In recent years, there has been a pronounced (re-)turn to questions of ontology, matter, and realism in the humanities and social sciences. What all these theoretical formations have in common is their profound challenge to human exceptionalism. Taken together, these approaches have productively been described as constituting a “nonhuman turn.” This article is a theoretical exploration of the relationship between the intellectual and political practice of Cultural Studies on the one hand and the nonhuman turn on the other. For this purpose, it brings both “into encounter” (Donna Haraway), investigating points of affinity, tension, and compatibility. The essay argues that such a theoretical encounter could prove to be tremendously fruitful, both intellectually and politically, and that Cultural Studies should thus take a genuine interest in these new approaches, engage with them, put them to the test, and, when needed, “translate” and “re-articulate” them. The result could be a Cultural Studies for the Anthropocene which would have a lot to contribute to the critical (cultural/political/social/economic) struggles being fought today.

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Fat Studies beschäftigen sich mit hohem Körpergewicht, ohne es auf die Wahrnehmung als Gesundheitsgefahr zu reduzieren. Sie fokussieren auf den gesellschaftlichen Umgang mit ›Übergewicht‹ als Ordnungs- und Herrschaftskategorie und analysieren, wie dicke Körper normiert und pathologisiert werden. International bereits weit entwickelt, sind die Fat Studies im deutschsprachigen Raum noch kaum bekannt. Die multidisziplinären und internationalen Beiträger*innen des Glossars präsentieren erstmals eine breite Palette zentraler Begriffe dieser jungen Disziplin: von A wie Aktivismus über I wie Intersektionalität bis Z wie Zucker.

Das Wechselmodell gehört in Deutschland zu denjenigen Betreuungsmodellen, die als Alternative zum traditionellen Residenzmodell diskutiert werden. Während das Wechselmodell in anderen Ländern bereits rechtlich abgesichert wurde als zu präferierendes Modell nach der Trennung von Eltern, konnte sich Deutschland bislang dazu nicht durchringen. Die Diskussion über das Wechselmodell ist in Deutschland emotional stark aufgeladen und geprägt von den unterschiedlichen Interessen der Lobbyverbände getrenntlebender Väter und Mütter. Um eine Diskussion über elterliche Nachtrennungsfamilien objektiv führen zu können, braucht es deswegen empirisches Datenmaterial. Die vorliegende Studie analysiert die Perspektiven von betroffenen Müttern, Vätern und Kindern auf das Wechselmodell. / Shared parenting as a model of joint custody after divorce or separation has been internationally discussed as a new form of family live for several years now. Whereas other countries have already legally fixed shared parenting as normative model, the German family policy and jurisdiction seems to be still dominated by the traditional residential custody. Moreover, the model of shared parenting has raised controversial discussions of different lobby groups in Germany. The presented study examines the perceptions of parents and children practicing shared parenting in Germany. It especially analyzes the different perceptions of fathers and mothers towards shared parenting and gives emphasize to the well-being of teenagers being raised in shared parenting models.

In many Western societies, support for policies concerning the secularization of the public sphere or the state often seems to be driven by secularized majority populations considered to be largely homogeneous. In this article, by contrast, I draw on the case of the Canadian province of Quebec to show that, as a fundamental element of conflicts over secularism, secularist activism emerges from particular generational dynamics, especially those of the so-called ‘baby boomers’. My main argument is that while the baby boomers’ collective experiences have shaped their secularist outlook, there are a variety of biographical trajectories and engagements with spirituality that the public image of this generation tends to hide. The article is based on biographical and ethnographic research carried out between 2012 and 2018.

Innovation and entrepreneurship are buzzwords that fit any policy discussion on economic development. In this sense, innovation is not only a category of analysis employed by (social) scientists to circumscribe a defined set of economic practices for analytical purposes. Innovation is simultaneously a category of practice employed by practitioners and academics with their own, sometimes concealed, political agendas. Providing a situated sketch for a socio-spatially more attuned definition of innovation as a category of analysis, the article primarily asks what kind of innovation practices are imagined and / or enacted by both academic and policy circles. Thus, the article aims at scrutinizing the politics involved in thinking, doing, and relating innovation in the context of Armenia’s and Georgia’s quest for viable economic trajectories. We assess the legal and organizational framework in both countries and funding patterns of Georgia’s Innovation and Technology Agency (GITA) and Armenia’s Enterprise Incubator Foundation (EIF). Locational analysis of grant holders suggests company concentration within metropolitan areas of Tbilisi and Yerevan. Analysis of selection criteria of funding program allows for the assertion that a developmentalist project is advanced. Rather than reifying the actors’ language of innovation, we wish to highlight that current imaginations and practices of innovation are analytically better understood through the concept of “internationalized developmentalist agglomeration project”.

