Timon Deckena

timon.deckena@uni-erfurt.de

Dissertation project:
"Polarisation and division. On the culturalisation of politics and its consequences".

In Western societies, tendencies towards division and polarisation can increasingly be observed in political, social and economic terms. To mention just a few keywords, we can think of the emergence of alternative media and so-called "filter bubbles", growing social inequality and the increasing electoral success of right-wing populist parties. At the same time, the terms "cleavage" and "polarisation" are highly controversial in the social sciences and their meaning has not been elaborated much theoretically so far. In my dissertation, I would therefore like to trace some exemplary developments in Germany since the 1970s in order to show how both terms can be given a theoretically precise and empirically substantial meaning. I place a special focus on the relationship between culture and politics, i.e. on the question of whether and to what extent the relationship between identity and interest, winners and losers, and between distinction and solidarity has shifted in the course of the increasing culturalisation of left-wing politics in particular.

 

 

University (and non-university) career:

10/2018 - 1/2021 Master's degree in Sociology at Friedrich Schiller University Jena
(Focus: Social transformation and sustainability)

6/2016 - 1/2017 Student assistant in the department "Theoretical and normative foundations".

10/2014 - 9/2018 Bachelor studies in Sociology at the University of Bremen

2/2022 - 5/2023 Journalistic traineeship at the Saarbrücker Zeitung

Teaching

10/2016 - 2/2017 Tutor in the field of "Technology (for Secondary Schools) of scientific work".

Research foci:

Social cohesion and polarisation, political theory, sociology of culture, identity politics