Civil Society, Cleavage Structures, and Democracy in Germany

This article analyses the consequences of recent changes in cleavage structures in German society for civil society, democracy, and social cohesion. It argues that the emergence of a new 'demarcation-integration' cleavage has politicised civil society in Germany in several ways. As a result, the role of civil society for the future development of German democracy has become highly ambivalent. The article is organised into four parts. First, recent transformations in political conflict structures in Western European countries are outlined. Second, the article presents data on the manifestation of this conflict in Germany after the so-called 'refugee crisis.' Third, the consequences of these new conflicts on civil society are analysed. Fourth, the relationship between civil society and democracy is discussed. The article concludes with suggestions for future research

The erosion of state capacity and the European innovation policy dilemma: a comparison of German and EU information technology policies

Der Artikel untersucht den Einfluss der Globalisierung von Märkten, Technologien und Unternehmen und der Europäisierung der öffentlichen Politik auf die Kapazitäten des Staates in der Technologiepolitik. Der Autor zeigt an Hand empirischer Beispiele aus dem Bereich der Informationstechnologie, dass die Technologiepolitik durch zwei widersprüchliche Entwicklungen in den letzten zwei Jahrzehnten geprägt wurde. Einerseits wurden die Konzepte und Strategien , die die öffentliche Politik leiten, immer komplexer, wie es die umfassenden Programme für die 'Innovationspolitik' auf nationaler und europäischer Ebene zeigen. Anderseits erodierten als Ergebnis der ökonomischen Globalisierung die staatlichen Möglichkeiten zur Steuerung und Implementation dieser Programme. Als Folge dieses Widerspruchs ist die Technologiepolitik sowohl auf staatlicher als auch auf EU-Ebene mit einem ständig wachsenden strategischen Dilemma konfrontiert. In Anbetracht dieser Lage diskutiert der Autor einige politische Optionen, wie mit diesem strategischen Dilemma in der Innovationspolitik umgegangen werden kann. (ICA)'The article analyzes the impact of the globalization of markets, technologies and companies and of the Europeanization of public policies on state capacities in technology policy. Based on empirical examples from the field of information technology, the article argues that technology policy has been characterized by two contradictory developments in the last two decades. On the one hand, the concepts and strategies guiding public policies have become more and more complex, resulting in comprehensive programs for national and European 'innovation policies'. On the other hand, as a result of the economic globalization; as well as of changes in the internal structure of the state, the state capacities to implement these ambitious strategies successfully have been eroding. As a consequence, technology policy both on the national and on the supranational level has been confronted with an intensifying strategic dilemma. Finally, the article discusses policy options to cope with this strategic dilemma in innovation policy.' (author's abstract)

Authority transfer or membership conflict? Explaining politicization of European integration in public debates on major integration steps

While there is increasing evidence that European integration has been politicized, knowledge on the driving forces of this process is still limited. In this paper, we contribute to this research by examining the importance of authority transfers to the EU as drivers of politicization. It innovates in two ways: First, we extend the authority transfer argument by highlighting the mobilizing power of membership conflicts; and, second, we analyze the relevance of national opportunity structures, referenda in particular, and actors’ mobilizing strategies for politicization. Our findings show that the authority transfer argument needs to be extended and integrated into a broader framework of political conflict. Empirically, we trace politicization in public debates on every integration step (treaty reforms and enlargement) from the 1970s to the late 2000s in six West European countries (France, Germany, Britain, Austria, Sweden, and Switzerland) based on a relational content analysis of newspaper coverage

A vote for Europe? The 2019 EP elections from the voters' perspective

In this paper we analyze the 2019 EP elections from the voters' perspective. It is based on a novel post-electoral survey covering five North West European countries: Austria, Germany, France, Sweden and the UK. In particular we address the following questions: How important were the lead candidates in the election campaign? Which issues were most important for voters? How do these issues relate to voters' political preferences and ideological orientations? Our findings show that the Spitzenkandidaten process failed to effectively connect European party groups with their voters. Moreover, our analysis reveals that voters had clear issue priorities, which reflected, to a considerable extent, the new cleavage structure which has been shaping party competition in North West European countries in the last two decades

Environmental Innovations: Institutional Impacts on Co-operations for Sustainable Development

A suitable strategy for achieving sustainable development is to foster environmental innovations. Environmental innovations, however, suffer from so-called "double externalities", because apart from innovation spillovers they also improve the quality of public environmental goods, which can be used without cost by free riders. Those innovation spillovers can be avoided through co-operation. Furthermore co-operations can be considered as advantageous because environmental innovations often depend on interaction in research and development, production, selling and disposal. This paper analyzes as to what extent institutional factors impact co-operative arrangements of innovative organizations in the development of new environmental technologies. It applies a multi-dimensional institutional analysis focusing not only on institutional arrangements which exist among organizations but also on opportunities and constraints provided by the institutional environment in which these organizations are embedded. Expanding the existing research we will conclude what kind of policy measure may support the success within networks of environmental oriented innovators.Environmental innovation, Co-operation, Sustainability, Institutional analysis, Policy measures

