Sports, Global Politics, and Social Value Change: A Research Agenda

Despite their important role in forging, constructing and self-ascribing social identities and shaping popular culture, sports have long been a marginalized subject of social science inquiry, cultural studies, and research on international politics. Only in recent years this has begun to change. The article seeks to advance the still nascent but emerging cross-disciplinary field of research on sports and global politics in two ways: first, by addressing largely unexplored issues of sports, politics, and social conflicts, putting the spotlight on sociopolitical arenas beyond commercialized sports mega events, which have attracted most scholarly attention in contemporary research; and second, by generating hypotheses on the indirect political effects of sports cultures, in particular on the relationship between local social identities—reinforced through sports—and cosmopolitan value change. These interlinked spatial and substantive claims ground a new critical research framework and agenda: it examines sports as profoundly embedded in socioeconomic, cultural and political forms of rule and domination but also seeks to disclose sports’ emancipatory and subversive potential in advancing globalization from below

Back to Kant? The Democratic Deficits in Habermas’ Global Constitutionalism

This chapter offers a critical reappraisal of two different models of global constitutionalism proposed by Jurgen Habermas that respond to Immanuel Kant's cosmopolitanism and seek to move beyond it. Habermas' own discursive theory of deliberative democracy, which allocates a central place to self-legislating subjects in culturally grounded communicative communities, can hereby function as a critical resource to challenge the democratic deficits in his global constitutionalism. An aspect of Kant's political cosmopolitanism is significant for the critique and revisions that Habermas suggests. The chapter argues that although Habermas' models absorb Kant's cosmopolitan intuitions and contribute important resources for critiquing resilient nationalist fictions and sovereigntist shortcomings, cultural relativism and arbitrary justice, they also risk fetishizing what he presupposes a priori to be universally consensual, rational and binding formal constitutional principles. Cosmopolitan translations and re-articulations can also challenge the content and scope of ‘basic human rights' in unpredictable ways.</p

Divided We Stand:An Analysis of the Enduring Political East-West Divide in Germany 30 Years after the Wall's Fall

Germany continues to face an inter-regional political divide between the East and the West three decades after unification. Most strikingly, this divide is expressed in different party systems. The right-wing populist Alternative for Germany and the left-wing populist Left Party are considerably more successful in the eastern regions, while German centrist parties perform worse (and shrink faster at the ballot-box) than in the West. The article discusses empirical evidence of this resilient yet puzzling political divide and explores three main clusters of explanatory factors: The after-effects of the German Democratic Republic’s authoritarian past and its politico-cultural legacies, translating into distinct value cleavage configurations alongside significantly weaker institutional trust and more wide-spread skepticism towards democracy in the East; continuous, even if partly reduced inter-regional socioeconomic divisions and varying economic, social and political opportunities; and populist parties and movements acting as political entrepreneurs who construct and politically reinforce the East-West divide. It is argued that only the combination of these factors helps understand the depth and origins of the lasting divide

The Contemporary Globalization of Political Antisemitism:Three Political Spaces and the Global Mainstreaming of the ‘Jewish Question’ in the Twenty-First Century

is article examines the current globalization of political antisemitism and its e ects on the resurgent normalization of anti-Jewish discourse and politics in a global context. e focus is on three political spaces in which the “Jewish question” has been repoliticized and become a salient feature of political ideology, communication, and mobilization: the global radical right, global Islamism, and the global radical left. Di erent contexts and jus- ti catory discourses notwithstanding, the comparative empirical analysis shows that three interrelated elements of globalized antisemitism feature most prominently across these di erent political spaces: anti-Jewish conspiracy myths, Holocaust denial or relativization; and hatred of Israel. It is argued that the current process of the globalization of political antisemitism has signi cantly contributed to antisemitism’s global presence in all kinds of public spaces as well as the convergence of antisemitic ideology among a variety of di erent actors. Moreover, the globalization of political antisemitism has helped accelerate the dis- semination and social acceptance of anti-Jewish tropes that currently takes shape in broad- er publics, that is: the globalized mainstreaming of antisemitism. e article concludes by discussing some factors favorable to the globalization and normalization of antisemitism and antisemitic politics in the current age

