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Tunisia's political system suffers from recurrent problems with governability and proportionality. A volatile party landscape, frequent cabinet reshuffles, and political gridlocks repeatedly jeopardized stability and democratic progress since the Arab Spring. Major and minor electoral reforms were undertaken in 2014, 2017, 2019, and 2022, but they were unable to diffuse either of these issues. This analysis is therefore driven by two central questions: How have Tunisia's electoral laws changed since the Arab Spring? And why have these reforms failed to improve both governability and proportionality? It will be argued that because Tunisia's party landscape is fractured and volatile only on the secularist side of the spectrum, coalitions with and against Ennahda are costly to all parties involved, worsening the overall quality of political representation. By analyzing the trajectory of major and minor electoral reforms longitudinally, this paper finds that Tunisia's electoral reforms incrementally restricted the electoral system by limiting parties' and candidates' capacity to compete in elections. Through modifying legislation on campaign finance and subsidies, gender parity, and candidacy requirements, and finally abolishing Tunisia's closed list PR-system in 2022, reforms benefit established older parties and wealthier candidates while fortifying the electoral system against newer and less wealthy contenders. Tunisia's electoral reforms are inadequate in addressing governability and proportionality because restricting electoral competition alone cannot improve the quality of representation through political parties. Seit dem Arabischen Frühling wird Tunesiens demokratische Stabilität durch häufige Kabinettsumbildungen, politische Stagnation, und einer volatilen Parteienlandschaft gefährdet. Regierungsfähigkeit und Proportionalität sind wiederkehrende Herausforderungen geblieben. Obwohl in den Jahren 2014, 2017, 2019, und 2022 Wahlrechtsreformen durchgeführt wurden, konnten diese Probleme jedoch nicht tiefergehend behoben werden. Diese Analyse verfolgt daher zwei Leitfragen: Wie hat sich Tunesiens Wahlgesetzgebung seit 2011 verändert? Und warum konnten diese Reformen weder Regierungsfähigkeit noch Proportionalität in der politischen Repräsentation verbessern? Da die tunesische Parteienlandschaft hauptsächlich auf der säkularen Seite fragmentiert und volatil ist, werden Koalitionen sowohl mit als auch gegen die konservative Ennahda-Partei kostspielig für alle Beteiligten. Das vermindert die Repräsentationsfähigkeit vieler Parteien und begünstigt politische Gridlocks. Die Analyse des tunesischen Wahlrechts und dessen Verlauf zeigt auf, dass der Zugang zu politischem Wettbewerb zunehmend restriktiver wurde. Änderungen in der Gesetzgebung zur Finanzierung von Kampagnen, Genderparität, und den Voraussetzungen für Kandidaturen bringen Wettbewerbsvorteile für etabliertere und wohlhabendere Kandidaten und Parteien. Neuere Wettbewerber mit weniger finanziellen Ressourcen werden hingegen strukturell benachteiligt und so vom Wettbewerb ausgeschlossen. Tunesiens Wahlgesetzgebung trug daher wenig zur Verbesserung von Proportionalität und Regierungsfähigkeit bei, da eine restriktivere Wahlarena die durch intra-parteiliche Zersplitterung verminderte Repräsentationsfähigheit von Parteien nicht beheben kann.

The authoritarian turn in Turkey compelled many citizens to change life trajectories which included extreme measures such as migration and exile. Thousands of people left Turkey in the last decade, this recent wave constituting one of the largest Turkish migrations to Europe and beyond. The profile of the migrants included those who were comfortable with and/or opposed the current regime's political and social policies, members of oppressed minority groups, Gülen movement members who are accused of orchestrating the failed 2016 coup attempt as well as white collar and secular Turkish citizens who made lifestyle migration choices because of the political and economic developments in the country. The article focuses on the narratives of a specific group within this new wave, those whom we refer to as Turkey's intelligentsia in exile, and who decided to leave Turkey following the Gezi protests in 2013. The findings are based on 25 interviews conducted in 2021 with former academics, activists, artists, journalists and politicians who migrated to a variety of locations as a result of pending trials or arrest warrants against them, dehumanization discourse that pro-regime politicians directed toward them, as well as lack of freedom of speech and assembly.

The end of the Cold War catalysed a range of civil wars and separatist conflicts that battled for government control around the globe. Most of them were resolved through peace agreements which led rebels to lay down their arms and adopt political strategies to pursue their goals. A primary challenge for any resistance or liberation movement is how to win legitimacy and support from the population. This thesis is a case study on the transformation of the Sudan People Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) from a liberation movement to a political party and, later, government. It provides a context-specific understanding and analysis of how the liberation movement garnered legitimacy by tapping into local and international support in the liberation war. The analysis uses legitimacy as the optic for exploring the historical narrative and process-tracing to unearth multifaceted and interactive mechanisms, and strategies facilitating the liberation movement’s quest to consolidate domestic and international legitimacy during the period of struggle. The study employs a theoretical framework focusing on the concept of legitimacy as developed by Max Weber and other scholars. The theoretical approach expands the application of the term ‘legitimacy’ by including concepts such as revolutionary ideology, and performance, or eudaemonic legitimacy. Revolutionary ideology plays a vital role in helping a liberation movement to garner support and political legitimacy from the population during a conflict. It also arises through the invocation of universal values such as freedom, equality, and social justice democracy. Equally important is performance or eudaemonic legitimacy, which is measured by the ability of a former liberation movement to fulfil its revolutionary promises in the aftermath of (violent) conflict. Such a process entails the fulfilment and deliverance of ideals of liberation earlier promised during a struggle period. The promises may include the provision of security, public goods, and welfare to the citizens. However, in comparison to motives, objectives and aspirations of the SPLM/A during the liberation war against the central government in Khartoum, key findings on SPLM/A’s trajectory from a rebel movement to a government in the post-conflict period are not encouraging. The optimism, the hard-won jubilation, and the revolutionary legitimacy that catapulted the SPLM/A to power and the subsequent secession and independence in July 2011 quickly began to wane. The study found that SPLM/A’s legitimacy in the post-CPA and independence period continues to decline, and the South Sudanese do not enjoy the fruits of the liberation struggle. The findings also indicate that the SPLM/A is stuck in a political limbo: it retains many traits of a liberation movement, while its free ride during the CPA-mandated interim period en route to forming South Sudan’s first government has in effect worked against its aspiration to transform into a legitimate political party.

Through a discourse-theoretic approach, this paper problematises the under-theorised chameleonic quality of populism. While populist politics is often expressed as construction of the people against the elite, this paper argues that the political should rather be sought in how populism revives itself despite (and through) constant discursive shifts. It examines the interrelations between populism, identity and foreign policy, inserting 'dislocation', the transitory moment of disruption in the discursive field, as the main enterprise of populist politics. Empirically, the paper scrutinises how Turkish President Erdoğan switched from conservative democratic to Islamist to nationalist discourses, each with repercussions in the field of foreign policy, and sustained the populist moment through successive dislocations. In particular, it focuses how the 'Ottoman' myth spelled different populisms and foreign policy discourses in different periods of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi - AKP) rule.

