Regional Sociology Commons^™

“Be Authentic”: Authenticity Norms In German Politics And Self-Idealizations Of Members Of The Bundestag, Alexander Geimer, Steffen Amling

The Qualitative Report

This contribution goes back to a study of the formative power of identity norms in professional fields of occupation (fine arts and politics). In this article, we focus on the understanding of identity norms that members of the German Bundestag have to meet and/or to cope with. Thus, our research question is which demands professional politicians encounter and which ways of dealing with them are established. Operating at the intersection of governmentality studies, subjectivation analysis and qualitative inquiry, and based on narrative interviews with MPs, this paper demonstrates how in the field of German politics (at federal level) the MPs …