Articles
Der Stalinismus im Gedächtnis Russlands. Versuch einer Erklärung der russischen Erinnerungslosigkeit 
Christian Volk, Yale University
This paper argues that Russian society’s misremembering of the mass crimes committed during Stalin’s era is founded in the framework of its historiography. Historiography’s primary task has been considered to create and establish a specific Russian concept of identity since the Stalin era. Initially this concept manifested itself within the interaction of Maxim Gorky’s heroic myth with the idea of narodnost, which Stalin’s regime forcibly institutionalized as the constitutive historiographical principle. Sabine Arnold has characterized such a forced interconnection between Historiography and Memory as »occupied memory«. Although the »occupation« of memory loosened throughout Khrushchev’s and Brezhnev’s reigns, the fundamental idea of historiography has remained intact. Furthermore, the decomposition of »occupation« throughout Perestroika has been replaced by a contemporary patriotic consensus that expresses the »new Russian concept of identity« according to narodnost. Protest against this »new« self-perception of Russian society is predominately articulated by Society Memorial. Thus, to establish the commemoration of victims of the Gulag Archipelago is not only a historiographical but also a genuinely democratic project.
Politikfelder und sozialer Wandel – zur Generalisierbarkeit der Theorie politischer Steuerung
Manfred Mai, Univesität Duisburg-Essen
Theories of political steering have often been developed from case studies in certain policy-fields and cannot simply be transferred to other policy-areas. The reasons lay in different actor constellations, path-dependency and institutional arrangements. If one assumes that processes of social change at the societal macro-level influence more or less all policy-areas, the generalizability of theories of political steering has to be questioned. In the following, this will be discussed on the basis of the examples of social policy and media policy – two completely different policy-fields. The conclusion will be drawn that a theory of political steering can only make sense with regard to one specific policy-field.
Die Flexibilisierung von Zeit. Eine Analyse der Re-Strukturierung von Arbeits- und Lebenszeit in der Dienstleistungsgesellschaft
Nana Seidel, Rundfunk Berlin Brandenburg and Roland Verwiebe, Universität Hamburg
The contribution discusses the social-structural dynamics, which are inherent in flexible time structures in contemporary societies. Based on recent social structural research and research on tertiarisation, the article analyses causes of time-structural changes and their consequences for the life situation of individuals. Empirically, four ideal types of flexible time structures can be found on the individual level. Beyond expectations from newer research on social stratification, these types contain not only individualised time pioneers, but also different types of structurally determined occupational biographies. The empirical results of the analysis rely on 20 problem-centred interviews, which are realised in a current project since end of 2003 in Berlin and Hamburg.
Interview
„Wir haben Freiheit der Forschung, aber wir haben keine Freiheit zu fälschen“
Prof. Ulrike Beisiegel, DFG-Obman on academic publishing and safeguarding good scientific practice
Essays
"Ich spiele, also bin ich"
Jan Fischer on cyber reality
"Wider die deutsche Schwermut: Eine Nation zwischen halbvoll und halbleer"
Alexandra Friedrich on German gloom and angst
"Rheinsberg revisited - Mit Tucholskys 'Bilderbuch für Verliebte' gegen 'Du bist Deutschland'"
Julius Heß on love and patriotism