Veranstaltungsprogramm

The Covid-19 crisis initiated debates among sociologists concerning metatheoretical principles of sociology and how sociological analyses should be done in times of pandemic. We discuss the methodological basis of the explanatory sociology approach and demonstrate its relevance in times of pandemic. We start with the paradigm of realism and then proceed to the guiding principles of causality and methodological individualism. It is argued that this is the appropriate and reasonable epistemological basis for sociology and enables explanation of social phenomena as well as prediction of unintended consequences of social interventions associated with the Covid-19 crisis. We state that this sort of sociology now is disputed neither within the scientific community nor outside in the media and the general society, although this had been the case constantly before the pandemic.

In der Pandemie treten vielfache Kooperationsprobleme auf. Kooperatives Verhalten trägt zwar zum Kollektivgut der Verringerung von Infektionsgefahren bei, ist aber auf der anderen Seite mit mehr oder minder hohen Kosten verbunden. Beispiele sind das Tragen von Masken, um andere Personen vor Ansteckung zu schützen, das Aufschalten der Corona-Warn-App, um andere Personen über einen Risikokontakt zu informieren oder die Teilnahme an der Impfung. In dem Beitrag wird insbesondere die Rolle sozialer Normen und "weicher" Anreize zur Lösung von Kollektivgutproblemen thematisiert.

The health risk of the coronavirus pandemic is age-specific. The symptoms of a COVID-19 infection are usually mild in the healthy population below the age of 65; however, the measures laid down to prevent the spread of the virus apply typically to the whole population. Hence, those who have a low risk of severe symptoms face a social dilemma in cooperating and complying with the safety measures: Cooperating in preventing the spread of the disease is good for society but comes with individual costs. These costs provide an incentive not to cooperate with the safety measures. We surveyed a sample of young Swiss adults twice, right after the end of the first lockdown period (spring 2020), and right after the second lockdown (spring 2021). We investigate why and to what extent they cooperated in preventing the spread of COVID-19 by following the recommendation to reduce social contacts as much as possible. We hypothesize that those respondents who perceive themselves to be personally at risk, or who have relatives belonging to the risk group, complied more often with the safety measures as compared to those without severe risks. Cooperating should also be linked to individuals’ pro-social orientation. Furthermore, we hypothesize that those who believe that the virus is dangerous for society or who have a personal interest in protection show higher support for the general safety measures. Because of pandemic fatigue, we expect reduced compliance with the coronavirus social distancing measures in spring 2021 compared to the year before.

Our empirical results show that compliance with social distancing measures was generally very high during the first lockdown, but clearly dropped during the second lockdown. In addition, the acceptance of different safety measures declined over time. Although young adults perceived themselves to be at low personal risk, they still believed that the virus is dangerous for society. Those who had a personal interest in staying at home because they had relatives belonging to the risk group complied more often with the safety measures. Overall, the results suggest that the support of the preventive measures is the most important promoter of cooperation to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Angesichts der Verbreitung des neuartigen SARS-Cov2-Virus seit März 2020 und der weiterhin andauernden pandemischen Situation ist die gegenwärtige gesellschaftliche Situation nach wie vor von Maßnahmen zur Eindämmung der Pandemie geprägt. Ausgehend von dem allgemeinen Bezugsrahmen einer analytischen Soziologie und insbesondere von zweistufigen Modellen der Erklärung sozialen Handelns wie beispielsweise dem Modell der Frame-Selektion untersuchen wir anhand von Daten einer Bevölkerungsumfrage im großstädtischen Kontext (einfache Zufallsauswahl, Registerstichprobe, Brutto n=7.000) die Rekonstruktion sozialer Situationen in Nachbarschaften (Logik der Situation) und die Verknüpfung von Frames mit entsprechenden Skripten (Logik der Selektion). Unsere Analysen fokussieren insbesondere auf die Bedingungen, unter denen Bürger*innen zur Einhaltung von Maßnahmen zur Eindämmung der Pandemie bereit sind und denen sie Verstöße gegen diese Maßnahmen sanktionieren würden.

While pandemic containment measures benefit public health, they may jeopardize the social structure of society. We argue that lockdowns and prolonged social distancing measures hinder social support and invite norm violations, eroding social trust. We conducted a pre-registered pre-post study on a representative sample of the Dutch population (n = 2,377; participation rate = 88.8%), measuring social trust reported by the same individuals before and after the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results show that social trust in the Netherlands suddenly dropped from its historically stable level, reaching one of its lowest points on record. The decline was stronger among residents belonging to official high-risk categories, especially if they perceived themselves as likely to become infected. Individuals who more strongly agreed with self-isolation norms or did not perceive a widespread compliance or agreement with such norms also reported a greater loss of trust.

