Demand and promote

The motto `` Promote and Demand '' (occasionally also `` Demand and Promote '' ) sums up the basis of the socio-political , labor market , integration and educational policy concept of the activating state in a striking way . Clients and students should be both "activated" ("challenged") and supported ("encouraged") in their striving for personal responsibility and success orientation. However, funding also includes support for those who are no longer capable, but in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity .

The motto “promote and challenge” is linguistically based on the motto “ carrot and stick ”, but is mainly applied to the conditions in democratically constituted states.

History of the motto

In Germany, the discussion on the activating state was initially conducted by the SPD in the 1998 Bundestag election under the heading “New Center”. The social and control policy objectives of an activating welfare state in terms of a warranty state were after the change of government, among others, by the former Chancellery Minister Bodo Hombach outlined in detail: "The state must not only the negative effects of a subsystem ( economy , society , politics ) on the other compensate or . prevent regulatively, but ensure and organize that subsystems are optimally related to each other. For example, the social system must be designed in such a way that it optimally prepares and supports the resumption of gainful employment and personal initiative . A new balance of individual rights and duties, the demand that the administrative, law-making and public services state must trust and expect its citizens more - none of this means the state's callous withdrawal from responsibility. On the contrary: It is about a new control model that needs a lot more creativity, a willingness to innovate and the staying power of forward-looking, activating politics. "

Since the Schröder-Blair paper aroused fierce opposition from the trade unions as well as from the political public, reforms in the direction of an activating social policy were subsequently propagated rather cautiously. The slogan Demand and Promote [sic!] Was nonetheless used to legitimize the reforms in labor market policy that were finally implemented, which culminated in the Hartz laws for the time being. It is revealing that over time the two terms “demand” and “support” have increasingly been used in reverse order.

In education policy , the motto of promoting and demanding was used for the first time in 2006 by the state executive (the Conference of Ministers of Education ).

Applications

Germany

Social and labor market policy

According to the concept of an activating social policy, “ social justice ” is interpreted more as procedural justice and less as fairness of results, and “ social security ” more as basic security and less as security of relative social status. In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, the welfare state is only obliged to help a destitute person in need if they cannot help themselves or if other bodies are not primarily obliged to help. If the needy is entitled to help in the context of the welfare principle , this is provided as help by the state to an extent that secures his existence and that of his relatives.

The economist and philosopher Birger P. Priddat puts it this way:

The state is beginning to see itself as a social investor who pays out social transfers not on the basis of needs, but rather on the basis of criteria that primarily serve to get those entitled to re-entry into their own income self-employment . If the state achieves the goal of this modified social policy, it achieves a return on investment in the form of, firstly, saved social payments and, secondly, real tax revenue . The state receives a criterion for the effectiveness of its social benefits. If the state does not achieve the goal, traditional forms of social transfers will continue to exist. However, these payments are now being made due to proven incompetence of the citizens for a re-entry , not due to schematic eligibility.

Employable needy people

With the implementation of the concept of activating social and labor market policy since the 1990s in most western industrialized countries, the slogan: “ Workfare , Work First and 'Demand and Promote'” was issued. The corresponding conceptions relate to unemployed people who are no longer entitled to benefits from systems such as (in Germany) unemployment insurance (which do not require the need for assistance as a condition of benefits).

Chapter 1 of Book Two of the Social Security Code is entitled “Promote and Demand”. The second book deals with the basic security for job seekers, i. H. for employable unemployed. Contrary to what the wording of the chapter heading suggests, the chapter begins with the “principle of demanding ”. Section 2 SGB ​​II in the version dated March 24, 2011 reads:

(1) Employable beneficiaries and those living with them in a community of needs must exhaust all possibilities to end or reduce their need for assistance. An employable person entitled to benefits must actively participate in all measures for their integration into work, in particular conclude an integration agreement. If gainful employment on the general labor market is not possible in the foreseeable future, the employable person entitled to benefits must take on a reasonable job opportunity offered to them.

(2) Employable beneficiaries and those living with them in a community of needs are responsible for making use of all opportunities to earn their living from their own means and resources. Employable beneficiaries must use their labor to provide a living for themselves and the people living with them in a community of needs.

Only Section 3 of the Second Book of the Social Code deals with “performance principles”, that is, with principles for promoting needy unemployed people. According to the regulation, benefits for integration into work can be provided “insofar as they are necessary to avoid or eliminate, shorten or reduce the need for assistance for integration.” This is not the case if an applicant can help himself in accordance with the subsidiarity principle (z. B. by resorting to any existing savings) when nationals for maintenance are required of the applicant if there are other payers (eg. as social ) are whose performance is considered to be a priority, or if the applicant is a as the state can accept reasonable declared work and earn his living with it.

