PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
type: channel
description: PROKLA - Journal of Critical Social Science is a German peer-reviewed journal that has been working on topics from the fields of political economy, political science, social history and sociology since 1971. The focus is on social power relations, polarizations in the international system and the social relations with nature. The issues are put together according to thematic focuses.
publisher: Bertz + Fischer
language: en
publication name: PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
issn: 0342-8176
items: Idiosyncratic Assets
items: Between Stadium Diplomacy and Football Commercialism
items: The Hooligans of Red Star Belgrade in the Yugoslavian War
items: Kicking a Ball and Providing a Service
items: Digital Football Capitalism
items: Authenticity and Capitalism
items: Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, The German Party THE LEFT and the Concept of Community
items: Structural Limitations of the Decarbonisation State
items: Labour and Politics in Israel in Times of War
items: Editorial: The Political Economy of Football
items: Researching and Organising Global Value Chains
items: Migration, Care Work, and Social Media
items: Labour Struggle in German Seasonal Work
items: What Work, What Struggles?
items: Shipping Company Power from the Quay to the Rail?
items: Space for Resistance
items: Labour Struggles, Space, and Socio-Ecological Transformation
items: Social Reproduction between Rest Stops
items: Editorial: Arbeit. Raum. Kämpfe.
items: Though this be Madness yet there is Method in’t – the Political Upheaval in the USA
items: The Rule of Law as an Unfinished Project
items: The Critique of Antidemographic Reason
items: Media Conflicts about Postcolonial Studies and Antisemitism in Germany
items: Climate Litigation in Times of Upheaval
items: Preppen for Future?
items: The Climate and the State
items: Climate Movement without Class?
items: How Does the New Come into the World?
items: Capitalism and Nature
items: A Political Economy of Socialism

Idiosyncratic Assets
type: item
description: Increased transfer volumes and costly transfers, particularly of young talented players characterize the current state of men’s professional football in Europe. In light of these phenomena and against the backdrop of changes in club ownership, this article analyzes the assetization of football players: how did players become assets and what does this mean? Such a process was not without conflict; rather, it involved negotiations on the extraction of income, the distribution of risks in player transfers and the regulation of player registrations. The perspective of football players as assets developed here ultimately reveals the investor’s view of football.
subject: Articles of the Special Issue
  topic: section
subject: Assetization
  topic: keywords
subject: Assets
  topic: keywords
subject: Football
  topic: keywords
subject: Investors
  topic: keywords
subject: Transfers
  topic: keywords
creator: Florian Schmidt
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
date: 2025-12-02
publication date: 2025-12-02
starting page: 667
ending page: 687
doi: 10.32387/prokla.v55i221.2211

Between Stadium Diplomacy and Football Commercialism
type: item
description: The construction of stadiums for the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania illustrates the political economy of football, in which sporting infrastructure goes far beyond its original purpose. Stadiums serve as symbols of geopolitical power, economic interests and national prestige projects. China’s »stadium diplomacy« in particular highlights how infrastructure projects are part of global influence strategies. At the same time, requirements imposed by the African Football Confederation and international marketing logic are increasing the pressure to invest, while the social costs, such as displacement, debt and the maintenance costs of the new stadiums, are often borne by society.
subject: Articles of the Special Issue
  topic: section
subject: Africa Cup of Nations
  topic: keywords
subject: Arusha
  topic: keywords
subject: CAF
  topic: keywords
subject: China
  topic: keywords
subject: Football Commercialization
  topic: keywords
creator: Lennart Klose
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
date: 2025-12-02
publication date: 2025-12-02
starting page: 707
ending page: 723
doi: 10.32387/prokla.v55i221.2212

