SPS Articles
https://hdl.handle.net/1814/1944
2024-03-28T22:53:23ZManaging constraint : frugal opposition to European fiscal solidarity
https://hdl.handle.net/1814/76734
Managing constraint : frugal opposition to European fiscal solidarity
BOKHORST, David Jonas; SCHOELLER, Magnus G.
The management of the COVID-19 crisis and, in particular, the Next Generation EU fund have shown that European leaders can find integrationist policy solutions despite increasing politicisation at home where democratic constraints may lead to a feared ‘multilevel politics trap’. Therefore, we ask whether and how national governments can manage such constraints and thus spring or avoid the trap. Theoretically, we argue that the agency of governments is a crucial factor for understanding the varying dynamics of politicisation in regional integration, as governments can raise or lower domestic audience costs by strategically interacting with their parliament or media. Empirically, we probe the plausibility of our theoretical propositions by examining constraint management and position-taking in Austria and the Netherlands in the context of European fiscal solidarity. Our results show that there is no inevitably self-reinforcing multilevel politics trap but that the effects of domestic constraint are, to a considerable extent, contingent on the agency of national governments.
Published online: 24 March 2024
2024-01-01T00:00:00ZBrutality on display : media coverage and the spectacle of anti-LGBTQ violence in the Colombian Civil War
https://hdl.handle.net/1814/76724
Brutality on display : media coverage and the spectacle of anti-LGBTQ violence in the Colombian Civil War
RITHOLTZ, Samuel Max
During the Colombian Civil War, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people were targeted by armed actors for reasons related to ideology and strategy. Even with the generalised violence in Colombia during this time, there was significant public interest in this specific form of violence, as evidenced by its tabloid coverage. The nation’s main tabloid – El Espacio – covered this violence against LGBTQ people in graphic detail. Twenty years of coverage (1985–2005) includes a range of gory graphics and horrific headlines that show the pain of a persecuted community in a highly violent context. In this article, I focus on this media coverage of anti-LGBTQ violence, notable for its brutality and prejudice, to argue that its spectacle built on a stigma that reinforced the cleavage of its victims from the body politic through a legitimation of the violence. In doing so, the coverage of this violence became a weapon of war that depoliticised the subordination of an entire population in a society beset by an internal armed conflict.
Published online: 11 March 2024
2024-01-01T00:00:00ZDie große Transformation : zum Verhältnis von (Sozial-)Wissenschaft, Politik und Gesellschaft
https://hdl.handle.net/1814/76706
Die große Transformation : zum Verhältnis von (Sozial-)Wissenschaft, Politik und Gesellschaft
KÜBLER, Lukas; NANZ, Patrizia
Das Leitbild einer sozialökologischen Transformation hat angesichts tiefgreifender Krisen planetaren Ausmaßes (Biodiversitätsverlust, Klimakrise) stark an Bedeutung gewonnen. In letzter Zeit wurden daher auch die Desiderate sozialwissen schaftlicher Transformationsforschung stärker konturiert. Wir reflektieren, welche Rolle die Sozial- und Geisteswissenschaften im Zusammenspiel mit anderen gesellschaftlichen Sektoren für eine demokratische Gestaltung der Transformation spielen und skizzieren anhand von drei Beispielen, welche neuen methodischen und institutionellen Ansätze verfolgt werden könnten.; Social-ecological transformation has become an important concept in the face of profound planetary crises (loss of biodiversity, climate crisis). Recently, the needs for social scientific transformation research have become more clearly defined. We reflect on the role of the social sciences and the humanities in democratically shaping social transformation in interaction with other sectors of society. Finally, we sketch three examples that illustrate the kind of new methodological and institutional approaches to be pursued.
2024-01-01T00:00:00ZLegitimate governance in international politics : towards a relational theory of legitimation
https://hdl.handle.net/1814/76698
Legitimate governance in international politics : towards a relational theory of legitimation
MINATTI, Wolfgang
How do governing actors in international politics become legitimised? Current approaches to the study of legitimation do not fully account for the complexities of governance in contemporary international and global politics because they pre-specify ‘sources’ of legitimacy and treat change in audience expectations towards rightful rule as exogenous to legitimation processes. Instead, this article synthesises existing models of legitimation with relational theory to argue that constellations of institutional complexities necessitate an analytical focus on audiences and their expectations as embedded in governance networks. It then provides a relational theory of legitimation, emphasising the mechanisms undergirding legitimation: legitimation should be conceptualised as a process of congruence-finding between actors’ normative expectations. A governance relation might be influenced towards greater or lesser congruence via several mechanisms working at the level of the relation and the wider network, with more congruence giving rise to stabler governance practices. In this way, the theory builds upon legitimation scholarship by developing pathways to investigate legitimation across the varied contexts of international politics: it avoids a normative background theory of legitimacy sources and provides an improved framework for understanding change in the legitimacy of institutions over time by considering endogenous mechanisms of legitimation.
Published online: 08 March 2024
2024-01-01T00:00:00Z