This article proposes a new approach to solidarity. Previous research has focused on macro-structural and micro-behavioural aspects of solidarity, overlooking that solidarity is discursively constructed by actors on the meso-level. The meso approach to solidarity consists of two key dimensions: meaning and scale. The meaning of solidarity characterises its content. The scale of solidarity indicates who is encompassed by solidarity. This approach is applied by analysing meanings and scales of solidarity in the German media discourse on Europe’s migration crisis from 2010 to 2015. The discourse network analysis is deployed to study the co-occurrence of meanings and scales of solidarity. The results indicate that political and cultural solidarity are the most dominant meanings and they are mostly linked to the intergovernmental and transnational scale of solidarity. The number of claims to political solidarity on the intergovernmental level of the European Union increases in 2015, signalling the greater relevance of creating a solidary institutional mechanism in the migration crisis. The article contributes to recent discussions on solidarity as well as the public framing of Europe’s migration crisis.

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Multiple crises in the EU have sparked a renaissance of the concept of solidarity. However, discursive approaches to solidarity and the public understanding of solidarity have hardly received scholarly attention. Empirical research on solidarity is rather centered on welfare institutions as well as on individual attitudes and behavior. To shed new light on solidarity in public discourse, we investigate in which policy fields the term is most often used, which actors refer to it and how different types of solidarity are covered in the German public discourse. We investigate the coverage of solidarity in four German newspapers (<em>Die Welt</em>, <em>Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung</em>, <em>Süddeutsche Zeitung</em>, <em>Die Tageszeitung</em>) from 2008 to 2017. By deploying the discourse network methodology with 306 claims in 230 news articles, we analyze the co-occurrence of actors and issues over time. Our results indicate a varying set of issues in which solidarity occurs, a rather stable actor visibility, across time and a context-dependent use of different types of solidarity. Government actors, civil society actors as well as citizens drive the solidarity discourse showing that institutional as well as non-institutional actors make use of solidarity in their public actions regarding political protest, financial issues and migration. The study provides novel insights into the interdependence of actor and issue visibility and sheds new light on solidarity in media discourses.

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Radikale Demokratietheorien gehören zu den meist diskutierten Ansätzen jüngerer Demokratietheorie. Eine ihrer zentralen VertreterInnen ist Chantal Mouffe. Sie plädiert für eine agonale Demokratietheorie und denkt das Politische als nicht zu befriedenden Konflikt. Institutionen in westlich-liberalen Demokratien sollen die Antagonismen in Agonismen transformieren. Jedoch bleibt bei Mouffe unklar, was sie unter Institutionen versteht, woraus sich eine Leerstelle in ihrem demokratietheoretischen Ansatz ergibt. Dadurch, dass Mouffe die institutionellen Arrangements nicht thematisiert, unterschätzt sie, den inhärent konflikthaften und agonalen Charakter von Institutionen. Mit Verweis auf die materialistische Staatstheorie wird aufgezeigt, wie sich diese Leerstelle in Mouffes Ansatz füllen und sich damit die Agonalität von Institutionen theoretisieren lässt.

The article analyses the discursive appeal to solidarity in the mass media during the unfolding of Europe’s migration crisis. Solidarity was claimed by numerous actors in the public discourse to legitimise political decisions and mobilise public opinion. While it seems that the call for solidarity was shared by many actors, media studies show the ‘partisan journalism’ of media outlets. Thus, the political orientation of media outlets influences their coverage of public debates. Hence, to what extent do different quality newspapers cover the same solidarity claims in times of crisis? In order to answer this question, the crisis coverage of two German and two Irish newspapers with centre-left and centre-right political orientations is examined via the discourse network methodology. Germany is selected due to high political parallelism and a strong affectedness by the crisis, while Ireland is selected because of low political parallelism and a weak affectedness by the migration crisis. The findings demonstrate that partisan journalism persists during Europe’s migration crisis. Especially German party actors are present in both countries, underpinning the central position of Germany. Regarding the appeal to solidarity, political solidarity claims prevail in all four newspapers, indicating the political-institutional asymmetry in the Common European Asylum System. The study contributes to the strategic framing of concepts in public debates and demonstrates that the left-right distinction of media outlets is hardly affected by the migration crisis.