Das Working-Paper argumentiert für einen intensiveren Einbezug der Wechselwirkung von materieller Infrastruktur und sozialen Praktiken bei der Erforschung von Verräumlichungsprozessen während des sogenannten Kalten Krieges. Hierfür wird das Raumformat des „Sicherheitsraumes“ näher beleuchtet. Dieser entstand vor dem Hintergrund des durch die Systemkonkurrenz gesellschaftlich empfundenen Bedrohungsszenarios und die politisch initiierte Implementierung neuer Infrastrukturen entlang der neuen ideologischen und territorialen Grenze. Als Variante des Sicherheitsraumes wird anhand der Beispiele des innerdeutschen Grenzraumes und des privat organisierten Paketverkehrs zwischen der BRD und Polen zudem das Konzept des „Fließraumes“ diskutiert. Letzterer hebt auf die Etablierung gesicherter Verbindungen und Anschlüsse innerhalb des eher statischen – weil auf territoriale Begrenzungen bezogenen – Sicherheitsraumes ab. Obwohl Europa und insbesondere Deutschland während der weltpolitischen Spannungslage nach dem Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges als besonders stark von Grenzen geprägt erschien, muss der „Eiserne Vorhang“ daher unter den Bedingungen der Globalisierung als eine letztlich anachronistische und in historischer Perspektive auch erfolglose Bemühung verstanden werden, der fortschreitenden räumlichen und ideologischen Verflechtung politischer Systeme entgegen zu wirken. / This working paper argues for a more intensive consideration of the interaction of material infrastructure and social practices in the study of spatialisation processes during the so-called Cold War. For this purpose, the spatial format of “Sicherheitsraum” (security space) is examined in more detail. It emerged against the backdrop of the context of a socially perceived threat scenario caused by system competition and the politically initiated implementation of new infrastructures along the new territorial border. As a variant of the security space, the concept of the “Fließräume” (spaces of flow) is also discussed using the examples of the inner-German border space and the privately organised parcel traffic between the FRG and Poland. The spaces of flow concept emphasises the establishment of secure connections and links within the rather static (because related to territorial boundaries) security space. Although Europe, and Germany in particular, seemed to have been particularly marked by borders during the world-political tensions after the end of the Second World War, the “Iron Curtain” must therefore be understood under the conditions of globalisation as an ultimately anachronistic and (in historical perspective) unsuccessful effort to counteract the progressive spatial and ideological entanglement of political systems.

Until now, tracing the genealogical lines of EEC/EU Antibiotic Resistance policy has been a gap in social science research that has focused on the policies of individual countries. This Working Paper raises the question how Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) has developed as an epistemic object in terms of biopolitical and spatial regulatory design of EEC/EU. It also asks what cultural ideas and imaginations have been associated with antibiotics since their introduction. To this end, a historical discourse analysis was conducted combining the perspectives of human geography and historical sociology. First cases of resistance occurred at short intervals with the introduction of new antibiotics in both human and veterinary medicine, and the discovery of the mechanism of horizontal gene transfer attracted global attention in the 1960s. Nevertheless, the belief in the need for an expansionary mode of production outweighed scientific doubt and the longer-term health of the population, so that regulatory interventions were more appearance than substance. Only in the wake of the geopolitical rise of the EU and BRICS countries and new ‘pandemic risks’, a general turn to security dispositif and neoliberal-individualist governmentality rearranged the coordinates of AMR policy to some extent. The interpretation of our present as a “multi-crisis”, which has become increasingly established in the “West” in the wake of climate crisis and Covid19, is apparently contributing to an increasing assessment of AMR as an unintended side-effect of an expansionary economy and lifestyle, with no regulatory responses to date that address systemic causes rather than suggesting a fiction of control.

