Local Politics Research in Germany: Developments and Characteristics in Comparative Perspective

2003 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-47
Author(s):  
Hubert Heinelt ◽  
Margit Mayer
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Working Group ◽  
Urban Politics ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Job Descriptions ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Core ◽  
Common Understanding ◽  
Science Association

This article summarizes the development and peculiarities of research in urban politics in Germany. It is focused on the working group on Local Politics Research (Arbeitskreis Lokale Politikforschung/LoPoFo) within the German Political Science Association as the core of the scholarly debate in this country for nearly 30 years. The article consists of three parts. Part one highlights the paradigms of local politics research in Germany and its main distinctions from other disciplinary approaches in analysing urban topics - not at least sociology. The second part gives an overview of the different thematic orientations of the discussion since the 1970s. This leads to the third part in which strengths and weaknesses of local politics research in Germany are compared with the situation in other countries (especially the Anglo-Saxon world). It can be perceived as a strength that local politics research has been in many respects a front-runner in the disciplinary debate of political science in Germany. This is the result of the fact that most scholars engaged in local politics research do not act as 'urbanists' but as 'generalists', looking for urban topics as tokens of more general phenomena. However, this aspect reflects also a crucial weakness. There is not continuity in the debate, and a common understanding of theories and methodologies of research in local politics is missing. Last but not least, weaknesses and strengths are expressed in the structures of German universities where local politics is not institutionalized through curricula or job descriptions, as in the Anglo-Saxon world.

Political Theorists

2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (02) ◽  
pp. 263-264
Author(s):  
Matthew J. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Graduate Training ◽  
American Political Science Association ◽  
The Core ◽  
Relative Value ◽  
American Political Science ◽  
Science Association

The question of the role of normative or historical political theory within the broader discipline of political science has been controversial at least since the founding of the American Political Science Association (see Gunnell 2006 for a brief overview). Perhaps it goes without saying that during that same period people who think of themselves as engaged in political theory have disagreed among themselves about the core concerns of the field, the appropriate kinds of graduate training, the relative value of various authors and texts, and, of course, about theory's role within political science.

Political Science and Political Philosophy

1951 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 1081-1085
Author(s):  
J. Roland Pennock
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Theoretical Study ◽  
American Political Science Association ◽  
Political Ethics ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Times ◽  
American Political Science ◽  
Scientific Treatment ◽  
Science Association

The dominant belief among both teachers and graduate students of political science seems to be that political theory constitutes the heart of their subject; yet political theory is not, in practice, the core of political science teaching. Such is the schizoid condition of political science and political scientists that is revealed by the investigations of the Committee for the Advancement of Teaching of the American Political Science Association. The hypothesis advanced in this note presents a dual reason for the unfortunate situation: it is partly that political theorists have failed to keep up with the times and have not engaged in sufficient value-free theoretical study of the raw data of politics, and partly that vast numbers of political scientists have falsely concluded that one of the most important parts of the traditional study of political theory—political ethics—is not susceptible of scientific treatment and should rigorously be eschewed.

On the Study of Government

1953 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 961-974 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pendleton Herring
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
The United States ◽  
Professional Group ◽  
American Political Science Association ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Successful Operation ◽  
The Core ◽  
Systematic Inquiry ◽  
American Political Science ◽  
Science Association

As the American Political Science Association nears the half century mark of its existence it seems appropriate to consider the broad significance of a professional group devoted to the study of government. Political science as a subject of systematic inquiry started with Aristotle but as a profession it has won its greatest recognition in the United States and within our generation. One fact is clear: no other country in the world today has so large, so well-trained, so competent a profession dedicated to the teaching and analysis of government.Whatever the current climate of opinion may be, these are the men and women who, from day to day in classroom and study, must explain in lectures and in writing the nature of political systems, foreign and domestic. This profession, which has flourished so greatly in the last fifty years, is now a part of our national strength: it is the core of that broad and continuing study of government and thoughtful concern with politics vital to the successful operation of free institutions. I want to tell you why I think the study of governmental matters and a wider understanding of political problems has a fresh urgency for us as a nation and the bearing this in turn has on the development of political science as a discipline.

