Peter Herrmann

This book questions the mainstream interpretation of the current political shifts as a move to ultra-conservative and even fascist politics, changing the polities of the Western democracies that can be overcome by “reclaiming democracy”. Instead of following this path, the present work analyses these developments as extreme consequence that emerged from the individualist and short-sighted understanding of rationality that coined the enlightenment and had been translated into an institutionalist take on democracy. Such view, while accepting the common interpretation of a dramatic and extremely dangerous development, goes further: it emphasises the need to question the pathway of modernisation: Looking at what is hidden by the eclipse of reason encourages also to look for a new societal model, asking for a real public, transcending current strives for publicity. As such, it is an important contribution to debates on precarity and a one-sided understanding of Human Rights. Scholars of political science and political philosophy will be interested in the work as it will be of interest for those who are engaging in oingoi8ng political debates.

Pandemics — it seems that it had been the beginning of a new era, after a first shock wave a new normality commenced trying to, repress the complex challenges while living under a new Sword of Damocles. Origins and consequences of the virus had been frequently issued, but only little attention had been paid to structural problems of societies, making it difficult to cope with the exceptional situation. The present book, focusing on the German polity and its structural weakness, analysis the situation in a historical perspective. It is completed by an essayist globalist outlook on the pandemics.The provocative thesis is that the precarity of society is itself a kind of virus, in many ways as dangerous as the Corona virus. The latter one showed the weak – and dangerous – points of the failure of the polity that need urgent and thorough political answers.

There is an ongoing debate on the question if professional activities in the field of the social do actually have a genuinely 'own' scientific basis or if their academic standing depends entirely on other disciplines as sociology, economics, administration or law. The present book offers an answer - by actually twisting the question into another direction: the question for the common denominator should not be employed by looking for the original disciplinary basis. Instead, it is more important to look at a common point of reference towards which activities - and research - can be geared. The editors propose human rights as such reference and make in their own introductory contribution clear that any contemplation on such rights cannot be limited on abstract moral and normative questions nor can it be left to the arbitrariness of cultural relativism. It is proposed to develop a systematic approach, not starting from a translation of abstract principles into their application in concrete situations. On the contrary, the concrete human practice and its analysis has to be taken as focal point. Some of the contributions directly take this topic up as matter by way of engaging in a general methodological discussion whereas other contributions deal with specific aspects of a field of social professions, showing the necessary variety of the pieces of a jigsaw on its own. The volume motivates students, scholars and professionals researching and working in the social array to think outside their ancestral box, focussing on sound and reasoned values rather than allowing abstract professional standards to take over.

Europ ische Sozialpolitik wird immer wieder mit Blick auf die Institutionen und die Politik-bereiche diskutiert - und es wird stets bem ngelt, dass sie wenig entwickelt ist bzw. sp t erst entwickelt wurde. Dabei ist ein wichtiger Aspekt fortw hrend vergessen: Es geht auch hier um eine "Ordnungspolitik," mit der verschiedenen Akteuren Rollen zugewiesen werden. So wichtig in der Diskussion um das europ ische Sozialmodell Fragen zur Sozialversicherungen, zu Pensionsfonds etc. sind, so wichtig ist zu schauen, welche Rolle soft-policies und hard-policies zugewiesen werden und wie verschiedene Akteure und Verantwortlichkeiten verteilt werden sollen. Grundsteine wurden dazu bereits in der fr heren EU-Geschichte gelegt. Und hier spielen auch die beschworenen nationalen Traditionen eine besonders gro e Rolle.

Developing the before presented methodological framework further, is a self-referential and self-reflexive process. This simply means that detailing and weighing criteria can only emerge from already applying the historical analysis, by this enabling the author to develop the foundation further theoretical and then more detailed historical analysis. Thus, SPA can be localised dialectically as part of the process of socialisation. To conceptualised socialisation and the models of socialisation -- and aiming by this on developing a framework for the analysis of SPA -- has to start, however, by analysing the reality on which the theoretical thinking is grounded, which it mirrors. To truly understand the different contractualist ideas we first have to understand the conditions and their development from where and as part of which they emerge and into which they provide an input, actively influencing contemporary developments.