Academic Awards: Archive

The Foun­da­tion for the Rights of Future Gen­er­a­tions (FRFG) and the Inter­gen­er­a­tional Foun­da­tion (IF) joint­ly pro­mote and award two bien­ni­al prizes, in alter­nate years: the Demog­ra­phy Prize and the Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Prize. A total of €10,000 – gen­er­ous­ly endowed by the Stiftung Apfel­baum – is award­ed each year and divid­ed among the win­ning entrants.

Here are the details of the last prizes:

Intergenerational Justice Prize 2020

Write an essay on

“Intergenerational Wealth Transfers through Inheritance and Gifts”

***DEADLINE EXPIRED 1 JULY 2020***

 

The Stuttgart-based Foun­da­tion for the Rights of Future Gen­er­a­tions (FRFG) and the Lon­don-based Inter­gen­er­a­tional Foun­da­tion (IF) joint­ly award the bien­ni­al Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Prize, endowed with €10,000 (ten thou­sand euros) in total prize-mon­ey, to essay-writ­ers who address polit­i­cal and demo­graph­ic issues per­tain­ing to the field of inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice. The prize was ini­ti­at­ed and is fund­ed by the Apfel­baum Foundation.

 

Aim of the competition

Through the prize, the FRFG and IF seek to pro­mote dis­cus­sion about inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice in soci­ety, and, by pro­vid­ing a schol­ar­ly basis to the debate, estab­lish new per­spec­tives for deci­sion-mak­ers. The invi­ta­tion to enter the com­pe­ti­tion is extend­ed espe­cial­ly to young aca­d­e­mics and stu­dents from all disciplines.

For the 2020 prize, the FRFG and IF call for papers on the fol­low­ing topic:

“Inter­gen­er­a­tional Wealth Trans­fers through Inher­i­tance and Gifts”

 

Topic Abstract

Wealth trans­fers across gen­er­a­tions com­bine jus­tice between past, present and future gen­er­a­tions (inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice) with jus­tice with­in the present gen­er­a­tion (intra­gen­er­a­tional justice).

For ques­tions of inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice, with inher­i­tance and lega­cies it is not the trans­fers between deceased per­sons and the sur­vivors of the same fam­i­ly gen­er­a­tion (wid­ow, sib­lings) that are rel­e­vant, but between deceased per­sons and the next generation(s), i.e. the chil­dren or grand­chil­dren. A major rea­son for the increas­ing intra­gen­er­a­tional inequal­i­ty in a soci­ety is the accu­mu­la­tion of wealth with­in families.

When some­one dies, there is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to mit­i­gate this effect. The essen­tial instru­ment for this is an inher­i­tance tax. To vary­ing degrees, inher­i­tance tax deprives the tes­ta­tor of the oppor­tu­ni­ty to pass on their assets to their direct descen­dants. Instead, the state dis­trib­utes it to all citizens.

In order to coun­ter­act a pos­si­ble avoid­ance of inher­i­tance tax through dona­tions before death, the state can levy a gift tax. Both types of tax are, of course, polit­i­cal­ly high­ly controversial.

Inher­i­tance (and gift­ing) only aris­es as a “philo­soph­i­cal prob­lem” when prop­er­ty rights are indi­vid­u­alised. On the one hand, there is the view that the accep­tance of pri­vate prop­er­ty implies that it should also be allowed in fam­i­ly rela­tion­ships: wealth may accu­mu­late along fam­i­ly lines, instead of being redis­trib­uted to soci­ety as a whole at every change of gen­er­a­tion. Con­verse­ly, the birth lot­tery (the ques­tion of being born into a poor or rich fam­i­ly) should not affect the life chances of the youngest gen­er­a­tion. Accord­ing to this lat­ter view, the right to inher­i­tance should be reject­ed because it enables the heirs to have an unearned and effort­less income and reduces the rel­a­tive oppor­tu­ni­ties of the famil­ial­ly and finan­cial­ly underprivileged.

To date, no lib­er­al-demo­c­ra­t­ic con­sti­tu­tion­al state has com­plete­ly elim­i­nat­ed this effect. Some coun­tries, includ­ing Switzer­land and Swe­den, do not levy tax­es on inher­it­ed prop­er­ty at all. One rea­son for this is the impact of inher­i­tance tax on fam­i­ly busi­ness­es. A high inher­i­tance tax on all busi­ness assets would lead to the expro­pri­a­tion or forced sale of busi­ness­es if the pre­vi­ous own­er dies. A fur­ther rea­son con­sists in the dif­fi­cul­ty of mon­etis­ing the wealth of real estates. These val­ues quick­ly exceed pos­si­ble allowances, with the result that the chil­dren may no longer be able to live in their par­ents’ house.

