Opinion Polls and the Dynamics of the Public Sphere: The Catholic Church in the Federal Republic after 1968

In the aftermath of the Katholikentag in Essen in September1968, conflicts about various issues of religious practice andchurch activities became visible in the Catholic Church in theFederal Republic. These conflicts, and the growing demand forparticipation in the preparation of the Würzburg synodof the West German dioceses (1971-1975), provided the contextfor the first large-scale application of opinion polling inthe Catholic Church. In the spring of 1970, twenty-one millionquestionnaires were distributed to all German Catholics, accompaniedby a survey based on a quota sample of interviewees. The discourseabout the implementation of polling techniques in the churchwas structured along the lines of binary dichotomies. Whereassome theologians and grass-roots activists demanded the inclusionof taboo topics such as the abolition of celibacy, many bishopsand a conservative current feared that the questionnaire wouldallow for new vistas and hence deliberately liberalize and diluteessential elements of Catholic doctrine. Another controversialtopic was the possibility of responsiveness, that is the extentto which decisions of church bodies should react to public opinionas it was reflected in the polls. Not only grass-roots activists,but also the renowned theologian Karl Lehmann were scepticalthat the poll could be used to manipulate public opinion aboutpastoral issues and to gloss over substantial problems. Butthere was also substantial concern about the possible use ofthe polls in a plebiscitarian manner, which would charge factsabout the state of public opinion with normative power. In thecontext of the preparations of the Würzburg Synod, thepolls worked as a technology of the public sphere. In the aftermathof Essen 1968, the politicization of conflicts brought the questionof responsiveness to the forefront. It would be misleading,however, as this example makes clear, to equate the reflectionof public opinion in the polls with a ‘critical’public capable of exercising democratic oversight.     

Deconstructing the Financialization of Healthcare

Financialization is promoted by alliances of multilateral ‘development’ organizations, national governments and owners and institutions of private capital. In the healthcare sector, the leveraging of private sources of finance is widely argued as necessary to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal 3 target of universal health coverage. Employing social science perspectives on financialization, the authors of this article contend that this is a new phase of capital formation. The article traces the antecedents, institutions, instruments and ideas that facilitated the penetration of private capital in this sector, and the emergence of new asset classes that distinguish it. The authors argue that this deepening of financialization represents a fundamental shift in the organizing principles for healthcare systems, with negative implications for health and equality.     

‘The Claims of Asia and the Far East’: India and the FAO in the Age of Ambivalent Internationalism

If any nation were poised to actualize the developmental promises that the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) extended to the international community, it was India. India's independence came in the wake of devastating famine in Bengal and the fears of its recurrence, and the nationalists who had midwifed India's freedom staked their legitimacy to the promise of food for all. Yet from independence, the FAO played only a marginal role in India's agricultural development, its projects reflecting a winnowing scale of ambition. From early investigations into the improved cultivation of basic food grains, the FAO's projects grew increasingly modest by the time of the Green Revolution, revolving around modest improvements to capitalist agriculture, from wool shearing to timber and fishery development. Instead, India drew more substantively upon resources made available by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, the United States Technical Cooperation Mission and occasional Soviet largesse. Meanwhile, the Indian most associated with the FAO, B.R. Sen (Director-General, 1956–1967), struggled to align the Organization's capacities with India's scarcity crises, even as his own understanding of famine drew upon his experience as India's Director of Food during the Bengal Famine.