen. Ein Schwerpunkt liegt auf der Messung rechtsextremer Einstellungen, ein weiterer auf der Beobachtung von Demokratieunterstutzung und Demokratiezufriedenheit. In seinem Beitrag diskutiert Heinrich Best Entwicklungstrends und Ursachen dieser Einstellungen auf Basis der Thuringen-Monitore 2000 bis 2017.

This chapter introduces the handbook section on differentiation and integration of elite sectors. It describes the formation of elites as a process of social differentiation. The resulting power structure separates economic and political elites. The process of functional differentiation of complex elite systems brings evolutionary advantages, but leads also to elite-elite and elite-population differentials with the potential for conflicts and disruptions in the interaction between elites and non-elites, elite sectors, and sub-elites. Therefore, elite differentiation is intrinsically linked to the vertical integration of elite sectors and to horizontal integration between the levels of elites and non-elites. The chapters of this section cover the sectors of representative elites, executive elites, non-elected political elites, economic elites, and media elites. A further chapter discusses models of elite integration.

There is a widely shared understanding that mass political identities are powerful social forces which define the makeup of and the relationship between large collectivities. They translate cogniti...

[Abstract This article inquires into the impact of personality factors on the selection and self-selection of parliamentary elites. I compare personality profiles of German MPs and the German population obtained through survey research, and for some comparisons I utilize elite and mass samples matched for education, gender, and age. I ask further if MPs’ personalities have an impact on their preferences for expansionist or restricted government budgets and welfare state benefits, the extension or limitation of civic rights, and several other policies. Party affiliations of MPs are used as a control variable. I find that MPs’ personality traits differ strikingly from those of the German population and from those of followers in most of the parties with which MPs are affiliated., AbstractThis article inquires into the impact of personality factors on the selection and self-selection of parliamentary elites. I compare personality profiles of German MPs and the German population obtained through survey research, and for some comparisons I utilize elite and mass samples matched for education, gender, and age. I ask further if MPs’ personalities have an impact on their preferences for expansionist or restricted government budgets and welfare state benefits, the extension or limitation of civic rights, and several other policies. Party affiliations of MPs are used as a control variable. I find that MPs’ personality traits differ strikingly from those of the German population and from those of followers in most of the parties with which MPs are affiliated.]

Discussions of mass, group, or collective identity tend to be characterised by an abundance of theoretical and conceptual disputes and a relative lack of empirical foundation; in particular there i...

This article explores the failures and achievements of democratic elitism in Germany. I first outline the conditions in which concepts of leader democracy and democratic elitism were set forth by Max Weber and Joseph Schumpeter during the first half of the twentieth century. I then argue that democratic elitism can usefully be reformulated in terms of principal-agent theory and William Sumner's theory of antagonistic cooperation. I present empirical findings from a study of elite conflict and consensus in re-unified Germany that are consistent with these theories, and I suggest that democratic elitism should incorporate both.

During the postwar decades following Joseph Schumpeter's seminal Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, democratic elitism struck many as an apt and insightful description of how representative democracy works – even though convinced democrats detected an "elitist" thrust they found disturbing. But during the last several decades political elites and leaders have wielded more power and influence in Western democracies than Schumpeter and his early adherents acknowledged. If it is to retain relevance and utility, democratic elitism must incorporate the now more evident roles elites and leaders play.

This selection of papers deals, broadly speaking, with the role of social change in human development. Put in other words, these papers investigate the impact of contextual dynamics on human adaptation, a prime topic of all life-span psychology. They were written by two psychologists and two sociologists—by training, we should add, as readers will easily find out that the approaches and methods taken are interdisciplinary in nature. The papers are special in many regards. The foremost speciality probably pertains to the outcome variables studied—occupational, and sometimes more specifically economic, attainment and mobility. This is obviously a rather circumscribed domain of behaviour, but one of utmost importance in two respects. First, occupational attainment and mobility represent pivots of adult socialization that branch out to virtually all aspects of psychosocial development and are influenced by the contextual constraints people live with, such as the prosperity of the economic situation. The latter leads us directly to the second aspect: The phenomena of social change addressed in the papers are alike in that they have a profound