The Hooligans of Red Star Belgrade in the Yugoslavian War
type: item
description: In this article, I examine the notorious paramilitary organization active throughout the Yugoslavian war, called the Serbian Volunteer Guard, also known as Arkans Tiger, which recruited a significant portion of its members from fans and hooligans of the Serbian football club Red Star Belgrade. The subject in question is what motivated a collective of football fans and regional criminals to join a militia that became known as a particularly brutal and effective unit throughout the conflict. An organizational sociological perspective, hitherto neglected in the research, is adopted in order to identify some of the motivational means used by the organization.
subject: Articles of the Special Issue
  topic: section
subject: Arkans Tiger
  topic: keywords
subject: Motivation
  topic: keywords
subject: Ražnatović
  topic: keywords
subject: Red Star Belgrade
  topic: keywords
subject: Yugoslavian War
  topic: keywords
creator: Dennis Firkus
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
date: 2025-12-02
publication date: 2025-12-02
starting page: 725
ending page: 742
doi: 10.32387/prokla.v55i221.2213

Kicking a Ball and Providing a Service
type: item
description: The article places one segment of the German football scene at the centre of economic reflections: men’s football of the first and second division. As a starting point, professional football is defined as service production – not commodity production. The underlying business model is based on the fact that specific conditions are created in various fields through legislation and case law that deviate significantly from the way »ordinary« capitalism operates and make commercial exploitability at the level achieved today possible at all. The league’s »ecosystem« is, in effect, one that absorbs capital from other economic sectors without generating any significant amount of new capital itself.
subject: Articles of the Special Issue
  topic: section
subject: Football
  topic: keywords
subject: Critique of Political Economy
  topic: keywords
subject: Professional Sports
  topic: keywords
subject: Services
  topic: keywords
creator: Rainer Bohn
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
date: 2025-12-02
publication date: 2025-12-02
starting page: 647
ending page: 665
doi: 10.32387/prokla.v55i221.2214

Digital Football Capitalism
type: item
description: The article analyzes the political economy of football video games using the example of EA FC and the Virtual Bundesliga. It shows how the shift from initial resistance by organized football to the mandatory integration of eFootball is an expression of »digital football capitalism.« Key features include monetization through live services, platformization, and monopolization by Electronic Arts. The VBL, as the DFL’s third competition, serves as a link between analog and digital soccer—but under the power conditions of private-sector platform structures.
subject: Articles of the Special Issue
  topic: section
subject: Computer Games
  topic: keywords
subject: Digital Capitalism
  topic: keywords
subject: Electronic Arts
  topic: keywords
subject: FIFA
  topic: keywords
subject: Football
  topic: keywords
subject: Virtual Bundesliga
  topic: keywords
creator: Heiner Heiland
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
date: 2025-12-02
publication date: 2025-12-02
starting page: 689
ending page: 705
doi: 10.32387/prokla.v55i221.2215

Authenticity and Capitalism
type: item
description: Like all sports, Association Football (soccer) is a product of bourgeois society. When we depict this game’s unique global aura, we refer to the sport’s very core, its most valued global representation, performed by men in the major European professional leagues. Arguably the most important ingredient of soccer fandom is the fans’ authenticity. But this authenticity clashes with capitalist exigencies that have come to define the modern game’s very existence. It is a study of this contradiction that comprises the essence of this article.
subject: Interventions
  topic: section
subject: Capitalism
  topic: keywords
subject: Cultural Capital
  topic: keywords
subject: Football
  topic: keywords
subject: Soccer
  topic: keywords
subject: Sports
  topic: keywords
creator: Martin Krauss
creator: Andrei Markovits
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
date: 2025-12-02
publication date: 2025-12-02
starting page: 747
ending page: 760
doi: 10.32387/prokla.v55i221.2216

Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, The German Party THE LEFT and the Concept of Community
type: item
description: This article examines the surprising electoral outcomes of DIE LINKE and Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht in the 2025 federal elections. Whilst previous electoral analyses have primarily emphasised tactical factors, this contribution develops a structural-theoretical perspective. The central thesis argues that the divergent trajectories of both parties reflect distinct conceptions of community and political solidarity. DIE LINKE successfully drew upon the proletarian concept of community, which reconciles subjective experiences of belonging with practical class solidarity, whilst the BSW, with its communitarian-republican understanding of community, failed to distinguish this conception from right-wing ideologies.
subject: Articles beyond the Special Issue
  topic: section
subject: Communitarianism
  topic: keywords
subject: Community
  topic: keywords
subject: DIE LINKE
  topic: keywords
subject: Elections
  topic: keywords
subject: Left Parties
  topic: keywords
creator: Felix Syrovatka
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
date: 2025-12-02
publication date: 2025-12-02
starting page: 783
ending page: 799
doi: 10.32387/prokla.v55i221.2218

Structural Limitations of the Decarbonisation State
type: item
description: To achieve net-zero climate targets, many OECD states have ramped up ambitions to decarbonize their economies. Nevertheless, there is a serious implementation gap, which is intensified by climate backsliding pressure. Based on the argument of an emerging »decarbonisation state«, we argue that a deeper understanding of the liberal capitalist state and its basic functions can help explain this gap. The transformation to a decarbonisation state, however, challenges basic functions of the underlying liberal capitalist state model. Our analysis implies analytical and normative avenues for future research.
subject: Articles beyond the Special Issue
  topic: section
subject: Climate Politics
  topic: keywords
subject: Decarbonisation State
  topic: keywords
subject: State Functions
  topic: keywords
subject: State Theory
  topic: keywords
subject: Transformation State
  topic: keywords
creator: Ulrich Brand
creator: Daniel Hausknost
creator: Alina Brad
creator: Gabriel Eyselein
creator: Mathias Krams
creator: Danyal Maneka
creator: Melanie Pichler
creator: Etienne Schneider
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
date: 2025-12-02
publication date: 2025-12-02
starting page: 801
ending page: 820
doi: 10.32387/prokla.v55i221.2226

Labour and Politics in Israel in Times of War
type: item
description: Before the state was founded, the Israeli trade union Histadrut was an organ of the emerging Jewish community and only secondarily a representative of workers. This changed after the 1967 war, when tens of thousands of non-citizen Palestinians from the occupied territories joined. However, the liberalization of the Israeli economy tended to erode the union’s political power, thereby strengthening the representation of Palestinian workers. As time went on, Histadrut’s importance as a class-based actor grew, at the expense of its exclusionary, ethnic-national role. The foreseeable prospects for these two contradictory sides of the union are discussed.
subject: Articles beyond the Special Issue
  topic: section
subject: Ethno-Nationalism
  topic: keywords
subject: Histadrut
  topic: keywords
subject: Israel
  topic: keywords
subject: Palestine
  topic: keywords
subject: Trade Union
  topic: keywords
subject: Working Class
  topic: keywords
creator: Jonathan Preminger
creator: Assaf S. Bondy
creator: Dorothea Schmidt
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
date: 2025-12-02
publication date: 2025-12-02
starting page: 761
ending page: 782
doi: 10.32387/prokla.v55i221.2227

Editorial: The Political Economy of Football
type: item
description: Football is a fascinating sociological phenomenon. No other sport captivates more people globally today. Every weekend, millions of people around the world go to stadiums and fields to watch football matches. Modern professional football has come a long way from its origins as an emancipatory working-class sport. The global industry that has developed around football since the 1990s now represents the »very embodiment of unbridled capitalism’s worst excesses« (Correia).
subject: Editorial
  topic: section
subject: Editorial
  topic: keywords
subject: Football
  topic: keywords
subject: Policital Economy
  topic: keywords
creator: Svea Gruber
creator: Philipp Köncke
creator: Martin Krauss
creator: Dorothea Schmidt
creator: Felix Syrovatka
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
date: 2025-12-02
publication date: 2025-12-02
starting page: 634
ending page: 644
doi: 10.32387/prokla.v55i221.2230

