Manfred G. Schmidt (political scientist)

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Manfred Gustav Schmidt (born July 25, 1948 in Donauwörth ) is a German political scientist and professor at Heidelberg University .

Life

After studying political science and English at the Ruprecht-Karls-University, he followed the political scientist Gerhard Lehmbruch, who initially worked in Heidelberg , as a staff member at his chair at the University of Tübingen, where he also wrote his dissertation . 1981 followed the habilitation at the University of Konstanz ; again Gerhard Lehmbruch was the supervisor of the work. Schmidt took up his first professorship at the Free University of Berlin in 1980 . In 1987 he moved to Heidelberg University. He returned there in 2001 after having switched to the Center for Social Policy at the University of Bremen in 1997 . Schmidt was director of the Institute for Political Science in Heidelberg from the 2001/02 winter semester to the 2006/07 winter semester.

In 2002 Schmidt was elected a full member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences , and one year later he was also an extraordinary member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences .

Since October 2006 Schmidt has been Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences at the University of Heidelberg, which is one of the largest faculties at Ruperto Carola in terms of student numbers. Schmidt had already been Dean of Heidelberg from October 1995 to September 1997, namely of the Philosophical-Historical Faculty, to which the Institute for Political Science was still a part.

Manfred G. Schmidt is married to the political scientist Ute Wachendorfer-Schmidt and has two children.

Research and work

Manfred G. Schmidt is particularly known for his research on the political system of the Federal Republic of Germany , social policy , the welfare state and theories of democracy . One focus of his current research is education spending policy in an international comparison.

His fifth edition of his handbook on theories of democracy , published in 2010, is frequently used by students, as is his reference work, Dictionary of Politics , which he wrote as the sole author and which he revised and expanded on the occasion of the second and third edition (2004/2010). His book The Political System of Germany (2nd edition 2011), which was published in February 2007 and is explicitly aimed at interested laypeople, can be described as a new standard work in this field and joins the publications by Rudzio and von Beyme on this topic . Unlike these two, Schmidt treats politics not only in terms of institutional order ( polity ) and political process flows ( politics ), but also in terms of policy content ( policy ). Using the policy fields of foreign, constitutional, financial, economic, social and environmental policy, he shows how the peculiarities of the political structure and the political process in Germany affect the design of policy content.

Schmidt's characterization of domestic political activity in Germany as a “ middle way politics ” has found widespread use in political science, also beyond the borders of the German-speaking area. Finally, Schmidt first presented the thesis of the "Policy of the Middle Way" in 1987 in an English-language article. Schmidt himself describes the thesis of the “politics of the middle way” as follows: “In domestic politics, a pattern of state activity has emerged that sets the Federal Republic apart from other industrialized countries: the politics of the middle way. This middle path runs between Northern European welfare capitalism, whose governments strive for the greatest possible social equality, comprehensive welfare state protection and a high level of employment, and liberal capitalism, especially in the USA, whose governments give the market priority and control the state on the short reins. " Schmidt, the "Middle Way Politics" in Germany is characterized in particular by four characteristics:

  1. Price stability, that is, fighting inflation, has priority over full employment;
  2. Dealing with the trade-off between equality and efficiency, both by promoting the economy and through ambitious social policies;
  3. medium-sized, transfer-intensive tax and social security state with a medium-sized number of civil servants;
  4. Delegation of many joint tasks to social associations, especially in the areas of wage, social and labor market policy.

Appreciations

Schmidt is highly valued within political science. In a survey by the German Association for Political Science (DVPW) among German political scientists on the reputation of specialist representatives, he was named third place in 1999 when it was named "Germany's most important political scientist" and was even ranked as the most important scientist in the field of comparative political science. In a repetition of the survey in 2006, he was named - after Fritz Scharpf - as the second most important political scientist in Germany. In the sub-areas of comparative political science and domestic politics / political system of the Federal Republic of Germany, Schmidt achieved first place in the reputation ranking , in the sub-area of ​​policy research / administrative science fourth place.

In 1981 Schmidt received the Stein Rokkan Prize for International Comparative Social Research from UNESCO for his habilitation thesis “Welfare State Politics under Civil and Social Democratic Governments - An International Comparison” . In 1995, Schmidt was awarded the renowned Leibniz Prize by the German Research Foundation (DFG) for his research on the welfare state .

