Voices Against the Populist Far-Right? - Politische Vierteljahresschrift

In this paper, we examine whether local politicians in German district councils (Kreistage) adhere to social norms of demarcation from the populist far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD). Withi...

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Bridging the Gap? Liveübertragungen in Kreistagen und Stadträten als Datengrundlage für die politikwissenschaftliche Forschung - Politische Vierteljahresschrift

The scarcity of meeting minutes makes it difficult to analyze the working methods of local political bodies and the behavior of the actors involved. The increasing availability of livestreams and video recordings of district and city council meetings is helping to remedy this situation. Combined with technical innovations for extracting and processing large (multimodal) datasets, this availability enables new perspectives for local political research. However, for this wealth of data to be widely used, it must be generalizable to the broader population of local government bodies. Accordingly, questions arise regarding whether districts and cities that offer livestreams and recordings differ systematically from those that do not and whether these broadcasts induce shifts in local political debates.To this end, based on systematic research and a survey of district council members, this study describes the legal, political, and financial framework for introducing such recordings and examines the resulting influence on speakers’ behavior. Meeting recordings are available, particularly in large cities, but have so far been scarce in districts with low population density; furthermore, significant differences exist among the federal states. The survey indicates that adjustments to expanded public visibility of meetings are also occurring at the local level. Thus, the external validity of meeting recordings as a data source is not yet established, which should be taken into account during research design and case selection.

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Die politische Theorie der (deutschen) Dienstpflicht: Begründungen, Einwände und institutionelles Design - Politische Vierteljahresschrift

In recent years, there has been increasing debate in Germany about the introduction of a mandatory national service, and political theory has likewise shown a growing interest in such an institution. Yet while public commentaries lack a systematic and theoretically reflective engagement with the central arguments, research in political theory tends to overlook the military dimension and questions of institutional design. This article addresses these desiderata through a systematic, comparative analysis and weighting of relevant justifications and objections. It argues that the core normative issue is the appropriate relationship between individual negative liberty and competing values—security, civic equality, fairness, trust, and solidarity—as well as the proper balance between market mechanisms and state regulation. In addition, it demonstrates how particular justifications of mandatory national service require specific configurations of institutional design, the non-implementation of which may undermine the normative force of the respective justification.

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Theorising Practices, Time, and Emotions. Time for Sociability at the Potsdam Conference? - Politische Vierteljahresschrift

So far, practice theory has not considered in detail how practices contribute to the constitution of time. This paper aims to address this lacuna by investigating what role emotions play in this proce...

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Experimenting Towards the Energy Transition: How EU Member States Implement Experimentalist Governance Arrangements in European Renewable Energy Policy - Politische Vierteljahresschrift

This article examines how member states of the European Union (EU) implement experimentalist governance arrangements designed to facilitate the transition towards renewable energy. Focussing on the 20...

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In eigener Sache / A note from the Editor - Politische Vierteljahresschrift

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Die politische Theorie der (deutschen) Dienstpflicht: Begründungen, Einwände und institutionelles Design - Politische Vierteljahresschrift

In recent years, there has been increasing debate in Germany about the introduction of a mandatory national service, and political theory has likewise shown a growing interest in such an institution. ...

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Die stabilisierende Wirkung von linkem Populismus in der Demokratiebewegung – „Gemeinsam gegen Rechts, für Demokratie und Vielfalt“ - Politische Vierteljahresschrift

Triggered by the Correctiv investigation into a meeting of far-right actors in Potsdam, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets across Germany in early 2024. In Munich, too, the demonstration ‘Together Against the Right, For Democracy and Diversity’ mobilised an exceptionally large number of participants. We explain the mobilisation of these many demonstrators through the discourse and populism theory of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, the transfer of which into protest research has so far been scarcely applied in a systematic manner. Based on a qualitative content analysis of newspaper articles, press releases, and social media posts, we identify the empty signifiers used for mobilisation in the run-up to the protest. We then analyse how these terms were concretised in the speeches and musical contributions, as well as in 65 exclusively available feedback emails from participants. Our findings show that empty signifiers such as ‘against the right’, ‘for democracy’, and ‘for diversity’ enabled broad mobilisation, yet their concretisation during the demonstration revealed agonistic conflicts and moments of dislocation. Although the demonstration exhibited left-populist elements (the construction of in- and outgroups, the use of a democratic symbol, and emotional rhetoric), it did not operate in a transformative sense according to Mouffe, but rather in a stabilising one. Thereby we demonstrate how left populism in civil-society mobilisation can function as a force stabilising the liberal-democratic system.

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Legislative Decision-Making in the German Reichstag, 1867–1918: A New Dataset of Roll Call Votes - Politische Vierteljahresschrift

This research note introduces a novel and comprehensive dataset of parliamentary membership spells and roll call votes taken in the German Reichstag between 1867 and 1918. After discussing the collect...

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Leggewie, Claus (2025): Abrechnung. Eine kritische Reflexion des Postkolonialismus - Politische Vierteljahresschrift

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Physical Attractiveness, Social Media Activity, and Electoral Outcomes: Evidence from the 2021 German Federal Election - Politische Vierteljahresschrift

Research shows that (1) political candidates active on social media perform better in elections, (2) candidates who are more attractive than others enjoy a vote premium in elections, and (3) individua...

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Experimenting Towards the Energy Transition: How EU Member States Implement Experimentalist Governance Arrangements in European Renewable Energy Policy - Politische Vierteljahresschrift

This article examines how member states of the European Union (EU) implement experimentalist governance arrangements designed to facilitate the transition towards renewable energy. Focussing on the 20...

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Breaking the German Cold War Taboo? The Generational Divide in Evaluating a Coalition Between CDU/CSU and The Left - Politische Vierteljahresschrift

Germany’s fragmented party system has revived debates about unconventional coalitions, including cooperation between the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) and The Left to con...

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Blocking the Radical Right: Evidence from Strategic Candidate Voting Against the AfD in Germany’s 2025 Federal Election - Politische Vierteljahresschrift

This paper examines strategic candidate voting against radical-right parties, focusing on the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Germany’s 2025 federal election. Germany has long been considered “hard g...

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Europäisierung der Bundesgesetzgebung auf dem Prüfstand: Die Umsetzung von EU-Recht nach Politikbereichen - Politische Vierteljahresschrift

Europeanisation research has revealed that the proportion of national legislation resulting from European Union (EU) decisions has steadily increased. New data on the transposition of EU law in German...

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Decoding German Politics with StateParl—A Text Corpus of Plenary Protocols in the 16 German Länder Parliaments - Politische Vierteljahresschrift

The availability of large amounts of machine-readable text data has enabled political scientists to explore a variety of novel and innovative research questions. In this context, parliamentary documen...

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