Drei Welten der politischen Kommunikation? Ein Vergleich der Strukturen politischer Öffentlichkeit in der Schweiz, Deutschland und den USA anhand der Debatte um den Schwangerschaftsabbruch

Anhand eines Vergleichs der Abtreibungsdebatte über einen Zeitraum von mehr als drei Jahrzehnten werden in diesem Artikel die beträchtlichen Unterschiede der politischen Kommunikation in der Schweiz, Deutschland und den USA aufgezeigt und mit Rückgriff auf mediale, soziokulturelle und politisch-institutionelle Kontextfaktoren erklärt. Die höchste Erklärungskraft besitzen dabei politisch-institutionelle Eigenheiten der einzelnen Länder. So widerspiegelt sich die zentrale Stellung der Parteien in Deutschland in deren massiven öffentlichen Präsenz und geht zu Lasten der weitgehend marginalisierten Organisationen sozialer Bewegungen, während für die USA gerade das Gegenteil zu beobachten ist. In der Schweiz erhöhen die direktdemokratischen Instrumente die Resonanzchancen sowohl der sozialen Bewegungsorganisationen als auch – überraschenderweise – der Parteien deutlich. Letztere können so den Nachteil ihrer institutionellen Schwäche mehr als kompensieren, sorgen um ihre Zukunft angesichts einer zunehmenden Medialisierung der Parteiendemokratie scheinen zumindest in dieser Hinsicht unbegründet. Weiter zeigte sich, dass Volksinitiativen das Framing einer Debatte zeitweise ähnlich tief prägen können, wie dies in Deutschland und den USA durch die starke Judikative geschieht. Eine vergleichende Vorgehensweise und eine konsequente Kontextualisierung politischer Kommunikation im Sinne eines „institutional turn“ verspricht angesichts dieser Ergebnisse auch zukünftig ertragreich zu sein

How political parties frame the European integration process

This article proposes to study how national political parties frame the European integration process, in order to better understand how Europe actually figures into national political discourses. We argue that framing strategies depend strongly on parties’ positions and standing. To verify our hypotheses, we will account for the fact that political parties’ arguments might be influenced by country-specific characteristics and the specific issues being debated. Drawing on Habermas’ typology of pragmatic-, identity- and value-related arguments, we provide sophisticated frame categorizations to capture the complex structure of argumentation, going beyond a simple dichotomization of economic and cultural frames. Relying on a large and original media dataset for the period from 2004 to 2006 in six Western European countries, we will be in the position to test a series of hypotheses that have so far only been tested in individual countries

The politicisation of European integration in domestic election campaigns

How strongly is European integration being politicised in election campaigns, and what explains why a party chooses to emphasise Europe or, by contrast, remains silent about it? This article provides a systematic assessment of the salience of European integration in domestic election campaigns, tracking its development from the 1990s to the 2000s across six Western European countries based on media content analysis data. The findings show that the salience of Europe in election campaigns is actually rather limited when put into perspective by benchmarking it against other political issues. Moreover, ideological determinants are crucial in explaining European integration issue-emphasis. In particular, the more culturally conservative a party, the stronger its emphasis on Europe; the impact of the economic left–right divide, by contrast, is weaker and more ambiguous. However, Europe remains in the shadow of its twin issue, immigration, which shares a similar issue-emphasis pattern yet is more attractive to these culturally conservative parties

Framing the European Integration Process: Country-, Party- or Issue-Specific?

This paper proposes to study how the European integration process is framed. Such an analysis helps us better understand how the European Union is perceived and which arguments are mobilized to support or oppose it. We will test a series of hypotheses that have so far only been tested in individual countries. Drawing on Habermas’ typology of pragmatic-, identity- and value-related arguments we provide sophisticated frame categorizations to capture the complex structure of argumentation and to go beyond a simple dichotomization of economic and cul-tural frames. Relaying on a large media dataset for the period from 2004 to 2006 in six Western European countries we not only look at how political actors argue, but also whether framing strategies vary across countries and issues that are debated. We will come to the conclusion that the way the European Union is perceived de-pends a lot on the actors that are involved in the debate and the issues that are at stake

The impact of arenas in public debates over globalization

What are the consequences of globalization for the structure of political conflicts in Western Europe? How are political conflicts organized and articulated in the twenty-first century? And how does the transformation of territorial boundaries affect the scope and content of political conflicts? This book sets out to answer these questions by analyzing the results of a study of national and European electoral campaigns, protest events and public debates in six West European countries. While the mobilization of the losers in the processes of globalization by new right populist parties is seen to be the driving force of the restructuring of West European politics, the book goes beyond party politics. It attempts to show how the cleavage coalitions that are shaping up under the impact of globalization extend to state actors, interest groups and social movement organizations, and how the new conflicts are framed by the various actors involved

Sphingolipid subtypes differentially control proinsulin processing and systemic glucose homeostasis

Impaired proinsulin-to-insulin processing in pancreatic beta-cells is a key defective step in both type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes (T2D) (refs. (1)(,)(2)), but the mechanisms involved remain to be defined. Altered metabolism of sphingolipids (SLs) has been linked to development of obesity, type 1 diabetes and T2D (refs. (3-8)); nonetheless, the role of specific SL species in beta-cell function and demise is unclear. Here we define the lipid signature of T2D-associated beta-cell failure, including an imbalance of specific very-long-chain SLs and long-chain SLs. beta-cell-specific ablation of CerS2, the enzyme necessary for generation of very-long-chain SLs, selectively reduces insulin content, impairs insulin secretion and disturbs systemic glucose tolerance in multiple complementary models. In contrast, ablation of long-chain-SL-synthesizing enzymes has no effect on insulin content. By quantitatively defining the SL-protein interactome, we reveal that CerS2 ablation affects SL binding to several endoplasmic reticulum-Golgi transport proteins, including Tmed2, which we define as an endogenous regulator of the essential proinsulin processing enzyme Pcsk1. Our study uncovers roles for specific SL subtypes and SL-binding proteins in beta-cell function and T2D-associated beta-cell failure