Sebastian M. Büttner

A ‘new spirit’ of public policy? The project world of EU funding

ABSTRACTStarting from the assumption that projects have become an important form of social organisation in contemporary working life, we examine the proliferation of ‘projects’ in public policy, especially in European Union (EU) policy-making. Project logic constitutes an influential element of policy implementation in Europe; and it substantially influences the way EU policies are implemented all over the EU territory and beyond. Drawing on sociological takes on public policy instrumentation, we discuss the emergence, the establishment and major cultural logics of project-based policy funding. We show that EU funding constitutes an own field of expertise, a distinct ‘project world’, so to speak, with specific standards, regulations, practical conventions and a particular rhetoric. This brings about an increasing expertisation of EU policy-making and certain exclusionary effects, despite all efforts to bring the Union closer to the citizens’ through project funding.

Professionalization in EU Policy-Making? The topology of the transnational field of EU affairs

ABSTRACT In this paper, we conceptualize EU policy-making as a vital field of professionalization and depict the emergence and various dimensions of an area of professional work nowadays labelled ‘EU Affairs’. Thus, we argue that the EU constitutes more than just a supranational layer of decision-making, but is at the same time a pertinent and influential producer of expert knowledge and sets the stage for the emergence of specialized job profiles, professional careers, and working contexts. While usually acting ‘in the shadow’ and ‘in the back doors’ of EU policy-making, specialized groups of professionals make use of recognized expert knowledge. Drawing on social field theory and current approaches to professionalism and professionalization, the paper scrutinizes the transnational scope of EU Affairs professionalism in a topological manner by distinguishing different arenas and types of professional involvement in EU Affairs. In this way, we aim to go beyond prevailing bureaucracy- and governance-centred views on EU policy-making, and establish a broader and more differentiated image of the people who actually deal with EU Affairs, ranging from the major locations of EU policy-making far into the EU member states and even beyond.

World Culture in European Memory Politics? New European Memory Agents Between Epistemic Framing and Political Agenda Setting

In this contribution, we focus on the efforts dedicated to creating a ‘European’ memory culture, particularly since EU enlargement in 2004. Based upon analytical premises of neo-institutionalist world society studies, we interpret memory politics as a project that is not only driven forward by political movements and policy-makers, but also by quasi-neutral epistemic agents of memory deliberately pursuing knowledge-based strategies of agenda setting. This has been an important dimension of memory politics in former debates, especially in debates over Holocaust memory. It is central as well in current discourses over memory in an enlarged European Union. Accordingly, we shed light on the activities of two new Central and Eastern European network organizations—the Platform of European Memory and Conscience and the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity—and their efforts of gaining legitimacy in European memory debates. By analysing their activities and rhetoric, we show that they use expert-oriented practices of epistemic framing in order to break up the Western European consensus over Holocaust memory towards broader ‘anti-totalitarian’ conceptions of European history. However, a comparison of both actors reveals important differences in their strategies oscillating between mere political agenda setting and scientific reflection.

The ‘World-Cultural’ Constitution of Regions: Sub-national Regional Mobilization from a World Society Perspective

Processes of regionalization are mainly conceived as bottom-up processes of political and economic mobilization—often even as counter-movements to alienating forces of globalization. In marked contrast to this conventional view, this paper argues that sub-national regions are constitutively shaped by and embedded in a wider social context. This external institutional context encourages the ‘reflexive resurgence’ and ‘staging’ of regional identities in terms of most contemporary notions of development, such as innovation, cohesion, competitiveness, sustainability, and so forth. Starting from a macro-phenomenological research perspective (in the tradition of the world society theory proposed by John W. Meyer and colleagues) this paper sketches six major analytical perspectives to account for the massive ‘world-cultural’ regional mobilization currently seen in Europe. It is emphasized that relatively universal (‘world-cultural’) models and practices of regional mobilization are crucial in determining the current shape of European regions. This has particularly been encouraged by the EU Cohesion Policy, which specifies, reinforces and accelerates the diffusion of highly rationalized models of regional development throughout EU territory.

Jugend und Europa

In diesem Beitrag werden zentrale Aspekte und Entwicklungslinien der europaischen Dimension von Kindheit und Jugend dargestellt. Ausgehend von der Feststellung einer bis heute bestehenden Vielfalt und Uneinheitlichkeit Europas, wirft der Beitrag zunachst einen entwicklungsgeschichtlichen Blick auf die Herausbildung dieser Lebensphase in Europa. Danach skizzieren wir aktuelle Probleme und Herausforderungen hinsichtlich der sozio-okonomischen Situation von Jugendlichen und jungen Erwachsenen und stellen abschliesend zentrale Akteure und politische Masnahmen im Bereich der europaischen Jugendpolitik dar.

Émile Durkheim: Über soziale Arbeitsteilung

Die im Jahr 1893 veroffentlichte Schrift Uber soziale Arbeitsteilung. Studie uber die Organisation hoherer Gesellschaften des franzosischen Soziologen und Moraltheoretikers Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) gilt bis heute nicht nur als einer der wichtigsten klassischen Texte der Soziologie, sondern auch als ein wichtiger klassischer Bezugspunkt der Wirtschaftssoziologie. Durkheim entfaltet in diesem Buch eine Forschungsperspektive, die sich explizit gegen die gesellschaftstheoretischen Grundannahmen der klassischen politischen Okonomie und die sozialtheoretischen Grundlagen der utilitaristischen Moralphilosophie richtet.

Regionen und Regionalismus

Der Begriff » Region « ist so tief in unserem alltaglichen Sprachgebrauch verwurzelt, dass er in der Regel unwillkurlich ganz konkrete Vorstellungen und Assoziationen hervorruft.