Research concept
Research programme 2011-2014
Research programme 2003-2006
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The literature referred to in the texts can be found in the bibliography

Ideal typical lead questions in three modules

In the conceptualisation of the investigation into transformations of the state that underlies this research, the notion of statehood will be disaggregated into different dimensions. It will also be bound to a historically realistic, albeit ideal-typical and stylised, constellation. Thus, the working plan of the Research Center is to answer the three lead questions, introduced above, in different modules. A detailed conceptualisation of the transformations of the state is aimed at so that a research programme can be developed which avoids the three cardinal errors - overabstraction, overaggregation and a dichotomous conceptualisation of change - identified by Caporaso (2000: 4).

The aforementioned modules do not necessarily follow from each other and do not always consist of equal time frames. For pragmatic reasons, overlaps will be inevitable. Nevertheless, the modular organisation can serve to guide the sequence in which the questions will be examined. In other words, the three phases of research roughly correspond to the three modules. The following discussion of the research programme is structured according to these modules:

Lead question 1: Transformations of statehood
Main thesis
The first module of the research programme aims at describing both transformations of statehood in the different dimensions and national-specific variations. To avoid excessive abstraction, the fully developed DCIS of the OECD-world of the 1960s and 1970s will serve as a historically specific starting point of analysis and of comparison. It is this specific manifestation of statehood that few consider will be further strengthened and most believe will be progressively weakened. However, the dichotomous perspective typical of this debate is analytically unproductive: a multidimensional understanding of statehood suggests that "strengthening" may take place in one dimension and "weakening" in another at the same time. Moreover, the notions of "strengthening" and "weakening" are not sufficiently clear. The question is not so much whether statehood is generally being strengthened, weakened or possibly disappearing completely, but how it is being reconfigured.

Our research programme assumes that since the 1970s, the national constellation has come under pressure in the OECD-world. But this pressure does not translate directly into a "new statehood". It is, rather, mediated by political reactions to given challenges. Therefore, the DCIS will not be drastically weakened or simply disappear. The first lead question thus asks how statehood is reconfigured. We will refer to a deviation of the DCIS in one dimension as a "shift". If there are, in the different dimensions of statehood, shifts in different directions and at different rates, these asynchronous processes will be called "defibration". Defibration processes that lead to new constellations with synergetic effects represent reconfigurations of statehood.

Conceptualisation of change
In all dimensions, shifts can take place in an organisational perspective, on the one hand, and in a spatial perspective, on the other. The organisational perspective refers to the relationship between state and society. The important question here is whether processes of nationalization or denationalization are emerging within the DCIS. Processes in which the national executive and the political-administrative system acquire "new" - additional or transformed - competences or more autonomy from society are generally called nationalization. The ideal type of complete nationalization would occur if a government were to appropriate all rights of ownership, or competences, in all dimensions. We can describe changes as denationalization, socialization or privatization when the DCIS hands over competences to markets or other non-governmental forms of social organisation, like associations or families. The ideal type of complete privatization would find its expression in, for example, largely unregulated market relations.

However, current policy analysis transcends this simple dichotomy of state and society: it holds that the state and social actors are capable of sharing political power, or even that political power can only really be exercised in a "cooperative consensus formation" (Ritter 1990, 1979). State protection of self-regulation by social subsystems is argued to be possible; for example, in the form of an interest-group regulated setting of norms. Between the poles "complete nationalization" and "complete privatisation", many intermediate forms can be found (cf. Feigenbaum et al. 1998). The literature on forms of intervention, for example, refers to social self-regulation through norms (Mayntz/Scharpf in 1995); the incorporation of certain social actors into state regulation, as in the case of corporatism (cf. Lehmbruch/Schmitter in 1982); state control via mechanisms in conformity with the market; the shift of welfare-state tasks back to the family, etc.. Special attention must be paid to this variety of forms between the poles of nationalization and privatisation (Alber 2001a: 31).