Undoubt­ed­ly, inter­gen­er­a­tional trans­fers of wealth by inher­i­tance and gifts (and relat­ed issues of inher­i­tance and gift tax) are a com­plex issue that has been the sub­ject of many polit­i­cal and philo­soph­i­cal dis­cus­sions. In this Call for Papers we invite con­tri­bu­tions that con­sid­er and analyse the top­ic from var­i­ous per­spec­tives of inter­gen­er­a­tional justice.

 

Scope

The Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Prize 2020 aims to illu­mi­nate and analyse the role of inter­gen­er­a­tional wealth trans­fers for inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice. Entries to the com­pe­ti­tion could approach the top­ic through a broad range of ques­tions, including:

• Is it legit­i­mate for wealth to remain with­in fam­i­lies, gen­er­a­tion after gen­er­a­tion? Should the chil­dren of the deceased per­son be able to inher­it all his or her wealth; or should the wealth be taxed by the state, for greater redis­tri­b­u­tion? Which philo­soph­i­cal argu­ments speak in favour of the dynas­tic approach, which ones sup­port the soci­etal approach?
• To what extent do inher­i­tance (and gift) tax sys­tems dif­fer in terms of tax rates and allowances accord­ing to degree of kin­ship in OECD coun­tries or beyond? Are there fluc­tu­a­tions over time? How are busi­ness assets han­dled? How much mon­ey do these tax­es gen­er­ate for the tax author­i­ties? What per­cent­age of the pop­u­la­tion is liable to these taxes?
• What unde­sir­able and neg­a­tive eco­nom­ic side effects can be observed in the var­i­ous tax sys­tems? Do inher­i­tance and gift tax­es have an influ­ence on finan­cial plan­ning and affect behaviour?
• How (un)popular are (high) inher­i­tance and gift tax­es among vot­ers? Can this top­ic be used to win elec­tions? Are there dif­fer­ent opin­ions depend­ing on age/generation?
• Do the atti­tudes towards inher­i­tance tax­a­tion dif­fer in dif­fer­ent coun­tries and between dif­fer­ent social groups? Are there con­nec­tions between the type of polit­i­cal sys­tem, polit­i­cal cul­ture and/or socio-demo­graph­ic com­po­si­tion and devel­op­ment of soci­ety on the one hand and the exis­tence and lev­el of inher­i­tance tax on the other?
• How does inher­i­tance tax relate to the wel­fare state? Does a high­er inher­i­tance tax empir­i­cal­ly actu­al­ly lead to less inequality?
• Which rel­e­vant nar­ra­tives and argu­men­ta­tion strate­gies can be iden­ti­fied in pol­i­tics, busi­ness, soci­ety and the media, and where do they converge?
• Inher­i­tance tax­a­tion has devel­oped very dif­fer­ent­ly in the var­i­ous legal sys­tems, with con­sid­er­able legal dif­fer­ences. What rel­e­vant rul­ings of con­sti­tu­tion­al courts exist on this sub­ject? Is there a con­nec­tion between the dif­fer­ent legal cul­tures and the ques­tion of inher­i­tance tax in an inter­na­tion­al comparison?
• What role do ques­tions of inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice play in the evo­lu­tion of rel­e­vant laws and in rel­e­vant court rul­ings? What should an inter­gen­er­a­tional­ly just inher­i­tance tax law look like?
• Each devel­oped coun­try has had key moments in the polit­i­cal and legal his­to­ries of the tax­a­tion of inher­it­ed wealth. What can his­to­ri­ans tell us about this topic?

 

Note that these are non-bind­ing sug­ges­tions: par­tic­i­pants are strong­ly encour­aged to come up with their own research puz­zles. You may adapt the title accord­ing to your cho­sen sub­ject, but the paper must in essence reflect the topic.

The sub­mit­ted papers should be inno­v­a­tive, cre­ative and with a focus on civ­il soci­ety issues, with prac­ti­cal appli­ca­tions. The FRFG and IF par­tic­u­lar­ly appre­ci­ate par­tic­i­pants try­ing to explain com­plex ideas in as sim­ple and acces­si­ble terms as pos­si­ble. Sub­mit­ted research papers may employ all pos­si­ble method­olog­i­cal approaches.

 

 

Demography Prize 2019

Write an essay on: “Hous­ing Cri­sis: how can we improve the sit­u­a­tion for young people?”

***DEADLINE EXPIRED 1 DECEMBER 2019***

The Stuttgart-based Foun­da­tion for the Rights of Future Gen­er­a­tions (FRFG) and the Lon­don-based Inter­gen­er­a­tional Foun­da­tion (IF) joint­ly award the bien­ni­al Demog­ra­phy Prize, endowed with EUR 10,000 (ten thou­sand euros) in total prize-mon­ey, to essay-writ­ers who address polit­i­cal and demo­graph­ic issues per­tain­ing to the field of inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice. The prize was ini­ti­at­ed and is fund­ed by the Apfel­baum Foundation.

The winners:

Veroni­ka Riedl — with her entry Right to hous­ing for young peo­ple: On the hous­ing sit­u­a­tion of young Euro­peans and the poten­tial of a rights-based hous­ing strategy

and

Lau­ra Naegele, Wouter De Tav­ernier, Moritz Hess und Sebas­t­ian Merkel — with their entry Do young peo­ple stand alone in their demand to live alone? The inter­gen­er­a­tional con­flict hypoth­e­sis put to test in the hous­ing sector

 

 

 

 

Topic abstract

In many Euro­pean coun­tries, and espe­cial­ly in large cities and uni­ver­si­ty towns, afford­able hous­ing is a press­ing and some­times explo­sive issue.

In the debate about such ques­tions as home own­er­ship or rent increase caps, the inter­gen­er­a­tional per­spec­tive is often for­got­ten. But dif­fer­ent gen­er­a­tions are affect­ed in notice­ably dif­fer­ent ways. Ris­ing rent and pur­chase prices make it ever more dif­fi­cult for young peo­ple to access the hous­ing mar­ket. The qual­i­ty of hous­ing is a key fac­tor in liv­ing stan­dards and well­be­ing, as well as an inte­gral ele­ment of social inte­gra­tion, yet in 2014 a total of 7.8% of young peo­ple in the Euro­pean Union (aged between 15 and 29) were in severe hous­ing need, 25.7% of the young peo­ple in the EU lived in over­crowd­ed house­holds, and 13.6% lived in house­holds that spent 40% or more of their equiv­alised dis­pos­able income on hous­ing (Euro­stat 2016). Young peo­ple often live longer in their parental homes, or in the pri­vate rental sec­tor, than pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions (Ronald/Lennartz 2018).

In response to the 2008/9 finan­cial cri­sis, gov­ern­ment pro­grammes for pub­lic and social hous­ing aimed at the poor­er parts of the pop­u­la­tion were cut back, lead­ing to dimin­ish­ing access to afford­able hous­ing, espe­cial­ly in urbanised areas. For young peo­ple, this means that they have to pay high­er rents.

What is often referred to as a “hous­ing cri­sis” can cer­tain­ly be seen as a ques­tion of inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice, because the baby boomers had eas­i­er access to hous­ing or to the means to finance it. Today, the baby boomer gen­er­a­tion ben­e­fits from hous­ing inequal­i­ty in two ways: through prop­er­ty val­ues and rental income. At the same time, with pen­sion sys­tems under pres­sure because of age­ing pop­u­la­tions, the own­er­ship of res­i­den­tial prop­er­ty has become an impor­tant com­po­nent of retire­ment income (Helbrecht/Geisenkauser 2012).

Younger gen­er­a­tions, on the oth­er hand, are dis­ad­van­taged in two respects: today’s increased demand leads to fur­ther pres­sure on the hous­ing mar­ket in the low-price seg­ment, which in turn leads to an increase in the rent bur­den for low­er and mid­dle income groups, and also makes the pur­chase of res­i­den­tial prop­er­ty more dif­fi­cult. In many parts of Europe, such as the South­east of the UK, in the 1980s the aver­age cost of a first home was three to four times the annu­al aver­age salary; today it can be ten or twelve times the annu­al aver­age salary.

In many Euro­pean coun­tries, own­er­ship of real estate has become a much greater source of wealth inequal­i­ty between gen­er­a­tions than salary differentials.

This gloomy pic­ture of hous­ing and home own­er­ship is, how­ev­er, by no means uni­ver­sal. Sta­tis­tics point to sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ences between coun­tries, and inter­na­tion­al com­par­isons show that suc­cess­ful hous­ing poli­cies are pos­si­ble. An EU com­par­i­son shows that the per­cent­age of house­holds man­aged by a per­son aged 18–29 who spends 40% or more of their dis­pos­able income on hous­ing costs ranges from 1.3% (in Mal­ta) to 45.4% (in Greece) (Leach et al. 2016). It is clear that some coun­tries per­form sig­nif­i­cant­ly bet­ter than oth­ers in pro­vid­ing afford­able hous­ing for the next generation.