The 1971 APSA Elections

1972 ◽  
Vol 5 (03) ◽  
pp. 278-291
Author(s):  
Bernard Grofman
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
American Political Science Association ◽  
Women Candidates ◽  
The Third ◽  
American Political Science ◽  
New Political Science ◽  
Science Association

For the third consecutive year there was a contest for offices of the American Political Science Association. The 1971 APSA election saw two groups fielding complete slates: the APSA nominating committee, and the Caucus for a New Political Science (overlapping in one Council nominee, Christian Bay) and two groups nominating or endorsing candidates, the Ad Hoc Committee and the Women's Caucus. The Ad Hoc Committee endorsements coincided with the nominations of the APSA nominating committee, while the ten Women's Caucus endorsements went to seven nominees endorsed by the New Caucus (three of whom were women) and four nominees of the APSA Nominating Committee (two of whom were women), the overlap being Christian Bay. (See Table 1).The 1971 Election had much in common with its predecessors. The principal differences shown in Table 2 are a continuing decline in voter turnout, a slow but continuing increase in the number of women candidates, and the entry of the Women's Caucus into the electoral lists.

Consent

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Krzywdzinski
Keyword(s):  
Production Systems ◽  
Employee Behavior ◽  
Labor Disputes ◽  
Performance Expectations ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Core ◽  
Core Requirements ◽  
High Level

This chapter deals with the dependent variable of the study: consent. It analyses workplace consent in Russia and China using three indicators that refer to the core requirements of the production systems in automotive companies regarding employee behavior: first, standardized work; and second, compliance with expectations in terms of flexibility, cooperation, and a commitment to improving processes. The third indicator of consent (or the lack of it) is the absence or presence of open criticism, resistance, and labor disputes. The chapter reveals significant and unexpected differences between the Chinese and Russian sites on all three indicators. While the Chinese factories exhibit (with some variance between the companies), a relatively high level of consent, the Russian plants have problems with standardized work, the acceptance of performance expectations, and to some extent with labor disputes.

Duoethnography: A Polytheoretical Approach to (Re)Storing, (Re)Storying the Meanings That One Gives

2020 ◽  
pp. 396-423
Author(s):  
John Joseph Norris ◽  
Richard D. Sawyer
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Third Space ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Core ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Core Elements ◽  
Feminist Inquiry

This chapter summarizes the advancement of duoethnography throughout its fifteen-year history, employing examples from a variety of topics in education and social justice to provide a wide range of approaches that one may take when conducting a duoethnography. A checklist articulates what its cofounders consider the core elements of duoethnographies, additional features that may or may not be employed and how some studies purporting to be duoethnographies may not be so. The chapter indicates connections between duoethnography and a number of methodological concepts including the third space, the problematics of representation, feminist inquiry, and critical theory using published examples by several duoethnographers.

scholarly journals Costa, cancer and coronavirus: contractualism as a guide to the ethics of lockdown

2021 ◽  
pp. medethics-2020-107103
Author(s):  
Stephen David John ◽  
Emma J Curran
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theory ◽  
Cost Benefit Analysis ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
Benefit Analysis ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Core ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Moral Distinction ◽  
Self Defence

Lockdown measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic involve placing huge burdens on some members of society for the sake of benefiting other members of society. How should we decide when these policies are permissible? Many writers propose we should address this question using cost-benefit analysis (CBA), a broadly consequentialist approach. We argue for an alternative non-consequentialist approach, grounded in contractualist moral theorising. The first section sets up key issues in the ethics of lockdown, and sketches the apparent appeal of addressing these problems in a CBA frame. The second section argues that CBA fundamentally distorts the normative landscape in two ways: first, in principle, it allows very many morally trivial preferences—say, for a coffee—might outweigh morally weighty life-and-death concerns; second, it is insensitive to the core moral distinction between victims and vectors of disease. The third section sketches our non-consequentialist alternative, grounded in Thomas Scanlon’s contractualist moral theory. On this account, the ethics of self-defence implies a strong default presumption in favour of a highly restrictive, universal lockdown policy: we then ask whether there are alternatives to such a policy which are justifiable to all affected parties, paying particular attention to the complaints of those most burdened by policy. In the fourth section, we defend our contractualist approach against the charge that it is impractical or counterintuitive, noting that actual CBAs face similar, or worse, challenges.

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