Researching and Organising Global Value Chains
type: item
description: One of the biggest challenges for trade unions in the 21st century is to connect and organise labour in constantly changing global value chains. In this paper, I introduce the next-node approach as a methodological tool to systematically (1) explore value chains together with workers, and based on that (2) identify networking and organisational potentials with and among workers along the chains. A participatory research project with garment workers in Cambodia documents the challenges as well as the potentials of this approach. It can be applied not only in the garment industry but in any other value chain.
subject: Articles of the Special Issue
  topic: section
subject: Global Value Chains
  topic: keywords
subject: Global Re/Production Networks
  topic: keywords
subject: Labour Agency
  topic: keywords
subject: Next-Node Approach
  topic: keywords
subject: Trade Unions
  topic: keywords
creator: Michaela Doutch
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
date: 2025-09-01
publication date: 2025-09-01
starting page: 589
ending page: 607
doi: 10.32387/prokla.v55i220.2190

Migration, Care Work, and Social Media
type: item
description: The shortage of nursing staff has led in Germany to recruitment efforts extending beyond European countries, creating new transnational opportunities for aspiring migrant nurses. They use digital platforms for the navigation in a complex migration infrastructure. This study examines the intersection of social media and nurses’ migration in India and Mexico, addressing a research gap in this area. In the digital space, vloggers have a strong presence, along with influencers promoting commercial recruitment agencies, while state-run recruitment is noticeably absent. We analyse the exchange of information in the contrasting space between neoliberal subjectification for the destination labour market and a solidary community building.
subject: Articles of the Special Issue
  topic: section
subject: Agency
  topic: keywords
subject: Migration Infrastructure
  topic: keywords
subject: Nurses
  topic: keywords
subject: Social Media
  topic: keywords
creator: Homyra Rahnoma
creator: Leoni Schlender
creator: Christa Wichterich
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
date: 2025-09-01
publication date: 2025-09-01
starting page: 527
ending page: 547
doi: 10.32387/prokla.v55i220.2194

Labour Struggle in German Seasonal Work
type: item
description: We analyse the strike of Romanian seasonal workers on the »Spargel Ritter« farm near Bonn, Germany, in May 2020 and examine why resistance strategies were used as an exception in this case. The triad of »loyalty«, »exit« and »voice« is used to reconstruct the scope for action of migrant workers in the German seasonal work system. In Ritter’s case, seemingly contradictory strategies of the workers merged in a unique constellation of loss of company control, pandemic-related mobility restrictions and civil society support. The legal-geographical analysis thus sheds light not only on the structural conditions of migrant labour struggles, but also on their transformative potential.
subject: Articles of the Special Issue
  topic: section
subject: Agriculture
  topic: keywords
subject: Labour Struggle
  topic: keywords
subject: Legal Geographies
  topic: keywords
subject: Migration
  topic: keywords
subject: Power Resources
  topic: keywords
creator: Janika Kuge
creator: Simon Schaupp
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
date: 2025-09-01
publication date: 2025-09-01
starting page: 505
ending page: 524
doi: 10.32387/prokla.v55i220.2195

What Work, What Struggles?
type: item
description: Labour geography focuses on the agency of workers, but neglects a theoretical examination of the concept of work itself, which forms the basis of this agency. Referring to Marx’s concept of work, we attempt to (re)conceptualizes the concepts of work and social reproduction for Labour Geography. This is done with the help of a transversal understanding of work and reproduction beyond functionalist narrow-mindedness, as well as through the understanding of (wage) labour as an activity oriented towards social meaning and empowering space production.
subject: Interventions
  topic: section
subject: Agency
  topic: keywords
subject: Labour Geography
  topic: keywords
subject: Social Reproduction
  topic: keywords
subject: Sociology of Work
  topic: keywords
subject: Work
  topic: keywords
creator: Stefanie Hürtgen
creator: Tine Haubner
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
date: 2025-09-01
publication date: 2025-09-01
starting page: 609
ending page: 622
doi: 10.32387/prokla.v55i220.2196