Scope

The Demog­ra­phy Prize 2018/19 aims to illu­mi­nate and analyse the hous­ing sit­u­a­tion of the young gen­er­a­tion. Entries to the com­pe­ti­tion could approach the top­ic through a broad range of ques­tions, including:

• How did the hous­ing cri­sis come to be and how can hous­ing inequal­i­ty for young peo­ple be improved? What weight do dif­fer­ent fac­tors (such as demo­graph­ic shifts, chang­ing pref­er­ences, mar­ket or gov­ern­ment fail­ures) have?
• Why are some coun­tries bet­ter than oth­ers at pro­vid­ing afford­able hous­ing for the next gen­er­a­tion? What are the sim­i­lar­i­ties and dif­fer­ences? What lessons can be drawn from cross-coun­try comparisons?
• Plan­et vs. peo­ple: It is often sug­gest­ed that the solu­tion to the hous­ing cri­sis is to build more homes, but this rais­es the ques­tion of encroach­ing on green spaces and the envi­ron­men­tal impact that this implies. How can that ten­sion be resolved? How can urban­i­sa­tion and the hous­ing mar­ket become more envi­ron­men­tal­ly friendly?
• What polit­i­cal levers, such as sub­si­dies, could be intro­duced to help the younger gen­er­a­tion achieve more afford­able and long-term hous­ing secu­ri­ty? Is the Ger­man debt brake (Miet­preis­bremse) a suc­cess­ful instru­ment for this and how does it affect the young generation?
• What is the poten­tial of new forms of hous­ing, such as shared hous­ing, mul­ti-gen­er­a­tional hous­ing, home­share (accom­mo­da­tion offered in exchange for help and/or companionship)?
• Can gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy help to bring about new usage pat­terns of the exist­ing house stock, for exam­ple by incen­tivis­ing the fuller occu­pa­tion of large hous­es with unused spare bed­rooms, or by dis­cour­ag­ing the own­er­ship of sec­ond homes through high­er taxation?
• How does home­less­ness affect young peo­ple in par­tic­u­lar and how can it be combated?
• How can those who work in the media be encour­aged to address this topic?

Note that these are non-bind­ing sug­ges­tions: par­tic­i­pants are strong­ly encour­aged to come up with their own research puz­zles. You may adapt the title accord­ing to your cho­sen sub­ject, but the paper must in essence reflect the topic.

The sub­mit­ted papers should be inno­v­a­tive, cre­ative and with a focus on civ­il soci­ety issues, with prac­ti­cal appli­ca­tions. The FRFG and IF par­tic­u­lar­ly appre­ci­ate par­tic­i­pants try­ing to explain com­plex ideas in as sim­ple and acces­si­ble terms as pos­si­ble. Sub­mit­ted research papers may employ all pos­si­ble method­olog­i­cal approaches.

 

Lit­er­a­ture cit­ed in the text above

Euro­stat (2016): Young peo­ple – hous­ing con­di­tions. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/pdfscache/46039.pdf. Viewed 27 Sep­tem­ber 2018.

Ronald, Richard / Lennartz, Chris­t­ian (2018): Hous­ing careers, inter­gen­er­a­tional sup­port and fam­i­ly rela­tions. In: Hous­ing Stud­ies, 33 (2), 147–159.

Hel­brecht, Ilse / Geilen­heuser, Tim (2012): Demographis­ch­er Wan­del, Gen­er­a­tionen­ef­fek­te und Woh­nungs­mark­ten­twick­lung: Wohneigen­tum als Altersvor­sorge? In: Raum­forschung und Rau­mord­nung, 70 (5), 425–436.

 

Lit­er­a­ture suggestions

Dor­ling, Dan­ny (2015): All That is Sol­id: How the Great Hous­ing Dis­as­ter Defines Our Times, and What We Can Do About It. Lon­don: Allen Lane.

Dust­mann, Chris­t­ian / Fitzen­berg­er, Bernd / Zim­mer­man, Markus (2018): Hous­ing Expen­di­tures and Income Inequal­i­ty, Cream Dis­cus­sion Paper 16/18, Lon­don: Cen­tre for Research and Analy­sis of Migra­tion, URL: http://www.cream-migration.org/publ_uploads/CDP_16_18.pdf. Viewed 24 Octo­ber 2018.

Euro­stat (2016): Young peo­ple – hous­ing con­di­tions, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/pdfscache/46039.pdf. Viewed 27 Sep­tem­ber 2018.

Euro­stat (2015): Hous­ing cost over­bur­den rate. http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=ilc_lvho07a&lang=en. Viewed 27 Sep­tem­ber 2018.

Hel­brecht, Ilse / Geilen­heuser, Tim (2012): Demographis­ch­er Wan­del, Gen­er­a­tionen­ef­fek­te und Woh­nungs­mark­ten­twick­lung: Wohneigen­tum als Altersvor­sorge? In: Raum­forschung und Rau­mord­nung, 70 (5), 425–436.

