The Department of "Political Systems and Political Sociology" is engaged in theoretically based empirical research. This means that several hypotheses are firstly deduced from scientific theories in order to deal with a specific research question. Those hypotheses are then empirically tested using socio-scientific methods. Data from various sources are evaluated with the help of socio-scientific analyses, for example statistics. In most cases, opinion poll data are used for this kind of empirical analysis.

Teaching and research on comparative politics, political sociology and local political studies are the main focus of the Department and will be presented briefly in the following.

1. Comparative Politics
2. Political Sociology
3. Comparative Local Politics

1. Comparative Politics

The study of comparative politics is concerned with different research questions and applies different methods for answering those. The fundamental approach is the scientific comparison. A (comparative) analysis of political systems aims at:

• observing similarities and differences
• providing evidence for particularities
• obtaining information (especially about other countries)
• developing typologies and classifications
• finding solutions for exemplary problems

The comparative method plays a similar role in social sciences as the experiment does in the natural sciences. The aim is to obtain knowledge about features of politics in a systematic way. The systematic use of scientific methods helps answering theoretically based questions. Several factors need to be considered such as the different levels of social welfare, different social developments, cultural particularities, and different structures of the party system.

System analysis deals with the explicit description and explication of individual political systems. For instance, one could analyze the different components of Germany’s political system.

System comparison, however, aims at comparing at least two political subjects, thereby trying to reveal similarities and differences. One typical example for such an analysis is the comparison between a parliamentary democracy (German Federal Republic) and a presidential democracy (USA).

On the micro level, the focus of research is on political attitudes (satisfaction with democracy, party identification, trust in institutions, support of basic values) and political behavior (political communication, voting turnout, active participation in societies, organizations and associations, participation in protest activities) of individuals in different countries. On the macro level, aggregates of individuals or collectives such as states, parties, or associations are at the centre of interest. Apart from constitutions and political institutions (government, parliament, administration), on the macro level comparative politics deals with political processes (elections, government formation, and legislature) and policies (economic, labor market, and education policies).

Altogether, comparative politics seeks to acquire knowledge about characteristics and problems of different political regimes and examines the social, economic and cultural conditions for the functioning and stability of the political system. The comparison of national and international opinion poll data is at the centre of empirically oriented comparative political science. This opinion poll data provides a basis for cross-national analysis of electoral behavior, political and social participation of citizens and their political attitudes. Among other things, different groups of countries such as East- and West Europe and North and South Europe are to be compared. The different contexts of the countries constitute a testing frame for the general question: whether hypothesis have universal validity or not.

Typical research questions in comparative politics are, for example:

• How can post-communist countries such as the Czech Republic, Hungary or Romania become functioning democracies?
• Do social democratic governments, for instance the Scandinavian government, have a potential for political performance that’s different from conservative governments?
• Do various patterns of the voting systems and procedures, such as the proportional representation (German Federal Republic) and the majority vote (Great Britain), influence the voter’s motivation to participate in elections?
• Why do Germans belong to the group of most dissatisfied citizens in Europe, concerning democratic functioning, the evaluation of the health and education system and government’s appraisal?
• Why are, in general, West European citizens politically more involved than East European? And why do North Europeans participate more in political life than South Europeans?
• Do East German citizens share a democratic understanding that’s different from West German citizens?

The basic theories of comparative politics can be divided into four groups: the Classical Institutionalism, the Behavioralism, the Systems Theory approach and the Neo-institutionalism.

• Classical Institutionalism compares formal characteristics of states – especially constitutions and their most important elements – and seeks to formulate recommendations for an appropriate form of government.
• The Systems Theory Approach interprets political systems as those interaction systems through which decisions are created and implemented, that are binding for society. This approach compares the way different countries accomplish this task.

Especially the Behavioralism and the Neo-Institutionalism play an important role in the Department of Social Science 1.

