Crisis and normative order – variations of ‘neoliberalism’ and their transformation (junior research group)

Head: Dr. Thomas Biebricher

The junior research group ‘Crisis and Normative Order – Variations of ‘Neoliberalism’ and their Transformation’ set itself the goal of investigating possible transformations of neoliberalism against the backdrop of the 2008 financial crisis from different (disciplinary) perspectives. The project was divided into four individual projects. Three of these projects were qualification theses (dissertations).

Frieder Vogelmann: Under the spell of responsibility

Frieder Vogelmann’s dissertation project was based on the following question: What does the steep career of responsibility mean (not only) in philosophy, and what price do we pay for it? According to the central thesis, the fact that large parts of modern philosophy have become addicted to it means that they are paying for it with blindness to the theoretical and practical effects of responsibility. In order to analyze it, responsibility must be understood as a discursive operator whose unity lies in the ambivalent self-relationship of the bearer of responsibility. Its practical effects are studied exemplarily in the practices of labor and crime, in which the responsible self-relation is intensified and at the same time decoupled from the precondition of substantial agency. In this way, responsibility helps to melt an entrepreneurial logic into the self-relationships of increasingly disempowered wage workers and the “unemployed” and to actively involve citizens in the preventive criminal policy of a society fixated on public safety.
The theoretical effects are analyzed on the basis of the genealogy of responsibility within philosophy, in which responsibility is transformed from an instrument in the metaphysical debate on free will into an independent moral problem and ultimately into a certainty with which other philosophical questions are explained. The fixed point of all reflections remains the ambivalent responsible self-relationship as an active approach to the fact of one’s own subjugation – both being subjugated and the subjugation of others. Submission declared to be a fact allows the subject to experience itself as sovereign independently of its actual power to act, and forms the hidden core of the responsible self-relationship. However, because responsibility is increasingly used to explicate the binding force of normativity as the very domain of philosophy, its attractiveness tempts us to overlook or deny this self-objectification and to ignore the practical use of the philosophical legitimizations of responsibility. In contrast, this work offers a diagnostic critique that, if not breaks the spell of responsibility, at least exposes it.
The dissertation has been published as: Frieder Vogelmann (2014): Im Bann der Verantwortung, (Series: Frankfurter Beiträge zur Soziologie und Sozialphilosophie), Frankfurt/New York: Campus.

Greta Wagner: Neuroenhancement. Criticism and practice of pharmacological performance enhancement

Greta Wagner’s dissertation project was based on the following question: What is the social significance of neuroenhancement? As a phenomenon that has so far mainly been dealt with in bioethics, the non-medical use of prescription drugs to improve cognitive performance is examined sociologically for the first time here. Neuroenhancement is understood as a practice with participants and observers, whose interpretations are equally taken into consideration – on the one hand through the evaluation of individual interviews with consumers of performance-enhancing drugs and on the other hand by means of group discussions with students who comment on neuroenhancement, interpret the practice and discuss their fantasies, concerns and hopes with regard to pharmacological performance enhancement. The normative orientations of those observers who shape the discourse on neuroenhancement are assigned their own epistemic status using the theoretical tool of a sociology of critique. The study compares Frankfurt and New York, where the non-medical use of stimulants during exam periods is a largely normalized part of everyday student practice. In Frankfurt, on the other hand, neuroenhancement is far less common than the media attention given to the phenomenon in recent years would suggest. The interpretations of consumers and non-consumers, of Frankfurters and New Yorkers are set in relation to social-theoretical diagnoses of contemporary society and its culture of success. Consumers of performance-enhancing drugs try to increase alertness, attention, drive and motivation with the help of substances such as Ritalin – abilities that make the use of time more effective, especially for knowledge workers who are confident in their work. And the discursive debate on the subject also shows that neuroenhancement is a symbol of consolidation that refers to self-optimization in neoliberalism – as a concern for one’s own competitiveness.
The dissertation has been published as: Greta Wagner (2017): Self-optimization. Practice and criticism of neuroenhancement (Series: Frankfurter Beiträge zur Soziologie und Sozialphilosophie), Frankfurt/New York: Campus.

Michael Walter: Visions of reform. On the image politics of economic and socio-political reform initiatives of the years 2000-2006 in the Federal Republic of Germany

Michael Walter’s dissertation examines the image and campaign politics of economic and social policy reform initiatives in the years 2000 to 2006 in the Federal Republic of Germany from a hegemony theory perspective. The work is located in the field of post-structuralist sociology and aims programmatically to combine post-structuralist theory formation and interpretative, empirically oriented social research. In the theoretical section of the work, poststructuralist theoretical elements following the discourse and hegemony theory of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe are used as a framework for the empirical analysis of specific visual forms of representation, which have so far been largely ignored in hegemony theory. The empirical section of the work consists of two parts. In the first part, the hegemony-theoretical perspective reconstruction of the reform initiatives and their campaign politics as an overall phenomenon of contemporary history takes place. In the following main part, the image politics of the reform initiatives Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft, BürgerKonvent and the media campaign Du bist Deutschland are reconstructed in the sense of a theoretical sampling with the help of the developed analytical framework. The analysis shows that the image policies of all three reform initiatives are characterized by their distinctly popular character. By producing popular images, the campaigns ‘translate’ the abstract reform topics of the specialized discourses from science, politics and business into the everyday world of individuals and make complex economic and socio-political phenomena visible and tangible at the level of everyday understanding. According to a fundamental result of the analysis, these ‘translations’ are always linked to a transformative moment: the image politics of the reform initiatives in the period in focus can be understood as a hegemonic practice that seeks to establish new collective models, ‘reform visions’ and visibility relationships in order to adapt the common sense of individuals to supposedly changed socio-economic conditions.
The dissertation has been published as: Michael Walter (2016): Visions of reform. On the image politics of economic and socio-political reform initiatives Konstanz: UVK Verlagsanstalt.

