How to evaluate German unification?

The title of this contribution is a question with a double meaning: On the one hand it refers to the method, on the other hand it refers to the results of German unification. After a preview of recent evaluations we discuss comparisons of the Federal Republic and the GDR from the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s. Five asymmetries between the two German states are delineated: Size and population, economic strength, migration, travel and mass-communication, massexit and mass protest. Next we resume our theses of a stabilizing transformation, East German counter arguments and the most recent research results on living-conditions, political culture, convergences and divergences. --

Understanding regime support in new democracies: does politics really matter more than economics?

It is essential that the new democracies of post-communist Central and Eastern Europe enjoy the full support of their citizenry. Among social scientists there is an ongoing debate about which conditions ensure mass support. Is political output, like individual freedom, or economic output, like citizens’ financial situation, a more potent force in generating approval for the newly established democratic institutions? In this paper we explore the question “what matters more: politics or economics?” by means of various survey data. A macro-analysis of many countries reveals that political support is correlated with democratic development, but also – and more strongly – with economic and social conditions. A micro-analysis of two countries reveals that while in East Germany the perception of guaranteed liberties contributes most to satisfaction with democracy, in Hungary the personal economic situation is most influential. The results do not confirm the view that politics are the most important factor for mass support in all post-communist counties. Furthermore we argue that it is fruitful to take into account other domains of regime performance like social security, social justice and protection. -- Für die neuen Demokratien in Mittel- und Osteuropa ist es wichtig, die Unterstützung der Bevölkerung zu haben. Doch welche gesellschaftlichen Bedingungen Politikzufriedenheit am stärksten fördern, darüber gibt es anhaltende Debatten. Sind die politischen Erträge der Transformation, wie Freiheiten und Demokratie, ausschlaggebend? Oder ist es die wirtschaftliche Situation? Mit Hilfe verschiedener Umfragedaten geben wir in diesem Arbeitspapier eine Antwort auf die Frage “Was zählt mehr: Politik oder Ökonomie?” Eine Makro- Analyse mit vielen Ländern zeigt, daß die Bewertung des neuen politischen Systems mit der demokratischen Entwicklung eines Landes zusammenhängt – doch für die wirtschaftliche und soziale Situation ergeben sich noch stärkere Zusammenhänge. In einer Mikro-Analyse mit zwei Ländern wird gezeigt, daß in Ostdeutschland die Demokratiezufriedenheit vor allem davon abhängt, ob Freiheiten und Bürgerrechte als realisiert gelten. In Ungarn dagegen bestimmt hauptsächlich die persönliche wirtschaftliche Lage die Bewertung. Die Ergebnisse bestätigen nicht, daß in postsozialistischen Gesellschaften die Politik generell mehr zählt als die Ökonomie. Weiterhin sollten bei der Untersuchung postkommunistischer Regime zusätzliche Output-Dimensionen wie soziale Sicherung, soziale Gerechtigkeit und öffentliche Sicherheit berücksichtigt werden.

Poverty in a multidimensional perspective: Great Britain and Germany in comparison

This paper deals with the issue of poverty in a comparative and multidimensional perspective. Based on Townsend’s concept of relative deprivation, we analyse what people can afford compared to their perceived necessities for decent living. We will analyse definitions of living standard and social deprivation within two European countries which provide sufficient data and differ in their institutional settings: Britain and Germany. The assumption is that different welfare regimes and different social policies will bring about dissimilar deprivation risks. In addition, the concept of deprivation is combined with income poverty to focus on those who are affected by both shortages, low income and a low standard of living. With a multivariate analysis deprivation risks other than income are examined. Indicators of subjective well-being show the effect different poverty levels have on people’s satisfaction in several life domains. The results underline the importance of taking into account different poverty aspects; standard of living turns out to be the main factor to explain overall life satisfaction and can well be seen as the core of multidimensional poverty research. -- Das vorliegende Arbeitspapier versteht sich als Beitrag zu einer Armutsforschung in mehrdimensionaler und komparativer Perspektive. Auf der Grundlage von Townsends Konzept der Relativen Deprivation werden Vorstellungen von einem angemessenen Lebensstandard in Großbritannien und Deutschland analysiert und den tatsächlich realisierten Lebensbedingungen gegenübergestellt. Es wird untersucht, ob sich unterschiedliche Wohlfahrtsregime und sozialpolitische Regelungen in ungleichen Deprivationsrisiken niederschlagen. Durch die Kombination des Deprivationsansatzes mit Einkommensarmut können verschiedene Armutslagen herausgestellt werden, die auf unterschiedliche Art und Weise Benachteiligung bedeuten. Mit Hilfe eines multivariaten Analyseverfahrens wird untersucht, welchen Einfluß andere Faktoren als Einkommen auf das Deprivationsrisiko ausüben. Indikatoren des subjektiven Wohlbefindens zeigen, daß die verschiedenen Armutsaspekte mehr als eine methodische Differenzierung darstellen: Niedriger Lebensstandard und niedriges Einkommen in Kombination haben erhebliche Zufriedenheitseinbußen in verschiedenen Lebensbereichen zur Folge. Die Ergebnisse unterstreichen die Relevanz, Armutsanalysen nicht nur auf Einkommen zu beschränken. Im Hinblick auf die allgemeine Lebenszufriedenheit haben Lebensstandard-Indikatoren eine hohe Erklärungskraft und können als wichtige Dimension einer multidimensionalen Armutsforschung angesehen werden.

