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AbstractThe 1990s saw a systemic shift from the liberal post–World War II international order of liberal multilateralism(LIO I) to a post–Cold War international order of postnational liberalism(LIO II). LIO II has not been only rule-based but has openly pursued a liberal social purpose with a significant amount of authority beyond the nation-state. While postnational liberal institutions helped increase overall well-being globally, they were criticized for using double standards and institutionalizing state inequality. We argue that these institutional features of the postnational LIO II led to legitimation problems, which explain both the current wave of contestations and the strategies chosen by different contestants. We develop our argument first by mapping the growing liberal intrusiveness of international institutions. Second, we demonstrate the increased level and variety of contestations in international security and international refugee law. We show that increased liberal intrusiveness has led to a variety of contestation strategies, the choice of which is affected by the preference of a contestant regarding postnational liberalism and its power within the contested institution.

Future production methods like cyber physical production systems (CPPS), flexibly linked assembly structures and the matrix production are characterized by highly flexible and reconfigurable cyber physical work cells. This leads to frequent job changes and shifting work environments. The resulting complexity within production increases the risk of process failures and therefore requires longer job qualification times for workers, challenging the overall efficiency of production. During operation, cyber physical work cells generate data, which are specific to the individual process and interaction data. Based on the asset administration shell for Industry 4.0, this paper develops an administration shell for the production workforce, which contains personal data (e.g. qualification level, language skills, machine access, preferred display and interaction settings). Using worker and process specific data as well as interaction data, allows supporting, training and instating workers according to their individual capabilities. This matching of machine requirements and worker skills serves to optimize the allocation of workers to workstations regarding the ergonomic workplace setup and the machine efficiency. This paper concludes with an user-friendly, intuitive design approach for a personalized machine user interface. The presented use-cases are developed and tested at the ARENA2036 (Active Research Environment for the Next Generation of Automobiles) research campus.

World politics is no longer a matter of executive multilateralism and technocratic expert decisions. What we see instead is the politicization of international institutions – a twofold process of growing resistance to and the more intensive utilization of these institutions. After providing evidence for this claim, this article develops propositions on the effects of politicization of world politics on the quality of decision making and the content of policies on both the international and national level. On the one hand, the politicization of international institutions arguably heralds a reflexive stage of global governance. The increased participation of societal actors leads to a new mode of decision making in world politics, which includes a notion of global common goods in conjunction with elements of public deliberation. By the same token, increased politicization of international institutions contradicts lamentations about the hollowing-out of national democracies and shows that political participation is in fact partly emigrating to the international level. While politicization has the inherent potential for initiating the democratization of international institutions and making new types of global policies possible, there are on the other hand several dangers associated to this process. First, it may perpetuate existing inequalities between North and South in terms of representation on the global level. Second, the politicization of world politics puts pressure on national democracy, since it moves attention away from national political matters and skews national policies towards universalist positions. Moreover, it arguably provokes the constitution of a new political cleavage, cosmopolitanism vs. communitarianism, which may possibly restructure politics in the 21st century to a large extent. These propositions on the effects of politicization will be developed with the help of empirical illustrations. However, they will not be systematically tested – the purpose of this contribution is to elaborate the analytical potential of a new concept and identify broad trends.

Der europäische Verfassungsvertrag ist fürs Erste an den gesellschaftlichen Widerständen in Frankreich und den Niederlanden gescheitert. Weshalb sind die Referenden gescheitert? Hat damit die Europäische Integration ihren Zenit überschritten und steht uns gar eine Renationalisierung bevor? In diesem thesenartigen Forumsbeitrag möchte ich argumentieren, dass das Scheitern des Verfassungsvertrags als Ausdruck einer Politisierung der Europäischen Union gesehen werden kann. Im Zuge dieser Politisierung werden politische Prozesse jenseits des Nationalstaates nicht mehr mit den üblichen Effektivitätsmaßstäben zwischenstaatlicher Politik, sondern mit Ansprüchen einer guten politischen Ordnung konfrontiert. Demgegenüber meinen die Regierungen der Mitgliedsländer immer noch, europäische und internationale Politikprozesse gegenüber der nationalen Öffentlichkeit in traditioneller Formdarstellen zu können.Das ist allerdings zum Scheitern verurteilt. So gesehen ist die Zukunft des europäischen Projektes ergebnisoffen.Wir stehen vor einerWeggabelung. Entweder gelingt es, den neuen Bewertungsansprüchen an europäische Politik zu genügen oder eine partielle Renationalisierung der europäischen Politik wird wahrscheinlich. The constitutional treaty of the EU failed. Why so? Does this failure indicate the end of European integration and the beginning of re-nationalization of European politics? This contribution argues that the failure of the constitutional treaty is due to a process of politicization of the EU. As a result, political processes beyond the nation state are judged increasingly not just on the basis of their effectiveness, but also in terms of the criteria for good political order, such as fairness and legitimacy. The respective governments of the EU member states, however, publicly still take an instrumental approach to the EU. This is doomed to failure and thus the future of the European project is open. Either politics adapts to the new evaluation criteria for European integration or a partial re-nationalization of European politics is indeed likely.

Building on the empirical findings of the preceding articles, we advance three arguments. First, while socialization research has typically been construed as constructivism's home turf, this volume's emphasis on mechanisms and scope conditions reveals that rational choice has much to contribute here as well. We develop this claim by undertaking a “double interpretation” of each essay, which allows us to advance more fine-grained arguments connecting the two social theories. Second, while there are good conceptual reasons for expecting a predominance of international socialization in Europe, the empirical cases instead suggest that its effects are often weak and secondary to dynamics at the national level. We make sense of this puzzle by reasoning more explicitly in longitudinal terms, by drawing on work on European identity, and by noting that students of European socialization—as well as integration—have much to gain by “bringing the domestic back in.” Finally, while our collaborators have demonstrated the empirical and theoretical benefits of combining a social ontology with a positivist epistemology, this comes at a cost, with normative perspectives neglected. This matters—and all the more so in a Europe marked by supranational constitution- and polity building. Socialization dynamics may well take us beyond the nation-state, but their legitimacy and governance implications bring us back—forcefully—to it.

This review article identifies five research themes in the study of international environmental politics. Among them, the research on regime effectiveness and on transnational networks has the greatest potential for becoming a driving force in the search for new avenues in the analysis of international relations. Although at the moment less is known about regime consequences and the role of transnational networks in international environmental politics than about regime formation, the former two have recently produced research questions and strategies that seem to be promising. However, the study of regime effectiveness and transnational networks requires more sophisticated research strategies in order to realize its full potential. Although the concept of causal mechanisms used in this research strand seems to be an extremely innovative and promising approach, it needs to be developed in more detail and backed up by comparative designs.

This review article identifies five research themes in the study of international environmental politics. Among them, the research on regime effectiveness and on transnational networks has the greatest potential for becoming a driving force in the search for new avenues in the analysis of international relations. Although at the moment less is known about regime consequences and the role of transnational networks in international environmental politics than about regime formation, the former two have recently produced research questions and strategies that seem to be promising. However, the study of regime effectiveness and transnational networks requires more sophisticated research strategies in order to realize its full potential. Although the concept of causal mechanisms used in this research strand seems to be an extremely innovative and promising approach, it needs to be developed in more detail and backed up by comparative designs.