Contested solidarity. Dynamics of solidarity between day-to-day business and crisis

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Stefanie Börner
• Subject Area: Sociological Theory ; Empirical Social Research
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 459765303

The project examines the interdependent and contentious relationship between welfare state solidarity and civil society solidarity since 2003 in Germany. Two central assumptions guide the research: First, the reciprocal reference between civil society announcements and practices on the one hand, and social policy instruments and their underlying guiding ideas on the other hand, contribute to integrate modern societies. Secondly, compared to solidarity's day-to-day business, the meaning and functioning of solidarity in both areas shifts in times of crisis. Hence, the research question is the following: Of which nature are the reciprocal references between civil society and the welfare state when it comes to negotiating the solidarity relationships within society, and in what way does this relationship and the significance of solidarity change in times of crisis? Subject to analysis will be the idea of solidarity within the existing welfare state dynamics at the discursive and instrumental level (using the examples of statutory health insurance and the German unemployment assistance), as well as the civil society practices and their uses of solidarity. Sociological institutional analysis will be applied in order to reconstruct the intertwined discourses and practices and thus identify the respective functions civil society interventions have for social solidarity. Overall, the project pursues three aims. First, it analyses the dynamics of solidarity as one of the guiding ideas of the welfare state since 2003 as well as its institutionlisation in social policy. Based on this, second, the project specifies the relationship between the institutionalised idea of solidarity (solidarity from above) and the civil society ideas and practices (solidarity from below). Third, it aims to compare the day-to-day business of solidarity, its dynamics and conflicts, to those during the financial crisis and the pandemic (solidarity during the crisis). The three steps allow for a theoretically sound interpretation of the recent contradictory diagnoses of desolidarisation, on the one hand, and an active mobilisation of solidarity on the other.The project combines different methods of data collection and analysis such as policy and institutional analysis, qualitative analysis of interpretative patterns in problem-centred interviews and the content analysis of plenary debates as well as court decisions, and of inhouse publications, homepages and media reports of civil societies. For the first time, this method mix allows for a thorough empirical analysis of the complex and so far, underexplored relationship between the macro and meso level of solidarity.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants