Refine
Has Fulltext
- no (143) (remove)
Year of publication
Document Type
- Article (91)
- Part of a Book (29)
- Monograph/Edited Volume (8)
- Other (7)
- Report (2)
- Review (2)
- Conference Proceeding (1)
- Contribution to a Periodical (1)
- Doctoral Thesis (1)
- Preprint (1)
Keywords
- COVID-19 (4)
- Germany (4)
- gender (4)
- employment (3)
- Gleichstellung (2)
- Polizei (2)
- Streitkräfte (2)
- experiment (2)
- integration (2)
- Abendland (1)
Institute
- Fachgruppe Soziologie (143) (remove)
Der vorliegende Artikel analysiert die niedersächsische Polizeiaffäre aus einer Perspektive, die sich für das Zusammenspiel von Recht und Organisationen interessiert. Zunächst argumentieren wir, dass Recht in Organisationen nicht aus sich heraus wirkt, es benötigt Akteur:innen, die es durchsetzen. Diese sitzen formal auf bestimmten Relaisstellen, deren Funktion es ist, dem Recht Geltung zu verschaffen. Im vorliegenden Fall, so zeigen wir, versagen diese Relaisstellen. Recht dient am Ende weniger dem Schutz der Betroffenen als vielmehr dem Schutz der Organisation.
Robert King Merton (1910 – 2003) gilt heute längst als Klassiker der Soziologie. Er kann als der bedeutendste Soziologe der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts und als Wegbereiter einer modernen Soziologie bezeichnet werden, die das konstitutive Verhältnis von soziologischer Theorie und empirischer Forschung ins Zentrum des Interesses gerückt hat. Aufgrund seiner Beiträge zur Sozialtheorie, zur Begriffsbildung in der Soziologie und seiner vielfältigen inhaltlichen und empirischen Arbeiten spielt Merton bis heute eine bedeutende Rolle in der Soziologie als wissenschaftlicher Disziplin.
Peer groups are critical socialization agents for the development of social behavior in adolescence, but studies examining peer-group effects on individuals' prosocial behavior are scarce. Using a two-wave, multilevel data set (N = 16,893, 8481 male; 8412 female; mean age at Time 1: 14.0 years) from 1308 classes in 252 secondary schools in Germany, main effects of the classroom level of prosocial behavior, cross-level interactions between the classroom and the individual levels of prosocial behavior at Time 1, and the moderating role of gender were examined. The results showed that adolescents in classrooms with high collective levels of prosocial behavior at Time 1 reported more prosocial behavior at Time 2, about two years later, reflecting a class-level main effect. A significant cross-level interaction indicated that a high classroom level of prosocial behavior particularly affected individuals with lower levels of prosocial behavior at Time 1. The influence of same-gender peers was larger compared with opposite-gender peers. The findings are discussed with respect to social learning mechanisms in the development of prosocial behavior and their implications for interventions to promote prosocial behavior.
Who’s to Blame?
(2020)
The main aim of this paper is to investigate how sexist ideology distorts our conceptions of sexual violence and the hermeneutical gaps such an ideology yields. I propose that we can understand the problematic issue of hermeneutical gaps about sexual violence with the help of Fricker’s theory of hermeneutical injustice. By distinguishing between hermeneutical injustice and hermeneutical misfire, we can distinguish between the hermeneutical gap and its consequences for the victim of sexual violence and those of the perpetrator of such violence. I then argue that perpetrators are both morally responsible and accountable for their acts, even if they are the result of a hermeneutical misfire. Ultimately, I show that with regard to sexual violence, we should opt for accountability to change the behaviour of the perpetrator and the social structure. Content warning: The paper discusses sexual violence and difficulties conceptualising experiences of such violence.
Who suffered most?
(2022)
Objective:
This study examines gender and socioeconomic inequalities in parental psychological wellbeing (parenting stress and psychological distress) during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany.
Background:
The dramatic shift of childcare and schooling responsibility from formal institutions to private households during the pandemic has put families under enormous stress and raised concerns about caregivers' health and wellbeing. Despite the overwhelming media attention to families’ wellbeing, to date limited research has examined parenting stress and parental psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in Germany.
Method:
We analyzed four waves of panel data (N= 1,771) from an opt-in online survey, which was conducted between March 2020 and April 2021. Multivariable OLS regressions were used to estimate variations in the pandemic's effects on parenting stress and psychological distress by various demographic and socioeconomic characteristics.
Results:
Overall, levels of parenting stress and psychological distress increased during the pandemic. During the first and third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, mothers, parents with children younger than 11 years, parents with two or more children, parents working from home as well as parents with financial insecurity experienced higher parenting stress than other sociodemographic groups. Moreover, women, respondents with lower incomes, single parents, and parents with younger children experienced higher levels of psychological distress than other groups.
Conclusion:
Gender and socioeconomic inequalities in parents' psychological wellbeing increased among the study participants during the pandemic.
