Der Vollzug des Antarktis-Schutzes in Deutschland

Weit weg und mittlerweile doch sehr nah liegt die Antarktis, wenn es um Klima- und Umweltschutz geht. Forschung und Tourismus strapazieren den au?ergew?hnlichen Naturraum. Der Beitrag zeigt auf, mit welchen Steuerungsans?tzen Deutschland seinen Verpflichtungen zum Antarktisschutz gerecht werden will. Ausgehend von einigen Informationen über den 6. Kontinent (A.) werden die unterschiedlichen Interessenkonflikte rund um Nutzung und Schutz der Antarktis illustriert (B.). Im Anschluss daran wird der zugeh?rige internationale und nationale Rechtsrahmen kurz vorgestellt (C.), ehe verschiedene Facetten des deutschen Ausführungsgesetzes n?her beleuchtet werden (D.). Flankierend wird neben dem Ordnungsrecht eine gute fachliche Praxis in Form eines Leitfadens als Element nichtrechtlicher Steuerung genutzt (E.). Der Beitrag schlie?t mit Fazit und Ausblick (F.).     

Violence,fear, and development in Latin America: a critical overview

This introduction presents the core concepts that shape this special issue on the impact of violence and the processes of development in Central and South America. The understanding of development is considered in terms broader than the economic context alone, in order to assess wider social and political aspects. With a similarly expansive scope, forms of violence are addressed that range from direct physical harm and bodily attack to the often more subtle aggression of racialised abuse or the pressures on community-centred production from dominant market forces. In these contexts, violence, economic initiatives, and political allegiances form unintended and often dangerous networks of consequence for development matters. All the articles in this volume exemplify further the spatial environments of violence and diverse ‘landscapes of fear’ that shape our existence and help to define our actions, territories, and understanding of what happens around us.     

Corporate governance in Germany: The changing role of the banks

The article analyses the different channels ‐ industrial stakes, supervisory board mandates, proxy voting ‐ by which German banks can exert influence on industrial companies. The central thesis is that even where the banks have such influence they do not dominate the companies. A recent empirical study on the effects of the alleged bank dominance over industrial companies with detrimental effects on their performance is shown to contain major methodological mistakes. The relationship between banks and industry is undergoing some distinct changes. Banks have substantially reduced their industrial stakes as well as their representation on supervisory boards, which underlines that they are not striving for industrial leadership. Despite a clear trend in the German corporate sector to pay increasing attention to shareholder value and to provide more transparency in accounting, it seems premature to expect the German capital market, including the corporate governance system, to incorporate fully the Anglo‐Saxon model in the immediate future.     

Besprechungen

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

The unknown depths of political theory: The case for a multidimensional concept of corruption

Defining corruption has proven to be such a difficult challenge that many contemporary analysts pass over the question as quickly as possible. But while definitions are too important to be dismissed as an analytical concern, a single one-dimensional definition that will satisfy all observers will never be found. Rather than proposing yet another definition, this article explores five dimensions of the concept: corruption as social decline, as deviant behavior, as a logic of exchange, as a system of measurable perceptions, and corruption as shadow politic. All help us view corruption within actual social settings; all lend further detail to the sorts of contrasts among concepts and usages that Arnold Heidenheimer explored in his work. In the end one of the most important aspects of the issue is that of trust, which not only helps us understand how corruption functions in actual cases but also underscores the reasons why we must continue to fight it.