According to the IAB, there are four strategies for activating unemployed beneficiaries, related to “(1) able and willing to work; (2) able but unwilling; (3) willing but incapable; (4) incompetent and unwilling “unemployed. Since only someone is considered to be unemployed who can in principle be placed on the primary labor market, “ability” does not mean earning or work ability, but employability .

People in need of assistance who are unable to work

In old age and in the case of reduced earning capacity, those in need of assistance who are unable to work can claim benefits from the state on the basis of the welfare principle (as basic security) under the same conditions as those who are able to work. Such persons are only not obliged to take up reasonable gainful employment. The aspect of demanding is greatly reduced in this group of people; it is largely limited to the requirement of recourse to existing assets. In Germany, benefits are granted for this group of people on the basis of Book Twelve of the Social Code .

Pedagogy and School Policy

In 2006 the term “Demand” appeared for the first time at a central point in German education policy: “Support and demand - a challenge for education policy, parents, schools and teachers” is the name of the joint declaration of the education and teachers' unions and the Conference of Ministers of Education . Here, demanding, inextricably linked with encouraging, became a “principle” in school and teaching

• to help teachers to devote themselves more to individual students;
• should lead to a more positive understanding of learning and achievement in students and parents and in society;
• can help to include the results of internal and external evaluation in school quality development and individual support;
• should ensure that individual phases of the educational biography are interlinked.

In connection with the school structure reform at the beginning of the 2000s, the Lower Saxony Ministry of Education emphasized that from the point of view of special education it had always been a matter of course that support meant the targeted support of each individual student as an individual. This approach now also applies to general pedagogy. Funding plans should be developed in all schools; because "promoting always requires the survey of the current learning status and the learning requirements of the individual student with the intention of planning the next learning steps on the basis of this learning status analysis." However, this approach is called "cuddle education" by some educators and politicians “Devalued. According to Drechsel, the category of demanding comes into play in a school structure, in which support means "helping certain students to compensate for their performance deficits compared to the reference group." Such a school structure is based on "year-old, largely homogeneous learning groups who are record the same material at the same time and at the same speed. Anyone who remains below the performance average in a learning arrangement created in this way needs support; Those who, on the other hand, are able to achieve higher than average performances enjoy the benefit of being challenged. "

According to other views, demanding the gifted is also a form of support. This view must be viewed in the context of the demand that all children must be helped to develop their performance potential through optimal individual support.

Juvenile criminal law

In 2007 , Bernd-Rüdeger Sonnen summed up the ways in which society can deal with young people (and adolescents ) who have committed criminal offenses : “Support, demand, and let go”. In the third place, the hope that a delinquent could be resocialized is “dropped” . B. an in already in adolescence condemned occasionally Sicherungsverwahrung is arranged.

In general, however, juvenile criminal law focuses on the endeavor of the state to act on delinquents in a more educational way, i. H. promote their ability to lead a law-abiding life based on the norms of society. For this purpose, judges can order not only juvenile sentences but also educational measures and disciplines as a means of influencing young people.

Foreigners and Integration Policy

The German Integration Act , which came into force on August 6, 2016, is also based on the principle of promoting and demanding. According to the Federal Ministry of the Interior , the following applies to immigrants with the prospect of staying : "Immigrants should integrate and be able to use the opportunities that Germany offers all citizens and newcomers through offers from the state and through their own efforts." Among other things, more language courses, more orientation courses for Teaching of values ​​and faster access to the job market are offered. In return, the obligation to cooperate and compliance with the rules is required. Regina Konle-Seidl from the Institute for Employment Research recommends that "language courses [...] in the sense of the Danish " step model "should be more closely linked to work experience". In addition, "binding integration agreements with new immigrants, such as those concluded by the municipalities in Denmark, are an important basis for an activation strategy geared towards challenging and promoting ."

There is also the element of “letting go” in foreigner and integration policy insofar as measures to promote and encourage immigrants concentrate on those who have the prospect of staying. Other foreigners are being prepared for their deportation .

Switzerland

In Switzerland's integration policy , the motto is applied to the Basel integration model . In Switzerland, integration is generally understood as a bilateral and reciprocal process, whereby it is assumed that the foreigners are willing to fit into the social context of Switzerland and that the community welcomes them openly. Art. 4 of the Swiss Aliens Act (AuG) , however, also refers to the requirement "that foreigners have to deal with the social and living conditions in Switzerland and, in particular, learn a national language."

Austria

As early as 2005, the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education sent a circular to all state school councils, the city school council for Vienna and central teaching institutions with the title: “Better support. Encourage and challenge students individually ".

In Austria there are similar concepts for “promoting and promoting” immigrants with the prospect of staying as in Germany.

