Social Democratic Party Of Germany Research Articles

преступлеЕВРОПЕЙСКАЯ ПОЛИТИКА АВСТРИИ И ГЕРМАНИИ: МЕЖДУ ПРАГМАТИЗМОМ И ПРАВЫМ ПОПУЛИЗМОМ

The article deals with problems of integration of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) and the “Alternative for Germany” Party (AfD) into the European system of parliamentarism and state governance. The analysis of the FPO participation in the Austrian government and of the AfD in Bundestag makes it possible to determine the degree of influence enjoyed by the right-wing populist parties on the policy in the fields of migration, security, EU defence as well as relations with Russia. The author has arrived at the conclusion that alliances between the conservatives and social democrats both in Austria and Germany are polarizing society, facilitate the strengthening of right-wing populists and the establishment of new nationalist-type parties. Particular attention is paid to the attempts taken by the right-wing populists in Austria and Germany to make an image of respectable parties with a pragmatic approach to the solution of topical problems. In so doing, public opinion is dangerously getting used to the incorporation of the right-wing populists in the traditional European system of governance. During the time preceding the 2019 elections to the European Parliament, the democratic parties stand a chance to mobilize the intellectual potential and human resources in order to counteract the right-wing forces. At the same time, the unpredictable character of the present international situation narrows down the potentialities for having a verified forecast of the consequences of confrontation between the pragmatism of traditional parties and their right-wing opponents. Moscow has been displaying a pragmatic approach to cooperation with the government of Austria, just like Berlin is appraising the work by the ministers of Chancellor S. Kurz on concrete issues. The experience of the AfD must not give illusions concerning its generally benign attitude to Russia. Parties in Germany, except the Left Party and a section of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, have supplied a different interpretation even to W. Brandt’s “Eastern” policy by asserting claims to Moscow.&nbsp

Karl Marx

Marx died on March 14, 1883. Exactly twenty years later, on March 14, 1903, Rosa Luxemburg’s reflections on Karl Marx were published in German in Vorwärts, the newspaper of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. tripleC publishes an English translation of Luxemburg’s essay on the occasion of Marx’s bicentenary. Christian Fuchs’ postface “Karl Marx and Rosa Luxemburg” asks the question of how we can make sense of Rosa Luxemburg’s reading of Marx in 2018. Source of the German original: Luxemburg, Rosa. 1903. Karl Marx. Vorwärts 62: 1-2.

“A Clean Break”: Clara Zetkin, the Socialist Women’s Movement, and Feminism

ABSTRACTThe movement of proletarian women of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, and by extension of the Second International (1889–1914), was structured by Clara Zetkin around the principle of a “clean break” between the women of the exploiting and exploited classes, which laid the programmatic foundations for the development of a mass movement of socialist working women that eventually grew to have 174,754 members in 1914. This movement, whose central axis was the magazine Die Gleichheit edited by Zetkin, had as its central organizational proposition the idea that Marxism, as a working-class political tendency, and feminism, as a multi-class movement, were incompatible, and that therefore working-class women had to have their own organizations within socialist parties which also included working-class men. The International Socialist Women’s Movement, which celebrated its first conference in Stuttgart in 1907 and adopted universal female suffrage as its central transitional slogan, was responsible for the proclamation of International Women’s Day by the Second International Socialist Women’s Conference held in Copenhagen in 1910. The Russian Revolution started with demonstrations organized by the working women of Petrograd to celebrate International Women’s Day. The article closes with a brief assessment of the legacy of the proletarian women’s movements.

The potential of online sampling for studying political activists around the world and across time

Parties and social movements play an important role in many theories of political science. Yet, the study of intraparty politics remains underdeveloped as random samples are difficult to conduct among political activists. This paper proposes a novel procedure to sample different parties over time and space by utilizing the advertising option of the social media webpage Facebook. As this method allows for quotas and the collection of large samples at relatively low cost, it becomes possible to improve the representativeness through poststratification and subsample robustness checks. Three examples illustrate these advantages of Facebook sampling: First, a Facebook sample approximated intraparty decisions and the outcome of a leadership contest of the Alternative for Germany. Second, a weighted Facebook sample achieved similar estimates as a representative local leader survey of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. Third, by evaluating subgroups of key demographics for parties with unknown population parameters, two Facebook samples show that the color-coded conflict in Thailand was driven by different concepts of regime type, but not by a left–right divide on economic policy-making. Facebook sampling appears to be the best and cheapest method to conduct time-series cross-sectional studies for political activists.

