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This is the eleventh article in our series on refugees. I came to Frankfurt four months ago. Before that, I had lived in Trentino, Italy, for 14 years. But with the European economic crisis, everything has become difficult; I finally lost my job and decided to go to Germany to give it a new try. Everybody knows that in Germany there are much better chances to get work because the economy doesn’t have such big problems like in Italy, Greece and Spain...
“Kurz mal Weltmacht” überschrieb die ZEIT letzte Woche ihren Artikel, der den Untergang von WikiLeaks und das Ende Julian Assanges nachzeichnete. Auch Hoffnungsträger scheitern, hieß es, und der finanzielle Bankrott stelle ein eher wenig rühmliches Ende dar. Und trotzdem, so das Resümee, die Idee hinter seinem Projekt bleibe am Leben. In welche Richtung sie sich für den Nahost-Konflikt verwirklicht, wagt allerdings kaum jemand zu bewerten...
Die Debatte um Onlinedemos in Form von DDoS-Attacken ist gerade in Deutschland in vollem Gange. Die Antwort der Bundesregierung auf eine kleine Anfrage der Linken kam zu dem Schluss, dass DDoS-Attacken keine Form politischer Äußerungen im Sinne einer Demonstration seien. Gleichzeitig sehen sich Jugendliche drakonischen Strafverfolgungsmaßnahmen wegen der Beteiligung an eben solchen Attacken auf die Gema ausgesetzt. Das Problem ist nur: Ich glaube, dass die Diskussion, wie sie auch hier bereits geführt wurde, am Thema vorbei geht. Ich bin mir noch nicht einmal sicher, was eine Onlinedemonstration ist...
This is the sixth article in our series Trouble on the Far-Right.
As everywhere else in Eastern Europe, ever since the fall of the communist regime, Romania’s political system has experienced dramatic changes from one electoral cycle to another, starting off with what was considered to be an inflation of political parties at the beginning of the 1990’s and arriving today at what seems to approximate a two-party system, with the Social-Democratic Party (PSD) on the left and the National Liberal Party (PNL) on the right side of the political spectrum. However, the fog surrounding the ideological identities of virtually all Romanian political parties has only intensified in time, leaving the party system in flux and creating the idea that there are no significant differences between the major political players. As was the case of many other countries, this situation has generated the (at least partial) success of a radical anti-establishment discourse. However, unlike other European countries, the far right in Romania did not benefit by the financial crisis...
The truth lies in Chemnitz?
(2018)
"Germany to the Germans! Foreigners out" was the central slogan of the racist riots in the city of Rostock in 1992. For around three days, neo-Nazis controlled the streets in the plattenbau district of Lichtenhagen where the central registration for asylum-seekers (as well as a housing block of Vietnamese contract workers) were situated. ...
When Donald Trump arrived to power, many experts were concerned regarding his ideas on U.S. nuclear weapons. Particular attention was paid to his tweet about strengthening the U.S. nuclear arsenal after 25 years of the consistent WMD-disarmament under "The Cooperative Threat Reduction Program" (aka "Nunn-Lugar Program" an array of START treaties). In that preiod, U.S. and Russia removed more than 8,000 warheads and elements of the nuclear triad – submarines, ICBMs and long-range bombers. Now, experts worry that Trump’s aspirations will bury the U.S.-Russian nuclear cooperation aimed at global security...
Using religious frameworks in political contestation and mobilisation processes has become more eminent in recent decades spiralling an intricate debate on the conceptualisation and implementation of such references in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region The contradiction, it is argued, mainly lies in the compromising nature of politics and the relatively dogmatic nature of religion. Accentuated by inaccurate media coverage and primordial analytical frameworks, it has become tempting to see religion as responsible for conflicts and underachievement in the MENA region...
Teil V der Artikelserie "Die ethische Dimension der Drohnendebatte".