Politisches Denken und Handeln setzt immer schon ein Bild vom Menschen voraus und doch bleibt der Mensch als politisches Argument häufig im Dunkeln. Frauke Höntzsch skizziert eine politikwissenschaftliche Anthropologie, deren Ziel es ist, die Struktur und den Status anthropologischer Argumente im politischen Denken offenzulegen, um sie so der Kritik zugänglich zu machen. Die Systematisierung anthropologischer Argumente im politischen Denken zeigt dabei nicht nur die Anthropologiekritik als anthropologische Argumentation, sondern generiert mit den untereinander konkurrierenden paradigmatischen Vorstellungen des Menschen zugleich ein politikwissenschaftliches Analyseinstrument.

This article examines the role of siege warfare and population control in the coercive counterinsurgency strategy used by the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad to effectively crush the revolution that began in 2011. We extend the coercive counterinsurgency framework offered by Monica Duffy Toft and Yuri Zhukov to analyze the Syrian regime's use of the twin tactical pillars of siege warfare and population control. We focus on how these two types of denial - military and political - proved essential to the regime's military victory.

This article examines the interplay between nonviolent movements’ use of polarizing issues for mobilization and pro-regime countermobilization. Thailand has been chosen as an explanatory case study because it has a history of political polarization and pro-regime mass mobilization. I focus on polarizing frames that were incorporated into the 2020 nonviolent resistance campaigns, which addressed a taboo subject in the country: the monarchy. In response, the regime applied various forms of repression, including the mobilization of royalists. But the assumption that the regime single-handedly mobilized countermovements is only half of the story. Autonomous elements within countermovements also joined forces when there were sufficient social conditions. By juxtaposing protest event data with an analysis of mobilizing frames (through movements’ Twitter hashtags), I shed light on a two-pronged process that underpins the nexus between framing choice and countermobilization: (a) how a movement’s choice for polarizing frames sustains existing ideological and identity-based cleavages, antagonizing segments of society that perceive their collective identity to be under siege and; (b) how these ideological and identity-based cleavages also provide social sources for countermobilization. I conclude by addressing some implications of this framing choice–countermobilization nexus on repression dynamics and suggest how we can rethink the relationship between strategic framing and nonviolent resistance campaigns in divided societies.

Combining formal democracy, neoliberal capitalism, and conservative Islam, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) transformed state-society relations in Turkey dramatically after its first electoral victory in 2002. Yet the elections to be held on 14 May 2023 might mark the end of an era defined as the "New Turkey" by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan himself. There are three key catalysts here. Until recently, AKP pursued an economic growth model that brought together a ruling bloc consisting of various social forces and state actors. Simultaneously, it reproduced mass consent leading to consecutive electoral victories. Yet, the current economic crisis makes the maintenance of the incumbent party's electoral support extremely difficult. On 6 February, southern Turkey was struck by the deadliest earthquakes in the country's history. The government's highly politicised yet wholly inadequate management of the crisis exacerbated the earthquakes' adverse effects, harming Erdoğan's image and posing another challenge for the ruling coalition in the upcoming elections. Despite Erdoğan's frequent attempts to sow discord among his critics, the opposition seems to have learnt its lesson from past mistakes, uniting behind the main oppositional candidate, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who will significantly challenge the ruling coalition. The response of European politicians to Turkey's increasing authoritarianism in the recent past has not gone beyond expressing "deep concerns," focusing on short-term interests such as the containment of refugee flows and pursuing a transactional relationship with the incumbent president. The upcoming elections are a watershed moment for Turkey's threatened democratic institutions. European governments need to reconsider their approach, since a rules-based mode of engagement would benefit both the European Union and Turkish society in the long run.

Russia's war against Ukraine has accelerated international competition for influence in Africa. Structural weaknesses and post-pandemic instabilities continue to threaten achievements in the fields of democratic governance, peace and security, as well as development. We present a select list and analysis of "ten things to watch" in Africa in 2023. Politics: Democratic quality will depend on the nature of polls, as the electoral calendar is heavily packed. Important general elections that could trigger social unrest are scheduled in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe. Peace and security: Against the backdrop of continued structural-conflict risks, Jihadism and related ethno-regional tensions pose a major security challenge that may spill over to neighbouring states, especially from the Sahel to West African coastal countries. The recent ceasefire in Ethiopia's Tigray Region could be a first positive step towards peace. International arena: Amid Russia's war against Ukraine, many African governments were reluctant to join the international coalition condemning the Putin regime. Continued Western pressure on African countries to isolate Russia fosters African agency. At the same time, we expect to see an intensifying "new scramble for Africa" that includes both China and Middle Eastern countries. Socio-economic development: African countries will slowly rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic's socio-economic effects, but high poverty, inequality, and government debt hamper economic growth. Progress on joint efforts to counter the climate crisis remains slow. Western support for African countries in their struggle for democracy, peace and security, as well as development requires a "new start" that focuses on prevention rather than ad hoc responses to current crises. The European Union and United States should avoid lapsing into Cold War habits of only assisting African governments if they "break away" from Russia. Germany needs to formulate a sound Africa policy that balances values and national interests with realistic assessments of the policy's potential in light of bigger players like China.

Seit November 2022 werden in einem Kooperationsprojekt des Instituts für Kriminologie an der Universität Hamburg (UHH) und des German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) in Hamburg im Rahmen des MOTRA Forschungsverbundes alle zwei Monate in Deutschland Stichproben von etwa 2500 Erwachsenen online befragt. Ziel dieser Studie unter dem Titel "Menschen in Deutschland International" (MiDInt) ist es, Reaktionen der Bevölkerung auf international bedeutsmer Geschehnissen zu erfassen und deren Einflüsse auf politische Einstellungen der Menschen in Bezug auf die Situation in Deutschland zu untersuchen. In diesem Spotlight werden zentrale Ergebnisse der ersten Welle dieser Befragungen zur Frage der Wahrnehmung und Bewertung der Proteste und Menschenrechtsverletzungen im Iran und deren Auswirkungen auf Muslimfeindlichkeit in Deutschland vorgestellt. Eine weit überwiegende Mehrheit der Deutschen befürwortet danach, dass die Protestierenden von Deutschland unterstützt und dass wegen der Menschenrechtsverletzungen weitere Sanktionen gegen den Iran verhängt werden. Weiter waren deutliche Ausstrahlungseffekte der Vorgänge im Iran auf das Ausmaß der Muslimfeindlichkeit in Bezug auf Deutschland zu erkennen. Die pauschalisierende Deutung der Entwicklungen im Iran als Beleg einer generellen Menschen- und Frauenrechtsfeindlichkeit des Islam trägt danach ganz erheblich zu einer weiteren Steigerung von muslimfeindlichen Einstellungen in Deutschland bei. Demgegenüber haben Deutungen, welche die Proteste vor allem als Ausdruck einer Bewegung von Muslimen für mehr Frauen- und Freiheitsrechte einordnen, eine reduzierende Wirkung auf das Ausmaß der Muslimfeindlichkeit in Deutschland.

Die Forschungsstelle Terrorismus/Extremismus des Bundeskriminalamts führt zusammen mit den kommunalen Spitzenverbänden (DST, DLT, DStGB) im Rahmen von MOTRA ein "Kommunales Monitoring zu Hass, Hetze und Gewalt gegenüber Amtsträgerinnen und Amtsträgern" durch. Es handelt sich hierbei um eine längsschnittlich angelegte bundesweite Befragung aller ehren- und hauptamtlichen (Ober-)Bürgermeister/Bürgermeisterinnen und Landräte/ Landrätinnen, die in einem sechsmonatigen Turnus durchgeführt wird. Die in diesem Spotlight aufgeführten Ergebnisse beruhen auf der Frühjahrsbefragung'22 (Referenzzeitraum: November'21-April'22). Diese zeigen, dass mehr als jede/r dritte befragte (34%) kommunale Amtsperson im angegebenen Halbjahreszeitraum Anfeindungen, Bedrohungen und/oder Übergriffe erlebt hat. Dass das Problem gesellschaftliches und politisches Gehör finden muss - nicht nur auf kommunaler Ebene, zeigt auch die Tatsache, dass 74% aller Befragten weitere Maßnahmen zum Schutz kommunaler Amts- und Mandatstragende für erforderlich halten.