Most governments have imposed various non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) in response to the pandemic outbreak of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) since early 2020 in an unprecedented fashion. While NPIs aim at avoiding fatalities related to COVID-19, the previous literature on their efficacy has focused on infections and on data of the first half of 2020. However, the results of early NPI studies may be subject to underreporting and missing timeliness of reporting of cases. Furthermore, the identification of robust treatment effects of NPIs is difficult with first-wave data only, because of the low variation in treatment (timing) in early 2020. To circumvent problems of reporting and treatment variation, we analyse data on daily confirmed COVID-19-related deaths per capita from Our World in Data, and on 12 different NPIs from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker for 164 countries from 1st July 2020 to 30 April 2021. We control for weather conditions, and COVID-19 vaccinations. To identify the causal effects of introducing NPIs on COVID-19-related confirmed fatalities per capita we apply the generalized synthetic control (GSC) method. The results indicate that workplace closings, stay-at-home orders, and the closure of public transport each have had a substantial, consistent, and robust mitigating effect of around 140, 130, and 100 COVID-19-related deaths per 1 million capita in sum over 10 weeks of intervention observed. However, all other NPIs tested seem not consistently related to COVID-19 fatalities. The results may provide further guidance to judge the proportionality of NPIs based on empirical efficacy. However, the estimates might be subject to issues of data quality, population-wide compliance with NPIs, local context and moderated by the level of protection of critical health infrastructure.

Die Digitalisierung, zum Beispiel in Europa, ist eine beabsichtigte und unbeabsichtigte kollektive Folge individuellen Handelns in der Pandemie. Wo soziale Kontakte durch pandemiebedingte Einschränkungen real unterbunden werden, finden sie oftmals digital statt. Doch welche gesellschaftlichen Folgen lassen sich daraus ableiten? Pfadabhängigkeit, Folgeverhalten und dadurch exponentiell wachsende Probleme für demokratische Prozesse und für die Gesellschaft.

Direkte Effekte sind zum Beispiel, dass die einzelnen Individuen und Haushalte noch umfangreicher mit entsprechender Software und Hardware ausgestattet werden. Ebenso wie Firmen, Organisationen und Behörden umfangreich digital nachgerüstet haben und in den Medien zusätzliche "Nachholbedarfe" benannt wurden. Europa soll im internationalen Vergleich mit China und mit den USA mithalten können. Die Mensch-Smartphone-Symbiose wird durch immer mehr Apps, die den Alltag fast vollständig begleiten, untermalen und gestalten können noch verstärkt.

Außerdem werden mehr Daten digital "hinterlassen", d.h., soziale Netzwerke werden zunehmend digital abgebildet. Kommunikation findet online statt und nicht mehr nur per Kurznachricht, sondern oftmals live über Videodienste. Und auch für die interne Kommunikation werden vermehrt online Dienste verwendet statt Emails über einen Verteiler zu schicken oder sich real auf dem Weg zum Klassenzimmer oder zur Kaffeemaschine zu unterhalten.

Es lässt sich herleiten, dass die Digitalisierung ein pfadabhängiger Prozess ist, d.h., sich selbst-verstärkt mit der Tendenz zum Lock-in (Link 2021 forthcoming). Verwendet man das mathematisch-soziologisch bewiesene Theorem, dass ein pfadabhängiger Prozess ein Folgeverhalten induziert (Link 2018), so lässt sich folgern, dass die Digitalisierung ein Folgeverhalten induziert. Dieses Folgeverhalten kann an sich problematisch für die eigenständige Meinungsbildung sein, wie sie in der Regel für demokratische Prozesse Grundvoraussetzung ist. In Kombination mit den pandemiebedingt umfangreichen digital vorhandenen sozialen Daten und der Abhängigkeit der Individuen von digitalen Netzwerken und Informationen, kann die Möglichkeit zur zeitlich lokalen sozialen Berechenbarkeit und zur sozialen Manipulation entstehen. Dadurch können Probleme für die Demokratie oder auch für die Sicherheit der Gesellschaft entstehen.

The singular effect of a public shutdown – as a result of non-pharmaceutical official orders and arrangements in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic – on survey participation in a panel study carried out in German-speaking cantons of Switzerland is investigated. In this panel context, it is possible to analyse this impact on the response of juveniles born around 1997 by paradata on the timing of the participation in an online survey. Based on these longitudinal data collected in an event-oriented design, competing time-varying effects on survey participation and changes in the pandemic progress are controlled for, in addition to time-constant covariates such as panellists’ individual and social resources. By comparison with the previous panel wave, which took place in the same month two years ago, as well as by dynamic event history analysis within the current field period of the online survey, it becomes obvious that the public shutdown and its related consequences on panellists’ everyday life have improved the propensity of target persons for survey participation during the time interval of public shutdown. This is indeed the case in terms of the timing and the level of response.