The starting point of the individual research projects depends, of course, on the specific type of DCIS involved, and development in the direction of one of the aforementioned poles must always be considered relative to the status quo ante of the country in question. With respect to the resources dimension, the following question arises:

  • Resources dimension:
    • To what extent has the state lost its monopoly of force and taxation to non-governmental groups who have acquired means of force and taxation or have eluded the state monopoly?
    • Or is the state able to augment its monopolistic position via corporatist and normative forms of control over these resources?
  • In the legal dimension, the following question will be asked:
    • To what extent is the state withdrawing its law-making authority and allowing "the law of the strongest" to be applied?
    • Or is autonomous law increasingly being developed by society (Teubner 1996, 1993); that is, is law becoming increasingly deformalized and being replaced by various kinds of treaties and contracts?
  • In the legitimization dimension, the following question is key:
    • Are collective identities generally losing importance in the process of individualization, and are associative forms of democracy (Cohen/Sabel 1997) gaining in importance vis-à-vis parliamentary democracy?
  • In the intervention dimension, the central question is whether and to what extent the state is withdrawing as a supplier of collective goods in the production of welfare. Is a general process of "marketization" taking place or are new forms of social regulation, more independent of the state, systematically increasing in scope and importance?

In all the dimensions, a shift can also arise in spatial or territorial perspective with respect to the relationship of the national level to other political levels. Here, the process of nationalization must first be distinguished from processes of political denationalization. Nationalization is the process by which the national political level moves closer to the center of the political sphere. Thus the DCIS acquires competences, tasks, resources, political processes and loyalties that were formerly anchored in international or subnational institutions. Political denationalisation, on the other hand, refers to two processes in which the autonomy, competences and social support of the DCIS decrease: the processes of internationalization and subnationalization.

Internationalization refers to the transfer of elements of statehood from the national to the international level. International and transnational organisations or regimes take over certain tasks and resources from the nation state, or appropriate new competences. Complete internationalization would be achieved if the DCIS were to give up or lose all essential resources, competences, tasks and political processes to international institutions.

Subnationalization, by contrast, means that at least certain dimensions of statehood move from the national to the subnational level. Institutionally well-trodden paths in this respect are found above all in federal states. However, subnationalization must by no means be limited to federal states; it can also take place, in the form of decentralization, in unitary states. Nowadays, some local authorities within central states already possess greater fiscal autonomy than the municipalities of some federal states (OECD 2000). Complete subnationalization would thus involve the DCIS giving up or losing practically all essential tasks, resources and even competences to member states, regional bodies or local authorities.

Like the relationship between state and society, the relationships of the national to the international and subnational levels show a lot of variance. Political power is often shared between these different levels. Therefore, various intermediate forms between complete denationalization and complete nationalization are possible. Especially in so-called political multi-level systems, competences, resources, tasks and even political processes are shared across the international, national and subnational levels to such an extent that no level can act without cooperation between the levels. However, even within political multi-level systems like the EU, competences can, relatively speaking, still be shifted in one or another direction. Thus, even here, processes of nationalization or denationalization can be observed.

With regard to the resources dimension, political denationalization means that significant means of force, or a considerable amount of tax revenue, are no longer concentrated at the national level in the DCIS. Subnational or international organisations increasingly dispose over such means of force and tax revenues. Denationalization in the legal dimension means that the state no longer controls law making, jurisdiction and law enforcement at the national level. Subnational or international organisations are increasingly able to intervene in legal affairs. In the legitimization dimension, talk of political denationalisation really means that both collective identities and political processes in need of legitimization increasingly refer to international or subnational institutions. Whether such developments help to legitimize national politics, or whether a real shift is taking place in the legitimation dimension, is another open question. In the intervention dimension of the state, political denationalization is tied to the idea that important regulatory and redistributive tasks are no longer fulfilled by the state alone at the national level, but are shifted to subnational or international organisations.