On March 28, 2017, the Council of Ministers passed the Integration Act , which has the main goal of promoting and demanding integration. The law states u. a. a consistent and binding system for German and values ​​courses by means of a mandatory declaration of integration as well as a nationwide uniform integration test and higher quality standards. In addition, on the same day it passed the Integration Year Act , which provides for a mandatory standardized integration program - the "Integration Year" - for persons entitled to asylum and subsidiary protection from September 2017. As part of this program, you are obliged to engage in charitable work and, as part of the program, you will receive a competence assessment as well as German and values ​​courses. From 2018, asylum seekers with a high probability of recognition can also take part in the integration program. There is no legal right to participate in the integration program.

Criticism of the concept

Germany

Since the funding for further vocational training was cut by approx. 84% from 7.9 billion euros in 1996 to 1.3 billion in 2006, critics of an "activating" treatment of unemployed people who are fit for work accuse the proponents of assuming wrong conditions and objecting To practice “demanding without promoting”. Wrong is the assumption that millions of unemployed in times of mass unemployment are therefore unemployed because they are not sufficiently tried to work, spend it well for them. Only through the introduction of a low-wage sector will this work be created (by falling prices for the commodity labor one creates a demand for less qualified work), which one accepts that there will be a large number of “ working poor ” in the future , their old-age poverty is also programmed. Only pressure can be used to get people to take up the newly emerging, less attractive jobs, and funding that enables those affected to leave the low-wage sector and find good work is often lacking. Jürgen Borchert criticizes the fact that the Hartz IV practice turns victims into perpetrators. Rather, it is true that "from a flood of research [know] that nowhere is there such a trampling as in the Hartz IV area. People are struggling to survive and are trying to get land under their feet again."

According to critics, children living in benefit communities are “co-punished” for the “failure” of their parents. For example B. the promotion of participation in social and cultural life according to § 28 Abs. 7 SGB ​​II is restricted: Only institutionalized offers would be promoted: music lessons, sports clubs, holiday camps. The family as a place of education and social participation is completely ignored by the conception of the "education package"; because the standard needs for children and their parents include z. B. no items for cinema tickets, zoo visits, sports equipment, board games or even just handicraft material. All these forms of informal, everyday, family education, which are embedded in close social relationships that cannot be covered by public institutions, are not promoted. "The parents are obviously not trusted to invest in education themselves and let their children participate in social life." In addition, the support made possible by SGB II overlooks the needs of young people because self-determined peer group activities are important for their socialization, which in many cases could not be adequately recorded through institutionalized leisure activities.

The PISA study 2000 showed that in Germany, unlike in other countries, it is not possible to adequately support weak pupils and equally gifted pupils. While the former would be chronically overwhelmed, the latter would be chronically under-challenged.

Language support is an essential element of the integration of migrants and refugees . Of the 1,497 registered participants in German courses for refugees in 2015 and 2016 in West Mecklenburg , only 716 attended these courses until the end. From this, the ARD magazine “Fakt” draws the conclusion that a large part of the language funding by the Federal Employment Agency , for which the federal government made 300 million euros available in 2016, has “fizzled out”. In March 2017, the Federal Audit Office complained that nationwide "around the middle of the course only 43 percent of the registered course participants were present." Albrecht Koschorke, on the other hand, puts forward the thesis that "migrants are interested in language lessons and training out of their own interests" and that is why Schemes of thought that were transferred from the Hartz IV area to migration policy are inappropriate.

Switzerland

In Switzerland it is criticized that “only superficially the previous migration regimes of exclusion, the prevention of integration and the demand for assimilation” are being replaced. Rather, “the magical motto 'support and challenge' outlines a diffuse field of action that extends far into everyday life. Instead of defining the repressive space and clearly delimiting the funding elements based on genuine voluntariness from it, an undefined political space arises that mixes openness and tolerance on the one hand, and exclusion and repression on the other. The open play with discretionary criteria and rambling integration terms ultimately means that the foreign population is exposed to expectations that are difficult to calculate and accordingly unsettling. "

Web links

• Margitta Mätzke: Individual behavior and socio-political incentives: The demanding element in the welfare state . WSI announcements 1/2011
• Christian Fischer: Individual support as a school challenge . Friedrich Ebert Foundation 2014

