[abstract]
Das Buch zeigt auf, wie sehr Europa in den letzten Jahrzehnten auf dem Weg zu einer immer engeren Union der Bürgerinnen und Bürger vorangekommen ist. Fast unbemerkt von Öffentlichkeit und Wissenschaft hat sich Europa „von unten“, durch grenzüberschreitende Aktivitäten der Menschen, sozial integriert. Mit anderen Worten: Es gibt unzählige Prozesse der europäischen Vergesellschaftung, die sich zum Netzwerk Europa verdichtet haben – keine supranationale Gesellschaft im klassischen Sinne, sondern ein Verdichtungsraum personeller Mobilität und Kommunikation. Das Buch widmet sich dieser europäischen Vergesellschaftung anhand von Migration, Auslandsstudium, Tourismus und Telefonie – und diskutiert, welche Chancen und Konflikte sich daraus für das Zusammenleben der Europäerinnen und Europäer ergeben.
[abstract]
Visas are an important means for countries to regulate incoming mobility flows. Past datasets and quantitative research on visas have focused on visa waivers, ignoring the fact that visas, where demanded, can vary greatly by cost. This paper presents a novel dataset based on a manual collection of visa costs for travel between a global set of country pairs in seven different categories (tourist, work, student, family reunification, business, transit, and other). Our analyses reveal a strong global visa cost divide that raises important questions about the injustice regarding the right to travel for people located in different areas of the world. Whereas Europeans usually hardly have to work at all for travel permits, visa costs often amount to several weeks or even months of mean income in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Regression analyses show that these discriminatory practices are explained by the (lack of) economic prosperity and (flawed) state of democracy in the country of origin. This suggests that the global visa cost regime is driven by a rationale of economic and political control and exclusion rather than blatant racism. The result is a fundamentally paradoxical situation: The richer a country, the less its citizens pay for visas to go abroad (both in absolute terms and relative to their income).
[abstract]
This contribution introduces a network approach to horizontal Europeanisation research and investigates the interconnectedness of European societies via cross-border migration. The main underlying assumption is that the establishment of pan-European mobility rights and their extension to ever wider shares of Europe's population has stimulated intra-European migration. Taking a social network perspective, we track the development of the European migration network over more than half a century (1960-2017). The analysis is based on dyadic migration stock data for 37 European countries, stemming from the World Bank and the United Nations. Indeed, large parts of the evidence suggest advancing horizontal Europeanisation, as the European mobility network has become more tight-knit and Europeans increasingly move within Europe rather than to countries in other parts of the world. Europe even emerged as a distinct and largely unified entity in the worldwide migration network, at least until 2010. At the same time, the shape of the European migration network reveals a strong core-periphery division. Moreover, since the dissolution of the Eastern bloc this sociometric hierarchy increasingly maps on Europe's economic core-periphery structure. Taken together, our findings suggest an advancing, yet unequal and partially challenged Europeanisation.
[abstract] The Mediterranean is often portrayed as a hub of human mobility. In this article, we test this widespread view by exploring the structure of travel flows in the region over the last two decades (1995–2016). We find that mobility is much higher and increasing more strongly along the northern than along the southern shore, thus creating a growing mobility divide. South–north and north–south movements are even scarcer and stagnate or even decline over time. With a Gini coefficient of .87, mobility flows are distributed extremely unequally across country pairs in the Mediterranean. Community detection algorithms reconfirm that mobility predominantly takes place in disparate clusters around the Mediterranean, not across it. These findings imply that a ‘neo-Braudelian’ view of the Mediterranean as a mobility hub is less justified than a ‘Rio Grande’ perspective that conceives of the Mediterranean as a mobility hollow. Multivariate regression models for network data suggest that geographical distance and, to a lesser extent, political visa regulations, explain the unequal mobility structure better than differences in economic well-being.
