“Everyone was Pounding on Us”: Front Porch Politics and the American Farm Crisis of the 1970s and 1980s

This essay analyzes agricultural politics and activism in the United States during the farm crisis of the 1970s and 1980s. Although journalists and social scientists studied farm activism at the time, historians have neglected it. As this article demonstrates, however, the farm crisis is valuable for analyzing why ordinary Americans mobilized as citizens and activists in a period of economic dislocation. Informed by the recent “emotional turn” in social movement studies, the essay frames farm organizing as an archetypal example of “front porch politics”. Mostly, farmers organized out of a sense of being wronged; the resulting sense of injustice fueled a rural uprising.     

Facts,Opinions, and Scientific Memes: Reflections of and Recommendations for the March for Science in Germany

Germany ranked second in number of March for Science participants. The current essay is based on a focus group discussion with six participants of a march in a German university town and elucidates their motives for attending, their perceptions of how politically active scientists should be, the goals they think the march should aim to achieve, and their recommendations for future marches. Motives in Germany differed slightly from those mentioned in the United States. Discussants placed importance on the difference between facts and opinions, which is translated into recommendations for issue‐specific future marches.     

Gendering the Politics of Migration 1

Although every aspect of the migration process is shaped by political factors and migration presents many political challenges on the domestic and international levels, the attention of political scientists in the United States and Europe has been limited to relatively few topics, including control over entry and exit, and issues of incorporation and citizenship. Work that considers the political aspects of migration from a gender perspective constitutes an even smaller body of work. In considering the contribution that political science might make to our understanding of gendered migration, this essay points both to some pioneering studies of gendered patterns of migration and incorporation, and also to the growing concern with gender among international organizations and policy makers. Interestingly, the essay shows that it is scholars in neighboring disciplines who have more often have taken up questions of governance and the development of gender‐fair policy towards migrants. The essay raises questions about the relationship between disciplinary boundaries and topical areas and also about the ways in which regional contexts shape the nature of scholarly inquiry by contrasting work on Asia with that in Europe and the United States.     

Rights and controls in the management of migration: the case of Germany

In May 1999 Germany took a significant step away from its reliance on blood based belonging, revising its nationality law to introduce an element of territory ( jus soli ) in the designation of citizenship. This paper offers Germany as a case study in the management of migration through a hierarchical system for the granting of rights, and considers the likely impact of the new law on the legal structures of inclusion and exclusion. It is argued that alongside the enhanced recognition of the original guestworker population a set of contradictory pressures now dominate the politics of migration – the recognition of human rights, the management of the labour market and the protection of welfare resources. These pressures are mediated by the granting and withholding of rights as part of a system of selection, surveillance, deterrence and control which has broader implications for our thinking about citizenship.     

Cosmopolitics: towards a new articulation of politics,science and critique

This paper explores how Ulrich Beck's world‐risk‐society theory (WRST) and Bruno Latour's Actor‐Network Theory (ANT) can be combined to advance a theory of cosmopolitics. On the one hand, WRST helps to examine ‘cosmopolitan politics’, how actors try to inject cosmopolitanism into existing political practices and institutions anchored in the logic of nationalism. On the other hand, ANT sheds light on ‘cosmological politics’, how scientists participate in the construction of reality as a reference point for political struggles. By combining the WRST and ANT perspectives, it becomes possible to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of cosmopolitics that takes into account both political and ontological dimensions. The proposed synthesis of WRST and ANT also calls for a renewal of critical theory by making social scientists aware of their performative involvement in cosmopolitics. This renewal prompts social scientists to explore how they can pragmatically support certain ideals of cosmopolitics through continuous dialogues with their objects of study, actors who inhabit different nations and different cosmoses.     

Strange Tempest: Agency, Poststructuralism, and the Shape of Feminist Politics to Come

This essay explores Judith Butler's influence on feminist and gender studies at two levels. First, the essay examines Butler's specific theoretical contributions with special attention to the performativity of gender and the conception of agency connected with it. It highlights the contributions and limitations of Butler's account of agency and the ongoing feminist conversation that it has incited. Second, this essay explores how Butler's account of agency has unsettled feminist conceptions of established political practice and sketches how specific responses to Butler's work provide clues to key contested issues. The essay closes with a brief look at feminist scholarship that draws together Butler-informed political visions with traditional accounts of feminist political practice in a manner that foreshadows a dynamic feminist politics yet to come.     