Feminismus - das ist nicht nur für Männer, sondern auch für einige Frauen immer noch ein bedrohliches Wort, selbst oder gerade in Zeiten von #MeToo. Liegt das daran, dass viele gar nicht wissen, was Feminismus ist und worauf er hinarbeitet? Gibt es den einen Feminismus? Was hat Feminismus eigentlich mit Sexismus zu tun? Und was mit unseren Beziehungen? Offener Frauenhass ist in unserer Gesellschaft mittlerweile weitgehend geächtet. Aber auch nach über fünfzehn Jahren mit einer Frau an der Regierungsspitze sind wir noch längst nicht in der Gleichberechtigung angekommen. Im Gegenteil: Weiterhin strukturiert Sexismus geschlechtsspezifische Alltagserfahrungen, bis hinein in unsere Intimbeziehungen, wo die Grenzen zwischen Lust und sexueller Gewalt schnell verschwimmen. Die Philosophin und Schriftstellerin Hilkje Hänel deckt die Mechanismen sexueller Objektifizierung und männlichen Anspruchsdenkens auf. Sie zeigt, wie Frauen oft in die sexistischen Alltagsstrukturen verstrickt sind, an denen auch viele Männer leiden. Ihr zugängliches Buch ist das Plädoyer für einen Feminismus, von dem alle etwas haben - und vor dem niemand Angst haben muss.
Im Vergleich zu Umfragen an Wahrscheinlichkeitsstichproben bieten Umfragen an Access-Panels, die auf Nicht-Wahrscheinlichkeitsstichproben basieren, unbestreitbare wirtschaftliche Vorteile. Diese Vorteile gehen jedoch mit unvermeidbaren Qualitätseinbußen einher, die auch dann bestehen bleiben, wenn Erstere sehr niedrige Responseraten haben. Daher müssen die wirtschaftlichen Vorteile und die methodischen Einschränkungen gegeneinander abgewogen werden. Es wird argumentiert, dass diese Abwägung anhand normativer Festlegungen erfolgen muss. Unter Anwendung der hier vorgeschlagenen Maßstäbe kommt der Beitrag zu dem Schluss, dass die Qualitätsansprüche an über Massenmedien verbreitete Meinungsumfragen höher sein sollten als für rein (sozial)wissenschaftliche Zwecke.
Web scraping, a technique for extracting data from web pages, has been in use for decades, yet its utilization in the field of migration, mobility, and migrant integration studies has been limited. The field faces notorious limitations regarding data access and availability, particularly in low-income settings. Web scraping has the potential to provide new datasets for further qualitative and quantitative analysis. Web scraping requires no financial resources, is agnostic to epistemic divides in the field, reduces researcher bias, and increases transparency and replicability of data collection. As large providers of digital data such as Facebook or Twitter increasingly restrict access to their data for researchers, web scraping will become more important in the future and deserves its place in the toolbox of migration and mobility scholars. This short and nontechnical methods note introduces the fundamental concepts of web scraping, provides guidance on how to learn the technique, showcases practical applications of web scraping in the study of migrant populations, and discusses potential future use cases.
Einleitung
Pflege in Deutschland befindet sich in einem Veränderungsprozess. Die politisch forcierte Zuwanderung von Pflegekräften sowie die Akademisierung führen zu einem enormen Anpassungsdruck bei allen Beteiligten. Wie wirkt sich dies auf den Arbeitsalltag aus?
Methoden
Die qualitative Datenbasis umfasst bisher 36 Tage Teilnehmende Beobachtung, 17 Themenzentrierte Leitfadeninterviews sowie vier Gruppendiskussionen in vier Pflegeteams zweier Krankenhäuser. Die Analyse erfolgt mit der Dokumentarischen Methode.
Ergebnisse
Am Beispiel der Grundpflege (u. A. dem „Waschen“) wird deutlich, wie die Pflegeteams ihren Arbeitsalltag neu aushandeln. Die Teams mit einer hohen migrationsbezogenen Diversität argumentieren eher, dass die Aufgaben der Grund- und Behandlungspflege entsprechend der Qualifikation als Hilfs- oder Fachkraft erledigt werden sollen. Hier treten stereotype (kulturalisierende) Zuschreibungen in den Hintergrund. Demgegenüber berufen sich Pflegeteams mit einer niedrigen migrationsbezogenen Diversität eher darauf, dass die Grundpflege in Deutschland – anders als in anderen Ländern – zu den Aufgaben einer examinierten Pflegefachkraft zählt. Kolleg*innen aus dem Ausland wird die pflegerische Kompetenz daher eher abgesprochen.
Schlussfolgerung
Die Frage nach der Aufteilung von Grund- und Behandlungspflege, ist auf allen Stationen virulent. Die Teams entwickeln jedoch in Abhängigkeit von ihrer spezifischen Heterogenität unterschiedliche Umgangsweisen. Demzufolge sollte sich Personal- und Organisationsentwicklung insbesondere an den Pflegeteams orientieren.