Leo Roepert: Die konformistische Revolte: Zur Mythologie des Rechtspopulismus. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag 2022. 978-3-8376-6272-6

Civil society occupies a significant space in any dynamic political landscape. However, in recent years, governments worldwide have attempted a shift away from activism and advocacy among civil society organisations (CSOs), favouring the apolitical service‐driven organisations while disabling those perceived as “political.” This process has incapacitated civil society of its political habits, tendencies, and potentials and turned CSOs into infinitely malleable and adaptive subjects, tamed and governed by institutions. Not only has this functioned to create a discursive expansion and valorisation of the concept of “civil society resilience” as an alternative political vision for “resistance,” but it has also led to the inclusion of CSOs in the political system on conditions of their exclusion from political participation. Using the case of India as an example of a shrinking welfare state—with its burgeoning poverty, repressed civic space, international non‐governmental organisations (INGOs) banned, and NGOs abrogated from foreign funding on “anti‐national,” “anti‐developmental” charges—this article captures the rapid symptomatic depoliticisation of civil society, its resource dependency on CSOs, and their potential political exclusion and disengagement. The research builds on a qualitative exploration of the transformative journey of ten highly‐influential INGOs in India to offer a distinct perspective toward effecting systemic change by repoliticising CSO resilience as an enhanced strategy of practicing resistance. In doing so, the article bridges the gap between the neoliberal manifestation of resilience and resistance by reconceptualising how and if CSOs co‐exist and navigate between competing visions of resilience (as institutionalised subjects of neoliberalism) and resistance (as political subjects of change).

Africa reportedly exhibits lower overall levels of electoral integrity compared to other world regions. Remedying this situation has occasioned an explosion in the adoption of election technology. In 2023, Nigeria joined the wave of election digitalisation by holding its most technologically advanced polls since the inception of the Fourth Republic. But evidence from the elections contradicts the much-touted credibility guarantees that such technology comes with. Previous elections in Nigeria have witnessed a consistent decline in voter participation. Turnout in the just-ended 2023 presidential elections was a paltry 29 per cent, down from 69 per cent in 2003 and 53 per cent in 2011. Popular distrust in the electoral process generally, and in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) particularly, has seen voter apathy in recent elections reach record levels. To salvage this situation, Nigeria has adopted digital technology to, among other things, enhance transparency and integrity in the electoral process and boost popular confidence in the INEC. Digital technology is expected to guarantee a credible electoral roll and bring some robustness to voter-accreditation processes, while simultaneously enabling public access to results in real time. However, the technology deployed in the 2023 elections proved to be insufficient in resolving these credibility deficits. Aside from the multiple technical challenges that bedevilled the technology in the course of these elections, voter turnout was the lowest in the history of the Fourth Republic and popular trust in the electoral process and the INEC does not seem salvageable in the short term. Ensuring that digital technologies guarantee credible elections in sub-Saharan Africa requires governments, democracy promoters, civil society groups, and international organisations prioritise election cybersecurity, build up local technical capacities, and focus on Election Management Bodies becoming more transparent, especially regarding the use of such technology.

Gegenwärtige spätmoderne Gesellschaften zeichnen sich durch multiple Krisen aus: Soziale Ungleichheit, Rechtsextremismus und staatlicher Autoritarismus bedrohen die Demokratie, der kapitalistische Wachstumszwang die natürliche Umwelt. Hierauf muss die schulische Politische Bildung reagieren, wenn sie ihren Bildungsauftrag ernst nimmt. Der Autor zeigt auf, dass eine Soziopolitische Bildung das Politische wieder in den Bereich der gesellschaftlichen Machtverhältnisse zurückholen kann. Gegenüber den dominierenden Positionen der Politischen Bildung, die affirmativ auf die Stabilisierung der bestehenden staatlichen und gesellschaftlichen Ordnung orientiert sind, kann sie staatliche Herrschaft differenzierter und in ihrer aktuellen Transformation begreifen.

In this article we take a longitudinal view on presidential-term-limit reforms in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa since the third wave of democratization. Many countries in the two regions (re-)introduced term limits at this time as a democratic safeguard against personal rule and power abuses. Since then, term limits have been contested by a plethora of reform attempts. Such reforms are commonly seen as a risk to democracy since stable institutions are considered essential for democratic consolidation, while term-limit eliminations are associated with processes of autocratization. From the literature on democratic consolidation, institutionalization and presidential-term-limit reforms we distil theoretical expectations on term-limit-reform paths across time and examine how they relate to the evolution of the political regime. To empirically investigate reform paths across regions we apply the research method of sequence analysis. We find that the stability of term-limit rules is more prevalent than expected, but that this stability sometimes masks institutional ineffectiveness under authoritarian regimes. Rule instability induced by frequent reforms can be part of a piecemeal path towards autocratization, but it can also reflect an open-ended tug of war between authoritarian tendencies and democratic resistance.

Globale Krisen wie der Klimawandel und die Corona-Pandemie machen die Politische Ökologie zu einem unverzichtbaren Forschungsfeld der Zukunft. Die Beiträger*innen des ersten deutschsprachigen Handbuchs zum Thema stellen die hierfür relevanten Theorien vor und zeigen anhand konkreter Konflikte und Kämpfe die Aktualität und den Mehrwert einer politisch-ökologischen Herangehensweise auf. Sie erläutern die zentralen Begriffe, die für Analyse, Kritik und Transformation von gesellschaftlichen Naturverhältnissen wichtig sind, und stellen für die Politische Ökologie fruchtbare Methoden und Arbeitsweisen vor. Ein übersichtliches Nachschlagewerk für unübersichtliche Verhältnisse.

Elektronische Reproduktion von: Eine Stimme aus dem Jahre 1830 über das Kurhessische Verfassungswerk / [Vollgraff, Karl Friedrich ; Wilhelm I., Hessen-Kassel, Kurfürst]. - [S.l.], [1830?]. - 63, 40 S. - Standort: Universität Marburg, Universitätsbibliothek. - Signatur: VIII C 720 (Nr. 4 im Sammelband "Staatsverfassung und Verfassungsgeschichte in Hessen-Darmstadt 1820-1840"). - Bemerkungen: Verfasser ermittelt. - In Fraktur. - Text ist identisch mit dem des Werks: Was bedürfen, was wünschen und was erwarten demnach Kurhessens Bewohner von ihrem erhabenen Fürstenhause und dem auf den 16. October 1830 einberufenen engeren Landtage in Beziehung auf Verfassung und Verwaltung? - (Hassiaca) Digitalisiert 2022

With Lisbon, the European Parliament formally acquired an equal standing to that of the Council of the EU in the making of policies in the AFSJ (area of freedom, security and justice). However, the growing political salience of policy issues at stake and bottom-up politicisation in the AFSJ has had the unintended effect of undermining the European Parliament’s internal unity even under consultation procedures. To show how this played out in practice during Europe’s migration and refugee crisis, this article analyses the European Parliament’s role, preferences, and bargaining position in the making of two Refugee Relocation Decisions (Council Decisions 2015/1523 and 2015/1601) under consultation procedure. To do so, this article exploits Putnam’s two-level framework (level I and II politics throughout the policy-making process) to explore early agenda-setting attempts and groups’ positions on issues of refugee relocation and burden-sharing, as they were formally stated in their position papers and expressed at the LIBE Committee and at plenary. This article shows that the high domestic salience and politicization of the issues at stake left MEPs torn between competing principals at home and within their European Parliament political groups and had the effect of weakening overall unity on the issue of refugee relocation.

