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A second Yalta
(2014)
With the current conflict in Gaza going full tilt, the usual questions have popped up: Who is to blame, what is everyone’s motivation and strategy, how to stop the bloodshed, how to end the conflict. And as usual, the two-state solution, i.e. two separate, sovereign states within the borders of the 1949 armistice agreement, keeps popping up as a purported solution. This is especially prominent in the statements of politicians in countries not directly involved in the conflict. Countries that at least claim to want to help end the conflict, be it through mediation or other diplomatic measures. But for those countries, the two-state solution has become an idea to hide behind. It does not help solve the conflict, neither in the short- nor mid-term. Clinging to the idea merely prolongs the status quo. However, it does allow the rest of the world to avoid facing the facts, which would force them to reevaluate their position on who to support and actually do something about the conflict as it currently is. But it’s high time we face the music and admit it: The two-state solution is no longer a viable option when it comes to mediating this conflict...
After five years of the Syrian war, we can recognize “four” conflicting parties on the ground – Assad, ISIS, rebel groups and the Kurds. Each one of these conflicting parties has regional and international backers, who ironically do not agree with each other about whom they are fighting for or against. The Syrian regime is backed by Iran, Russia, Hezbollah and Iraqi militias. ISIS is backed by the flood of global Jihadists from all over the world. Rebel groups are backed by Gulf States, Turkey, Jordan and the US. The Kurds are supported by the US. While in the media, we always say “the Syrian conflict, crisis or war”, I wonder what makes this war that much Syrian. It is rather a war on the land of Syria, in which more than 50% of Syria’s population have been displaced, over 220 thousand have been killed, and many more have been injured or imprisoned. According to Amnesty international, more than 12.8 million Syrian people are in “urgent need of humanitarian assistance”. In addition to this humanitarian catastrophe, most of the Syrian land and infrastructure have been destroyed. So what is that Syrian about the Syrian “war”?...
This is the 26. article in our series Trouble on the Far-Right.
In Poland, the long lasting culture war1 over gender roles and religion has been easily framed by the far right into Samuel Huntington’s concept of the “clash of civilizations”. A well-known juxtaposition used in right-wing propaganda: ‘civilization of life’ vs. ‘civilization of death’ in reference to anti-abortion and pro-choice movements respectively is now used to refer to Christians and Muslims. The role of Polish women and the right to abortion remain in the center of the conflict of modernity.
In Europe, the far right heats up the moral panic caused by fear of terrorism, pointing to Muslims as a threat to ‘European’ liberties, especially women’s and LGBT rights. The assaults on women celebrating New Year’s Eve on the streets of Cologne, serve Pegida and many nationalist organizations in Europe as a proof of Arab’s attitude to ‘Western’ expressions of femininity. This argument in the anti-immigration discourse of the far right is well-grounded in nationalists’ ideal of a strong man defending ‘his’ woman. Although, the task might be understood literally, in the context of the assaults in Cologne, protecting wives, mothers, sisters and daughters of the nation has a broader symbolic meaning. Scholars interested in relationship between gender and nation, state that in nationalists discourse women symbolize the nation and are bearers of values.2 In islamophobic discourse female citizens of Europe signify Europeans’ equality and freedom...
Within the last decades, western democracies have experienced a rise of inequality, with the gap between lower and upper class citizens steadily increasing and a widespread sentiment of growing inequalities also in the political sphere. Against this background, and in the context of the current “crisis of democracy”, democratic innovations such as direct democratic instruments are discussed as a very popular means to bring citizens back in. However, research on direct democracy has produced rather inconsistent results with regard to the question of which effects referenda and initiatives have on equality. Studies in this field are often limited to single countries and certain aspects of equality. Moreover, most existing studies look at the mere availability of direct democratic instruments instead of actual bills that are put to a vote. This paper aims to take a first step to fill these gaps by giving an explorative overview of the outputs of direct democratic bills on multiple equality dimensions, analyzing all national referenda and initiatives in European democracies between 1990 and 2015. How many pro- and contra-equality bills have been put to a vote, how many of those succeeded at the ballot, and are there differences between country groups? Our findings show that a majority of direct democratic bills was not related to equality at all. Regarding the successful bills, we detect some regional differences along with the general tendency that there are more pro- than contra-equality bills. Our paper sheds new light on the question if direct democracy can serve as an appropriate means to complement representative democracy and to shape democratic institutions in the future. The potential of direct democracy in fostering or impeding equality should be an important criterion for the assessment of claims to extend decision-making by citizens.
