Dr. Peter Herrmann is a sociologist of German origin, who has worked in Ireland since 1995. He currently holds the position of senior research fellow in the Department of Applied Social Studies at University College Cork and director of the independent research institute, European Social, Organisational and Science Consultancy. He is as well cand. Associate Professor (Dosentti) for Social Policy, in particular Welfare Systems, Social Economy and Social Quality, University Kuopio, Finland.
Herrmann studied sociology, political science and economics. He achieved the Diploma in sociology in 1981 at the University in Bielefeld and in 1992 his doctoral degree (dr. phil.) from the University of Bremen. Beginning to work at the Institute for Local Social Policy in close cooperation with Rudolph Bauer and Juergen Blandow, he analysed the work of Non-Governmental Organisations in the field of welfare policies. The focus of his work shifted towards researching the meaning of the process of European integration for national social policy and the Third Sector.
Publications
Dr. Herrmann published various articles and books (nearly 40 written and edited books), peer-reviewed and not and in different languages on a wide array of questions. Many of these publications are listed in the catalogue of the Library of Congress. Many of them being concerned with questions of European Integration and especially social services of general interest, he is well recognised by many high-ranking politicians within the European Institutions. Furthermore, with his contributions on methodological questions (most recent an groundbreaking work on Social Professional Activities and the State) he contributed on a global level to debates going beyond traditional social policy research.
Affiliations
Amongst others, Dr. Peter Herrmann is affiliated to the Max-Planck Institute for Foreign and International Social Law, Munich; The European Foundation on Social Quality, Amsterdam; the Asian Foundation on Social Quality, (currently establishing office in Bangkok); the Social Policy Research Institute at the National Taiwan.
Research Work
With his thesis on “Society and Organisation. Sociological Theory of Organisations”, published under the title “The Organisation. An analysis of the Modern Society” (Die Organisation. Eine Analyse der modernen Gesellschaft); Rheinfelden/Berlin: Schäuble, 1994) he continued to work in the field which had been the focus of his studies, namely organisational sociology. In his work he closely integrated the topics social policy, civil society, theory of modernisation and general philosophy. Methodologically his thinking was and is especially influenced by historical and dialectical materialism, systems-theory and theory of civilisation.
Against this background he undertook several studies especially on European Integration. Although the focus of his work is the role of social/welfare organisations within this process, he worked as well on various other fields. Worth mentioning is his investigation of social services of general interest, an area in which he cooperated closely with the Institute for Social Work and Social Education. Monitoring Unit of the Observatory for the Development of Social Services in Europe, Frankfurt, namely Mathias Maucher. During his work in the Social Platform of Social NGOs http://www.socialplatform.org and the European Social Action Network he was getting increasingly sceptical about the subtle mechanisms of the EU-integration and debated the claimed democratisation via so-called governance.
Especially the close cooperation with the European Foundation on Social Quality http://www.socialquality.org and in particular Laurent van der Maesen fostered the search for an alternative. He worked closely on researching a sustainable approach that is based not in political voluntarism but on a thorough investigation of the welfare politics and polities.
Research stays in, amongst others, Austria, France, Germany, Hungary (where he stayed at ELTE-University), Sweden and Taiwan (on invitation of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Studies) helped him in further developing critical distance. Despite the above, three most influential cooperative links are the following:
In several publication projects he worked together with Arno Tausch, Austrian political scientist and one of the founders of quantitative world system system and development research in Europe. This brought him nearer to world systems analysis. With Tausch’s influential work and in cooperation with him, Herrmann took up earlier work in political economy.
Close contact to the French economist Paul Boccara allowed him to further integrate his research by investigating the importance of the general role of the state. This cooperation contributed not least in Herrmann’s increasing orientation towards the French regulationist school.
Since its foundation, Herrmann is as well working in the network ‘Social Uncertainty, Precarity, Inequality’ (in close cooperation with the Free University of Berlin, Germany and Istituto di Studi Politici Economici e Sociali, Italy. In this context he is linking both, the orientation on Social Quality, the development of a world-system perspective and the regulationist perspective.
From the work in Taipei a close development is emerging with the Social Policy Centre of which he is academic adviser. From here he develops further a debate on social quality oriented policies in the Asian-Pacific region, currently working on a major publication on the methodology of comparative welfare-systems analysis. This work will allow as well to further strengthening the social quality approach by including a perspective grounded in world systems theory. Further, he is correspondent to the Max-Planck-Institute for Foreign and International Social Law, Munich where he frequently stayed as well for research work and developed a close relationship to its founding director and former president of the Max-Planck-Society.
The different approaches and focal points of work are not least based on a sound comparative perspective of especially European social policy systems – a recent publication is a testimony in as much as it poses fundamental questions to reductionist institutionalist views on ‘welfare regimes’. The approach applied is concerned with the elaboration of fundamental questions of the philosophy of social policy approaches. Currently Herrmann works on the development of a methodological framework for social policy analysis in a global perspective. In this context he is involved in setting up a MA in Global Social Policy Link Campus University of Malta in Rome.
The variety of engagements, truly linking various approaches of social science, allows Herrmannn as well to develop innovative approaches. In this context his various publication offers are an asset to the department not least as he creates a climate that encourages as well members of the Department to join in international debates and publish their work (amongst others, Herrmann is editor of two book series and member of the editorial board of relevant journals).
Peter, Congratulations on your blog. I hope it will be a “school” (in the Athenian tradition) where scholars will gather and wise words will be written.
Dr. Peter Herrmann is a sociologist of German origin, who has worked in Ireland since 1995. He currently holds the position of senior research fellow in the Department of Applied Social Studies at University College Cork and director of the independent research institute, European Social, Organisational and Science Consultancy. He is as well cand. Associate Professor (Dosentti) for Social Policy, in particular Welfare Systems, Social Economy and Social Quality, University Kuopio, Finland.
Herrmann studied sociology, political science and economics. He achieved the Diploma in sociology in 1981 at the University in Bielefeld and in 1992 his doctoral degree (dr. phil.) from the University of Bremen. Beginning to work at the Institute for Local Social Policy in close cooperation with Rudolph Bauer and Juergen Blandow, he analysed the work of Non-Governmental Organisations in the field of welfare policies. The focus of his work shifted towards researching the meaning of the process of European integration for national social policy and the Third Sector.
Publications
Dr. Herrmann published various articles and books (nearly 40 written and edited books), peer-reviewed and not and in different languages on a wide array of questions. Many of these publications are listed in the catalogue of the Library of Congress. Many of them being concerned with questions of European Integration and especially social services of general interest, he is well recognised by many high-ranking politicians within the European Institutions. Furthermore, with his contributions on methodological questions (most recent an groundbreaking work on Social Professional Activities and the State) he contributed on a global level to debates going beyond traditional social policy research.
Affiliations
Amongst others, Dr. Peter Herrmann is affiliated to the Max-Planck Institute for Foreign and International Social Law, Munich; The European Foundation on Social Quality, Amsterdam; the Asian Foundation on Social Quality, (currently establishing office in Bangkok); the Social Policy Research Institute at the National Taiwan.
Research Work
With his thesis on “Society and Organisation. Sociological Theory of Organisations”, published under the title “The Organisation. An analysis of the Modern Society” (Die Organisation. Eine Analyse der modernen Gesellschaft); Rheinfelden/Berlin: Schäuble, 1994) he continued to work in the field which had been the focus of his studies, namely organisational sociology. In his work he closely integrated the topics social policy, civil society, theory of modernisation and general philosophy. Methodologically his thinking was and is especially influenced by historical and dialectical materialism, systems-theory and theory of civilisation.
Against this background he undertook several studies especially on European Integration. Although the focus of his work is the role of social/welfare organisations within this process, he worked as well on various other fields. Worth mentioning is his investigation of social services of general interest, an area in which he cooperated closely with the Institute for Social Work and Social Education. Monitoring Unit of the Observatory for the Development of Social Services in Europe, Frankfurt, namely Mathias Maucher. During his work in the Social Platform of Social NGOs http://www.socialplatform.org and the European Social Action Network he was getting increasingly sceptical about the subtle mechanisms of the EU-integration and debated the claimed democratisation via so-called governance.
Especially the close cooperation with the European Foundation on Social Quality http://www.socialquality.org and in particular Laurent van der Maesen fostered the search for an alternative. He worked closely on researching a sustainable approach that is based not in political voluntarism but on a thorough investigation of the welfare politics and polities.
Research stays in, amongst others, Austria, France, Germany, Hungary (where he stayed at ELTE-University), Sweden and Taiwan (on invitation of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Studies) helped him in further developing critical distance. Despite the above, three most influential cooperative links are the following:
In several publication projects he worked together with Arno Tausch, Austrian political scientist and one of the founders of quantitative world system system and development research in Europe. This brought him nearer to world systems analysis. With Tausch’s influential work and in cooperation with him, Herrmann took up earlier work in political economy.
Close contact to the French economist Paul Boccara allowed him to further integrate his research by investigating the importance of the general role of the state. This cooperation contributed not least in Herrmann’s increasing orientation towards the French regulationist school.
Since its foundation, Herrmann is as well working in the network ‘Social Uncertainty, Precarity, Inequality’ (in close cooperation with the Free University of Berlin, Germany and Istituto di Studi Politici Economici e Sociali, Italy. In this context he is linking both, the orientation on Social Quality, the development of a world-system perspective and the regulationist perspective.
From the work in Taipei a close development is emerging with the Social Policy Centre of which he is academic adviser. From here he develops further a debate on social quality oriented policies in the Asian-Pacific region, currently working on a major publication on the methodology of comparative welfare-systems analysis. This work will allow as well to further strengthening the social quality approach by including a perspective grounded in world systems theory. Further, he is correspondent to the Max-Planck-Institute for Foreign and International Social Law, Munich where he frequently stayed as well for research work and developed a close relationship to its founding director and former president of the Max-Planck-Society.
The different approaches and focal points of work are not least based on a sound comparative perspective of especially European social policy systems – a recent publication is a testimony in as much as it poses fundamental questions to reductionist institutionalist views on ‘welfare regimes’. The approach applied is concerned with the elaboration of fundamental questions of the philosophy of social policy approaches. Currently Herrmann works on the development of a methodological framework for social policy analysis in a global perspective. In this context he is involved in setting up a MA in Global Social Policy Link Campus University of Malta in Rome.
The variety of engagements, truly linking various approaches of social science, allows Herrmannn as well to develop innovative approaches. In this context his various publication offers are an asset to the department not least as he creates a climate that encourages as well members of the Department to join in international debates and publish their work (amongst others, Herrmann is editor of two book series and member of the editorial board of relevant journals).
Peter, Congratulations on your blog. I hope it will be a “school” (in the Athenian tradition) where scholars will gather and wise words will be written.
be well,
Yitzhak
Schools live from pupils and their willingness to engage – not from teacher who at best can be engaing