The incentive for international agencies to promote 'local' peacebuilding is commonly premised on the hope that micro-level interventions can nourish grassroots activism and participatory citizenship. Tracing reconciliation processes across Iraq following the defeat of ISIL provides a window through which to view the transactional relationships between 'national' and 'local' forms of politics, conflict and peace in post-Ba'athist Iraq. This paper focuses on the example of Yathrib, Salah al-Din province, where over ninety per cent of residents were displaced in 2014, and an estimated eighty-five per cent subsequently returned following peace negotiations. The paper uses qualitative interview findings to demonstrate on the one hand that seemingly 'local' tribal solutions are built into national-level 'peace strategies', while on the other, state capture and power politics is infused into the management of apparently parochial disputes. While these observations are not an indictment of international efforts to intervene at the subnational level, they serve to thoroughly 'de-romanticise' the local.

Nach der Bundestagswahl 2021 kam es in Deutschland zum ersten Mal seit den 1950er-Jahren zu einer Drei-Parteien-Koalition. Was bedeutet das für die politische Repräsentation der Wähler*innen? Und wie wurden die Wahlversprechen in das Regierungsprogramm übersetzt? Die Autor*innen gehen diesen Fragen sowohl allgemein als auch für vier zentrale Politikfelder (Verkehrswende, Bildungsgerechtigkeit, Familie und Beruf, Digitalisierung in der Gesundheitspolitik) nach. Sie untersuchen, was vor den Wahlen versprochen wurde, wie dies Eingang in die Sondierungsgespräche fand und unter welchen Reibungsverlusten es schließlich im Koalitionsvertrag steht. Die freie Verfügbarkeit der E-Book-Ausgabe dieser Publikation wurde ermöglicht durch POLLUX – Informationsdienst Politikwissenschaft und die Open Library Community Politik 2022 – einem Netzwerk wissenschaftlicher Bibliotheken zur Förderung von Open Access in den Sozial- und Geisteswissenschaften. Für die finanzielle Unterstützung der Publikation der Druckversion dieses Bandes danken die Autor:innen dem Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB).

The recent decades more than anything else have revealed the ambivalence not only of the articulated expectations about the digital public sphere but also of the ‘real’ development itself. This thematic issue of Media and Communication highlights some of the criticalities and specificities of the evolution of the public sphere during this period where digital communication ecosystems are becoming increasingly central. The different articles offer a polyphonic perspective and thus contribute significantly to the debate on the transformations of the public sphere, which—in the time of the Covid-19 pandemic—dramatically affect the very essence of our democracy.

The present article is about Niqabi women belonging to the private Telegram instant messaging channel Orgullo Niqabi (Spanish for ‘Niqabi Pride’). More specifically, our main objective is to explain what they are demanding, how they articulate their demands through that channel, and why they use it for communicating and to organize their actions. Said demands are mainly linked to their recognition as autonomous and political individuals within the different contexts in which they find themselves. First, our analysis will focus on categorizing their social and political demands for being recognized, not only as Muslims, but also as autonomous, independent, and political beings. Second, we intend to explain how those demands, expressed in the virtual world, are articulated in specific actions in the different societies and social contexts in which these women live. To this end, this article analyzes, following the procedures of the Grounded Theory, the discourses obtained through 27 in depth interviews conducted in the first half of the year 2019. The strength of this research lies in overcoming the difficult access to these women and their discourses as well as in clarifying who they are, what they are demanding from the societies in which they live, how and why they are virtually grouped and the consequences of their virtual grouping in the different societies in which each of them lives.

The rise of populist governance throughout the world offers a novel opportunity to study the way in which populist leaders and parties rule. This article conceptualises populist policy making by theoretically addressing the substantive and discursive components of populist policies and the decision-making processes of populist governments. It first reconstructs the implicit ideal type of policy making in liberal democracies based on the mainstream governance and policy making scholarship. Then, taking stock of the recent populism literature, the article elaborates an ideal type of populist policy making along the dimensions of content, procedures and discourses. As an empirical illustration we apply a qualitative congruence analysis to assess the conformity of a genuine case of populist governance, social policy in post-2010 Hungary with the populist policy making ideal type. Concerning the policy content, the article argues that policy heterodoxy, strong willingness to adopt paradigmatic reforms and an excessive responsiveness to majoritarian preferences are distinguishing features of any type of populist policies. Regarding the procedural features populist leaders tend to downplay the role of technocratic expertise, sideline veto-players and implement fast and unpredictable policy changes. Discursively, populist leaders tend to extensively use crisis frames and discursive governance instruments in a Manichean language and a saliently emotional manner that reinforces polarisation in policy positions. Finally, the article suggests that policy making patterns in Hungarian social policy between 2010 and 2018 have been largely congruent with the ideal type of populist policy making.

This article integrates disparate explanations for increasing (but variable) turns to ex-ante policy evaluation, such as risk analysis, across public administrations. So far unconnected silos of literature - on policy tools, policy instrumentation, the politics of evaluation and the political sociology of quantification - inconsistently portray ex-ante evaluation as rational problem-solving, symbolic actions of institutional self-defence, or (less often) political power-seeking. I synthesise these explanations in an interpretivist and institutionalist reading of ex-ante evaluation as contextually filtered process of selective meaning-making. From this methodological umbrella emerges my unified typology of ex-ante evaluation as instrumental problemsolving (I), legitimacy-seeking (L) and powerseeking (P). I argue that a) these ideal-types coexist in policymakers’ reasoning about the expected merits of ex-ante evaluation, whilst b) diverse institutional contexts will favour variable weightings of I, L and P in policymaking. By means of systematisation the typology seeks to inspire an interdisciplinary research agenda on varieties of ex-ante evaluation. Der Beitrag entwirft einen integrierten Analyserahmen für das Phänomen der zunehmenden und zugleich variablen Hinwendung zu Instrumenten der ex-ante Politikevaluation, beispielsweise der risikobasierten Entscheidungsvorbereitung, in vielen politisch-administrativen Systemen. Bisher unverbundene und oft kontrastierende Literaturen - zu policy tools, policy instrumentation, Evaluationspolitik, aber auch der politischen Soziologie der Quantifizierung - konzeptualisieren ex-ante Evaluation als rationale Problemlösung, symbolische Handlung institutioneller Selbstverteidigung oder (seltener) politisches Machtspiel. Der Beitrag synthetisiert solche scheinbar konträren Erklärungsansätze in einer interpretativistischen und institutionalistischen Lesart, nach welcher Akteure des politisch-administrativen Systems den Toolkits der ex-ante Evaluation drei verschiedene Leistungsversprechen - instrumentelle Problemlösung, Legitimitätsbeschaffung und Machtgewinn (ILP-Typologie) - zumessen. Der Beitrag argumentiert, dass a) diese drei Idealtypen in der Bedeutungszuweisung an ex-ante Evaluationsinstrumente immer ko-existieren, b) diverse institutionelle Kontextbedingungen allerdings eine unterschiedliche Gewichtung der respektiven I-, L- und P-Interpretationsrahmen in der Politikgestaltung begünstigen. Durch Systematisierung bisher nebeneinanderstehender Forschungsstränge soll die integrierte Typologie eine interdisziplinäre Forschungsagenda zu Variation von Politikevaluation und Evaluationspolitik inspirieren.

