Franz Walter (political scientist)

Franz Walter (born March 2, 1956 in Steinheim , North Rhine-Westphalia ) is a German political scientist . He was a professor of political science at the University of Göttingen ; he has been in early retirement since September 2017. Walter is best known for his work on party research.

Life

He studied history and social sciences at the Free University of Berlin and at the University of Bielefeld ( state examination 1982). In 1985 he received a scholarship from the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung at the University of Göttingen with a dissertation on urban criticism, national romanticism and revolutionary myth, and received his doctorate in social sciences. After working as a research assistant for the Historical Commission in Berlin , he returned to Göttingen in 1988 . There he completed his habilitation, was appointed associate professor for political science in 2000 and finally appointed full professor in 2002.

Walter headed the Göttingen Institute for Democracy Research in Villa Stich from 2010 to September 2017 . Together with his Göttingen colleague Peter Lösche , he shaped the Göttingen school of party research, which focuses on a qualitative and strongly historical approach to the research topic. His research initially focused on the labor movement and the SPD, and since the late 1990s increasingly on other parties as well. In his work, Walter tries very hard to use language that is generally understandable in order to bring political science knowledge closer to a broad audience.

He publishes regularly in print media with a broad and heterogeneous readership (such as Spiegel , Die Welt or Frankfurter Rundschau ). Franz Walter has been publishing INDES - magazine for politics and society since October 2011 . The journal deals with socio-political and sociological issues and aims to close the gap between specialist journals and popular media.

Walter has been a member of the SPD since 1972 , but has no functions in the party.

As part of the pedophilia debate on the Green sent him to the party executive of the Greens in June 2013 to investigate the "question of the influence of groups with pedophile claims within the Green". On November 12, 2014 Walter and the Green Federal Chairwoman Simone Peter presented the preliminary final report on The Greens and pedosexuality in Berlin . The historian Ewald Grothe accused Walter of relativizing "the responsibility of the Greens" with the study.

Walter is married and has three grown children. In September 2017, Walter took early retirement for health reasons.

reception

According to Die Welt, Franz Walter is considered to be “one of the most prominent party experts in the republic”, an excellent specialist scientist and a publicly visible intellectual. He is perceived as the journalistic star of his profession because of his media presence and reputation for being a brilliant author.

His essays and books, especially on social democracy, are considered standard works. Despite his party membership, he is considered a harsh critic of the SPD.

In 2005 the President of Göttingen University, Kurt von Figura , made public plans to delete two of the four political chairs at the Political Science Department. Figura said that the Göttingen political science was a "weak point" of the university that could not be developed and had to be "eradicated". Almost a hundred intellectuals protested against the planned cuts with a signature campaign and criticized that it appeared "that under the pretext of the university reform, politically unpopular professors are to be expelled from Göttingen".

Publications (selection)

• Peter Lösche , Franz Walter: The SPD: class party - people's party - quota party; on the development of social democracy from Weimar to German unification . Scientific Book Society , Darmstadt 1992, ISBN 3-534-10994-5 .
• Peter Lösche , Franz Walter: The FDP: Direction dispute and doubts about the future . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1996, ISBN 3-534-80195-4 .
• Franz Walter: The SPD: From the proletariat to the new center . Alexander Fest Verlag, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-8286-0173-1 .
• Franz Walter, Joachim Bischof et al .: Black Book Red-Green: From Social-Ecological Renewal to Agenda 2010 . VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-89965-137-5 .
• Franz Walter: Dreams of Jamaica: How politics works and what changes society . Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 2006, ISBN 3-462-03760-9 .
• Franz Walter, Felix Butzlaff , Matthias Micus, Tim Spier: The Left Party: Contemporary Idea or Alliance without a Future? VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften , Wiesbaden 2007, ISBN 978-3-531-14941-7 .
• Franz Walter: In the autumn of the people's parties? Rise and Fall of Political Mass Integration . transcript Verlag , Bielefeld 2009, ISBN 978-3-8376-1141-0 .
• Franz Walter: Charismatics and Efficiencies: Portraits from 60 Years of the Federal Republic . edition suhrkamp, ​​2009, ISBN 978-3-518-12577-9 .
• Franz Walter: Those who come too late are allowed to rule. In: Spiegel Geschichte 2 . 2009, p. 140-142 ( online ).
• Franz Walter: Forward or Down? On the transformation of social democracy . edition suhrkamp , Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-518-12622-6 .
• Franz Walter: yellow or green? Small party history of the higher earning middle in Germany . transcript Verlag, Bielefeld 2010, ISBN 978-3-8376-1505-0 .
• Franz Walter: Republic, that's not much: Party and youth in the crisis of Weimar socialism . transcript Verlag, Bielefeld 2011, ISBN 978-3-8376-1832-7 .
• Franz Walter, Stephan Klecha , Alexander Hensel (eds.): The Greens and Pädosexuality: a West German story . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-525-30055-8 .
• Lars Geiges , Stine Marg , Franz Walter: Pegida: The dirty side of civil society? Transcript Verlag , Bielefeld 2015, ISBN 978-3-8376-3192-0 .
• Franz Walter: The SPD. Biography of a party from Ferdinand Lassalle to Andrea Nahles . Rowohlt Verlag , Reinbek near Hamburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-499-63445-1 .

Literature and Reviews

• Adam Soboczynski: Comrade Researcher . In: The time . No. 47 , 2005 ( zeit.de - portrait of Franz Walter).
• Franz Walter , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 19/2009 from May 5, 2009, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of the article freely available)

Web links

• Literature by and about Franz Walter in the catalog of the German National Library
• Website of Franz Walter at the Göttingen Institute for Democracy Research
• Jürgen Rüttgers : Franz Walter's unpleasant answers. In: Spiegel Online . October 5, 2006, Retrieved June 2, 2020 (Review of Dreams of Jamaica ). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} NDR (ed.): Democracy research in Göttingen well secured . 2018 ( ndr.de [accessed on July 6, 2018]).
2. ↑ Pedophilia reappraisal: Greens let research project cost 209,000 euros . Spiegel Online , June 28, 2013; Retrieved August 15, 2013
3. ↑ The Greens and Pedosexuality. Results of the research project ( Memento of the original dated December 3, 2014 in the Internet Archive ; PDF) 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. , Abstract on the website of the Greens , November 12, 2014 
4. ↑ Ann-Katrin Müller, Christian Teevs: Pedophilia Debate among the Greens: “Ignorance and lack of sovereignty” . Spiegel Online , November 12, 2014
5. ↑ Johannes Leithäuser: Pedophilia accusation against Greens: Many excuses and an attempt to explain . In: FAZ , November 12, 2014
6. ↑ FAZ , November 29, 2014, p. 8.
7. ^ About the person: Franz Walter . In: Die Welt , February 20, 2012
8. ↑ ^{a b} Leather stockfish . In: Die Zeit , No. 49/2005
9. ↑ The President, the Researcher and the Wulff . In: taz , November 23, 2005
10. ↑ The Privatizers . In: Die Zeit , No. 43/2010
11. ↑ 40 years of decline: incendiary letters to social democracy . In: Die Welt , December 24, 2010; Franz Walter finds the SPD pathetic . In: Die Welt , July 9, 2008
12. ↑ Intellectuals protest against dismantling . In: Die Welt , December 7, 2005