Long term changes in the recruitment patterns of European representative elites can be described as the aggregate result of selectorates' responses to a sequence of fundamental problems challenging polities since the emergence of modern representative political institutions in the 19th century. Recent data show that some long-term trends of (Western) European parliamentary recruitment like the increase of MPs with a public sector background have reversed or plateaued since the late 1980s. At the same time a rise in turnover, a decrease of incumbency and a growing diversity of recruitment patterns can be seen in the same group of polities. This paper explores whether and to what extent these changes are linked to changes in the party systems of Western European polities and whether new trends of parliamentary recruitment are emerging. It introduces the proposition that after the 'consensus challenge' of the post Second World War era a 'legitimacy challenge' is now shaping European legislative recruitment, increasing the value of social and cultural assets of candidates that are related to their expert-status and favouring properties signalling their moral integrity.

Seit den ersten Jahren nach der deutschen Wiedervereinigung wird der Rechtsextremismus als ein besonderes Problem Ostdeutschlands wahrgenommen. Obwohl Westdeutschland keineswegs Immunitat gegenuber rechtsextremen Tendenzen fur sich beanspruchen kann, gibt es doch einige empirische Evidenz fur die Annahme, der Rechtsextremismus in Ostdeutschland sei sowohl seiner Quantitat als auch seiner Qualitat nach ein spezifisches Phanomen (vgl. Best, Salheiser & Salomo, 2014). Dies betrifft die wiederholten Wahlerfolge rechtsextremer Parteien und ihren Einzug in ostdeutsche Landtage, die im Vergleich zur gesamtdeutschen Statistik in Ostdeutschland signifikant haufiger dokumentierten Gewaltstraftaten mit auslanderfeindlichen bzw.

The social figure of the professional politician describes a politician who makes a living from politics and is caught between democratization and professionalization. Career structure and interview data of German Members of the European Parliament, Members of the Bundestag and of selected parliaments at state level (Lander) since reunification 1990 make clear that politics can be depicted as an awkward employment. It cannot be characterized as profession from a profession-sociological view. It is rather unsafe, episodic, and vague in its field of profession, its necessary qualifications and in its career developments. Also it is true that despite comparable institutional frame conditions the profession follows different career logics in East and West Germany.

When the American sub-prime mortgage and bond market crisis started to affect European financial markets, governments and national parliaments faced the task of preventing a collapse of banking systems. National political elites soon found themselves entangled in the Herculean task of redesigning the superstructure of European political and financial institutions. Economic elites had believed that the post-1990 era of ‘globalization’ freed them from intrusive political controls. But in circumstances of crisis they experienced the pivotal roles national states and supranational political institutions play in securing the bases of international capitalism by preventing excessive pursuits of self-interest (Reinhart and Rogoff, 2011; Mody and Sandri, 2012). Dynamics of the crisis soon demonstrated, however, that attempts to resolve it did not prevent its deepening and further spread. To put this in ‘challenge and response’ terminology, responses to the initial stage of crisis created second-order challenges, which led to responses that created further challenges … and so on (Shambaugh, 2012).

Drawing on databases going back to the middle of the nineteenth century, this article examines how changes in the opportunity structures in political recruitment have influenced the socio-economic backgrounds and career patterns of British and German MPs. Extending opportunity structures enables legislatures to respond to socio-economic changes in society, but there may be a significant time-lag before they are reflected in the legislature. In spite of significant differences in their political history, there has been a convergence of socio-economic backgrounds and career patterns, driven largely by changes in the opportunity structures, which, particularly in the German case, preceded the full impact of changes in political culture. This convergence does not preclude significant differences, but these are principally the product of particular factors, such as party and electoral systems, and changes do not necessarily occur simultaneously, but the tendency towards similar educational and occupational bac...

