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Theses against occultism
(1974)
On tradition
(1992)
ProtoSociology is an interdisciplinary journal which crosses the borders of philosophy, social sciences, and their corresponding disciplines. Each issue concentrates on a specific topic taken from the current discussion to which scientists from different fields contribute the results of their research. ProtoSociology is further a project that examines the nature of mind, language and social systems. In this context theoretical work has been done by investigating such theoretical concepts like interpretation and (social) action, globalization, the global world-system, social evolution, and the sociology of membership. Our purpose is to initiate and enforce basic research on relevant topics from different perspectives and traditions.
Depth hermeneutics—as developed by LORENZER within the framework of the Frankfort School's program of critical social research—represents a methodological and systematic approach to psychoanalytic research. The new ways and means by which a neo-Nazi utilises his visit to the Auschwitz Memorial to arouse further anti-Semitism are to be investigated by means of a scene-by-scene interpretation of his filmed appearances—first as a good-mooded tourist, then as a volatile right-wing extremist, as competent expert, and as rebellious adolescent. The aim is to demonstrate how the meaning of these role plays develops within the tension between a manifest and a latent significance. The results of this process of interpretations form the basis for clarifying the question: what patterns of socialisation are used by this "yuppie-neo-Nazi" to fascinate particularly adolescents?? In conclusion, the way in which through his post-modern film-production the producer turns Auschwitz into a test-ground where the neo-Nazi can do "a merry dance on the volcano", is analysed.
Quest and query: interpreting a biographical interview with a turkish woman laborer in Germany
(2003)
Hülya, a young woman who came to Germany from Turkey at the age of 17 in pursuit of a better life looks back at the age of 31. In her biographical query she relates her experiences to a social commentary on the hard and inhuman conditions of contract labor. At the same time she is critical of the common sense notions that suffering and social problems are the main consequences of labor migration. In our analytical query of "doing biographical analysis" we discuss how we interpreted Hülya's narrative and commentary in socio-historical context and also in relation to the discourse on migration from Turkey. We looked for terms to analyze agency and suffering within biographical accounts without giving priority to either of them. Referring to the analysis of another case and to the concept of "twofold perspectivity" we describe how both suffering and also pursuing one's potential are negotiated in biographical quests and queries.
The starting point of Demirovic's text is Adorno's idea that concepts as forms of thinking are constellations of power. Differently from many interpretations of Adorno as resigned, Demirovic shows that this assumption enables Adorno to give his own theory the character of interventions in the ideological consensus of everyday life with regard to emancipation.
I propose that the rising number of dualearner couples in the United States impacts the trend toward declining residential mobility and rising commute times. I describe these mobility trends in the United States, first relocation trends and then daily commuting trends. My research views the commute as the bridge in time and space between home and work that a) reflects couples' negotiation of preferences, relative job importance, barriers, and opportunities; b) has consequences for family functioning, c) reflects gender differences in the ways time and place are organized, and d) varies across the life course, by race, class, and region. I describe differences in family type and family functioning based on the commuting pattern and suggest a course of future comparative research that may improve awareness of how families and couples handle labor market demands, what structures shape the picture of couples mobility, and how nation-specific circumstances orient couples toward certain kinds of mobility and away from others.
Elderly people still play a minor role in research on information needs and usage patterns of Internet users. Online research and advocacy groups look optimistically at the (economic and social) potential of the active and technology–skilled elderly; other approaches dealing with the social appropriation of technology see obstacles and stress the dangers of an increasing digital divide between generations. Our objective is to refer to taken for granted normative assumptions of the digital divide discourse, highlighting different requirements for the appropriation of the Internet. Using the concept of technological generations we look at formal and informal learning of young and elderly people in the German context. We use survey material and field impressions we gained in various technology related studies. The results show that the "two worlds apart" assumption (young vs. elderly people) is too simplistic. Factors like gender, education and socio–economic status still play an important role for acceptance and diffusion of a technology. The diffusion rate among the elderly is increasing, but will continue to lag behind the figures of the young users. Cultural preparations and easy access modes are essential for the elderly, who could make use of latecomer advantages. Informal learning and peer group support will be crucial for the diffusion of the Internet among the elderly. In our conclusions we look at the specific social status of the elderly cohort, which makes a comparison with other social groups very difficult.
