Fritz W. Scharpf

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Fritz Wilhelm Scharpf (born February 12, 1935 in Schwäbisch Hall ) is a German legal and political scientist and long-time director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne .

Life

After his training, Scharpf studied law and political science at the universities of Tübingen and Freiburg from 1954 to 1959 . In 1955/56 he studied political science as a Fulbright scholar at Yale University. In 1959, he passed the first state examination in law at the University of Freiburg . From 1959 to 1964 he did his legal clerkship there ; interrupted by studying at Yale Law School in 1960/61, from which he graduated with a Master of Laws . In 1964 he passed the second state examination in law and received his doctorate under Arnold Bergstraesser and Horst Ehmke at the University of Freiburg .

From 1964 to 1966, Scharpf was an Assistant Professor of Law at Yale Law School; 1965 also as Visiting Assistant Professor at the Law School of the University of Chicago . 1966-1968 he received a postdoctoral fellowship of the German Research Foundation at the University of Freiburg. In 1968 he became full professor of political science at the University of Konstanz in order to develop an interdisciplinary social science course. Scharpf was a member of the government and administrative reform project group , which u. a. Should develop proposals for a reorganization of the federal government, including a reorganization of the areas of responsibility of the federal ministries. From 1973 to 1984 Scharpf was director of the International Institute for Management and Administration at the Science Center Berlin , where he also held a research professorship from 1984 to 1986. From 1986 to his retirement in 2003 he was director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies . In the meantime he accepted visiting professorships and research stays in Stanford, USA (1987), Florence (1995 and 1999) and Paris (2001).

Scharpf coined u. a. the terms political integration as well as negative and positive coordination .

In 2007 he received the Science Prize: Research between Basics and Applications .

Research areas and works

During his many years of research, Scharpf set several research priorities, which can be divided into seven core aspects. In addition to his comparative studies on the political economy of welfare states , on the political economy of inflation and unemployment in Western Europe and on the crisis policy of social democratic countries in the 1970s, he also devoted himself to German federalism , the political interdependence between the federal government, states and municipalities, and European Integration and the organizational problems and decision-making processes in the ministerial administration. In addition, he conducted research into the extent to which game theory can be used in empirical social science research.

One of his most important publications is the two-volume work Welfare and Work in the Open Economy (together with Vivien Schmidt), which was published by Oxford University Press in 2000. In it, Scharpf presents the results of his empirical project “National employment and social systems under the conditions of economic internationalization”, which focuses on the question of the extent to which highly developed welfare states can adapt to the challenges of economic globalization . This comparative study examined the successes and failures in employment and social policy of twelve industrialized countries (including Germany, France, Great Britain and Switzerland) over the past three decades. Scharpf found that the low employment rate in the service areas of education, health, household and leisure, which can be offered and consumed locally, is Germany's deficit.

Scharpf also devotes himself to his research focus on the political economy of welfare states in the article The Viability of Advanced Welfare States in the International Economy: Vulnerabilities and Options (2000). In it he particularly addresses the strong external pressure to adapt that is affecting welfare states. The liberalization of the financial markets and the markets for goods and services have made both capital and companies mobile. For the welfare states, this means that they are forced to lower their taxes and dismantle social standards in order to prevent companies from migrating abroad. The international pressure on the national welfare states intensified as a result of the penetration of European agreements, such as European competition law , into the area of ​​welfare state services. As a result of the monetary and economic union , which requires all participating countries to borrow a maximum of 3% of gross domestic product through the Stability and Growth Pact , the member states are also limited in their financial freedom in financing the welfare state.

His 1999 work Governing in Europe: effective or democratic? deals with an error analysis of European politics. Scharpf presents possible solutions for a more effective and democratic policy within the EU . The focus here is on the lack of legitimacy and problem-solving ability of the European ruling structures. Scharpf puts forward the thesis that Europe is still far from a politically resilient, collective identity. The emergence of the common internal market and the monetary union are to be regarded as successes, but majority decisions are not yet possible for decisions concerning employment, social or educational policy. The EU citizens could not yet identify with the European Union and would first have to develop a collective identity before the supranational institutions could effectively relieve the national governments.

In Political Interweaving: Theory and Empiricism of Cooperative Federalism in the FRG (1976), Scharpf shows how pronounced the interweaving of political levels is in German federalism . In it, he coined the term political interdependence for a political system in which all essential political decisions can only be made in conjunction with the various system levels. Public tasks can usually not be carried out independently by the central and subordinate states, but can only be carried out through cooperation. This leads to negotiations between the actors involved. In the sense of a multilevel integration, there is cooperation between the federal government and the federal states, between the federal states and between the EU, federal government, federal states and municipalities. The strong interdependence impairs the FRG's ability to act, as lengthy negotiation processes are necessary. Escape from the “political entanglement trap” is difficult, according to Scharpf. Attempts at unbundling or regional reorganization have always failed.

Options of Federalism in Germany and Europe (1994) is an anthology of various articles on German and European federalism. In it, Scharpf presents approaches to reforming federalism at both levels and tries to explain the deficits observed in Germany and at the European level. His central thesis also amounts to the “political entanglement trap”.

Publications (selection)

  • Theory of democracy between utopia and adaptation , Konstanz: Universitätsverlag (1970)
  • Planning as a Political Process. Essays on the theory of planning democracy , Frankfurt: Suhrkamp (1973). ISBN 3-518-06382-0
  • Political entanglement: theory and empiricism of the cooperative federalism of the Federal Republic (with Reissert / Schnabel), Scriptor (1976)
  • Social Democratic Crisis Policy in Europe , Frankfurt: Campus (1987)
  • Options of Federalism in Germany and Europe , Frankfurt: Campus (1994)
  • Games Real Actors Play. Actor-Centered Institutionalism in Policy Research , Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press (1997)
  • Governing in Europe: effective or democratic? Oxford: Oxford University Press (1999)
  • Welfare and Work in the Open Economy , Oxford: Oxford University Press (2000)
  • The Viability of Advances Welfare states in the International Economy: Vulnerabilities and Options, Journal of European Public Policy 7 (2) (2000)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ His essay The Viability of Advanced Welfare States in the International Economy: Vulnerabilities and Options (English)
personal data
SURNAME Scharpf, Fritz W.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Scharpf, Fritz Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German legal scholar and political scientist
DATE OF BIRTH February 12, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Schwäbisch Hall