SUMMARY In this article Professor Best writes as a social scientist interested in how historical data can be used statistically to test hypotheses about conflict structures. The study uses the voting data from the two Constituent Assemblies of 1848 in Paris and Frankfurt to test alternative theories about the development of conflict in democratic assemblies elected on universal male suffrage. One predicts that free elections would naturally generate complex conflict structures, the other that they would generate polarity around opposite extremes. The statistical model employed suggests that in these assemblies, where the basic issue was between the status quo and change, the pattern that emerged was one of polarisation.

This chapter examines the causes of variation in the Europeanness of European economic and political elites. It shows that attachment to Europe (emotion), the wish to strengthen European integration (cognition), and to strive for a common foreign policy (conation) are loosely coupled and vary strongly between European countries, between elites and the general population, and between economic and political elites. This challenges the thesis that European integration is based on a pan-European consensus within elites and between elites and non-elites. Results of analyses show weak and fragmented evidence for the impact of elites’ situs, status, previous biographical experience, and religious affiliation on their Europeanness, whereas a consistent impact comes from the level of Europeanness of other elite groups, indicating a strong effect of mutual cue-taking and peer-pressure at national level. The impact of these and other findings on the future of the process of European integration is discussed.

This chapter presents a synopsis of the main results of the ‘Europe of Elites’. These strongly support the elitist character of European integration while challenging the idea of a coherent ‘Eurelite’: cognitive, emotive, and conative dimensions of elites’ Europeanness vary between countries and few elite members are prepared to award the EU the concept of statehood. Where the integrity of the state was endangered, where Protestantism prevails, and where the state has an important role in acquiring and redistributing EU subventions, political elites are reluctant to endorse further EU integration. While a strong responsiveness between elite sectors attunes national elites concerning European matters, large elites–masses gaps are found, particularly in the ‘conative’ dimension of Europeanness regarding future steps towards European integration. The concluding observation is that the ‘Europe of Elites’ is a multifarious and polycephalic entity, shaped by differentials within and between elite sectors, elites and non-elites, and––foremost––between national settings.

This chapter defines the volume’s key concepts and introduces the main research questions addressed in the following chapters. Following a review of literature dealing with the challenges of European integration, it focuses on the emergence of various forms of Euroscepticism, Europhobia, and Europhilia among different sectors of the national elites. The notion of Europeanness is introduced as a manifold and compound concept used to analyse differences among the national elites surveyed in this study. Three dimensions of Europeanness appear: emotive, cognitive, and projective. Finally, the chapter introduces the explicit empirical questions addressed by the various chapters: from the question of the career perspective in a supranational scenario, to the problems of European socialization of national representatives and economic stakeholders; from the question of the elite–masses gap to changes in the domestic political discourse of party elite. The methodological and theoretical approaches utilized in the different chapters are also discussed.

„Europe made the difference“, so lautete die Schlagzeile in der New York Times als nach einer erstaunlich kurzen Zeit innereuropaischen Verhandelns die europaischen Regierungschefs – angeleitet durch Nicolas Sarkozy und Angela Merkel und inspiriert durch George Brown – im Oktober 2008 einen milliardenschweren Rettungsplan fur das europaische Bankensystem verabschiedeten. Kurze Zeit spater schlossen sich die USA dem europaischen Modell an und integrierten zentrale Elemente des europaischen Plans in ihr eigenes Konzept, insbesondere die zuvor als ‚unamerikanisch‘ abgelehnte Moglichkeit des Staates, unmittelbar Geschaftsanteile an Banken zu erwerben, d. h. das Bankensystem in Teilen zu ‚verstaatlichen‘. Innerhalb einer Woche wurde der europaische Plan durch die nationalen Parlamente verabschiedet und durch die Regierungen implementiert. Ein Kollaps des internationalen Finanzsystems wurde abgewendet, auch wenn damit eine Rezession der Realwirtschaft nicht zu verhindern war.