Der »Wutbürger«, 2010 zum Wort des Jahres gekürt, hat die Krise demokratischer Repräsentation in Deutschland auf einen Begriff gebracht: Immer mehr Bürger äußern Misstrauen gegenüber der etablierten Politik. Bei einer Betrachtung dieser Krise und ihrer Ur
Der »Wutbürger«, 2010 zum Wort des Jahres gekürt, hat die Krise demokratischer Repräsentation in Deutschland auf einen Begriff gebracht: Immer mehr Bürger äußern Misstrauen gegenüber der etablierten Politik.Bei einer Betrachtung dieser Krise und ihrer Ursachen sind die Vorstellungen der Bürger von einer guten und gerechten Organisation von Politik, Wirtschaft und Staat zentral. Die Studie beschäftigt sich mit den Protagonisten der neuen Bürgerproteste - jenen Akteuren also, die ihren Glauben an die Funktionsfähigkeit unserer Demokratie eingebüßt haben: Wer sind sie, was fordern sie und welche Demokratie schwebt ihnen vor?
Der "Wutbürger", 2010 zum Wort des Jahres gekürt, hat die Krise demokratischer Repräsentation in Deutschland auf einen Begriff gebracht: Immer mehr Bürger äußern Misstrauen gegenüber der etablierten Politik. Bei einer Betrachtung dieser Krise und ihrer Ursachen sind die Vorstellungen der Bürger von einer guten und gerechten Organisation von Politik, Wirtschaft und Staat zentral. Die Studie beschäftigt sich mit den Protagonisten der neuen Bürgerproteste - jenen Akteuren also, die ihren Glauben an die Funktionsfähigkeit unserer Demokratie eingebüßt haben: Wer sind sie, was fordern sie und welche Demokratie schwebt ihnen vor?
Der "Wutbürger", 2010 zum Wort des Jahres gekürt, hat die Krise demokratischer Repräsentation in Deutschland auf einen Begriff gebracht: Immer mehr Bürger äußern Misstrauen gegenüber der etablierten Politik. Bei einer Betrachtung dieser Krise und ihrer Ursachen sind die Vorstellungen der Bürger von einer guten und gerechten Organisation von Politik, Wirtschaft und Staat zentral. Die Studie beschäftigt sich mit den Protagonisten der neuen Bürgerproteste - jenen Akteuren also, die ihren Glauben an die Funktionsfähigkeit unserer Demokratie eingebüßt haben: Wer sind sie, was fordern sie und welche Demokratie schwebt ihnen vor?
AbstractIn light of widespread frustration with representative democracy, political parties increasingly imitate social movements—a phenomenon scholars have conceptualized as movement-party hybrids, or movement parties. Strikingly though, research hitherto on the topic focuses on emerging parties and reveals little about movement-ization re-shaping traditional party organizations and, therefore, representative democracy. In 39 qualitative interviews with Social Democratic and Conservative party organizers in Germany, Austria, and the UK, I compare how different established parties experience demands for a movement-ization of their organization. Results show that established parties, too, face pressures to provide social movement-like experiences and de-formalization, yet their adaptation strategies differ as a function of political orientation, organizational heritage, member expectations, and political discontent. Whereas Social Democrats envision a more bottom-up and movement-inspired re-organization yet seriously suffer from the tensions this causes among different member and supporter groups, Conservatives (if at all) embrace movement-ization as a top-down steered strategic re-branding suggesting elevated policy efficacy.
The rising participatory demands of citizens have been addressed with a variety of democratic innovations. However, increasing demands for democratization have been accompanied by a parallel rise in scepticism and doubt about the capabilities of representative democracies to ensure policy efficacy. I seek to address this democratic ambivalence by focusing on the demands for citizen participation in the context of local democracy. In a series of qualitative interviews, and using Vienna's Seestadt Aspern, Europe's biggest city development project, as an illustration, I examine (a) bottom-up and top-down understandings of democracy and participation among administration, city-planners and citizens and (b) strategies to reconcile inconsistent expectations of participation. I show that conflicting understandings of participation are dealt with in different settings and that, despite a public commitment to democratic participation, citizens, city-planners and administration alike expect a democratically concealed yet controlled management process allegedly ensuring more efficacious policy decisions.
The rising participatory demands of citizens have been addressed with a variety of democratic innovations. However, increasing demands for democratization have been accompanied by a parallel rise in scepticism and doubt about the capabilities of representative democracies to ensure policy efficacy. I seek to address this democratic ambivalence by focusing on the demands for citizen participation in the context of local democracy. In a series of qualitative interviews, and using Vienna's Seestadt Aspern, Europe's biggest city development project, as an illustration, I examine (a) bottom-up and top-down understandings of democracy and participation among administration, city-planners and citizens and (b) strategies to reconcile inconsistent expectations of participation. I show that conflicting understandings of participation are dealt with in different settings and that, despite a public commitment to democratic participation, citizens, city-planners and administration alike expect a democratically concealed yet controlled management process allegedly ensuring more efficacious policy decisions.
In this article, I address the ways in which debates in liberal, (post)Marxist and postmodernist social theory have remoulded readings of emancipation – and how these reformulations have affected the organisation of emancipatory struggles by and in political parties and social movements. I focus on three conceptual ambiguities that have spurred theoretical disputes and restructured organisational imaginations of emancipation: who might struggle for liberation, to what end and in which ways. In all three respects, understandings of emancipation have become increasingly individualised, contingent and process-oriented – both in theory and in its political-organisational correspondents. As a consequence, effective collective struggles for autonomy may become ever more difficult to organise. While occurring in the name of further liberation, the ongoing reinterpretation of emancipation and its impact on the political organisation of emancipatory struggles might in the end hamper or even undermine the very liberation and autonomy they had aimed to promote.
In this article, I address the ways in which debates in liberal, (post)Marxist and postmodernist social theory have remoulded readings of emancipation – and how these reformulations have affected the organisation of emancipatory struggles by and in political parties and social movements. I focus on three conceptual ambiguities that have spurred theoretical disputes and restructured organisational imaginations of emancipation: who might struggle for liberation, to what end and in which ways. In all three respects, understandings of emancipation have become increasingly individualised, contingent and process-oriented – both in theory and in its political-organisational correspondents. As a consequence, effective collective struggles for autonomy may become ever more difficult to organise. While occurring in the name of further liberation, the ongoing reinterpretation of emancipation and its impact on the political organisation of emancipatory struggles might in the end hamper or even undermine the very liberation and autonomy they had aimed to promote.