Shipping Company Power from the Quay to the Rail?
type: item
description: MSC buying into HHLA at the Port of Hamburg marks a new stage in the privatization of ports: shipping companies gain structural control over transport routes, hinterland logistics, and labor relations, while state regulatory capacity declines and workers risk losing power resources. In this article, we discuss from the perspectives of Labour Geography and the Sociology of Work how this shift affects the scope for action and conflict dynamics of dockworkers, and which questions it raises for their collective agency amid increasing privatization and rationalization.
subject: Articles of the Special Issue
  topic: section
subject: Industrial Relations
  topic: keywords
subject: Labour Geography
  topic: keywords
subject: Logistical Power
  topic: keywords
subject: Port Privatization
  topic: keywords
subject: Workers’ Agency
  topic: keywords
creator: Janina Puder
creator: Jule E. Westerheide
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
date: 2025-09-01
publication date: 2025-09-01
starting page: 549
ending page: 567
doi: 10.32387/prokla.v55i220.2197

Space for Resistance
type: item
description: Lithium is considered a »critical raw material« for decarbonising societal metabolic processes. The conditions under which lithium is mined, and who it is mined for, are highly contested. In this article, I analyse the struggle of organised workers in lithium mining in the Salar de Atacama in northern Chile. From a labour geography perspective, I show how workers’ struggles over issues of social reproduction have developed locally. I argue that spaces of social reproduction are central sites of control and power in labour conflicts in raw material extraction and thus also potential anchors for collective struggles against the appropriation and exploitation of people and nature for profit.
subject: Articles of the Special Issue
  topic: section
subject: Chile
  topic: keywords
subject: Extractivism
  topic: keywords
subject: Labour Geography
  topic: keywords
subject: Labour Struggle
  topic: keywords
subject: Lithium Mining
  topic: keywords
creator: Jorma
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
date: 2025-09-01
publication date: 2025-09-01
starting page: 569
ending page: 586
doi: 10.32387/prokla.v55i220.2198

Labour Struggles, Space, and Socio-Ecological Transformation
type: item
description: In this article we bring Environmental Labour Studies in dialog with Labour Geography in order to develop an Environmental Labour Geography. We argue that the social relations of nature and the ecological crisis are contradictory spaces co-produced by labour. Using the automobile industry as an example, we propose three concepts to capture these labour processes: 1. alienated, spatially situated metabolisms; 2. ecological labour regimes; and 3. geographies of the metabolic rift. Based on this analysis, we argue that the labour movement needs to renew its spatial strategies to be able to fight pro-actively for socio-ecological transformation.
subject: Articles of the Special Issue
  topic: section
subject: Alienation
  topic: keywords
subject: Environmental Labour Geography
  topic: keywords
subject: Ecological Labour Regime
  topic: keywords
subject: Metabolic Rift
  topic: keywords
subject: Socio-Ecological Transformation
  topic: keywords
creator: Oliver Pye
creator: Nora Räthzel
creator: Nicolas Schlitz
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
date: 2025-09-01
publication date: 2025-09-01
starting page: 461
ending page: 480
doi: 10.32387/prokla.v55i220.2199

Social Reproduction between Rest Stops
type: item
description: Based on ethnographic fieldwork at German highway rest stops and interviews with truck drivers, I analyse (over)exploitation in the relations of production and social reproduction within transnational road freight transport. Using the case of Gräfenhausen, it illustrates how migrant drivers develop forms of collective agency while simultaneously facing everyday challenges of social reproduction. This generally demonstrates how social inequality is spatially organized and (re)produced.
subject: Articles of the Special Issue
  topic: section
subject: Labour
  topic: keywords
subject: Logistics
  topic: keywords
subject: Migration
  topic: keywords
subject: Social Reproduction
  topic: keywords
subject: Transnational Road Freight Transport
  topic: keywords
creator: Daniel Heinz
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
date: 2025-09-01
publication date: 2025-09-01
starting page: 483
ending page: 503
doi: 10.32387/prokla.v55i220.2200

