New Social Market Economy Initiative

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New Social Market Economy Initiative
INSM.svg
founder Total metal
executive Director Hubertus Pellengahr
Chairman of the Board of Trustees Wolfgang Clement
Founded October 12, 2000
Seat Berlin
Action space Germany
Financial resources 6.97 million euros (2012, after taxes)
focus Economic liberalism
Methods public relation
Website www.insm.de

The Initiative for a New Social Market Economy ( INSM ) is in 2000 by the employers 'association total metal founded and employers' associations supported advocacy think tank and lobbying organization . It pursues the goal of anchoring its regulatory messages with decision-makers and the population through public relations work . The willingness of the population for liberal economic reforms should be increased, a business-friendly climate created and personal responsibility, competition and entrepreneurial freedom emphasized as positive values.

The initiative is known nationwide for its public relations work and campaigns. Some of their activities and campaigns have repeatedly been controversial and aroused public criticism in the past.

organization

The INSM is operated by the INSM Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft GmbH (until 2007 berolino.pr GmbH). This company, originally based in Cologne, was founded in December 1999 by the employers' associations in the metal and electrical industry, and in 2010 the company headquarters was relocated to Berlin. The GmbH has 8 permanent and about 40 freelance employees. The managing director is the former HDE spokesman Hubertus Pellengahr , who replaced Max A. Höfer and Dieter Rath (previously, among other things, press and PR chief of the BDI ) on January 1, 2010 . The association initially commissioned the PR agency Scholz & Friends with the concept and content design, and since 2010 the Serviceplan Public Opinion agency has been looking after the INSM's budget.

According to the company's own statements, the annual budget for 2012 was 6.97 million euros. The Institute of German Economy in Cologne acts as a scientific advisor . The INSM works together with the Allensbach Institute for Demoscopy . She is a member of the Stockholm Network , a European network of market-oriented think tanks .

The INSM is supported by volunteer "curators" and "ambassadors" . The active and former ambassadors also include members of various political parties, especially the CDU , SPD and FDP .

The Chairman of the Board of Trustees is the former Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Wolfgang Clement . He is the successor to Hans Tietmeyer , who was chairman of the INSM from 2000 to 2012.

On June 1st, 2005 the association Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft e. V. founded.

aims

According to its own statements, the INSM has the following goals:

“We want to adapt the social market economy to the current challenges of globalization , demographic change and the knowledge society . The social market economy has proven itself over decades - but even successful concepts must be continuously checked and modernized to ensure that they are future-proof. This results in an urgent need for reform in the following policy areas: labor market policy, economic policy, environmental and energy policy, social policy and education policy. "

According to the manual of employers and business associations in Germany, the INSM aims to anchor its regulatory messages to decision-makers and the population through public relations work . The willingness of the population for liberal economic reforms should be increased, a business-friendly climate created and personal responsibility, competition and entrepreneurial freedom emphasized as positive values.

public relation

Public relations strategy

The public relations work of the INSM is characterized by the strategy of integrated communication . The content is disseminated through advertisements, brochures, magazines, books and courses. From the ranks of its ambassadors, INSM provides experts for discussions on television and interview partners for newspaper editors, delivers finished articles for print and television editors, provides original sounds for radio journalists and supplies picture agencies with image motifs. The INSM also financed a workshop at the RTL journalism school in Cologne. The INSM also organized activities, such as a group of young people with the coats of arms of the 16 federal states on white T-shirts, which symbolically marched in front of the Reichstag. Some of the picture ended up in various media as a dpa photo without naming the INSM as the author. In addition, the INSM provided materials on the topic of economics for school lessons.

Cooperation with the media

From 2003 to 2005, the INSM together with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung named the “Reformer of the Year” every year. The award should be given to people who have been particularly committed to “market economy reforms” in Germany in the year in question. The constitutional judge Udo di Fabio was awarded the title in 2005 , the CDU politician Friedrich Merz in 2004 and the later CDU competence team member Paul Kirchhof in 2003 . In 2004 and 2003, IG Metall chairman Jürgen Peters and SPD presidium member Andrea Nahles were each named "Blocker of the Year".

Publicity campaigns and their controversies

Sending voodoo dolls to politicians

In 2013, the initiative sent voodoo dolls to members of the Bundestag and other politicians who could be stabbed to death with “cursed election promises” - optionally with a supplementary pension, women's quota, energy subsidies, inheritance tax, wealth tax or minimum wage. The purpose of the campaign was to show that “election promises could have painful effects”. The campaign received a divided response.

