Volker von Prittwitz

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Volker Kurt Erdmann von Prittwitz and Gaffron (born May 9, 1950 in Herrsching am Ammersee ) is a German political scientist and professor at the Otto Suhr Institute of the Free University of Berlin . A number of political-analytical models and explanatory approaches originate from him.

Life

From 1969 Prittwitz studied political science , history and sociology at the University of Regensburg , from 1971 to 1973 political science and from 1974 to 1977 economics at the Free University of Berlin, where he was awarded a Dr. rer. pole. PhD. From 1980 to 1990 he worked on research projects, then as a research fellow at the International Institute for Environment and Society at the Berlin Science Center. Here he was at times the focus of environmental public opinion on combating smog and extensive air pollution ( environmental foreign policy ) and undertook research and lecture trips to numerous European countries as well as to North and South America. After his habilitation in 1990, teaching and research activities at the Technical University of Darmstadt, the Universities of Hamburg, Erlangen, Erfurt and Greifswald and the Max Planck Institute for Social Research in Cologne, as well as many years of activity as spokesman for the environmental policy working group of the German Association for Political Science, he became 2004 appointed adjunct professor at the Free University of Berlin . In 2013 he founded an internationally oriented online institute for policy analysis. In an appeal ( Der Betteldozent. About the scandal of free teaching and examinations at universities ), he denounced that private lecturers - including himself - worked / work almost unpaid for years.

Works

Prittwitz introduced the concept of policy analysis . According to this, politics can be systematically analyzed, based on proven models and methods of empirical social research - a potential for deeper understanding and general welfare-oriented, critical policy advice.

Prittwitz's textbooks focus on the political dimensions of public action ( policy ), political process ( politics ) and political system ( polity ). However, the independence of these policy dimensions varies in practice. Politics can only be driven by power or interests without respecting the independence of institutions and factual logics. If friend-foe thinking prevails, politics even loses any independent power to coordinate with the logic of war. Therefore, multi-dimensional politics with independent institutions and factual politics is a special historical achievement.

Logics of Interaction (Civility Theory)

Prittwitz's theory of civilization is based on this insight, initially gained in terms of communication theory (1996) and network criticism (2001) . According to this, actors behave more civilly, the more they overcome friend / foe thinking and one-dimensional power and interest logics in favor of the logic of reciprocal ties and the resulting freedom and personal responsibility. Civil modernity coordinates itself in a multidimensional way, based on differentiated law ( bound governance ) and developed civility. Secured human rights, multilateralism, factual political communication, responsible ethical weighing, aesthetics and humor can be lost again if unilateral calculations of interests gain the upper hand. Civility is contested, for example domestically in the conflict between democratic public opinion, populism, fundamentalism and extremism, in conflicts over state change and separation or in the international system. In different ways, civil coordination is also carried out socially - see, for example, the distinctly rule-based media games and sport, different legal proceedings or predominantly power-based organizational and economic forms.

According to Prittwitz's capacity theory, whether problem-related factual policy develops depends heavily on the perceived capacities to act: If actors are unable to cope with a problem, they tend to suppress or postpone the problem; The more capable they look at themselves, however, the more sensitively they perceive the problem and the more they address it publicly, including over-alarming (examples of smog, smoking, nuclear power). Therefore, manageable challenges are often publicly exaggerated as catastrophes, while particularly difficult, unsolvable problems are not addressed or only discussed subliminally - the disaster paradox .

The capacity theory also has process and interest analysis aspects. According to Prittwitz's model of the spiral of interests , a problem can only become politically visible if the interests of those affected appear self-confidently in relation to the interests of the polluter and thus a conflict of perception and interests arises. This conflict can only be resolved with helper capacities, from which, at least in the long term, independent helper interests in the use and reproduction of helper positions arise. The stronger and more stable such helper interests become, the more they influence the way in which a problem is dealt with; yes, they can even block a problem solution that would put helper interests worse off. In this respect, processes of political decision-making and decision-making are far more complex and precarious than processes of technical problem solving.

The Causal Depth Model (Climate Protection)

Property policy challenges can be According Prittwitz after four guiding criteria analyze causal depth ( depth ), scope ( scope ), intensity ( intensity ) and speed ( speed ). The concept of causal depth results from the model of a loose causal chain of effects, in which more or less causal ( deep ) intervention can be made. Only action with a sufficiently large depth of effect captures the causes of a problem and thus enables effective problem solving. In addition, it works across all subsequent stages and is therefore more efficient than symptom-related measures. However, the costs of dealing with deep problem solutions are usually greater than the costs of acting close to symptoms, which also affects relevant interests. Therefore, socio-politically problems are usually not dealt with according to objective management criteria, but, if at all, often with considerable delay in small steps with increasing depth and breadth of action or in erratic, volatile processes.

The current term environmental foreign policy was introduced by Prittwitz in 1984 in his book Environmental Foreign Policy. Thus, cross-border environmental challenges can only be solved effectively if they input into the core areas of high politics ( high politics find) - a concept with which common in the tendency interests of humanity in the sense Civilian foreign policy come to the fore (2018).

Prittwitz analyzes the prevailing climate policy of long-term climate goals and action plans according to the Maya syndrome of ecological self-destruction. Since the greenhouse gas problem is an acute danger to the human-earth system, there is a global climate emergency in which climate protection has priority over other political goals. The rapid development of artificial intelligence is also an existential challenge for mankind (2018).