If we combine the four dimensions of statehood with the two perspectives (or dimensions) of possible transformations and shifts, we arrve at an analytical scheme that allows us to present the first module of the research programme in a 4x2 matrix. In each of the dimensions, each question shown in illustration - Transformations of the State - questions and difficulties - can be answered with reference to the continuation of, or a shift away from, the status quo. Shifts can also take place on both axes at the same time. While, today, some policy formulation processes are moved from the national to the international level, shifts in the direction of privatization can also be observed. This conceptualisation entails no bias regarding the directions in which statehood is expected to shift. Rather, it registers - as illustration Defibration of statehood from a national to a post-national constellation? shows - all possible shifts away from the DCIS. Initially, each dimension must be analysed separately. But only a multidimensional consideration of statehood will show how it has been reconfigured.

With regard to illustration: Defibration of statehood from a national to a post-national constellation? , two things must be kept in mind: First, the possible directions of the shifts in statehood are conceptualised as open and should therefore not be predetermined by the research design. For practical purposes, however, the individual projects will focus on the level beyond the nation state and on privatisation processes. The possibility of a subnationalisation or an accented nationalization will play a subordinate role in the projects.

Second, it should be noted that the two axes of possible shifts may not be completely independent of each other. Interesting interrelationships are conceivable, such as, for example, that the shift to the societal level becomes more likely if a parallel shift away from the national level takes place. One plausible hypothesis might be that it is only if political processes can free themselves from the cage of the nation state that the persistent force of vested interests will be broken, and a shift back to the societal level can take place (see, for example, Moravcsik 1994 and Wolf 2000). One the other hand, it may also be that shifts to the subnational level are connected to a strengthening of the nation state apparatus. Many contemporary regionalization movements argue against the "neoliberal policies" of the central state and demand more responsibility and competences for the state (cf Lange 1998). Furthermore, the internal dynamics of these shifts may bring about further change. It can be argued that, for functional reasons, politically motivated internationalization in the age of globalization will be paralleled by a non-intentional supranationalization (Zürn 2002d). Because of such internal dynamics, and the causal relations between the nine fields in illustration Defibration of statehood from a national to a post-national constellation?, it is to be expected that not all of the nine fields will be of equal importance. Rather, different major trends seem to characterize the movement in each of the four dimensions.

The latter expectation is the basic assumption behind our main thesis of "defibration", which can be further explicated as follows. We assume that there are important shifting processes in the different dimensions of statehood. We propose that these shifts in the different dimensions point in different directions, leading to a defibration of statehood. This means that not every shift is a defibration. A defibration of statehood occurs only if shifts that do not point in the same direction take place in different dimensions of statehood; that is, when asynchronous shifting processes can be observed. Synchronous shifts do not lead to defibration, but rather to an integrated shift of statehood to a new level; for example, to a "world state" or to a "regional state". However, our working thesis of defibration does not specify how statehood becomes reconfigured. The research programme aims, in the first phase, only at analyzing the shifting processes in the different dimensions of statehood, without relating this analysis to new imagined constellations. Nevertheless, over the course of the research programme, we intend to discuss how - based on these shifting processes - statehood is reconfigured and transformed into a new, possibly "post-national constellation". Only then will it be possible to judge what is meant empirically by the post-Westphalian, post-national or post-modern notion of statehood. One conceivable finding might be that statehood remains more or less at the nation-state level in the resources dimension, while at the same time it internationalizes in the legal dimension, transnationalizes in the legitimization dimension and privatizes in the welfare dimension.

An appropriate and analytically useful description of the shifts in statehood rests on the assumption that the object of analysis is deiaggregated in different dimensions (countering over-aggregation), that it is bound to a historically specific constellation (countering over-abstraction) and that this transformation can be described using a number of differentiated categories (counter to a dichotomous conceptualisation). However, conceptual differentiation raises a further problem: How much change is necessary to be able to speak of a transformation of statehood in a meaningful way? A certain degree of denationalization in one dimension in the case of one state - for example, the privatisation of the postal and telecommunication services in Great Britain - is hardly sufficient to prove the thesis of the transformation of statehood. We must distinguish between a policy change in specific states and a transformation of statehood itself. However, how much change must be observed before we can speak of a qualitative transformation of statehood? Two points must be taken into consideration in dealing with this "threshold value problem".