Rezension zu: David SHERMAN. Sartre and Adorno - The Dialectics of Subjectivity. Albany: SUNY Press, 2007, xii + 328 pp., €64.59, ISBN 978-0-7914-7115-9.
This article inquires the relevancy of multiple temporalisations for the discourse analysis of testimonial interviews. Step by step and by help of a range of empirical cases, the author widens the analytical scope (from questions, lines of questions, to supported interrogation by help of files and archives). He does so in order to reconstruct the efficient resources and means of forensic and administrative interrogations. The interviews turn out to be most powerful once they establish duplicity, meaning a partial separation of speech-production and speech-reception. Conclusively the author argues for a symmetrical view on scientific (qualitative) interviews and forensic interrogation. The separation of production and reception is widely ignored in qualitative methods.
Rezension von: Rainer Forst (2007) Das Recht auf Rechtfertigung. Elemente einer konstruktivistischer Theorie der Gerechtigkeit. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 413 pp.
In left critiques of globalization, it is often argued that liberal-egalitarian principles are inadequate for thinking about and struggling for global justice; that they are, in fact, part of the problem. For the case of identity politics as a left alternative, the paper points at two fallacies in this notion, regarding two ‘liberal’ elements: individualism and universalism. The paper examines groupidentity claims in far right conceptions of global injustice, and shows that cultural diversity of groups does not necessitate or even favour equality and democratic participation. It then examines the left group-based claims in the global justice discourse, showing that the aspirations for equality and freedom assume the liberal notions that have been often rejected as inadequate. The paper concludes that this ambivalent position undermines the democratic and egalitarian aspirations of left critiques of the global order. The analysis is based on manifestos and publications of political parties and movements in Western Europe (France, Germany and Austria).
The origin and justification of human rights, whether anchored in biological theory, natural law theory, or interests theory, as well as their cultural specificity and actual value as international legal instruments are subject to ongoing lively debates. As theoretical and rhetorical discourses challenge and enrich current understanding of the value of human rights and their relevance to democratic governance, they have found their way into public health in recent decades and play today an increasing role in the shaping of health policies, programs and practice. Human rights define the obligations of states to their people and towards each other, create grounds for governmental accountability and inspire recognition of, and action on, factors influencing people’s attainment of the highest possible standard of health. This article highlights the evolution that has brought health and human rights together in mutually reinforcing ways. It draws from the experience gained in the global response to HIV/AIDS, summarizes key dimensions of public health and of human rights and suggests a manner in which these dimensions intersect in a framework for analysis and action.
Every day thousands of people die from poverty-related causes. Many of these deaths could be avoided if appropriate medical treatments were available to the world’s poor. Due to the current structure of the international patent regime, they are not. Since the risks and costs associated with pharmaceutical innovation are extremely high, to incentivise research, inventor firms are granted a temporary monopoly over newly invented drugs. While allowing firms to make up for the costs of research, this has the morally perverse effect of raising the prices of pharmaceuticals to a level where they become unaffordable to the world's poor. To correct this grievous flaw, the paper proposes a concrete and realistic alternative scheme which, by rewarding medical innovators in proportion to the impact of their drugs on the global disease burden, would incentivise the production and selling of crucial drugs for the world’s poor at prices accessible to them.
The following paper is about artists doing experimental and performative art who expect the spectators to become participants in the process of artwork production. The artwork is thus produced through a process of participation. As a researcher, I was similarly expected to participate in the artwork process. As I observed, the artists worked at having their agency in the artwork process recognized by the participating spectators. At the same time, the artists create a certain proximity to the spectators-participants through performing art, which I call "performing proximity." By involving the participants in their art-in-process, they make use of their agency to redefine the artworld and enlarge it into other social worlds. I also discuss how artists' ability to enact redefined social worlds can be compared to agency in performative social science and in biographical research.
