Führt geringeres Vertrauen in die Regierung zur Ablehnung der Demokratie?
Bernhard Riederer
Ausgehend von einer in Westeuropa oft konstatierten „Politikverdrossenheit“ geht der vorliegende Aufsatz den Fragen nach, inwiefern das Vertrauen in die Regierenden das Vertrauen in das Funktionieren der Demokratie beeinflusst, und welche Rolle die eigene gesellschaftliche Position für das Vertrauen in Politik und Demokratie einnimmt. Mit Daten des ISSP 2004 aus acht Nationen wird in einem Strukturgleichungsmodell geprüft, inwiefern Effekte der gesellschaftlichen Position auf das Vertrauen in das Funktionieren der Demokratie durch das Vertrauen in das System der Wahlen, den öffentlichen Dienst und regierende Politiker/innen vermittelt werden. Es bestätigt sich, dass sich die gesell-schaftliche Position indirekt auf das Vertrauen einer Person in die Demokratie auswirkt. Menschen mit geringerem sozialem Status zeigen weniger Vertrauen in Regierende und Demokratie. Das Vertrauen in Politiker/innen scheint zudem weniger bedeutend für das Vertrauen in das Funktionieren der Demokratie zu sein als das Vertrauen in Institutionen der Demokratie wie das Wahlsystem oder den öffentlichen Dienst.
In the so-called Third Debate, proponents of post-positivist approaches were criticised for the lack of a clear research programme. On the basis of a discussion of the vague term‚ positivism’, this article tries to identify the respective research programmes of neo-gramscian (Cox), feminist (Enloe, Peterson) and post-structuralist (Campbell) authors by examining their metatheoretical – epistemological, ontological and methodological – as-sumptions as well as their concrete methods. The analysis asks whether they form a coherent alternative, compares the different approaches and discusses their differences and commonalities.
Consensus and democratic legitimacy: Political Marketing versus
Political Philosophy
Mori Luca
This article aims to reconsider the link between consensus and democratic legitimation, assuming that the growing pervasiveness of political marketing urges political philosophy and sociology to consider to what extent our questions on democratic legitimation are compelling and appropriate. The knotty point is highlighted by comparing the basic assumptions of two contemporary theories of idealized consensus (Habermas and Rawls) and deliberative democracy theories with the idea of consensus deducible from some influential studies about propaganda techniques and political marketing. In conclusion, I will argue that a more realistic approach to the issues of “consensus” and “legitimacy” can help us to grasp important aspects of our problem. Political theory needs a “realistic turn” – inspired by Max Weber among others – to investigate the historically and actually legitimizing processes, taking into account that political marketing gives rise to a type of legitimacy which was not envisaged in classical models, such as Weber’s theory of power: legitimation through professional communication and media management, that is political power generated by communication power.
The Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) has long been introduced as an intergovernmental policy area. In this article, other elements are introduced that might have an impact on the overall structure of CFSP. The article identifies traces of intergovernmen-tal, transgovernmental, supranational and transnational elements in CFSP. Special atten-tion is drawn on institutional changes in the wake of the Lisbon Treaty. At the same, time also elements in the shadow of the Lisbon Treaty are identified. The paper concludes with a plea for future approaches that recognize the multitude and diversity of organizations in CFSP – beyond a pure intergovernmental reading.