Rudolf Hilferding on English Mercantilism

In 1911 Rudolf Hilferding, the author of the famous book Finance Capital: A Study of the Latest Phase of Capitalist Development, published an article on the history of English mercantilism in Die neue Zeit, the theoretical organ of the Social Democratic Party of Germany edited by Karl Kautsky. The writing of the article was motivated by the publication, the previous year, of the third volume of Theories of Surplus-Value, containing Marx's analysis of the work of Richard Jones, as well as by the simultaneous appearance of a German edition of Thomas Mun's England's Treasure by Forraign Trade. This article introduces the present author's English translation of Hilferding's article on mercantilism, titled “The Early Days of English Political Economy,” previously available only in German, and contextualizes it in the framework of the history of Marxist scholarship.

Intra-party democracy beyond aggregation

Contemporary scholarship on intra-party democracy pays a great deal of attention to aggregative procedures like primaries or membership ballots but widely ignores deliberative procedures within parties. This article begins by highlighting why scholars should care about deliberation within parties, discussing several functions intra-party deliberation is said to serve in the democratic theory literature. It then goes on to explore the deliberative credentials of political discussion between party members, drawing on group interviews with party members in two Social Democratic parties in Germany and Austria. Two issues are investigated: the preconditions for deliberation among party members and their justificatory patterns. The results of the analysis suggest that parties can be genuine vehicles of deliberation, and thus point towards a research programme on intra-party democracy that differs quite starkly from that which prevails.

Of Uranium and Carbon: Divergence of Energy Policy in Germany and France

After the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident, Chancellor Merkel of Germany announced a complete nuclear phase-out in Germany by 2022, while President Hollande of France assured the French government of his commitment to nuclear energy. Fossil fuels, notably lignite and coal, dominated the German energy sector with 47.9% market share of total energy production in Germany; nuclear energy is the leading energy source in France with a market share of 80.9% in 2013. The difference between natural resources’ abundance in Germany and France shaped the development of energy policy in both countries. Huge lignite and coal reserves in Germany continued to sustain Germany’s growing economy, while France, lacking fossil fuel deposits, pursued nuclear energy to gain economic and energy independence after the 1973 oil crisis. Anti-nuclear movement in Germany succeeded in mass mobilization and gained major political representation in both federal and state governments through the Green Party and Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). The French anti-nuclear movement faced a strong centralized French government and failed to gain public support, and political isolation prevented any influence on French energy policy.

Barrierefreie Kommunikation als Voraussetzung und Mittel für die Partizipation benachteiligter Gruppen – Ein (polito-)linguistischer Blick auf Probleme und Potenziale von "Leichter" und "einfacher Sprache"

"Leichte Sprache" as the equivalent concept to Easy-to-read and a form of accessible communi-cation has been established in the German-speaking countries since the early 2000s. It is ad-dressed to people with learning disabilities and other groups with difficulties in reading and understanding (simple and complex) written text. In 2009 the German government ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and thereby committed itself to provid-ing accessible information and communication. However, the concept's scientific exploration is still in its early stages. The existing lists of linguistic features and design rules were devel-oped mainly intuitively. A systematic empirical investigation of "Leichte Sprache" is still to be done. The current practice is often slanted towards (over-)simplification, reduction of infor-mation, of lexical and grammatical variety and of stylistic differentiation. "Leichte Sprache" is intended as a means of supporting and enabling participation in different areas of life for the target group. The article wants to investigate the chances and problems of this accessible form of communication as a prerequisite for and a means of political participa-tion from a linguistic point of view. By way of example three texts are linguistically analysed and compared: For the elections to the Bundestag in 2013 the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) released three manifestos, one regular version, one version modified into "Leichte Sprache" and one version modified into einfache Sprache, which is a similar concept allowing more complexity than "Leichte Sprache". The linguistic analysis mainly focuses on the different strategies regarding the presentation of content, regarding lexis, adequate realisation of text type and function as well as on semantic and pragmatic aspects (frames, speech acts). Subsequently, the article discusses which consequences result from the different linguistic presentations with a view to enabling democratic participation.