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Irene Dingeldey: Activating welfare state and socio-political control . In: From Politics and Contemporary History , Issue 8–9 / 2006. February 17, 2006
2. ↑ Werner Schönig: Activating social policy . Lexicon of the Social Market Economy (Ed .: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung )
3. ^ Progress in civilization: democratization of the knowledge society and professional state. First sketches for the conception of a "virtual state". (No longer available online.) In: Gut zu Wissen - Links zur Wissensgesellschaft, Verlag Westfälisches Dampfboot. Heinrich Böll Foundation, 2002, archived from the original on July 2, 2007 ; accessed on October 10, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. P. 1.  
4. ^ Regina Konle-Seidl: Aid reforms and activation strategies in an international comparison . Institute for Employment Research . IAB Research Report 7/2008, p. 47
5. ^ Text of the second book of the social security code
6. ^ Regina Konle-Seidl: Aid reforms and activation strategies in an international comparison . Institute for Employment Research. IAB Research Report 7/2008, p. 46
7. ↑ Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs : Basic security in old age and with reduced earning capacity . 20th January 2017
8. ^ Text of Book Twelve of the Social Code
9. ↑ Gerhard Eikenbusch: A modest proposal for the elimination of fears and dreams about "demands" . In: Pedagogy . Edition 3/2014
10. ↑ Karlheinz Drechsel: Funding for free? A contribution to the discussion ( memento of the original from March 26, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Lower Saxony education server 
11. ↑ Ingeborg Becker-Textor: Doing justice to all children - holistic support in kindergartens, also for gifted children . BMW Group (ed.): Small children - great talent. Recognize and encourage gifted children. Possibilities and limits of the kindergarten . Munich: BMW Group 2000, pp. 39–83
12. ↑ Support instead of staying seated . Hamburg goes to school. Journal for Hamburg teachers and parents' councils. Issue 2/2014, p. 7
13. ↑ Bernd-Rüdeger Sonnen: Promote, Demand, Drop . New criminal policy 2/2007
14. ↑ Measure Center Kalchrain (Thurgau): Support, Demand, Letting go - Current developments in dealing with juvenile delinquency. Documentation of the 27th German Youth Court Conference from September 15 to 18, 2007 in Freiburg ( Memento of the original from April 7, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Forum Verlag Godesberg 2008 
15. ↑ Barbara Hans: Preventive Detention of Young People: Locked Away - Forever . Spiegel Online . March 9, 2010
16. ^ SPD: Coalition Committee on April 13, 2016: Cornerstones of the Integration Act
17. ↑ Federal Ministry of the Interior : Integration
18. ↑ Regina Konle-Seidl: Promote and Demand: Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands have increased their efforts to integrate . Institute for Employment Research : IAB-Forum 2/2010, p. 6
19. ^ Federal Government : Act entered into force. Integration Act relies on promoting and demanding . 5th August 2016
20. ↑ Swiss Competence Center for Human Rights: Integration of Foreign Persons: Between Assimilation and Liberalism . May 11, 2015
21. ↑ Austrian Federal Ministry of Education: New regulation: mandatory location-based funding concept starting with the 2005/06 school year
22. ^ Austrian Federal Ministry for Europe, Integration, Foreign Affairs: National Integration Promotion
23. ↑ Integration law passed in the Council of Ministers. Federal Ministry for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs, March 28, 2017, accessed on May 24, 2017 . 
24. ↑ Resolution minutes of the 37th Council of Ministers of March 28, 2017. Federal Chancellery Austria, March 28, 2017, accessed on May 24, 2017 . 
25. ↑ Refugees must complete an integration year from September. (No longer available online.) Parliament, Republic of Austria, formerly the original ; accessed on May 24, 2017 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
26. ↑ Heiner Barz: Handbuch Bildungsfinanzierung . Springer-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-531-92520-2 ( google.de [accessed on March 5, 2020]).
27. ↑ Hartz IV- Demand without funding - Background - . ARD alpha forum. Interview with Christoph Butterwegge . January 26, 2016
28. ↑ "Families are systematically disadvantaged" . Interview with Jürgen Borchert. Deutschlandradio Kultur . February 7, 2015
29. ↑ Permanent specialist conference 1 “Basic and structural issues of youth law” of the German Institute for Youth Welfare and Family Law (DIJuF): Education and participation for children and young people according to SGB II: a structural criticism . February 5, 2013, p. 10
30. ↑ Dieter Smolka: The PISA Study: Consequences and Recommendations for Educational Policy and School Practice . From Politics and Contemporary History H. 41/2002. October 15, 2002
31. ↑ Dagdelen criticizes vague information on German courses. Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, January 24, 2017, accessed on January 31, 2017 . 
32. ↑ German courses for asylum seekers: Dagdelen demands personnel consequences according to the Federal Audit Office report . "Fact exclusive". Central German radio. March 28, 2017
33. ^ Albrecht Koschorke: Messages in legal form . University of Kponstanz. 2016
34. ↑ Esteban Piñeiro, Isabelle Bopp, Georg Kreis (eds.): Focus on promoting and demanding. Blank spaces in the Swiss integration discourse . 2009

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