Gerechtigkeit in der Sozialpolitik – Aufgaben und Befunde einer kritischen Soziologie der Moral

In a modern differentiated society interpretations of social justice occur necessarily manifold; they cannot be derived from an absolute point of reference. The following article takes up this thought of Günther Dux in terms of justice. It is argued—in difference to philosophy—that the strength of sociological justice research lies in the empirical reconstruction of images of social justice. It will be outlined which ideas of social justice in regard to a reform of the welfare state are currently dominating. In social political reform debates it is observable these days that there is no longer a mere normative dispute about justice and moral. The issue is rather finding productivist justice solutions, which enable the concomitance of economic efficiency and fair distribution solution.     

Das authentische Selbst in der Popmusik – Zur Rekonstruktion von diskursiven Subjektfiguren sowie ihrer Aneignung und Aushandlung mittels der Dokumentarischen Methode

Up to today, the normative character of collective structures of knowledge was not focused systematically in qualitative-reconstructive research. This article sets out to further develop the Documentary Method in favor of the consideration of such collective knowledge structures being not anchored in shared experiences or shared spaces of experience. Thus, referring to concepts of Governmentality Studies subject positions are conceptualized as dominant imperatives of self-regulation being related to reflexive and pre-reflexive knowledge structures in terms of the Documentary Method. These relations are analyzed at the example of young pop musicians’ occupation with authenticity norms and their appropriation and negotiation of a subject position of an authentic self. The article especially concentrates on the methodological modification of the Documentary Method and discusses according innovations related to the work of interpretation.     

Videoüberwachung von Demonstrationen und die Definitionsmacht der Polizei. Zwischen Objektivitätsfiktion und selektiver Sanktionierung

The paper examines the use of video surveillance in the context of protest policing, drawing on group discussions and expert interviews with the riot police as well as ethnographic fieldwork. The use of video surveillance is legitimised by the police through a promise of objectivity and stringent compliance to the law. The author analyses the use of video surveillance as a contingent process of actively constructing evidence. It consists of a series of decisions in three phases: starting with the determination of the potential to use surveillance to the police oriented application, and finally, the follow up phase, focusing on the developments of results and prosecution. The variety of courses of action to make use of surveillance right up to manipulation of results is considered to be an expression of sociological discretion, in which the police definitional power rests. Especially, the involved technology allows for existing contingencies apparent in every substep to become invisible through material objectifications and abstractions. In this process, the law proves to be only one motive for agency among others. The idea of the police being determined by law becomes visible as a necessary fiction.     

Macht Kultur glücklich? Überlegungen und Befunde zum Verhältnis von kultureller Partizipation und Lebenszufriedenheit

The article focuses on the relationship between life satisfaction and participation in “high culture” activities (attendance of opera, theater, classical concerts, and museums). The empirical basis is made up by four mail surveys of the adult population in three German cities. It is shown that life satisfaction is correlated with cultural participation and this also holds when the social background of the respondent—sex, age and education—is taken into consideration. However, when anomie and social contacts are brought into the analysis, the relationship diminishes. Life satisfaction is not result of the aesthetic experience that is tied up with cultural participation, but at best a result of the social involvement linked to the respective life style.     

Angst, Depression und die Verleugnung von Abh?ngigkeit

In this text I try to describe the intra-psychic consequences caused by internalisation of external heightened demands in today??s working situation. There has been a change from modernity??s super-ego-centered subjects to the increased ego-ideal-demands in today??s postmodern society of self-control. As a consequence of the rhetorics and ideology of permanent self-improvement, of ??positive thinking?? there is a denial of any intra-psychic conflict, any dependence. This may lead to self-exploitation, exhaustion and ??burnout?? as a self-diagnosis. People apply different strategies for coping with this situation: Application of defense mechanism like projection and splitting can only bring short-term relief. Acceptance of intra-psychic conflict, ambivalence and personal weaknesses as a form of ??intra-psychic democracy?? is a way to long-term improvements and increased tolerance for problems of the self and others.     

Inklusion in die Moderne – Zum systemischen Verständnis des ‚Sozialen‘ in der Sozialen Marktwirtschaft

Social inclusion is the market’s blind spot: the number of members of a society that are included in a society through the economy and under what conditions is irrelevant to the logic and functionality of an economic system. It is not, however, possible to lead a reasonably meaningful life—a requisite in our modern age—without any material basis. Accordingly, political measures should be called for when people’s autonomous way of life is threatened by a lack of inclusion in the market and society. Such a political, normative-based, inclusion-seeking solution has already been laid out in the initial concept of the social market economy. This paper aims at showing how the fundamental concern of the social market economy with social issues can be brought up to date within the idea of built-in inclusion thanks to a modern approach to the theory of justice.     

Praktiken der Grenzüberschreitung und die Grenzen des Feldparadigmas

So far, the phenomenon of the so-called avant-garde has rarely been the subject of sociological scrutiny. In order to approach the historical avant-garde in sociological terms, Pierre Bourdieu??s field concept is applied. This sheds new light on the avant-garde, which traditionally has been subject to related disciplines. However, Bourdieu??s field theory fails to capture the empirical phenomenon of the historical avant-garde sufficiently. This suggests that sociology ought to regard the principle of the avant-garde as a distinct concept.     

Paul Lazarsfelds typologische Methode und die Grounded Theory. Generierung und Qualität von Typologien

The following article deals with the connections between the typological method proposed by Paul Lazarsfeld and the Grounded Theory. The question how good typologies in qualitative social research can be constructed will be raised. It will be argued that formal criteria are necessary but not sufficient in judging whether a typology is good. The typology also needs to be relevant in its contents. The article will show that the Grounded Theory can help to solve this problem by creating attributes for typology construction analogous to the Grounded Theory's process that is used to generate theory. On the other hand, Lazarsfeld's concept of “attribute space” can be of assistance for the process of “theoretical sampling” proposed by the Grounded Theory by providing a systematic scheme for selecting the cases to be studied. The article will conclude with an empirical example illustrating the issues mentioned above.     

