Conflicts over social participation

Conflicts over societal inclusion are an integral part of democratic, pluralistic societies. Despite their importance for social cohesion, they have so far not been systematically examined empirically—particularly in the local context. This is where the research project positioned itself. It investigated three central dimensions of protest at the local level:
1.    the quantitative development of protest over time,
2.    the networks among protest actors, and
3.    the subjective perceptions and demands of the actors involved.
The project drew on a range of quantitative and qualitative methods, combining media analyses (protest event analysis), network analyses based on digital data, and semi-structured interviews with protest organizers. As a pilot study, it examined exemplary conflicts over social participation in two medium-sized German cities (20,000–100,000 inhabitants) between 2014 and 2018.

The absence of comparative empirical longitudinal data on local trajectories of migration-related protest has long posed a challenge for research in this field. The project addressed this gap by producing initial empirical evidence from two medium-sized East German cities and by developing the methodological basis for a long-term monitoring framework of local protest dynamics.

• Collection of empirical data on the development and perception of migration-related conflicts at the local level.
• Preparation of a scaled survey of local protest data in Germany.

The project examined local, migration-related conflict dynamics in two medium-sized cities using a three-part methodological approach. First, a protest event analysis adapted for the local context was conducted, with local media automatically screened and relevant events manually coded. Building on this, the digital networks of involved actors were analyzed using social media data, including qualitative coding of relationship types and political orientation. Finally, semi-structured interviews with selected organizers were conducted to validate and deepen the findings.

In both cities under study, the intensified reception of refugees in Germany from summer 2015 onwards led to a marked politicization and polarization of organized civil society. However, this did not result in a lasting intensification of local conflict dynamics. Alongside these commonalities, the analyses reveal significant differences in the general orientation toward or against migration-related diversity and highlight the role of civil-society networks and local decision-makers. The project also developed a semi-automated, locally adapted variant of protest event analysis.