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AbstractWealthy citizens have influenced public debates and the political process in the United States in many ways, for example through donations or campaign finance. Philanthropy is viewed increasingly as another vehicle of more indirect elite influence. Although institutionally designed to stay above the partisan fray, philanthropy has increasingly been politicized over the last decades against the backdrop of growing partisan polarization. The conservative side in particular has consolidated influence through conservative foundations, think tanks, and new tools of giving such as donor-advised funds. Climate change is one issue in which conservatives have pushed skeptical views and disinformation over the last decades. Conservative actors backed by philanthropic activity have shaped public discourse according to climate-skeptic views and have worked to block political action on climate change while also forming global networks and practices across the Atlantic. While trying to retain the image of academic research and political neutrality, right-wing European think tanks are spreading climate change disinformation, often with connections to their American counterparts and with the support of American conservative donors and foundations. Overall, this paper argues that parts of the philanthropic sector in the United States have abandoned early notions of public charity in order to pursue considerable societal and political goals under the guise of philanthropic activity that provides tax benefits and the image of political neutrality. This paper builds on research that shows how much the interests of the wealthy are reflected in political decision-making in the United States (Bartels 2008; Page, Bartels, and Seawright 2013; Gilens and Page 2014), dark money debates in U.S. politics (Mayer 2017; Oklobdzija 2019), and discussions around the role of philanthropic foundations in a democratic society (Reich 2013, 2018).

This is the eighth post in the blog series "Movements and Institutions". Occupy Wall Street has disappeared from the public radar, yet it is worth a second look. Through its structure and identity, it has probably become the United States' first post-modern movement. Outside of formal institutions, people created their own utopian spaces in the hope for political and social innovation.

ZusammenfassungIn den letzten Jahrzehnten ist in den USA eine größer werdende Einkommens- und Vermögensungleichheit zu beobachten. Zusätzlich hat die Präsidentschaft Donald Trumps die Spaltung im Land weiter vertieft. Vor diesem Hintergrund ist das entscheidende Narrativ der amerikanischen Gesellschaft unter Druck geraten: DerAmerican Dream. Diese Erzählung verspricht jedem Chancengleichheit und wirtschaftlichen Aufstieg. Ein Versprechen, dass für viele Amerikaner:innen allerdings nicht mehr der Wirklichkeit entspricht. Vor allem junge Leute fordern deshalb tiefgreifende Veränderungen im politischen System und eine Umkehr der etablierten Politik. Viele dieser Wähler:innen richten sich zunehmend nach links aus und legen vermehrt Wert auf die Diskussion progressiver Themen innerhalb der Demokratischen Partei. Obwohl sich Kandidat:innen des linken Spektrums im Vorwahlkampf 2020 nur bedingt durchsetzen konnten, gehörten progressive politische Schwergewichte wie Bernie Sanders oder Elizabeth Warren lange zu den Favoriten für die Präsidentschaftskandidatur.Elizabeth Warren scheiterte im Wahlkampf, konnte jedoch bei vielen Themen Schwerpunkte setzen und trieb oftmals die Agenda voran. Deshalb lässt eine Analyse ihrer Kommunikation Rückschlüsse auf den linken Diskurs innerhalb der Demokratischen Partei der USA zu. An ihrem Beispiel zeigt dieses Papier daher, welche Ungleichheitsnarrative im (progressiven) politischen Diskurs der Vereinigten Staaten eine Rolle spielen und wie sie kommuniziert und mit Hilfe von Frames bewertet werden. Eine Korpus-gestützte Frame-Analyse zeigt beispielhaft die Verwendung zweier Frames im politischen Diskurs: Des "fairness-Frames" und des "wealth-Frames." Diese heben hervor, wie stark derAmerican Dreamfür den Durchschnittsamerikaner unter Druck geraten ist und legen nahe, warum sich ein größerer Teil der amerikanischen Wählerschaft Kandidat:innen zuwenden, die strukturelle Veränderungen des amerikanischen Systems befürworten.