Policy or privacy - what matters most for individual well-being? Determinants of life satisfaction in the enlarged Europe

Life satisfaction is quite heterogeneously distributed across countries of the enlarged European Union. Previous research has shown how living conditions within individual countries, such as access to material and emotional resources, are important for personal well-being, but it has neglected to explain differences between countries. This article investigates whether it also matters in which political, economic, and social circumstances people live, as well as whether their particular perception of the quality of their societal environment plays a role. People are well aware that the institutional and cultural settings in which their lives are embedded create opportunities and limitations: within individual countries, perceptions of society influence life satisfaction outcomes irrespective of access to resources. However, their importance for well-being differs across Europe: perceptions of society and material resources are highly decisive in countries which provide only a minimum of social security and in which the reliability of political institutions is poor. In rich and stable countries, the impact is weaker and private social support becomes more important. In addition to these country-specific weights of life satisfaction determinants, life satisfaction variations between countries can be explained to a large extent by taking into consideration the economic performance, the social security level, and the political culture in a country all in all, general conditions that enable people to live a respectable life. --

Evaluating democratic governance: A bottom up approach to European Union enlargement

Although analyses of democracy and governance may be complementary rather than in conflict, they are not identical. This article compares the EU criteria for evaluating applicants for membership with those of democracy indexes. It uses data from the 13- country New Europe Barometer surveys of public opinion to provide a bottom up evaluation of democratic governance in Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia and Ukraine. The results are compared, point by point, with the minimum evaluation of governance in the eight Central and East European countries admitted to the EU in 2004. Factor analysis confirms statistically that these measures are multi-dimensional; in other words, democratic governance cannot be reduced to a one-dimensional index of democracy. The conclusion emphasizes the advantages of thinking in terms of democratic governance not only for diagnosing and prescribing governmental reforms but also for academics monitoring democratization as a process that may only be partially successful. --

Poverty and social integration in the enlarged Europe

Empirical studies of the old EU countries suggest that poverty brings limited social relations and a lack of social support in its wake. At the same time, it is thought that in the transition countries, especially, individual supply crises are compensated for by a composite and stable network of social relations as well as a tradition of solidarity as a dominant value. This paper looks at the ways in which cultures of support vary across the enlarged Europe and to this end examines the link between poverty and social disintegration in countries characterised by different economic, cultural and welfare state regimes. The empirical analysis is concerned with (1) the distribution of social integration across the enlarged Europe, and (2) the verification of the hypothesis of accumulation and compensation in the individual countries. An additional step seeks to identify (3) the reasons for the variation across countries in the relationship between poverty and social disintegration. This macro-sociological perspective examines context effects that allow conclusions to be drawn regarding two hypotheses, in particular that of stigmatisation and that of crowding out. Is poverty, which only affects a minority of the population in countries with a generally high standard of living, closely associated with stigmatisation, and does it lead to social withdrawal? Does a precarious system of social protection increase private solidarity and is support potential reduced in an environment of universal risk insurance? Within this same context, the paper also looks for evidence of (4) greater recourse to family support in precarious life situations. The data on which the study is based is taken from the European Quality of Life Survey a representative survey of living conditions and quality of life in Europe that was carried out in October 2003. --

Contact between adult children and their divorced parents: Italy in a comparative perspective

This paper, based on a Multipurpose survey on a large national sample of Italian households which has made possible to analyse parent-child and grandparent-child dyads, explores the impact of marital instability on relationships with adult children and with grandchildren. As in other countries, the impact is more negative in the case of divorce than in case of widowhood and, in both cases, more negative for men than for women. It affects the threegenerational relationship and is not compensated by stronger horizontal kinship ties. The impact is most negative in the case of contacts, while in the case of material support it is more neutral and even positive for widowed parents, confirming the strong role played by need in Mediterranean countries in the case of the latter. Not only divorce/separation, also remarriage has a negative impact on intergenerational contacts. And in this case the impact is stronger for women than for men. An exploratory comparison with countries where divorce rates are higher and have a different gender culture suggests that although the impact of marital instability is negative in both cases, its intensity is higher in Italy. These results offer new insight into the working of strong family ties. These ties, particularly in the case of men, are more vulnerable to the dissolution of marital bonds than in countries with weak family ties. Finally, family ties are strongly mediated and constructed by women and through relationships between women. When a mother is no longer present alongside the father, even in the case of widowhood, fathers and grandfathers risk weakening the intergenerational link. --

