Christian Lammert

Legitimizing Authority places the American state apparatus back in the foreground to rethink the development of the country’s government in the context of its unfulfilled promise of equality.The book argues that the tensions between calls for equality and the simultaneous tolerance of inequality have accompanied the rise of modern mass society and, with it, of liberal democracy. Vormann and Lammert emphasize that government has played and continues to play a decisive role in calibrating the relationship between the interior and the exterior of the nation, moving between an extractive state, a taxation state, and a welfare state over time in order to expand social access and political participation inside the national community – while tolerating conditions that continue to belie the historical promise of equality. The authors draw on a range of literatures that transcend disciplinary boundaries to reveal how exploitative practices have been accepted. They conclude that the democratic crises of the present must be comprehended through understanding how legitimation was always maintained by a state apparatus active at multiple scales and in multiple policy fields.This interdisciplinary book is addressed to a broad audience across disciplines, including political science, political economy, political history, comparative politics, international politics, international relations, American Political Development (APD), and cultural studies.

Legitimizing Authority places the American state apparatus back in the foreground to rethink the development of the country’s government in the context of its unfulfilled promise of equality.The book argues that the tensions between calls for equality and the simultaneous tolerance of inequality have accompanied the rise of modern mass society and, with it, of liberal democracy. Vormann and Lammert emphasize that government has played and continues to play a decisive role in calibrating the relationship between the interior and the exterior of the nation, moving between an extractive state, a taxation state, and a welfare state over time in order to expand social access and political participation inside the national community – while tolerating conditions that continue to belie the historical promise of equality. The authors draw on a range of literatures that transcend disciplinary boundaries to reveal how exploitative practices have been accepted. They conclude that the democratic crises of the present must be comprehended through understanding how legitimation was always maintained by a state apparatus active at multiple scales and in multiple policy fields.This interdisciplinary book is addressed to a broad audience across disciplines, including political science, political economy, political history, comparative politics, international politics, international relations, American Political Development (APD), and cultural studies.

Liberal democracies on both sides of the Atlantic find themselves approaching a state of emergency, beset by potent populist challenges of the right and left. But what exactly lies at the core of widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo? And how can the challenge be overcome? In Democracy in Crisis, Christian Lammert and Boris Vormann argue that the rise of populism in North Atlantic states is not the cause of a crisis of governance but its result. This crisis has been many decades in the making and is intricately linked to the rise of a certain type of political philosophy and practice in which economic rationality has hollowed out political values and led to an impoverishment of the political sphere more broadly. The process began in the 1980s, when the United States and Great Britain decided to unleash markets in the name of economic growth and democracy. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, several countries in Europe followed suit and marketized their educational, social, and healthcare systems, which in turn increased inequality and fragmentation. The result has been a collapse of social cohesion and trust that the populists promise to address but only make worse. Looking to the future, Lammert and Vormann conclude their analysis with concrete suggestions for ways politics can once again be placed in the foreground, with markets serving social relations rather than the reverse.

Amerikanische Politik war selten so umstritten wie seit dem ausgehenden 20. Jahrhundert Dieses Buch stellt die wesentlichen Politikinstitutionen und Politikfelder der USA seit 1990 dar und zeigt anhand von Beispielen aus der Innen-, Aussen und Umweltpolitik auf, wie sich die amerikanische Politik in den letzten 25 Jahren entwickelt hat. Gerade zur Wahl des neuen Prasidenten im November 2016 leistet das Buch eine wichtige Einordnung, um amerikanische Politik zu verstehen.

Aus europäischer Perspektive wächst die soziale Ungleichheit in den Vereinigten Staaten vor allem deswegen, weil der Wohlfahrtsstaat dort nur rudimentär ausgebildet ist. Tatsächlich investiert aber kaum ein anderes Land mehr Geld in die Altersabsicherung und Gesundheitsfürsorge. Rechnet man bildungspolitische Ausgaben und betriebliche Sozialleistungen mit ein, fließen etwa 60 Prozent des Gesamthaushalts der USA in den Bereich Soziales. Die vorliegende Einführung räumt nicht nur mit einigen gängigen Vorurteilen auf. Sie bietet auch als einziges deutschsprachiges Überblickswerk einen kritischen und gut strukturierten Einblick in die widersprüchliche und komplexe Realität des amerikanischen Wohlfahrtsstaates – von den theoretischen und empirischen Grundlagen der gegenwärtigen Sozialpolitik über die anhaltenden heftigen Kontroversen, die sie begleiten, bis hin zu einzelnen Politikfeldern. Ein Grundlagenwerk für das Verständnis der US-Gesellschaft und ihres Sozial- und Wirtschaftsmodells.