Comparative Politics and the Synthetic Control Method

In recent years, a widespread consensus has emerged about the necessity of establishing bridges between quantitative and qualitative approaches to empirical research in political science. In this article, we discuss the use of the synthetic control method as a way to bridge the quantitative/qualitative divide in comparative politics. The synthetic control method provides a systematic way to choose comparison units in comparative case studies. This systematization opens the door to precise quantitative inference in small‐sample comparative studies, without precluding the application of qualitative approaches. Borrowing the expression from Sidney Tarrow, the synthetic control method allows researchers to put “qualitative flesh on quantitative bones.” We illustrate the main ideas behind the synthetic control method by estimating the economic impact of the 1990 German reunification on West Germany.     

工业4.0背景下德国应对3D打印技术的法政策学分析——兼论我国对3D打印技术的法政策路径选择

3D打印技术作为工业4.0中实现"智能生产"和"智能工厂"的方式,是促进我国制造业转型的重要路径。通过对德国政府应对3D打印技术发展所制订的科技政策和法律政策的分析,欲促进我国3D打印技术快速发展,提升我国3D打印产业的国际竞争力,首先,应通过制定和完善与3D打印有关的科技政策,引导科研资源和资本向3D打印产业分流;其次,应通过对现行相关法律的解释、归纳和演绎,寻求应对3D打印技术发展的法律适用的空间;此外,在政策的制定与法律适用的过程中,需要选择符合我国国情的3D打印技术保护标准和创新发展之路径。     

Carl Graap and the Formation of Weimar Foreign Policy Toward Soviet Russia from 1919 until Rapallo

Even though the conviction that Russia was evolving in a more moderate direction was an important underlying assumption of German policy in the months leading up to the Treaty of Rapallo, it has been essentially ignored in the scholarship on Rapallo. Equally ignored is the central role played by Carl Graap in promoting this assumption in Berlin. This article aims toward filling this gap and toward improving our understanding of the relationship between Germany and Russia in the twentieth century in general and in the period from 1919 to 1922 in particular.     

利他合同的基本理论问题

基于“不得为他人缔约”的规则,罗马法上不承认利他合同。欧洲共同法时期受自然法学思想的影响,承认了利他合同,但以第三人的接受作为前提。因为其在实践上的缺陷,这一理论逐渐为新理论所取代,直接承认合同可以对第三人产生效力。建立中国法上的利他合同制度,不宜通过对合同法第64条的解释来实现,而应在完整借鉴大陆法系利他合同理论的基础上,在未来民法典中通过立法的方式来实现。     

The electoral victory of the NPD in Saxony and the prospects for future extreme-right success in German elections

ABSTRACT

Largely because of Germany's traumatic experience of National Socialism, German extreme right-wing parties have remained a marginal post-war political phenomenon. The spectacular electoral victory of the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD) in the Saxon parliamentary elections of September 2004 (9.2 per cent of the vote) nurtured the fear that a far-right party could establish itself at the national level. Backes explains the election victory by relating it to a set of Saxon and Eastern German circumstances. He demonstrates that unfavourable conditions, which have so far prevented the establishment of extreme right-wing parties at the national level, still prevail. Against this background, he shows that the NPD's capacity for taking advantage of advantageous conditions (like economic problems and xenophobia, rampant in some places) reaches its limits very quickly.     

From the Confines To the Core

正Sino-German relations make big strides over the last four decades With the signing of a joint communiqué in Beijing on October 11,1972,the People's Republic of China(PRC) and what was then West Germany officially established diplomatic relations,opening the prelude to the full normalization of relations between the PRC and the West.     

INNOVATIVE DIPlOMACY

正PM’s visit enriches China’s cooperation with European partners By Bai ShiChinese Premier Li Keqiang paid an official visit to three European countries—Germany,Russia and Italy—between October 9 and 18.In addition to a good number of     

我国民法典视野下的数字内容瑕疵担保责任——基于欧盟背景下德国法的比较法考察

数字内容交易目前在全球数字化背景下蓬勃发展,其中,有关数字内容的瑕疵担保责任问题备受关注;立法上欧盟在新出台的《有关提供数字内容和服务的合同交易指令》中有三个条款对此作了专门规定,同时,德国也将此规定完全予以转化适用。基于现有欧盟背景下德国法有关数字内容瑕疵担保责任的比较分析,可知其不但能准确认定数字内容交易中的瑕疵形态与有效提供救济,而且有助于消费者保护。根据我国现有一般物之瑕疵担保规定并结合我国民法典编纂以及域外法经验,在解释论上,通过相关类案的比较分析,我国就此有借鉴适用的必要性;在立法论上,今后在我国《民法典》的解释与适用过程中,可先在《民法典(合同编)》司法解释中原则性地规定有关数字内容瑕疵担保责任,再另行制定具有针对性的单行法,从而有助于数字时代的我国消费者保护与数字经济发展。     

Journeys to the limits of first-hand knowledge: politicians’ on-site visits in zones of conflict and intervention

ABSTRACT

This article explores the practice and political significance of politicians’ journeys to conflict zones. It focuses on the German example, looking at field trips to theatres of international intervention as a way of first-hand knowledge in policymaking. Paying tribute to Lisa Smirl and her work on humanitarian spaces, objects and imaginaries and on liminality in aid worker biographies, two connected arguments are developed. First, through the exploration of the routinized practices of politicians’ field trips the article shows how these journeys not only remain confined to the ‘auxiliary space’ of aid/intervention, but that it is furthermore a staged reality of this auxiliary space that most politicians experience on their journeys. The question is then asked, second, what politicians actually experience on their journeys and how their experiences relate to their policy knowledge about conflict and intervention. It is shown that political field trips enable sensory/affectual, liminoid and liminal experiences, which have functions such as authority accumulation, agenda setting, community building, and civilizing domestic politics, while at the same time reinforcing, in most cases, pre-existing conflict and intervention imaginaries.     

Description of the peasants’ sexual behavior in August Wilhelm Hupel’s Topographical Messages in the context of the history of the Estonian family

The aim of this article is to introduce the work of August Wilhem Hupel, a Baltic German author of the 18th century. The article focuses on the sections in his most voluminous work Topographische Nachrichten von Lief- und Ehstland (1774–1782) that describe Estonian peasants’ sexuality. Hupel’s writings belong to the sources of the history of the Estonian family, a field that has been rediscovered at the beginning of the 21st century. Thanks to the work of Marika Mägi and Nils Blomkvist, a new paradigm for research in this field has been opened up. This article adheres to that paradigm.