Analysis of social media using digital methods is a flourishing approach. However, the relatively easy availability of data collected via platform application programming interfaces has arguably led to the predominance of single-platform research of social media. Such research has also privileged the role of text in social media analysis, as a form of data that is more readily gathered and searchable than images. In this paper, we challenge both of these prevailing forms of social media research by outlining a methodology for visual cross-platform analysis (VCPA), defined as the study of still and moving images across two or more social media platforms. Our argument contains three steps. First, we argue that cross-platform analysis addresses a gap in research methods in that it acknowledges the interplay between a social phenomenon under investigation and the medium within which it is being researched, thus illuminating the different affordances and cultures of web platforms. Second, we build on the literature on multimodal communication and platform vernacular to provide a rationale for incorporating the visual into cross-platform analysis. Third, we reflect on an experimental cross-platform analysis of images within social media posts (n = 471,033) used to communicate climate change to advance different modes of macro- and meso-levels of analysis that are natively visual: image-text networks, image plots and composite images. We conclude by assessing the research pathways opened up by VCPA, delineating potential contributions to empirical research and theory and the potential impact on practitioners of social media communication.
Violence
(2015)
Violence
(2017)
Vienna
(2021)
This book explores and debates the urban transformations that have taken place in Vienna over the past 30 years and their consequences in policy fields such as labour and housing, political and social participation and the environment. Historically, European cities have been characterised by a strong association between social cohesion, quality of life, economic ambition and a robust State. Vienna is an excellent example for that. In more recent years, however, cities were pressured to change policy principles and mechanisms in the context of demographic shifts, post-industrial transformations and welfare recalibration which have led to worsened social conditions in many cities. Each chapter in this volume discusses Vienna's responses to these pressures in key policy arenas, looking at outcomes from the context-specific local arrangements. Against a theoretical framework debating the European city as a model of inclusion and social justice, authors explore the local capacity to innovate urban policies and to address new social risks, while paying attention to potential trade-offs.
The book questions and assesses the city's resilience using time series and an institutional analysis of four key dimensions that characterise the European city model within the context of post-industrial transition: redistribution, recognition, representation and sustainability. It offers a multiscalar perspective of urban governance through labour, housing, participatory and environmental policies, bringing together different levels and public policy types.
Verzerrte Beteiligung
(2018)
Die Beteiligung von Bürgern abseits der institutionell geregelten Wahlen gilt vermehrt als Allheilmittel gegen die Erosion bürgerschaftlichen Engagements. Eine Vielzahl von Autoren haben auf den Missstand aufmerksam gemacht, dass Beteiligung abseits von Wahlen nur von wenigen, oftmals privilegierten Personen genutzt wird, die Beteiligung demnach verzerrt sei. Dieser Artikel nimmt als erster sowohl die ungleiche Beteiligung als auch die Verzerrung eines konkreten Abstimmungsergebnisses in den Blick.
Für den Volksentscheid über das Bauprojekt Stuttgart 21 (S21) aus dem Jahr 2011 wird ein kontrafaktisches Wahlergebnis aller Nichtwähler geschätzt. Durch die Verknüpfung von Makro-Daten auf Gemeindeebene mit einem Vorhersagemodell auf Individualebene wird der Beteiligungs-Bias geschätzt. Dieser liegt über dem von Wahlen, jedoch niedriger als bei Petitionen und Demonstrationen. Das kontrafaktische Abstimmungsergebnis prognostiziert eine verstärkte Ablehnung von S21.
Variance Inflation Factor
(2015)
Since COVID-19 became a pandemic, many studies are being conducted to get a better understanding of the disease itself and its spread. One crucial indicator is the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infections. Since this measure is an important foundation for political decisions, its estimate must be reliable and unbiased. This paper presents reasons for biases in prevalence estimates due to unit nonresponse in typical studies. Since it is difficult to avoid bias in situations with mostly unknown nonresponse mechanisms, we propose the maximum amount of bias as one measure to assess the uncertainty due to nonresponse. An interactive web application is presented that calculates the limits of such a conservative unit nonresponse confidence interval (CUNCI).
Den Boden putzen, das Bett abziehen, einen Blumenstrauß arrangieren – Bemühungen um Sauberkeit sowie eine angenehme Raumatmosphäre obliegen im Krankenhaus meist weiblichen* Pflegerinnen, Reinigungskräften und Hauswirtschafterinnen. Im Klinikalltag vermischen sich Anforderungen an hygienische Sauberkeit unter Prozessen der Ökonomisierung mit Logiken des Marketings sowie mit affektiv-emotionalen Bedürfnissen der Akteur_innen dieser Räume. Obwohl die Maßstäbe klinischer Hygiene auf medizinischem Wissen basieren, sind die Arbeitsteilung sowie Ansprüche an Sauberkeit auf verschiedenen Hierarchieebenen zugleich von vergeschlechtlichten und teils rassifizierten Vorstellungen durchdrungen, die über den klinischen Kontext hinausweisen. Dies legt schon eine Beschäftigung mit der Geschichte der Bakteriologie nahe: Die Logik und Sprache der Infektionsabwehr ist in Wissenschaft und Alltag auch verwoben mit sozialen Differenzmarkierungen.