• Behavioralism concentrates on finding empirical explanations of social and political attitudes and describing patterns of social and political behaviour. The focus of research is the individual as a political actor. The comparative study of attitudes and behaviour aims at describing and explaining differences and similarities in the distribution of political orientations and patterns of political behaviour in different groups or different nations. Typical research questions are: Why are Danish citizens more satisfied with their lives than Germans? Do South Europeans support other values than North Europeans, or are the differences concerning value support between East and West Europeans more important? Is it possible to explain patterns of citizen’s political participation with the same factors in different European countries or are there national particularities?
• Neo-Institutionalism seeks a systematic explanation of the role political institutions play for the political behaviour of individuals as well as for the results of government policies. In contrast to Classical Institutionalism (see above), Neo-Institutionalism is not only interested in describing formal principles of constitutions and structures. The term "institution" is applied in a broader sense. It also includes informal arrangements like more or less stable forms of cooperation between parties, associations, and bureaucracies. Furthermore, Neo-Institutionalism tries to determine under what conditions certain institutions or systems of institutions come into existence (e.g. majority vs. consensus democracy) or how certain institutions influence processes and contents of government policies. Typical research questions are: Do parliamentary democracies such as the German Federal Republic engender a higher level of citizen’s political trust than presidential democracies such as the USA do? In which way do majority vote (for instance in Great Britain) or proportional representation (for instance in German Federal Republic) influence citizen’s satisfaction with democracy? Under which conditions are two party systems (for instance in USA) and multi-party systems (for instance in Switzerland) formed in different countries?

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2. Political Sociology

Political sociology links the subjects of political science and sociology. Its main interest is focused on the question how the political system and society are interlinked and in which way they entertain mutual relations. These relations can be analysed in view of two aspects: the micro level (individual level) and the macro level.

Research on the individual level concentrates on answering the question how the social roles of individuals influence their political attitudes and behaviour, how political attitudes come up and which relationship exists between political attitudes and political behaviour. The most famous example are electoral studies.

On the macro level, political sociology observes, for instance, the creation and the functioning of political parties or of associations as well as the formation of the party system and associational systems.

In the area of political sociology the department of "Political Systems and Sociology" concentrates on the following topics:

• Voting patterns: the most prominent research area of political sociology is the electoral behaviour, an area of political science which is intensively recognised by the public. The attention is concentrated on scientifically founded results of opinion polls concerning voting intentions, computer forecasts on election evenings and volatility. This area of political sociology studies the reasons why voters choose a certain party and do so repeatedly or whether their preferences change from election to election. According to results in election research two factors are relevant in this context: the integration of the voter into certain social groups such as the membership in trade unions, social milieu or the integration into a social strata or a church (sociological approach) and their political attitudes – especially party identification, party’s assumed competence for problem-solving and evaluation of their candidates (socio-psychological approach). Electoral research analyses what effects these factors have in certain countries at certain points in time and argues about the consequences for the distribution of power in the party system.
• Social and political participation: Studies about social and political participation deal with citizen’s involvement in the social and political sphere, for instance membership in associations, voting participation and decision, participation in citizens´ initiatives or in demonstrations. These studies are based on the assumption that political behaviour is the result of combined effects of political attitudes and environmental factors. Political sociology concentrates on many different patterns of behaviour, ranging from reading about political issues in the newspaper to illegal protest activities such as seizing houses and blocking traffic. All these different patterns of behaviour are based on the general decision whether people want to deal with political issues or not and whether they want to take an active or passive part in politics and in social life. Voluntary behaviour of citizens which seeks to take influence on personnel or policy-oriented decisions plays a very important role in democratic systems. This kind of political behaviour is called political participation. The most frequently used form of political participation is voting. The theoretical aims of behavioural science and attitude research are to describe and explain the use of different forms of participation in a country, in certain social groups within a country or in different countries, and the reasons for that.
• Political attitudes and political culture: The political attitude research asks how citizens perceive politics, for example: What is about their knowledge of political processes, actors and institutions? Do they trust in political decision-makers or not? Are they satisfied or not with the democracy, in which they live? Which party do they trust in to solve the – in their opinion - most important problems of society? Another focus concerns citizen’s basic values: Would they prefer the value of equality rather than the value of freedom? How important are basic democratic values? Additionally, political attitude research deals with the intentions of people’s behaviour: For example, do they want to participate in the next national legislative elections? Are they willing to express their dissatisfaction about a political decision by participating in a demonstration, collecting signatures or even occupying house?

Political attitude research deals not only with the distinction and distribution of these attitudes within the population of one country or different countries or in different social groups, but also with the question, why these attitudes come about. For instance, one tries to explain, why some humans (don’t) want to participate in the national legislative elections, why East Germans are more dissatisfied with the democracy than West Germans or why Italians trust less in their compatriots than do other West European people.

The term political culture describes the distribution of political attitudes in a population or in a collective, (for example nation, religion, community, ethnical group). Political attitudes and political culture are important topics, as they influence human behaviour, which plays an important role for stability and performance of a political system. One example in this context is the collapse of the Weimar Republic: it had all characteristics of a democratic political regime, but the majority of the population did not support democratic orientations. So there was a lack of support for the political system. Populations´ attitude constituted the basis for NSDAP´s takeover of power, which finally led to the collapse of the democratic system. If political attitudes have no influence on political behaviour, they have no political consequences. For example, if someone is unsatisfied with the given political relations, but does neither completely turn away from political life nor starts actions of political protest, the functioning of the political system stays untouched.

