Protesting without the ‘Underclass’

Abstract

One of the myths surrounding civil society, protest movements, and informal participation is that these non-organizational channels would open political processes for all social ranks. However, these forms of participation have an even stronger social bias than the old and often criticized formal organizations. This article shows on the one hand that members of the so-called underclass often do not have the necessary self-confidence and self-conception as citizens to readily participate in informal participation efforts and on the other hand that middle class-driven protest movements follow a logic of entitlement through work that excludes the underclass from their vision of political participation. Together this makes informal participation alone an especially ill-fitting instrument to fight social exclusion from political participation, often even strengthening pre-existing exclusion.

Key Words:

• Civil society
• protest
• social equality
• Stuttgart 21
• underclass participation
• exclusion

Notes

1. Certainly, the research community has always discussed critically the current forms of civil society and participation with all their complexities and ambivalences in Western Europe. See, for example, the intensive debate whether or not ‘new’, informal and less individual forms of participation transport the same ‘values’ or create equal dimensions of social capital as older and more collective forms of engagement (most of all Robert Putnam has triggered this scientific discussion as well as many of his theories’ critics, such as Robert Wuthnow).

2. Especially the works of Schäfer (2010) show how a persistent group of citizens participates even less in unconventional forms of political action than others, see also Bödecker (2012) and Petersen et al. (2013). For a broad perspective on social inequality, see Fischer (2012). Individual factors that lead to participation are exhaustively discussed by Gensicke (2004). Moreover, many authors discuss the relationship between unemployment and the individual's integration in civil society (Erlinghagen, 1999; Lenhart, 2011).

3. Fully aware of the fact that repeating pejorative terms such as ‘problem areas’ or ‘underclass’ is problematic, we use this term in order to specifically point to the issue of social inequality in civil society. Also, this term seems to have come to new use in Germany—see Lindner (2008)—and often takes on a new meaning when taken up in public debate (Marks, 1991), which is why we chose to use the term and simplified class-model perspective. In the study we used a broad empirical definition for investigating the ‘underclass’: people living in an ‘underprivileged area’, defined by social–statistical numbers that lie below the communal average and participation of the urban quarters in the federal programme ‘Soziale Stadt’ [Social City]. The data and studies we used for this article focused on urban forms of ‘underclass’ culture.

4. Participation’ or Beteiligung has—at least since the events and protests surrounding the infrastructure project ‘Stuttgart 21’ in 2010—become popular, and the number of new and informal possibilities to participate in German politics has grown. See, for example, from the state side, initiatives in the Länder Schleswig-Holstein and Baden-Württemberg; from a practical civil society perspective see initiatives such as the ‘Netzwerk Bürgerbeteiligung’ [Citizen Participation Network], online: http://www.netzwerk-buergerbeteiligung.de. For the scientific perspective, see the collective review of literature on participation by Marg (2013).

5. Despite the severity of social inequality in Germany's current civil society, there are still not many empirical investigations seeking qualitative reasons for ‘class–social inequality’ and civil society participation. Looking for information on this subject, one is mostly led to look into the studies on urban sociology to find information on patterns and perspectives from people living in socially deprived areas in Germany; see for an overview Huster et al. (2012). In this context mainly one part of the problem, i.e. the relationship between unemployment and the individual's integration in civil society, is discussed (Erlinghagen, 1999; Lenhart, 2011).

6. See especially the concept of ‘everyday makers’ and ‘expert citizens’ from Bang and Sørensen (2001).

7. Especially from the project: ‘Die neue Macht der Bürger’ [‘The new citizen power’] (Marg et al., 2013); on Stuttgart 21 and other phenomena, see especially the chapter ‘Wir lassen nicht mehr alles mit uns machen! Bürgerproteste an und um den öffentlichen Raum, Infrastruktur und Stadtentwicklung' (Butzlaff et al., 2013)

8. As a discursive answer, the term ‘Mutbürger’ was coined later on (Supp, 2010), as a play on the rhyme of the German words ‘Mut’ and ‘Wut’, changing from ‘anger citizen’ to ‘courage citizen’.

9. Although it does not seem to be quite clear what the direction of causality is and to what degree a broad social network is the result, not the cause, of civil activities (Gensicke, 2004, p. 62).

10. See for this argumentation the works of mostly educational researchers on the subject of self-efficacy, initiated by Albert Bandura. For a recent reception see Schwarzer and Jerusalem (2002).

11. For this reason, the authors Kohl and Seibring (2012), as well as many of their co-authors, recommend applying a broader definition of the term ‘politics’ while working with less educated milieus.

12. This study focused on the motivation of the activists in protest movements against, for example, infrastructure projects such as the Munich Airport, the protests against projects in context of the energy transition like wind turbines or high-tension power lines, educational protests, the anti-nuclear movement, occupy, and more. Similar results on the Stuttgart case can be found in Baumgarten and Rucht (2013).

13. In a press statement, the speaker of the Parkschützer announced that the camp would be disbanded at the end of May 2011 and announced a sowing event to restore the lawn in the park and give back the park to all of Stuttgart's citizens: http://www.bei-abriss-aufstand.de/2011/04/07/presseerklarung-parkschutzer-und-aktionsbundnis-setzen-neues-zeichen-fur-erhalt-des-schlossgartens/ (accessed 21 July 2014).