Unter Rückgriff auf die Ergebnisse einer Ethnografie zu Sauberkeit und Reinigungsarbeiten im Krankenhaus, die wissensgeschichtlich fundiert werden, wird in dem Beitrag die Frage nach der (feminisierten) Sorge für die Umwelt mit der Frage nach der Atmosphäre klinischer Räume verknüpft. Auf welche Weise und mit welchen Effekten verschränken sich wissenschaftlich-medizinisches Hygienewissen mit einem alltäglichen, jedoch historisierbaren Wissen über schöne und angenehme Sauberkeit, das immer noch weiblich konnotiert ist?
Trying as hard as i can
(2022)
The housing crisis represents a liminal experience: a loss of the taken-for-granted and the suspension of ontological security has put individuals in a situation of potentiality in which both conceptions of home and of personal identity are open to transformation. Empirically assessing this liminal transition allows us to understand the refiguration processes of both home and subjectivities. This has both conceptual and political implications: with ongoing individualization of responsibility in virtually all spheres of social life, it is no longer possible to assume that the private sphere of home is an arena in which individuals are free and secured from societal forces, pressures, and compulsions. Instead, we might find ourselves in a transient liminal period in which the very meaning and psycho-social foundation of home are being transformed. To understand these processes is not only an epistemological but also a political endeavor, for only by understanding the psycho-social implications of the housing crisis can we acknowledge its embeddedness in and relation to processes of societal individualization, as well as the potential to open up pathways to the emergence of a liminal communitas.
Toleranz
(2015)
The Secret Society of Torturers107How do normal people become able to torture others? In order to explain this puzzling social phenomenon, we have to take secrecy – the characteristic trait of modern torture – as the lynchpin of the analysis. Following Georg Simmel’s formal analysis of the “secret society”, the contribution reconstructs structural and cultural aspects of the secret society of torturers that generate social processes that allow its members to behave extremely violently, forcing individuals to turn into torturers. The contribution argues that the form of social behaviour that we call torture is socially shaped. It goes beyond social psychology to de-velop an explanation from the perspective of relational sociology
Immense uncertainty and the need for drastic interventions cause politicians to rely heavily on scientific advice for underpinning or legitimating their COVID-19 decision-making. This paper explores the role of scientific advice in this policy field in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the UK. It shows that scientific advice is based on the disciplinary, mainly medical, backgrounds of advisors but is also influenced by social and economic values, which are core to what politicians find important. During the pandemic a growing gap between scientific advice and political decisions is observed.
Although mothers and fathers in almost all rich democracies are entitled to some form of paid parenting leave, fathers in particular do not take all the leave available to them. As employers play an important role in the implementation of parenting leave policies, this chapter investigates which workplace characteristics influence mothers' and fathers' uptake of their statutory leave entitlements. In Part 1, we estimate the size of the gap between statutory leave entitlement and leave uptake across genders and countries by combining data from the OECD and the European Labor Force Survey. In Parts 2 and 3, we review the literature on structural, cultural, and normative explanations for the gap in parenting leave uptake. We conclude the chapter with suggestions for further research, including the need for reliable data on the size of the implementation gap and research on non-European countries.
Der Potsdam Grievance Statistics File (PGSF) ist eine historische Datensammlung von Beschwerden, sog. Eingaben, die in der DDR von deren Bürgern eingereicht wurden. Die Eingaben wurden schriftlich oder mündlich gestellt und waren an staatliche Institutionen gerichtet. Der Staat zählte diese Eingaben und kategorisierte sie in Eingabenstatistiken.
Der PGSF enthält Eingabenstatistiken des Zeitraums 1970–1989 einer Wahrscheinlichkeitsstichprobe von im Jahr 1990 existierenden Kreisen. Zusätzlich finden sich Eingabenstatistiken eines Convenience-Samples von Kreisen aus dem Zeitraum 1970–1989.
Der Potsdam Grievance Statistics File (PGSF) ist eine historische Datensammlung von Beschwerden, sog. Eingaben, die in der DDR von deren Bürgern eingereicht wurden. Die Eingaben wurden schriftlich oder mündlich gestellt und waren an staatliche Institutionen gerichtet. Der Staat zählte diese Eingaben und kategorisierte sie in Eingabenstatistiken.
Der PGSF enthält Eingabenstatistiken des Zeitraums 1970–1989 einer Wahrscheinlichkeitsstichprobe von im Jahr 1990 existierenden Kreisen. Zusätzlich finden sich Eingabenstatistiken eines Convenience-Samples von Kreisen aus dem Zeitraum 1970–1989.
Through qualitative research conducted in the bazaars of Bishkek, this paper examines the posited tripartite relationship between the free market, micro-finance and women's empowerment by focusing on how loans from micro-finance institutions in Bishkek influence the lives of female loanees. The neo-liberal conception of 'individual autonomy' and 'empowerment', it is argued, may not adequately serve as indicators of actual female empowerment/disempowerment in Bishkek and lead us to fail to recognize moments of self-exploitation and forms of claim-making. The research also underlines the disempowering effects of the affectional burden, that is, the constant sense of anxiety, that the loanees have to manage in order to survive in the neo-liberal business environment, which offers high interest rate loans and exposes the loanees to over-indebtedness. These effects can be followed through the analysis of the role the desire for stability and 'ontological security' plays in the formation of the identities/world views of the loanees.
The long term relationship between medicaid expansion and adult life-threatening chronic conditions
(2023)
We test whether the expansions of children's Medicaid eligibility in the 1980s–1990s resulted in long-term health benefits in terms of severe chronic conditions. Still relatively rare in the field, we use prospective individual-level panel data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) along with the higher quality income measures from the Cross-National Equivalent File (adjusting for taxes, transfers and household size). We observe severe chronic conditions (high blood pressure/heart disease, cancer, diabetes, or lung disease) at ages 30–56 (average age 43.1) for 4670 respondents who were also prospectively observed during childhood (i.e., at ages 0–17). Our analysis exploits within-region temporal variation in childhood Medicaid eligibility and adjusts for state- and individual-level controls. We uniquely concentrate attention on adjusting for childhood income. A standard deviation greater childhood Medicaid eligibility significantly reduces the probability of severe chronic conditions in adulthood by 0.05 to 0.12 (16%–37.5% reduction from mean 0.32). Across the range of observed childhood Medicaid eligibility, the probability is approximately cut in half. Greater childhood Medicaid eligibility also substantially reduces childhood income disparities in severe chronic conditions. At higher levels of childhood Medicaid eligibility, we find no significant childhood income disparities in adult severe chronic conditions.
Pioneering scholarship links retrospective childhood conditions to mature adult health. We distinctively provide critical evidence with prospective state-of-the-art measures of parent income observed multiple times during childhood in the 1970s to 1990s. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we analyze six health outcomes (self-rated health, heart attack, stroke, life-threatening chronic conditions, non-life-threatening chronic conditions, and psychological distress) among 40- to 65-year-olds. Parent relative income rank has statistically and substantively significant relationships with five of six outcomes. The relationships with heart attack, stroke, and life-threatening chronic conditions are particularly strong. Parent income rank performs slightly better than alternative prospective and retrospective measures. At the same time, we provide novel validation on which retrospective measures (i.e., father’s education) perform almost as well as prospective measures. Furthermore, we inform several perennial debates about how relative versus absolute income and other measures of socioeconomic status and social class influence health.
This article focuses on the marginal extremities – the limits – of Shari’a practices in Australia, through the example of a criminal case in which four Sydney-based Muslim men whipped a Muslim convert to punish him for his excessive consumption of drugs and alcohol. The men claimed they acted in line with the doctrines of Shari’a practice to ‘purify’ or absolve the victim of his sins. While the case was tried before a magistrate in a lower court, it is argued in this article that its social and political significance was wider, reaching into contemporary debates around multiculturalism and immigration from non-western, non-liberal and mainly Muslim nations. Mainstream media and political narratives viewed the whipping as an example of the moral dangers of accommodating Shari’a norms, eliding the differences between peaceable Shari’a and its violent extremities, while situating the case at the limits of multicultural accommodation. This article interrogates the objectionable margins of some cultural practices through this limit case. At the same time it questions the limits or limitations of a multiculturalism that homogeneously views the practices of entire ethnic or religious groups as violent and incommensurable with dominant norms, while using these understandings as a justification for marginalising these groups.
Vast racial inequalities continue to prevail across the United States and are closely linked to economic resources. One particularly prominent argument contends that childhood wealth accounts for black–white (BW) disadvantages in life chances. This article analyzes how much childhood wealth and childhood income mediate BW disadvantages in adult life chances with Panel Study of Income Dynamics and Cross-National Equivalent File data on children from the 1980s and 1990s who were 30+ years old in 2015. Compared with previous research, we exploit longer panel data, more comprehensively assess adult life chances with 18 outcomes, and measure income and wealth more rigorously. We find large BW disadvantages in most outcomes. Childhood wealth and income mediate a substantial share of most BW disadvantages, although there are several significant BW disadvantages even after adjusting for childhood wealth and income. The evidence mostly contradicts the prominent claim that childhood wealth is more important than childhood income. Indeed, the analyses mostly show that childhood income explains more of BW disadvantages and has larger standardized coefficients than childhood wealth. We also show how limitations in prior wealth research explain why our conclusions differ. Replication with the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and a variety of robustness checks support these conclusions.
A strong sense of victimhood, a discourse of social suffering, and complementary bodily performances, which mobilize rancor, resentfulness, and revengefulness, are fundamental elements of Turkish-Islamist ideology. This article discusses the political dynamics and implications of such assertions of victimhood in the Turkish context. To underscore these dynamics, it analyses the role of the logic of pain in the subject formation of Turkish-Islamist identity and how this logic has been revitalized by constitutive and hegemonic social imagination, and circulated and intensified by a reactionary mood. Additionally, it aims to expose how this reactionary mood profoundly depends on contradictory subjectification processes, which simultaneously involve mobilization of feelings of impotency, non-responsibility, self-pitying, and sublimation of power. This subject formation opens the way for identification with authoritarian figures in the Turkish case.