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3. Comparative Local Politics

On 30th of June 2006, France signed as the last country of the, in the meantime, 27 EU member states the European Charta of local self-administration. In the preamble of the Charta the signing states hold tight as their common conviction,

• that the local area-bodies are one of the fundamental basics of each democratic type of state;
• that the existing of local area-bodies with real competences make possible at the same time an effective administration near to the citizen;
• that the protection and strengthening of local self-administration in the different European states constitute an important contribution for the building of an Europe that grounds on the basics of democracy and the decentralization of power;
• that for this, an existing of local area-bodies is needed, which can use democratic ordered organs of decision and have far-reaching autonomy with regard to their competences, in that way in which they practice these competences, and also have the necessary financial power to fulfil their tasks.

Over and above that, the signing states committed themselves in their inner state rules of law or their constitutions to accept the principle of local autonomy (Art 1). This includes the right and the real capability of the local area-bodies to regulate in the bounds of law a substantial part of public matters for the well-being of their habitants on their own responsibility (Art 3, 1). The tasks assigned to the local area-bodies should not be limited or hollowed out by other central or regional appointments (Art 4, 4). They should be allowed to have the necessary, adequately financial possibilities (Art 9). At the same time, they have to be able to take legal action to protect the free practising of their competences, and to protect the respect for the principles of local autonomy, which were hold down in constitution or the inner state rules of law (Art 11). Meanwhile, the protection of local autonomy even was written down in Art. 5, 1 in the EU Constitution Project.

These demands are according to the German principle of subsidiarity, supporting the local self-administration (Art 28 GG). Cities and local authority areas play an important role in the German political system, even if they attract less attention than the national level and the German federal states: They are traditional central actors in fulfilling public tasks. They are the main investors of welfare state services and fulfil therefore an important economic and socio-political function. At the same time, they are the most obviously connection between citizens and administration. On the local level citizens can articulate their needs most easily. The contact to "governors" and administration is most closely. They can express their interests alone or together with others in a lot of different ways, and they can comparatively well control the consideration of their interests in political decision-making process. Because of that, a lot of scientists and theorists of democracy call the local level the "school of democracy".

Problems resulting from economic or societal development rising in context of the European integration process or because of international competition between national locations have then consequences not only for the nation in its totality. They can also be observed in the local authority areas, which have in rising competition to struggle for investors, financial possibilities and habitants. Their interests have again some influence over the local decision-making process and have to be transformed in corresponding outputs. With that, important societal questions can be investigated on local level, whereby the comparative perspective (inside of Germany or across the national borders) opens a manifold and good observable inquisition field.

The main focus of comparative local political studies at the department of social sciences of the University of Stuttgart is on the following areas:

Politics of local authority areas and European unification:

Which effects does the European integration have on local authority’s scope of action and processes of decisions? Which consequences have the philosophy of free produce- and service-market for the local self-administration in Germany and in other European states? Which actors participate in decisions by the EU, which are tangented to local self-administration? Which factors influence the decision-making process, in which these actors participate? How will local scopes of action be developed in the various countries of the EU in future?

Metropolis regions:

Which political and administrative problems arise by building metropolis regions (social segregation, suburbanization) in Europe, North-America, Japan and South Africa? What are the effects of such fusions for population’s attitudes and political behaviour (estrangement, loss of identification)? Are these effects similar ones in different countries? What factors influence the building and performance of metropolis regions?

Comparative local participation research and citizens involvement:

Participation in local elections decreased in the last 15 years. Why? At the same time there were new forms of local political participation inducted, for example petitions and referendums or the directly election of mayors in all of the German federal states. In what dimension are these forms of participation used at all? On what depends their usage? Which results have these reforms with regard to the responsiveness of local politics and the behaviour of political decision maker (mayors, municipal councils, administration experts)? Do they change the efficiency of local political decisions? In that context, which role have citizens engagement in associations and other voluntarily organisations? Are there any ads to the development of "social capital" by these organisations?

Attitudes towards local and national politics in Europe:

What connections exist between citizen’s attitude towards local politics and their attitudes towards national politics? Can local democracy influence the attitudes of citizens on other levels positively? In this context, what role plays the size of a local authority area, its more consensus- or majority-democratic structure and its embedding in different forms of territorial-administrative organisation, for example a federal structure like that in the Federal Republic of Germany or a more centralized form of organization like in France?

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