Over the last decades, the U.S. has seen increasing income inequality and a widening wealth gap. Donald Trump's presidency has deepened the political and cultural divide among Americans even more. As a result of these developments, many Americans have started to question the idea of the American Dream. For many, its promises of equal opportunity and upward social mobility no longer hold true. Young Americans, who are particularly affected by these trends, have started to demand big structural change in the American political and economic system. In line with that, they have championed progressive reform ideas and actors in the Democratic Party. While progressive politicians such as Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren did not secure the presidency in 2020, they were among the Democratic Party's highest-polling contenders for a considerable portion of the campaign. Although Elizabeth Warren eventually dropped out of the presidential race, she often managed to drive its political agenda. Taking her strategic communication during the 2019/2020 primaries as an example, this paper analyzes which narratives of inequality are utilized in American progressive political discourse, how these are communicated, and which interpretations of economic inequality her strategic framing suggests. A corpus-based analysis of Warren's framing reveals that two frames are prevalent in her discourse on inequality: the fairness-frame and the wealth-frame. These highlight to what extent the American Dream has proven unattainable to many Americans and indicate why an increasing number of voters support candidates who demand structural change in the US.

Natural disasters and extreme weather events are common in North America. The U.S. in particular, is especially exposed to natural catastrophes, such as earthquakes, drought and fires on the Western Coast, recurring severe storms, tornados (in the Midwest), and hurricanes in the South-East, as well as flooding that follows these storms and strong precipitation. In historical terms the losses and damages caused by these events have taken place under specific national boundary conditions that significantly differ from those in many poorer countries that are prone to natural catastrophes; over the last century, the U.S. witnessed a steep increase in economic growth and wealth, especially after WWII, which made the country more prone to material losses but which could have also provided it with the necessary resources to successfully fight exposure to these catastrophes "The rapid and fairly stable rise in prosperity formed a background against which the enormous suffering and considerable destruction caused by natural catastrophes played out." (Werner 2017: 260) From the early 1990s on, events like Hurricane Andrew (1992) and later Hurricane Katrina (2005) drew a mark on the American public consciousness. Along with smaller and medium-size events, this led the public to suspect that the frequency and intensity of such natural catastrophes were increasing and were the consequence of climate change. Climate change, warming temperatures, melting ice caps, and elevated sea levels are most likely due to human influence in recent decades. Therefore, severe weather events as predicted by climate experts, are surely to blame for the ever increasing costs and damages from these weather events.

This paper approaches the question if and how think tanks still matter, i.e. if they can make a difference, by looking at the contribution of American and German think tanks with a thematic focus on economic and social policy (broadly defined) to policy-advice in general and at their role in emphasizing advice relevant to the world of work and to a workforce/employee perspective in particular. The epistemological interest focuses on think tanks's understanding of policy-making and advisory activities - including questions about the perceived influence and success of their advisory activities, the target groups of their consulting activities and the demand think tanks see for distinctive forms of policy advice, and in the question which consulting channels and instruments are utilized and how effective they are. In its second part, the paper addresses the question, how think tanks can advance and support policy research and policy advice around issues of the world of work and the employee/worker persepective.