Am 25. April 2015 fand am Leipziger Sitz der Rosa-Luxemburg- Stiftung Sachsen das Kolloquium „Welcher Kapitalismus, welche Krise? Finanzmarktkapitalismus in der Diskussion“ statt. Anlass war der seit geraumer Zeit nicht nur unter linksorientierten Sozialwissenschaftlern geführte Disput über eine angemessene Charakterisierung des gegenwärtigen Kapitalismus und seiner Entwicklungsperspektiven. Dabei geht es um die Frage, in welchem Kapitalismus wir leben: Finanz- oder Finanzmarktkapitalismus, Staatsmonopolistischer Kapitalismus, Neoliberaler Kapitalismus, Post-Fordismus? Sind das überhaupt sich gegenseitig ausschließende Charakterisierungen? War die jüngste Weltwirtschaftskrise Schlusspunkt des bisherigen und Auftakt eines neuen Akkumulationsregimes oder gar – wie manche meinen – einer neuen, womöglich der allerletzten Entwicklungsphase des Kapitalismus? Was war oder ist das überhaupt für eine Krise? Welche Rolle spielt in diesem Zusammenhang das Verhältnis von Finanzsphäre und sogenannter Realsphäre? Die Antworten auf diese Fragen scheinen den Veranstaltern auch deshalb so wichtig, weil strategisch bedeutsame politische Entscheidungen des linken Spektrums auch davon beeinflusst werden, wie diese Fragen beantwortet werden. Als Referenten traten Wissenschaftler auf, die diesen Diskurs in jüngster Zeit mit ihren Publikationen bereichert haben: Joachim Bischoff, Wolfgang Krumbein, Günther Sandleben und Michael Wendl. Jürgen Leibiger hatte mit einer Rezension zu Krumbein Stellung bezogen. Die Konferenz-Beiträge – Michael Wendl konnte krankheitsbedingt nicht teilnehmen und reichte den geplanten Beitrag schriftlich nach – zeigten, wie kontrovers diese Diskussion auch unter Linken und sich auf Marx beziehenden Wissenschaftlern geführt wird. Neben bloßen Missverständnissen gibt es – wie es den Herausgebern scheint - auch konstruierte Gegensätze und Unterstellungen. Die Herausgeber selbst teilen manche der hier vertretenen Auffassung nicht, enthalten sich jedoch jeglicher Kommentierung. Theoretische Gegensätze wurden auch in der von Dieter Janke geleiteten, durchweg kameradschaftlich geführten abschließenden Podiumsdiskussion deutlich, an der sich die etwa dreißig Teilnehmer des Kolloquiums mit Anfragen und Meinungsäußerungen rege beteiligten. Obwohl darauf nicht Bezug genommen wurde, erinnerten manche Fragestellungen an eine schon den 1980er Jahren geführte Diskussion. Die Weltwirtschaftskrise von 1974/1975 mündete damals in einer Wende in Richtung der neoliberalen Kapitalstrategie. Auch damals wurde über den Zusammenhang von Real- und Finanzsphäre und einer vermeintlichen Abkopplung der letzteren gestritten. Auch damals ging es um die Frage einer strukturellen, überzyklischen Überakkumulation, um „lange Wellen“ der Konjunktur und die mögliche Perspektive einer Stagnation. Und auch damals wurde heftig um die richtige Kennzeichnung des zeitgenössischen Kapitalismus gestritten. So gesehen handelte es sich bei diesem Kolloquium um die Fortführung eines alten Diskurses, der noch lange nicht beendet ist. Die sächsische Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung stellt die Diskussionsbeiträge dem interessierten Publikum mit dem Hinweis auf eine Fortsetzung im Jahr 2016 zur Verfügung.