Editorial: Arbeit. Raum. Kämpfe.
type: item
description: Spatial changes in the field of production influence labour disputes – and vice versa. Globalisation, offshoring and outsourcing of production were partly reactions to successful worker organisation, aimed at undermining hard-won wage levels or social standards. At the same time, spatial restructuring – both nationally and globally – is giving rise to new groups of workers who are developing new forms of struggle and new strategies for organising transnational campaigns and international solidarity. Labour geography focuses on the spatial problems of class struggle. It addresses the question of how workers actively produce economic spaces and spatial scales.
subject: Editorial
  topic: section
subject: Editorial
  topic: keywords
subject: Labour
  topic: keywords
subject: Labour Geography
  topic: keywords
subject: Labour Struggles
  topic: keywords
creator: Anne Engelhardt
creator: Alexander Maschke
creator: Oliver Pye
creator: Nora Räthzel
creator: Jenny Simon
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
date: 2025-09-01
publication date: 2025-09-01
starting page: 450
ending page: 458
doi: 10.32387/prokla.v55i220.2209

Though this be Madness yet there is Method in’t – the Political Upheaval in the USA
type: item
description: We are witnessing a political upheaval in the US that is aimed at destroying institutions and the rule of law. It is being driven by the radicalised neoliberalism of tech billionaires and the »Make America Great Again« movement. At the same time, we are observing a global economic power that is attempting to counter its decline with a newly formed imperial policy. At first glance, both seem irrational, but they nevertheless follow their own logic and determination. This is not aimed at regression, but rather at a future that is to be withdrawn from democratic intervention in the interests of a new ruling class.
subject: Online
  topic: section
subject: Democracy
  topic: keywords
subject: MAGA
  topic: keywords
subject: State Transformation
  topic: keywords
subject: Trump
  topic: keywords
subject: USA
  topic: keywords
creator: Martin Kronauer
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
date: 2025-06-04
publication date: 2025-06-04
starting page: OF1
ending page: 8
doi: 10.32387/prokla.v55i219.2201

The Rule of Law as an Unfinished Project
type: item
description: The thesis of the article is that the rule of law must necessarily be understood as a project of social transformation. To support this, it is first shown that legal violations are commonplace in supposedly established rule-of-law states like Germany, and that they affect marginalized population groups in a severe way. Legal knowledge, legal awareness, as well as opportunities for legal mobilization and access to the law are heavily dependent on one's social position within societal inequality. Therefore, the rule of law can only be conceived as an aspirational, yet practically unattainable horizon.
subject: Articles beyond the Special Issue
  topic: section
subject: Access to Law
  topic: keywords
subject: Inequality
  topic: keywords
subject: Legal Awareness
  topic: keywords
subject: Legal Mobilization
  topic: keywords
subject: Rule of Law
  topic: keywords
creator: Nikolai Huke
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
date: 2025-06-02
publication date: 2025-06-02
starting page: 403
ending page: 418
doi: 10.32387/prokla.v55i219.2146

The Critique of Antidemographic Reason
type: item
description: Starting from the ongoing polarization between Malthusian pessimism and techno-optimistic faith in progress, I analyze key ideological fault lines in population theory. While ecological warnings about planetary boundaries confront a liberal belief in the innovative potential of growing populations, feminist critiques have foregrounded the social consequences of population policies. Yet this perspective often leaves the structural causes of population growth unaddressed. Therefore I call for a critical return to the Marxist critique of Malthus, which interprets demographic dynamics as expressions of historically specific relations of production and reproduction.
subject: Interventions
  topic: section
subject: Feminism
  topic: keywords
subject: Historical Demography
  topic: keywords
subject: Marx
  topic: keywords
subject: Natural Limits
  topic: keywords
subject: Population Control
  topic: keywords
creator: Marius Bickhardt
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
date: 2025-06-02
publication date: 2025-06-02
starting page: 375
ending page: 389
doi: 10.32387/prokla.v55i219.2157