Campaign against SPD tax plans

As part of the 2017 federal election campaign, the INSM published an advertisement on the SPD's planned wealth tax in the picture . In addition to a picture of the SPD chancellor candidate Martin Schulz , the question was Dear Mr. Schulz, wealth tax from 60,000 euros: Is that your respect for performance? printed. The INSM was then criticized that the ad was "misleading". Because the SPD's program provides that the existing top tax rate of 42 percent will only be levied from 60,000 euros instead of around 54,000 euros. Accordingly, the tax rate would rise continuously up to a new top tax rate of 45 percent, which would be due from an income of around 76,000 euros. The wealthy tax described by the INSM, however, would only become due as before, from an income of 250,000 euros, and would also be increased by three percentage points. The definition of the INSM was therefore criticized as “not a serious definition”.

Campaign against the renewable energies law and against a CO 2 tax

With several campaigns since 2011, the INSM has taken a stand against the promotion of green electricity through the Renewable Energy Sources Act . Critics such as Hans-Josef Fell and Claudia Kemfert complained that the campaigns were based on misleading figures and were guided by the interests of the companies involved in the coal industry. Her campaign, launched in 2012, is viewed in the specialist literature as having "significant influence on the gray offensive against the EEG", in which she placed lots of shrill messages in the media and posted large-scale posters in Berlin's government district. In 2013 she also started a major campaign against the energy transition.

In 2019 she started another campaign on CO 2 pricing with a contribution entitled “12 Facts on Climate Policy”, in which she speaks out in favor of a slower energy transition and against rapid climate protection . The engineering scientist and energy researcher Volker Quaschning accused her in a fact check that her "arguments for laypeople often sounded convincing", but that the statements actually often have a "fake news character". For Die Zeit , the campaign represents an attempt to deceive the public. According to this, the INSM only pretends to work for climate protection, but dilutes it by only striving for compliance with the two-degree target , while the Paris Agreement was actually internationally agreed to limit global warming to well below two degrees . The primary purpose of the campaign is to " prevent the CO 2 tax favored by many scientists and economists in favor of emissions trading". The Federal Association for Renewable Energy accused it of "blocking the energy transition" and "aiming to prevent necessary political measures", and also accused the INSM of spreading false claims about renewable energies.

After Fridays for Future had launched a campaign against the INSM, the industry association announced that it was committed to the Paris climate protection agreement . Die Welt states “The accusation ... that the CO 2 cap proposed by the INSM is set far too low ', ... is also untrue: The INSM has so far exceeded the height of a CO 2 cap not expressed at all. "

General reception and criticism

Use of the keyword social market economy

According to political scientist Claus Leggewie , the goal of the INSM is less a “social” market economy than a “capitalist free market economy ”. According to journalist Thomas Leif , the core of the INSM is "the flanking of business interests through PR measures". In a study for the Hans Böckler Foundation, Rudolf Speth sees the INSM in the tradition of the “ Die Waage ” association.

According to a linguistic analysis by Martin Wengeler , the use of the keyword social market economy in the name of the INSM "can only be seen as an attempt [...] to occupy the 'term' in its own, economically liberal sense [...]". In the early days of the Federal Republic of Germany, the social market economy was a central, but controversial, self-understanding concept. In the 1990s, in the discussion about radical market concepts, the appeal to the social market economy by critics of budget cuts and social cuts again played an important role. In addition, the term social market economy was adopted by the parties SPD and Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen (the PDS is also said to have considered it in the program discussion) or used for their own goals after it had previously been used exclusively by the CDU . The CDU also used the term to advertise its new ideas and plans. The expansion of the word connection social market economy by the attribute "new" shows that the old keyword will be retained, but the content-related concepts that are now associated with it should shift in the direction of economically liberal concepts, which, however, also began in the 1950s, among others Representatives of the association Die Waage were advocated "and thus already at that time represented a reading of the social market economy". At the time when Angela Merkel's concept of the “New Social Market Economy” was being vigorously discussed in the CDU, the New Social Market Economy initiative was named. The word connection social market economy hardly appears in the texts of the INSM. Her understanding of the social market economy is linked to the understanding of economic liberals like Friedrich August von Hayek , who had feared as early as the 1950s that the attribute "social" made promises that stood in the way of economic progress and were therefore "unsocial" . In order to still be able to designate the associated concept as a social market economy , according to Wengeler the attribute “new” was added to the word combination, as well as a reference to Ludwig Erhard. However, it is unlikely that this understanding of the social market economy has been implemented in the discourse - in contrast to other catchphrases such as “reform”, for which the INSM can meanwhile assume a dominant interpretation in its sense.

