Bøker av Rainer Eisfeld

Europaweit und darüber hinaus unterliegen Demokratien alarmierender Aushöhlung. Rapider wirtschaftlicher, kultureller, politischer Wandel weckt Unsicherheiten und Aggressionen; Politiker, Parteien, selbst Regierungen versuchen Bürger durch systematische Lügen zu täuschen; neoliberale Deregulierungen schwächen die Bereitschaft zum zivilgesellschaftlichen Engagement; schroffe Einkommens- und Vermögensunterschiede treiben die Demokratie in Richtung Plutokratie; fremdenfeindliche Vorurteile polarisieren Gesellschaften; Antiterrorismus-Strategien untergraben bürgerliche Freiheiten; Vetospieler hemmen klimapolitischen Wandel. Zugleich wird seit Jahren gestritten über die Fragmentierung der Politikwissenschaft, ihre zweifelhafte Relevanz und ihre Abkopplung von der breiten Öffentlichkeit. Dieses Buch ist die erste umfassende Studie, die beide Fragenkomplexe miteinander verknüpft und präzise zu ergründen sucht: Wie kann, wie sollte die Politikwissenschaft dem Niedergang der Demokratie in jedem der erwähnten Bereiche entgegenwirken?Rainer Eisfelds Antworten lauten: Entwicklung einer Wissenschaftskultur öffentlichen Engagements; Auseinandersetzung mit Ursprüngen, Mustern und partizipativer Bewältigung durchgängigen Wandels als Hauptgegenstand der Disziplin; kategorisches Auftreten gegen Tendenzen zu einer Herrschaft notorischer Lügner; Konzentrierung der Forschungsprioritäten auf die Schlüsselbereiche, in denen Demokratie sich zurückbildet; für Laien zugängliche Darstellung gewonnener Resultate; Erweiterung der Analyse zur Präsentation konkreter Gestaltungsvorschläge.Dazu, so Eisfelds Fazit, bedarf es einer Disziplin, die als normativ orientierte, empirisch gestützte Demokratiewissenschaft brisanten Problemen den Vorrang einräumt vor ausgefeilten Methoden und bürgernaher Relevanz vor immer weiterer Spezialisierung.

The book focuses on the study of democratic processes. Special emphasis is put (1) on the existence of a diversity of (e. g. socio-economic, ethno-cultural,.) interests and the transformation of this diversity into public policies, (2) on the participatory features of democracy and on barriers to individual and group participation due to disparities in economic and political resources.

This book is the first comprehensive study to respond to the ongoing debates on political sciencesΓÇÖ fragmentation, doubtful relevance, and disconnect with the larger public. It explores the implications of the argument that political science ought to become more topic-driven, more relevant and more comprehensible for "lay" audiences. Consequences would include evolving a culture of public engagement, challenging tendencies toward liarsΓÇÖ rule, and emphasizing the role of ΓÇ£largeΓÇ¥ themes in academic education and research, the latter being identified as those areas where severe democratic erosion is occurring ΓÇô such as escalating income and wealth disparities pushing democracy towards plutocracy, ubiquitous change triggering insecurity and aggression, racist prejudice polarizing societies, and counter-terrorism strategies subverting civil liberties. Political science needs to address these pressing problems ahead of other issues by in-depth research and broadly accessible public narratives, including solution-orientated normative notions. This need provides the final justification for evolving a discipline where problems would take priority over methods and public relevance over sophisticated specialization.  

The book will survey the recent development and current "e;state of the art"e; of political science in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe. It will comprise (a) three comparative overviews: Political Science and Regime Change in East-Central Europe from the 20th to the 21st Century; Analytical and Normative Elements in Political Science Approaches: Is there a Specific Central-East European Pattern?; Political Science Associations in East-Central Europe: How Important, how much International Cooperation?; (b) 20 detailed and comparable country reports: Albania, Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, and Ukraine; (c) a chapter on the European Confederation of Political Science Associations. The country reports will include tables on political science faculty, students with political science as a major, and sub-fields taught at both state and private universities (as per the end of 2008). They will cover the following topics: Institutionalization of the discipline; achievements, deficits, prevailing approaches, and funding of research in the discipline's sub-fields; curricula, admission regulation, and degree system in political science teaching; national representation and international cooperation (major journals and published books, political science associations, international links); public impact of the discipline, labor market, challenges and opportunities.