Politicizing immigration in Western Europe

Immigration has become a hot topic in West European politics. The factors responsible for the intensification of political conflict on this issue are a matter of considerable controversy. This holds in particular for the role of socio-economic factors and of radical right populist parties. This article explores the politicization of immigration issues and its driving forces in the electoral arena. It is based on a comparative study using both media and manifesto data covering six West European countries (Austria, France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, and the UK) for a period from the early 1990s until 2017. We find no association between socio-economic factors and levels of politicization. Political conflict over immigration follows a political logic and must be attributed to parties and party competition rather than to ‘objective pressures.’ More specifically, we provide evidence that the issue entrepreneurship of radical right populist parties plays a crucial role in explaining variation in the politicization of immigration

Globalization and the transformation of the national political space: Six european countries compared

In this paper, we present the basic ideas, the design and some key results of an ongoing research project on the transformation of the national political space in Western Europe. We start from the assumption that the current process of globalization or denationaliza-tion leads to the formation of a new structural conflict in Western European countries, opposing those who benefit from this process to those who tend to loose in the course of the events. The structural opposition between globalization "winners" and "losers" is expected to constitute potentials for the political mobilization within national political contexts. The political mobilization of these potentials, in turn, is expected to give rise to two intimately related dynamics: the transformation of the basic structure of the na-tional political space and the strategic repositioning of the political parties within the transforming space. We present several hypotheses with regard to these two dynamics and test them empirically on the basis of newly collected data concerning the supply side of electoral politics from six Western European countries (Austria, Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland). The results indicate that in all the countries, the new cleavage has been embedded into the existing two-dimensional national political spaces. In the process, the meaning of the original dimensions has been transformed. The configuration of the main parties has become triangular even in a country like France where it used to be bipolar. --

FROM THE NATIONAL STATE TO THE TRANSNATIONAL REGIME OF POLITICS – THE STATE’S GOVERNING ABILITY IN THE ERA OF GLOBALIZATION

Autor polazi od teze da globalizacija institucionalizira nove oblike vladanja, ali da to ne umanjuje značenje nacionalne države nego ga upravo povećava. Pokazuje se da globalizacija sili napredna industrijska društva da pronađu novu ravnotežu između zahtjeva za gospodarskom učinkovitošću i očekivanja u pogledu socijalne sigurnosti. S druge strane, nacionalne su države izbjegle udar globalizacije zahvaljujući prvo, institucijskoj prilagodbenoj pričuvi modernih demokracija, drugo, razvoju i primjeni novih političkih upravljačkih instrumenata i, treće, inteligentnom korištenju međunarodnih kooperacijskih prisila za nacionalne političke inovacije. Sve ovo, međutim, ne znači da je nacionalna država u eri globalizacije prošla neokrznuta. Pojavila se nova arhitekutura političke vladavine koju autor naziva transnacionalnim režimima politike u koji spadaju, pored nacionalnih država, međunarodne organizacije, kao npr. WTO, regionalne integracije (EU, NAFTA), ali i različite vrste nacionalnih i transnacionalnih interesnih grupa i pokreta. Autor zaključuje kako se ne smije precijeniti učinkovitost novih oblika vladanja te da je osnovni problem današnjice širenje područja u kojima nema funkcionalnih tržišta, uspješnih nacionalnih država niti globalnih oblika vladanja.The author’s starting assumption is that globalization institutionalizes new forms of governance, but that this does not diminish the significance of the national state; on the contrary. Globalization forces the advanced industrial societies to find a new balance between the calls for economic efficacy and the expectations regarding social security. On the other hand, national states have avoided the impact of globalization primarily owing to the, first, institutional acclimatizing reserve of modern democracies, second, the development and the application of the new political governing instruments and, third, the intelligent usage of international cooperational pressures in favour of national political innovations. However, all this does not mean that the national state has gone through globalization unscathed. A new architecture of political governance has emerged, called by the author the transnational regimes of politics. They include, besides the national states, the international organizations such as WTO, the regional integrations (EU, NAFTA), as well as a variety of national and transnational interest groups and movements. The author concludes that the efficacy of the new forms of governance must not be overrated. Also, the basic problem today is the expansion of the areas lacking functional markets, successful national states or global forms of governance

Zivilgesellschaft, politischer Konflikt und soziale Bewegungen

Der Beitrag untersucht die Beziehungen zwischen Zivilgesellschaft, Demokratie und gesellschaftlichem Zusammenhalt. Er argumentiert, dass die Rolle der Zivilgesellschaft in diesem Beziehungsgeflecht ambivalent ist. Für den gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt und die Qualität demokratischen Regierens ist nicht nur die Stärke der Zivilgesellschaft entscheidend, wichtiger noch sind die normative Orientierung der Zivilgesellschaft, ihre innere Struktur und ihre Einbettung in die relevanten politischen Konfliktstrukturen