Horst Friedrich Wünsche , Managing Director of the Ludwig Erhard Foundation , accuses the New Social Market Economy Initiative of wrongly advertising itself with a portrait of Ludwig Erhard . The initiative took him for its goals as well as other interest groups who claim Erhard under the opposite sign.

Relationship with the media

The political scientist Ulrich Müller of LobbyControl denounces the report as a critical and transparent. He refers to a master's thesis by Christian Nuernbergk on the public relations of the INSM with a view to the relationship between journalism and PR. Nuernbergk comes to the conclusion that media coverage largely takes over the INSM perspective, especially when exclusive media collaborations are offered. It makes the function of the initiative as a strategic element in representing the interests of employers' associations insufficiently transparent. Information on the classification of the reporting would be withheld from the reader. INSM ambassadors appeared in more than half of all the contributions examined, but the role of ambassador for the INSM was not made transparent in even every sixth contribution.

With regard to the endangerment of journalistic independence, the journalists' association Netzwerk Recherche criticized the increasing publication of PR texts as editorial articles without any indication of the origin of the texts. She cites a study by the University of Leipzig under the direction of the media scientist Michael Haller , which comes to the conclusion that the INSM "for the marketing of neoliberal reform ideas [...] via media campaigns creates generally perceptible sentiments that are evidenced by" representative "surveys. In this way, direct and indirect influence on the agenda setting of the editors. "

The Institute for Journalism at TU Dortmund University, Transparency International and the journalists' association Netzwerk Recherche complained in the study “Favors in Favors: Journalism and Corruption” (2013) that “in view of collapsing advertising income and falling sales figures, even many well-known media are barely hesitant to compensate for the declines that have arisen through cooperation with lobbyists and companies. ”The study also states:“ The call for journalistic independence seems increasingly helpless ”. The study cited the media partnerships of the INSM as a particularly serious example. In a study for the Hans Böckler Foundation, Rudolf Speth also criticized the media partnerships of the INSM with major newspapers such as Wirtschaftswoche , Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung , Die Welt and Handelsblatt , but also talk shows and emphasized that through the work of the INSM "the boundaries between PR and journalism "would become blurred.

The media scientist Siegfried Weischenberg said in a monitor broadcast in 2005: “The New Social Market Economy initiative is extremely successful because it has succeeded in enforcing such a neoliberal mainstream in the media. And that could easily be achieved because the media have to produce inexpensively . They are very dependent on being delivered to them, there is a lobby here that is very wealthy. This is of course a very, very problematic story because the media is not doing what it is supposed to be doing. The journalists lose their role, so to speak, because they do not check critically, because they do not make the interests transparent. ”According to the monitor , the broadcasters supplied with contributions stated that they had edited the contributions and that most of the broadcasters collaborated with them the INSM has now ended. Basically, the blurring of the boundaries between journalism and public relations was criticized.

A number of ambassadors have since given up this activity, for example Wolfgang Clement after taking over the office of Federal Minister for Economics and Labor , who, however, has been back as Chairman of the Board of Trustees since July 2012.

According to Werner Bührer, the INSM runs “an advertisement in the major daily newspapers almost every week”. In addition to the striking figure of Erhard with tapered facial features and the obligatory cigar, under the line “Erhard writes again” there is a quote from the “father of the economic miracle” and a comment from the initiators of this advertising campaign. The Ludwig Erhard Foundation is not happy about it, since the instrumentalization of Erhard lacks a “serious reference to the concept of the social market economy”. According to Horst Friedrich Wünsche it is difficult to fathom Erhard's theory because he understood economic policy to be something different from the politicians before and after him and he based his policy on knowledge that was not and is not taught at universities. “The tendency of interest representatives to refer to Erhard one way or another cannot be factually justified ... The demand of the industry to favor the“ free economy ”with economic policy measures, and the demand of the trade unions to do more for“ social justice ”in terms of social policy “Rates wishes as misinterpretations of political interests. The public relations workers of the associations would put what they would like to hear in Erhard's mouth. Ironically, he notes that this is an obvious choice, since Ludwig Erhard has said a lot and the social market economy can easily be interpreted in one direction or the other by shifting the emphasis: from the social to the market economy or from the market economy to the social. "And if one is emphasized enough, the other can be left out completely."

Surreptitious advertising allegation

In September 2005 it became known through a customer list published by ARD that INSM paid a total of 58,670 euros in 2002 in order to influence dialogues in the ARD broadcast Marienhof . The service union ver.di accused her of trying to manipulate young people with political advertising . The INSM then stated that it was only a matter of imparting “basic knowledge about our economic system ” and emphasizing the “importance of personal involvement in the search for an apprenticeship or job ”. She now admits that the media cooperation in the case of the ARD series Marienhof was a mistake. However, the initiative had been assured several times by the production company that the form of cooperation was in accordance with the State Broadcasting Agreement and that the responsible ARD editorial team would accept the pieces, which turned out to be wrong. The management of the INSM rejects the accusation of media manipulation made by the ver.di union in its press release of September 20, 2005.

Alleged editorial influence

In November 2005, the weekly newspaper Freitag reported that the INSM was putting pressure on editors to combat it after increasingly critical media coverage was taking place. According to reports in television programs such as Monitor , the INSM also turned directly to individual members of the Broadcasting Council and the ZDF TV Council and complained about "one-sided" reporting. Critical journalists are portrayed by the INSM as affiliated with the union or as Attac sympathizers in order to undermine their credibility .

Teaching material in schools

The initiative provides free teaching material on politics and economics via the teacher portal www.wirtschaftundschule.de. The materials are prepared and made available by IW Consult GmbH and IW Medien GmbH , two subsidiaries of the Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft . The materials were criticized from various sides because they put the interests of employers in the foreground and neglected social aspects. Statements such as “In reality, the minimum wage has only one consequence: that even more people will become unemployed” were classified as tendentious. By using the material, teachers should be used as multipliers. Focus Money also runs the school project “We explain the economy” with the INSM, in which teachers and schools are provided monthly teaching materials for lessons.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ ISNM.de: The team
  2. ↑ ISNM.de: curators and Ambassador
  3. ↑ a b c d e FAQ of the INSM
  4. ^ Gerd F. Hepp: Education Policy in Germany: An Introduction . ISBN 978-3-531-15210-3 , p. 89
  5. ↑ lobbyradar.de ( Memento of the original from December 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.lobbyradar.de
  6. ↑ a b Wolfgang Schroeder , Bernhard Wessels: Handbook Employers and Business Associations in Germany . ISBN 978-3-531-14195-4 , p. 228
  7. ^ A b c Rudolf Speth: The political strategies of the initiative New Social Market Economy . (PDF; 465 kB), Hans Böckler Foundation , Working Papers Series, No. 96, November 2004
  8. ↑ Serviceplan wins INSM budget , November 18, 2009, last accessed on April 15, 2013
  9. ↑ a b Communicative strategy and methodology of the New Social Market Economy Initiative . From Lisa Wegener's thesis, p. 12
  10. ↑ a b Wolfgang Clement new Chairman of the Board of Trustees , July 4, 2012
  11. ↑ Norbert Nicoll: Carrying the economic rationality into the public . 2008, p. 102
  12. ↑ Norbert Nicoll: Carrying the economic rationality into the public . 2008, p. 107 f.
  13. ↑ Norbert Nicoll: Carrying the economic rationality into the public . 2008, p. 120 f.
  14. ↑ Norbert Nicoll: Carrying the economic rationality into the public . 2008, p. 110 f.
  15. ↑ Bastian Brinkmann: business lobby charmed Bundestag with Voodoo . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . January 7, 2013 ( online [accessed August 7, 2013]).
  16. ↑ a b c How business lobbyists falsify the SPD tax plans. In: Spiegel Online . June 26, 2017. Retrieved August 23, 2014 .
  17. ↑ The mistakes of the energy transition. INSM, accessed August 28, 2017 (for example).
  18. ↑ Hans-Josef Fell: The campaigns of the initiative new social market economy against the EEG. PV Magazin, August 23, 2017, accessed on August 28, 2017 .
