Hans Jonas Gunzelmann

Wir arbeiten daran. Veröffentlichung kommt (hoffentlich) bald!
www.wzb.eu/de/forschung...

How easy is it to fudge your scientific rank? Meet Larry, the world’s most cited cat “Exercise in absurdity” reveals flaws in Google Scholar’s productivity metrics

How easy is it to fudge your scientific rank? Meet Larry, the world’s most cited cat -- Science www.science.org/content/arti...

Far-right contention in civil society: multiple lenses on action repertoires, actors, and targets Abstract. Over the past decade, the far right has been on the rise in civil societies across Europe. Civil society organizations have been challenged by the far right in governments, political parties...

Link to the paper:
direct.mit.edu/euso/article...

This does not mean that the far right does not posses a threat. But cooperative actions such as donation offers or challenges from within civil society require different counter-strategies than attacks from outside.

Our findings challenge the notion of a dichotomy between a democratic civil society and the far right as an outside force that attacks CSOs or their members.

What does this mean? We need to combine different lenses to get a comprehensive picture of the far right in civil society that goes beyond protest and violence.

Finding (4): The picture of far-right contention in civil society depends on the lens through which one looks. While the media-observer lens sees primarily adversarial actions, the antagonist-observer lens sees mostly autonomous actions, while the target lens perceives more cooperative events.

Finding (3): Our analysis shows that far-right contention primarily targets the field level rather than individual volunteers or CSOs.

Finding (2): The far right is often perceived as a challenge that is external to civil society,
emanating from actors whose ideology is clearly nativist and authoritarian. However, our analyses show that many actors come from within civil society and cannot be identified as ideologically far-right.

Finding (1): The far-right repertoire of contention in civil society goes beyond adversarial forms
such as threats or violence. We find a substantial number of cooperative and autonomous forms of action.

We use quantitative and qualitative coding of these sources to map far-right contentious events within German civil societ from 2018-2023. We code the action repertoires, actors, and targets of far-right contention.

We propose to combine three lenses to map far-right contention in civil society: The media-observer lens, the antagonist observer lens, and the target lens. We employ a newspaper (taz), antifa magazines, and qualitative interviews as sources for these lenses.

In this paper, we propose the concept of "far-right contention in civil society" to capture how the far right engages with volunteers, civic organizations, and entire civil society fields. We look at contentious events a) by far-right actors and/or b) which involve nativist or authoritarian claims.

Title and Abstract of the paper "Far-right contention in civil society: multiple lenses on action repertoires, actors, and targets". Authors: Hans Jonas Gunzelmann, Christin Jänicke Abstract: Over the past decade, the far right has been on the rise in civil societies across Europe. Civil society organizations have been challenged by the far right in governments, political parties, and within their own ranks. However, there is little systematic research on how the far right stirs conflict within civil society. Civil society research has tended to ignore ‘uncivil’ society and has instead focused on social capital and cohesion. Research on the noninstitutional side of the far right has been growing but has largely neglected the consequences for established civil society organizations and their members. This article addresses these blind spots by providing a conceptual framework and a methodology for studying the far right in civil society, which is applied to a case study. First, we construct a conceptual framework that adapts the contentious politics paradigm to the study of civil society. We delineate far-right contention within civil society and construct typologies of the action repertoires, actors, and targets. Second, we develop a methodology that combines different lenses to expand our view on far-right contention in civil society. We propose a mixed-methods research design for mapping far-right contentious events. Third, we apply our conceptual framework and methodology to the case of Germany by empirically mapping the action repertoires, actors and targets. Our findings fundamentally shift the scholarly understanding of the far right in civil society: We find that far-right contention in civil society goes well beyond adversarial actions by far-right actors. This has important implications for researchers and practitioners.

💫New paper out with @chjncke.bsky.social in @europeansocieties.bsky.social:

📝"Far-right contention in civil society: Multiple lenses on action repertoires, actors, and targets"

🧵A short thread about the paper:

"Mainstream parties are increasingly allowing the far right to set the agenda" - for the @theguardian.com, @ashifakassam.bsky.social summed up our study.

@tevoelker.bsky.social and I answered some questions to put our results into context. Give it a read!

Study: bit.ly/4hhRFUN

Titelseite des Papers "In die Offensive kommen! Was die demokratische Zivilgesellschaft gegen autoritäre Kräfte tun kann"

Was können wir aus dem autoritären Playbook von Ungarn, Polen, Italien & den USA für Deutschland lernen? Dieser Frage sind Victoria Gulde & ich beim TTRex nachgegangen. Eine ausführliche Analyse folgt - hier schon mal 8 Schlüsse für demokratische Zivilgesellschaft, um erfolgreich entgegenzuhalten.

Abstract

New paper out with @dasalgon.bsky.social: “Far-Right Agenda Setting: How the Far Right influences the Political Mainstream” doi.org/10.1017/S1475676525100066 #openaccess in @ejprjournal.bsky.social🧵

Same here. Disappointed.