Transnational Turkish–German community in limbo. Consequences of political tensions between migrant receiving and sending countries

A profound political tension between Turkey and Germany has gained an overall dimension on the political agenda of the intra-European migration discussion since 2016. As close trade partners, Turkey and Germany became gradually political adversaries on different issues. 2016 and the following years marked a turnover in the already worsened mutual relations. A series of political issues such as recognising the Armenian genocide in 1915, open allegations and critical views against the Turkish President and prohibition of election campaigns for Turkish government politicians in Germany had driven political relations between the two countries to nadir. This obscure situation led the Turks of Germany (The phrases “Turks of Germany” or “Turkish migrants” are persons with migration background from Turkey who still bear Turkish citizenship or formerly were Turkish citizens. This group's ethnic or confessional identity is not recognised; their legal status and country of origin are preponderant.), who have close ties to their ancestors’ homeland and consider Germany as the centre of their lives, nolens volens into a limbo situation. Within the “guest-worker program” framework in the second part of the 20th century, highly industrialised countries of Western Europe recruited migrant workers from different countries. This workforce should perform mostly blue-collar labour in the receiving countries. After six decades of Turkish presence in Germany, the grandsons and granddaughters of the former guest workers are well-represented in almost every sector of the society. However, their loyalty and integrability to the receiving country are challenged by German politics, especially by the governments of conservative chancellor Angela Merkel (2005–2021). If Turks of Germany feel closely connected to Turkey and Turkish culture (Workers from Turkey brought with them to the country of immigration their own “cultural assets”. Those are, language, religious and customary beliefs, social habits, dress, music, literature, social codes and manners, shared history, food, etc. However, migrants in the receiving country undergo a process of hybridity under the influence of the new cultural environment. (Please see: Bhabha [The location of culture, New York, NY: Routledge, 1994]) Culture within the framework of post-colonialism has also been discussed in Edward W. Said's book “Culture and Imperialism” (Said [Kültür ve Emperyalizm. Kapsamlı Bir Düşünsel ve Siyasal Sorgulama Çalışması. Hil Yayın: İstanbul, 1998]). If Turks of Germany feel closely connected to Turkey and Turkish culture, they are not recognised as integrable members of the society. Identity-based and culture-oriented policies inexorably influence the willingness of migrants to feel like equal members in the host society, and it applies even to the new generations with migration backgrounds. The question of migrant integration is the most emotionally debated issue in Germany and seems to be the greatest challenge in the political agenda. Beyond the bilateral Turkish–German issues, the growing xenophobic sentiments, islamophobia and Europe-wide political populism may cause a persistent bilateral tension in the medium term between the countries and among the transnational and native communities. Anti-Turkish rhetoric in the media alienates the Turkish community and has a value to jeopardise integration efforts more and more.     

ON BEING BOUND TO EQUIVALENTIAL CHAINS

Taking up the test case of radical anti-globalization protest, this essay addresses Ernesto Laclau's theory of the democratic demand, reading it against Lacan's and Freud's conceptions of demand. I argue, largely drawing from Lacan's conception of enjoyment that a theory of the democratic demand must take into account the risk that a subject's enjoyment in positing a demand can overwhelm the potential political of the demand itself. In response to this risk, I argue that a theory of democracy should shift from a demand-driven politics centred around enjoying a specific subject position tied to ‘resistance’ towards a desire-driven politics that productively incorporates the ‘no’ as a means of articulating collective political aspirations.     

Ulster Protestants in New Zealand: A Bibliographic Essay

One of the most noticeable aspects of recent studies which examine Irish migration to New Zealand has been the identification of a sizeable contingent of Ulster Protestant settlers within that migrant stream. Their presence has proven to be a complicating factor in how the history of the Irish in New Zealand has been written and has made easy assumptions about the loyalty, identity, politics and ethnicity of that population impossible. This essay surveys the existing literature on New Zealand's Ulster Protestant population across a wide range of subjects while at the same time considering their apparent disappearance as a distinct ethnic grouping in the new world.     

‘Brain circulation’ and transnational knowledge networks: studying long‐term effects of academic mobility to Germany, 1954–2000

‘Brain circulation’ has become a buzzword for describing the increasingly networked character of highly skilled migration. In this article, the concept is linked to academics' work on circular mobility to explore the long‐term effects of their research stays in Germany during the second half of the twentieth century. Based on original survey data on more than 1800 former visiting academics from 93 countries, it is argued that this type of brain circulation launched a cumulative process of subsequent academic mobility and collaboration that contributed significantly to the reintegration of Germany into the international scientific community after the Second World War and enabled the country's rise to the most important source for international co‐authors of US scientists and engineers in the twenty‐first century. In this article I discuss regional and disciplinary specificities in the formation of transnational knowledge networks through circulating academics and suggest that the long‐term effects can be fruitfully conceptualized as accumulation processes in ‘centres of calculation’.     

嫩模现象：一种新兴青年文化

嫩模现象是个横空出世的新兴青年文化现象，亦是香港普及文化的重要一课。讨论嫩模现象的由来，以及在众声喧哗中隐含的各种文化政治，例如名人概念、青年概念、女性身体等，能检视社会主流论述对此等文化概念的意义转变和规训等。     

The Cross-Cultural Study of Women and Politics:

This essay seeks to examine the approaches andmethods most propitious to the cross-cultural study of women and politics, because it is in the cross-cultural context where the methodological problems of studying women and politics are posted in their complexity. Using Arend Lijphart's concept of the "comparative method," the essay applies this concept to the cross-cultural study of women and politics as a means of avoiding a number of conceptual problems inherent in the subject matter. The essay focuses on political participation, broadly defined, and uses this focus as a means of illustrating through substantive examples the problems of studying women and politics. A critique of the predominantly American literature is offered, as well as an examination of the successful uses of the comparative method as examples for future research. The particular data problems for women's studies scholars are discussed. Operationalization of the variable sex or gender is placed in the context of cross-cultural study. A number of research approaches are discussed: the case study variant of the comparative method, longitudinal analysis, elite studies, cohort analysis, cross-sectional analysis, and the ecological approach. The last two approaches are critized as being particularly unsuited to studying women and politics.     

Modes of immigration politics in liberal democratic states

"The politics of immigration in liberal democracies exhibits strong similarities that are, contrary to the scholarly consensus, broadly expansionist and inclusive. Nevertheless, three groups of states display distinct modes of immigration politics. Divergent immigration histories mold popular attitudes toward migration and ethnic heterogeneity and affect the institutionalization of migration policy and politics....I begin by discussing those characteristics of immigration politics found in all liberal democracies. I then investigate the distinctive modes of immigration politics in the three subsets of Western democratic states with distinctive immigration histories. I conclude by considering whether these three patterns will persist or how they might change as a result of future migration pressures and the further institutionalization of immigration politics and policies in Europe." Comments by Rogers Brubaker (pp. 903-8) and a rejoinder by the author (pp. 909-13) are included.     

What’s Wrong with Us? Sexual Misconduct and the Discipline of Political Science

ABSTRACT

Sexual misconduct matters not only when it is perpetuated by political actors in political institutions. It matters wherever it happens and whomever it happens to, because it is, at its base, political. Politics is fundamentally about power: who gets what, when, and how. As political scientists it should be at the heart of what we study, but it isn’t. Our discipline creates artificial (and somewhat arbitrary) boundaries about which studies of politics count as meaningful research and which do not. We discourage research that explores more expansive notions of how politics is practiced in broader society. As academics we have the luxury of speaking out. I argue here that political scientists ought to embrace an expansive definition of politics to address the real questions of power, its abuse in our society and in our profession.     

Migration und Finanzkrise

This paper analyzes the impact of the financial and economic crisis on migration within Europe and towards Germany. The crisis has triggered a diversion of migration flows from the new EU Member States to prospering countries such as Germany rather than a large increase of migration from the mainly affected countries. Novel estimation procedures, which consider systematically conditions in alternative destinations, show that the overwhelming share of the migration surge in Germany can be attributed to the deterioration of economic conditions in alternative destinations. Furthermore, micro data from the new IAB-SOEP migration sample demonstrate that the share of individuals who did not immigrate from their birth countries in all arrivals has significantly increased since the begin of the crisis. The share of individuals, who have been non-employed before their arrival in Germany, has not increased in the course of the crisis. However, average education levels of new arrivals have declined.     

