“Gaps” and the (Re-)Invention of the FutureSocial and Demographic Policy in Germany during the 1970s and 1980s

2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin H. Geyer
Keyword(s):  
Risk Management ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
New Governance ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Collective Risk ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
The Future

To argue that the future was (re-)invented in the 1970s and the 1980s might seem especially puzzling in light of arguments that the optimism associated with utilitarian, modernization, and socialist theories withered at the time amidst widespread debate over a variety of “crises.” Nonetheless, it was in this peculiar constellation that ideas of the future became fundamentally renegotiated. “New risks” were juxtaposed with prevailing older ideas of social security that were predicated on individual and collective risk management. Focusing on West Germany, this article examines the various technical and political debates over “gaps” in terms of the finances, demographics, and trust in the system of social policy, which helped to put technical and political diagnoses of “new risks” squarely on the political agenda. This demographic argument is of particular interest, as it dramatized the unintended side effects of older social policy and created new, dystopian future scenarios of total systemic breakdown. At times, however, these discussions about managing the risks associated with Germany's demographic future verged on the utopian. New concepts of governmentality and biopolitics prevailed in this context. Moreover, pragmatic and sometimes technocratic concepts of new “governance” (and thus risk management) were proposed by social scientists and politicians as a means to address anxieties about the demographic future, and new models of risk-taking and risk-managing individuals also flourished at the time. With their descriptive but also prescriptive features, these theories contributed to ongoing academic efforts to explain the present and the future in terms of risk.

A Reflection on Crucial Periods in 50 Years of Social Psychology (in Germany)

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Katja Corcoran ◽  
Michael Häfner ◽  
Mathias Kauff ◽  
Stefan Stürmer
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Early Development ◽  
West Germany ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
East And West

Abstract. In this article, we reflect on 50 years of the journal Social Psychology. We interviewed colleagues who have witnessed the history of the journal. Based on these interviews, we identified three crucial periods in Social Psychology’s history, that are (a) the early development and further professionalization of the journal, (b) the reunification of East and West Germany, and (c) the internationalization of the journal and its transformation from the Zeitschrift für Sozialpsychologie to Social Psychology. We end our reflection with a discussion of changes that occurred during these periods and their implication for the future of our field.

Risk Management for Cultural Organizations.The Example of Agricultural Museums in the Czech Republic

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-122
Author(s):  
Michal Plaček ◽  
Milan Půček ◽  
František Ochrana ◽  
Milan Křápek ◽  
Ondřej H. Matyáš
Keyword(s):  
Risk Management ◽  
Czech Republic ◽  
Risk Model ◽  
Technical Support ◽  
High Quality ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Managerial Practice ◽  
The Future

This paper deals with the analysis of risks which threaten the future sustainability and operations of agricultural museums in the Czech Republic. In the section on methodology, an applicable risk model has been proposed regarding the condition of museums in the Czech Republic. Using this model, the directors of agricultural museums can assess the most significant risks which may jeopardize the sustainability of museum operations over a three-year period. The greatest risks, according to museum directors, are a lack money for investment, the inability to retain high-quality staff, and issues with technical support for exhibitions. Assessing the importance of risk is positively associated with previous experiences of a particular type of risk, whereas the association of the importance of risk with previous managerial practice is rather inconclusive.

German Angst

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Biess
Keyword(s):  
Federal Republic ◽  
National Socialism ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Peace Movements ◽  
Original Analysis ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fear And Anxiety ◽  
Relationship Of

German Angst analyzes the relationship of fear and democracy in postwar West Germany. While fear has historically been associated with authoritarian regimes, the book highlights the role of fear and anxiety in a democratizing society: these emotions undermined democracy and stabilized it at the same time. By taking seriously postwar Germans’ uncertainties about the future, the book challenges dominant linear and teleological narratives of postwar West German “success.” It highlights the prospective function of memories of war and defeat, of National Socialism and the Holocaust. Fears and anxieties derived from memories of a catastrophic past that postwar Germans projected into the future. Based on case studies from the 1940s to the present, the book provides a new interpretive synthesis of the Federal Republic. It tells the history of the Federal Republic as a series of recurring crises, in which specific fears and anxieties emerged, served a variety of political functions, and then again abated. Drawing on recent interdisciplinary insights of emotion studies, the book transcends the dichotomy of “reason” and “emotion.” Fear and anxiety were not exclusively irrational and dysfunctional but served important roles in postwar democracy. These emotions sensitized postwar Germans to the dangers of an authoritarian transformation, and they also served as the emotional engine of the environmental and peace movements. The book also provides an original analysis of the emotional basis of right-wing populism in Germany today, and it explores the possibilities of a democratic politics of emotion.

