Open Access

Was ist ´gut´, was ´schlecht´? Welche Dinge haben eine hohe Wertigkeit, welche nicht? Was aus dem kulturellen Erbe wird tradiert? Wie wird erinnert und an was? Wie stellt man sich selbst dar, wie ´die Anderen´? All diese Aspekte sind Teil eines gesellschaftlichen Aushandlungsprozesses. Sie werfen ein zeithistorisches Schlaglicht auf das Selbstverständnis einer Gesellschaft. Diese Prozesse finden zu einem nicht unwesentlichen Teil im Fernsehen statt. Als Massenmedium nimmt es in den Zuschreibungsprozessen eine wichtige Vermittlerrolle ein. Es verbreitet Informationen über ethische Wertmaßstäbe. Es repräsentiert einen kulturellen Kanon, also einen Konsens darüber, was aus dem kulturellen Erbe als kollektives Wissen tradiert werden soll. Und schließlich schafft und transportiert es Fremd- und Autostereotype und ist damit zentral an der Bildung kultureller Selbstbilder beteiligt. Die Frage danach, welche Informationen im Fernsehen vermittelt werden und auf welche Art und Weise dies geschieht, wirft daher immer auch ein Schlaglicht auf das Verständnis von Welt zu einem gegebenen Zeitpunkt in einer gegebenen Gesellschaft. Anders formuliert: Ausgangspunkt des Forschungsinteresses ist die triviale Feststellung, dass Fernsehen ein wichtiger Träger von Ideologien ist. TV Polonia wendet sich in seiner Funktion als staatlicher Auslandssender an ein Publikum außerhalb Polens. Dennoch eignet sich gerade dieses Programm, ein Schlaglicht auf aktuelle Diskurse kollektiver Selbstverständigung in Polen zu werfen. Grund dafür ist eine Programmatik, die versucht, Überzeugungen zu vermitteln, die als zentral für das polnische Selbstverständnis erachtet werden. In TV Polonia geht es darum, ein konzentriertes ´Bild von Polen´ zu exportieren. Ziel ist die Ein- bzw. Rückbindung der im Ausland lebenden Polonia an Polen und damit die Stabilisierung einer Vorstellung von der weltumspannenden Gemeinschaft aller Polen. Vor dem Hintergrund des sich durch das Programm ziehenden Konzeptes einer Polonia, die in unauflösbarer ethnischer und kultureller Verbindung zu Polen gedacht wird, kann man von einem spezifischen Bildungsauftrag TV Polonias sprechen. Sein Ziel ist die Stärkung einer polnischen Werte- und Abstammungsgemeinschaft, die Polen und Polonia als ein großes nationales Kollektiv versteht. Die Identifikation mit der Nation ist daher die alles beherrschende Klammer. Die spezifische Bildungsarbeit von TV Polonia manifestiert sich in der Tradierung eines kulturellen und historischen nationalen Kanons sowie der Vermittlung zentraler Werte wie bspw. Familie, hochkulturelle Bildung, Widerstandsgeschichte, aber auch die Pflege der polnischen Sprache. Bei der Art und Weise, wie auf TV Polonia kollektive Überzeugungen und kollektives Wissen vermittelt werden, lässt sich die deutliche Betonung eines traditionellen Weltbilds herauslesen, das sich an Vorgaben der katholischen Morallehre orientiert. Zusätzlich wird dies noch einmal verstärkt durch das Fehlen von Alternativentwürfen. Das Programm von TV Polonia setzt sich zu zwei Dritteln aus Produktionen des Inlandprogramms des polnischen staatlichen öffentlichen Fernsehens, TVP, zusammen. Die in dieser Arbeit am Beispiel von TV Polonia herausgearbeiteten Diskurse stammen damit zu großen Teilen aus dem Inlandprogramm des polnischen staatlichen Fernsehens. Obwohl also die namensgebende Polonia eigentliche Adressatin ist, muss man davon ausgehen, dass das Auslandsfernsehen zugleich für einen wesentlichen Teil des öffentlichen Fernsehens in Polen stehts ─ eine Hypothese, deren Überprüfung in einer eigenständigen Analyse nachzugehen wäre.