My book is still available Open Access on JSTOR:

www.jstor.org/stable/jj.19...

Die Transformation der Zivilgesellschaft: Politisierung, Polarisierung und sozialer Zusammenhalt Ad-hoc-Gruppe auf dem 42. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie „Transitionen“ Donnerstag, 25.09.2025 14:15-17:00 Ort: SG U126 Organisation: Christin Jänicke, Hans Jonas Gunzelmann, Charlotte Rößler-Prokhorenko (Wissenschaftsze-ntrum Berlin für Sozialforschung) Programm: 14:15 – Hans Jonas Gunzelmann: Einführung 14:30 – Elias Steinhilper & Matthias Hoffmann: Der „Zement der Zivilgesellschaft“ im Wandel? Interakti-onsnetzwerke in zwei deutschen Mittelstädten vor, während und nach dem langen Sommer der Migrati-on 15:00 - Alexander Kanamüller & Christine Steiner: Politische zivilgesellschaftliche Akteure in kommunalen Bildungslandschaften: Ganz anders? 15:30 – Pause 15:40 – Lina Hehl & Ina Mayer: Zusammenhalt fordert - Zur staatlichen Mobilisierung von Zivilgesellschaft 16:10 – Susanne Worschech: Civil und Uncivil Spheres in Ostdeutschland – eine Soziologie der Zivilgesell-schaftspolarisierung auf der Basis der Civil Sphere Theory Jeffrey Alexanders 16:40 – Abschlussdiskussion 17:00 – Ende

Diese Woche ist der #dgskongress2025! Meine Kolleginnen @chjncke.bsky.social und Charlotte Rößler-Prokhorenko und ich haben eine Panel zur Politisierung der Zivilgesellschaft organisiert, das am Donnerstag von 14:15 bis 17 Uhr stattfindet. Wir freuen uns auf vier spannende Beiträge!

Looks great, congrats!

Highly recommend giving it a read! What a fun and insightful writing journey. Also, I’m new here on Bluesky, excited to connect!

Sind die Linken selber schuld? DIE ZEIT | Nachrichten, Hintergründe und Debatten

Die Zeit is quickly turning into the German The Atlantic, a reactionary centrist “anti-woke” outlet that (unconsciously?) does the legwork of the far right.

Spannendes neues Heft vom @idz-jena.bsky.social zum Thema “Uncivil Society”.

@hajogu.bsky.social und ich schreiben darin über Teilergebnisse unserer aktuellen Forschung:

“Konflikt oder Kooperation? Extrem rechte Einflussnahme in der Zivilgesellschaft”: www.idz-jena.de/wsddet/wsd17...

Hotline gegen Hass

Wie der Scicomm-Support angefeindeten Wissenschaftler:innen hilft: Teresa Völker und Matthias Fejes über Drohungen, Schutzstrukturen und den Mut, in der Öffentlichkeit weiter für Wissenschaft einzustehen.

Im Wiarda-Blog: www.jmwiarda.de/blog/2025/08...

Check out Clara's book if you're interested in the enduring relational outcomes of activism!

Das linke Bild zeigt das Cover der Dissertation von Clara van den Berg. Sie ist im Transcript Verlag unter dem Titel „Civic Refugee Support: The Shifting Landscape of Pro-Refugee Communities in Germany After 2015. Das rechte Bild zeigt die Forscherin.

Zahlreiche Menschen haben sich 2015 spontan für Geflüchtete eingesetzt – ein beispielloser Moment zivilgesellschaftlicher Mobilisierung. @claraberg.bsky.social hat für ihre Dissertation erforscht, wie sich solches Engagement verstetigen lässt. 
www.wzb.eu/de/news/was-...

Europe's Changing Protest Landscape Europe’s protest arena has grown more unpredictable and fragmented in recent years, with new actors, claims, and tactics emerging that do not fit the established left-libertarian dominance. How...

📢 Europe's Changing Protest Landscape
Protests have grown more fragmented in recent years. New actors, claims, and tactics have emerged. A special issue @jeppjournal.bsky.social ‪with an introduction by Swen Hutter & @sophiahunger.bsky.social provides insights.
www.wzb.eu/en/news/euro...

No AJS?

Ex-Verfassungsrichter kritisieren Umgang mit Brosius-Gersdorf Nach dem Desaster um die Verfassungsrichterwahl kritisieren knapp 300 Rechtswissenschaftler die bisherige Diskussion und das Verfahren als 'unsachlich'.

300 Jurist*innen, ehemalige BVerfG-Richter*innen und Staatsrechtler*innen protestieren gegen den Ablauf der gescheiterten Wahl. Ich habe den offenen Brief auch unterschrieben. Danke ua an @stefanhuster.bsky.social und @alexanderthiele.bsky.social für die Initiative

www.lto.de/recht/hinter...

Whether secessionist movements are united or divided is key to their success.

My article on how critical junctures - such as independence referendums - impact secessionist movement cohesion now has been assigned to an issue in JPR 🥳 Very happy about this!