Does public opinion affect political speech? Of particular interest is whether public opinion affects (i) what topics politicians address and (ii) what positions they endorse. We present evidence from Germany where the government was recently forced to declassify its public opinion research, allowing us to link the content of the research to subsequent speeches. Our causal identification strategy exploits the exogenous timing of the research's dissemination to cabinet members within a window of a few days. We find that exposure to public opinion research leads politicians to markedly change their speech. First, we show that linguistic similarity between political speech and public opinion research increases significantly after reports are passed on to the cabinet, suggesting that politicians change the topics they address. Second, we demonstrate that exposure to public opinion research alters politicians' substantive positions in the direction of majority opinion.

Existing research has argued that terrorism is common in civil war because it is “effective.” Surprisingly, however, only some groups use terrorism during civil wars, while many refrain altogether. We also see considerable variation in the use of terrorism over time. This article presents a theory of terrorism as a mobilization strategy in civil war, taking into account benefits, costs, and temporal dynamics. We argue that the choice and the timing of terrorism arise from the interaction between conditions for effective mobilization and battlefield dynamics. Terrorism can mobilize support when it provokes indiscriminate government repression or when it radicalizes rebels’ constituency by antagonizing specific societal groups. The timing of attacks, however, is influenced by battlefield losses, which increase rebels’ need to rally civilian support. The analyses of new disaggregated data on rebels’ terrorist attacks during conflicts (1989–2009) and of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) tactics in Iraq and Syria support our theoretical argument.

Inspired by the populists' salient urge to recalibrate and locate contingent developments within a larger temporal order and establish historical continuity, this paper dwells on the chronopolitics of national populism and calls for a systematic treatment of time in these movements. Focusing on the neglected narrative dimension, such an inquiry will afford an alternative reading from which to engage with and critique the magnitude of populism. This study argues that despite ample variance and claims of uniqueness, national populisms employ a shared temporal template that accounts for a particular national subjectivity through a set of timing and sequencing of events complemented by affective stimuli. It focuses on the case of Turkey. More pronounced since 2013 Gezi Protests, the rising tide of national populism under President Tayyip Erdoğan's rule encapsulates how these populisms conflate the past, present, and future into a single narrative about the people's survival and prosperity.

The 2018 Ontario provincial election marked a decisive shift in the political direction of Canada’s most populous province. The election brought an end to the long reign of the Ontario Liberal Party (2003–2018), whose government devolved into a series of scandals that resulted in a third-place finish. The Liberal’s defeat came at the hands of the Progressive Conservative Party led by former Toronto city councillor, Doug Ford. The Progressive Conservative’s victory was propelled on the back of Ford’s deeply populist campaign where he promised to reassert the interests of ‘the people,’ expel the influence of elites and special interests, and clean up government corruption. This campaign discourse led many political opponents and media pundits to accuse Ford of importing the nativist, xenophobic, and divisive rhetoric of other radical right-wing populist leaders. This article advances the argument that rather than representing the importation of ‘Trumpism’ or other types of radical right-wing populism, Ford’s campaign is better understood within the tradition of Canadian populism defined by an overarching ideological commitment to neoliberalism. In appealing to voters, Ford avoided the nativist and xenophobic rhetoric of populist leaders in the United States and Western Europe, offering a conception of ‘the people’ using an economic and anti-cosmopolitan discourse centred upon middle class taxpayers. This article makes a contribution to both the literatures on Canadian elections and populism, demonstrating the lineage of Ford’s ideological commitment to populism within recent Canadian electoral history, as well as Ford’s place within the international genealogy of right-wing populism.

Können Krisen Veränderungen gesellschaftlicher Ordnungsverhältnisse und die Etablierung neuer Diskurs-Akteure bewirken? Die Autorin geht dieser Frage anhand multipler gesellschaftlicher Krisensituationen Spaniens seit 2010 nach. Basierend auf den Ansätzen Michel Foucaults und Bruno Latours erarbeitet sie einen neuen diskursanalytischen Ansatz, der angesichts gegenwärtiger gesellschaftsübergreifender Krisenlagen eine besondere Aktualität entfaltet, um mögliche Veränderungen von Diskurs- und Kollektivformierungen untersuchen zu können. Krisenbedingte Neuverhandlungen von Kollektiven sowie die Materialisierung veränderter Wissensverhältnisse und Diskursordnungen werden darstellbar.

In May 2018 the Malaysian governing coalition Pakatan Harapan (PH) lost in national elections for the first time since independence. But the subsequent reform process came to a sudden halt in February 2020. During transitions, unpredictability and risks for political actors are higher, and political conditions are extremely volatile. Multiparty coalitions such as PH have trouble sustaining the cohesion that was instrumental in their electoral victory. The highly polarized environment and the differing strategic calculations of PH coalition partners after the elections prompted the early downfall of the government. At the same time, the opposition, weakened shortly after the transitional elections, increased its cohesiveness and mobilized its supporters against the government in an environment of deep ethnoreligious cleavages. This paper traces the reform successes and failures of the PH government as well as the reconsolidation and strengthening of the new opposition, up to the emergence of the new Perikatan Nasional government.

The paper investigates how parliamentary efforts to represent the interests of female electorates influence the legislators' re-election chances. Taiwan is chosen as the case study and, for empirical analysis, I utilise an original bill co-sponsorship dataset that consists of roughly 400,000 cosponsors for all bills submitted between 1992 and 2016. The findings, based on regression analyses, show that making more legislative effort on women's issues - by prioritising them over other issues - results in electoral losses, and this negative effect is more pronounced among female legislators. The paper contributes to the gender politics literature by theorising and testing a hitherto underexplored relationship between two representational processes: how the substantive representation women by female legislators affects their descriptive representation. It also contributes to legislative and electoral studies by demonstrating that legislators' policy-vote trade-offs are policy-sensitive and gendered, thus calling for a more nuanced approach to be taken in future research. Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/13572334.2021.1902645.

Iran's conservative politicians, known to be loyal supporters of Ayatollah Khamenei, have been actively working to revitalise the regime's revolutionary values according to his vision. President Ebrahim Raisi's efforts to deliver on such aims are linked with his hopes of becoming the country's next supreme leader. As poverty and inflation increase in Iran, various rounds of protests demonstrate brewing socio-economic discontent among ordinary Iranians. While the regime's direct response consists of severe repression, President Raisi's administration has also reacted with a mixture of propaganda, populist economic policies, and attempts to strengthen relations with Eastern powers. Promoting a "modest lifestyle" as an Islamic and national virtue, condemning economic prosperity as part of materialistic, Westernised culture, and campaigning to change the nation's consumption habits are among the current regime's key responses to economic privation. Declaring a commitment to solve the nation's economic hardship through populist gestures and policies that are short of robust economic solutions has been emerging as an accompanying strategy. Doggedly pursuing the consolidation of ties with non-Western global powers has been continued as a strategy to cope with Western sanctions. These elements are embedded in the encouragement, promotion, and support of a new generation of political elite, frequently referred to as the "young jihadi managers," who in Khamenei's imagination, will be the vanguard of Iran's progress in the years to come. Iran on the path of re-revolutionising itself will be more resistant to demands for change domestically, less likely to abandon its regional security strategies, and harder for Europe to cooperate with. Therefore, it is important for EU and German policymakers to take Iran's longer-term strategies into consideration in order to develop lasting responses to them.

