Steffen Mau, “Keine Zeit. Zum Verhältnis von politischen Entscheidungen und sozialem Wandel / “No Time. On the Relationship Between Political Decisions and Social Change”
Thursday, 4 July 2024, 19:15 CET
Senatssaal of Humboldt University
Unter den Linden 6
10117 Berlin
GERMANY
With Ulrike Vedder
Sponsored by:
The Mosse Foundation
Institut für deutsche Literatur
Humboldt University
Mosse Lectures
Lecture Overview: Organizing and coping with accelerated social change puts societies under stress. Unlike in relatively static societies with established arrangements and pacifying formulas, many conflicts break out in societies undergoing change. At the same time, politicians are under pressure to make quick decisions and set the course if they do not want to be overrun by the course of events. The lecture addresses the relationship between political decisions and social change. It discusses the problems of both early and delayed decisions and the different pace of society and politics. The examples of the East German transformation from 1989 onwards and the socio-ecological transformation will be used to illustrate the preconditions, side effects and long-term consequences of political decisions.
Steffen Mau is a Professor of Macrosociology at Humboldt University; in 2022/23 he was a member of the »Future of Work« working group at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities as well as on the jury for the location competition for the Future Center for German Unity and European Transformation and received the Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation in 2021; his research includes social inequality, transnationalization, European migration and integration, political sociology, the sociology of borders and digitalization; his most recent publication is the volume »Ungleich vereint: Warum der Osten anders bleibt«.
