How Is Collective Identity Possible in Democracies? Political Integration and the Leitkultur Debate in Germany

The quest for a common collective identity has become a challenge for modern democracy: Liberal demands for greater inclusion and individual freedom, aspirations for a strong and solidaric political community, as well as nationalist or right-wing populist calls for exclusion and a preservation of hegemonic national identities are creating tensions that cannot be overlooked. This article therefore formulates the central question of how collective identity can be possible in a liberal democracy. Based on a case study on Germany, it will therefore be examined whether Leitkultur as a model of political integration can serve in generating a functional democratic collective identity. The necessary benchmarks guiding the analysis will be defined beforehand from a systems-theoretical perspective, balancing inclusion and exclusion within three crucial dimensions: normative basics, historic continuity, and affirmative bindings. The results show that a static definition of a German Leitkultur would in the long run neither achieve functional inclusion nor be able to generate the necessary cohesion of a political community, especially regarding the second and third identity dimensions.

The Union State within the modern political discourse of Russia

The article is devoted to the analysis of the issues of integration interaction between Russia and Belarus through the lens of perception of the existence and functioning of the Union State by the power institutions and political parties of the Russian Federation. A study of the content of the official websites of state authorities, the information and analytical portal of the Union State and party programming was conducted on the example of pre-election documents of political parties admitted to participate in the elections to the State Duma of the eighth convocation. The official interpretation assumes, first of all, building up integration ties with Belarus in various spheres and directions, without creating a single state and emphasizing the issue of deepening political integration. In the party discourse, integration issues are less in demand at the present stage, although some parties offer more radical approaches, up to the “restoration” one.

The Four Petty Kingdoms of Upplǫnd: Equestrian Graves and the Political Integration of the Norwegian Highlands in Late Viking Age Norway

In continental and north-western Europe armed cavalry – aided by the introduction of the stirrup – was closely linked to the emergence of feudalism but was this also the case in Scandinavia? Were the resulting military specialists linked to the growing national kingdoms, or to local and regional power spheres ruled by petty kings? I will investigate this in the historical region of Upplǫnd – the last Norse area to be integrated into the Kingdom of Norway by Óláfr Haraldsson around AD 1020. Two thirds of Norway’s 51 known equestrian graves are located in this inland area and I will employ a novel way of investigating their relationship to local administrative units, such as þriðjungar (thirds), herǫð (hundreds), and not least fjórðungar (fourths), as well as travel routes and settlements. There is little that suggests that these graves were linked to an early national aristocracy, and its ruling Scandinavian dynasty – Ynglingene – as has been argued in previous research. Equestrian grave traditions survived longer in Upplǫnd than elsewhere in Scandinavia, which was not Christianised until the 11th century, and it is unlikely that the buried had served the uniting and converting King Óláfr. It is also difficult to establish links between historically known lendr menn (the most prominent retainers of the king) families, and such graves. However, a new revelation is that the farms where such graves were located, were situated along the boundaries between local fjórðungar, which were judicial districts, as well as subsidiaries of local military administration in the herǫð. This suggests that these locations had important warning and supervision roles in local military systems.

The Political Integration of Immigrants: How Pre- and Postmigration Contexts Matter

This study examines the political integration of immigrants in Germany and asks whether immigrants and their descendants show similar rates of political participation and expression of political attitudes as the population without an immigrant background. Furthermore, the study focusses on the pre- and postmigration context of immigrants and analyses whether immigrants differ in their level of political integration depending on (1) whether they come from more or less authoritarian regimes and (2) whether they have experienced discrimination in the receiving context. Using data from CILS4EU-DE, with a large representative sample of (children of) immigrants and non-immigrants in Germany, we observe differences in the political integration between immigrants and non-immigrants only on the attitudinal level, with immigrants showing lower levels of political trust but also slightly higher levels of satisfaction with the democratic system in Germany. When focussing on the effects of the pre- and the postmigration context, we observe differential results for the behavioural and attitudinal dimension: when immigrants stem from more authoritarian countries as well as when they have experienced more discrimination in the receiving context, this seems to mobilise respondents with respect to their political behaviour; however, it results in lower levels of political integration on the attitudinal dimension.

Cuba and Venezuela: Cooperation and Development

The article examines the relations between Cuba and Venezuela since the singing of the Comprehensive Agreement on Cooperation in 2000. Great attention is paid to the social and energy projects launched within the framework of ALBA, as well as to the political integration in CELAC. In addition, the author examines the implementation of cooperation projects in the field of health in order to combat COVID-19.

Universal War Strategy Supported Political Integration Reviewed from The Third Sila Pancasila; The Unity of Indonesia

The understanding of uniting the nation's cultural diversity requires a strategy in handling it so that it does not become a breaker of Indonesian unity, in the political integration of diversity in party groups and their partisanship with government power, it becomes less and less pro to certain communities in society that are represented in dealing with various problems. Cultural diversity that characterizes the Indonesian nation is a nation's wealth or asset that must be preserved and it is hoped that it will lead to potential excellence in the world. Conflicts that are oriented towards division, disintegration of the nation, and want to liberate from the unitary republic of Indonesia require concrete efforts to be overcome for the sake of realizing national unity in the Universal War Strategy. Therefore, the researcher wants to examine how the implementation of a sense of unity and political integration as an element that plays a very important role in the universal war strategy, because the understanding of universal war in the face of non-military threats is needed from government agencies outside of defense, especially in the political dimension, so civic, universality and populist is a feature of the settlement with a universal war strategy.