Jugendlichen wird in der Öffentlichkeit wie in der Wissenschaft gerne Politikverdrossenheit und Desinteresse an politischen Themen unterstellt. Merle-Marie Kruse zeigt in ihrer Studie zu medienbezogenen Aushandlungen des Politischen dagegen auf, dass das den konkreten Sichtweisen junger Menschen nicht gerecht wird. Aus der Perspektive eines mediatisierten Alltags und eines erweiterten Politikverständnisses rekonstruiert sie anhand von Gruppendiskussionen, wie Jugendliche Politik begreifen, kommunikativ mit Bedeutung versehen und politische Identitäten aushandeln. Dabei zeigt ihre Analyse auch, welche Rolle populärkulturelle Medien für das Involvement mit Politischem spielen.

We are living in a media-saturated world. Not only we receive information, we have become prosumers and are able to communicate with the ‘world.’ This has been widely reflected in the academic texts. But is there a dark side to this ‘age of information freedom?’ My argument in this paper is that although we have gotten rid of one sort of tyranny and can more freely speak up, a more suppressive and widespread process of control and surveillance is underway. Worse than that, we the users seem to be comfort with that.

The Moroccan elections of September 2021 were unusual for various reasons. As electoral campaigning took place under pandemic circumstances, social media played a role previously unseen and contributed significantly to the unexpected victory of the National Rally of Independents (RNI), a liberal party, against the Justice and Development Party (PJD), an Islamist party. The use of social media for campaigning purposes is not a completely new phenomenon in Morocco, given its prominent use by numerous social movements in the past. However, social media became a game-changer during the last elections. Considering the COVID-19 measures imposed, political parties shifted much of their campaigning online. Today, online spaces are no longer exclusively used by grassroots activists but have become increasingly popular among Moroccan political parties. While political parties converged in resorting to online spaces to compensate for the restrictions on offline campaigns, they diverged in their approaches; additionally, not all parties have the same financial capacity to exploit the full potential of social media. The huge disproportion in resources invested in online platforms was a main contributor to the victory of the RNI and the unexpected electoral wipeout of the PJD. To ensure equal opportunities for all involved political actors, a more effective legal framework is needed to guarantee the transparency and fair funding of digital electoral campaigns. This can be achieved by strengthening those institutions already in place and developing new ways to monitor the use of online media during elections.

Bruno Latour und Nikolaj Schultz: Zur Entstehung einer ökologischen Klasse: Ein Memorandum. Berlin: Suhrkamp 2022. 978-3-518-02979-4

Innerhalb des MOTRA-Forschungsverbundes führt die Universität Hamburg seit dem Jahr 2021 regelmäßig jährlich wiederholte Einstellungsbefragungen der erwachsenen Bevölkerung in Deutschland durch. Themen dabei sind die Wahrnehmung der aktuellen gesellschaftlichen und politischen Situation, politische Einstellungen sowie Wahrnehmung und Bewertung von Formen des politischen Extremismus und politisch motivierter Gewalt im eigenen Lebensumfeld. An der ersten Befragung dieser Art haben im Jahr 2021 insgesamt 4 483 Personen teilgenommen. Diese wurden über eine Zufallsauswahl aus den Adressen der Einwohnermeldeämter erreicht. Von den Teilnehmerinnen und Teilnehmern hatte knapp ein Fünftel (23%) einen Migrationshintergrund. Vergleiche der sozialstatistischen Merkmale der Teilnehmenden mit Daten des statistischen Bundesamtes zur Gesamtbevölkerung zeigen eine große Übereinstimmung, so dass diese Befragung als repräsentativ eingestuft werden kann. In diesem Spotlight werden in knapper Form einige ausgewählte Befunde der ersten Welle der Studie "Menschen in Deutschland" dargestellt.

Climate change is progressing fast and is undeniably a man-made disaster. Its impacts - heatwaves, floods, sea-level rise, melting ice caps, erratic rainfall, desertification, and similar - are likely to worsen in intensity and increase in frequency for many years to come. While the question of why measures to halt climate change are not fully implemented is not easily answered, it is necessary to reflect meanwhile on the strategies employed by governing actors to legitimise such inaction. One such strategy is the attempt to ignore the "human" aspects of natural disasters, like bad governance and mismanagement, a process called "ecologisation." Climate change lends itself easily to this. By presenting drought, floods, and other extreme weather events as "natural" and thus "beyond our control," governing actors can deflect responsibility for their mismanagement and bad governance regarding natural resources. This has happened in Syria, for example, following the prolonged drought occurring in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Political Ecology provides key knowledge on how these problems can be constructed as "environmental" or "natural," how such "environmental" situations can be positioned as unprecedented and disastrous, and how framings like these may support ulterior political goals. Somewhat counterintuitively, it may be necessary to "de-naturalise" phenomena that have been attributed to climate change to uncover the broader sociopolitical impetuses behind them. With the fight over a possible trade-off between climate action and human rights already ongoing, policymakers need to learn how to both identify and address "ecologising moves." One way of doing this is by strengthening civil society actors who are identifying and calling out such moves, often under existential threat.

Sebastian Büttner / Thomas Laux (Hg.): Umstrittene Expertise: Zur Wissensproblematik der Politik. Baden-Baden: Nomos 2021. 978-3-8487-8284-0

Die Corona-Pandemie und der Krieg in der Ukraine sind auch für Kuba große Belastungen. Wirtschaftliche Probleme und zunehmende Ungleichheit sorgen für Unzufriedenheit. Zugleich könnte das Land erneut zur Projektionsfläche geopolitischer Machtkämpfe werden.

Über die Jahre ist ein Dickicht aus Förderprogrammen, -gegenständen und -bedingungen entstanden, welches sich der politischen und administrativen Steuerung zunehmend entzieht und auch für die Adressaten der Förderung kaum überschaubar ist. In ihrem Abschlussbericht gibt die Förderkommission II eine Reihe von Handlungsempfehlungen zur Konsolidierung der Programmlandschaft an die Politik und die Verwaltung des Freistaates. Redaktionsschluss: 01.05.2022