Publications (selection)

  • State apparatus and armaments policy in the Federal Republic of Germany (1966–1973). Limits and consequential problems of state intervention policy in the military and armaments sector. Achenbach, Lollar 1975.
  • Manfred G. Schmidt, Ferdinand F. Müller: Empirical political science. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart a. a. 1979.
  • CDU and SPD in government. A comparison of their policies in the countries. Campus, Frankfurt am Main / New York 1980.
  • Welfare state policy under bourgeois and social democratic governments. An international comparison. Campus, Frankfurt am Main / New York 1982.
  • Rule in the Federal Republic of Germany. Leske + Budrich, Opladen 1992.
  • Political Institutions in the Federal Republic of Germany. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2003.
  • Social Policy of the GDR. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2004.
  • Social Policy in Germany. Historical development and international comparison. 3. Edition. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden, 2005.
  • The political system of the Federal Republic of Germany. 2nd Edition. CH Beck, Munich 2008.
  • The political system of Germany. Institutions, decision-making and policy areas. 2nd Edition. CH Beck, 2011.
  • with Tobias Ostheim, Nico A. Siegel and Reimut Zohlnhöfer: The welfare state. An introduction to historical and international comparison. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2007.
  • Democracy theories. An introduction. 5th edition. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden, 2010 (licensed edition Federal Agency for Political Education, Bonn 2010).
  • Dictionary of Politics (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 404). 3rd, revised and expanded edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-520-40403-9 .

literature

  • Klaus Armingeon (Ed.): State activities, parties and democracy. Festschrift for Manfred G. Schmidt. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2013, ISBN 978-3-658-01852-8 .
  • Herbert Obinger : Manfred G. Schmidt. No price without comparison. In: Arno Mohr, Dieter Nohlen (Hrsg.): Political Science in Heidelberg. 50 years of the Institute for Political Science. Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 2008, ISBN 978-3-8253-5452-7 , pp. 263-266.
  • Josef Schmid: Manfred G. Schmidt, welfare state policy under bourgeois and social democratic governments. doi: 10.1007 / 978-3-531-90400-9_114 , in: Steffen Kailitz (Ed.): Key works in political science. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2007, ISBN 978-3-531-14005-6 , pp. 429-432.
  • Arno Waschkuhn : Manfred G. Schmidt. In: Gisela Riescher (Ed.): Political Theory of the Present in Individual Representations. From Adorno to Young (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 343). Kröner, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-520-34301-0 , pp. 434-437.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Herbert Obinger: Manfred G. Schmidt. No price without comparison. In: Arno Mohr, Dieter Nohlen (Hrsg.): Political Science in Heidelberg. 50 years of the Institute for Political Science. Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 2008, pp. 263–266, here 263.
  2. ↑ Why not even mediocrity? The financing of German universities in an international comparison. In: Society - Economy - Politics. 56, 4, 2007, pp. 465-480; Testing the Retrenchment Hypothesis: Educational Spending, 1960–2002. In: Francis G. Castles (Ed.): The Disappearing State? Retrenchment Realities in an Age of Globalization. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham / Northampton 2007, pp. 159-183; Germany's public and private education expenditure in an international comparison. In: Journal for Political and European Sciences. 2, 2004, pp. 7-31; International comparison of expenditure on education. In: From Politics and Contemporary History . No. 21-22, 2003, pp. 6-11.
  3. ^ West Germany: The Policy of the Middle Way. In: Journal of Public Policy. Volume 7, No. 2, 1987, pp. 139-177.
  4. ^ The political system of Germany. Institutions, decision-making and policy areas. CH Beck, Munich 2007, p. 443.
  5. ^ The political system of Germany. Institutions, decision-making and policy areas. CH Beck, Munich 2007, p. 443 f.
  6. ^ Hans-Dieter Klingemann, Jürgen W. Falter: The German political science in the judgment of the professional representatives. In: Michael Th. Greven (Ed.): Democracy - a culture of the West? 20th scientific congress of the German Association for Political Science. Leske + Budrich, Opladen 1999, pp. 305-341.
  7. ↑ Jürgen W. Falter, Michèle Knodt: The importance of subject areas, theoretical approaches and the reputation of specialist representatives. In: Political Science. Newsletter of the German Association for Political Science. No. 137, Fall 2007, pp. 147-160. (www.dvpw.de)
  8. ↑ Arno Mohr: Introduction. Political science in Heidelberg. In: Arno Mohr, Dieter Nohlen (Hrsg.): Political Science in Heidelberg. 50 years of the Institute for Political Science. Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 2008, pp. 19–87, here 73.
  9. ^ Herbert Obinger: Manfred G. Schmidt. No price without comparison. In: Arno Mohr, Dieter Nohlen (Hrsg.): Political Science in Heidelberg. 50 years of the Institute for Political Science. Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 2008, pp. 263–266, here 263.
personal data
SURNAME Schmidt, Manfred G.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schmidt, Manfred Gustav
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German political scientist
DATE OF BIRTH July 25, 1948
PLACE OF BIRTH Donauwörth