Hills, John / Cun­liffe, Jack / Obolen­skaya, Poli­na / Kara­gian­na­ki, Eleni (2015): Falling behind, get­ting ahead: the chang­ing struc­ture of inequal­i­ty in the UK, 2007–2013. Social Pol­i­cy in Cold Cli­mate. Lon­don: LSE.

Leach, Jere­my / Broeks, Miri­am / Østen­vik, Kristin / King­man, David (2016): Euro­pean Inter­gen­er­a­tional Fair­ness Index: A Cri­sis for the Young. Lon­don: Inter­gen­er­a­tional Foun­da­tion: http://www.if.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/European-Intergenerational-Fairness-Index_Final-2016.pdf. Viewed 27 Sep­tem­ber 2018.

Lennartz, Chris­t­ian / Hel­brecht, Ilse (2018): The hous­ing careers of younger adults and inter­generational sup­port in Germany’s ‘soci­ety of renters’. In: Hous­ing Stud­ies, 33 (2), 317–336.

Mor­ton, Alex (2013): Hous­ing and Inter­gen­er­a­tional Fair­ness. Lon­don: Pol­i­cy Exchange.

Nation­al Hous­ing Fed­er­a­tion (2014): Bro­ken Mar­ket, Bro­ken Dreams. Lon­don: NHF.

Ronald, Richard / Lennartz, Chris­t­ian (2018): Hous­ing careers, inter­gen­er­a­tional sup­port and fam­i­ly rela­tions. In: Hous­ing Stud­ies, 33 (2), 147–159.

Rugg, Julie J. / Quil­gars, Deb­o­rah (2015): Young Peo­ple and Hous­ing: A Review of the Present Pol­i­cy and Prac­tice Land­scape. In: Youth and Pol­i­cy. Issue 114.

Shaw, Randy (2018): Gen­er­a­tion Priced Out. Who Gets to Live in the New Urban Amer­i­ca, Oak­land, CA: Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia Press.

Shel­ter (2010): The Human Cost: How the Lack of Afford­able Hous­ing Impacts on All Aspects of Life. Lon­don: Shelter.

Intergenerational Justice Prize 2017/2018

***DEADLINE EXPIRED 31 JULY 2018***

The sub­ject of this prize was:

“How attrac­tive are polit­i­cal par­ties and trade unions to young people?”

The Winners

The jury select­ed five win­ners, with the €10,000 prize divid­ed hierarchically:

1^st  Prize:
Mona Lena Krook / Mary Nugent: “Not Too Young to Run? Age Require­ments and Young Peo­ple in Elect­ed Office”

2^nd Prize:
Philipp Köbe: “Wie poli­tis­che Organ­i­sa­tio­nen für junge Erwach­sene attak­tiv­er wer­den kön­nen” (How can Young Adults’ Polit­i­cal Organ­i­sa­tions be made more Appealing?)

Equal 3^rd Prize:
Thomas Toz­er: “Is there a Sound Demo­c­ra­t­ic Case for Rais­ing the Mem­ber­ship of Young Peo­ple in Polit­i­cal Par­ties and Trade Unions through Descrip­tive Representation?”

Aksel Sund­ström / Daniel Stock­e­mer: “Youth Rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment: The lim­it­ed effect of polit­i­cal par­ty characteristics”

5^th Prize:
Emi­lien Paulis: “What’s Going Around? A social net­work expla­na­tion of youth par­ty membership”

The win­ning papers will be pub­lished in two issues of the Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Review (IGJR): 2–2018 und 1–2019. The first of these is now avail­able and con­tains the papers of Krook and Nugent, Sund­ström and Stock­e­mer, and Tozer.

The jury

Prof. Ann-Kristin Kölln (Aarhus Uni­ver­si­ty, Den­mark), Chair, and Guest Edi­tor of IGJR
Prof. Susan E. Scar­row (Uni­ver­si­ty of Hous­ton, USA)
Prof. Matt Henn (Not­ting­ham Trent Uni­ver­si­ty, UK)
Prof. Jan van Deth (Uni­ver­si­ty of Mannheim, Germany)
Dr Kate Dom­mett (Uni­ver­si­ty of Sheffield, UK)
Dr Craig Berry (Man­ches­ter Met­ro­pol­i­tan Uni­ver­si­ty, UK)
Dr Bet­ti­na Munimus (for­mer­ly of the FRFG)

 

Here is the orig­i­nal pub­lished spec­i­fi­ca­tion for the prize:

The Stuttgart-based Foun­da­tion for the Rights of Future Gen­er­a­tions (FRFG) and the Lon­don-based Inter­gen­er­a­tional Foun­da­tion (IF) joint­ly award the bien­ni­al Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Prize, endowed with EUR 10,000 (ten thou­sand euros) in total prize-mon­ey, to essay-writ­ers who address polit­i­cal and demo­graph­ic issues per­tain­ing to the field of inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice. The prize was ini­ti­at­ed and is fund­ed by the Apfel­baum Foundation.

Aim of the Competition

Through the prize, the FRFG and IF seek to pro­mote dis­cus­sion about inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice in soci­ety, and, by pro­vid­ing a schol­ar­ly basis to the debate, estab­lish new per­spec­tives for deci­sion-mak­ers. The invi­ta­tion to enter the com­pe­ti­tion is extend­ed espe­cial­ly to young aca­d­e­mics from all disciplines.

For the 2017/2018 prize, the FRFG and IF call for papers on the fol­low­ing topic:

“How attractive are political parties and trade unions to young people?”

Prizes

The Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Prize is endowed with EUR 10,000. The prize mon­ey will be distrib­uted pro­por­tion­al­ly among the best sub­mis­sions, which can be more or less than the top three sub­mis­sions. Win­ning sub­mis­sions will be con­sid­ered for pub­li­ca­tion by the edi­to­r­i­al team of the Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Review (IGJR; www.igjr.org) for the win­ter issue 2018.

Clos­ing date: DEADLINE EXTENDED TO 31 JULY 2018 (for­mer­ly 1 July 2018)

 

Eli­gi­bil­i­ty:

• researchers from all fields of social sci­ence, espe­cial­ly young researchers (stu­dents, gradu­ates, post-docs). There is no age lim­it. Col­lab­o­ra­tive sub­mis­sions are also welcome.

Entries

• can be sub­mit­ted in Eng­lish or German
• should be 5,000 to 8,000 words in length (exclud­ing fig­ures, tables and bibliography)

Topic abstract

Polit­i­cal par­ties are intrin­si­cal­ly linked to the func­tion­ing of mod­ern democ­ra­cies. They pro­vide fun­da­men­tal link­age mech­a­nisms of rep­re­sen­ta­tion and par­tic­i­pa­tion that con­nect cit­i­zens with the state (Keman 2014; Webb 2000). Par­ty mem­bers and affil­i­ates, more gen­er­al­ly, are in this respect one of the link­ing mech­a­nisms that are ben­e­fi­cial for the effec­tive func­tion­ing of polit­i­cal representation.

Mem­bers are often described as the “eyes and ears” (Kölln/Polk 2017; Kölln 2017) of par­ties in the elec­torate because of their com­mu­nica­tive role. They bring new pol­i­cy ideas to the par­ty and com­mu­ni­cate the party’s pro­gramme with­in soci­ety. In addi­tion, mem­bers are among the pri­ma­ry sources of polit­i­cal per­son­nel because par­ty mem­ber­ship is often an infor­mal pre­req­ui­site for acquir­ing polit­i­cal office. From this rep­re­sen­ta­tive per­spec­tive and fol­low­ing the notion of “descrip­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion” (Mains­bridge 1999), mem­bers’ social make­up should ide­al­ly reflect that of the gen­er­al population.

Although par­ty mem­bers have hard­ly ever been entire­ly rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the pop­u­la­tion in their demo­graph­ic char­ac­ter­is­tics (Scarrow/Gezgor 2010), the gen­er­al decline of par­ty mem­ber­ship seems to affect younger gen­er­a­tions dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly. They enrol less often in par­ties, render­ing the par­ties’ age-pro­files all too often con­sid­er­ably old­er than the broad­er elec­torate that they hope to embrace (Bruter/Harrison 2009; Scarrow/Gezgor 2010). For instance, the share of young mem­bers (under 26 years old) in Ger­man par­ties is at most 6.3 % (LINKE) but can also be as lit­tle as 2.2 % (CSU) (Nie­der­may­er 2016). In con­trast, around one quar­ter of the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion belongs to this age group. And even though the age-pro­file of Swedish par­ties is con­sid­er­ably bet­ter, with over 14 % of mem­bers being under 26 years old (Kölln/Polk 2017), this fig­ure is large­ly dri­ven by mem­bers of the Green Par­ty (Miljö­par­ti­et) in which almost 26 % are under 26 years old. In oth­er coun­tries, hard­ly any of these prob­lems seem to exist. Accord­ing to 2017 fig­ures from the Unit­ed King­dom, the share of mem­bers aged 18–24 reflects the gen­er­al popula­tion of 8.9 % quite well: group size esti­mates sug­gest that 18–24s make up 14.4 % of the Green Par­ty, 13.2 %  of the Con­servative Par­ty and 11.5 % of the Labour Par­ty, with only the Scot­tish Nation­al Par­ty and UK Inde­pendence Par­ty (UKIP) below the 8.9 %, at 6.9 % and 6.7 % respec­tive­ly (UK Par­ty Mem­bers Project; https://esrcpartymembersproject.org).