Firstly, our conceptual framework already contains some criteria regarding thresholds. Before we can speak of a transformation of statehood, three conditions have to be met:

  1. At least the majority of the countries examined in a research project must be determined to have experienced the changes in question ("epidemic character").
  2. The corridor described in each dimension of the DCIS must have changed, since variance in statehood has always existed within its limits and is therefore part of the national constellation ("corridor effect"). A change in the range of regimes (less variance) or general turbulence is also considered a corridor effect. The breadth (variance) as well as the position and stability of the corridor are relevant.
  3. Finally, such transformations are bound to have an effect on the whole constellation of the DCIS, so that all dimensions of statehood are eventually affected ("configurative effect").

Secondly the process of developing threshold values should itself be an outcome of and not an externally provided guideline for the research programme. Single research projects will always try to examine and assess the qualitative content of an observed transformation process, and to assess its quality. Taken together, the findings of these will make possible an increasingly accurate assessment of the "threshold values", so that it will be possible to differentiate between changes in individual states and transformations of statehood.

It should be noted that the research projects systematically comparing state activity in different countries will be able to examine the causes of variances across different states particularly accurately. These comparative analyses have four possible outcomes. At first, there may be no significant shift in the particular dimension. Second, a shift may occur in some states, while in others the status quo continues. In these two cases, the thesis of the transformation of statehood in the dimension under consideration must be rejected; there is obviously no corridor effect. Third, a possible result of such a comparative analysis may be that shifts are occuring in all examined states, and that these states are converging to a common goal. Such a result would point to a transformation of statehood, because the corridor of statehood would be becoming narrower. This result would be of particular relevance for the transformation of statehood if the convergent development were attributable to external constraints. Where such a corridor constriction is found, an analysis of the causes must follow. Fourth, the situation is similar with regard to a fourth possible result of the comparative analysis. If shifts can be observed in all examined countries, but these shifts do not occur in the same direction, then we are dealing with a sort of "generalized turbulence" in the corridor of the DCIS. The extent to which this could be seen as an element of the transformation of statehood would also need to be answered on the basis of an examination of the causes.

Object of analysis
The countries of the OECD world are the main focus of our research. To answer our descriptive lead questions, we examine developments in the four dimensions from the the heyday of the DCIS in the 1970s to the present time, which is considered by many to be the end of the national constellation. All the research projects share this focus on the core of the OECD world, the only area in the world in which the DCIS can be considered more or less fully developed. Moreover, all the projects stick to the abovementioned timeframe, so that the comparability of the projects is ensured.

Furthermore, the projects have in common - insofar as processes of internationalization and supranationalization are the focus of analysis - the fact that they are not restricted to European integration within the OECD world. The transformation of statehood in the narrower context of European integration is not far-reaching enough for our research purposes. In recent years, research on the EU has made substantial progress. The object of analysis of our research programme differs in at least two respects, however. On the one hand, we have chosen a different focus: the focus here is on the nation state and how it behaves in new contexts like the EU. Our research is thus not directly focused on new institutional contexts, of which the EU is one example. On the other hand, we are consciously not limiting ourselves to the member states of the EU. The general magnitude of transformations of statehood can best be assessed by comparing non-European and European OECD countries. Thus, there is no special focus on the EU in our research programme. By treating the EU as one international institution among others, it is possibile to use the EU as a contrast or export model, or simply as a case for comparison with other international institutions. This research design liberates the analysis of the EU from the overused sui-generis perspective, while allowing for new insights into the EU.

Lead question 2: The explanation of transformations of statehood
The projects of the CRC do not simply aim to describe transformations of statehood in the core of the OECD world in accordance with the standardized conceptualisation outlined above. As the second leading question indicates, they are also interested in possible explanations for these transformations. This work commences with module 2, and is therefore not relevant for the first phase. The following explanations of transformations of statehood are therefore of a preliminary and prospective character. However, they are relevant to the first phase as well, because - as mentioned above - modules 1 (description of transformations), 2 (causes) and 3 (effects of transformations) will often overlap for pragmatic reasons. The temporal separation of the modules is not clear-cut.