Zu jedem Krieg, den die USA geführt haben, gibt es mindestens eine Rede, mit der der jeweilige Präsident die Kriegsgründe erläutert, die militärischen Ziele beschreibt und den Gewalteinsatz rechtfertigt. Zum Drohnenkrieg, den US-Präsident Obama drastisch ausgeweitet hat, gibt es so eine Rede nicht. Das mag daran liegen, dass Drohnen in ganz unterschiedlichen Konflikten eingesetzt werden und es sich mehr um eine neue Form der Kriegsführung handelt, als um einen bestimmten Krieg. Es könnte aber auch daran liegen, dass die normative Rechtfertigung des Drohnenkrieges schwerfallen und einer öffentlichen Debatte nicht standhalten würde – oder der Präsident und seine Berater dies glauben – und sie deshalb die Publizität scheuen...
This is the second article in our series Trouble on the Far-Right.
Since 2011 signs have been multiplying in Europe of a far right grassroots insurgency in the making. And there were signals, too, of a racist insurrection: arson attacks, petrol bombs, paramilitary and vigilante activities, and the stockpiling of weapons. The first major indication of the far right’s capacity for mass murder came from Norway on 22 July 2011. Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people, mainly teenagers, whom he shot dead at the Labour Party youth summer camp on Oslo’s Utøya Island. At his trial, Breivik described the youngsters he so cruelly murdered as ‚traitors‘ who had embraced immigration in order to promote an ‘Islamic colonization of Norway‘..
This is the first article in our series on refugees.Attempts to address the current crisis often seek to make distinctions between ‘refugees’ and ‘migrants’ and between refugees / migrants and citizens. But, I suggest, these distinctions are part of the problem. Part of the solution is to rethink our histories of ‘national states’ – and the rights and claims they enable – through a ‘connected sociologies’ approach that acknowledges the shared histories that bring states and colonies together....
The bloody rebellion in Syria has aroused hostilities between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, a religious conflict that dates back to the first Muslim civilwar and the Battle of Siffin in 657 AD which took place on the banks of the Euphrates river, in what is now Ar-Raqqah, Syria. Today we see how the conflict is again spreading from Syria to the rest of the Middle East in places like Tripoli in Libanon, Falludscha in Iraq and Sad’ah in Yemen. But how did it come to this?
Threat perceptions is a popular topic among scholars of international relations, yet the focus is oftentimes how two states perceive and misperceive threats (Robert Jervis, David Singer among others). Threats are generally understood as potential harm directed against the territorial integrity or the political regime of the states in question or both. Wandering on the borders of the mainstream realist theory and the rational choice theory – popular since when behavioralism entered into IR literature in the 1960s – and the constructivism of the reflectivist era (Wendt), the topic has been made a subject of study through such several different conceptual lenses but mostly on an international/state level of analysis a la Waltz...
“We shall bring victory”. Those were the words of sheik Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, on 25 may 2013. Usually these words would be directed at Israel, the sworn enemy of the Lebanese movement. But this time Nasrallah was referring to the fighting in Syria. That night Hezbollah explicitly chose to side with the Syrian government in her fight against the rebels in the ongoing civil war. Why does the Shia Islamic and pro-Iranian Hezbollah stand so firmly alongside the secular Arab nationalist regime of Bashar al-Assad? What are the consequences for Lebanon and what does the interference of Hezbollah tell us about the balance of power in the small and deeply divided neighbouring country of Syria?
On the 28th of July, a 26 year old man, Ahmad A. launched a knife attack in a supermarket in the Barmbek area of Hamburg, wounding four people and killing one. He fled the scene of the attack before being forcefully apprehended by some bystanders. The attacker, a rejected asylum seeker, was understood by the police to have been recently religiously radicalised. Hamburg’s Interior Minister Andy Grote explained that he was known to the police as an “Islamist but not a jihadist” and was suspected of having psychological problems. Prosecutors have asserted that he had no known connections with any organized radical network or group and that he had planned on dying as a martyr...
A growing number of defense-industrial 3D printing fairs, print-a-thons and the amount of defense dollars, particularly in the US, going into the technology of 3D printing speak to the fact that the defense industry and some countries’ armed forces recognize the great potential of the technology. 3D printing indeed allows the quicker, cheaper, and easier development of weapons, and even entirely new weapon designs. This applies to the full range of weapons categories: Small arms and light weapons (e.g. guns, guns, guns and grenade launchers), conventional weapon systems (drones, tanks, missiles, hypersonic scramjets) – and possibly even weapons of mass destruction.