Media Conflicts about Postcolonial Studies and Antisemitism in Germany
type: item
description: The increasing recognition of postcolonial studies gave rise to a revisionist countermovement on the conservative side, which went largely unnoticed until 2019. In the course of media conflicts over anti-Semitism in recent years, however, a majority opinion emerged in the liberal and left-wing camps that fundamentally suspected and criticized postcolonial studies as antisemitic. The article traces some of these conflicts in the German public sphere (around Achille Mbembe, the so-called Second Historians’ Controversy and the reactions to October 7, 2023) and develops a model of three approaches (delimited concept of antisemitism, historical context of the FRG, Eurocentrism) to explain this hegemony.
subject: Articles beyond the Special Issue
  topic: section
subject: Antisemitism
  topic: keywords
subject: Eurocentrism
  topic: keywords
subject: Historians’ Controversy
  topic: keywords
subject: Holocaust
  topic: keywords
subject: Postcolonial Studies
  topic: keywords
creator: Aram Ziai
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
date: 2025-06-02
publication date: 2025-06-02
starting page: 421
ending page: 439
doi: 10.32387/prokla.v55i219.2176

Climate Litigation in Times of Upheaval
type: item
description: Climate litigation has become an important instrument of the climate movement. The frame analysis in this article shows that climate litigation can contribute to the legitimization of climate policy demands by assigning responsibility for climate protection to state actors and companies. They also show a certain robustness against discursive devaluation, which is supported by antagonistic framing. Limits of positive reporting can be seen in proceedings against the automotive industry.
subject: Articles of the Special Issue
  topic: section
subject: Climate Justice
  topic: keywords
subject: Climate Movement
  topic: keywords
subject: Framing
  topic: keywords
subject: Media
  topic: keywords
subject: Socio-Ecological Transformation
  topic: keywords
creator: Lea Frerichs
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
date: 2025-06-02
publication date: 2025-06-02
starting page: 315
ending page: 334
doi: 10.32387/prokla.v55i219.2179

Preppen for Future?
type: item
description: Solidarity-based collapse politics organize and politicize direct aid in situations in which basic infrastructures collapse. After the relative failure of the climate movements and against the backdrop of a shift to the right, solidarity-based collapse politics were proposed as a possible field of action for the next cycle of climate movements. In the article I analyze and criticize the German discourses on and practices of solidarity-based collapse politics, and solidarity-based prepping that have emerged in German-speaking areas over the last four years in the context of climate movements.
subject: Articles of the Special Issue
  topic: section
subject: Climate Crisis
  topic: keywords
subject: Climate Justice
  topic: keywords
subject: Climate Movement
  topic: keywords
subject: Collapse Politics
  topic: keywords
creator: Johannes Siegmund
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
date: 2025-06-02
publication date: 2025-06-02
starting page: 337
ending page: 357
doi: 10.32387/prokla.v55i219.2180

The Climate and the State
type: item
description: In the context of increasing state repression and discursive discreditation of climate activism in Germany, the results of a Grounded Theory analysis regarding the state conceptions of the groups Fridays for Future, Letzte Generation, Extinction Rebellion and Ende Gelände are discussed here. It becomes evident that the examined groups are by no means »enemies of the state« (Der Spiegel). The notion of state conception not only proposes a new focus for the study of social movements. It also shows that the state’s response bears no relation to the non-violent protest of activists who are for the most part deeply committed to the state.
subject: Articles of the Special Issue
  topic: section
subject: Climate Change
  topic: keywords
subject: Climate Justice
  topic: keywords
subject: Protest
  topic: keywords
subject: Social Movement
  topic: keywords
subject: State
  topic: keywords
creator: Leon Wörmann
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
date: 2025-06-02
publication date: 2025-06-02
starting page: 295
ending page: 313
doi: 10.32387/prokla.v55i219.2181