Causes of transformations
As befits our disaggregated conceptualisation of statehood, we assume that the transformation of statehood as a whole cannot be traced directly back to a specific cause or to a certain complex of causes. We propose, instead, that shifts and changes in statehood vary according to the dimension examined, and that specific causes should therefore be examined in a dimension-specific way. This means that dimension-specific explanations of the transformations observed in each case must be developed in a first step. The findings can then, in a next step, be summarized in order to arrive at more general analyses and statements about the causes of transformations of statehood.

Against this conceptual background, we have determined that it would be best not to undertake a causal analysis of shifts and changes, or the lack thereof, on the basis of clusters of causes standardized across all the projects. Hypotheses about the causes of recent transformations of statehood reported in the literature are often broad, general and empirically inaccessible, so that at present it is not feasible to carry out empirical analyses of all the possible causes in all the projects. Insofar as questions about the causes of transformations are pursued in the projects, relevant hypotheses will be developed on a case-specific basis. It will then be the task of the Collaborative Research Center as a whole to gather the findings, develop integrated causal analyses if necessary, and arrive at more general statements by inductive means. For the task of integrating different case specific explanations, we can make use of two different types of explanations in which different causal mechanisms are employed.

On the one hand, explanations for transformations of statehood point to developments that are exogenous to the synergetic constellation of statehood. The transformation of statehood reacts to fundamental social processes of change like globalization, or social denationalisation (cf, e.g., Goldmann 2001; Held et al 1999; Vobruba 2001; Zürn 1998), tertiarisation, or the end of the industrial age (cf Menzel 1998; Albert 1996), and corresponding structural changes in work (see Wagner 2000, among others, or Kocka/Offe 2000). These fundamental processes of change lead to a transformation of statehood, especially via two causal mechanisms:

  1. Following a structuralistic argument, the imposed "regulatory contest" between competing states is stressed. Though initiated by political decisions, it has developed an uncontrolled momentum of its own and undermined the DCIS. Thus, for example, the Rothgang/Müller/Schmähl (C3) project asks how this competitive pressure has affected health care systems.
  2. A functionalistic counterthesis proposes that new demand for political regulation leads to a transformation of the national constellation. The importance of the nation state decreases because forms of governance beyond the nation state are increasingly developed in response to transnational regulatory problems. This causal mechanism will be tested, for example, in the projects of Winter (A3) and Zürn/Zangl (A2). They will examine whether international legalization processes are a result of the regulatory requirements caused by globalization.

On the other hand, explanations will be considered in which the causes of transformations of statehood are endogenous to the synergetic constellation of the DCIS itself. Because synergetic constellations are distinguished by the fact that their different dimensions mutually support each other, they can absorb a certain degree of instability. However, small instabilities can also develop dynamically, in the sense of "small causes, big effects". Therefore transformations of such constellations can only be understood if the interaction of various transformation processes within the synergetic constellation is examined.

Possible explanations for state transformation include processes that are triggered by the aforementioned social developments in one dimension and spill-over into transformation processes in other dimensions. The individualisation or pluralisation of life worlds in the legitimization dimension (cf Honneth 2001; Münch 2001; Stichweh 2000), for example, suggests that in the intervention dimension, the state is increasingly confronted with difficulties or having necessary resources taken away from it. In a similar fashion, representatives of regulation theory argue that the transformation to a post-fordist accumulation regime in the economy had a political effect (Esser 1994; Hübner 1998; Jessop 2001, 1994, 1992). Such theses are also based on arguments that propose as a causal mechanism, that a transformation in one dimension leads to the transformation of the national constellation as a whole:

  1. The crisis-theoretical argument that the sociocultural preconditions of DCIS-statehood are consumed by progressive modernization processes is frequently evoked. The Peters (B3) project, for example, examines to what extent public debates take place less and less frequently in national contexts; a fact that has implications concerning the appropriate organisational level for democratic processes and welfare regimes. Similarly, Lhotta/Nullmeier (B1) ask whether or not the substance of the democracy of the nation-state is in dissolution.
  2. Finally, the metaphor of capturing refers to a mechanism that is stressed in the public choice-literature: measures originally aimed at universal goals are first perverted by clientelism and then challenged by opponents. This causal mechanism can be found in the Leibfried/Obinger (C1) project. Among other things, they examine to what extent the reconstruction of the welfare state is affected by domestic veto positions.

Variance in the transformation of statehood
We are not only interested in the causes of general transformations of the corridor of statehood defined by the DCIS; the examination and explanation of system variations within the corridor are also of interest. Therefore, the research center - as suggested by supplementary lead question 2 - will, in this module, consider explanations for differences between the transformations in different states. Not only variance in the time axis, but also variance in the national axis is important. The comparative method will be applied in order to explain the transformation processes identified in module 1. In module 2b, the comparative research method will play a central role because here the task will no longer be to detect and explain common developments, but rather to explain variation in transformations of statehood.

For this task, again, two different explanations are possible: Firstly, explanations that establish a direct connection between the causes of change and differences in transformations of statehood. Variation in the transformation of statehood may originate in differences in the extent to which various states are affected by globalization or individuation. Secondly, these explanations should be distinguished from explanations that see this relationship as mediated. According to the latter type of explanation, differences in transformations of statehood can be traced to the fact that globalizing and individualizing processes have different effects because of divergent political-institutional structures, since changes in the political environment have to be dealt with politically. Political reactions to these transformations vary with the preferences and situational interpretations of the actors, the particular constellations of actors, and the institutional contexts in which they operate. Here, the classical research on state activity becomes relevant: it traces variation in policy output and outcome back to different party and extra-parliamentary power relations; basic institutional conditions, like state structure and form of democracy; traditional problem-solving routines and institutional rigidities (path dependence); as well as routinized forms of interaction in interest mediation, for example corporatism versus pluralism (Schmidt 1993; Castles 1999; Scharpf 2000; Pierson 2000a; Hacker / Pierson 2002). Differences in the transformation of statehood along the national axis are - according to this second strand of research - to be sought in the political system.

Variation between countries and cases is not only important in and of itself. It also represents a means to investigate general causes. Because national differences lead to variation in the dependent variable "transformation", the comparative method can be used to examine changes in general. To suggest only two examples: Are highly denationalised countries most likely to undergo the strongest transformations? Are those cases with the most intense regulatory competition marked by unambiguous shifts and transformation processes?

Lead question 3: The consequences of the transformation of statehood
As indicated by lead question 3, the consequences of the transformation of statehood will be examined in the third module of the research programme. In this evaluative third module, we will systematically refer to the basic social values introduced above: security, legal equality, self determination and welfare. These are social goods whose realization can be thought of independently of particular institutional contexts. Because these four basic social values are so closely linked to the DCIS and its four institutional dimensions, their continued existence is typically viewed as bound to the maintenance of the DCIS. Thus, for example, in the debate on the democratic deficit in the EU and other international institutions, some authors seem to equate the "democratic principle" with its institutional expression in the parliamentary majority-rule democracy of the DCIS (for criticism of this, see Gerstenberg 1997; Schmalz-Bruns 1999; Zürn 2000). The success of the DCIS is certainly closely linked to the fact that it has - under certain conditions - made the nearly complete provision of the abovementioned normative goods possible. However, under changed conditions, other institutional arrangements might be more successful in the implementation or realization of these normative goods.

In other words: while the institutional dimension of statehood - be it the modern territorial state, the sovereign constitutional state, the democratic nation state or the social interventionist state - has, as far as possible, an instrumental character in our conceptualisation, basic social values - like security, legal protection and equality before the law, democratic self determination and social welfare - will be ascribed normative status. They embody the normative aims of governance. Thus, the following question arises in the third, evaluative module: What effects could an institutional transformation from a national to a post-national constellation have on the realization of these basic social values? While module 1 examines whether legal protection is increasingly provided by transnational institutions, module 3 asks whether transnational institutions are better or worse at providing these goods than the DCIS in the 1960s and 1970s. This evaluative module will be relevant for political practice: the possible finding that in the transition from a national to a post-national constellation the possibility for optimal provision of certain basic social values decreases, should trigger consideration of how this can be increased again.

Read on: The future of statehood

 
   
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