The Noisy Counter-Revolution:Understanding the Cultural Conditions and Dynamics of Populist Politics in Europe in the Digital Age

The article argues for a cultural turn in the study of populist politics in Europe. Integrating insights from three fields—political sociology, political psychology, and media studies—a new, multi-disciplinary framework is proposed to theorize particular cultural conditions favorable to the electoral success of populist parties. Through this lens, the fourth wave of populism should be viewed as a “noisy”, anti-cosmopolitan counter-revolution in defense of traditional cultural identity. Reflective of a deep-seated, value-based great divide in European democracies that largely trumps economic cleavages, populist parties first and foremost politically mobilize long lingering cultural discontent and successfully express a backlash against cultural change. While the populist counter-revolution is engendered by profoundly transformed communicative conditions in the age of social media, its emotional force can best be theorized with the political psychology of authoritarianism: as a new type of authoritarian cultural revolt

Guilt, Resentment, and Post-Holocaust Democracy:The Frankfurt School's Analysis of 'Secondary Antisemitism' in the Group Experiment and Beyond

Previous discussions of the Frankfurt School’s work on Judeophobia have almost entirely neglected the Critical Theorists’ pathbreaking analysis of “secondary antisemitism” after Auschwitz. This new form of Jew-hatred originates in the political and psychological desire to split off, repress, and downplay the memory of the Holocaust because such memory, with which Jews are often identified, evokes unwelcome guilt feelings. As Holocaust memory undermines the uncritical identification with a collective, family, or nation tainted by anti-Jewish mass atrocities, the repression of national guilt may unconsciously motivate the reproduction of resentments that helped cause the Shoah. In this light, the article re-examines the empirical postwar German study Group Experiment and other works of the Frankfurt School. Three specific defensive mechanisms in relation to historical collective guilt feelings are identified that engender a variety of antisemitic projections—from “Jewish power” to “Jewish money” and other anti-Jewish tropes—after the Holocaust. It is argued that these insights into post-Holocaust secondary antisemitism, empirically analyzed in the German context, can partly be transferred to other contexts in European democracies and beyond. This article demonstrates that an unprocessed history of national guilt can have a negative impact on democracy and the resilienceof antisemitism

Xenophobia and Anti-Immigrant Politics

The emergence of widespread xenophobia and anti-immigrant politics has raised the following questions: What are the explanatory factors and cultural conditions for the relative salience of xenophobic attitudes in the current era—and why is there a varying demand in different countries? Which independent variables on the supply side explain the emergence and the diverging success or failure of “anti-immigrant parties” as well as variations of mainstream anti-immigrant discourses and campaigns in electoral politics? What causal mechanisms can be found between contextual, structural, or agency-related factors and anti-immigrant party politics, and what do we know about their emergence and their dynamics in political processes? These questions are addressed by demand-side, supply-side, as well as mixed models. Demand-side approaches focus on the conditions that generate certain anti-immigrant attitudes and policy preferences in the electorate, on both the individual and the societal level, as key explanatory variables for anti-immigrant policies. Supply-side approaches turn to the role of political agency: They explain the salience and variation of anti-immigrant politics mainly by the performance of parties which mobilize, organize, and (as “agenda setters”) generate them. Mixed models include both sets of explanatory variables and a “third” set of institutional and discursive factors, such as electoral rules, party competition, and ideological spaces in electoral marketplaces

Im Schatten des Trumpismus: Autoritärer Populismus in der Regierung und die Neuformierung der radikalen Rechten in den USA

