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Die Aufgeregtheit des Publikums angesichts jedes neuen Krieges steht in deutlichem Kontrast zur geringen systematischen Beachtung, die dem Militär gewidmet wird. Volker Heins und Jens Warburg beleuchten den dramatischen Wandel militärischer Institutionen und Praktiken in den Gesellschaften der Gegenwart und stellen Verbindungen her zwischen neuen Berufsbildern und Aufgabenfeldern der Soldaten, der Rolle von Echtzeit-Technologien, des Medienpublikums und seiner Moral sowie veränderter Geschlechterverhältnisse. Im Zentrum steht dabei die Frage, ob wir in einem soziologisch genauen Sinne in einer nach-militärischen Gesellschaft leben oder ob sich lediglich das Gesicht dessen, was lange Zeit als »Militarismus« kritisiert worden ist, verändert.

Das Vokabular der »Zivilgesellschaft«, das in den 80er und 90er Jahren für starke Impulse zur Erneuerung einer kritischen Theorie der Politik sorgte, hat sich in ein ideologisches schwarzes Loch, ein Passepartout für nahezu beliebige Anliegen verwandelt. Um das Profil dieses gewiss auch in Zukunft brisanten Vokabulars zu schärfen, versucht Heins, den Gehalt des alten Begriffs zu bergen, indem er die Kontrastphänomene entziffert, gegen die einst »Zivilgesellschaft« reklamiert wurde: die Phänomene des Fanatismus und der »Barbarei«, der Beamtenherrschaft oder auch des Aufstiegs einer Gesellschaft der »Produzenten«, derer sich die Gesellschaft der »Bürger« zu erwehren suchte. Mindestens »zwei Gefahren«, so vermutet der Autor im Anschluss an Paul Valéry, »bedrohen unaufhörlich die Welt: die Ordnung und die Unordnung«.

In the field of migration politics, a dominant rhetoric argues that liberal immigration and asylum policies must be avoided because they will inevitably lead to anti-immigration backlashes that exacerbate the very conditions they were supposed to remedy. Drawing on the work of German sociologist Heinrich Popitz and empirical data on the aftereffects of the European migration crisis, the article criticizes this "rhetoric of reaction" (Albert Hirschman) for ignoring the many variables shaping the consequences of more open borders. Backlashes to immigration are real and pose a constraint for liberal immigration policies, but these backlashes are not necessarily politically successful. Societies react neither uniformly nor automatically to rising immigration. A critical variable is the fear engendered by the (real, expected, or imagined) arrival of large numbers of migrants, and this fear can be either ramped up to paranoid levels or calmed by a politics of hope aimed at restoring what Popitz called the "human openness to the world."

Jan-Werner Müller: Furcht und Freiheit: Für einen anderen Liberalismus. Berlin: Suhrkamp 2019. 978-3-518-07513-5

This article presents a critical reading of Albert O. Hirschman's typology of exit, voice and loyalty as a heuristic for understanding the changing meanings of exile in the 20th and early 21st centuries. It is argued that Hirschman's experiences as well as the theory he distilled from them are highly relevant for researchers of forced migration and exile. After first defending the usefulness of Hirschman's analytical framework for exile and diaspora studies, the article then highlights the need to revise and complicate his approach. Hirschman could not foresee the emerging global possibilities of cultivating 'the art of voice', new forms of internal and self-exile as a result of post-fascist versions of authoritarianism, and the growing difficulties faced by refugees including, refugee scholars and writers, to exit their countries and find a safe haven somewhere else. The gaps in Hirschman's theory are addressed by drawing on insights from the writings of Judith Shklar.

Judith N. Shklar: Der Liberalismus der Rechte. Berlin: Matthes & Seitz 2017. 978-3-95757-241-7

Judith N. Shklar: On Political Obligation. New Haven / London: Yale University Press 2019. 978-0-300-21499-4 +++ Judith N. Shklar: Verpflichtung, Loyalität, Exil. Berlin: Matthes & Seitz 2019. 978-3-95757-570-8

Skadi Siiri Krause: Eine neue Politische Wissenschaft für eine neue Welt: Alexis de Tocqueville im Spiegel seiner Zeit. Berlin: Suhrkamp 2017. 9783518298275 +++ Andreas Hess: Tocqueville and Beaumont: Aristocratic Liberalism in Democratic Times. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2018. 9783319696676

Marcel Mauss: Die Nation oder der Sinn fürs Soziale. Frankfurt am Main: Campus 2017. 978-3593505831

Justin Gest: The New Minority: White Working Class Politics in an Age of Immigration and Inequality. New York: Oxford University Press 2016. 978-0-19-063255-7 (Paperback)

Based on a critical reading of Jürgen Habermas's journalistic writings on the European Union, the article argues that Europe's current crisis is also a crisis of its narratives, and hence a crisis of meaning. The German philosopher has revised his political vision of a united Europe but has done so without abandoning his neo-Kantian 'soft revolutionism'. The EU of the future is not only envisaged as an alternative to the allegedly defunct European nation-state, but also as the antithesis to US-style federalism and to what is called 'post-democratic executive federalism'. What is more, Habermas no longer fully trusts in the power of the better argument, as championed in his critical social theory. Instead, his hope of normative progress towards a socially and politically more integrated Europe is founded on a belief in the power of the crisis itself – aided by a convincing pro-European narrative – to drive us in the same direction as that indicated by reason. The conclusion contrasts Habermas's utopian Europeanism, which has failed to find favour with the wider European public, with a less utopian alternative inspired by the highly specific, non-universal situation of the Old Continent.