G. A. Cohen argues that John Rawls’s focus on the basic structure of society as the exclusive subject of social justice is misguided. I argue that two understandings of the notion of basic structure seem to be present in the literature, either in implicit or in explicit terms. (1) According to the first, the basic structure is to be equated with a given set of institutions: if they endorse the right principles of justice, the basic structure of society is just; (2) According to the second, a society has a just basic structure if and only if its institutional web manages to realize the relevant principles of justice as well it can. In (2), the institutional structure is not a given: different social circumstances call for different institutional solutions in order to achieve a just basic structure overall. The first part of the paper make a case for (2), and explores some of its normative implications. The second part asks which consequences this understanding may have for the idea of a global basic structure.
Rhetoric and global justice
(2008)
Activists have long recognized the importance of rhetoric and emotional appeal in building support for the global justice movement. However, many political theorists worry that the use of rhetoric may obstruct clear presentation of the issues at stake, and may result in our policies being determined by where the sympathies of the best rhetoricians lie. In this article I examine the ways in which contemporary theorists try to accommodate the need for rhetoric and emotional appeal, and I argue that their attempts are unsatisfactory because they view rhetoric as a tool or skill that can be used to manipulate people to support any position. Yet if we question the sharp separation between rhetoric and reason, then the aims of building support for a cause, identifying the causes we ought to support, and treating others with respect need no longer conflict. Re-examining the radical liberal theories of J.S. Mill, L.T. Hobhouse and J.A. Hobson, will help us to see how this separation might be questioned and rhetoric recovered as a respectful and respectable form of argument.
This article argues that proliferation of prefixes like ‘neo’ and ‘post’ that adorn conventional ‘isms’ have cast a long shadow on the contemporary relevance of traditional political ideologies. Suggesting that there is, indeed, something new about today’s political belief systems, the essay draws on the concept of ‘social imaginaries’ to make sense of the changing nature of the contemporary ideological landscape. The core thesis presented here is that today’s ideologies are increasingly translating the rising global imaginary into competing political programs and agendas. But these subjective dynamics of denationalization at the heart of globalization have not yet dispensed with the declining national imaginary. The twenty-first century promises to be an ideational interregnum in which both the global and national stimulate people’s deep-seated understandings of community. Suggesting a new classification scheme dividing contemporary political ideologies into ‘market globalism’, ‘justice globalism’, and ‘jihadist globalism’, the article ends with a brief assessment of the main ideological features of justice globalism.
The paper argues that the current global market is organized by a system of transnational law whose development is best characterized as ambivalent. On the one side, legal juridification can lead to a hegemonic system of international law that lacks legitimacy, paradoxically creates extralegal spheres, promotes the ‘privatization’ of political areas, and, thereby, reduces the competences of states. On the other side, legal codification can also function as an engine of transnational democratization and as a barrier to an unhampered growth of transnational administrative and executive power. Scholarship on the idea of legitimacy in law and transnational governance in political and legal theory has to reflect these aspects of juridification on a world scale. Most approaches to the issue, however, have serious flaws: they neither offer an adequate empirical diagnosis of the de-embedding of international economic and legal processes, nor do they provide convincing proposals as to how such processes could be domesticated. Against this background, the paper lays out a critical analysis of legal codification processes as well as proposing an account of democratic governance, based on a realistic conception of deliberative democracy.
Two decades after the predicted “end of ideology”, we are observing a re-emphasis on party ideology under Hu Jintao. The paper looks into the reasons for and the factors shaping the re-formulation of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) ideology since 2002 and assesses the progress and limits of this process. Based on the analysis of recent elite debates, it is argued that the remaking of ideology has been the consequence of perceived challenges to the legitimacy of CCP rule. Contrary to many Western commentators, who see China’s successful economic performance as the most important if not the only source of regime legitimacy, Chinese party theorists and scholars have come to regard Deng Xiaoping’s formula of performance-based legitimacy as increasingly precarious. In order to tackle the perceived “performance dilemma” of party rule, the adaptation and innovation of party ideology is regarded as a crucial measure to relegitimize CCP rule.