Prittwitz has analyzed the German electoral system several times (2003, 2011, 2019) according to criteria of democratic elections and presented reform considerations.

Books

as an author
  • Theory of civility (e-book in e-pub format), Books on Demand, October 2019, ISBN 9783750403413
  • Comparative policy analysis (with the collaboration of Alina Barenz et al. / UTB 2871), Lucius & Lucius, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-8252-2871-2
  • Political Analysis (UTB; 1707), Leske + Budrich, Opladen 1994, ISBN 3-8100-1044-8 (with the collaboration of Kai Wegrich, Stefan Bratzel and Sebastian Oberthür)
  • The disaster paradox. Elements of a theory of environmental policy, Leske + Budrich, Opladen 1990, ISBN 3-8100-0887-7 (habilitation thesis, FU Berlin 1990)
  • Environmental foreign policy. Transboundary air pollution in Europe, Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt / M. 1984, ISBN 3-593-33369-4
  • Crisis cycle and world economy, Sperber, Berlin 1979, ISBN 3-921862-47-7
as editor
  • Equally and freely according to commonly recognized rules. Bound Governance - Theory of Civil Modernity , University Library of the Free University of Berlin, Berlin December 2018, ISBN 978-3-96110-227-3 ( available online )
  • Institutional arrangements in environmental policy. Sustainability through innovative combinations of processes? Leske + Budrich, Opladen 2000, ISBN 3-8100-2641-7
  • Negotiating and arguing. Dialogue, Interests and Power in Environmental Policy . Leske + Budrich, Opladen 1996, ISBN 3-8100-1470-2
  • Environmental policy as a modernization process. Political science environmental research and teaching in the Federal Republic of Germany . Leske + Budrich, Opladen 1993, ISBN 3-8100-1030-8

Selected articles / short texts

  • Does Germany have a democratic electoral system ?, in: From Politics and Contemporary History, Supplement to the weekly newspaper Das Parlament, No. 4/2011 of January 24, 2011 ( available online )
  • Multi-dimensional communication as a precondition of democracy. Lecture at the Social Science Research Center Berlin, 2005: ( available online )
  • Fully personalized proportional representation. Reform considerations based on a comparison of the electoral systems of Germany and Finland, in: From politics and contemporary history. Supplement to the weekly newspaper Das Parlament, B 52 of December 22, 2003, pp. 12–20 ( available online )
  • Civil or imperial religion? Fundamentalism, religious freedom and the responsibility of the civil state, in: From politics and contemporary history. Supplement to the weekly newspaper Das Parlament B 18 of May 3, 2002, pp. 33–38 ( available online )
  • The dark side of networks (2001), in: Ders. (Ed.): Equally and freely according to commonly recognized rules. Bound Governance - Theory of Civil Modernity, University Library of the Free University of Berlin, Berlin 2018, pp. 192–216 ( available online )
  • Negotiating in the relationship spectrum of one-dimensional and multi-dimensional communication, in: Volker von Prittwitz (Ed.), Negotiating and Arguing. Dialogue, interests and power in environmental policy, Leske + Budrich, Opladen pp. 41–68
  • Disaster paradox and capacity to act. Theoretical orientations of the political analysis, in: Adrienne Heritier (Ed.), Policy-Analyze, special issue 24 of the Politische Vierteljahresschrift, 1993, pp. 328–357
  • Avoidance of danger - precaution - structural greening. Three ideal types of environmental policy, in: UE Simonis (Ed.), Preventive Environmental Policy, Campus, Frankfurt am Main, New York, pp. 46–63
  • Policy field analysis and traditional political science - the example of environmental policy, in: H.-H. Hartwich (Ed.), Policy Research in the Federal Republic of Germany, Opladen, Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1985, pp. 198-203
  • Predicting smog control. Materials and considerations on clean air policy in the Federal Republic of Germany, IIUG (WZB) Discussion Paper 1981–5. Berlin 1981

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Appeal
  2. ↑ Volker von Prittwitz: Negotiating in the relationship spectrum between one- and multi-dimensional communication . Ed .: Volker von Prittwitz. Leske + Budrich, Opladen 1996, ISBN 3-8100-1470-2 , pp. 41-47 .
  3. ↑ Volker von Prittwitz: The dark side of networks . Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-96110-176-4 , pp. 192-216 .
  4. ^ Volker von Prittwitz: Theory of civility . 4th edition. Books on Demand, 2019, ISBN 978-3-7504-0341-3 .
  5. ↑ Volker von Prittwitz: The catastrophe paradox. Elements of an environmental policy theory . Leske + Budrich, Opladen 1990, ISBN 3-8100-0887-7 , pp. 13-30; 107-115 .
  6. ↑ Volker von Prittwitz: The catastrophe paradox. Elements of an environmental policy theory . Leske + Budrich, Opladen 1990, ISBN 3-8100-0887-7 , pp. 202-208 .
  7. ↑ Volker von Prittwitz: Das Katstrophenparadox. Elements of an environmental policy theory . Leske + Budrich, Opladen 1990, ISBN 3-8100-0887-7 , pp. 53-62, 194-2011 .
  8. ^ Volker von Prittwitz: Theory of civility . 4th edition. Books on Demand, 2019, ISBN 978-3-7504-0341-3 , pp. 77% .
personal data
SURNAME Prittwitz, Volker von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Prittwitz and Gaffron, Volker Kurt Erdmann von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German political scientist
DATE OF BIRTH May 9, 1950
PLACE OF BIRTH Herrsching am Ammersee