French far right activism experienced tremendous changes in recent years. Besides traditional far right party politics, new patterns of street-based mobilization attract especially action-oriented youths. This trend is epitomized by the growing popularity of the Bloc Identitaire (official name; shortened to “Identitaires”). Its ideology rests on the idea that there exists a struggle between different political families in order to become the legitimate representative of the people, and that the extreme right is winning this struggle. Behind the scenes, the recurring idea of the Bloc Identitaires is to occupy a cultural and “meta-political” territory that was once the monopoly of the left. Their aim is that they are gradually associated with the only possible alternative to change the world. They try to frame a maximum of popular needs and present themselves as substitutes for when the economy and the state will be bankrupt. So you can eat the food of the Identitaires, drink their beer (the “Desouchière”), buy their clothes, listen to their music or read their books and thus participate in financing the movement...
This is the seventh article in our series Trouble on the Far-Right.
While one cannot say that the far right movements and ideologies in Latvia are in a state of flux, the current situation in Europe has prompted some developments that could turn into significant trends in the medium to longer term. In turn, these could have an effect on broader European politics, if left unchecked...
This is the ninth article in our series Trouble on the Far-Right.
Since around 1990, the state of the Austrian far right1 has been characterized by the strength of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ – Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, more precisely translated as Freedomite Party of Austria2) and the relative weakness of extra-parliamentarian far right activism. Far from a mere coincidence, these two features are to be understood as closely linked: the FPÖ’s electoral successes have brought far right causes and talking points unto the political center stage on a national level, given them ample media coverage and made street militancy increasingly pointless. Insofar, the Austrian far right spectrum could – at least until recently – be described as a photographic negative of the situation in Germany: successful party politics, weak bottom-up mobilizations and a comparatively low incidence of street violence. Currently, however, the long held hopes of German right-wingers for a party both in the mold, and strength, of the FPÖ are apparently being fulfilled by the emergence of the Alternative for Germany (AfD). Conversely, both legal and illegal street activism have been on the rise in Austria in recent years, particularly since the start of the asylum crisis in Europe. Numerous violent incidents were reported in 2015, including a minimum of 25 attacks on housing facilities for asylum seekers.
The dualism of movements and institutions. A structurational approach towards the two concepts
(2016)
In studies of social mobilization, the distinction between institutions and organizations is often as blurry as the instant of time from which on we can actually speak of a proper movement. Using the idea of a `duality of structure’ as a starting point, this article suggests a way of fixing the boundaries: a brief analysis of the South African Landless People’s Movement demonstrates the merit of conceiving of movements as aggregate actors with shared common objectives and common norms, which institutionalize particular modes of cooperation by purposefully drawing on existing institutions in order to shape functioning internal structures.
The discussion about the interplay between digital technologies and the process of globalization is often focused around the following question: who has access to global information networks and who benefits from digital communication technologies? These are essential questions and it can hardly be denied that they confront us with a series of political and ethical questions. However, we also need to recognize the ongoing digitalization of the globe, a process where more and more people are put on various kinds of maps...
On 11 February, the World Fought back against Mass Surveillance. See those capital letters? They denote Things that Matter – somehow. We don’t necessarily know who ‘We’ are, what the ‘World’ is, nor whether the Mass Surveillance We’re against is the big and sexy kind run by acronymized (foreign) government agencies that We all recently learned about through Edward Snowden or the everyday kind conducted by means of cookies, computer profiles and GPS data we all send to whomever is watching in the course of a normal day’s activities, like checking Facebook, leaving the house to buy some bread or sending family pictures over the holidays via email. But ‘We’ ‘Fought’ ‘Them’, or maybe ‘It’.
What’s that again? Blasphemy law? An Egyptian court sentenced the Islamic scholar and theologian Islam Al-Buhairi to one year in prison for blasphemy. Al-Buhairi was accused of insulting Islam in his TV show “With Islam Al-Buhairi” on “Al-Qahira wa Al-Nas” channel. Al-Buhairi questioned the “Islamic heritage”, which angered the Al-Azhar scholarship...