Ethnic Business in der Leiharbeit – Einblicke in einen wenig bekannten Arbeitsmarkt in Deutschland

Since the Agenda 2010 temporary work is even economically and politically a success story in Germany. Inside that branch you also find Ethnic Business, id est that the director of the conferrer and the employees are belonging to the same ethnic group. The recruiting strategies are most informal within the ethnic group and working for an “ethnic conferrer” oftentimes means the last chance for migrants who get no other job on the formal job market. But the temporary work-business in Germany has a bad reputation and a lot of questions are going along with Ethnic Business in that particular branch: What are the migrant’s motives for working to an ethnic conferrer? What are the attractive aspects of founding an ethnic model of temporary employment agency? Have ethnic conferrers the ability to create new stability for the migrants inside a highly unstable branch?     

Paradigmenwechsel in der Sozialwirtschaft – Sozialmarketing als neue Steuerungsphilosophie?

Against the background of developments in society and in the light of the reform efforts in the social economy, the question arises which of the steering concepts successfully employed elsewhere can also be applied in social economic organizations. In particular, “marketing” has already proven to be a widely adaptable social technology. While management and consulting practice, however, mostly argue pragmatically with its usefulness and thereof derive their normative claims, theoretical analyses are rare. This contribution provides such a background analysis and investigates the causes of the paradigmatic connectivity of marketing as a management technique. On the grounds of basic social science theory, a genuinely sociological perspective on marketing is developed, though without reducing sociology to an instrumental supplying function for business administration.     

Kooperationen in der Landwirtschaft kontextualisiert: Ethnografische Fallstudie von der Mühlviertler Alm

Rapid agricultural change is often conceptualized in connection with the transformation of socially-embedded peasants into self-interested, individualized farmers. In this ethnographic case study I describe the complex co-operation between farmers that involve local coping strategies in the face of technological challenges and globalization. Furthermore, I want to engage with the argument that suggests that in rural areas the processes of pluralizing life worlds are disconnected from processes of individualization. Lastly, the example I use of an ensiling team acts to explore the relationship between commodification and non-market co-operation.     

Effekte der sozialen Position auf Vertrauen in Politik und Demokratie in ?sterreich

In the context of declining satisfaction with democracy in Austria, the article examines the importance of trust in state and politics for attitudes towards democracy. We assume that the social position influences attitudes towards democracy both, directly and indirectly via trust in politics. Data from the European Values Studies 1999 and 2008 are analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling. The results confirm that socioeconomic status affects attitudes towards democracy via trust (e.g. the lower people??s status, the less trust they express, and, thus, the less satisfied with the democratic system they are). In addition, findings support the proposition that personal experience is relevant to the constitution of trust, and indicate that trust in European Union becomes more important for attitudes towards democracy with time.     

Ungleichheitssemantiken im Wandel — Wahrnehmungen und Bewertungen von MigrantInnen in privaten Unternehmen

Based on theories of social inequalities and of ethnic boundaries we can conceptualise integration and disintegration of migrants and ethnic minorities not as given structures, but as interactive processes in different societal systems. Due to the specific context in every domain, specific semantics of inequality are used. In the article different semantics of inequality in the range of Austrian politics and economy are described. Based on qualitative interviews in Austrian enterprises, changes of semantics of inequality in one societal field are shown. It is stressed that in the Austrian economic domain in contrast to the domain of politics usually pragmatic semantics of inequality are used. They currently differentiate and so enhance the synchrony of different structural types of occupational integration.     

Von der imaginierten zur emotional erlebten Nation: Partizipation und Verschmelzung in der Fußballberichterstattung

Not only in a globalized world, our imagination is a space for the construction of all kinds of identity. This was shown e. g. by Anderson (Erfindung der Nation, Zur Karriere eines folgenreichen Konzepts, Frankfurt a. M., Campus, 1996) in his perspective on the nation as an imagined community. This article intends to add arguments from the sociology of emotion and ritual-theory to this mainly cognitive perspective. I will argue that rituals serve to provide an affective experience of the respective imagined community and to actualize its imagined content. In so doing, the nation gains salience compared to other constructions of collective identity. TV-coverage from the FIFA Football-World Cup in 2006 in Germany serves as an empirical example. Besides the interpretative presentation of included images of we-identity (also in discrimination against the identity of ‘the others’) the analysis focuses on showing how the formal, visual and semantic form of the examined broadcast facilitates the experience of collective effervescence by making it easier for the viewers to perceive themselves as participants in the ritual.     

Politisierte Aufsichtsräte? Über die Entwicklung personeller Verflechtungen von Wirtschaft und Politik in Österreich (1989–2011)

Party affiliations of managers form the basis of social networks that are not only positioned between the mostly autonomous systems of politics and business, but are able to undermine the functional logics of these social systems. In the eighties Austrian business was dominated by the state to such an extent that political parties could vote their men of confidence into the boards of large stated-owned companies. This article quantifies the evolution of personal connections between business and politics in Austria (1983–2011) and explains changing patterns by pointing out shifts of power between the state and business. The focus of attention here is on multiple directors in supervisory boards of Austria’s big business. The study shows that businessmen have largely displaced the statesmen of industry who used to mediate conflicts between the state and business within a corporatist setting. “Proporz”, however, remains widespread and a change of government still leads to new constellations of political representation in supervisory boards of large companies. Political capital has thus not lost completely its value for top managers.