Wilhelm Heitmeyer


Wilhelm Heitmeyer is sociologist and Professor of Education specializing in socialisation. From 1996 to 2013 he headed the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence at Bielefeld University. Since retiring as director, he has held the position of Senior Research Professor at IKG.

Life

Wilhelm Heitmeyer’s father was a typesetter, who was killed in World War II. His mother worked in a cigar factory and later ran a grocer’s shop. Heitmeyer attended the Wittekind-Gymnasium in Lübbecke, North Rhine-Westphalia, before going on to study education and sociology at the University of Bielefeld. He received his doctorate in 1977, his habilitation in 1988.
Before embarking on an academic career Heitmeyer worked as a typesetter, and briefly as a secondary school teacher.
He resigned his longstanding membership of the German Social Democratic Party in 1992, in protest at its asylum policy.
Heitmeyer has been married since 1968, and has two daughters.

Research

Heitmeyer’s research interests have focused since 1983 on empirical research into right-wing extremism, violence, xenophobia, ethnic/cultural conflicts, and social disintegration. Since 1990 he has conducted a long-term investigation of group-focused enmity. Heitmeyer has completed numerous projects funded by the German Research Foundation. In the mid-1980s he was one of the first to study extreme right-wing orientations among adolescents, and also violence in soccer stadiums. In the mid-1990s he was already investigating fundamentalist orientations among young Muslims. More recently, his interest has turned to violence in the Global South.
In 1996 Heitmeyer founded the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence, where he served as director until retiring in 2013. As founding editor-in-chief, he published the International Journal of Conflict and Violence from 2008 to 2014, together with Douglas Massey, Steven Messner, James Sidanius, and Michel Wieviorka.

Theory of Social Disintegration

In his work Heitmeyer puts forward the theory of social disintegration, which he developed with colleagues in the 1990s to explain violence, right-wing extremism, and ethnic/cultural conflicts. The theory is also known in the social sciences as the “Bielefeld disintegration approach,” and forms the basis for the syndrome of group-focused enmity. Disintegration is understood as the failure of societal institutions and communities to secure material existence, social recognition, and personal intactness. The essence of the theory is that as the experience and fear of disintegration increase, the extent and intensity of conflict expand and the ability to regulate it shrinks.
The concept involves three spheres of life, divided into two levels: the objective and the subjective, namely, recognition. In the disintegration approach social and societal integration of individuals and groups is understood as a successful balance between freedoms and bonds, where three specific problems are adequately resolved:
- In the sociostructural dimension, adequate participation in the material goods required for reproduction. This individual/functional system integration generates opportunities for positional recognition.
- In the institutional dimension of socialization, a balance of conflicting interests. This is communicative/interactive social integration, which represents opportunities for moral recognition.
- In the personal dimension of communitization, the production of emotional, expressive relationships, meaning, and self-realization. This is cultural/expressive social integration and represents opportunities for emotional recognition.
Various processes work to exacerbate integration problems in modern Western societies:
- In the sociostructural dimension, social polarization reduces chances for individuals to gain access to the various social subsystems. While individualization expands personal freedoms, pressures also grow, for example to succeed in the labor market. When the probability of this recedes, frustration arises among the losers, who no longer receive positional recognition. Competition, economization, competitive thinking, and consumerism promote self-centered behavior.
- In the institutional dimension, political powerlessness leads to withdrawal from public affairs, including participation in securing core norms such as justice, solidarity, and fairness. This is associated with a loss of moral recognition.
- At the socioemotional level, ambivalent individualization leads to a destabilization of couple relationships and disintegration of families, and thus endangers the socialization of children, which also becomes visible in the loss of social recognition.

Violence

Since the 1980s Heitmeyer researches right-wing orientation among youth and the function of that orientation for the legitimization for violence. Associated therewith he researches causes for right-wing terrorism.
Another topic is violence from youth in different social contexts in association with experience of integration and disintegration. That also includes analyses about school shootings from young man.
An early research topic was violence in soccer stadiums.
Within the international context Heitmeyer dealt with the control resp. loss of control of violence. Together with John Hagan he published the International Handbook of Violence Research. Thereto belongs the guidance of an international.
For some time past his interest lies in violence within the global south.

