Christian Lammert – författare

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.

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.

Bhikhu Parekh As creative and reflective agents, human beings seek meaning in their lives, and develop more or less coherent views of the world or cultures in terms of which to organize their personal and collective lives. When different groups of individuals within the same society subscribe to different ways of thought, they face the crucial question of how to deal with their cultural diversity and sustain a shared common life. Premodern societies took a relatively relaxed view of diversity and generally opted for a looser union. Modernity brought with it a very different approach to the subject. This is reflected in, among other things, the institution of the modern state, especially the liberal democracy which represents one way of constituting it. Liberal democracy has exercised a decisive influence on our political and moral imagination for the past three centuries. Unlike premodern societies which took the community as their starting point and defined the individual in terms of it, it takes the individual as the ultimate and irreducible unit of, and thus conc- tually and ontologically prior to society. The latter is taken to consist of in- viduals, and refers to the totality of its members and their formal and informal relationships. Individual are the sole and equal sources of moral claims, and social and political institutions are judged in terms of their ability to safeguard and promote individual interests.

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.

The post-Cold War era was marked by the emergence of unprecedented new networks of international private trade, cooperation, and circulation of goods that promised to render the state nearly obsolete—at least in theory. The essays collected in this book dissect the notions of this so-called “smart economy,” revealing the crucial role that government interventions still play in facilitating the production and the global flow of goods. The contributors focus particularly on the role played by the United States, often incorrectly assumed to be the most liberal and least interventionist in the global order. More than a mere market fixer, the United States has long assumed an outsized position in expediting the global circulation of goods through its supply chains and communication channels. Drawing from such diverse fields as political science, urban sociology, and cultural studies, Contours of the Illiberal State takes a broad interdisciplinary look at how nations became active market enablers.

Das Handbuch Politik USA vereint Aufsätze ausgewiesener Expertinnen und Experten der sozialwissenschaftlichen USA-Forschung. Diese werden zum einen in ihrem (zeit)historischen Kontext verortet, zum anderen werden unterschiedliche Deutungsdimensionen aufgezeigt und somit eine problemorientierte Einführung in das politische System der USA geleistet.

Zum Ende der Amtszeit Joe Bidens als Präsident der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika wurde dieses Handbuch grundlegend überarbeitet, aktualisiert und erweitert. In den einzelnen Aufsätzen legen ausgewiesene Expertinnen und Experten der sozialwissenschaftlichen USA-Forschung die grundlegenden Strukturen, Akteure und Mechanismen der US-amerikanischen Politik dar, und verorten diese kritisch in ihrem historischen Kontext. Die 49 Beiträge bieten somit eine problemorientierte Einführung in das politische System der USA.