The State in the Great Transformation
Conference in Tutzing from 4th to 6th March 2020
DEVELOPMENT OF A TRANSFORMING STATE
In the political rhetoric of recent decades, the state has often been declared to be greedy and cumbersome, a model that cannot keep up with the efficiency and dynamism of the private sector. The state is the problem, not the solution. Private sector mechanisms and frameworks gained in importance in the face of a widely perceived policy weakness even in those areas where privatisation was not an issue. Forward-looking problem solutions outside the private sector were most likely to be found in civil society.
For some time now, however, a growing interest in the core functions and core prerequisites of statehood, but also in considerations of an entrepreneurial state, has been observed. At the same time, political populism brought a new kind of state capacity to act onto the political agenda. Against the horizon of global problems, however, the potential of populist prioritizations of national interest seems to be of little use. On the whole, the co-evolution of public and private spheres can develop in different directions – also in the direction of a pathological interpenetration of both areas. The ability of the state to act and to act in a problem-adequate manner in the sense of public interests are dependent on preconditions whose creation lies neither in the area of legal nor political mechanisms. State scepticism is also understandable in the light of state failures and the dangers of the usurpation of state means of power by particular interests. However: The development of an agency capable of acting for genuine public goods and interests is of decisive importance in social transformation processes. Where these processes have already begun, this becomes all too obvious (keywords: climate change and digitalisation). Its problem horizon can be compared with the challenges that led to a fundamental reorientation of public institutions and organisations during the industrial revolution in the 19th century. It was then that the welfare state was born.
Can a transformational statehood develop today as well? What contribution could economic sciences make? How important is the difficult area of tension between supranational regulatory needs, political weakness, and national interest as the gravitational center of new capacity to act? And what about the further development of the entire institutional architecture such as infrastructures in the fields of digital economy and ecological mobility?
Richard Sturn – Jenseits von Staats- und Marktversagen (Click here to download)
Uli Klüh – Public Managers (Click here to download)
Peter Bofinger – Wirtschaftspolitik in der großen Transformation (Click here to download)
Daniel Mertens – Die neue Transformation des Staates im 21. Jahrhundert (Click here to download)
GROUP 1: RESEARCH, INNOVATION, LOCATION AND COMPETITION POLICY
Sven Schade (EU Commission, Directorate General for Research and Innovation, Brussels)
2. Competition policy in the populist age
Tobias Eibinger and Nenad Pantelic (KF University Graz)
3. State location policy in the globalised economy
Harald Zschiedrich (University of Applied Sciences Berlin)
4. Non-rational further training behaviour of employees in Germany
Sabine Schindler (University of Koblenz-Landau)
Moderation: Gisela Kubon-Gilke, Darmstadt
GROUP 2: ACTORS, INSTITUTIONS AND THE PUBLIC SECTOR IN DIGITISATION
Erika Spieß, Julia Reif and Katharina Pfaffinger (LMU Munich)
2. Multilevel governance, digital transformation, and the transformation of the state
Mirela Marcut (University of Oradea)
3. The curse and blessing of digitisation: the circular economy and the new role of the state as a solution to the problems of an economy of scarcity
Ludger Eversmann (Business information scientist and author, Hamburg)
Moderation: Ulrich Klüh, Darmstadt
GROUP 3: BASIC QUESTIONS AND APPLICATION REFERENCES OF TRANSFORMATIVE STATEHOOD
Horst Jesse (Pastor, Munich)
2. Reflections on a functionally-oriented democracy at European level
Stefan Parhofer (Physicist, Gräfelfing)
3. Energy system transformation, COP-21 targets and transformative statehood
Boris Galonske (Silverbergh Partners, Zurich)
Moderation: Martin Held, Tutzing
GROUP 4: UTOPIAS, DYSTOPIAS, FUTURE SCENARIOS
Klaus Rederer (Data protection expert, Neu-Ulm)
2. Postal growth economics and the Degrowth movement
Ewald Kleyboldt (Economist, Traunstein)
3. Are there democratic alternatives to eco-dictatorship
Hans-Ulrich Oberländer (Engineer, Jena)
4. Argue with extreme positions about the future of our country
Hans Zangl (Munich University of Applied Sciences)
Moderation: Richard Sturn, Graz
Speakers
Prof. Dr. Erik Gawel, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ and University of Leipzig
Prof. Dr. Martin Hellwig, MPI Research on Community Goods, Bonn
Prof. Dr. Angela Kallhoff, University of Vienna
Prof. Dr. Ulrich Klüh, Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences
Dr. Lisa Knoll, University of Hamburg
Prof. Dr. Daniel Mertens, University of Osnabrück
Prof. Dr. Uwe Schneidewind, Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy (inquired)
Prof. Dr. Irmi Seidl, Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research – WSL, Zurich
Dr. Rita M. Strohmaier, University of Graz
Prof. Dr. Richard Sturn, University of Graz
Prof. Dr. Carl Christian von Weizsäcker, MPI for Research on Community Goods, Bonn
CONFERENCE TEAM/MODERATION
Prof. Dr. Ulrich Klüh, Darmstadt
Prof. Dr. Gisela Kubon-Gilke, Darmstadt
Prof. Dr. Andrea Maurer, Trier
Prof. Dr. Johannes Schmidt, Karlsruhe
Prof. Dr. Richard Sturn, Graz