Updated Research Schedule

Daily Schedule

People: Dr. Timo Lochocki – Professor of Social Science. He is teaching two classes this summer focusing on the economic crisis of the European Union and the reactions to it both internally and externally, and a course focus on the history and current challenges of the EU, especially in regards to the line between supranational integration and national sovereignty. I hope to understand further the critiques of the EU in the German context

Dr. Ulrich Raiser – Works at the office of the Commissioner for Migration inBerlin and teachers at Berlin Graduate school of Social Sciences, Humboldt University, Sociology of Migration

http://de.imss-berlin.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=51&Itemid=57

Places: Humbolt University, potentially also going to talk to people outside of academia

Equipment: Tape recorder, digital camera, logbook

Info I’ll Gather: Hopefully get notes from interviews, as well as some observations of how people respond to the questions

Week 1: Refine research questions. Do additional election research:

• Voter turnout data in Germany: http://www.idea.int/vt/countryview.cfm?id=61

• German Parliamentary voter turnout was about 72% in 2013

• EU Parliamentary voter turnout was about 28% in 2014

• Voter age data in Germany: https://www.destatis.de/EN/PressServices/Press/pr/2014/01/PE14_031_141.html

• 80% for 60-69 year olds (accounted for potentially 1/3 of all votes in election)

• Lowest rate was recorded among 21-24 year olds (60.3%)

Week 2 and 3: Get in touch with colleagues at Humboldt and see if anyone knows about this – email and wait to hear back from Lochocki and Raiser. My group and I have decided that we do not have time to distribute and analyze a survey in the time allotted in Berlin so I have decided to focus on in person interviews instead.

Time Available to work on interviews:

• 6/23 Tuesday after 2

• 6/24 Wednesday after 5

• 6/25 Thursday after 7

• 6/26 Friday after 5

• 6/29 Monday after 1:30

• 6/30 Tuesday after 4

• 7/1 Wednesday after 4

• 7/2 Thursday before 12:30

• 7/3 Friday after 1

Questions I want to ask:

• Are you a member of the European Union?

• Did you receive your primary education in Germany?

• Did you learn about the EU in school?

• Do you think the EU plays an important role in German politics?

If yes: Why do you think there is such a low turnout for European Parliamentary elections?

• Do you think Germany plays an important role in German politics?

• How often do you keep up to date with current EU events?

• Have you heard/ been keeping up with the EU’s developments around migration and the immigrant discussions that have been going on.

Do you think the EU has significant influence on German immigration policies?

• Ask additional questions that come up with interview – also get the info from the survey as well.

Week 4: Start to analyze and develop findings. Did my research turn out the way I thought it would? Did it develop over time and over my interviews? What did I find out? What additional questions arose from my findings?

Week 5: In Jena – may consider interviewing college students in Jena, if not continue to analyze and develop my final paper/findings

*For my project it will be important for me to stay up on current events pertaining to Germany and the EU. As things change, or if any new laws, news articles, or political diplomacy, my questions or the responses I get may change as well. For example, there have recently been many talks about changing the immigrant quotas that are allowed to join the EU and the amount of immigrants allowed into each country that come from non-member states.

New new articles since the rough draft:

• http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-33082737 – actions taken by the UK prime minister to help decrase the number of immigrants from outside of the EU (in the Uk but also that expands to other memberstates of the Union)

• http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-24583286 – an analysis of why the EU is having such a hard time dealing with immigrants and those seeking assylum in the EU.

While in London Heathrow Airport I saw a lot of publicity around the idea of a refugee and why they should be treated differently than immigrants. It might be interesting to see if there are different understandings of the two in Berlin and whether there are different laws to deal with both

• http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33089665 – new deveopments in the issues of Greek Debt. Angela Merkel (Germany’s Prime Minister) played a large role in the debt discussions and solution creation.

• http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33005343 – analysis of Angela Merkel’s interview pretaining to the immigration talks in the EU. It is an interesting issue of whether or not to change the EU policies to keep the UK in the EU (bc it will affect a lot of immigrants and the UK is not part of the economic treaty that created the Euro).

Additional news articles since last update

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3ccd20ac-1357-11e5-bd3c-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3dWllJfuq

http://www.newkerala.com/news/2015/fullnews-74732.html

http://www.dw.de/merkel-germany-is-becoming-a-country-of-immigration/a-18491165

http://www.euractiv.com/sections/innovation-industry/immigrants-boost-germanys-skilled-labour-force-314781

http://www.staffingindustry.com/eng/Research-Publications/Daily-News/Germany-Immigrants-boosting-skilled-labour-force-but-mostly-in-western-states-34150

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/6/15/asylum-seekers-face-increasing-violence-in-germany.html