The paper will outline a research project – its goals and methods – that focuses on what 1) makes humans flee from their home, land and country, at the risk of losing their lives, 2) seek refuge in another place, 3) what individual assessments they made before, during and after flight, and 4) how they assess the question of return to their countries/places of origin when the original causes of their flight – e.g. civil unrest, civil strife or civil war – are not any more directly present in the country or place from which they fled...
This is the 14. article in our series Trouble on the Far-Right.
country’s domestically weak far right has managed to send its representatives to the European Parliament (EP). Prior to 2014, these MEPs remained largely isolated, retaining a non-affiliated status. Initially, Volen Siderov’s far right party Attack, the first of its kind in post-communist Bulgaria, won three seats in the legislative body in 2007. Formed in 2005, Attack quickly gained electoral support, conveying a strong xenophobic and anti-minority rhetoric combined with emphasis on Orthodox Christian values and opposition to globalization. No other Bulgarian party has previously sought to attract voters using such a strategy. Attack participated in the short-lived Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty group in the EP. Further efforts for constructing a lasting political grouping on the far right with the participation of Bulgarian parties remained futile, making their influence on debate-shaping and decision-making hardly possible. Winning a seat less in 2009, Attack remained outside of any recognized EP political group...
When Angela Merkel arrives at the United Nations for the opening of the 62nd session of the General Assembly on Tuesday [25 September] to deliver her first address as German chancellor she will be very well received. Just after two years in power she has already become something like a foreign policy legend...
Auch wenn seit George W. Bushs „War on Terror“ die Bekämpfung von Terrorismus nicht mehr ohne fragwürdigen Beigeschmack mit dem Begriff des „Krieges“ bezeichnet werden kann, erlebt eine derartige Rhetorik zusammen mit dem Aufstieg des Islamischen Staates ein neues Revival. Während zunächst Papst Franziskus von einem „Dritten Weltkrieg“ sprach, assistierten nach den jüngsten Anschlägen in Frankreich und Sousse auch deutsche Medien bei der Konstruktion solch umfassender Bedrohungsszenarien. Selbst der Präsident des Bundesamtes für Verfassungsschutz, Hans-Georg Maaßen, sieht mittlerweile einen „terroristischen Weltkrieg“ ausgebrochen. Lässt man einmal die zahlreichen Gründe beiseite, warum eine derartige Bezeichnung im besten Fall falsch und im schlimmsten Fall kontraproduktiv ist 1, so kann man derlei Aussagen als Ausdruck einer Gefahrenwahrnehmung interpretieren, aus der nicht zuletzt eine gefühlte Hilflosigkeit angesichts der terroristischen Bedrohung von immer mehr Lebensbereichen spricht. Auf Flugreisen, auf dem Weg zur Arbeit, bei der Arbeit, bei Sportveranstaltungen: die Orte gefühlter Sicherheit werden zunehmend weniger. Und nun ist selbst ein Strandurlaub nicht mehr frei vom Risiko, einen gewaltsamen Tod zu sterben...
In den Weblogs der Zeit hat sich in den letzten zwei Wochen eine interessante, weil emotionale und problematische Debatte über Verständnis und Unverständnis terroristischer Gewalt entwickelt. Die Debatte ist emotional, da der Ausgangspost von Jörg Lau, persönlich betroffen, ja gar aufgewühlt daher kommt und bisher 1314 Kommentare provoziert hat. Die von Lau und Yassin Musharbash in seiner Replik vertretenen Thesen sind problematisch, da sie unzulässig verkürzen. Die Debatte ist interessant, da sie uns einen Blick auf den Umgang mit terroristischer Gewalt vor allem in Journalismus und Wissenschaft, aber auch in der Gesellschaft erlaubt...
Dies ist der elfte Artikel unseres Blogfokus „Salafismus in Deutschland“.