[abstract]
The dramatic increases in transnational mobility and communication over recent decades give rise to the question of whether the world is globally integrating or whether regions are emerging as a new layer of societal integration beyond the nation-state. Yet, our knowledge in this regard is still limited, as researchers have thus far modeled regionalization and globalization as either independent from or dependent on each other and their conclusions are heavily contingent upon this decision. Furthermore, most past empirical studies on this issue have focused on economic and institutional ties, disregarding people’s cross-border activity. This article aims to (a) clarify the relation between regionalization and globalization via a novel conceptualization that allows the modeling of the two processes as both complementary and competitive and thus to compare resulting outcomes, and (b) empirically trace regionalization and globalization in five types of transnational human mobility (asylum-seeking, migration, refuge-seeking, studying abroad and tourism) over time. Network analyses of flows between 38,220 country dyads reveal that while in absolute terms both regionalization and globalization occur, regional integration exceeds global integration. While this effect is found for all regions, it is strongest in Latin America and the Caribbean. These findings contradict basic assumptions of world-systems theory’s core-periphery model, demanding a rethink regarding the structure of the transnational world, paying increased attention to the role of regions as a relevant layer of societal integration between the nation-state and world society.
[abstract]
We devise an integrated estimate of country-to-country cross-border human mobility on the basis of global statistics on tourism and air passenger traffic. The joint use of these two sources allows us to (a) test for their relative contribution, and (b) correct for their limitations to the estimate of global mobility by combining them. The two sources are adjusted and merged following simple procedures. The resulting dataset, which covers more than 15 billion estimated trips over the years 2011 to 2016, promises to be a systematic and comprehensive resource on transnational human mobility worldwide. In this paper, we illustrate the data characteristics and transformations adopted in creating this dataset. First applications are explored, and its remaining limits are discussed.
[abstract]
Did the election of Donald Trump affect the popularity of the European Union (EU) in Europe? Theoretically, both a positive rally effect (due to a perceived external threat) and a negative domino effect (due to resignation among Europhiles and/or reinforcement among europhobe nationalists) are thinkable. We treat Trump's unexpected victory as an external shock and use a Eurobarometer survey that was conducted in all EU-28 member states four days prior to (control group) and six days after the election (treatment group) as source material for a natural experiment. The analysis reveals that the election of Trump caused a significant increase in the EU's popularity in Europe immediately after the election. This "Trump effect" is considerable in size, roughly equivalent to three years of education. Gains in popularity were particularly high among respondents who perceived their country as economically struggling and, surprisingly, among the political right, suggesting that Trump's victory broadened and ideologically diversified the EU's base of support.
[abstract]
Transnational social practices (TSP) can be defined as sustained linkages and ongoing exchanges between individuals across national borders. Over the last decades, TSP have not only become more common, but they have also developed into an increasingly salient subject of quantitative sociological research. After highlighting seminal foundational research, we introduce a set of salient topics in this emerging strand of research, including the social stratification of TSP, the link between TSP and cosmopolitan attitudes, and the issue of classifying TSP into meaningful subdimensions. We conclude with a discussion of several avenues for future research, including the relation between TSP and the increasing societal polarization between “locals” and “globals,” the need to go beyond the field's current Eurocentrism to study TSP comparatively in all parts of the world, and the prospects of methodological and technical advances in research on TSP, including network-analytic approaches and geo-tagged digital-trace data.
[abstract]
In times of multiple crises and a looming partial breakup of the European Union, the question of what binds Europeans together appears more relevant than ever. This article proposes transnational attachment as a novel indicator of sense of community in Europe, arguing that this hitherto neglected dimension is substantially and structurally different from alternative ones such as cross-border trust and identification. Combining Eurobarometer 73.3 data on ties between all EU-27 countries with further dyadic data, it is shown empirically that the European network of transnational attachment has an asymmetric core-periphery structure centred on five extremely popular countries (the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Spain). In line with transactionalist theory, cross-border mobility and communication are strongly related to transnational attachment. Furthermore, the article demonstrates that the network of transnational attachment is much denser among those with a higher level of education than among those with a lower level. The results suggest that offering European citizens incentives to travel to peripheral countries may help counterbalance the current asymmetric structure of transnational attachment, thereby increasing Europe's social cohesion.