A Slow Unfolding “Fault Sequence”: Risk and Responsibility in Lucy Kirkwood’s The Children

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-99
Author(s):  
Julia Hoydis
Keyword(s):  
Risk Management ◽  
Communication Theory ◽  
Risk Behaviour ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Environmental Destruction ◽  
Human Risk ◽  
Collective Risk ◽  
Aesthetic Form ◽  
Personal Crisis ◽  
Dramatic Text

AbstractBritish playwright Lucy Kirkwood’s The Children (2016) tackles the imaginative challenge of depicting environmental crisis, in particular the risks of nuclear destruction and climate change. With questions of intra- and intergenerational justice being at the heart of the dramatic text, this article draws on conceptions and insights from cultural risk theory to argue that human risk behaviour and decision-making is the play’s main focus and determines characterisation as well as structure. Interrogating the tension between aesthetic form and content, it shows how The Children naturalizes the (post-)apocalyptic condition and strives for a balance of scales with regard to collective and personal crisis. Characteristic of the rapidly growing corpus of contemporary “cli-fi” drama, and in accordance with many of the strategies proclaimed by climate communication theory, the play stages the catastrophic implications of environmental destruction predominantly as collective risk management and in a predominantly realist manner, discarding formal experimentation as well as futurist setting. Yet this article argues that it remains ambiguous what kind of risk management is proposed and whether we should read it as a call for action or as an imaginative means of accepting finitude.

Governing the Future: The Paradigm of Prudence in Political Technologies of Risk Management

2008 ◽  
Vol 39 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 267-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosalyn Diprose ◽  
Niamh Stephenson ◽  
Catherine Mills ◽  
Kane Race ◽  
Gay Hawkins
Keyword(s):  
Risk Management ◽  
The Future

Social epigenomics: are we at an impasse?

Epigenomics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy L Non
Keyword(s):  
Child Maltreatment ◽  
Data Integration ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Complex Diseases ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Data Types ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
High Expectations ◽  
The Future ◽  
Collaborative Efforts

Aim: Social scientists have placed particularly high expectations on the study of epigenomics to explain how exposure to adverse social factors like poverty, child maltreatment and racism – particularly early in childhood – might contribute to complex diseases. However, progress has stalled, reflecting many of the same challenges faced in genomics, including overhype, lack of diversity in samples, limited replication and difficulty interpreting significance of findings. Materials & methods: This review focuses on the future of social epigenomics by discussing progress made, ongoing methodological and analytical challenges and suggestions for improvement. Results & conclusion: Recommendations include more diverse sample types, cross-cultural, longitudinal and multi-generational studies. True integration of social and epigenomic data will require increased access to both data types in publicly available databases, enhanced data integration frameworks, and more collaborative efforts between social scientists and geneticists.

Research on Urban Public Security Risk Management under the Background of Tobacco Control

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 911-920
Author(s):  
Suqin Chen
Keyword(s):  
Risk Management ◽  
Tobacco Control ◽  
Public Safety ◽  
Prevention And Control ◽  
Living Environment ◽  
Public Security ◽  
Security Risk ◽  
The Future ◽  
Security Risk Management ◽  
And Control

Objectives: Through the reflection on the city’s response to the crisis in the process of tobacco control, a comprehensive and systematic public safety prevention and control system will be built to help cities cope with future risks and challenges. Methods: By using the methodological principle of the unity of subject and object and systematic research, this paper analyzes the problems from the three aspects of subject, object and means, and puts forward three important links of prevention, response and guarantee to construct a large urban public security system, and these three links support each other form a closed loop of risk prevention and control urban public security. Results: Under the background of tobacco control, it is feasible to a reliable whole-cycle management system for urban emergency response and accident rescue, a sound basic public safety guarantee system and a whole-society participation system. Conclusions: Due to the change of global climate conditions and the increase of flow people in the social environment, human beings will face a more complex living environment in the future and may encounter more extreme problems. It can be said that at present and even in the future, global urban public security risk management work is facing a grim situation. WHO research shows that smoking will increase the risk of new crown virus infection among smokers and their surrounding population.China is a big smoking country and in the stage of rapid urbanization. Many citiesare densely populated. Once there is an epidemic infection, the cities will face a severe public security situation. Smoking will not only have an adverse impact on personal health, but also the fires in factories, homes and forests caused by smoking.Since the Chinese government’s tobacco control in 2014, various accidents caused by smoking have caused great adverse effects.Smoking in public places has great hidden dangers of public safety, which leads us to think about the risk management of urban public safety.In the context of tobacco control, we should use scientific thinking and methods to construct a new pattern of urban public security risk management. Another important concept is to implement the risk management concept and the value of prevention first in the management of public affairs, so as to create a situation of risk sharing and coordinated response of the whole society.

Teaching the Future of Technology in the History Classroom: A Case Study

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 253-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Staley
Keyword(s):  
Incomplete Information ◽  
The State ◽  
Historical Inquiry ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Traditional Methods ◽  
Research Seminar ◽  
Historical Method ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Right

This article will describe how historians can teach the future of technology. Historians need not alter their traditional methods of historical inquiry to teach the future, and indeed the history classroom is a natural site for foresight education. Historical inquiry begins with questions, and futuring similarly begins with asking the right questions. The historian seeks out evidence, and futurists as well identify drivers and blockers, considering how these drivers and blockers will interact with each other. In contrast to social scientists, historians work with imperfect or incomplete information, an apt description of the state of our evidence about the future. In a manner similar to historians, futurists interpret and draw inferences from evidence. After the research an analysis of the evidence is complete, the historian/futurist writes representations. This article will describe how I employed the historical method to teach the future of technology in a history research seminar, the results produced by the students, and ways that the study of the future can be situated in the history classroom.

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