Over­all, how­ev­er, the sta­tis­tics sug­gest not only an age prob­lem in polit­i­cal par­ties across many Euro­pean democ­ra­cies, but also sub­stan­tial coun­try- and par­ty-lev­el dif­fer­ences. Ger­man par­ties seem to be doing par­tic­u­lar­ly poor­ly in the descrip­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the young, while oth­er coun­tries and indi­vid­ual par­ties are appar­ent­ly much bet­ter in engag­ing younger generations.

Trade unions are fac­ing sim­i­lar prob­lems in recruit­ing young mem­bers across Europe (Gum­brell-McCormick­/Hy­man 2013). Rea­sons for this pat­tern might be found in the dom­i­nant polit­i­cal issues that trade unions care about. Younger peo­ple are con­front­ed with the rapid­ly chang­ing nature of the work­place as well as the rise in tem­po­rary work and zero-hours con­tracts, and are prob­a­bly more inter­est­ed in salaries, entry require­ments and work con­tracts, rather than in end-of-career mat­ters such as pen­sions and retire­ment ages. The skewed age pro­file of trade unions could shift the dis­cus­sion more towards the lat­ter con­cerns, deter­ring younger gen­er­a­tions and rein­forc­ing exist­ing age problems.

Giv­en mem­bers’ impor­tance and their over­all age pro­file, it could be argued that polit­i­cal pow­er or access to it is unequal­ly dis­trib­uted between the young and old. Par­ties and trade unions might be dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly rep­re­sent­ing old­er rather than younger gen­er­a­tions because of their own social-demo­graph­ic make­up. This could cre­ate an unjust dis­tri­b­u­tion of polit­i­cal influ­ence between liv­ing generations.

Scope

The Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Prize 2017/18 aims to illu­mi­nate the com­plex rela­tion­ship between young peo­ple and polit­i­cal par­ties and trade unions. It invites analy­ses of pro­pos­als for reform from the lit­er­a­ture, such as an intro­duc­to­ry stage of full mem­ber­ship and reforms of par­ty con­ventions, par­tic­i­pa­to­ry modes and structures.

Entries to the com­pe­ti­tion could approach the top­ic through a broad range of ques­tions, including:

• Is the unequal rep­re­sen­ta­tion of young mem­bers in and for polit­i­cal par­ties and trade unions prob­lem­at­ic from a demo­c­ra­t­ic perspective?
• What about the age struc­ture of employ­ers’ asso­ci­a­tions? Could the under­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of younger mem­bers be viewed as a prob­lem here as well?
• How great is the reluc­tance of young peo­ple to engage in and for polit­i­cal par­ties and trade unions from an inter­na­tion­al­ly com­par­a­tive per­spec­tive, for instance OECD-wide? What can we learn from a his­tor­i­cal­ly com­par­a­tive perspective?
• Why do young peo­ple avoid polit­i­cal par­ties and trade unions?
• Why are some par­ties and trade unions bet­ter than oth­ers in engag­ing younger people?
• What can par­ties and trade unions do to attract more young mem­bers or affil­i­ates and to retain them? What lessons can be learned from exam­ples in which spe­cif­ic par­ties or unions have accom­plished this, such as recent­ly the British Labour Party?
• What role can the youth organ­i­sa­tions of polit­i­cal par­ties and trade unions play in increas­ing the attrac­tive­ness of their moth­er organisations?
• Do reg­u­la­tions pro­hib­it spe­cif­ic reform mea­sures which could ren­der par­ties and unions more attrac­tive for young peo­ple? What role do mem­ber­ship fees play?
• What would be the con­se­quences if young peo­ple per­ma­nent­ly and irrev­o­ca­bly eschewed polit­i­cal parties?

Note that these are non-bind­ing sug­ges­tions: par­tic­i­pants are strong­ly encour­aged to come up with their own research puz­zles. You may adapt the title accord­ing to your cho­sen sub­ject, but the paper must in essence reflect the top­ic. All ideas pre­sent­ed in the sub­mit­ted papers should be inno­v­a­tive, cre­ative and with a focus on civ­il soci­ety issues, with prac­ti­cal appli­ca­tions. The FRFG and IF par­tic­u­lar­ly appre­ci­ate par­tic­i­pants try­ing to explain com­plex ideas in as sim­ple and acces­si­ble terms as pos­si­ble. Sub­mit­ted research papers may employ all pos­si­ble method­olog­i­cal approaches.