This dissertation offers insights into the use of ideas in policies designed to address uneven territorial development in regions outside metropolitan areas in the European Union (EU). The focus is on integrated territorial development policies which draw on the notion of territorial cohesion in two different national contexts within the EU: Germany and Romania. The theoretical background of the thesis traces how territorial disparities are addressed in key theoretical paradigms which have influenced regional development thinking. Integrated territorial development is singled out as a key policy approach designed to overcome development disparities by tapping into underutilised endogenous assets and knowledge as part of a cross-sectoral vision within a defined space (be it an urban, rural, or regional context). Forward-thinking as this approach strives to be, it faces fundamental challenges in places which have been grappling with a rise of economic, social, and political disparities for many years. Understanding these processes through the relational concept of peripheralisation steers research towards engaging with people’s perceptions of spatial disparities and policies designed to address them. The conceptual framework of the thesis is designed around principles which enable an interpretive analysis of public policy. This mode of inquiry is based on an anti-foudnationalist ontology and a constructivist epistemology. The cornerstone of this approach is understanding policy actions as indeterminate, prone to unintended consequences, and fundamentally shaped by the backtalk of the complex social system it seeks to influence. Policy-making and implementing is hence viewed as a setting in which disparate and contingent beliefs and actions of individuals come together to shape a temporarily concerted course of actions. Different types of policy ideas (in many cases belonging to different schools of thought) hence come together in a process of policy framing where policy substance, actors’ identities and relationships, and the policy process are shaped. To operationalise this framework, the methodological design of this research follows an abductive mode of scientific inquiry which pursues an iterative engagement with the field and the theory. The empirical research is designed around two case study regions – the Chemnitz Region in The Free State of Saxony (one of Germany’s 16 federal states) and the North-West Region in Romania. The rationale behind the selection of the case studies was to choose regions in starkly different policy contexts, yet which are as similar as possible in terms of their socio-economic development trajectories. The study analyses three policy instruments: integrated urban development funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), integrated rural development funded through the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and regional development planning initiatives. The primary data stems from 43 semi-structured expert interviews conducted with 46 policy practitioners and experts. Policy documents, local and regional strategies, and statistics have served as a source of secondary data. The analytical approach draws on principles of grounded theory for inductively developing theoretical categories and establishing causal explanations in the form of mid-level, provisional theories. The first block of the analysis engages with the substance of integrated territorial development policies and strategies, showcasing different interpretations of territorial cohesion in national contexts. Governments in both contexts view territorial cohesion as a means of strengthening the governance and coordination of policies, with a focus on local development conditions. Nonetheless, little emphasis is put on the competitive polycentric development approach, balanced development, and the environmental dimensions. In both studied contexts, polarised development is grasped as an inevitable approach for overcoming broad regional structural weaknesses. The second analytical block engages with policy processes which underpin the implementation of integrated territorial development strategies. This serves to highlight the settings in which policy-relevant actors apply the integrated instruments available to them. The analysis centres on the separation of urban from rural development, the ownership of the goals pursued through integrated development and the ensuing impact on actors’ motivation to engage with complex policy procedures, and the role of experts in guiding policy beneficiaries The final block of the analysis touches on the problematisation of peripheralisation in relation to integrated development instruments in four domains: demographic change, structural economic shifts, infrastructures and services of general interest, and place identity and marketing. These domains are not tied to any specific policies, but have rather emerged as salient in the inductive analysis. The research concludes with a number of open questions and suggestions for policy makers. A key observation is that the notion of territorial cohesion itself tends to bring little value added to policy programmes, as many topics are already addressed in bespoke national normative concepts and policy programmes. Far from being an end-state, territorial cohesion comes across as a process which is shaped by contrasting perceptions on competitive and balanced development; by centralised and devolved modes of governance; by functional territorial planning or