  19. ↑ INSM and RWI campaign against the promotion of green electricity. Lobbypedia, accessed August 28, 2017 .
  20. ↑ Tobias Haas, The political economy of the energy transition. Germany and Spain in the context of multiple crisis dynamics in Europe . Wiesbaden 2017, p. 184.
  21. ↑ a b BEE accuses the INSM of sabotaging the energy transition . In: PV-Magazine , July 30, 2019. Retrieved August 3, 2019.
  22. ↑ 12 Facts on Climate Policy - Progress, Growth and Climate Protection. In: Initiative New Social Market Economy. June 27, 2019, accessed August 30, 2019 .
  23. ^ Elsa Koester: Green Economy - The Fridays for Future find their opponent. In: Friday. July 26, 2019, accessed August 30, 2019 .
  24. ↑ Scientists for Future: "We want to expose the people who prevent climate protection" . In: Enorm , July 31, 2019. Retrieved August 3, 2019.
  25. ↑ INSM's climate protection campaign fails the fact check . In: top agrar , July 31, 2019. Accessed August 3, 2019.
  26. ↑ The climate statements of the INSM in the fact check . In: Neue Energie , August 1, 2019. Retrieved August 3, 2019.
  27. ↑ Caution, risk of splitting . In: Die Zeit , August 20, 2019. Retrieved August 30, 2019.
  28. ↑ Climate activists demonstrate against business lobby (Neues Deutschland). In: new Germany. August 16, 2019, accessed August 30, 2019 .
  29. ↑ Daniel Wetzel: "Fridays for Future": Economy defends itself against the allegations. In: WORLD. August 19, 2019, accessed August 30, 2019 .
  30. ↑ Sebastian Müller: Was ist Soziale Marktwirtschaft , Der Freitag Online from March 13, 2012
  31. ↑ Lobbying and PR using the example of the New Social Market Economy initiative . In: Thomas Leif, Rudolf Speth (Ed.): The silent power. Lobbyism in Germany . Wiesbaden 2006, pp. 302-316.
  32. ↑ Steffen Pappert, Melani Schröter, Ulla Fix: Encrypting, concealing, concealing in public and institutional communication . 2008, ISBN 978-3-503-09851-4 , p. 100
  33. ↑ a b Steffen Pappert, Melani Schröter, Ulla Fix: Encrypting, concealing, concealing in public and institutional communication . 2008, ISBN 978-3-503-09851-4 , p. 101
  34. ↑ a b Steffen Pappert, Melani Schröter, Ulla Fix: Encrypting, concealing, concealing in public and institutional communication . 2008, ISBN 978-3-503-09851-4 , p. 102
  35. ↑ a b Horst Friedrich Wünsche: Ludwig Erhards Social Market Economy. A balance sheet , orientations for economic and social policy 112 (2007), p. 82
  36. ↑ Lobby control: Reporting on the INSM: uncritical and not transparent Wolfgang Lieb, April 26, 2006
  37. ↑ Christian Nuernbergk: Die Mutmacher: An exploratory study on the public relations work of the Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft (PDF; 27 kB), own homepage.
  38. ↑ PR influence on journalism has to be reduced drastically . (PDF; 90 kB) Network Research , 2005.
  39. ↑ Short study: Favors - Journalism and Corruption (PDF; 2.0 MB)
  40. ↑ a b Gitti Müller, Kim Otto, Markus Schmidt: The power over heads: How the initiative New Social Market Economy makes opinion ( memento from June 15, 2006 in the Internet Archive ), MONITOR No. 539 on October 13, 2005
  41. ^ Attack of the surreptitious advertisers , Frankfurter Rundschau Online of January 8, 2007
  42. ↑ Werner Bührer: The dream of "prosperity for everyone". How up-to-date is Ludwig Erhard's program publication? Zeithistorische Forschungen / Studies in Contemporary History, Online Edition, 4 (2007) H. 1 + 2.
  43. ^ Horst Friedrich Wünsche: Ludwig Erhard's social market economy. A balance sheet , orientations for economic and social policy 112 (2007), p. 89
  44. ↑ INSM: Advertisement in "Marienhof" was "Fehler" ( memento from December 23, 2005 in the Internet Archive ), netzeitung.de from September 21, 2005
  45. ↑ Intimidate the media , Friday November 11, 2005
  46. ↑ wirtschaftundschule.de
  47. ↑ How companies and associations want to control opinions. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . September 12, 2013, accessed July 28, 2014 .
  48. ↑ Caterina Lobenstein : The clueless . In: Die Zeit , No. 8/2013
  49. ^ Tilman Steffen: lobbyists in the staff room. In: Zeit Online . May 11, 2011, accessed July 28, 2014 .
  50. ↑ Götz Hamann: Loudspeaker of the capital . In: Die Zeit , No. 19/2005
  51. ↑ "Teaching Aids - PR in School", Zapp, November 2, 2011