European societies have been significantly challenged recently by intensifying debates around migration and integration. In Germany, the controversy around refugees has put the question of how to negotiate cultural differences back on the agenda. This article argues that female refugee support work volunteers in Germany have developed a compelling approach to handling cultural diversity in emotional, social and cultural practices. Building on interviews with female volunteers, this article demonstrates that research subjects’ interaction with refugees is guided by an ‘ethics of care’. Care ethics is characterised by the recognition of interdependence and relationships, attention to the context and to the particular, blurring of the public and the private and orientation towards the needs of others. The research subjects show that care values, such as responsibility and attentiveness, can serve as an alternative framework to integration and to the negotiation of diversity in everyday encounters. Data from quantitative studies on refugee support work in Germany then reveals that female volunteers politicise their care work to respond to racism and right-wing xenophobia. Ultimately, a political ethics of care has the potential to structurally, politically and emotionally change established understandings of integration and the relations between host societies and immigrants.

This article explores the role of gender in volunteering with refugees in Germany and how female volunteers, who outnumber male volunteers considerably, understand their involvement differently from men. Drawing upon quantitative data from two studies with volunteers in refugee work in Germany from 2015 and 2016, I discuss the motivations of female volunteers to engage in refugee support work, the meaning they give to their experience of working with refugees and the values they wish to demonstrate through their voluntary work. The article centrally maintains that refugee support work can be classed as a form of care work and is informed by an ethics and values of care. However, other results unveil that women interpret their care work as an expression of their political attitudes, specifically about anti-racism and antiright-wing activism, as well, and thereby have recourse to a supposedly male political justification for engaging in volunteering. Thus, this article argues that these two forms of motivation for volunteering, care and politics, do not need to be mutually exclusive. Crucially, voluntary refugee support work represents a unique opportunity for women's political activism for anti-racism and cultural openness.

What are the strategies of political parties in multi-level government systems and how do voters respond to these strategies? At the national and state level, many researchers have worked with data from party manifestos, candidate lists, party press releases, parliamentary questions, and parliamentary speeches. At the local level, these standard components of the political science toolbox are not available to researchers in many countries—including Germany. The absence of these data means that politics at the local level remains chronically understudied. In this research note, we draw attention to the dearth of data when studying local politics and the questions that we cannot answer as a result. Specifically, we document our failed attempt to collect local party manifestos in smaller municipalities which would have been the basis for an analysis of political parties’ strategies in response to the lowering of voting ages in local elections in German states. We point to examples from other countries that show that it does not have to be this way.

No abstract

Das Ziel einer gesellschaftsrechtlichen Beteiligung ist neben strategischen Motiven i. d. R. die Erzielung einer angemessenen Rendite in Form von Gewinnausschüttungen und den Erhalt bzw. die Steigerung des Wertes der Beteiligung. Dass damit häufig auch erhebliche persönliche Haftungsgefahren für die Gesellschafter einhergehen, ist meist gar nicht bekannt. Welche Haftungsrisiken für GmbH-Gesellschafter bestehen und wie mit unternehmensorganisatorischen Maßnahmen Gefahrenlagen effektiv vorgebeugt werden kann, zeigt dieses Werk.