Group-focused enmity

Since 2000 Heitmeyer and his research group have been investigating “group-focused enmity,” a term and concept he himself coined and developed.
Group-focused enmity describes abasement and discrimination occurring solely on the basis of actual or attributed group membership, regardless of individual behavior. The groups involved include migrants, Jews, Muslims, homosexuals, homeless people, people with disabilities, and people identified by their skin color. A ten-year project funded by the Volkswagen Foundation and a DFG graduate college investigated this field with annual representative population surveys from 2002 to 2011. The findings were published in book form in the annual “Deutsche Zustände” series and in reporting in Die Zeit newspaper over a period of many years.

Awards

Heitmeyer received a research professorship for 2003 to 2005 from the Volkswagen Foundation. In 2012 he received the Göttingen Peace Prize. In 2014 the Innovation Prize of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia gave Heitmeyer an honorary award for his development to conflict and violence research.

Writings (Selection)

  1. Die Fernwirkungen des Terrors. Zu den Folgen für die liberale Republik und die integrationsfähige Gesellschaft. In: Hoffmann u.a. : Wendepunkt 11. September 2001. Terror, Islam und Demokratie, Köln, 2001, S. 221-234.
  2. Right-Wing Terrorism. In: Bjorgo : Root Causes of Terrorism. Abingdon, 2005, S. 141-154.
  3. : School Shootings: International Research, Case Studies, and Concepts for Prevention. New York: Springer, 2013.
  4. : Menschenfeindlichkeit in Städten und Gemeinden . Weinheim: BeltzJuventa, 2013.
  5. : Desintegrationsdynamiken: Integrationsmechanismen auf dem Prüfstand . In Radikale Milieus, ed. Malthaner and Waldmann. Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2012, 339–68.
  6. Control of Violence. New York: Springer, 2011.
  7. : Deutsche Zustände . vols. 1–10, Frankfurt am Main and Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2002–2011.
  8. Kontrollverluste: Zur Zukunft der Gewalt . In Gewalt, ed. Heitmeyer and Soeffner. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2004, 86–103.
  9. : Internationales Handbuch der Gewaltforschung. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, 2002. English edition: International Handbook of Violence Research. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 2003.
  10. Autoritärer Kapitalismus, Demokratieentleerung und Rechtspopulismus: Eine Analyse von Entwicklungtendenzen . In Schattenseiten der Globalisierung: Rechtsradikalismus, Rechtspopulismus und Regionalismus in westlichen Demokratien, ed. Heitmeyer and Loch. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2001. 497–534
  11. : Desintegration, Konflikt und Ethnisierung: Eine Problemanalyse und theoretische Rahmenkonzeption . In Bedrohte Stadtgesellschaft: Soziale Desintegrationsprozesse und ethnisch-kulturelle Konfliktkonstellationen, ed. Heitmeyer and Anhut. Weinheim and Munich:, Juventa, 2000.
  12. Die Krise der Städte: Analysen zu den Folgen desintegrativer Stadtentwicklung für das ethnisch-kulturelle Zusammenleben . Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1998.
  13. : Politisierte Religion: Ursachen und Erscheinungsformen des modernen Fundamentalismus . Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp 1998.
  14. with Joachim Müller and Helmut Schröder): Verlockender Fundamentalismus: Türkische Jugendliche in Deutschland . Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997.
  15. : Was treibt die Gesellschaft auseinander? . Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997.
  16. : Was hält die Gesellschaft zusammen? . Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997
  17. Entsicherungen: Desintegrationsprozesse und Gewalt . In: Riskante Freiheiten, ed. Beck and Beck-Gersheim. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp: 1994, 376–401
  18. : Die Bielefelder Rechtsextremismus-Studie: Erste Langzeituntersuchung zur politischen Sozialisation männlicher Jugendlicher . Weinheim and Munich: Juventa, 1992.
  19. : Jugendliche Fußballfans: Soziale und politische Orientierungen, Gesellungsformen, Gewalt . Weinheim and Munich: Juventa, 1988.
  20. Rechtsextremistische Orientierungen bei Jugendlichen . Weinheim and Munich: Juventa, 1987.

    Newspaper articles (selection)