This thesis investigates the European Union’s (EU) recent support for democracy-building in its candidate country Albania. Emphasis is put on the development in two particular fields of action: public administration reform (1) and development of civil society (2). The publications of the EU-specific ‘Instrument for Pre-Accession’ (IPA) between 2007 and 2015 provide the most relevant sources for analysis and argumentation. In a first step, the EU’s declared goals and expected effects as formulated in these IPA reports are analysed. In a second step, a comparison between these expectations and goals on the one hand and the evaluation of the EU’s progress reports on the other hand points to cur-rent improvements as well as remaining challenges with regard to democracy-building in Albania. While it can be argued that progress has been achieved in both fields of action, public administration and civil society, several fundamental concerns remain so far unre-solved. Three big issues currently still impede the further support and development of democracy in Albania: the historical legacy of the communist regime, the unwillingness of the political elite to reform fundamental structures and institutions as well as the approach of the EU itself that requires the acquisition of traditional Western models of democracy.

The topic of my thesis is anti-corruption activities in Georgia and the background of my research is the rise of corruption as a major development issue in the last two decades as well as Georgia’s status as a model for successful anti-corruption reforms after the revolution of 2003. The starting point of my research is a striking fact that is difficult to explain if we conform to standard views about anti-corruption. Indeed, there is a consensus on the fact that Georgia has been successful in fighting corruption after the revolution of 2003. At the same time, some more critical voices also exist that point to shortcomings in the government’s measures. Further, we observe that tensions between international organisations and the Georgian government appear to have increased in the post-revolutionary context in contrast to the previous period under Eduard Shevardnadze’s government that was characterised by systemic corruption. This situation is unexpected to the extent that one would assume that a pro-reform government would rather win the approval of donor organisations and have no difficulty in gaining their support. Against the background of these observations, I want to explain the nature of the tensions between anti-corruption actors as well as the contestation of Georgia’s claims to success in fighting corruption.

Designed as an exploratory study, this dissertation consists of a policy analysis of German and U.S. American approaches to public diplomacy 2.0, understood as public diplomacy by means of social media. The study’s main argument is that in spite of claims to the contrary, social media did not substantially change the practice of public diplomacy. No digital turn took place: Both countries’ governments act according to their respective foreign policy tradition and public diplomacy doctrines and, by doing so, confirm a historical institutionalist view on politics. After developing public diplomacy as an integrated concept that incorporates facets of several other related ones like propaganda, branding and cultural relations, it will be demonstrated that public diplomacy remains an instrument of power employed by a given state to reaffirm its might; it is not destined to empower other groups. It will also be shown how social media’s premises like transparency and decentralization clash with those of public diplomacy and government administration, and how this impedes public diplomacy’s operationalisation on the Internet. It will be explored how that contradiction affects the practice of public diplomacy 2.0 and how its stakeholders deal with given implications by laying out a methodological framework based on historical institutionalism that combines content analysis and expert interviews. On a doctrinal strategic level, the dissertation will then show how the U.S. public diplomacy endeavour is strategically embedded into a wider concept, driven by post-9/11 feelings of vulnerability and the desire to win back hearts and minds. The German approach, on the other hand, refuses such a take, which is partly due to the country’s history and negative experiences with propaganda especially during World War II. To Germany, distancing itself from its eventful past through presenting the country as a peaceful, stable democracy is paramount. Combined with the process of coming to terms with the major shakeup the country’s reunification brought about, this attitude leads to a struggle to find a new political identity. The body of rules restricting and guiding public diplomacy 2.0 reflects these elements of both countries’ respective history and foreign policy tradition. This underscores the weight of history and reaffirms its centrality as a factor for understanding politics. The paper’s centrepiece is constituted by a comparative content analysis of the Facebook pages and Twitter feeds belonging to the German embassy in Great Britain (UK) and its American counterpart. The comparison was made over three months in 2011 during discussions about the possible adoption of a financial transaction tax. This particular conflict situation – the UK opposed the measure, backed by the USA, while Germany advocated for it – could have provided a textbook case for the use of social media in public diplomacy. The analysis will, however, reaffirm the allegations made in the dissertation’s theoretical parts: Contrary to public opinion, social media are neither interactive nor a mass phenomenon. Communication is employed to echo official government positions as stated in national foreign policy and public diplomacy doctrines as well as to legitimize general policy through subtle rhetorical strategies. The dissertation on hand will further come to the conclusion that the effects of public diplomacy 2.0 can hardly be assessed (if at all), mainly because of a lack of reliable measuring frameworks and monitoring tools. Rather, social media are a listening and opinion gathering device, providing governments with big data on their audience.