Sunflower plot
(2015)
Strategy in the 21st century
(2020)
This book presents a detailed discussion of Clausewitz's principal lines of thought and methods of implementation. It elaborates on his main objective of laying a foundation for the education of up-and-coming creative, knowledgeable and experienced future leaders. The book encourages reflection and study in strategic thinking in order to transform knowledge into genuine capability.
The book explores the question of what a twenty-first-century decision-maker can learn from these strategic lines of thought. It bridges the gap between philosophical theory and strategic interaction in conflicts with an equal opponent. Readers learn to understand and employ the clash of wills, attack and defence, and friction, and in essence the necessary virtues of a strategic commander.
The findings presented help to identify the essential features in complex decision-making situations and developing possible courses of strategic action from a holistic standpoint. As such, the book is a must read for strategists, business practitioners, and scholars of political leadership and management interested in a better understanding of strategy and decision-making.
Soziale Schließung
(2023)
In recent years, all over the globe we have seen intensifying economic exploitation, political disenfranchisement, social marginalization and cultural repression in all kinds of political regimes, from liberal democratic to authoritarian and dictatorial. Although the strategies vary with regard to regime and context, in all of them we observe that while a growing number of social groups are speaking out and rising against them, a presumably much higher number of groups do not. In this article, I argue that all these processes can be conceived as aspects of ongoing closure struggles in social life. However, in order to understand why some social groups are able to fight against closure strategies while others are not, closure theory in its current state of elaboration is not of any help. While it operates with the term solidarization, it does not offer any explanation of how such acting in solidarity may become possible in closure struggles. The article is a mainly theoretical contribution of how to solve this problem.
Social institutions
(2024)
Social institutions are a system of behavioral and relationship patterns that are densely interwoven and enduring and function across an entire society. They order and structure the behavior of individuals in core areas of society and thus have a strong impact on the quality of life of individuals. Institutions regulate the following: (a) family and relationship networks carry out social reproduction and socialization; (b) institutions in the realm of education and training ensure the transmission and cultivation of knowledge, abilities, and specialized skills; (c) institutions in the labor market and economy provide for the production and distribution of goods and services; (d) institutions in the realm of law, governance, and politics provide for the maintenance of the social order; (e) while cultural, media, and religious institutions further the development of contexts of meaning, value orientations, and symbolic codes.
The digitization process has triggered a profound transformation of modern societies. It encompasses a broad spectrum of technical, social, political, cultural and economic developments related to the mass use of computer- and internet-based technologies. It is now becoming increasingly clear that digitization is also changing existing structures of social inequality and that new structures of digital inequality are emerging. This is shown by a growing number of recent individual studies. In this paper, we set ourselves the task of systematizing this new research within the framework of an empirically supported literature review. To do so, we use the PRISMA model for literature reviews and focus on three central dimensions of inequality - ethnicity, gender, and age - and their relevance within the discourse on digitization and inequality. The empirical basis consists of journal articles published between 2000 and 2020 and listed on the Web of Science, as well as an additional Google Scholar search, through which we attempt to include important monographs and contributions to edited volumes in our analyses. Our text corpus thus comprises a total of 281 articles. Empirically, our literature review shows that unequal access to digital resources largely reproduces existing structures of inequality; in some cases, studies report a reduction in social inequalities as a result of the digitization process.
Social Closure
(2012)
“Social closure” is one of the most basic terms and concepts in sociology. Basically, closure refers to processes of drawing boundaries, constructing identities, and building communities in order to monopolize scarce resources for one’s own group, thereby excluding others from using them. Society is not a homogenous entity but is instead internally structured and subdivided by processes of social closure. Some social formations, such as groups, organizations, or institutions, may be open to everybody, provided they are capable of participation, while access to most others is limited due to certain criteria that either allow people to become members or exclude them from membership. Therefore, social closure is a ubiquitous, everyday phenomenon that can be observed in almost every sphere and place in the social world. Members of societies experience closure from the very beginning of their social life. To be excluded from certain groups starts at school, where presumably homogenous classes begin to subdivide into distinct peer groups or sports teams. Here, exclusion may be rather arbitrary, but the experience of having a door slammed in one’s face proceeds in cases, where inclusion depends on formal rules or preconditions. Access to private schools follows explicit rules and depends on financial capacities; access to university depends on a certificate or diploma, eventually from certain schools only; membership in a highly prestigious club depends on economic and social capital and the respective social networks; and finally, in the case of migration, people will have to be eligible for citizenship and pass the thorny path of naturalization. However, it is not just the enormous plurality of forms that makes social closure crucial for sociology. Rather, the process of closure of social relations—of groups, organizations, institutions, and even national societies—is the fundamental process of both “communal” (Vergemeinschaftung) and “associative” relationships (Vergesellschaftung), and neither would be possible without social closure. In this broad and fundamental sense, social closure is not restricted to processes in national societies. It even allows for understanding crucial processes of the way the social world is organized at the regional or global level.
