Contemporary political thought in Germany

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Tine Stein
• Subject Area: Political Science
• Term: from 2013 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 245510034

The research project aims at creating a study of the relevant contributions to contemporary political thought in Germany since 1990. The collected material shall then be discussed under specific considerations of the well-established distinction of political ideologies between Liberalism, Conservatism, Socialism (including Social-Democratic thought) and green political thought. "Political thought" in this context is understood as the sum of all textual statements addressing the public, which claim a certain level of theoretical consistency, reflection and analytical quality and focus on analyzing, criticizing and giving normative guidance to the general political institutions (polity), the processes (politics) and outcomes of politics (policy). The contributions to political thought are further understood as situated between political theories on the one hand and mere public programmatic statements on the other. The time frame in focus is a result of the insight that severe challenges have emerged since 1989/90, such as the erosion of nation-state power in the process of globalization, an increasing trend towards individualization in society and a growing need to further and reconcile ecological and economic goals. We regard books, essays and articles as relevant, which either exceed a certain level of public recognition and that at the same time stand out by advancing the established political ideologies by adapting them to new problems or that rather leave old paradigms behind and open up new directions in political thought. The spectrum of such texts ranges from Botho Strauss' "Anschwellender Bocksgesang" (1993) via Jürgen Habermas' "Die Zukunft der menschlichen Natur" (2001) to Tim Jackson's book "Wohlstand ohne Wachstum" (Prosperity without Growth, 2011). We will collect texts discussing relevant political thought in a multi-dimensional inquiry according to quantitative criteria (sales numbers), qualitative criteria (published lists), through surveys taken among experts and through reviewing of a selection of related journals. The process will reduce the texts to an amount that is accessible to an in-depth analysis that we will then focus on the main question regarding the future of tradition political ideologies. In this final part of the project, we will make three guiding assumptions: Some contributions to political thought are expected to strengthen the established ideologies by refining them while others might melt two or more to a conglomerate, while even others might not neatly fit into well-established categories but opening up new dimensions. The research community so far has not yet been engaged in doing such an undertaking: creating an extensive map (so to speak) of contemporary political thought since 1990 and asking the question of the future of the political ideologies in the process.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants