Publications

On 13.11.2024, a group of 113 members of the German Bundestag tabled a motion to initiate proceedings to ban the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. The debate to date has focused on the requirements and prospects of success of a (partial) ban of the party from a constitutional perspective (in particular here and here). The national perspective threatens to distort the view of transnational interlegalities and does not do justice to the state of European integration.

The EU’s free trade agreement with New Zealand fails to establish a critical concept of sustainability On July 9, 2023, the European Union and Aotearoa New Zealand concluded a comprehensive free trade agreement, which the European Commission describes as the most ambitious agreement ever with regard to sustainability issues. A closer look reveals that the scope of regulation is more comprehensive and progressive in many respects than in other agreements. Nevertheless, deficits can be identified in the design of the dispute settlement procedure, which are also due to the fact that the sustainability chapter is unable to establish a critical concept of sustainability that is sensitive to its contradictions. Findings from Contradiction Studies can help to fill this gap. Contradictions are associated with the concept of sustainability as it is used in the agreement. Only its recognition makes it possible to negotiate these contradictions at a legal level. To this end, the dispute settlement procedure must be made more effective with the involvement of civil society actors.

European demand for raw materials is growing as part of the energy transition. Many of the raw materials required for the energy transition are located on the territories of indigenous peoples, which often leads to conflicts. Against this backdrop, it is surprising that the planned agreement between the EU and the Mercosur states does not contain any provisions regarding the participation and protection of indigenous peoples. A reference to such provisions, in particular from ILO Convention 169, would be required under international law and would help to make the conflicts and contradictions of the concept of sustainability negotiable.

The relationship between man and nature is subject to constant change. While nature was long considered threatening and alien, the idea of man in harmony with nature developed in the 16th century. Another profound change in this relationship has been accompanied by industrialisation and rapid urbanisation since the 19th century. The relationship between humans and nature is becoming unbalanced and jeopardises the survival of many species, including humans, on this planet. The environmental debate that has been ongoing since the 1960s has only been able to change this to a limited extent. Rather, there seems to be a persistent inability – a ‘blind spot’ – to (re)establish and maintain socio-ecological relationships with our habitat. The urgent question arises as to how we can get closer to nature again and which strategies appear helpful for this.

The Research Training Group 2686 Contradiction Studies researches the formation, negotiation and explanatory limits of contradiction.
The point of departure is the assumption that the ordering figure of contradiction with the imperative to resolve contradictions is often in tension with everyday experiences of contradictions in living together. Constellations of contradiction, contradiction avoidance, contradictions and practices of contradiction are therefore systematically researched and established as objects of investigation in the humanities, social sciences and law. The research group combines discourse-, narrative- and text-centred approaches with ethnographic and other qualitative-empirical methods. On the basis of case studies and genealogically or analytically orientated projects, the Centre carries out conceptual and theoretical work. This aims to re-evaluate contradiction, contradictions and contestation in their empirical constellations, heuristic functions and ontological dimensions – also in response to post- and decolonial discussions on the cosmopolitanisation of knowledge production.

Martin Nonhoff/Frieder Vogelmann: Editorial (Seite 3); Regina Kreide: Das Schweigen des politischen Liberalismus (Seite 5); Martin Nonhoff: Krisenanalyse und radikale Theorie der Demokratie (Seite 21); Jörg Schaub: Luftschloss Liberalismus. Warum das Denken in Krisenzeiten keinen Halt findet (Seite 38); Frank Nullmeier: Politische Theorie des Komparativs. Soziale Vergleiche und gerechte Gesellschaft (Seite 56); Frieder Vogelmann: Liberale Subjekte Eine affirmative Streitschrift (Seite 74); Wolfgang Kraushaar: Aus der Protest-Chronik: 24./25. März 1977, Buenos Aires (Seite 91)

Few political thinkers have influenced the international political and social science theory discourse of recent years as much as Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau – across paradigm boundaries. Both combine neo-Gramscian, (post-)structuralist and psychoanalytical theoretical elements and thus enable an explanation of political-discursive events, in particular the formation of hegemonies, on the one hand, and a normative theory of agonal democracy on the other.
The contributions in this volume provide an overview of Laclau’s and Mouffe’s key figures of thought, critically examine them and point out methodological and empirical connections.
This volume contains original texts by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, among others.

This paper intervenes in the discussion about the relationship between discourse analysis and critique. It argues that this relationship can be understood either as an external or as an integrated relationship. In an external relationship, there is first social criticism that is then braced by discourse analysis, that is, the latter aims at giving empirical credence to the critique. However, such an external relationship cannot give us any insight concerning the critical potential that is specific to discourse analysis, precisely because in this case critique exists before and independent of discourse analysis. If, however, critique emanates from discourse analysis itself, we would speak of an integrated relationship and would no longer speak of discourse analysis and critique, but of discourse analysis as critique. It is argued that such an integrated relationship becomes visible once we think of discourse analysis as being itself a discursive formation and ask what unsettling effects this formation has on research objects, on subject formations and on the academic production context in which they are conducted.

How do dominant political language and thought patterns emerge and how are they related to social power relations? This volume aims to get to the bottom of these questions about the functioning of discursive hegemonies by linking political science and discourse studies. The political-discursive characteristics and strategies of successful hegemonies are reconstructed on the basis of an examination of the hegemonic project “social market economy”. In addition, the exemplary analysis of the West German economic policy discourse of the post-war years illustrates how political science can benefit from discourse studies research.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed systemic problems in the global health system. It revealed that the global health system perpetuates global health inequalities rather than effectively reducing them: The international community, particularly the countries of the Global North, failed to make COVID-19 vaccines widely available to the populations of the world’s poorest countries. This blog debate takes stock of the reform debate about a just and decolonizing transformation of the health system. Bringing together scholars from various disciplines, the contributions of this debate ask what a fair global health system could look like and what role the law plays in it.

The Bremen Überseestadt, constructed as a new harbor between 1875 and 1913, reflects the close connections between harbor infrastructure and European colonialism. The increase in cargo handling, particularly of colonial commodities, necessitated new port facilities and the deepening of the Weser River. Despite its transformation into a modern urban area, the colonial past remains inadequately addressed to this day. The text calls for making the colonial entanglements visible as an integral part of Bremen’s trade history.

The need for reform of the global health system is openly on the table. Many stakeholders agree that the WHO has not been able to adequately address the political and social problems, global health emergencies triggered or exacerbated by epidemics and pandemics, malnutrition, and access to clean water in recent years. Against this backdrop, there is a widespread call for more equity and solidarity in the global health system.