Im Zentrum dieser Forschungsnotiz steht die Frage nach der Bewertung von Einkommensungleichheit in der österreichischen Gegenwartsgesellschaft. Anhand von ISSP- und SSÖ-Daten können unsere Analysen diesbezüglich zeigen, dass Einkommensungleichheit von einer großen Mehrheit aktuell als zu hoch wahrgenommen wird. Zudem sehen die Menschen in Österreich sehr häufig den Staat in der Verantwortung Einkommensungleichheit abzubauen; viel häufiger als das in anderen europäischen Ländern der Fall ist. Während der Bereich Gesundheit und Pension seit Mitte der 1980er von der überwiegenden Mehrheit als staatliche Aufgabe gesehen wurde, liegt die Verantwortung für den Abbau von Einkommensungleichheit auf einem niedrigeren Zustimmungsniveau. Die Befürwortung der Absicherung von Arbeitslosen als Verantwortung des Staats nimmt aktuell eher ab, trotz der gestiegenen Arbeitslosigkeit zu Beginn der Pandemie. Schließlich zeigen unsere Regressionsanalysen, dass Unterschiede in der Beurteilung von Einkommensungleichheiten u. a. durch sozio-demographische Faktoren, die berufliche Stellung, das Haushaltseinkommen aber auch durch persönliche Einstellungen und Gerechtigkeitsüberzeugungen erklärt werden können.
Sequenzanalyse [1]
(2015)
Schließung, soziale
(2014)
Schließung, soziale
(2020)
In Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft führt Weber das Konzept »offener« und »geschlossener« sozialer Beziehungen (s. Kap. II.4) als § 10 der Soziologischen Grundbegriffe systematisch nach der Unterscheidung von »Vergemeinschaftung « und »Vergesellschaftung« (WuG, 21 § 9) ein. Während das soziale Handeln (s. Kap. II.16) bei der ersten dieser beiden Formen sozialer Beziehungen auf affektuell oder traditional begründeter Zusammengehörigkeit von Individuen beruht, gründet es bei der zweiten auf der wert- oder zweckrationalen Orientierung ihres Handelns. Trotz dieser wichtigen, anhand seiner Handlungstypen getroffenen Unterscheidung, macht Weber dann allerdings zugleich deutlich, dass im Hinblick auf Prozesse sozialer Schließung kein Unterschied darin besteht, ob es sich um subjektiv gefühlte oder rational motivierte Zusammengehörigkeiten dreht. Vielmehr gilt jegliche soziale Beziehung nach außen hin als »offen«, »wenn und insoweit die Teilnahme an dem an ihrem Sinngehalt orientierten gegenseitigen Handeln, welches sie konstituiert, nach ihren geltenden Ordnungen niemand verwehrt wird, der dazu tatsächlich in der Lage und geneigt ist« (ebd., 23).
Risky journeys
(2022)
In response to well-documented harms inflicted on irregular migrants attempting to travel from West Africa to Europe, various actors have scaled up information interventions to counter misinformation by smuggling networks and facilitate safe migration decisions. Many interventions include information on the potential dangers involved in migration. However, there is a striking lack of empirical evidence assessing a key assumption of campaign effectiveness, that is the relationship between risk perceptions and the decision to migrate irregularly. This study contributes an empirical account based on two independently collected surveys in Senegal and Guinea. Consistent with rational choice theories on migration decisions under uncertainty, the results suggest that higher risk perceptions are consistently and strongly associated with reduced intentions to migrate irregularly. Yet, the explanatory power of risk perceptions depends on context and is generally less important than structural and socio-economic factors.
Risk perceptions of individuals living in single-parent households during the COVID-19 crisis
(2023)
The COVID-19 crisis had severe social and economic impact on the life of most citizens around the globe. Individuals living in single-parent households were particularly at risk, revealing detrimental labour market outcomes and assessments of future perspectives marked by worries. As it has not been investigated yet, in this paper we study, how their perception about the future and their outlook on how the pandemic will affect them is related to their objective economic resources. Against this background, we examine the subjective risk perception of worsening living standards of individuals living in single-parent households compared to other household types, their objective economic situation based on the logarithmised equivalised disposable household incomes and analyse the relationship between those indicators. Using the German SOEP, including the SOEP-CoV survey from 2020, our findings based on regression modelling reveal that individuals living in single-parent households have been worse off during the pandemic, facing high economic insecurity. Path and interaction models support our assumption that the association between those indicators may not be that straightforward, as there are underlying mechanisms–such as mediation and moderation–of income affecting its direction and strength. With respect to our central hypotheses, our empirical findings point toward (1) a mediation effect, by demonstrating that the subjective risk perception of single-parent households can be partly explained by economic conditions. (2) The moderating effect suggests that the concrete position at the income distribution of households matters as well. While at the lower end of the income distribution, single-parent households reveal particularly worse risk perceptions during the pandemic, at the high end of the income spectrum, risk perceptions are similar for all household types. Thus, individuals living in single-parent households do not perceive higher risks of worsening living standards due to their household situation per se, but rather because they are worse off in terms of their economic situation compared to individuals living in other household types.
Richtig oder falsch?
(2022)
Work has become more precarious in recent years. Although this claim is more or less uncontested among social scientists, there are a still many questions that have not yet been conclusively answered. What exactly constitutes precariousness? How should it be operationalized and measured? How does the character of precarious employment vary across organizations, occupations, demographic groups, and countries?