While liberal, redistributive views seek to correct and compensate for past injustices, by resorting to compensatory, procedural arguments for corrective justice, the recognition-based, communitarian arguments tend to promote by means of social movements and struggles for recognition a society free from prejudice and disrespect. In developing democratic societies such as Brazil, Axel Honneth’s contribution to the ongoing debates on Affirmative Action has been evoked, confirming that the dialectics of recognition does not merely seek a theoretical solution to the structural and economic inequalities that constitute some of their worst social pathologies, but allows for practices of self-respect and subjectivation that defy all technologies of social control, as pointed out in Foucault’s critique of power. The phenomenological deficit of critical theory consists thus in recasting the critique of power with a view to unveiling lifeworldly practices that resist systemic domination.
Interview with Dario Azzellini, author of The Business of War and the new documentary film, Comuna Under Construction. What is it about Venezuela that is so interesting? Since 2003 I have practically lived in Venezuela. What motivates me is that I am interested in the social transformation process happening here. It’s a different type of revolution, a new left that draws from all the experiences of the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. ...
The focus of this contribution is on the mode of capitalism within the industrialized sectors of "emerging markets". Particularly in the context of the rise of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) this question has gained considerable importance, also for the development of the world economy as a whole. The core question is whether the type of capitalism within these economies is similar to the capitalist variety of the triad, or diverges in more or less permanent ways. The article gives a preliminary answer to this question, by developing a rough sketch of a "BRIC" model of capitalism and illustrating this model with the case of Brazil. In terms of theory, the article extends the Comparative Capitalism (CC) perspective to the BRICs. On the one side, the focus is on the classical questions of CC, i.e. the determinants of economic development and the differences to other types of capitalism, on the other side the relationship between these varieties and social inequality. It argues that the "state-permeated market economies" of the BRICs rely on clans as a mode of social coordination. As demonstrated by the case of Brazil, this type of capitalism can be quite successful, but is based on a highly unequal distribution of economic and political resources.
This paper argues that the Fairtrade certification system represents an illuminating example of the challenge of systematically determining consumer and entrepreneurial responsibilities in our global age. In taking up the central question of what, if anything, may be called ‘just’ or ‘fair’ in Fairtrade, I more precisely argue for a two-fold thesis: that (1) a meaningful evaluation of Fairtrade must consider both an interactional and an (arguably prior) institutional understanding of global responsibilities to promote justice and that (2) Fairtrade can be better defended against several popular objections from the perspective of a theory that adequately differentiates between interactional responsibilities and institutional responsibilities of promoting justice under unjust circumstances.
Contemporary closed circuits – subversive dialogues : artistic strategies against surveillance
(2010)
In the past years surveillance, especially visual surveillance systems, have entered our cities and streets on a large scale. In my hometown Frankfurt/Main, the city centre and traffic-hubs have become zones under intensive surveillance. Over 120 cameras are installed at the central station, over 2,000 at the airport. In such highly surveilled places it is impossible to remain unobserved. The extent of surveillance in the United Kingdom and the USA offers a glance into the future. In these countries visual surveillance systems have spread into the farthest corners of cities and villages and into the privacy of their inhabitants.
This development calls for artistic endeavours which examine the phenomenon and raise people’s awareness of CCTV. Subversive strategies have to be developed which counter the inherent power relations of surveillance systems and foster self-confident, active behaviour towards the instruments of control.
The ongoing artistic project, Contemporary Closed Circuits – Subversive Dialogues, examines practices of contemporary visual surveillance. The works explore possibilities of interaction with and subversion of systems of observation. Most of the works were produced during the past three years as an artistic final thesis at Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany.