Institut für Politikwissenschaft (IPW)
Filtern
Dokumenttyp
- Dissertation (4)
- Buch (Monographie) (1)
Schlagworte
- African Union (1)
- Einwanderung (1)
- Migrant rights (1)
- Regionalism (1)
- Zuwanderungsrecht (1)
Since its establishment, the African Union (AU) has assumed an important role in matters of peace and security on the continent. This doctoral dissertation is dedicated to its conflict and crisis interventions and seeks to identify as well as subsequently explain the broader patterns that have emerged. The dissertation posits that neither the AU's regime-serving roots, which emphasize the primacy of incumbents' parochial interests, nor the AU's problem-solving commitment, which emphasizes the pursuit of its declared organizational mission, can convincingly explain these patterns on their own. Instead, we should understand the AU as being driven by two different logics of cooperation at the same time: a problem-solving and a regime-serving logic. Across its three constitutive articles, the dissertation makes empirical as well as theoretical contributions to the existing literature. Empirically, it offers a broad and systematic analysis of AU interventions over time, across different intervention types, and without bias towards high-profile cases. The novel dataset, on which the dissertation builds, constitutes the hitherto most comprehensive effort to capture the AU's responses to crises and conflicts. Theoretically, the dissertation develops a set of testable theory-driven expectations based on the notion of two different logics of cooperation. While identifiable in the literature on the AU and linking to broader existing debates on international cooperation, the dissertation breaks ground by clearly outlining the implications of each logic and bringing them together under a single theoretical framework. Jointly, the articles provided strong evidence that the AU is indeed driven by both a problem-solving and a regime-serving logic of cooperation, and that this serves as the foundation for explaining the AU's broader intervention patterns. This contributes not only to a better understanding of AU interventions but also has a chance to enrich other important debates, including the debates on African regionalism, comparative regionalism, and multilateral interventions.
Die gleichberechtigte Teilhabe geflüchteter Familien an frühpädagogischen Angeboten ist erklärtes integrationspolitisches Ziel. Es gibt Hinweise darauf, dass diese besonderen Herausforderungen unterliegt und dass freiwillig Engagierte dabei häufig involviert sind. Dabei ist wenig über die Dynamiken bekannt, wie freiwillig Engagierte geflüchtete Familien im Bereich der frühkindlichen Bildung, Betreuung und Erziehung begleiten, insbesondere aus Perspektive von geflüchteten Eltern und ihren Begleitern. Vor diesem Hintergrund hat die vorliegende kumulative Dissertation das Ziel, durch die sinnverstehende Herausarbeitung von Deutungen der Begleiter und geflüchteten Eltern zu einem besseren Verständnis der durch freiwilliges Engagement begleiteten Teilhabe geflüchteter Familien an frühpädagogischen Angeboten beizutragen. Die Dissertation begreift freiwillig Engagierte als "Koproduzenten" von integrationspolitischen Zielen. Auf Grundlage von 34 Interviews mit Engagierten, Koordinatoren und geflüchteten Eltern, welche in neun Kommunen in Niedersachsen geführt wurden, wurden in drei Artikeln die folgenden Schwerpunkte bearbeitet: Deutungen der Zusammenarbeit zwischen zivilgesellschaftlichen und staatlichen Akteuren durch die Begleitern durch Anbindung an das Konzept Koproduktion (Artikel 1), Deutungen von Problemen und Lösungen durch die Begleitern anknüpfend an die Konzepte Vulnerabilität und Agency (Artikel 2) sowie Deutungen der Eltern als Zielgruppe, mit Blick auf deren Aufbau von Vertrauen gegenüber frühpädagogischen Angeboten (Artikel 3). Die Dissertation leistet dadurch einen wissenschaftlichen Beitrag zu Dynamiken der Umsetzung von Policies, wenn zivilgesellschaftliches Engagement dabei eine zentrale Funktion einnimmt, sowie zur Umsetzung integrationspolitischer Ziele im konkreten Bereich der Nutzung frühpädagogischer Angebote durch geflüchtete Familien. Es zeigt sich, dass freiwillig Engagierte zwar staatliche Akteuren ergänzen und damit maßgeblich zur Umsetzung integrationspolitischer Ziele beitragen. Gleichzeitig deutet dies aber auf strukturelle Hürden hin und wirft die Frage auf, inwieweit das freiwillige Engagement hier die Verantwortung für staatliche Aufgaben übernimmt. Dabei treten in der Zusammenarbeit zwischen zivilgesellschaftlichen und staatlichen Akteuren häufig Konflikte auf, welche auf divergierende Deutungen des Begriffs "Integration" und eine fehlende Ausdefinition konkreter sich aus den integrationspolitischen Zielen ableitender Bedarfe beruhen.
Considering the recent success of right-wing populist candidates and parties in the United States and across Europe, there has for some years now been talk among scholars (and the wider public) about a worldwide democratic recession. The younger generations appear to be especially unsupportive of democracy’s liberal principles and more willing to express support for authoritarian alternatives. What these authors overlook, however, is that the publics of advanced industrial societies have experienced an intergenerational value shift. In fact, populations in industrial democracies have become more liberal overall, but not everyone’s mindset is changing at the same speed. It is mainly – but not exclusively – the members of the lower classes that do not keep up. While societies have generally become more liberal, there is increasing alienation between the social classes over these liberal values. Drawing on a more recent trend in social class research with a social cognitive approach, this dissertation contributes to the study of growing anti-democratic tendencies around the world by analyzing the interplay between inequality dynamics and value orientations. The focus lies on investigating the effect socio-cultural polarization (i.e., ideological polarization between social classes) has on civic culture in the mature democracies of the West. The findings suggest that it is not ideological polarization between the social classes that has the greatest negative effect on civic culture, or general civic attitudes and behavior, for that matter. It is the increasing dissent in society about whether the country’s elites are still to be trusted with making the right decisions to increase the average citizen’s quality of life. This difference in opinion manifests itself in a decline in some civic attitudes.
As human rights evolved to become part of a dominant moral discourse in world politics, regional organisations (ROs) often portray themselves in the language of human rights. Facing growing contestation and politicisation, they have also gradually begun to legitimate their authority drawing on human rights. Yet not all ROs do so to the same extent, in the same manner, or consistently over time. This begs the question: why and how do ROs use human rights for self-legitimation? To answers this research question, I combine a macro analysis using qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) on 23 ROs from 1980 to 2019 with a micro analysis via process-tracing in two cases - Arab League (LoAS) and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). Ultimately, ROs use human rights in their legitimation because they strive for congruence. When norms, values, and moral principles purported and embodied by the RO are congruent with those of its core constituency and all relevant audiences, The researcher observes human rights legitimation. She argues that the degree of congruence combines with different degrees of delegitimation stemming from the distinct constellation of agents and audiences of legitimation. Shee circumscribes this via four types of human rights legitimisers. Testing existing theories on legitimacy, legitimation, and human rights, the QCA suggests that "Self-containing Legitimisers" are ROs with a status quo of congruence between the RO and its core constituency. "Signalling Legitimisers" irregularly use human rights legitimation as a signal to respond to additional audiences. Thanks to the case studies, the author further refines existing theory. CARICOM constitutes a case of a "Reviving Legitimisers" where delegitimation towards their core constituency occurs to which it reacts by reviving what it embodies which entails including human rights in its legitimation. With LoAS, the author observes a "Brokering Legitimisers" in which case delegitimation is on the verge of a legitimacy crisis, but its Secretary General manages to broker human rights to two diverging audiences thanks to localisation. Thus, this book provides an explanation of how a distinct norm is used in self-legitimation, nuances our understanding of agents and audiences of legitimation, and introduces the concept of localisation to the study of legitimation.
Who is taken into consideration when we talk about the citizens, about the people or the activists? Often it is a rather unquestioned privileged positionality, which is taken to be the standard that most of the time it is actually not. In this quote, the activist Madjiguène Cissé, from the transnational Sans-Papiers movement, raises that just because someone or something is not visible—to the broader public or a particular public—it does not mean that they have not been there for a long time. Migrant rights activism is not a new phenomenon but has intensified and become more networked and visible over the past years (Eggert & Giugni, 2015). This study explores group contexts of activism by, with and for refugees and migrants in Hamburg, the claims, interactions, challenges and processes that activists experience, discuss and deal with. I have approached activists experiencing political organizing in this context from a constructivist grounded theory perspective. This allowed me to develop conceptual perspectives grounded in activist groups’ realities and was advanced through existing literature on this social movement but also theories from other research fields. Solidarities emerged throughout the research process as a more concrete focus. This research sets out to answer the questions: What does solidarity mean in social movements, and how do migrant rights activist practices result in negotiating, enacting and challenging it?
This publication is a revised version of my dissertation thesis.