Umbau des Sozialstaates? Österreich und Deutschland im Vergleich

In comparative analysis of welfare states, there is a consensus that mature welfare state systems have been confronted, for some considerable time, with substantial pressure towards re-structuring and that, as a result, they actually have undertaken several and varied modifications. This articles aims at exploring and analysing these developments in Austria and Germany from a comparative point of view. The analysis concentrates on two vital fields of social policy: old-age insurance and unemployment insurance. Especially in respect of the development of social policy and regarding important characteristics of the two welfare state systems, both countries traditionally show a large degree of resemblance to each other. Many similarities remained to exist during the phase of growing pressures on the welfare state, whereas at the same time it is evident that differences between the two countries increased. The respective actual developments will be interpreted in the light of corresponding theories of comparative welfare state research and classified as gradual and structural changes.     

Federal policy mandating safer cigarettes: a hypothetical simulation of the anticipated population health gains or losses.

If manufacturing a safer cigarette is technically possible--an open question--then mandating that tobacco manufacturers improve the safety of cigarettes would likely have both positive and negative implications for the nation's health. On the one hand, removing toxins may reduce the incidence of smoking-related diseases and premature mortality in smokers. On the other hand, smokers might be less inclined to quit, those who have quit might resume the habit, and youth who have never smoked will have one less reason to avoid tobacco use. To assess the expected population health impacts of a legislative or regulatory mandate, we created the Tobacco Policy Model, a system dynamics computer simulation model. The model relies on secondary data and simulates the U.S. population over time spans as long as 50 years. Our simulation results reveal that even if requiring cigarettes to be safer makes smoking more attractive and increases tobacco use, a net gain in population health is still possible.     

“Like Butter Scraped over Too Much Bread”: Animal Protection Policy in Mexico1

Over the past fifteen years Mexico has developed a string of comprehensive animal protection regulations designed to address the serious problems that affect both wild and domestic animals in the territory. Yet for all their detailed coherence and despite serious government efforts, the regulations continue to lack effective enforcement and authorities are increasingly overstretched. This study discusses three key areas that obstruct the effective implementation of Mexican animal protection policy, but where advances could be feasibly initiated. The first concerns deficiencies at the political level. The second addresses the awkward relation between government and civil society on the issue. The third examines the scope of the problem in Mexico and some implications this has for international involvement. Finally the study suggests a more collaborative approach for implementing the policy that attempts to address central concerns in each of the three areas considered.     

embodying memory: women and the legacy of the military government in Chile

The article argues that the prohibition of abortion in Chile, other than when the mother's life is in danger, is a form of human rights violation targeting women specifically. The Pro-Birth Policy was established in Pinochet's Chile as a response to the previous government's attempts, under Allende, to encourage family planning and to educate and inform women about their choices. This had been done to put an end to the increase in back-street abortions with the inevitable toll on women's lives. Pinochet's regime reversed these women-oriented family planning policies, and criminalized abortion, on the basis of costs to the state and, more importantly, the need to increase the birth rate for reasons of national security. Women's bodies were used by the Pinochet regime, both by sexual violence and torture, and by the denial of women's reproductive and sexual rights, as a means to impose discipline and order on society. The fact that this is still not acknowledged in the construction of a collective memory indicates that the issue has not yet been resolved in democratic Chile.     

Performative Rhetorics in Invisibility: Phoebe Philo's Undone Authorship

ABSTRACT

This inquiry analyses the rhetoric of intentionally unfinished fashion contained in the collections from Céline as designed by Phoebe Philo and explicates the implications of this approach to fashion as a feminist text. Shoshana Felman’s seductive promise of speech, modified with insights from Paul de Man’s theory of autobiography as both giving face and defacement, is applied to Philo’s ‘new minimalism’ in order to highlight its appeal to modern female audiences. Using insights from the philosophy of Jacques Derrida, I examine ways in which wearers may seek to create a signature citationality via clothing that produces its own ‘unwriting’ therefore allowing the wearer to believe she inscribes her own iteration while maintaining control. Wearers are offered the chance to identify with a designer who is enlightened beyond fast and flashy fashion while hinting at the notion of the clothing having the substantialising effect that language has (instead of representational). Through this examination, clothing is shown to be a decision, and clothing is also shown to be a fiction. These decisions and fictions are open to failure; yet Felman offers that this failure acts as an opening remaining inadvertent or unacknowledged. Philo's designs invite an exploration of clothing as performative rhetoric.     

Social Competence in Late Elementary School: Relationships to Parenting and Neighborhood Context

Despite evidence that neighborhoods confer both risk and resilience for youth development, the existing neighborhood research has a number of methodological limitations including lack of diversity in neighborhoods sampled and neighborhood characteristics assessed. The purpose of this study was to address these methodological limitations of existing research and to examine the relationship of neighborhood structural and social characteristics to family-level social processes and teacher-reported social competence during early adolescence. The study sample of 3,624 fifth graders (51?% girls) was ethnically diverse, including roughly even proportions of non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, and Hispanic youth. Neighborhood measures included economic disadvantage derived from the U.S. Census, physical and social disorder obtained by direct observation, and social capital from parental reports. Family-level social processes included parent reported family cohesion and youth reported maternal and paternal nurturance. We found that neighborhood factors significantly associated with youth social aggression and social competence but not social withdrawal, after controlling for individual demographic characteristics and parenting factors. There was limited evidence of moderation of family influences by neighborhood characteristics as well as the moderation of neighborhood effects by children’s gender. Neighborhood physical disorder was associated with increased social aggression among boys but with increased social withdrawal among girls. Implications of the study’s findings for research on neighborhoods and adolescent development and the development of preventive interventions are discussed.     

Collaborative innovation in emerging innovation systems: Evidence from Central and Eastern Europe

The Journal of Technology Transfer - Firms often lack competences and capabilities for creation and commercialization of innovations. The solution to this problem lies in sharing or acquisition of...     

Distributional impact assessments and the record of the Coalition Government: the tyranny of numbers without interpretation

This paper reflects upon the gross discrepancies between the reassurances given in 2010 by the 2010-2015 UK Coalition Government that their budget and welfare cuts would fall ‘fairly’ across the income spectrum, and the reality of what had happened by the end of that government. It asks how the ‘distributional impact assessment’ provided with the 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review could have been so wrong. In seeking to answer this question, types of systematic bias are considered along with a discussion of ‘marginality’ in assessments of impact. Drawing upon the role of ‘power’ in impact assessment, it traces the ways in which methodological assumptions can eclipse the real life effects of policies behind ‘the average’ as well as by the unfair selection of the ‘unit-of-analysis’.