Defacing Election Posters: A Form of Political Culture Jamming?

Even in this media-centric age of the Internet, newspapers, television, and social networking, election posters are a significant form of communication in political campaigns. They are strategically placed to promote candidates and convince voters. However, viewers are not just passive receivers; they can also reciprocate and “jam” an election poster. This article offers an explorative approach to such practices to study their creation and usage. Two distinct examples of defacement are chosen and examined. Both of these reacted to the Social Democratic Party of Germany’s (SPD) election campaign for the German federal election in 2005. The election took place after widespread protests and a loss of confidence in the SPD and its chancellor. The investigated posters showed parallels to political culture jamming, though parody or disturbing effects are not true of all modifications. Election posters are also used as a medium to communicate politics from the grassroots.

Vokietijos parlamentinių kairiųjų partijų požiūris į Europos Sąjungą

The importance of Germany in the European matters cannot be underrated – it is the biggest economy in Europe and the most influential state in the European Union. Thus, it is important to understand the outlook of the main political actors in Germany as they influence the national policy of the state. This article concentrates on the two left-wing parties – Social Democratic Party of Germany and The Left – and tries to present the contrast between the perceptions of these two political parties towards the European Union. While Social Democratic Party of Germany has positive attitude towards this international organisations, the Left is highly critical about the EU and its role.

Rosa Luxemburg's Dialectics of Revolutionary Democracy—A Methodological Interpretation

At the core of Rosa Luxemburg's thinking on revolutionary democracy is socialist revolution. This paper advances three methodological principles: 1) an integral historical standpoint; 2) ontologically historical dialectics; and 3) the perspective of crisis. On the basis of these principles, the paper then analyzes the two major theoretical contributions Luxemburg made through her development of the concept of revolutionary democracy. First, by explaining the dialectical relationship between social revolution and social reform, she further illuminated the nature of socialist revolution; second, she elucidated the philosophical meaning and historical significance of spontaneity. A conclusion is then reached: the concepts that Luxemburg developed in considering the crises facing the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and socialism itself anticipated the direction in which the socialist movement was to develop.

Past Imperfect, Future Tense: The SPD before and after the 2013 Federal Election

In the 2009 federal election, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) achieved the worst electoral result in its history. Immediately afterwards, the party worked to improve its public image and fine-tune its policies and electoral message, hoping that state elections in the ensuring period might provide some momentum going into the next national election. Yet, in 2013, the Social Democrats improved their result only modestly, with Angela Merkel and the Christian Democratic/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) again gaining a decisive victory. This article explores the reasons behind the SPD's failure to radically improve its electoral showing, arguing that this can best be explained by a combination of the impact of the past—namely, the legacy of its economic reforms during the Schröder era and the SPD's disadvantages coming out of the previous Grand Coalition—as well as the weakness of its 2013 chancellor candidate, Peer Steinbrück, and the popularity of Angela Merkel. The article therefore suggests that the immediate future does not look particularly bright for the SPD: any chances of gaining the chancellorship are largely out of its hand, dependent on both stumbles by its rival, the CDU/CSU, as well as the taming of a possible coalition partner, the Left Party.