This study uses Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) inside a broader framework of Comparative Historical Research (CHR) in order to asses and categorise the role of trade unions during the ���Arab Spring��� 2011 ��� 2013. QCA is a method initially developed by Charles Ragin based on Boolean logic that allows for the identification of multiple conjunctural causations. It s a comparative method that initially derived from electrical engineering and used the Quine-McCluskey Algorithm in order to find patterns of similarity and difference between cases. Those cases are classified into the presence (1) or absence (0) of a particular outcome, and turned into combinations of variables which are also coded according to the absence (0) or presence (1) of variables. The configurations can be minimised in order to eliminate variables that were not affecting the particular outcome. As argued in the thesis, the approach bears several advantages with regard to quantitative methods, especially in small-n samples. Furthermore, the methodological and theoretical part of this thesis argues that to hold the case studies as thick as possible and as parsimonious as necessary, and the minimisation and interpretations as thick as necessary and as parsimonious as possible. As regards content, the thesis identifies the institutional equilibria of twelve Arab countries as starting point for the research. The sample includes Morocco, Mauritania, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Bahrain, Kuwait, Yemen, and Oman. The institutional equilibrium is a concept borrowed from Rational Choice Theory which makes it possible to include particularistic approaches to explain the power structures of single MENA countries into a meta-framework, without the study becoming dependent on their individual parameters. These particularistic approaches include cultural, legal, historical, religious, and sociological aspects from the broad field of Middle Eastern Studies and beyond. The so called ���Bargain Rule��� is here taken as a common denominator, in which the common citizens surrender their political and social rights to participatory government and are rewarded with a variety of goods and services in return. This bargain has gotten under pressure from the early 1970s on. MENA states developed different strategies in order to secure power while introducing mostly rigged democratic institutions. The study identifies Violence, the legal frameworks, and questions of identity and legitimacy as main pillars of these new institutional arrangements. With the upheavals that started most visibly in 2011, MENA countries entered a critical juncture in which these equilibria got heavily under pressure. Different players entered the public sphere in order to demand economic enhancements and / or political change. These players, as long as they attempted to change the equilibria of power, are labelled critical interference factors. In a further step, and by the help of rich case descriptions, the thesis tackles the question whether the trade union movement it the respective countries can be defined as critical interference factors. Against that background, and using a constructivist stance, the term ���trade union��� is put first into the Middle Eastern context and made operational as a well-defined research subject. The study focusses on those organisations that are labelled by the national legal framework Naqaba, or those who label themselves Naqaba. This approach includes professional associations (Naqabat Mihniya) as well as workers unions (Naqabat ���Umaliya). Moreover, it is argued that a crucial historical role of many trade unions in MENA has been to protect the authoritarian bargain and taking the role as the demander for socio-economic enhancements within its very logic. The variables that are set up for the QCA analysis include the non-compliance of the State concerning the Authoritarian Bargain (SOEC), intertwinedness of trade unions with opposition forces (INOPP), the degree of centralisation of trade union structures (CEN), importance of tribalism for upward mobility within the state (TRI), and eventually the trade unions��� bargaining power im key sectors of the economy (KEYS). These variables are minimised with the help of the Quine McCluskey Algorithim and the results are srutinised qualitatively. Major findings of the study indicate that CEN is a necessary condition for transformative trade union activity, in combination either with INOPP (Gulf Countries) or SOEC (North Africa). Furthermore, this study suggests that the lack of centralisation and / or a high degree of tribalism weaken independent trade unionism in MENA., In dieser Studie wird Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) in einem breiteren Rahmen der komparativen Historizit��tsforschung eingesetzt, um die Rolle von Gewerkschaften w��hrend des "Arabischen Fr��hlings" 2011-2013 zu bewerten und zu kategorisieren. QCA ist eine urspr��nglich von Charles Ragin entwickelte Methode, die auf boolescher Logik basiert und die Identifizierung mehrerer konjunktureller Ursachen erm��glicht. Es handelt sich um eine vergleichende Methode, die urspr��nglich aus der Elektrotechnik stammt und den Quine-McCluskey-Algorithmus verwendet, um ��hnlichkeits- und Differenzmuster zwischen F��llen zu finden. Diese F��lle werden nach dem Vorhandensein (1) oder Nichtvorhandensein (0) eines bestimmten Ergebnisses klassifiziert und in Kombinationen von Variablen umgewandelt, die ebenfalls nach dem Vorhandensein (0) oder Nichtvorhandensein (1) von Variablen codiert werden. Die Konfigurationen k��nnen minimiert werden, um Variablen zu eliminieren, die keinen Einfluss auf ein bestimmtes Ergebnis haben. Wie in der Dissertation dargelegt, bietet der Ansatz mehrere Vorteile gegen��ber quantitativen Methoden, insbesondere bei kleinen Fallzahlen (very small n). Dar��ber hinaus wird im methodischen und theoretischen Teil dieser Arbeit argumentiert, dass die Fallstudien so dicht wie m��glich und so parsimonisch wie n��tig zu halten sind und die Minimierung und Interpretationen so dicht wie n��tig und so parsimonisch wie m��glich. Inhaltlich identifiziert die Arbeit die institutionellen Gleichgewichte von zw��lf arabischen L��ndern als Ausgangspunkt f��r die Forschung. Die Stichprobe umfasst Marokko, Mauretanien, Algerien, Tunesien, Libyen, ��gypten, Jordanien, Syrien, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jemen und Oman. Das institutionelle Gleichgewicht ist ein Konzept, das der Rational-Choice-Theorie entlehnt ist und es erm��glicht, partikularistische Ans��tze zur Erkl��rung der Machtstrukturen einzelner MENA-L��nder in einen Meta-Rahmen einzubeziehen, ohne dass die Studie von deren individuellen Parametern abh��ngig wird. Diese partikularistischen Ans��tze umfassen kulturelle, rechtliche, historische, religi��se und soziologische Aspekte aus dem breiten Feld der Nahoststudien und dar��ber hinaus. Als gemeinsamer Nenner wird hier die so genannte "Bargain Rule" herangezogen, bei der die B��rger ihre politischen und sozialen Rechte an einer partizipative Regierung an ein autorit��res System abtreten und im Gegenzug mit einer Vielzahl von G��tern und Dienstleistungen belohnt werden. Diese Vereinbarung ist seit den fr��hen 1970er Jahren unter Druck geraten. Die MENA-Staaten haben verschiedene Strategien entwickelt, um ihre Macht zu sichern und gleichzeitig meist manipulierte demokratische Institutionen einzuf��hren. Die Studie identifiziert Gewalt, den rechtlichen Rahmen und Fragen der Identit��t und Legitimit��t als Hauptpfeiler dieser neuen institutionellen Arrangements. Mit den Umw��lzungen, die 2011 ihren Anfang nahmen, begann in MENA-L��nder eine kritische Phase, in der diese Gleichgewichte stark unter Druck gerieten. Verschiedene Akteure traten an die ��ffentlichkeit, um wirtschaftliche Verbesserungen und/oder politische Ver��nderungen zu fordern. Diese Akteure werden, sofern sie versuchten die Gleichgewichte der Macht zu ver��ndern, als kritische St��rfaktoren bezeichnet. In einem weiteren Schritt wird mit Hilfe umfangreicher Fallbeschreibungen der Frage nachgegangen, ob die Gewerkschaftsbewegung in den jeweiligen L��ndern als kritischer St��rfaktor definiert werden kann. Vor diesem Hintergrund wird der Begriff "Gewerkschaft" zun��chst konstruktivistisch in den Kontext des Nahen Ostens gestellt und als klar definierter Forschungsgegenstand operationalisiert. Die Studie konzentriert sich auf jene Organisationen, die im nationalen Rechtsrahmen als Naqaba bezeichnet werden, oder auf jene, die sich selbst als Naqaba bezeichnen. Dieser Ansatz umfasst sowohl Berufsverb��nde (Naqabat Mihniya) als auch Arbeitergewerkschaften (Naqabat 'Umaliya). Dar��ber hinaus wird argumentiert, dass eine entscheidende historische Rolle vieler Gewerkschaften in den MENA-L��ndern darin bestand, die autorit��ren Vereinbarungen zu sch��tzen und die Rolle des Nachfragers nach sozio��konomischen Verbesserungen innerhalb ihrer eigenen Logik zu ��bernehmen. Zu den Variablen, die f��r die QCA-Analyse erstellt werden, geh��ren die Nichteinhaltung der autorit��ren Vereinbarung durch den Staat (SOEC), die Verflechtung der Gewerkschaften mit oppositionellen Kr��ften (INOPP), der Grad der Zentralisierung der Gewerkschaftsstrukturen (CEN), die Bedeutung des Stammeswesens f��r die Aufw��rtsmobilit��t innerhalb des Staates (TRI) und schlie��lich die Verhandlungsmacht der Gewerkschaften in Schl��sselsektoren der Wirtschaft (KEYS). Diese Variablen werden mit Hilfe des Quine-McCluskey-Algorithmus minimiert und die Ergebnisse werden qualitativ ausgewertet. Die wichtigsten Ergebnisse der Studie zeigen, dass CEN eine notwendige Voraussetzung f��r transformative Gewerkschaftsaktivit��ten ist, entweder in Kombination mit INOPP (Golfstaaten) oder SOEC (Nordafrika). Dar��ber hinaus zeigt die Studie darauf hin, dass die fehlende Zentralisierung und/oder ein hohes Ma�� an Tribalismus die unabh��ngige Gewerkschaftsbewegung in MENA schw��chen.

Im Jahr 2019 sind 39,7 Prozent der Bevölkerung ab 14 Jahren in Deutschland freiwillig engagiert - rund 28,8 Millionen Menschen. Es sind Menschen unterschiedlichen Alters und Geschlechts, Menschen aus unterschiedlichen beruflichen Kontexten, Menschen mit und ohne Migrationshintergrund. Die Vielfalt der freiwillig engagierten Menschen spiegelt die Vielfalt der Gesellschaft in Deutschland wider. Freiwillig Engagierte trainieren Kinder und Jugendliche in Sportclubs, sie organisieren Veranstaltungen in der Gemeinde, sie leisten Nachbarschaftshilfe für ältere Menschen, sie übernehmen ehrenamtliche Unterstützung in Krankenhäusern, sie sind in Schülervertretungen engagiert oder sie setzen sich in Bürgerinitiativen für ihre Kommune ein.

In the context of dealing with the NSU complex, the police's involvement in racist structures is becoming increasingly clear. Social Identity Theory (SIT) posits that this entanglement jeopardizes the preservation of a positive police identity, and that, in response to this, police officers use identity management strategies to reconcile the handling of NSU crimes by law enforcement with their identity. This paper examines how this reconciliation is implemented narratively. The analysis of five narrative interviews shows that the personal stories of police officers primarily rely on the master narrative of the security authorities on the NSU complex and that a police-specific NSU narrative seems absent. Nevertheless, fragments of the counter narratives of the victims of the NSU complex also find their way into the reality of the police officers' lives. However, these are integrated by means of narrative strategies of depoliticization, individualization, and color-blind racism, possibly to keep up a positive and consistent police image. However, a culture of error management within the police nonetheless emerges through engagement with the narratives of the victims of the NSU complex., Im Zusammenhang mit dem Umgang mit dem NSU-Komplex wird die Verstrickung der Polizei in rassistische Strukturen immer deutlicher. Die Soziale Identitätstheorie (SIT) postuliert, dass diese Verstrickung den Erhalt einer positiven polizeilichen Identität gefährdet und dass Polizeibeamte als Reaktion darauf Identitätsmanagementstrategien einsetzen, um den Umgang der Strafverfolgungsbehörden mit NSU-Verbrechen mit ihrer Identität zu versöhnen. Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht, wie diese Versöhnung narrativ umgesetzt wird. Die Analyse von fünf narrativen Interviews zeigt, dass sich die persönlichen Erzählungen der Polizeibeamten primär auf das Masternarrativ der Sicherheitsbehörden zum NSU-Komplex beziehen und ein polizeispezifisches NSU-Narrativ abwesend scheint. Dennoch finden sich auch Fragmente der Gegenerzählungen der Opfer des NSU-Komplexes in der Lebenswirklichkeit der Polizeibeamten wieder. Diese werden jedoch durch narrative Strategien der Entpolitisierung, Individualisierung und des farbenblinden Rassismus integriert, möglicherweise um ein positives und konsistentes Polizeibild aufrechtzuerhalten. Dennoch entsteht durch die Auseinandersetzung mit den Narrativen der Opfer des NSU-Komplexes eine Kultur des Fehlermanagements innerhalb der Polizei.

Seitdem das Fernsehen Politik macht, werden Einwände und Kritik gegen Regierende über den Bildschirm kommuniziert - die Bürger*innen sind in passives Zuschauen gedrängt. Der Aufstieg der sozialen Medien dagegen verspricht neue Möglichkeiten der Teilhabe. Doch wird der öffentliche Raum immer undurchsichtiger, komplexer und schwerer zu fassen: Meinungen und Verhaltensmuster werden zunehmend durch Algorithmen kontrolliert, die globalen Unternehmen unterstehen. Welche Alternativen bleiben angesichts dieser Enteignung? Dissidenz und Hacking? Im Spiegel der forcierten (Zwangs-)Digitalisierung durch die Covid-19-Pandemie widmet sich Néstor García Canclini aus kultur- und politikwissenschaftlicher Perspektive diesem Komplex.

Zusammenfassung Ein signifikanter Anstieg postfaktischer Kommunikation innerhalb der Politik nimmt seit einer Weile die Aufmerksamkeit wissenschaftlicher Beobachtung fur sich in Anspruch. Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht dieses Phanomen aus systemtheoretischer Perspektive vor dem Hintergrund der Prinzipien der operativen Geschlossenheit und strukturellen Kopplung Sozialer Systeme. In der Praxis sind politische Entscheidungen standig an Wahrheiten des wissenschaftlichen Systems orientiert. Allerdings zeigt sich, dass es aus der funktional-strukturellen Perspektive der Systemtheorie nach Niklas Luhmann keinen ersichtlichen Grund dafur gibt, warum dies zwangslaufig so sein musste. Vielmehr sind politische Entscheidungen meist deswegen an die Wahrheit gekoppelt, da sich dies als in hohem Mase funktional erweist. Die schlechtere Nutzbarkeit wissenschaftlicher Wahrheit fur die Politik erklart sich durch einen allgemeinen Anstieg der Komplexitat des Wissenschaftssystems. Dies fuhrt zu einer Einschrankung der Funktionalitat der Wahrheit im politischen System im Hinblick auf die Legitimation kollektiv bindender Entscheidungen. Da dieses funktionelle Vakuum auf andere Weise geschlossen werden muss, eroffnete sich die Moglichkeit der Entstehung einer einflussreichen postfaktischen Politik. Schlagworter: Postfaktizitat; Systemtheorie; Wahrheit; Strukturelle Kopplung; Politik; Wissenschaft ----- Bibliographie : Haacke, Nils: Kontingente Kopplung. Postfaktische Kommunikation im Spannungsfeld von Politik und Wissenschaft, Soziologiemagazin, 2-2019, S. 33-50. https://doi.org/10.3224/soz.v12i2.04