Refine
Year of publication
Document Type
- Article (293)
- Report (212)
- Review (48)
- Part of Periodical (29)
- Working Paper (29)
- Doctoral Thesis (14)
- Preprint (8)
- Conference Proceeding (5)
- Book (4)
- Part of a Book (4)
Language
- English (648) (remove)
Is part of the Bibliography
- no (648)
Keywords
- global justice (23)
- terrorism (15)
- islamic state (13)
- democracy (12)
- gender (12)
- populism (12)
- Europe (9)
- IS (9)
- migration (9)
- Egypt (8)
Institute
- Gesellschaftswissenschaften (648) (remove)
Scholars and international organizations engaged in institutional reconstruction converge in recognizing political corruption as a cause or a consequence of conflicts. Anticorruption is thus generally considered a centrepiece of institutional reconstruction programmes. A common approach to anticorruption within this context aims primarily to counter the negative political, social, and economic effects of political corruption, or implement legal anticorruption standards and punitive measures. We offer a normative critical discussion of this approach, particularly when it is initiated and sustained by external entities. We recast the focus from an outward to an inward perspective on institutional action and failure centred on the institutional interactions between officeholders. In so doing, we offer the normative tools to reconceptualize anticorruption in terms of an institutional ethics of ‘office accountability’ that draws on an institution’s internal resources of self-correction as per the officeholders’ interrelated work.
The study of civilization is one of the core subjects of international legal history. This is no recent development. Jörg Fisch published his seminal work "Die Europäische Expansion und das Völkerrecht" in 1984, the same year in which Gerrit W. Gong presented his renowned "Standard of Civilization". Today, the more recent works by Martti Koskenniemi and Antony Anghie probably represent the most influential research in this field. What all these path breaking works have in common is that they discuss concepts of civilization in international law especially with regard to its function as providing justification narratives for the European/non-European unequal relations, in particular in the 19th century. ...
This essay argues for the philosophical standing of Walter Benjamin’s early work and posits a deeper continuity between this early work as a philosopher and the subsequent development of his work as a writer. When these fragments are read in proper relation to each other, they reveal for the first time many of the key innovations of Benjamin as a philosopher, as well as his points of influence on Horkheimer and Adorno. His early ‘Program’ critiques the Enlightenment conception of experience as a means for gaining empirical knowledge, and announces the need for a new concept of experience. Benjamin follows through on this program with a method of philosophical enquiry that is by turns fragmentary and constellational, developing a series of provisional notions of experience, which form a constellation with one another: perception, mimesis, language as a medium of experience, observation and memory.
Part IV of our series "Cyberpeace: Dimensionen eines Gegenentwurfs" on cyberpeace. Matthias Schulze argues that what some perceive as cyberwar is not actually war but rather cyber conflict. The question therefore arises if this conflict will ever be solved. Ben Kamis on the other hand identifies motives in the use of language. He argues that talking about cyberpeace reinforces the impression that we are right in the middle of a cyberwar. I would not agree with that. As Johan Galtung puts it: “The use of the term ‘peace’ may in itself be peace-productive” (Galtung 1969: 167). But how do we define cyberpeace? Who should define it and how do we pursue it?...
Much of today’s conflicts and challenges, globally and locally, can be in part attributed to or are influenced by the hegemony of Western over non-Western cultures and politics. Long-standing and still reproduced Western dominance and power are directed at the protection of own interests, thereby re-creating power imbalances, inequalities and practices of exclusion...
The resurgence of populism and the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic have consolidated an appeal to the language of trust and distrust in the political arena, but any reference to these notions has often turned into an ideological and polarized debate. As a result, the possibility of developing an appropriate picture of the conditions for trust in politics has been undermined. To navigate the different demands for trust raised in the political arena, a notion of political trust must cover two partially unfulfilled tasks. One is to clarify what trust means when referring specifically to the political context. The other is to connect political trust to other notions that populate the debate on trustworthiness in the political arena - those of rational, moral, epistemic, and procedural trust. I will show how the political categories I use to define the scope of a political notion of trust function as normative leverages to develop politics-compatible versions of rational, moral, procedural, and epistemic trust.
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”?...
Far-right parties gained considerable support in many European countries in recent years. Austria comes within a whisker of becoming the first country in the history of the European Union to elect a far-right president, Horbert Hofer, the candidate from the Freedom Party. Similarly, in France, Marie Le Pen is expected to be Front National’s (FN) candidate in the 2017 presidential election and probably to make it to the second round of voting...
This is the tenth article in our series Trouble on the Far-Right.
How can a racist party that was getting less than 0.2% of the vote for years, enter parliament with 18 MPs? How can a party that promotes violence, hate, sexism and murders amplify its reach after each pogrom? How can Golden Dawn remain the third political power in Greece for four years? And what’s in the mind of a Golden Dawner?...
When is a crisis a crisis?
(2017)
The digitalization of financial services opened a window for new players in the financial industry. These start-ups take on tasks and functions previously reserved for banks, such as financing, asset management, and payments. In this article, we trace the transformation of the industry after digitalization. By using data on FinTech formations in Germany, we provide first evidence that entrepreneurial dynamics in the FinTech sector are not so much driven by technology as by the educational and business background of the founders. Furthermore, we investigate the reactions of traditional banks to the emergence of these start-ups. In contrast with other emerging industries such as biotechnology, a network analysis shows that FinTechs have mostly engaged in strategic partnerships and only a few banks have acquired or obtained a financial interest in a FinTech. We explain the restraint of traditional banks to fully endorse the new possibilities of digitalized financial services with the characteristics of the technology itself and with the postponed fundamental decisions of banks to modernize their IT infrastructure.