Im zweiten Jahrzehnt des 21. Jahrhunderts hat die Diskussion um die Idee eines bedingungslosen Grundeinkommens oder Universal Basic Income (UBI) in Nordamerika Fahrt aufgenommen. Dazu trug in den USA auch das Buch des ehemaligen Gewerkschaftsführers Andy Stern mit dem Titel Raising the Floor bei, das in Deutschland bisher eher unbekannt blieb und daher hier rezensiert wird. Im medialen Diskurs der USA findet das Thema Grundeinkommen während der vergangenen zehn Jahre ein zunehmendes Echo, in der linksliberalen Medienlandschaft allerdings mehr als in der konservativen. Das bedingungslose Grundeinkommen taucht medial zumeist im Kontext der Themen automation und Zukunft der Arbeit - insbesondere im Zusammenhang mit den Themen sharing oder gig economy auf. Ein vielbeachtetes Experiment zum bedingungslosen Grundeinkommen fand in den Jahren 2017 und 2018 in der kanadischen Provinz Ontario statt. Obwohl das Pilotprojekt aufgrund eines Regierungswechsels vorzeitig beendet wurde, offenbarte die wissenschaftlich-konsultative Begleitung des Pilotprojektes wichtige Evidenz-basierte Erkenntnisse u.a. zum Verhalten der Bezieher eines Grundeinkommens und kann so dazu beitragen, die Debatte um ein Grundeinkommen zu versachlichen und die Begleitforschung zu diesem Thema zu verbessern, nicht nur in Nordamerika.

Cover -- Titel -- Imprint -- Contents -- Preface -- PHILIPP LÖFFLER, MARGIT PETERFY, NATALIE RAUSCHER, WELF WERNER: Introduction: Participation in Crisis? -- Section I: Politics and Society -- CAROL ANDERSON: One Person, No Vote: Rigging the Rules -- JUDY TZU-CHUN WU: Pacific Feminist Imaginaries: The 1977 US National Women's Conference and the Politics of Territorial Representation -- LAURA KETTEL: Unequal Streets: Homelessness, Public Space, and Exclusion in the American City -- SILKE BRASELMANN: Teaching About Black Lives Matter, Teaching Against Racism: Opportunities for Participation in Antiracist English Language Teacher Education -- HELEN A. GIBSON: Teaching Towards Calvin Warren's Nonmetaphysical Historiography -- Section II: Literary Studies and the Arts -- ANDREW ERICKSON: Refusing American History: Non-participation and Narrative Resistance in Ta-Nehisi Coates's 'The Water Dancer' -- MARCEL HARTWIG: 'Felon', Convict, Attorney: Reginald Dwayne Betts and the Poetics of Re-Entry -- MAGDA MAJEWSKA: The Literary Prestige of Censorship: The Case of 'Naked Lunch' -- TIM LANZENDÖRFER: Participatory Literary Studies and the Question of Public Method -- KIRSTEN TWELBECK: Community Engagement and Participation in Wheatfield. A Confrontation -- Section III: Media Landscapes -- MARTIN BUTLER: The Audience Strikes Back… Or Does It? Formations of Participation and the Figure of the Amateur in New Media Environments -- JULIANN KNAUS: Participatory Platform versus Condemning Community: In/Exclusion in the Black Natural Hair Movement on YouTube -- LENA GOTTESWINTER: Appropriation as Participation: A 21ˢᵗ-Century Reshaping of the Cultural Memory of Hip -- TAMARA HEGER: Who gets to be a Liberator? Participation and Recognition in Robert W. Hacker's 'Flossenbürg Concentration Camp' -- List of Contributors -- Backcover.

"Die befragten Beratungsakteure sehen in beiden Staaten einen großen Bedarf an wissenschaftsgestützter Politikberatung. Sie verstehen sich dabei weniger als Sprachrohr eines bestimmten gesellschaftlichen Interesses oder einer klar identifizierbaren Ideologie, sondern als ein Konsortium, das an Wissenschaftsdiskursen teilnimmt und die dort entwickelten Ideen in politisch relevante und politisch nutzbare Konzepte und Vorschläge übersetzt. Eine auf die Arbeitswelt und die Arbeitnehmerperspektive bezogene Politikberatung lässt sich sowohl hinsichtlich ihrer kommunikativen Ausrichtung auf eine immer stärker ausdifferenzierte multimediale Öffentlichkeit als auch hinsichtlich der Bandbreite der konsultationsfähigen Beratungsquellen ausweiten und optimieren, was zu einer größeren Durchschlagskraft arbeitnehmerbezogener wirtschafts- und sozialpolitischer Beratung führen könnte."