C_01 Social Cohesion as a Local Question of Power

The aim of this work package (WP) is to examine social cohesion as an expression of local power relations. These power relations manifest themselves in the form and design of public goods and infrastructures and are shaped in particular by the capacity of individual local actors to assert their interests. This includes municipal politics through elected representatives (mayors or district administrators), administrative officials, civically engaged citizens active in associations, cooperatives, or organizations, local business owners in commerce and crafts, as well as local corporations such as Rotary or Lions Clubs. All of these actors—from administration, the economy, and civil society—pursue different interests with regard to public goods and infrastructures, command unequal resources, and act on the basis of distinct motivations.

Against this background, the WP asks under which conditions it is possible within local actor constellations to pursue a shared municipal concern with regard to infrastructures (loyalty), and when formal and informal power relations instead give rise to voice strategies, such as protest, or exit strategies, such as withdrawal from municipal policies. Which decisions and which conceptions of societal design strengthen or weaken local cohesion? How are social binding forces mobilized or demobilized in arenas of power and conflict surrounding infrastructures and public goods? In addressing these questions, the WP engages with the research focus on the factors and forms of local cohesion, as well as with the research area’s interest in the binding and divisive effects of infrastructure and public goods design.

The WP examines the economic and fiscal prerequisites of a cohesive public goods policy by analyzing municipal parliaments and the specific dynamics of local politics when balancing competing local interests in infrastructure decisions. In addition, it follows civil society initiatives that cooperate with municipal administrations but often struggle to assert themselves between politics and the economy when exercising influence over the design of infrastructures and public goods.

The WP focuses explicitly on the local (proximate) level. It is not concerned with “large-scale” power in Berlin or Brussels, but with basic power relations and structures on the ground. In this research project, cohesion is not conceptualized as the result of benevolent local cooperation, but as the outcome of power balances and power-shaped negotiation processes. The local focus allows for capturing the immediacy of decisions, as well as the visibility and presence of local actors and networks. The WP aims to develop, in an interdisciplinary manner, a typology of local cohesion policy oriented toward power relations. It is based on Hans-Paul Bahrdt’s complex concept of power, which builds on the studies of Popitz, Weber, and Plessner. According to this perspective, power constitutes a social relationship, an economic relation, and an institutional order. The empirical research is guided by this triad:

• Social Places—the relational perspective on power:
  Social places, understood as innovative and cooperative infrastructures of local cohesion, play a central role in the analysis of local power and cohesion. These social places involve pragmatic cooperation, strategic alliances, and durable municipal coalitions in which questions of distribution, justice, and resources converge. The Göttingen section focuses on interaction processes and influence exerted by local actor constellations, analyzing social power relations and the material resources with which actors are endowed, and through which personal, positional, and symbolic power become visible. Who sets the agenda at the municipal level and assumes responsibility for change? Which local power and influence structures strengthen and promote social cohesion—or challenge and prevent it? How strong or weak are local elites, and what interests do they have in local cohesion?
• Municipal Budgets—the economic perspective on power
  The Leipzig section addresses these questions by examining municipal budgets and conceptualizing power and cohesion as a fiscal process. This perspective promises valuable insights into the concrete scope for action available to local actors. Budget plans and financial statistics document the outcomes of negotiations shaped by power constellations. Since budgets represent political decisions crystallized into numbers, a central question from a public finance perspective is how power is exercised in formal municipal budgetary processes and in informal parallel processes in which political objectives are endowed with material resources. How do these processes affect local cohesion? For example, distributions of funds perceived as unfair may act as catalysts for exit strategies.
• Local Integration Work—the institutional perspective on power
  The Konstanz section emphasizes institutional power, understood as internal administrative structures and municipal financial systems. It focuses on municipal integration actors, including integration officers and locally active (post-)migrant associations. These actors are currently under pressure due to the politicization of migration debates, and both their work and long-term funding are increasingly called into question. The central question is therefore how municipal integration actors organize themselves through cooperative practices—that is, through mutual reference, alliances, or joint agenda setting—in order to counter powerful discourses that seek to delegitimize municipal integration work. In short, how do they succeed in increasing their institutional power through informal power and in building effective infrastructures of integration at the local level? The transfer-oriented module aims to strengthen the resilience of municipal integration work through educational programs, exchange formats, and the promotion of positive narratives, thereby fostering sustainable cohesive structures at the local level.

Across these three perspectives on social cohesion and local power relations, the research hypothesis emerges that local cohesion is to a large extent the product of interest assertion, resource availability, and the presence of powerful formal and informal networks. The innovative combination of perspectives and the interdisciplinary cooperation underpinning the WP enable in-depth, case-based insights into the emergence and durability of local cohesion in times of pronounced demographic change, municipal overload, fiscal depletion, and social fragmentation.