This dissertation examines the widely assumed positive effect of civil society on democratic consolidation. During the past twenty-five years, civil society has been strongly supported in target states of external democracy promotion. A relatively rising share of so-called “hybrid regimes” around the world, among them many displaying deep ethno-national divisions, has led to increased attention to the “dark sides” of civil society. Also, doubts have arisen whether external democracy promotion in general and civil society promotion in particular are actually conducive to overall democratization. This, however, so far has not been investigated systematically. The dissertation investigates this research gap and asks to what extent previous ethno-national conflict influences civil society’s contribution to democratic consolidation and the role external democracy promotion plays in this context. The research is conducated on the basis of two qualitative case-studies, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Republic Macedonia, both far advanced, but currently stagnating on their way of democratic consolidation. The research project comes to the conclusion that civil society can in fact positively influence democratic consolidation – particularly with regard to procedural aspects such as political participation, representation of interests, implementation of laws, or the rule of law – but it can also influence structural aspects, as for instance legislation, or the establishing of formal procedures for political involvement of citizens. Nevertheless, ethno-nationl divsions strongly inhibit civil society’s impact. While, in fact, currently prevailing ethno-nationally mobilized cleavages affect civil society’s influence more negatively than the scale of previous inter-ethnic violence – as frequently very dominant (clientelistic) networks impede coalitions and thus divide the society both vertically (between state, civil society, and citizens) as well as horizontally (within state, civil society, and citizens), which in turn limits the political influence of civil society. Summing up, civil society’s theoretically assumed positive functions can, provided ethno-national divisions and incomplete democratic consolidation, be inhibitited if not negatively reversed, as the case studies show. External democracy promotion is found to play a controversial, yet potentially influencial role – as the contrast between a relatively better trained civil society in combination with a state increasingly ready to take civil society into account in Bosnia-Herzegovina on the one hand and a civil society with less ressources and a state less inclined to cooperate with critical civil society in Macedonia on the other hand shows. International organizations can, on the one hand, positively promote democratic structures, improve inter-ethnic relations, and support the establishment and improvement of civil society, notably in the fields of organizational capacity and social service provision. On the other hand, however, external democracy promotion also carries certain risks: previous practices have led to an “NGOization” and intransparent funding and clientelism between donors and recipients has fostered competition and mistrust between civil society organizations. Generally, where external democracy promotion wishes to lead to sustainable effects, external actors should provide continued support in states with weak regimes, and, in states with (over-)powerful regimes, they should provide a counterweight to the state and in support of civil society. If external democracy promotion pulls out before democratic consolidation is achieved, the risk is that (too) strong regimes may then promote mostly politically uncritical and social services providing CSOs, which will then lead to an undermining of the sustainability of civil society promotion, or, in states where sufficiently functioning structures for the cooperation between state and civil society have been established, fading external support combined with quality monitoring and incentives for elite cooperation can actually lead to “natural selection” of civil society organizations.