  21. Kontrollverlust tut weh. Überall und unberechenbar kann Gewalt eskalieren - wo sie herkommt und was sie für die Gesellschaft bedeutet. In: Süddeutsche, 177, 2016, S. 2.
  22. Wie Eskalation. In: Süddeutsche Zeitungen, 9, 2016, S. 2.
  23. Rohe Bürgerlichkeit . Die Zeit, 39, 2011, p. 37.
  24. Der Phyrrhussieg von Köln: Die Verhinderung des „Anti-Islamisierungskongresses“ birgt Gefahren . Süddeutsche Zeitung, 246, 2008, p. 13.
  25. Ein Land, zwei Gesellschaften . Die Zeit, 50, 2008.
  26. Moralisch Abwärts im Aufschwung . Die Zeit, 51, 2007, p. 14.
  27. Wo sich Angst breitmacht . Die Zeit, 51, 2006, p. 21
  28. : Auf dem Weg in eine inhumane Gesellschaft . Süddeutsche Zeitung, October 21/22, 2006, p. 13.
  29. Juden, Muslime, Homosexuelle: Die Ablehnung wächst . Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, 10, 2005, p. 15.
  30. Die verstörte Gesellschaft . Die Zeit, 51, 2005, p. 24.
  31. Kontrollverluste: Zur Zukunft der Gewalt . Frankfurter Rundschau, 34, 2004, p. 9
  32. Feindselige Normalität . Die Zeit, December 11, 2003.
  33. Süchtig nach Anerkennung . Die Zeit, 19, 2002, p. 4.
  34. Gefährliche Selbsttäuschung: Rechts kommt nicht aus dem Nichts . Süddeutsche Zeitung, August 30, 2000.
  35. Kontrollverluste und Bedrohungsgefühle . Frankfurter Rundschau, two parts, May 6 and 8, 2000.
  36. Entwicklungen ernster nehmen . Tageszeitung, April 22, 1997, p. 10
  37. Die Hinwendung zu einer religiös begründeten Gesellschaft: Über islamistisch-fundamentalistische Orientierungen bei türkischen Jugendlichen in Deutschland . Frankfurter Rundschau, 56, 1997, p. 12

    Press interviews (selection)

  38. Was treibt den IS an, Kulturgüter zu vernichten? Ein Gespräch mit dem Konfliktforscher Wilhelm Heitmeyer In: Die Zeit, 36, 2015, p. 30
  39. Eliten sind Teil des Problems . Berliner Zeitung, 128, 2012, p. 8.
  40. Die Gesellschaft ist vergiftet . Der Spiegel, 50, 2011, pp. 71–72.
  41. Wutgetränkte Apathie . Der Spiegel, 14, 2010, pp. 70–71.
  42. Es fehlt die Anerkennung . Der Spiegel , pp. 180–82.
  43. Du Opfer! Sebastian B. und andere „Verlierer“: Ein Gespräch mit dem Soziologen über einen heiklen Begriff . Süddeutsche Zeitung, 269, 2006, p. 13.
  44. Religion ist die letzte Ressource . Tageszeitung, December 15, 2006, p. 3.
  45. „Er wollte endlich mal stark sein“ . Spiegel Online, May 1, 2002.
  46. Das ist halbierte Aufklärung . Tageszeitung, October 24, 2001.
  47. Der Staat will nichts wissen: Rechtsextremismus und das riskante Verhalten der Mitte . Die Zeit, August 24, 2000, pp. 6–7.
  48. Gewalt sucht sich Parolen . Stern, 24, 1993, pp. 29–31.
  49. Die Gesellschaft löst sich auf . Die Zeit, 43, 1992, p. 4.
  50. Tief in den Alltag eingesickert: Rechtsextremismus und Gewalt . Spiegel, 41, 1991, pp. 32–33.

    Media reports about Wilhelm Heitmeyer (selection)

  51. Der Kämpfer gegen die Menschenfeindlichkeit geht . WDR television, April 14, 2013
  52. Gewalten-Teilung: Unruhen, Rassismus, Hassgefühle: Professor Wilhelm Heitmeyer ist Deutschlands wohl bekanntester Konfliktforscher . Süddeutsche Zeitung, January 23 and 28, 2013, p. 13.
  53. Rette sich, wer kann: Zu Besuch beim Soziologen Wilhelm Heitmeyer . Tageszeitung, February 28, 2012.
  54. Das personifizierte Frühwarnsystem der Gesellschaft . Neue Westfälische, Marz 10/11, 2012, p. 4.
  55. Der Vater der Parallelgesellschaft . Tageszeitung, November 16, 2007, p. 13.
  56. Der die Gewalt erklärt: Ob Fundamentalismus oder Unterschicht – der Soziologe Wilhelm Heitmeyer erforscht die schwarzen Seiten der Moderne . Die Zeit, 45, November 2, 2006.
  57. Auf Forschungsreise tief im braunen Sumpf . Stuttgarter Zeitung, 248, 2000, p. 3.
  58. Ein Mann macht sich unbeliebt: Wilhelm Heitmeyer erforscht, was die Gesellschaft zusammenhält und wie Gewalt entsteht . Die Zeit, January 2, 1998, p. 3.