Wolfgang Jäger (political scientist)

Wolfgang Jäger (born August 24, 1940 in Niedereschach ) is a German professor of political science and was rector of the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg from 1995 to 2008 .

Life

Wolfgang Jäger studied political science, history and Latin at the Universities of Freiburg , Munich and the London School of Economics and Political Science from 1960 to 1966 . He was a scholarship holder of the German National Academic Foundation . In 1969 he completed his studies with Dieter Oberndörfer with a doctorate .

Jäger completed his habilitation in 1973 with the work Public, Parliamentarism and Party State. On the criticism of a German understanding of democracy . In 1974 he received a professorship for scientific policy at the University of Freiburg. Jäger also received calls to the universities of Cologne , Tübingen and Mainz , which he refused.

From 1982 to 1986 Jäger was Chairman of the Grand Senate of the University of Freiburg, and from 1987 to 1989 Vice-Rector under Rector Christoph Rüchardt . From 1995 to 2008 he was the rector at the head of the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg. On April 1, 2008, he handed over this office to his successor, Andreas Voßkuhle . From 2000 to 2002 he was chairman of the Baden-Württemberg State Rectors ' Conference.

Jäger is a member of the constitutional court for the state of Baden-Württemberg . He is a member of editorial boards and advisory boards of various scientific journals. He is also chairman of the founding committee of the International University of Cooperative Education Freiburg .

plant

Jäger is considered a supporter of a historically oriented and empirically saturated approach. He is interested in representative democracy, German party democracy, but also the political systems of France, Great Britain and the USA.

The concept of coordination democracy, based on the concept of chancellor democracy that arose under Adenauer, was developed by him and has found its way into the textbooks of political science.

PhD students

Wolfgang Jäger received his doctorate from almost twenty young scientists. Two of them completed their habilitation, Ingeborg Villinger and Sabine Ruß . Others can be found scattered across various fields of activity, e.g. Michael Lißke (State Center for Political Education Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania), Harald Bergsdorf (including Thuringia Ministry of the Interior), Peter Bender (Willy-Brandt-Haus), Majid Sattar (journalist).

Rectorate

Under his leadership, the University of Freiburg experienced a turning point, not least because Wolfgang Jäger reinterpreted the office of rector as that of strategic manager. It was the first German university to set up an alumni network, dovetailed with the city and the economy, established cross-border cooperation in the EUCOR network and was one of the first German universities to enter into a partnership with a Chinese university. During his twelve-year term of office, the longest of a Freiburg rector, the decision to build a new university library, the establishment of a university council, the new university foundation and the 550th anniversary of the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg fall.

During his term of office, Wolfgang Jäger also played a decisive role in the amendment of the new higher education law. It changed the possibilities and powers of the rector and continues to shape Baden-Württemberg university policy to this day.

Honors

In 1999 Jäger received an honorary doctorate from the University of Iași in Romania . In 2000, Hunters was awarded the order of Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques . In the same year he received the Baden-Württemberg Medal of Merit . In 2001 he was made an honorary senator of the Semmelweis University in Budapest . A year later, Jäger was awarded the Prize of Honor of the Prix ​​Bartholdi by the Georg H. Endress Foundation. In 2002 Jäger received an honorary doctorate from the University of Montreal . In 2004 he was made an honorary citizen of the city of Iași . Jäger has been Honorary Rector of the Medical and Pharmaceutical University of Iași since 2005 . In 2008 Jäger received an honorary doctorate from the University of Buenos Aires . Also in 2008, Pope Benedict XVI. the Order of Gregorius . In 2009 he received the Federal Cross of Merit, 1st class. Jäger has been an honorary citizen of the city of Freiburg im Breisgau since November 30, 2010.

Publications (selection)

• A changing republic (1969–1982) . 2 volumes. 1986 and 1987 (together with KD Bracher and Werner Link). [= History of the Federal Republic of Germany, ed. Karl Dietrich Bracher / Theodor Eschenburg / Joachim Fest a. Eberhardt Jäckel, Volumes 5.1 and 5.2]
• Television and democracy. Sham plebiscite tendencies and representation in the USA, Great Britain, France and Germany . Munich 1992.
• Who rules the Germans? Inside views of party democracy . Zurich 1994.
• Overcoming the division. The internal German process of unification in 1989/90 . Stuttgart 1998.
• System of government of the USA. A teaching and manual . 3. revised & extended Edition, Munich / Vienna 2007 (together with Christoph M. Haas and Wolfgang Welz).
• https://kreuz-und-quer.de/2016/11/21/innerparteiliche-willensbildung/

Individual evidence

1. ^ Press release from the University of Freiburg about the handover
2. ↑ AAS 100 (2008), No. 9, p. 666.

Web links

• Literature by and about Wolfgang Jäger in the catalog of the German National Library

predecessor	Office	successor
Manfred Löwisch	Rector of the University of Freiburg 1995 - 2008	Andreas Vosskuhle