network-based development windows of opportunity. The added value of policies which draw on territorial cohesion to address territorial disparities may lay in bringing the perspective of peripheralised policy communities to the forefront of the debate and enabling innovative forms of cooperation.:Preface and acknowledgments – iii Table of contents – vii List of figures and tables – xi Abbreviations – xv Introduction – 1 PART I: THEORETICAL, CONCEPTUAL, AND METHODOLOGICAL GROUNDS 1. Theoretical insights into territorial cohesion and disparities in the EU – 15 1.1. Key shifts in regional development policy thinking – 15 1.1.1. The neoliberalisation of regional and local development – 16 1.1.2. The neoliberalising logic of strategic spatial planning – 23 1.1.3. New approaches towards development policies – 24 1.2. Normative and policy dimensions of territorial cohesion – 26 1.2.1. Establishing European planning concepts – 27 1.2.2. Dimensions of territorial cohesion and its integrative role – 30 1.3. Towards a relational understanding of territorial disparities – 36 1.3.1. Understanding territorial disparities through peripheralisation – 36 1.3.2. Ideational dependency in development policies – 39 1.4. Territorial cohesion and peripheralisation: research perspectives – 40 2. Conceptual framework – 43 2.1. Policy analysis: a constructivist perspective – 44 2.1.1. The case for an anti-foundationalist ontology of public policy – 45 2.1.2. Policy analysis in an interpretive epistemology – 49 2.2. Understanding the role of prominent policy ideas – 52 2.2.1. Decentering political science – 53 2.2.2. Prominent policy ideas: an interpretive perspective – 54 2.3. Reflexive agency in public policy – 56 2.3.1. Putting travelling ideas to use in policy design processes – 56 2.3.2. Policy frames and policy framing – 61 2.4. Guiding principles – 64 3. Methodology – 67 3.1. Interpretive analysis in spatial policy research – 68 3.2. Research design – 72 3.2.1. Key principles – 72 3.2.2. Comparing two case studies – 75 3.2.3. Generating theory: principles and quality criteria – 79 3.3. Methods – 85 3.3.1. Qualitative interviewing – 85 3.3.2. Policy and document analysis – 90 3.4. Case and respondent selection – 91 3.4.1. Selecting regions in Germany and Romania – 91 3.4.2. Selecting respondents – 95 PART II: CONTEXT 4. The administrative context of integrated territorial development policies – 105 4.1. The ESI funds and the Cohesion Policy: a brief overview – 106 4.1.1. The key aims of the ESI funds – 107 4.1.2. EU priorities for the Cohesion Policy – 108 4.1.3. Integrated territorial development – 110 4.2. Planning and regional development in Saxony and Romania – 112 4.2.1. Saxony – 113 4.2.2. Romania – 114 4.3. Policy instruments for integrated territorial development – 115 4.3.1. Saxony – 115 4.3.2. Romania – 120 4.4. Policy directions – 125 5. Territorial structures of, and development trends in the studied regions – 127 5.1. Territorial structures – 127 5.1.1. The Chemnitz region in Saxony – 127 5.1.2. The North-West region in Romania – 130 5.2. Population and demography – 133 5.3. Transport infrastructure – 135 5.4. Economic profiles – 139 5.4.1. Employment concentration – 139 5.4.2. Commuting – 142 5.4.3. Economic sectors - 142 PART III: EMPIRICAL FINDINGS 6. The substance of integrated territorial development policies and strategies – 149 6.1. Normative positions on territorial cohesion – 149 6.1.1. Normative Positions – 150 6.1.2. Linking the storylines – 152 6.1.3. Key remarks – 153 6.2. The substance of governmental policies – 155 6.2.1. Categorising space: the inevitability of polarised development – 157 6.2.2. The role of integrated territorial development policies – 163 6.3. The substance of local and regional strategies – 169 6.3.1. Integrated Rural Development Plans – 169 6.3.2. Integrated Urban Development Plans – 174 7. Ideas in action: making sense of integrated territorial development – 189 7.1.Practical constraints and affordances of using integrated instruments – 189 7.1.1. The urban-rural split in ESI-funded instruments – 189 7.1.2. Centralising the ownership of European goals – 196 7.2. The role of experts in framing integrated responses – 203 7.2.1. Experts’ roles beyond bureaucracies – 204 7.2.2. Attuning expertise to local conditions – 204 7.2.3. Conveying expertise at a regional level and beyond – 208 7.3. From ideas to action – 210 7.3.1. Fostering motivation – 210 7.3.2. Eroding trust through complex bureaucracies – 215 8. Problematising integrated development: a local-regional perspective – 219 8.1. Demographic change – 219 8.2. Structural economic shifts – 225 8.2.1. Regional economies in transition – 226 8.2.2. Towards competitive territories – 231 8.3. Infrastructures and public services – 235 8.3.1. In-between adaptation and expansion – 236 8.3.2. Key remarks – 240 8.4. Place identity and marketing – 240 8.5. From problems to perceptions of cumulative disadvantages – 247 PART IV: CONCLUSIONS 9. Conclusions and implications – 255 9.1. Summary of the research approach. Key findings – 255 9.1.1. Research approach and theoretical anchors – 255 9.1.2 Policy ideas and their role in policy framing 258 9.2. Reflections and implications – 264 9.2.1. Methodological reflections – 265 9.2.2. Policy implications – 266 9.2.3. Perspectives for further research – 269 References – 271 APPENDICES Appendix 1: Analysed policy documents – 301 Appendix 2: Analysed strategies – 303 Appendix 3: Details about the interviews – 305 Appendix 4: List of original quotes – 311