Despite the popularity of direct democracy in recent decades, research on the actual output effects of popular decision-making is rare. This is especially true with regard to equality, where there are at least three major research gaps: 1) a lack of cross-national analyses; 2) insufficient investigation of the differential effects of different direct democratic instruments on equality; and 3) a failure to distinguish between different aspects of equality, i.e., socioeconomic, legal and political equality. This article takes a first step to tackle these shortcomings by looking at all national referenda in European democracies between 1990 and 2015, differentiating between mandatory, bottom-up and top-down referenda. We find that a large majority of successful direct democratic bills—regardless of which instrument is employed—are not related to equality issues. Of the remaining ones, there are generally more successful pro-equality bills than contra-equality ones, but the differences are rather marginal. Mandatory referenda tend to produce pro-equality outputs, but no clear patterns emerge for bottom-up and top-down referenda. Our results offer interesting, preliminary insights to the current debate on direct democracy, pointing to the conclusion that popular decision-making via any type of direct democratic instrument is neither curse nor blessing with regard to equality. Instead, it is necessary to look at other factors such as context conditions or possible indirect effects in order to get a clearer picture of the impacts of direct democracy on equality.
The burning of the Jordan pilot Muath al-Kasasbeh created a worldwide outcry, which was noticeably vocal in the Islamic world. Not only were we able to see people taken to the streets, we could also witness an utter condemnation of this act by prominent religious institutions like al-Azhar. Moreover, even before this terrific event the so called Islamic State (IS) has been criticized on various occasions by prominent Muslim scholars. The common trope these statements share is that despite its name, IS does not represent “true Islam”. The most prominent document in this regard surely is the open letter, which was addressed to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed “caliph” of IS, signed by 174 prominent Muslim figures and spokespersons from all over the world and which has been translated into multiple languages. The Facebook group that formed around this letter has currently reached over 100.000 likes and has developed into a hub for people from all over the world, who oppose IS ideology from a Muslim perspective. Although there has been some media coverage mentioning the publication of the letter, its actual contents have not been discussed very much in detail so far. So what does the document actually say?
This is the 27. and final article in our series Trouble on the Far-Right.
Trouble on the far right has become troubling for Europe. Not only do right-wing motivated attacks occur regularly against Roma camps, ethnic minorities, LGBTQI people and Jewish institutions. At the same time, a xenophobic discourse on refugees has gained momentum in politics and society and further blurred the lines between far right agitation and mainstream politics. In order to classify these events adequately, far right activism should not just be regarded as a security issue that can be eliminated by force, but as a threat that threatens the foundations of open, democratic and pluralist societies. Hence, we should be aware that far right politics are neither a new nor an isolated phenomenon but often bank on existing cultures of (gender, competitive, nativist) domination in capitalist societies.1
Certain developments have recently accelerated a radicalization of the political mainstream in terms of rhetoric, demands and policy outcomes and transformed the institutional landscape. The Slovakian parliamentary elections and the fateful presidential elections in Austria are central events during our 10-week blog series that prove the inherent dynamic. The right-wing government in Poland that has started removing fundamental rights and facilitated the spread of nationalist values is another example.
Contrary to the one-sided academic focus on elections, far right influence on European societies should be measured on three further levels: Massive street mobilizations epitomized by Pegida in Germany (and beyond) and the Italian Stop Invasione rallies, clandestine organizing such as the British far right militants and prospering relations between state authorities and far right movements, for example in Turkey, testify a growing diversification of far right activism. These scenarios demand methodologically and theoretically innovative perspectives. Our blog series Trouble on the Far Right has provided them with an international forum.
With a growing Muslim population, many European countries need to integrate Muslims into their societies. One aspect that can hinder successful integration are substantial differences in human values. This is because such values are consequential for attitudes as well as behavior. We compare basic human values between Muslim immigrants and non-Muslim natives in four European countries with distinct immigration histories and integration politics: Belgium, France, Germany, and Sweden. For most insightful comparisons, we contrast values of Muslim immigrants with those of Christian natives as well as those of non-religious natives. We employ data of more than 50,000 individuals based on the first eight waves of the European Social Survey. Our findings reveal significant differences in value priorities between Muslims, Christians and non-religious individuals in all four countries. Amongst other things, Muslim immigrants score particularly high in conservation values (security and tradition/conformity). At the same time, they also score higher in self-transcendence values (benevolence as well as universalism). While many of these findings are in line with theory and previous research, the higher score in universalism is unexpected. A potential explanation is the combination of religious traditionalism and discrimination experiences. In other words, religious traditions are associated with more conservative views, but being subject to marginalization can still result in an appreciation of equal opportunities. We find only limited support for differences in hedonism. Religiosity correlates with values of tradition/conformity for Muslim immigrants as well as for Christian natives. Thus, accounting for religiosity renders differences in these values between Muslims and other groups statistically insignificant. While most of these findings hold in all countries, differences are most pronounced in Sweden and lower in the other three countries, which is also true after accounting for differences in socio-economic status and religiosity between the three groups. This suggests that a combination of a country's history of diversity and national integration policies either encourages the convergence of values or leads to a solidification of value differences between groups. We discuss these political and social implications of our findings.