Mehrere Attentäter von Paris sollen sich über die griechische Insel Leros als Flüchtlinge getarnt nach Europa eingeschmuggelt haben. Nicht nur auf den sozialen Netzwerken wird deshalb Hetze gegen Flüchtlinge betrieben, von der Häufung von verbalen und tätlichen Übergriffen ganz zu schweigen. Auch auf den höchsten politischen Ebenen werden zunehmend schrille Stimmen laut....
Here we go again. Recent terrorist attacks against another European capital city in less than a year continue to shake the core of world politics. It is worth to note that terrorist attacks are not only happening against European states, but also against other countries, most notably Turkey and Indonesia. Is it a clash of cultures, religions, or it is merely politics? How do we keep serving Daesh (Islamic State)?
Wird von Terrorismusbekämpfung gesprochen, ist der Fokus auf nationale Problemlösungen gerichtet. Bei modernen Formen des Terrorismus handelt es sich zumeist um transnationale Phänomene, denen auch transnational begegnet werden muss. Zwei Beispiele zeigen die Probleme, die aus einer nationalen Beschränkung entstehen...
A short while ago, an interested reader inquired about one of my articles on the topic of jihad and terrorism. I am thankful for the inspiring question. The reader asked me to clarify why there seems to be no difference between terrorism and jihad nowadays, and why this boundary has disappeared in debates by many people in the social media and in other places...
Am 12. Juli wurde vom Internationalen Schiedshof das Urteil im Streit zwischen den Philippinen und der VR China verkündet. Der Schiedshof erklärte, dass große Teile der chinesischen Ansprüche im Südchinesischen Meer null und nichtig sind, da sie einer rechtlichen Grundlage entbehren. Dies betrifft zunächst die auf der sog. nine-dash line basierenden Ansprüche. Dabei handelt es sich um eine aus den 1940er Jahren stammende Karte mit neun unterbrochenen Strichen, mittels derer China seit Jahrzehnten die äußeren Grenzen seiner nicht näher bestimmten historischen Rechte auf große Teile des Südchinesischen Meeres begründet. Gefallen sind auch die Ansprüche auf eine bis zu 200 Seemeilen umfassende ausschließliche Wirtschaftszone (Exclusive Economic Zone; EEZ) in den Spratly-Inseln und rund um Scarborough Shoal im Norden des südchinesischen Meeres, weil diesen vom Gericht der Inselstatus abgesprochen wurde. Der Verlust dieser Rechte wiederum hat zur Folge, dass die chinesische Besetzung mehrerer Riffe und Atolle als illegal eingestuft wird, weil sie innerhalb der ausschließlichen Wirtschaftszone EEZ der Philippinen liegen....
Vom 14. bis 15. Januar 2016 findet in Kassel eine Konferenz zum Thema "Beyond the Master's Tools: Post- and Decolonial Approaches to Research Methodology and Methods in the Social Sciences" statt. Veranstaltet wird die Konferenz von den Fachbereichen Postkoloniale Studien und Soziologie der Diversität der Universität Kassel.
Atheism remains one of the most extreme taboos in Saudi Arabia. It is a red line that no one can cross. Atheists in Saudi Arabia have been suffering from imprisonment, maginalisation, slander, ostracisation and even execution. Indeed, atheists in Saudi are considered terrorists. Efforts for normalisation between those who believe and those who don’t remain bleak in the kingdom.
Despite constant warnings of Saudi religious authorities of “the danger of atheism”, which is, according to them, “equal to disbelieving in God”, many citizens in the kingdom are turning their back on Islam. Perhaps inter alia the Saudi dehumanising strict laws in the name of Islam, easy access to information and mass communication are the primary driving forces pushing Saudis to leave religion. Unfortunately, those who explicitly do, find themselves harshly punished or forced to live dual lives.
