@techreport{Hennig2025, type = {Working Paper}, author = {Hennig, Anja}, title = {Contested River Politics in Europe: The Impact of Polish and German Oder River Protection Networks (1989 - 2024)}, publisher = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina}, address = {Frankfurt (Oder)}, issn = {2628-5460}, doi = {10.11584/IFES.4}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-14302}, pages = {32 Seiten}, year = {2025}, abstract = {This paper examines how opposition from within Polish and German civil society has established itself, since 1989, in response to national and bi-national river policies concerning the Oder River. Due to its long history as a political border, the Oder has remained one of the most pristine rivers in Europe. Yet, its shallow riverbed makes it particularly vulnerable to ice jams as well as to flooding and low water levels. The Oder has thus also become a "seismograph" of climate change in the face of global warming. Given the diverging river policy interests concerning economic development measures and environmental renaturation, the paper analyses the dynamics between transnational, Oder-related politics and the actions of Oder protection alliances emerging from civil society. The guiding question investigates the impact which activities of environmental NGOs have had on agenda-setting, on the construction of their own organisational structures, and on influencing political outcomes, as of now. On a theoretical level, the paper argues that two superordinate points of contention determine the success of environmental activism: firstly, the antagonism between "green and growth", which often prioritises economic considerations over nature conservation; and, secondly, the political divide between right-wing populist and left-green positions (the GALTAN cleavage). Conceptually, the paper contributes to the establishment of river politics as a new transdisciplinary field of political analysis. It also adds to social ovement research, which investigates the effects of the involvement of civil society in water protection under the conditions of climate change.}, language = {en} } @techreport{Priebus2024, type = {Working Paper}, author = {Priebus, Sonja}, title = {Post-transformatorische Entwicklungspfade im {\"o}stlichen Europa}, publisher = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina}, address = {Frankfurt (Oder)}, doi = {10.11584/IFES.3}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-13786}, pages = {28 Seiten}, year = {2024}, abstract = {{\"U}ber drei Jahrzehnte nach den 1989/90 erfolgten politischen und wirtschaftlichen Umbr{\"u}chen in Mittel- und Osteuropa wird die Region h{\"a}ufig noch immer als eine homogene Gruppe von Staaten wahrgenommen, deren Mitglieder {\"a}hnliche politische Entwicklungen durchlaufen und mit {\"a}hnlichen, teils mit dem sozialistischen Erbe in Verbindung stehenden Herausforderungen zu k{\"a}mpfen h{\"a}tten. Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht und typologisiert die post-transformatorischen Entwicklungspfade der europ{\"a}ischen Staaten des {\"o}stlichen Europa seit Abschluss ihrer Transformationen ab etwa 1991/1992 bis heute. Die zentrale Frage ist, wie die Regimeentwicklung in den Staaten der Region verlief und welche Entwicklungsmuster erkennbar sind. Dabei wird das vorrangige Muster in der Regimeentwicklung eines Staates in der Phase der Post-Transformation als post-transformatorischer Entwicklungspfad (PTEP) bezeichnet. Induktiv werden f{\"u}nf idealtypische PTEPs identifiziert: 1) eine pfadabh{\"a}ngige Autokratisierung; 2) Pfadwechsel in beide Richtungen (von Demokratie zur Autokratie und vice versa); 3) die Nicht-Konsolidierung der Demokratie; 4) eine pfadabh{\"a}ngige Demokratisierung und 5) Regimezyklen. Die PTEPs erfassen dabei nicht prim{\"a}r das Ergebnis (d.h. Regimetypus und Regimequalit{\"a}t zu einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt), sondern den Prozess der Regimeentwicklung. Damit wird dem Umstand Rechnung getragen, dass die Entwicklung in den Staaten zumeist sehr dynamisch war und noch immer ist und diese Dynamik durch eine bloße Zuordnung zu Regimetypen, welche nur Momentaufnahmen darstellen, nicht abgebildet wird. Der Beitrag zeigt, dass die Staaten der Region teils sehr unterschiedliche Entwicklungen durchlaufen haben und wir daher keinesfalls von einer homogenen Gruppe sprechen k{\"o}nnen.}, language = {de} } @techreport{OPUS4-469, type = {Working Paper}, title = {Europe and the Biopolitical Schism. Material and Symbolic Boundaries of the EU Border Regime}, editor = {Beichelt, Timm}, publisher = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina}, address = {Frankfurt (Oder)}, issn = {2628-5460}, doi = {10.11584/ifes.2}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-4699}, pages = {31}, year = {2019}, abstract = {The main claim of this paper is that European borders are thus being produced, both materially and symbolically, along the fault line 'culture'/'technology' and 'nature,' where illegalized travelers trying to enter the continent are perceived as less technologically developed and therefore less compatible with Western civilization. This operation reproduces and reinforces a deeply racialized vision of the non-European 'others.' As a consequence, certain subjectivities are enabled, fostered, or produced but also contested and disputed along the European borders, while the 'border struggles' are displaced into an allegedly neutral terrain. This analysis draws theoretically on the work of Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, and Bruno Latour. It is based empirically on a discursive analysis of the corporate material distributed by Frontex and by companies that produce technology for border surveillance and control, as well as on interviews and observations conducted in the Greek-Turkish sea border area between 2013 and 2016.}, subject = {EU; borders; technology; biopolitics}, language = {en} } @techreport{OPUS4-437, type = {Working Paper}, title = {Ambivalences of Europeanisation. Modernity and Europe in Perspective.}, editor = {Beichelt, Timm and Schindel, Estela}, publisher = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina}, address = {Frankfurt (Oder)}, issn = {2628-5460}, doi = {10.11584/ifes.1}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-4376}, pages = {28}, year = {2019}, abstract = {This working paper aims to reformulate the teleological concepts of Europeanization by relating them to modernity's ambivalences, which seems necessary for two reasons. First, both the number and the scope of crises in European politics and societies have increased considerably in the last two decades. Second, and more importantly, the project of European integration has changed its status from being a potential problem solver to being a part of the problem. The paper establishes a broader historical perspective than is usual in most projects on Europeanization. It argues that crises and drawbacks have been a part of European societal and political development during most periods of European history. One reason has been the purely European strategy of colonialism, which was used as a mechanism to outsource the negative consequences of modernity to places outside of Europe and to peripheral locations within Europe. By including historical and postcolonial perspectives on contemporary Europeanization, we argue that Europe and modernity are not characterized by teleological progress but rather engender ambivalent and entangled developments.}, subject = {European Studies}, language = {en} }