[abstract]
Recent studies have shown that the spatial structures of animal displacements and local-scale human motion follow L\'{e}vy flights. Whether transnational human activity (THA) also exhibits such a pattern has however not been thoroughly examined as yet. To fill this gap, this article examines the planet-scale spatial structure of THA (a) across eight types of mobility and communication and (b) in its development over time. Combining data from various sources, it is shown that the spatial structure of THA can indeed be approximated by L\'{e}vy flights with heavy tails that obey power laws. Scaling exponent and power-law fit differ by type of THA, being highest in refuge-seeking and tourism and lowest in student exchange. Variance in the availability of resources and opportunities for satisfying associated needs appears to explain these differences. Over time, the L\'{e}vy-flight pattern remains intact and remarkably stable, contradicting the popular idea that socio-technological trends lead to a "death of distance." Longitudinal change occurs only in some types of THA and predominantly at short distances, indicating regional shifts rather than globalization.
[abstract]
Building on the transactionalist paradigm in the tradition of Karl W. Deutsch as well as on Arndt Sorge’s theory of tiered social spaces, this study examines why everyday actions and attitudes are more centered on Europe (i. e. “Europeanized”) in some EU member states than in others. Analyzing a variety of survey data on the EU-27 countries with partial correlation models, it is shown that the macro-level determinants of Europeanization differ between actions and attitudes. While actions are more Europe-centered in small and affluent countries, attitudes are more Europe-centered in post-communist states as well as in countries that are located in the geographical center of the EU and that do not have a protestant religious tradition. Contrary to transactionalist theory, the Europeanization of actions does not coincide with the Europeanization of attitudes: “doing Europe” and “feeling Europe” do not go hand in hand.
[abstract]
After more than two decades of apolitical ennui, history has returned from the dead and sweeps over Europe at full force. The cold war is back with a new look, enchanted philosophers proclaim the overdue end of the post-modern era, new realism is the man of the hour, and old enemies serve as fresh targets. A short, saturated moment of cosmopolitan sentiment ends as global powers return to puberty with Russia and the West stalemating over Syria, forcing whole generations into exodus.
[abstract]
The dramatic increases in transnational mobility and communication over the last decades give rise to the question whether the world is globally integrating or whether regions are emerging as a new layer of societal integration beyond the nation-state. Yet, our knowledge in this regard is still rather limited, as researchers have thus far modeled regionalization and globalization as either independent from or dependent on each other and their conclusions are heavily contingent upon this decision. Furthermore, most past empirical studies on this issue have focused on economic and institutional ties, disregarding people’s cross-border activity. This article aims to (a) clarify the relation between regionalization and globalization via a novel conceptualization that allows to model the two processes as both complementary and competitive and thus to compare resulting outcomes, and (b) empirically trace regionalization and globalization in five types of transnational human mobility (asylum-seeking, migration, refuge-seeking, studying abroad and tourism) between 2000 and 2010. Network analyses of flows between 38,220 country dyads reveal that while in absolute terms both regionalization and globalization occur, regional integration exceeds global integration. While this effect is found for all regions, it is strongest in Latin America and the Caribbean. Consequentially, world regions do constitute an increasingly salient layer of societal integration beyond the nation-state. This finding contradicts basic assumptions of world systems theory’s core-periphery model, demanding for rethinking the structure of the transnational world, paying increased attention to the role of regions as a relevant layer of societal integration between the nation-state and world society.
[abstract]
In sociological transnationalization research, it is conventional wisdom that the upper strata are more involved in cross-border activities than the lower ones. However, proponents of the individualization/death-of-class thesis have argued that the significance of class (and of inequalities in general) for people’s actions is declining in affluent societies. Using these theories as a point of departure, this article investigates the influence of class and inequalities, more generally, on transnational activity. Using Eurobarometer 73.3 data from 27 European countries, this article examines (a) the extent to which class determines, by itself, in conjunction with other inequalities, and relative to heterogeneities, transnational practices within countries; and (b) how much the social gradient of transnational activity produced by class and inequalities varies across countries, and whether socioeconomic development tends to decrease or increase this gradient. The findings show that, in most countries, heterogeneities explain more variance in transnational activity than class, but not more variance than inequalities as more generally conceived. Further, social gradients in transnational activity are systematically larger in more affluent European countries.
[abstract]
This article seeks to conceptually clarify the measurement of Europeanization from a transactional perspective. Following Karl Deutsch, we regard cross-border practices and sense of community as constitutive for an emerging European society. But we critically reassess how this approach has been put into empirical practice by contemporary scholars. Typically, too much attention is paid to absolute Europeanization, and too little to relative Europeanization. In order to properly investigate the European society as situated between the nation-state and the world society, we argue that Europeanization involves both national openness (the salience of Europe compared to the nation-state) and external closure (the salience of Europe compared to the world). Three indices are suggested to capture relative Europeanization and its major components. Recent Eurobarometer and European Values Study data on practices and attitudes of EU citizens is used to illustrate our approach empirically. The results demonstrate that external closure adds a new layer of information for understanding everyday life Europeanization. We also find a bifurcation between practices for which Europe is the more relevant reference frame (as compared to the world) and attitudes for which it is not.
Measuring the Europeanization of Everyday Life: Three New Indices and an Empirical Application.
[abstract]
The ongoing crises in Europe have revived the debate about whether Europeans possess or should possess a “sense of community”. Conventionally, sense of community is investigated on a supranational dimension, approached mainly via concepts such as European identity or Euroscepticism. A different, heavily underresearched dimension is transnationalsense of community, e.g. the attachment to other countries. In this paper we examine the extent to which Europeans feel transnationally attached to other countries, the geographical scope of this attachment, and the factors influencing it. 2010 Eurobarometer data (EB 73.3) provide the following insights: (1) The majority of EU citizens does feel attached to other countries. (2) Transnational practices, education, and minority statuspredict attachment to other countries, (3) EU citizens clearly feel more attached to other European countries than to non-European countries. In the discussion we contrast these findings with what is known about supranational approaches, to carve out to what extent transnational attachment is an independent component of Europeans’ sense of community.
[abstract]
Why do citizens like or dislike supranational political integration? Different approaches have been developed for answering this question. Still a milestone of inspiration is Easton’s (1965) theory of the difference between affective and utilitarian support for political institutions. Applied to the EU level, utilitarian support stresses the importance of economic and political gains when attitudes towards the European Union are formed – will I or my country benefi t? Affective support, in contrast, assumes that citizens simply like the idea of a unifi ed Europe, and that part of that emotional attachment comes from sociopsychological conceptions of group membership and sense of community – what is usually termed the identity approach. Other approaches have developed since then. Two recent reviews distinguish among three (Hooghe and Marks 2004) and fi ve different explanatory approaches (Ray 2006), respectively. This plurality makes perfect sense, given the complexity of European integration. Ensuring mass citizen support is, eventually, a question of winning the minds and hearts of Europeans.
[abstract]
Auf anekdotischer Basis erleben wir beinahe täglich, dass die nach Osten erweiterte Europäische Union (EU) (noch) kein optimaler Integrationsraum ist. Ich möchte nur drei Beispiele nennen. Ein erstes ist der Aufschrei in den Medien der „alten“ EU-15, nachdem beim letztjährigen European Song Contest der serbische Beitrag gewonnen hatte; verschwörungstheoretisch wurde gemutmaßt, die post-sozialistischen Länder hätten sich die Punkte gegenseitig zugeschanzt. Ein zweites Beispiel ist die gegenwärtige Pogromstimmung gegen Roma und Rumänen in Italien. Sie hat zum Ziel, rumänische Einwanderer, die für Kriminalität und Sozialmissbrauch verantwortlich gemacht werden, wieder des Landes zu verweisen. Ein drittes Beispiel ist die Entscheidung einiger westeuropäischer Regierungen (unter anderem der deutschen), die Arbeitsmärkte noch nicht für die neuen EU-Bürger zu öffnen.