The edited volume by Arne Kalleberg and Steven Vallas seeks to provide answers to these and related questions. Sociologists from around the world employed different methodologies in a broad range of economic sectors and countries to identify the origins, manifestations, and consequences of precarious work. The different contributions not only illustrate the great heterogeneity that exists within precarious employment but also point to some central features of precarious work independent of the geographical context in which it occurs. Moreover, they highlight some challenges for the study of precarious work.
First, drawing on their earlier work, Kalleberg and Vallas conceptualize precarious employment as work that is characterized by uncertainty and insecurity with regard to pay and the stability of the work arrangement; workers in precarious jobs only have limited access to social benefits and statutory protections and bear the entrepreneurial risk of the employment relationship. This broad definition not only captures various forms of nonstandard employment, such as temporary employment, part-time work, or one-person businesses, but also covers informal workers or workers who are at risk of losing their jobs. Nonetheless, this definition does not seem to be broad enough or specific enough to fit the needs of all types of research and to appropriately capture the multifaceted nature of precarious work. Kiersztyn, for example, shows the necessity to distinguish between objective and subjective insecurities when measuring precarious work. Likewise, Rogan et al. point out that the concept of “precarious employment” has little resonance in the developing world, where most of the workforce is at or near poverty and informal work is the default employment type.
Second, the book repeatedly illustrates that the increase in precarious work can be attributed to the rise of neoliberal doctrines and practices, the deinstitutionalization of organized workers, and the dismantling of the welfare state. This applies not only to the United States, where market logics have often been equated with economic freedom, but also to countries like Germany with its corporatist tradition and a strong welfare state (Brady and Biegert) as well as to emerging economies like India (Sapkal and Sundar). In the opening chapter, Pulignano, moreover, convincingly argues that the institutional determinants of precariousness should not only be sought at the national level but that the supranational context plays a major role when it comes to explain precarity.
Third, by focusing on different aspects of precariousness and employment, the book shows the need for differentiation when studying precarious work. This is nicely illustrated by the following three chapters, which draw different conclusions on the gendered nature of precarious employment. Wallace and Kwak study the rise of “bad jobs” in U.S. metropolitan areas and show that men’s work became more precarious during the Great Financial Crisis. By contrast, Banch and Hanley, who have investigated the prevalence of different forms of nonstandard work since the 1980s in the United States, show that the risk of working in precarious jobs has declined over time for men. Likewise, Witteveen shows that the employment trajectories of young men are less precarious than those of young women in the United States. These seemingly contradictory claims stem from the fact that the authors focused on different aspects of precariousness, used different methodologies and datasets, and took on slightly different populations and time frames. The work on precarious work is hence not yet done.
Fourth, precarious work is certainly no longer a characteristic of those with low levels of education but has increasingly become common among professional and technical workers as well. It might come in disguise and is oftentimes perceived as an opportunity, a means for career advancement, and a personal choice. These disguises and perceptions are evident in chapters by Zukin and Papadantonakis on the unpaid work performed by programmers in hackathons, the chapter by Rao on young professionals in international organizations, and to some degree also the chapter by Williams on professional female workers in the oil and gas industry.
These insights (and more that are not mentioned here) make the book relevant and interesting to read. A summary chapter to synthesize the diverse findings and potentially also outline some of the methodological challenges in the study of precarious work would have had been a nice close of the book. Furthermore, such a summation would have been the place to speculate about the consequences of recent changes in the world of work, such as the rise of the gig economy and cloud or crowd work, which add new forms of precarity to the ones that we have known thus far.
Although it has primarily been written for an academic audience, the book is a highly commendable and enjoyable read for both social scientists and practitioners such as labor activists, human resources managers, and policy makers. Moreover, the book is certainly a valuable teaching resource suitable for graduate and master’s seminars in sociology due to its broad coverage of various aspects of precariousness, geographical regions, and methodological approaches.
The consequences of economic globalization have created a new interest in ́EmileDurkheim’s conception of an institutional and moral reorganization of modernsociety that he developed in Professional Ethics and Civic Morals. Contrary toexisting attempts to explain these political processes towards democratization, thisarticle argues for a causal analysis of social change and concentrates on the socialmechanisms that trigger the reorganization process of modern society. Two thesesare entertained. The first thesis argues that the programme of an institutional andmoral reorganization of modern society can be reanalysed as a causal process ofdemocratization. This process takes two steps. While social mechanisms of reorgan-izationbring about the institutional and moral reorganization of modern society,social mechanisms of stabilizationguarantee the functioning of the emergingdemocratic system. Further, the second thesis argues that this kind of explanationcan be applied to Durkheim’s vision of a European confederation. The analysisreveals that his idea of a ‘post-national’ constellation refers to crucial problems ofthe recent debate regarding a democratic deficit in the European Union, and itshows that Durkheim’s contribution to both political sociology and historical-comparative research has been misconceived and prematurely repudiated.
Regressionsdiagnostik
(2015)