Inequality and attitudes: postcommunism, western capitalism and beyond

This paper* deals with attitudes towards inequality in cross-national perspective using survey data of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) of 1992. Factor analysis shows that perceptions and evaluations of inequality and stratification refer to four attitudinal dimensions: Egalitarianism, meritocratic beliefs, functionalist convictions and the perception of non-universalistic status ascription. With these dimensions one gets an impression of the patterns of attitudes held in different countries. The main differences between post-communist and western capitalist countries concern egalitarian attitudes: East Europeans are much more egalitarian. This applies especially to the role of the state. Concerning the other three dimensions, other variables explain international variation in attitudes better than the belonging to the East or the West. Nevertheless, over the whole range of questions there is a visible separation between post-communist and western capitalist countries - but not into two „blocs“, but into a number of „families of nations“. Cluster analysis brings together societies that are similar in terms of social history as well as in terms of geography and welfare institutions. --

Zur Entwicklung der privaten Altersvorsorge: Vorsorgebereitschaft, Vorsorgeniveau und erwartete Absicherung im Alter

Im Mittelpunkt dieses Beitrages stehen Analysen zur Verbreitung der privaten Altersvorsorge, zur Vorsorgebereitschaft und zur erwarteten Absicherung im Alter. Die vorliegende Studie basiert auf zwei repräsentativen Bevölkerungsbefragungen: den Wohlfahrtssurveys der Jahre 1998 und 2001. Die Untersuchungen zeigen unter anderem, daß jeder zweite Bundesbürger (im Alter von 30 bis unter 60 Jahre) bereit ist, privat vorzusorgen, daß zwei Drittel über eine private Altersvorsorge verfügen, daß immer mehr Bürger privat vorsorgen und daß nur wenige erwarten, im Alter gut abgesichert zu sein. Es wird auch deutlich, daß viele, die eine zusätzliche private Altersvorsorge dringend benötigen, sich diese nicht leisten können. Sie sind im Alter von Unterversorgung und Armut bedroht. Die staatliche Förderung gemäß Altersvermögensgesetz (AVmG) wird an dieser Tatsache nichts ändern, weil die festgelegten Zulagen zum Aufbau einer privaten Altersvorsorge viel zu gering sind, um Geringverdienenden eine wirksame finanzielle Unterstützung zu sein. Die Förderrichtlinien müssen deshalb grundlegend reformiert werden: Erstens sollten nur diejenigen staatliche Beihilfen erhalten, die allein nicht in der Lage sind, eine zusätzliche private Altersvorsorge aufzubauen. Zweitens müssen die Zulagen für diesen Personenkreis deutlich erhöht werden.Up to now the response to the “Riester pension-scheme” is rather low. And banks and insurance companies are disillusioned. Nevertheless, there is no reason for this, more and more people are providing for old age on a private basis, and the determination to do even more in the future is amazingly high. But the problems lie elsewhere: unfortunately those who are most in need of additional private provision for old age cannot afford it. In November 2001, the time of the latest survey, two thirds of all persons in the age bracket from 30 to less than 60 years had already provided for old age on a private basis. In comparison with the survey of 1998, their number had risen by 14 percent. Given the short period of time of merely three years, this rise is quite significant. But the arrangement of private provision for old age is developing differently among the social strata. Whereas some groups were able to raise their percentage, others were not able to do so. These differences mainly derive from financial difficulties. The fact that two thirds of the unskilled and semi-skilled workers do not provide for old age on a private basis is of high socio-political relevance. From earlier surveys we know that it is these workers who seldom get a company pension. For these persons, the problems of deficits in old age provision and higher risk of old age poverty are adding up

From nationally bounded to pan-European inequalities? On the importance of foreign countries as reference groups

In sociology, the appropriateness of national approaches for understanding social inequality in todays societies is being increasingly questioned, and EU-wide approaches are advocated instead. In this paper, we link the growing debate about national or EU-wide approaches to reference group theory, investigating whether comparisons with foreign countries influence levels of individual life satisfaction. Our results indicate that, on the one hand, more people can be assumed to have a national frame of reference than a broader international one; on the other hand, among those who do have an idea of how average people in other countries live, cross-border comparisons certainly influence peoples satisfaction with life. Upward comparisons in particular are important: The more people feel personally deprived, relative to other countries, the less satisfied they are with their lives. In contrast, the feeling of relative gratification has a much smaller impact on life satisfaction, and often no impact at all. This leads us to conclude that EU-wide approaches to inequality do make sense, but that there is also no need to jettison national approaches completely. --