[abstract]
This macro-sociological contribution is concerned with sources of trust between nationalities. The transaction thesis claims that the level of sense of community between nationalities is a function of the level of exchange going on between them, such as trade, tourism, and information flows. In this article, the relationship between various transaction measures and social trust in people from other countries is explored empirically, based on data for 156 European country dyads. Contrary to theory, multivariate analyses do not provide evidence that trust in other nationalities depend on the density of cross-border transactions. If one controls for certain country characteristics, dense exchange is not related to higher levels of trust. Rather, for assessing the trustworthiness of foreign populations, Europeans resort to key characteristics like socio-economic modernization, population size, and cultural affinity. A tentative explanation for why transactions have so little impact on public opinion is their largely "systemic" character. They are to a large extent unnoticed by the mass public, and hence can add only little to transnational trust.
[abstract]
This article analyses the impact enlargements have had on the social cohesion of the European Union (EU), measured as generalized interpersonal trust between EU nationalities. Based on a quantitative-dyadic approach, Eurobarometer surveys from 1976 to 1997 are utilized. The key result is that enlargements do not necessarily weaken cohesion, but southern enlargement and the recent eastern enlargement did. The integrative effect of enlargement depends on the extent to which acceding nations differ from existing club members in three main dimensions: the level of modernization (mechanisms: prestige), cultural characteristics (mechanisms: similarity) and their power in the international system (mechanisms: perceived threat).
[abstract]
Üblicherweise wird unter europäischer Integration der politische Zusammenschluss des EU-Staaten verstanden. In diesem Beitrag wird argumentiert, dass die Soziologie einen eigenen Begrift von europäischer Integration braucht, der sich auf die Integration zwischen den neuropäischen Gesellschaften in einer transnationalen Perspektive beziehen könnte. Von einem transaktionalistischen Ansatz her denkend werden mit gegenseitiger Relevanz und transnationaler Kohäsion zwei Dimensionen der europäischen Gesellschaftsintegration benannt und erläutert. Es wird argumentiert, dass genau dadurch, dass sich die Soziologie nicht primär die politische Integration im Rahmen der EU zum Gegenstand nimmt, sondern sich mit transnationaler Vergesellschaftung befasst, sie erstens das Thema Europäisierung breiter in der Disziplin verankern kann und zweitens, als Nebeneffekt, anschlussfähig für die (bislang) auf politische Prozesse spezialisierten Integration Studies wird.
[abstract]
Vertrauen ist der Anfang von allem" - mit diesem Slogan warb eine deutsche Großbank vor einiger Zeit um Kunden. Der Satz mag für Bankgeschäfte zutreffen - in Bezug auf Europa ist er nur die halbe Wahrheit. Denn die Anfänge der heutigen Europäischen Union gründeten gerade nicht auf überschäumendem Vertrauen zwischen den Völkern.[1] Misstrauen gegenüber den Deutschen war vielmehr das entscheidende Motiv zur supranationalen Institutionenbildung mit dem Ziel, einen weiteren Krieg zu verhindern. Heute, fünf Dekaden später, hat sich das Gesicht Europas radikal verändert. Deutschland ist seit langem ein verlässlicher Partner, und auch die Bedrohung durch den kommunistischen Block, die Westeuropa (und die USA) zusammengeschweißt hat, ist Vergangenheit. Mit der am 1. Mai 2004 abgeschlossenen Osterweiterung sind erstmals Länder der Union beigetreten, die bis 1989 zum feindlichen Lager zählten. Für die EU bedeutet der Verlust des äußeren Feindes, dass sie verstärkt auf innere Bindekräfte angewiesen ist. Doch welche Kräfte halten die Völker Europas zusammen?[2] Sprache fällt als identitätsstiftende Ressource aus, auch wenn Englisch immer mehr zur europäischen Funktionssprache wird; eine europäische Identität unter den EU-Bürgern ist nur schwach ausgeprägt; die kollektiven Erinnerungen an die zwei Weltkriege trennen und verbinden die Nationen gleichermaßen; und es gibt auch keine loyalitätsstiftende Krone wie beim Commonwealth. Gerade weil in der EU solcherart starke Bindungen fehlen, hängt viel von einer anderen Ressource ab: dem Vertrauen, dass die Völker Europas ineinander haben.