Der Artikel analysiert die Entwicklung der radikalen Rechten in den USA im Kontext der Präsidentschaft des autoritären Rechtspopulisten Donald J. Trump. In einer akteurszentrierten Perspektive, die indes die politische Nachfrageseite und gesellschaftliche Bedingungen einbezieht, werden Transformations- und Interaktionsprozesse der radikalen und populistischen Rechten seit dem Aufstieg des Trumpismus rekonstruiert. Es zeigt sich erstens ein Prozess der Neuformierung der radikalen Rechten, die sich sowohl auf vorgelagerte Netzwerke und neue Bewegungen als auch eine lange schwelende illiberale, "autoritär-nationalistische Revolte" stützt, welche durch den Trumpismus und Trumps Präsidentschaft politisch mobilisiert worden ist. Zu beobachten sind dabei eine spezifische Interaktionsdynamik und eine partielle Verschmelzung der radikalen und der neuen populistischen Rechten, wobei sich einige rechtsextreme Kräfte von Trump abgrenzen. Zweitens ist ein machtgestützter Prozess der Radikalisierung gegen das demokratische System der USA zu konstatieren, der im Kontext des regierenden Trumpismus auch signifikante Teile der Republikanischen Partei ergriffen hat. Drittens hat der Trumpsche autoritäre Regierungspopulismus Ausbreitungen, Mainstreaming und Legitimierungen rechtsradikaler Akteure, Ideologien, "alternativer Fakten" und Verschwörungsmythen ermöglicht. Vor dem Hintergrund dieser Befunde werden kurz die Perspektiven der radikalen Rechten in den USA nach dem Ende der Präsidentschaft Trumps diskutiert.The article analyzes the development of the radical right in the USA in the context of authoritarian right-wing populist Donald J. Trump’s presidency. The transformation and interaction processes of the radical and populist right since the rise of Trumpism are reconstructed from an actor-centered perspective, which, however, also takes the political demand side and societal conditions into account. Three findings stand out: First, there is a new formation and realignment process of the radical right that is anchored in evolving new networks and movements as well as a long simmering illiberal, "authoritarian-nationalist revolt" politically mobilized by Trumpism and the Trump presidency. Hereby a specific dynamic of interaction and partial amalgamation of the extreme and the new populist right can be observed, although some extreme right forces distance themselves from Trump. Second, there is a power-based process of radicalization against American democracy, which in the context of governing Trumpism has also come to include significant parts of the Republican Party. Third, Trump’s authoritarian populism in government has enabled the expansion, mainstreaming and significant legitimization of far-right actors, ideologies, "alternative facts," and conspiracy myths in society. Against the background of these findings, the perspectives of the radical right in the USA after the end of the Trump presidency will be briefly discussed

Rethinking European Democracy after its Legitimacy Crisis:On Hannah Arendt and the European Union

Against the backdrop of the European Union’s contemporary legitimacy crisis, this article reconstructs Arendt’s still largely neglected writings on European post-national democracy. Arendt approached the ‘European question’ as a fundamental question for the future of democracy and civil rights in a globalized age, and a necessity for moving beyond the European nation-state model of political organization after the horrors of Nazi totalitarianism. Her work hereby shifts the focus from today’s much-lamented crisis of post-national democracy back to reflecting on the ‘chronic crisis’, contradictions and legacies of the European nation-state and of national sovereignty – a crisis that partly motivated the evolution of new European democratic beginnings in the first place. Moving beyond both national sovereignty and technocratic supra-national governance, Arendt’s critique lies the foundation for post-sovereign models of European politics and provides a rich resource for rethinking the conditions, justifications and legitimacy of European democracy today

The Persistence of the Authoritarian Appeal:On the Frankfurt School as a Framework for Studying Populist Actors in European Democracies

This chapter argues that it is worth revisiting the Frankfurt School’s Critical Theory because it provides a resource to develop and reconstruct a framework for the study of contemporary populism. The Frankfurt School still has much to offer to explain the force of the authoritarian populist agitators and their attraction. Illuminating the multi-faceted potential of Frankfurt School Critical Theory for theorizing and interpreting the political psychology of contemporary authoritarian populist mobilizations, the chapter turns to various writings on the subject of authoritarian and antisemitic politics published by Adorno and Löwenthal in and since the 1940s.4 They point to socially generated, persistent socio-psychological dispositions of authoritarianism in modern societies; the significance of authoritarian politics and political propaganda in actualizing and mobilizing those dispositions; and to the societal conditions and underpinnings that can help enable the resurgent success of authoritarian, nationalist and populist appeals within democratic societies in post-Holocaust Europe and beyond