This is the 23. article in our series Trouble on the Far-Right.
ccording to several observers new waves of refugees’ arrivals could increase the popularity of far right organizations.1 In these interpretations electoral and political support should be promoted by societal resonance of ethnocentric discourses. Recent data from the Eurobarometer illustrates that in EU-member states migration from non-EU countries is now considered to be the most important concern that the Union is facing. This is a sudden shift with respect to the results of the 2013 Eurobarometer where – in the middle of the euro crisis – EU citizens seemed to be more concerned about the economy and unemployment. I propose to place the magnifying glass on the arguments developed by these organizations by focusing on the least researched members of the far right family: nonparty organizations. After introducing CasaPound Italia (CPI) it will be discussed what fuels its anti-migrant’s discourse by highlighting continuities and changes with respect to classic nativist far right rhetoric. Digging into the arguments is crucial to getting a better assessment of their potential appeal especially in a favorable context...
This paper uses a novel account of non-ideal political action that can justify radical responses to severe climate injustice, including and especially deliberate attempts to engineer the climate system in order reflect sunlight into space and cooling the planet. In particular, it discusses the question of what those suffering from climate injustice may do in order to secure their fundamental rights and interests in the face of severe climate change impacts. Using the example of risky geoengineering strategies such as sulfate aerosol injections, I argue that peoples that are innocently subject to severely negative climate change impacts may have a special permission to engage in large-scale yet risky climate interventions to prevent them. Furthermore, this can be true even if those interventions wrongly harm innocent people.
In this article, I question the use of the notion of ‘constituent power’ as a tool for the democratization of the European Union (EU). Rather than seeing the absence of a transnational constituent power as a cause of the EU’s ‘democratic deficit’, I identify it as an opportunity for unfettered democratic participation. Against the reification of power-in-action into a power-constituted-in-law, I argue that the democratization of the EU can only be achieved through the multiplication of ‘constituent moments’. I begin by deconstructing the normative justifications surrounding the concept of constituent power. Here I analyze the structural aporia of constituent power and question the autonomous and emancipatory dimension of this notion. I then test the theoretical hypothesis of this structural aporia of the popular constituent power by comparing it with the historical experiments of a European popular constituent power. Finally, based on these theoretical and empirical observations, I propose to replace the ambivalence of the concept of popular constituent power with a more cautious approach to the bottom-up democratization of European integration: that of a multiplication of transnational constituent moments.
The prefix cyber, prepended onto terms like war, peace, security, and so on, results in interesting word combinations which we construct with our spoken language. Many scholars, from political to social science, have discussed the terms and the semantics of it in order to understand the problem and to create some scientific value out of it. But this article will not be another endless discussion on whether cyberfoo exists somewhere in any computer network at the moment or not...
The fear that with the existence of an unconditional basic income sufficient for living many people would cease to engage in a productive life, would only relax, consume and devote to having fun, can be addressed from different perspectives. One of these is the sociology of religion, which allows elaborating the argument that with such a way of life the question about the meaning of life cannot be answered. But this "meaning question", the whole research within the field of the sociology of religion speaks for this, compellingly must be answered by each life praxis. It cannot remain unanswered, as is said already in the Bible: "Man does not live on bread alone, [but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.]" (5. Moses 8.3, Matthew 4.4, Lukas 4.4) The paper examines the reasons of this fact and its consequences in regard to a life with an unconditional basic income sufficient for living.
A link between populism and social media is often suspected. This paper spells out a set of possible mechanisms underpinning this link: that social media changes the communication structure of the public sphere, making it harder for citizens to obtain evidence that refutes populist assumptions. By developing a model of the public sphere, four core functions of the public sphere are identified: exposing citizens to diverse information, promoting equality of deliberative opportunity, creating deliberative transparency, and producing common knowledge. A wellworking public sphere allows citizens to learn that there are genuine disagreements among citizens that are held in good faith. Social media makes it harder to gain this insight, opening the door for populist ideology.
Last November, the media organisation of the „Islamic State“ (IS) published a video, the sole purpose of which was to prove that the „caliphate“ which the IS has established in June 2014 was in fact a proper state. The video highlighted a host of institutions in order to drive home the claim of real statehood, including examples like a working judiciary, a prison administration, a schooling system, and so on. At one point in the video, the IS claimed that it was also financially independent and had apt resources at its disposal, namely oil and gas.
However, while it is true that the IS controls a number of oil and gas fields in Syria as well as in Iraq, we have by now enough evidence to be rather sure that the economic base of the „caliphate“ is by no means sustainable...
The influence and power of some OECD states is under threat but China appears to remain astonishingly flexible, economically potent, and politically strong. How accurate is this view? To answer this question, major aspects of Chinese economic regulation that were adopted in the country’s progress towards capitalist modernization are examined. The analysis requires a historical reconstruction of how China changed the way it intervenes economically and politically, especially with regard to the institutions of the central state. Such a reconstruction reveals that, since the 1990s, the central state has indeed increased its steering capacities. These capacities have a distinctive basis that includes acceptance of a state-centered approach, idiosyncratic innovation policies taking place in the "shadow" of the state’s hierarchy, and the ongoing influence of the communist party. An all-embracing controlling power is, however, not detectable. What does exist in China’s competition-driven system of “statecapitalist” regulation, is a set of limits on the state’s capacity to govern.
Germany has experienced a rise in xenophobic attacks since it began to welcome refugees from Syria and elsewhere. Sebastian Jäckle and Pascal D. König have mapped these attacks and drawn some striking conclusions about their causes. They were more common in regions with a strong far-right presence and fewer migrants. One attack also tended to spark others – as did condemnation of xenophobia by national leaders, and Islamist terror. Britain saw a similar spike in xenophobic crime after the referendum. The authors ask whether the UK can learn from Germany’s painful experience.