Revisionisme Marxisme Dan Perkembangan Ideologi Demokrasi Sosial (Studi Pemikiran Eduard Bernstein dan Anthony Giddens)

This study is about the law development of social democracy in the perspective of Eduard Bernstein andAnthony Giddens. It applied the method of qualitative analysis and used the library research, the data inthis study analyzed with the content of analysis. The main purposes of this study wants to describe andanalysis of Law Development of Social Democracy in the perspective of Bernstein and Giddens.Socialism Democracy of Bernstein and Cosmopolitan Democracy of Giddens used as toll of comparative.Social Democracy has been revision three times, Bernstein is the first generation, The second generationis Social Democratic Party of Germany with The bad Godesberg Program and the last is Giddens. Theinteresting of this study is the basic difference among Bernstein and Giddens in the understanding ofconcept of Social Democracy. The different time and context imply the different ontology andepistemology to this ideology. If Bernstein lived in the time of raised of capitalism and Industrialization inEurope, Giddens has lived in the time of this ideology must be against the raises of Neo liberalism andGlobalization. Actually The basic concept of Social democracy of Bersntein is his critics to the theory andconcept of Karl Marx, this causes the different perspective with Giddens. Finally Giddens made thisideology more Liberal than before, many political scientist assume that The Third Way of Giddens is thecontinuously of Capitalism.Keywords : Social Democracy, Bad Godesberg and Capitalism

The Quest for Acceptability: The Socialists’ May Days in Bavaria and Brittany, 1920-40

This article explores the ways in which French and German Socialists incorporated May Day in their communication strategies in the 1920s and 1930s. Focusing on two of the most important socialist parties of the interwar period, the SFIO (French Section of the Workers’ International) and the SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany) in two particularly conservative regions, Brittany and Bavaria, this article demonstrates the importance of syncretism—defined as the blending of the traditional with the new—as a propaganda tool in hostile political environments. It argues that May Day press campaigns contributed to portraying the SFIO and the SPD as comprehensive republican parties, and that the similarities between their uses of syncretism show that the two parties have had more in common than has previously been assumed.

Niemieckie wizje kształtu Unii Europejskiej w okresie rządów Gerharda Schrödera

The unusual activity of the Federal Republic of Germany during all integration processes in Europe was questioned after Gerhard Schröder’s victory in the 1998 election. The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD – Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands), which for many years had been pushed into opposition, did not have a clear vision of its European policy, which gave rise to concerns from European partners.In addition, the coalition government of the SPD-Union 90/The Greens emphasized German interests in European politics more strongly than Christian Democratic governments.With a persistence that had never been seen before, they demanded that the financial burdens of the Federal Republic of Germany towards the EU budget be reduced and the Common Agricultural Policy be reformed, thereby giving up the „checkbook policy”. One of the focal points became the reform of the European Union’s institutional system and decision-making process. Joschka Fischer’s „From a union of states to a federation” speech, related to the reform of the EU, delivered in May 2000, marked a breakthrough and started an international debate on the political form of the Union.The author of this paper presents German ideas on European integration and visions of the form of the European Union from 1998–2005.

Rosa Luxemburg's Critique of Lenin's Ultra Centralistic Party Concept and of the Bolshevik Revolution

After Rosa Luxemburg's manuscript from 1918 on the Russian Revolution was published in the very early days of 1922 there were—and have continued to be—many discussions on the differences between Luxemburg and Lenin. Luxemburg had a very different position on the character of a socialist proletarian movement and on the role of its leaders in comparison to Lenin and also in contrast to the bureaucrats of the old Social Democratic Party of Germany. A socialist organization should always place its emphasis on the proletarian masses. The kind of socialism and the route to achieve it should be decided by the proletariat rather than the leadership, whose only purpose is to provide a wide framework of socialist issues and drive forward short-, middle- and long-term goals. From these basic democratic ideas Luxemburg criticizes Lenin's Ultra Centralistic Party Concept (see Luxemburg's ‘Organizational Questions of Russian Social Democracy’ (1904) and her ‘Credo: On the State of Russian Social Democracy’ (1911)) and the practice of the Bolshevik revolution (see Luxemburg's manuscript ‘The Russian Revolution’ (September/October 1918)). This article will present new research findings based on recently discovered archival materials. It will address the following issues: the attitude of the other Spartacus leaders to the Bolsheviks’ revolutionary tactics; Luxemburg's possible change of view after the German November Revolution of 1918; and whether she showed hostility to the Bolsheviks or critical solidarity with the Russian comrades.

