Hans-Jörg Trenz
Biographic Data
| ID | 265286 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Hans-Jörg Trenz |
| GIVEN NAMES | Hans-Jörg |
| FAMILY NAME | Trenz |
| SIGNATURE | TRENZ H |
| AFFILIATIONS | Scuola Normale Superiore |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 36 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 228 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 31 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 5 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
The contestation of state authority
During the Covid-19 pandemic, governments adopted emergency measures to protect public health, intensifying communication efforts and centralising decision-making authority. In Greece, this involved a close alliance between the government and the scientific community, presented as an evidence-based response to an unprecedented crisis. This article examines how pandemic management was contested in Greek online and social media, and how authorities…
Monitoring the consensus or driving polarization? Comparing journalistic coverage of anti-Green pass and anti-war protests in France and Italy (2021–2024)
This study analyzes how the Italian and French press covered dissenting voices and protest against Covid-19 restrictions in 2021–2022 and protests against military support for Ukraine in 2022–2024. Both Covid-19 emergency measures and military support of Ukraine were backed by broad coalitions comprising government and opposition parties in Western democracies. In both cases, dissenting voices were marginalized. Such a broad political and societa…
The Conditionality of Trusting Caseworkers in the Social Services Sector – Insights from Germany and Denmark
Citizen trust is a prerequisite for the success of service provision. However, working relations are typically shaped by power asymmetries and one-sided dependencies, contributing to cautiousness towards or distrust of caseworkers (Dumbrill, 2006; de Boer and Coady, 2007). This article sheds light on the conditions and mechanisms that lead (some) citizens nevertheless to trust their caseworker. Based on thematic coding of semi-structured intervie…
Democracy and the Public Sphere
Exploring the creative and destructive ways individuals and groups make use of new digital and social media in democratic societies across the world, this book presents a much-needed critical theory of the public sphere as we enter the new digital age.
Democracy and the Public Sphere
Democracy and the Public Sphere
Democracy and the Public Sphere
Democracy and the Public Sphere
The malfunctions of the contemporary media and the public sphere and its disruptive effects on democracy, social order and individual well-being are among the most popular and controversial topics in political communication research. How imminent is the threat of the end of democracy, what empirical evidence can be found to support the claim that democracy is under threat, and how can democracy be restored? Discussing these topics in the transfor…
Democracy and the Public Sphere
Brexit as ‘politics of division
The UK’s referendum on EU membership that resulted in a narrow minority in favour of leave was followed by a leadership vacuum and intense debate about the implementation of the result. The politicization over Brexit resulted in the development of ‘Brexit identities’ of Remainers and Leavers that superseded party identities. We argue that in order to understand how this politicization took place despite a leadership vacuum we firstly need to look…
Öffentlichkeitstheorie als Erkenntnistheorie moderner Gesellschaft
Rethinking journalism standards in the era of post-truth politics
In this article, we argue for a pragmatic understanding of the role of news media and journalism not as truth keepers but as truth mediators in the public sphere. In the current debate on ‘post-truth politics’ the emphasis is often put on the formulation of ethical guidelines and legal solutions to regain control over ‘unbound journalism’ or to re-establish truth in the news media. Instead of holding journalists individually accountable for the s…
Transnational Solidarity, Migration, and the Refugee Crisis
Over the last decade, the unprecedented influx of refugees and migrants into the European Union has posed a significant challenge to Europe, with solidarity being contested at two fronts: first, the question of solidarity with refugees in terms of meeting adequate measures of protection and satisfying their elementary needs; and second, the question of solidarity within the European Union in terms of sharing the costs and burden of hosting these …
Ties of Solidarity and the Political Spectrum
The strength of solidarity ties among individuals is often discussed in relation to membership within a community of equals. This assumes strong links between reported solidarity actions, political attitudes, and national identity. We ask, first, whether differences in solidarity engagement can be explained by party affiliation: Do adherents of political parties driven by right-identitarian politics and adherents of parties driven by left-redistr…
Toward a New Conditionality of Welfare? Reconsidering Solidarity in the Danish Welfare State
The traditional inclusive welfare regime in Denmark has over the last decade undergone important, and often unnoticed, changes. In the new millennium, welfare services have, in general, become more conditional and distinctions between various layers of need have been introduced. The inclusiveness of welfare state services has also been questioned with regard to the Europe of free movements, where the same rights apply indiscriminately to all EU c…
Converging towards Euroscepticism? Negativity in news coverage during the 2014 European Parliament elections in Germany and the UK
In the run up to the 2014 European Parliament elections, the new Spitzenkandidaten process and European-wide party campaigns were considered a mechanism to create a more engaged European public. However, right-wing Eurosceptic party groupings gained a significant minority of the seats in the 2014 EP elections. We place this in the context of media and public sphere dynamics of politicised EP elections that have given selective salience to Eurosce…
Marching for Europe? Enacting European citizenship as justice during Brexit
This article examines pro-European mobilisation in the United Kingdom following the European Union (EU) referendum. It develops a framework that combines Isin’s ‘acts of citizenship’ with Nancy Fraser’s three dimensions of justice – redistribution, recognition and representation – to examine the way in which Brexit has served as a mobilisation trigger for claims about European citizenship. Drawing on data from a survey of participants of an anti-…
Political participation on Facebook during Brexit
This study investigates, over an 18-month period surrounding the 2016 Brexit referendum, the commenting activity of nearly 2 million Facebook users engaging with political news from British media or with the posts of referendum campaigns. We ask whether citizens’ engagement with political news on Facebook motivates their participation with political campaign posts, and we examine whether users commenting on campaign pages trend towards ideologica…
Complex and dynamic integration processes in Europe
Published online: 10 Nov 2016
From diversity to conviviality
This article explores differences among EU and non-EU migrants in accommodating to the Danish flexicurity labour and welfare regime during times of economic crisis. We build our findings on a quantitative survey followed by semi-structured qualitative interviews conducted with EU and non-EU migrants who moved to Denmark during the recession period (2008–2013). We argue that the lack of multicultural policies triggers individualised strategies of …
Europe’s Prolonged Crisis
This collection presents a political sociology of crisis in Europe. Focusing on state and society transformations in the context of the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath in Europe, it observes a
From Citizens' Deliberation to Popular will Formation? Generating Democratic Legitimacy in Transnational Deliberative Polling
In this article, we critically discuss the democratic legitimacy of deliberative experiments taking place in a transnational setting. We argue that while deliberative polls through scientific design may enhance equal participation and informed opinion making of selected citizens, their representative status as part of a broader constituency and as a generator of democratic legitimacy is less clear-cut. To illustrate our argument, we analyse the r…
Civic engagement through mainstream online newspapers
Based on a pilot study of online news making and commenting in Denmark, the article discusses the relationship between online political news making and democracy. Empirical insights on the dynamics of user engagement and debates on mainstream Danish online news platforms are used to delineate the contours of the online public sphere. It is argued that the new digital media should be discussed not only as a new forum for political participation bu…
Rethinking the Public Sphere Through Transnationalizing Processes
This book discusses the extent to which the theoretical relevance and analytical rigor of the concept of the public sphere is affected by current processes of transnationalization. The contributions a
Bürgerschaft, Öffentlichkeit und Demokratie in Europa
Media Coverage on European Governance
The conditions for the emergence of a European mediated public sphere are tested in this article by analysing news coverage of European governance and policy-making during the year 2000. The sample includes 11 daily newspapers from six EU member states. On the basis of a systematic content analysis, three types of news can be distinguished: first, European news characterized by the shared meaning of European events and issues; second, Europeanize…
The Democratizing Dynamics of a European Public Sphere
The riddle of how to democratize the multi-level polity of the EU is answered by pointing to the empirical impact of an unfolding European public sphere. It is argued that there is a self-constituting dynamic of a European public sphere which abets the coupling of transnational spaces of communication with the institutional integration of the EU. From this perspective, democracy is not external to the EU, it is already part of the logic of Europe…
Political participation on Facebook during Brexit
This study investigates, over an 18-month period surrounding the 2016 Brexit referendum, the commenting activity of nearly 2 million Facebook users engaging with political news from British media or with the posts of referendum campaigns. We ask whether citizens’ engagement with political news on Facebook motivates their participation with political campaign posts, and we examine whether users commenting on campaign pages trend towards ideologica…
Mediatized representative politics in the European Union
Unlike the institutional and constitutional set-up of the compound system of EU political representation, the politicized and mass-mediated aspects of EU representative politics have only recently started to receive scholarly attention. In this contribution, we argue for a reconceptualization of EU political representation as a triadic and mediatized communicative act between political agents, constituents and the audience. We then apply the noti…
Denouncing European integration
The spreading phenomenon of Euroscepticism is manifested in critical practices in discourse that oppose European integration. This paper explores Euroscepticism as an element of discourse, which cannot only be measured as party positions or individual attitudes. Based on this understanding, our argument is twofold. Firstly, Euroscepticism relates to the unsettled and principally contested character of the European Union (EU) as a political entity…
Complex and dynamic integration processes in Europe
Published online: 10 Nov 2016
From Citizens' Deliberation to Popular will Formation? Generating Democratic Legitimacy in Transnational Deliberative Polling
In this article, we critically discuss the democratic legitimacy of deliberative experiments taking place in a transnational setting. We argue that while deliberative polls through scientific design may enhance equal participation and informed opinion making of selected citizens, their representative status as part of a broader constituency and as a generator of democratic legitimacy is less clear-cut. To illustrate our argument, we analyse the r…
Reconciling diversity and unity
Language minorities can be found as evidence of unfinished nation building in relatively closed territorial settlements all over contemporary Europe. From a comparative perspective, different paths of accommodating linguistic diversity can be followed, resulting in very dissimilar regimes of legal, political and cultural recognition. In recent years, standardization of minority protection has taken place, with a new emphasis on the values of ling…
Whose project is it? Media debates on the ratification of the EU Constitutional Treaty
This article explores the contentiousness of European integration in the process of constitution-making. A public sphere perspective is introduced which relates the legitimacy of the emerging EU polity to the constraining and/or enabling context of mass media communication. Starting from an outline of constitutional claims-making in quality newspapers in France and Germany between 2001 and 2005, the article focuses on ratification as a period of …
Converging towards Euroscepticism? Negativity in news coverage during the 2014 European Parliament elections in Germany and the UK
In the run up to the 2014 European Parliament elections, the new Spitzenkandidaten process and European-wide party campaigns were considered a mechanism to create a more engaged European public. However, right-wing Eurosceptic party groupings gained a significant minority of the seats in the 2014 EP elections. We place this in the context of media and public sphere dynamics of politicised EP elections that have given selective salience to Eurosce…
Marching for Europe? Enacting European citizenship as justice during Brexit
This article examines pro-European mobilisation in the United Kingdom following the European Union (EU) referendum. It develops a framework that combines Isin’s ‘acts of citizenship’ with Nancy Fraser’s three dimensions of justice – redistribution, recognition and representation – to examine the way in which Brexit has served as a mobilisation trigger for claims about European citizenship. Drawing on data from a survey of participants of an anti-…
Rethinking journalism standards in the era of post-truth politics
In this article, we argue for a pragmatic understanding of the role of news media and journalism not as truth keepers but as truth mediators in the public sphere. In the current debate on ‘post-truth politics’ the emphasis is often put on the formulation of ethical guidelines and legal solutions to regain control over ‘unbound journalism’ or to re-establish truth in the news media. Instead of holding journalists individually accountable for the s…
Civil society and the reconstitution of democracy in Europe
The article maps new developments in the interdisciplinary research field of European civil society. From the angle of the reconstitution of democracy in the EU, it reviews recent contributions from political science, sociology and law. All share the concern with the pervading empowerment of the institutions of European multi-level governance. But each approaches the question of the democratizing and legitimizing potential of civil society beyond…
Brexit as ‘politics of division
The UK’s referendum on EU membership that resulted in a narrow minority in favour of leave was followed by a leadership vacuum and intense debate about the implementation of the result. The politicization over Brexit resulted in the development of ‘Brexit identities’ of Remainers and Leavers that superseded party identities. We argue that in order to understand how this politicization took place despite a leadership vacuum we firstly need to look…
From diversity to conviviality
This article explores differences among EU and non-EU migrants in accommodating to the Danish flexicurity labour and welfare regime during times of economic crisis. We build our findings on a quantitative survey followed by semi-structured qualitative interviews conducted with EU and non-EU migrants who moved to Denmark during the recession period (2008–2013). We argue that the lack of multicultural policies triggers individualised strategies of …
Transnational Solidarity, Migration, and the Refugee Crisis
Over the last decade, the unprecedented influx of refugees and migrants into the European Union has posed a significant challenge to Europe, with solidarity being contested at two fronts: first, the question of solidarity with refugees in terms of meeting adequate measures of protection and satisfying their elementary needs; and second, the question of solidarity within the European Union in terms of sharing the costs and burden of hosting these …
Ties of Solidarity and the Political Spectrum
The strength of solidarity ties among individuals is often discussed in relation to membership within a community of equals. This assumes strong links between reported solidarity actions, political attitudes, and national identity. We ask, first, whether differences in solidarity engagement can be explained by party affiliation: Do adherents of political parties driven by right-identitarian politics and adherents of parties driven by left-redistr…
Civic engagement through mainstream online newspapers
Based on a pilot study of online news making and commenting in Denmark, the article discusses the relationship between online political news making and democracy. Empirical insights on the dynamics of user engagement and debates on mainstream Danish online news platforms are used to delineate the contours of the online public sphere. It is argued that the new digital media should be discussed not only as a new forum for political participation bu…
The Conditionality of Trusting Caseworkers in the Social Services Sector – Insights from Germany and Denmark
Citizen trust is a prerequisite for the success of service provision. However, working relations are typically shaped by power asymmetries and one-sided dependencies, contributing to cautiousness towards or distrust of caseworkers (Dumbrill, 2006; de Boer and Coady, 2007). This article sheds light on the conditions and mechanisms that lead (some) citizens nevertheless to trust their caseworker. Based on thematic coding of semi-structured intervie…
Horst Pöttker, unter Mitwirkung von Volker Uphoff (Hg.)
Alfons Bora
Bürgerschaft, Öffentlichkeit und Demokratie in Europa
Media Coverage on European Governance
The conditions for the emergence of a European mediated public sphere are tested in this article by analysing news coverage of European governance and policy-making during the year 2000. The sample includes 11 daily newspapers from six EU member states. On the basis of a systematic content analysis, three types of news can be distinguished: first, European news characterized by the shared meaning of European events and issues; second, Europeanize…
The Democratizing Dynamics of a European Public Sphere
The riddle of how to democratize the multi-level polity of the EU is answered by pointing to the empirical impact of an unfolding European public sphere. It is argued that there is a self-constituting dynamic of a European public sphere which abets the coupling of transnational spaces of communication with the institutional integration of the EU. From this perspective, democracy is not external to the EU, it is already part of the logic of Europe…
Reconciling diversity and unity
Language minorities can be found as evidence of unfinished nation building in relatively closed territorial settlements all over contemporary Europe. From a comparative perspective, different paths of accommodating linguistic diversity can be followed, resulting in very dissimilar regimes of legal, political and cultural recognition. In recent years, standardization of minority protection has taken place, with a new emphasis on the values of ling…
Civil society and the reconstitution of democracy in Europe
The article maps new developments in the interdisciplinary research field of European civil society. From the angle of the reconstitution of democracy in the EU, it reviews recent contributions from political science, sociology and law. All share the concern with the pervading empowerment of the institutions of European multi-level governance. But each approaches the question of the democratizing and legitimizing potential of civil society beyond…
Whose project is it? Media debates on the ratification of the EU Constitutional Treaty
This article explores the contentiousness of European integration in the process of constitution-making. A public sphere perspective is introduced which relates the legitimacy of the emerging EU polity to the constraining and/or enabling context of mass media communication. Starting from an outline of constitutional claims-making in quality newspapers in France and Germany between 2001 and 2005, the article focuses on ratification as a period of …
Denouncing European integration
The spreading phenomenon of Euroscepticism is manifested in critical practices in discourse that oppose European integration. This paper explores Euroscepticism as an element of discourse, which cannot only be measured as party positions or individual attitudes. Based on this understanding, our argument is twofold. Firstly, Euroscepticism relates to the unsettled and principally contested character of the European Union (EU) as a political entity…
Rethinking the Public Sphere Through Transnationalizing Processes
This book discusses the extent to which the theoretical relevance and analytical rigor of the concept of the public sphere is affected by current processes of transnationalization. The contributions a
Bürgerschaft, Öffentlichkeit und Demokratie in Europa
Rethinking the Public Sphere Through Transnationalizing Processes
Mediatized representative politics in the European Union
Unlike the institutional and constitutional set-up of the compound system of EU political representation, the politicized and mass-mediated aspects of EU representative politics have only recently started to receive scholarly attention. In this contribution, we argue for a reconceptualization of EU political representation as a triadic and mediatized communicative act between political agents, constituents and the audience. We then apply the noti…
From Citizens' Deliberation to Popular will Formation? Generating Democratic Legitimacy in Transnational Deliberative Polling
In this article, we critically discuss the democratic legitimacy of deliberative experiments taking place in a transnational setting. We argue that while deliberative polls through scientific design may enhance equal participation and informed opinion making of selected citizens, their representative status as part of a broader constituency and as a generator of democratic legitimacy is less clear-cut. To illustrate our argument, we analyse the r…
Civic engagement through mainstream online newspapers
Based on a pilot study of online news making and commenting in Denmark, the article discusses the relationship between online political news making and democracy. Empirical insights on the dynamics of user engagement and debates on mainstream Danish online news platforms are used to delineate the contours of the online public sphere. It is argued that the new digital media should be discussed not only as a new forum for political participation bu…
Europe’s Prolonged Crisis
This collection presents a political sociology of crisis in Europe. Focusing on state and society transformations in the context of the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath in Europe, it observes a
Complex and dynamic integration processes in Europe
Published online: 10 Nov 2016
From diversity to conviviality
This article explores differences among EU and non-EU migrants in accommodating to the Danish flexicurity labour and welfare regime during times of economic crisis. We build our findings on a quantitative survey followed by semi-structured qualitative interviews conducted with EU and non-EU migrants who moved to Denmark during the recession period (2008–2013). We argue that the lack of multicultural policies triggers individualised strategies of …
Toward a New Conditionality of Welfare? Reconsidering Solidarity in the Danish Welfare State
The traditional inclusive welfare regime in Denmark has over the last decade undergone important, and often unnoticed, changes. In the new millennium, welfare services have, in general, become more conditional and distinctions between various layers of need have been introduced. The inclusiveness of welfare state services has also been questioned with regard to the Europe of free movements, where the same rights apply indiscriminately to all EU c…
Converging towards Euroscepticism? Negativity in news coverage during the 2014 European Parliament elections in Germany and the UK
In the run up to the 2014 European Parliament elections, the new Spitzenkandidaten process and European-wide party campaigns were considered a mechanism to create a more engaged European public. However, right-wing Eurosceptic party groupings gained a significant minority of the seats in the 2014 EP elections. We place this in the context of media and public sphere dynamics of politicised EP elections that have given selective salience to Eurosce…
Marching for Europe? Enacting European citizenship as justice during Brexit
This article examines pro-European mobilisation in the United Kingdom following the European Union (EU) referendum. It develops a framework that combines Isin’s ‘acts of citizenship’ with Nancy Fraser’s three dimensions of justice – redistribution, recognition and representation – to examine the way in which Brexit has served as a mobilisation trigger for claims about European citizenship. Drawing on data from a survey of participants of an anti-…
Political participation on Facebook during Brexit
This study investigates, over an 18-month period surrounding the 2016 Brexit referendum, the commenting activity of nearly 2 million Facebook users engaging with political news from British media or with the posts of referendum campaigns. We ask whether citizens’ engagement with political news on Facebook motivates their participation with political campaign posts, and we examine whether users commenting on campaign pages trend towards ideologica…
Ties of Solidarity and the Political Spectrum
The strength of solidarity ties among individuals is often discussed in relation to membership within a community of equals. This assumes strong links between reported solidarity actions, political attitudes, and national identity. We ask, first, whether differences in solidarity engagement can be explained by party affiliation: Do adherents of political parties driven by right-identitarian politics and adherents of parties driven by left-redistr…
Öffentlichkeitstheorie als Erkenntnistheorie moderner Gesellschaft
Rethinking journalism standards in the era of post-truth politics
In this article, we argue for a pragmatic understanding of the role of news media and journalism not as truth keepers but as truth mediators in the public sphere. In the current debate on ‘post-truth politics’ the emphasis is often put on the formulation of ethical guidelines and legal solutions to regain control over ‘unbound journalism’ or to re-establish truth in the news media. Instead of holding journalists individually accountable for the s…
Political science (32 works) · Politics (27 works) · Law (26 works) · Sociology (21 works) · Political economy (15 works) · Democracy (13 works) · Economics (13 works) · Public sphere (13 works) · Law (12 works) · European union (11 works)