Stiftungen gehören zu den vielschichtigsten sozialen Phänomenen der Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, doch mit Blick auf rund 5.000 Jahre Stiftungsgeschichte und allerjüngste Entwicklungen argumentieren wir, dass sich lediglich drei philanthropische Leitformen des Organisierens etabliert und überlagert haben: Die Stiftung als Institution, als formale Organisation und als agile Plattform. Diese Formen, so die Argumentation, stehen in Bezug zum Überschusssinn der Verbreitungsmedien Schrift, Buchdruck und vernetzter Computer, und bieten je eigene Möglichkeiten der Komplexitätsreduktion. Diese medien- und gesellschaftstheoretische Perspektivierung und Erklärung des philanthropischen Formenwandels stellt sich nicht gegen Erklärungen, die Stiftungswandel mit allgemeinen gesellschaftlichen Veränderungen verbinden, ihn als Effekt philanthropischen Optimierungswillen deuten oder als Wille zur Macht skeptisch betrachten. Vielmehr bietet sie die Chance, diese unterschiedlichen Erklärungsansätze sinnhaft aufeinander zu beziehen und zu integrieren.

Gemeinnützige Stiftungen operieren im 21. Jahrhundert gesellschaftsweit und begegnen ihren Umwelten mit sehr ambitionierten Wirkungsansprüchen. Auf den Wegen zu ihren Zielen sind sie an ihre Eigenschaften als Organisation gebunden und mit der Komplexität einer funktional differenzierten Weltgesellschaft konfrontiert. Zur wissenschaftlichen Analyse dieser Einrichtungen eignen sich daher besonders organisations- und gesellschaftstheoretische Ansätze. Die Autor*innen nehmen diesen doppelten Zugriff auf und leisten eine systematisch-soziologische Einordnung von Stiftungen und ihren Strukturen - Einsichten, die auch für Praktiker*innen aus dem Stiftungswesen höchst relevant sind.

Abstract. The long triumph of constructivism, particularly visible works such as Kuhn's writing on the structure of scientific revolutions, and many other scientific studies have made one thing clear: Reason alone does not decide on scientific topics, theories, and methods. Instead, very different factors, often considered illegitimate, help determine the course of science. These findings make scientific enlightenment gestures recurrently appear as sheer mockery, undermine the validity claims of scientific statements, open up possibilities for a strong politicisation of science and block any retrograde way out. Those who are nevertheless convinced of the importance of scientific autonomy, who defend a special validity of scientific knowledge and who accept the scientific duty of responsiveness, should acknowledge the decision-making challenges in science and, as the article recommends, engage in theory-theoretical dialogues.

Measured in terms of its dissemination and the resonances it generates, the term Anthropocene has had and continues to have an extraordinarily successful career. This career can be attributed neither to its factual accuracy alone nor to non-scientific criteria. Instead, the history of ideas provides the clues for understanding its terminological success and its evolution. More precisely, the term Anthropocene congenially bundled previously prominent ideas – namely environmental styles of thought, planetary perspectives, and transformation imperatives. As a consequence the term Anthropocene evolved from a mere observational category to an encompassing categorical formula for perceiving the world with yet unknown ontoepistemological effects for Geography as a discipline.

This paper examines and theorizes the organizational structures and effects of an ambitious urban volunteering program that has been developed by one of Germany’s wealthiest philanthropic foundations in order to support, enhance, and promote volunteering. As such, the program represents an epitome of a transformative philanthropy by which foundations hope to bring about lasting societal consequences on all spatial scales. However, by attempting to trigger effects outside its own boundaries, foundations are at risk of overstraining themselves. Based on formal documents, interviews, and participant observations, the paper illustrates and theorizes how the foundation combines rather traditional moral and formal rules of philanthropy and volunteering with ambitious and transformative goals. More precisely, the paper explores (i) how and why the foundation enacts itself and its environments, (ii) how and why it uses interactions to exploit the power of the gift, and (iii) how and why it tries to use a scientific evaluation to generate legitimacy. In contrast to comparable studies that infer from practice to (neoliberal) motives the paper takes the organizational constitution of foundations more seriously. Consequently, it invokes a cybernetic notion of control to understand the program’s multifarious relationships of power.

Bruno Latours » Reassembling the Social « erschließt sich über eine Unterscheidung, zwei Beweggründe, eine eindringliche Warnung und aufschlussreiche Aussagen zur Begriffsstrategie.

This paper proceeds from the observation that social theory has made tremendous progress in understanding markets but has not yet come up with a proposal regarding how to link the instructive albeit occasionally contradicting concepts found therein. By analysing the present concepts in terms of their merits, compatibilities, and contradictions, we attempt to link and integrate the various existing insights in order to understand modern markets and their high complexity and dynamics. Therefore, we argue that more attention needs to be devoted to the disorder (or noise) that is being introduced in modern markets. We define the specific form of disorder on which modern markets rely as a recursive set of mutual observations in the form of competition on both sides of the market. These observations result in the projection of an inescapable and indecipherable audience and become effective through the formation of prices – processes by which complexity in modern markets increases and decreases at the same time.

Voluntary work is society-wide encountered and generally desired. It takes place in the local vicinity, on a global level or in the worlds of the networked computer. A significant proportion of voluntary work occurs in the context of formal organizations. Yet despite these observations the extent of geographical studies about the different forms of voluntary work is limited. Furthermore the question what difference organizational structures make with regard to voluntary work has received little attention. The paper advocates a socio-geographical and organizational perspective on organizations of voluntary work. On the empirical basis of a program of voluntary work it will be claimed, that organizational structures which might be labelled as control projects are new and notable.