Climate Movement without Class?
type: item
description: In this article, we argue that dominant actors in the German-speaking climate movement are pursuing a strategy of event-politics that cannot adequately address the prevailing conditions. In a first step, we show that the strategy of event-politics refers uncritically to the state, omits labour and class, can therefore hardly build material power and also fails on the ideological terrain. In a second step, we argue that a strategy of ecological class politics has the potential to oppose the state and capital ideologically and materially and discuss its problems.
subject: Interventions
  topic: section
subject: Climate Movement
  topic: keywords
subject: Event Politics
  topic: keywords
subject: Eco-Socialist Strategy
  topic: keywords
subject: Socio-Ecological Transformation
  topic: keywords
subject: Work
  topic: keywords
creator: Caesar Anderegg
creator: Leon Switala
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
date: 2025-06-02
publication date: 2025-06-02
starting page: 359
ending page: 372
doi: 10.32387/prokla.v55i219.2183

How Does the New Come into the World?
type: item
description: Prefigurative politics aims to experiment with societal alternatives in the here and now. Using the example of the anti-lithium protests in Extremadura, Spain, this paper examines how prefigurative practices can contribute to a post-extractivist transformation. It highlights both their potential and their limitations: while they provide a space for learning alternative relational practices and post-transformational subjectivities, their influence at the institutional level remains limited. The analysis reflects the tension between prefigurative and state-centred strategies in anti-extractive conflicts.
subject: Articles of the Special Issue
  topic: section
subject: Extractivism
  topic: keywords
subject: Mining
  topic: keywords
subject: Prefiguration
  topic: keywords
subject: Socio-Ecological Transformation
  topic: keywords
creator: Carla Noever Castelos
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
date: 2025-06-02
publication date: 2025-06-02
starting page: 255
ending page: 273
doi: 10.32387/prokla.v55i219.2185

Capitalism and Nature
type: item
description: The article examines the conflicts between trade unions and a working-class environmental movement in the context of industrial pollution in the Indian industrial hub of Eloor-Edayar. It follows the environmental labor studies approach and draws on ethnographic research and in-depth interviews to explain the framing and interpretations of both movements. Their disputes should be understood in terms of (1) conflicting economic interests, (2) differing environmental consciousness and (3) a hegemonic coalition between trade unions and industry. The study underscores the need to link the perspectives of commodity production and life shaping/social reproduction in order to facilitate a broad-based alliance between institutionalized trade unions and working-class environmental movements in the global South.
subject: Articles of the Special Issue
  topic: section
subject: Labour-Environmental Conflicts
  topic: keywords
subject: Socio-Ecological Transformation Conflicts
  topic: keywords
subject: Trade Unions
  topic: keywords
subject: Working-Class Environmentalism
  topic: keywords
creator: Silpa Satheesh
creator: Dorothea Schmidt
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
date: 2025-06-02
publication date: 2025-06-02
starting page: 275
ending page: 292
doi: 10.32387/prokla.v55i219.2186

A Political Economy of Socialism
type: item
description: PROKLA 215 discussed both political principles and technical issues of economic planning. But the concept of labour time accounting, especially in the sense in which it was presented by the Group of International Communists (GIC) in 1930, was largely left out of consideration. A theory of decentralised and working timebased planned economy on the basis of self-managed companies could make the various problems of democratic planning visible and at the same time gain fundamental characteristics of a political economy of socialism.
subject: Interventions
  topic: section
subject: Division of Labour
  topic: keywords
subject: Labour Time Accounting
  topic: keywords
subject: Relations of Production
  topic: keywords
subject: Unit of Calculation
  topic: keywords
creator: Initiative Demokratische Arbeitszeitrechnung
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 PROKLA. Journal of Critical Social Science
date: 2025-06-02
publication date: 2025-06-02
starting page: 391
ending page: 401
doi: 10.32387/prokla.v55i219.2187