Resisting Bellamy: How Kautsky and Bebel Read Looking Backward

Abstract Scientific socialism as developed by the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the world's largest workers' party, and the Second International, basically a creation of German socialists, viewed utopianism as empirically unverifiable. The publication, wide circulation, and enormous success in Germany of Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward therefore posed a strong challenge to the leaders of the SPD, Karl Kautsky and August Bebel, and it attracted their criticism on several occasions. Such high-level condemnations of Bellamy call for an explanation. The SPD, freshly out of illegality in 1890, scored a decisive victory over Bismarck, and the party's big electoral gains led to utopian hopes among the rank and file. In this expectant milieu, Looking Backward was interpreted as a model for immediate action. However, socialist leaders saw it differently. Kautsky and Bebel reasoned that the immediatism of the American utopia flagrantly violated the ineluctable tendencies of history, recklessly rushed historical destiny, and put the achievements of the socialists at risk. It was not without irony that Kautsky found the absence of utopianism one of the SPD's greatest accomplishments. It was into this utopian vacuum that right-wing futuristic blueprints increasingly moved, portraying Caesaristic leadership, interclass harmony, world power, and racial exclusivity to a rapidly expanding audience. By rejecting future gazing, as exemplified by their rebuff of Looking Backward, socialist leaders failed to wage an extended cultural campaign for hegemonic influence over sectors other than the working class. Their claim that they essentially had no ideals to realize and their adherence to the strategy of fatalistic waiting for the collapse of capitalism came at a high price, as their inaction in face of and even support of colonialism and World War I would reveal.

Lives and Political Field. An Analysis of the Power Structure of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD)

This article discusses methods and results of an explorative study of two generations of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD): the two generations comprise, on the one hand, older and younger members of the postwar generation who witnessed the Second World War as young soldiers or as children, and on the other hand, the generation that was born in the 1950s and has mainly been responsible for shaping policy for some years. The aim of my dissertation was to analyze the ability of the social democratic leadership to represent the full range of party members and (base) voters by comparing two generations, using a sample of political leaders and the habitus/field-analysis inspired by Pierre BOURDIEU. The basis of the analysis were partly biographical, partly theme-focused interviews, as well as a range of sources and already published literature regarding the biographies of these political leaders. The following article is based on my dissertation and is focused on a description of selected theoretical implications, on the description of the essential criteria for selecting the sample and on some of the methods used. These are an analysis of the life, life and field effects, the factions and the development of types of political leaders. I will present some results to exemplify the methods used. They show that the ability of the SPD to represent the full range of party members and (base) voters and the power structure of the SPD have changed, thus threatening the party’s status as a "Volkspartei." URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1102197

"Arbeiterverräter", "Sozialchauvinisten", "Lakaien der Bourgeoisie" Der sozialdemokratische Reformismus in Kaiserreich und Weimarerer Republik als Desiderat einer postideologischen Forschung

The author traces the legacy of the reformist network of the SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany) from World War I to the Weimar Republic. It focuese on the communication structures and the political interests of its members. Wolfgang Heine, Max Quarck, Otto Landsberg, Eduard David, Albert Sudekum, Georg Gradnauer and others are portrayed as representatives of a generation of middle-class social democrats that suffered from being either ignored in labour movement research or from being associated with opportunism and workers' treachery by the 'official' social democratic history.

Think Tanks in the United Kingdom and Germany: Actors in the Modernisation of Social Democracy

This article describes and analyses the role that think tanks in the United Kingdom and Germany played in the modernisation of the British Labour party and the Social Democratic party of Germany between 1992 and 2008. In these years, both parties were de-traditionalised. Especially, their central objective, that of achieving a socially just society, was redefined under the banner of the ‘Third Way’. Policy experts from outside the political parties played an important role in this process. The article discusses what a think tank is and whether in times of ‘paradigmatic’ crisis actors external to a political party can exert influence on the parties' policy objectives and thus supersede internal policy-making institutions. It also analyses, in comparative perspective, the conditions in which think tanks in both countries can be most effective.