[abstract]
Am 1. Mai 2004 treten zehn Staaten aus Ostmittel- und Südosteuropa der Europäischen Union (EU) bei. Eine offene Frage ist, wie gut eine EU mit 25 Mitgliedsstaaten funktioniert. Eine weiterhin erfolgreiche politische Integration Europas hängt nicht zuletzt auch davon ab, wie viel Vertrauen zwischen den EU-Völkern besteht. Innerhalb der EU ist derzeit das Vertrauen in Skandinavier und die Benelux-Nationen am größten, das in die Südeuropäer am geringsten. Mit der Osterweiterung treten nun Länder bei, denen die EU-15-Bürger nur wenig Vertrauen entgegenbringen.
[abstract]
Wie ausgeprägt ist das Vertrauen der EU-Völker untereinander? Ausgehend von der Überlegung, dass die politische Integration in Europa auch der Solidarität und des Zusammenhalts zwischen den EU-Nationen bedarf, wird die ‘Vertrauensfrage’ empirisch mit Hilfe von Umfragedaten beantwortet. Dazu wird das Ausmaß transnationalen Vertrauens ermittelt und mit dem Ausmaß nationalen Vertrauens verglichen. Es zeigt sich: Nach wie vor vertrauen die Europäer den eigenen Landsleuten mehr als den Partnervölkern, doch wird die Grenze je nach Land unterschiedlich scharf gezogen. Das Vertrauen in die Partnervölker ist im Süden Europas am geringsten ausgeprägt, und die Südeuropäer gelten ihrerseits als weniger vertrauenswürdig als West- und Nordeuropäer. Über zwei Jahrzehnte hinweg betrachtet, ist das transnationale Vertrauen zwar in der Mehrzahl der EU-Länder gewachsen, doch nur in drei Ländern ist es stärker gestiegen als das nationale Vertrauen. Mit Blick auf die Osterweiterung sprechen die Umfragen bislang nur für ein geringes Vertrauen der EU-15-Bevölkerung in die Osteuropäer, so dass sich mögliche Integrationsprobleme abzeichnen.
[abstract]
European countries are becoming increasingly politically integrated and the process of integration has accelerated in recent years. But how much social integration is there within the Community? This article supplies a definition of European social integration, and thereby lays down the foundations necessary for answering this important sociological question. Instead of analysing the EU as a political system, I view the EU as a social space of non-state actors of different nationality, and concentrate on the intergroup relations between the national collectivities involved in the amalgamation process. I define social integration as being transnational and macro-social; my definition has a quantitative dimension (relating to mutual relevance) as well as a qualitative dimension (relating to cohesion). I will argue that this definition is more useful than the European Commission’s approach, which equates social integration with the convergence of living and working conditions, and also more useful than the social policy approach, which equates social integration with the convergence of regulations and social policies.
[abstract]
The European Union aims at steady modernisation of the EU member countries as well as covergence between them. But to what degree can the EU manage processes of modernisation and convergence? This article deals with the mechanisms and limitations of convergence initiated by the EU. Starting with a description of the main trends of modernisation in the 15 member countries for the time period 1970 to 2000, we can observe both a general trend of modernisation in all of them and a process of catch-up modernisation for the laggards. Hence the EU 15 countries are converging, although there have also occured some “new differences”, caused by differing adaptabilities to new challenges of ongoing modernisation. I argue that modernisation and convergence widely follow their own logic, independent from European political integration that nevertheless supports convergence. Through the four mechanisms, redistribution of resources, competition, regulation and imitation, EU membership makes catch-up modernisation easier for countries lagging behind. There are, however, clear limitations for the EU to induce convergence.