Exploring Cultural Issues for Constellation Work in South Africa

Constellation work is a therapeutic and counselling intervention recognised in Germany and other European countries since the 1970s. Various scientists and practitioners have contributed to its theoretical and practical development, and research on the subject has increased over the past few years. However culture in constellation work has received little research attention and has not been empirically studied in African contexts. The aim of this article is to reflect on culture and its influence on constellation work in multicultural, post‐apartheid South Africa. An empirical qualitative research approach within the phenomenological paradigm was adopted. Six constellation facilitators were interviewed with in‐depth and field notes taken during participative observations of constellation workshops. The findings provide insight into culture in constellation work in the South African context. Theoretical and practical recommendations for scientists and therapy practitioners working with systemic interventions like constellation work are provided.     

Immigrant Occupational Composition and the Earnings of Immigrants and Natives in Germany: Sorting or Devaluation?

In this article, the influence of immigrant occupational composition on the earnings of immigrants and natives in Germany is examined. Using data from the German Socio‐Economic Panel Study and the German Microcensus, several relevant concepts are tested. The notion of quality sorting states that the differences in wages that are associated with the immigrant share within occupations are due only to differences in qualification requirements. Cultural devaluation assumes a negative influence over and above that of quality sorting. The findings indicate that both processes are at work. Additional analyses reveal that the impact of immigrant occupational composition is largely restricted to white‐collar occupations, which underlines the importance of considering historical differences between occupation types in classic migration destinations such as Germany.     

The struggle for the state and the politics of belonging in contemporary Angola, 1975–2015

On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Angola’s independence, this essay revisits key dimensions of the country’s postcolonial trajectory through the prism of the complex politics of the nationalist struggle and the first decades of self-rule. Its goal is to provide a series of reflections, mostly centred on the MPLA regime, rather than a comprehensive treatment of all political actors in Angolan politics of recent decades. It argues, firstly, that Angola’s trajectory from independence to the end of the country’s long civil war in 2002 was powerfully conditioned by the structural legacies of late colonialism, the associated intra-nationalist politics and the particular circumstances of the end of empire in 1975. To these legacies, the essay adds the (constrained, but real) choices made by Angolan decision-makers in terms of institutional consolidation, the management of the economy and state–society relations. Secondly, the essay outlines the extent to which the MPLA’s 2002 victory against UNITA in the country’s civil war did away with the fragmentation that had characterised Angolan politics since the 1960s. The clashing, indeed mutually exclusionary, nationalist projects that had jostled for control of the Angolan state were replaced by a would-be hegemonic political force with a strong sense of legitimacy and a self-defined project of postwar nation building. The key question for the contemporary study of Angola – and one that the oil-fuelled politics of the national reconstruction era provided plenty of reflection on – is the extent to which the MPLA’s postwar vision can supersede the country’s historical divisions and provide the population with both the material prosperity it yearns for and a shared understanding of belonging.     

Amnesia: Cultural Memory,Reconciliation, and Communal Accountability in the Americas

Contributing to debates on the status of comparison in transnational American studies, this essay offers a morphologically comparative approach to memory’s cultural politics in conflict resolution, juxtaposing two histo-ries — one ‘geo-political’ (nation-state, transatlantic) and the other ‘micro-history’ (small-town, regional) — whose ensuing negotiations unsettle paradigms of silencing and forgetting, especially as these pertain to ‘reconciliation’. Offering an alternative to predominantly psychoanalytic treatments of cultural memory and power, this essay employs morphological analysis and queer theory to explore cultural amnesia through blending ethnographic and media sources on the politics of it in the assignment of accountability and belonging.     

Where Is the Sex in Political Theory?

In the tradition of political theory, women and sexuality are rarely mentioned. When discussed, they are almost always treated together-women become nearly synonomous with sexuality while men, regarded as political or intellectual subjects, are disassociated from sex. This essay explores the implications of this phenomenon for political theory's construction of women, sex, and politics. It also examines the implications of the historical association of women with sex for contemporary feminist political thinking. The essay concludes with considerations of the ways in which traditionally gendered sexuality needs to be recast in order to liberate both women and politics from this history.