In den offiziellen Verlautbarungen zum Syrienkonflikt gibt es nur einen „dünnen“ Bezug auf die „Responsibility to Protect“ (R2P). Ist die Idee der Schutzverantwortung am Ende? Man könnte es angesichts des Debakels der internationalen Syrienpolitik annehmen. Die R2P ist ja sogar schon im Augenblick ihres höchsten Triumpfes, d.h. im Anschluss an die Intervention in Libyen, von einigen Beobachtern des Zeitgeschehens für tot – oder zumindest für fast tot oder scheintot – erklärt worden (vgl. dazu den HSFK-Report von Dembinski und Reinold). Aber das muss nicht so sein. Wenn sie die Menschenrechte und sich selbst ernst nimmt, darf die internationale Gemeinschaft nicht über Massenverbrechen hinwegsehen. Statt die R2P zu begraben, sollte das Syrien-Debakel zum Anlass genommen werden, über Grundfragen des internationalen Schutzes von Menschen vor innerstaatlicher Gewalt neu nachzudenken.
Teil VI der Artikelserie "Syrien und die Verantwortung internationaler Politik".
Assad ist ein Verbrecher. Keine Frage. Und das nicht erst, seit der Vorwurf des Giftgaseinsatzes im Raum steht. Trotzdem gibt es keine Alternative zu einer Verhandlungslösung unter Beteiligung und mit der Option eines Machterhalts Assads. Nicht, wenn das Ziel tatsächlich ein Ende der Gewalt und ein besserer Schutz der gesamten Zivilbevölkerung sein soll...
When the Iranian revolution embarked against Muhammad Reza Shah’s regime in the late 70s, it wasn’t a social revolution aiming at changing the society, but rather a political one with legitimate demands similar to what Syrians once were looking forward to achieve in 2011. When all this started in Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the most central and inspirational figure in the Iranian revolution was still in exile. This is a story that happened 35 years ago and we cannot but see the rhyming of its events with the current Syrian imbroglio...
This is the seventh article in our series on refugees. This article deals with the accommodation of Syrian refugees living in Germany. Based on my personal experience living in a refugee camp („Heim“) in the city of Cologne (Köln), and based on relevant literature, the article will, firstly, address the different types of temporary residences for refugees in Germany, and, secondly, the process through which refugees pass while looking for a permanent accommodation. Thirdly, and most importantly, the article discusses the ongoing shift within Köln’s urban and social structure in the light of the emerging resettlement of refugees. Although the urban structure of Köln, like many other German cities, has a certain level of urban segregation manifested in the settlement of immigrant communities (Friedrichs 1998, p.1), I argue that, on the contrary, the resettlement of Syrian refugees shows coherence and dispersion. The article is accompanied by a mapping survey that investigates on the spatial aspect of the accommodation distribution...
Since 2013, the Swiss Federal Intelligence Service (FIS) has warned of a heightened threat emanating from jihadi terrorism in Switzerland. According to FIS’s assessment, the threat has continuously risen since then and reached a new high in 2016. This is a new situation for a country that has, since the two attacks conducted by Palestinian groups targeting an El Al airplane in Kloten in 1969 and the bombing of a Swissair machine in 1970, remained largely unscathed by terrorism. This has remained true even in the decade after 9/11 when a wave of jihadi terrorism inspired and often directed by al-Qaeda struck urban centers in Europe and elsewhere on multiple occasions...
Dies ist der dritte Artikel unseres Blogfokus „Salafismus in Deutschland“.
Der Salafismus in Deutschland vollzieht seit 2005 eine spürbare Entwicklung. Sie reicht von der Etablierung einer einheimischen Szene über die Schaffung einer funktionierenden salafistischen Infrastruktur bis hin zu großen Mobilisierungserfolgen. In den verschiedenen Entwicklungsphasen wurden Propagandakanäle geschaffen und optimiert mit dem Ziel, Anhänger anzuwerben, die Anhängerschaft ideologisch zu festigen und sie vor der Mehrheitsgesellschaft zu schützen. Dafür erwies sich die salafistische Propaganda als nützliches Instrument. In diesem Beitrag wird der Wandel der salafistischen Szene in Deutschland skizziert.
Mittlerweile ist es ruhig geworden um Pussy Riot – hier und da noch ein Artikel über die Degeneration des russischen Rechtsstaates, der Kritiker zu langjährigen Haftstrafen verurteilt und zur Besserung ins Arbeitslager schickt (FAZ, 6.9.2012).Dabei sind die Aktionen von Pussy Riot ein Paradebeispiel für die politische Ambivalenz von Kunst...