Die normativen Grundbegriffe der Alterssicherung in Deutschland : eine diskursanalytische Rekonstruktion der Reformdebatten 2001, 2004 und 2007

Abstract

During the first decade of this century, Germany saw a radical transformation of its old age security system. The coalition of social democrats and the green party transformed the traditional German pension system into a three-pillar-system and reduced the generosity of the pay-as-you-go-pillar. Subsequently, a Grand Coalition of social democrats and Christian democrats raised the retirement age to 67. This study examines the debates of this decade by using a discourse analytical approach in combination with the veto-term-approach. It reconstructs the public and political discourses of the reform laws of 2001, 2004, and 2007. Research interest of this study is if the normative concepts of the German old age security system have transformed in accordance with the institutional transformations. Did the popular terms of that time individual responsibility, sustainability and flexibility become part of the normative basic vocabulary or did the traditional value terms remain dominant? Outcome of the study is a reconstruction of the main political arguments of the transformation era and a dictionary of the main normative concepts of German old age security.