Literature cited in the text above

Bruter, Michael / Har­ri­son, Sarah (2009): The Future of Our Democ­ra­cies: Young Par­ty Mem­bers in Europe. Bas­ingstoke, Hamp­shire: Pal­grave Macmillan.

Gum­brell-McCormick, Rebec­ca / Hyman, Richard (2013): Trade Unions in West­ern Europe: Hard Times, Hard Choic­es. Oxford: Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Press.

Keman, Hans (2014): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Per­for­mance of Par­ties and Legit­i­ma­cy in Europe. In: West Euro­pean Pol­i­tics. Vol. 37 (2/2014), 309–330.

Kölln, Ann-Kristin (2017): Has Par­ty Mem­bers’ Rep­re­sen­ta­tive­ness Changed Over Time? In Ander­ssoon, Ulri­ka et al. (eds.): Lar­mar och gör sig till. SOM-under­söknin­gen 2016, SOM-rap­port no. 70, Gothen­burg: SOM-Insti­tut, 387–400.

Kölln, Ann-Kristin / Polk, Jonathan (2017): Eman­ci­pat­ed par­ty mem­bers: Exam­in­ing ide­o­log­i­cal incon­gru­ence with­in polit­i­cal par­ties. In: Par­ty Pol­i­tics, Vol. 23 (1/2017), 18–29.

Mans­bridge, Jane (1999): Should Blacks Rep­re­sent Blacks and Women Rep­re­sent Women? A Con­tin­gent “Yes.”, The Jour­nal of Pol­i­tics, Vol. 61 (3/1999), 628–657.

Nie­der­may­er, Oskar (2016): Parteim­it­glieder in Deutsch­land: Ver­sion 2016. Arbeit­shefte aus dem Otto-Stam­mer-Zen­trum, Nr. 26, Berlin. http://www.polsoz.fu-berlin.de/polwiss/forschung/systeme/empsoz/schriften/Arbeitshefte/

P‑PM16-NEU.pdf. Viewed on 07 Novem­ber 2017.

Scar­row, Susan E. / Gez­gor, Bur­cu (2010): Declin­ing mem­ber­ships, chang­ing mem­bers? Euro­pean polit­i­cal par­ty mem­bers in a new era. In: Par­ty Pol­i­tics, Vol. 16 (6/2010), 823–843.

Webb, Paul (2000): Polit­i­cal par­ties in West­ern Europe: link­age, legit­i­ma­cy and reform. In: Rep­re­sen­ta­tion, Vol. 37 (3–4/2000), 203–214.

Literature suggestions

Bruter, Michael / Har­ri­son, Sarah (2009): Tomorrow’s Lead­ers? Under­stand­ing the Involve­ment of Young Par­ty Mem­bers in Six Euro­pean Democ­ra­cies. In: Com­par­a­tive Polit­i­cal Stud­ies, Vol. 42 (10/2009), 1259–1291.

Cross, William / Young, Lisa (2008): Fac­tors Influ­enc­ing the Deci­sion of the Young Polit­i­cal­ly Engaged to Join a Polit­i­cal Par­ty: An Inves­ti­ga­tion of the Cana­di­an Case. In: Par­ty Pol­i­tics. Vol. 14 (3/2008), 345–369.

Fitzen­berg­er, Bernd / Kohn, Karsten / Wang, Qing­wei (2011): The Ero­sion of Union Mem­ber­ship in Ger­many: Deter­mi­nants, Den­si­ties, Decom­po­si­tions. In: Jour­nal of Pop­u­la­tion Eco­nom­ics, Vol. 24 (1/2011), 141–165.

Ker­ris­sey, Jas­mine / Schofer, Evan (2013): Union Mem­ber­ship and Polit­i­cal Par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Unit­ed States. In: Social Forces. Vol. 91 (3/2013), 895–928.

Scar­row, Susan E. (2015): Beyond Par­ty Mem­bers: Chang­ing Approach­es to Par­ti­san Mobi­liza­tion. Oxford: Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Press.

Van Haute, Emi­lie / Gau­ja, Ani­ka (eds.) (2015): Par­ty Mem­bers and Activists. Abing­don, Oxon: Routledge.

Webb, Paul / Polet­ti, Mon­i­ca / Bale, Tim (2017): So who real­ly does the don­key work in “mul­ti-speed mem­ber­ship par­ties” ? Com­par­ing the elec­tion cam­paign activ­i­ty of par­ty mem­bers and par­ty sup­port­ers. In: Elec­toral Stud­ies, No. 46, 64–74.

White­ley, Paul (2014): Does reg­u­la­tion make polit­i­cal par­ties more pop­u­lar? A mul­ti-lev­el analy­sis of par­ty sup­port in Europe. In: Inter­na­tion­al Polit­i­cal Sci­ence Review. Vol. 35 (3/2014), 376–399.