Thomas Biebricher: The Political Theory of Neoliberalism.

Based on a definition of neoliberalism that takes its historical context of origin as a starting point, the work examines the works of the central thinkers of neoliberalism and questions the corresponding approaches, particularly with regard to their political dimension. Contrary to the stereotypical view that neoliberalism is nothing more than market fundamentalism, the study shows that neoliberal thinking in its different variants does contain ideas about the state, democracy and science, freedom, equality and justice, as well as power, the concept of man and history. These are compared and subjected to a critical analysis. The second part of the thesis examines the question of how the effectiveness of certain (neoliberal) ideas can be theorized for concrete political practices and institutions. The central argument is that crises (such as that of 2008) represent moments of fundamental uncertainty that open windows of opportunity for new ideas/theories or lead to a return to basic and fundamental ideas that are seen as reliable even under conditions of fundamental uncertainty. The latter is happening – according to the concluding time-diagnostic thesis – in the course of the financial and debt crisis, in which the German political-economic elites in particular are returning to ordoliberal core insights and accordingly working towards a regime of sanction-proven regulatory systems while at the same time securing monetary stability. The result is a transformation of European governance structures in accordance with the requirements of ordoliberal political theory, whose democratic-sceptical and technocratic orientation can be seen in the example of European crisis management.
The results of this project are presented in, among others: Thomas Biebricher (2012): Neoliberalismus zur Einführung, Hamburg: Junius-Verlag.

The events organized by the junior research group include: “Normative Theory and Social Critique.” Conference at the Cluster of Excellence Normative Orders. Participants include Hans Jürgen Bieling, Kendra Briken, Rainer Forst, Stefan Gosepath, Jürgen Neyer, Frank Nullmeier, Jens Steffek. Frankfurt, December 8/9, 2011 (with Florian Rödl); “Capitalism – Sociology – Critique.” Workshop at the Cluster of Excellence Normative Orders (together with the Institute for Social Research). Participants included Hartmut Rosa, Klaus Dörre, Stefan Lessenich, Axel Honneth. Frankfurt, December 17-18, 2010 and “Michel Foucault and Ordoliberalism.” Conference at the Cluster of Excellence Normative Orders. Participants among others Lars Gertenbach, Nils Goldschmidt, Felix Heidenreich. Frankfurt, June 10-11, 2010 (with Rainer Klump/Manuel Wörsdörfer).

In addition to the monographs mentioned above, the following book and journal articles have emerged from the work of the research group:
Biebricher, Thomas (2011): “The Biopolitics of Ordoliberalism”, in: Foucault Studies 12, 171-191.
Biebricher, Thomas (2013): “Europe and the Political Philosophy of Neoliberalism”, in: Contemporary Political Theory 12 (4), 338-375 (Critical Exchange with responses by David Jabko, Josef Hien and Anita Chari).
Biebricher, Thomas and Frieder Vogelmann (2012): “Governmentality and State Theory: Reinventing the Reinvented Wheel?”, in: Theory and Event 15(3), online at‘http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/theory_and_event/v015/15.3.biebricher.html’(accessed September 5, 2012).
Vogelmann, Frieder (2011): “Die Falle der Transparenz. Zur Problematik einer fraglosen Norm”, in: Leon Hempel, Susanne Krasmann and Ulrich Bröckling (eds.): Visibility regimes. Surveillance, security and privacy in the 21st century Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 71-84.
Vogelmann, Frieder (2012): ‘Neosocial Market Economy’, in: Foucault Studies 14, 115-137.
Wagner, Greta (2014): ‘Neuroenhancement in der Kritik. Normative interpretations among students in Frankfurt and New York”, in: Neuroenhancement – fantasies of self-optimization. Focus issue of WestEnd. New Journal for Social Research , 2.2014, Frankfurt/New York: Campus.
Wagner, Greta (2013): “Leveling the Playing Field: Fairness in the Cognitive Enhancement Debate”, in: Elisabeth Hildt and Andreas G. Franke (eds.): Cognitive Enhancement. An Interdisciplinary Perspective Dordrecht/Heidelberg/New York/London: Springer, 217-231.
Wagner, Greta (2010): “Leistung aus Leidenschaft. On the social handling of cognitive enhancement,” in: polar. Politics – Theory – Everyday life , No. 8, Frankfurt/New York: Campus; Walter, Michael (2013): “Zur Bildpolitik der Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft”, in: Alice Pechriggl/Anna Schober. (eds.): Hegemony and the power of images. Klagenfurt contributions to visual culture (Volume 3), Cologne: Herbert von Halem.
Walter, Michael (2012): “Das Komische und die Lebenswelt. A mouth-phenomenological analysis of comic constructions”, in: Jochen Dreher (ed.), Applied phenomenology. On the tension between construction and constitution VS-Verlag, Wiesbaden, 277-310.

An anthology was also published:
Neckel, Sighard and Greta Wagner (eds.) (2013): Performance and exhaustion. Burnout in a competitive society , Berlin: Suhrkamp, which contains another essay by a project collaborator: Neckel, Sighard and Greta Wagner, ‘Exhaustion as “Creative Destruction”. Burnout and social change”, 203-217.