Konsens und widerstand. städtische obrigkeit und landschaftliche partizipation im städtischen territorium bern (15.‐16. jahrhundert)

The documentary and bibliographic references at our disposal in relation to the buildings where Valencian parliamentary sessions were held during the Middle and Modern Ages are very scarce. The available data show a practically exclusive utilization of religious buildings (temples and convents). The causes of this preference must lie in medieval policy, practical reasons and a certain connotation of neutrality which was inherent to such buildings. In any case, their utilization implied fitting out the religious building in question so as to adapt it to the new parliamentary functions via a convenient distribution of its space and the execution of ephemeral works in it. In turn, secular spaces, and more precisely those of royal ownership (castles, palaces), were occasionally used for the celebration of some parliamentary assemblies. But these assemblies were never entirely held from their opening to their closure in those contexts; only some of their sessions took place in those premises. The celebration of Valencian parliamentary sessions in privately owned buildings of ecclesiastical or aristocratic nature was exceptional.     

Management im Krankenhaus – Eine Fallstudie zur Bearbeitung der Innen- und Außenspannungen unter den Bedingungen des deutschen DRG-Systems

The article discusses the management of a municipal hospital from the standpoint of its currently typical internal and external tensions. Based on the results of a reconstructive study, the paper investigates how the associated perspectives of reflection are processed and related to one another by actors. This provides insight into the main problems experienced by a contemporary hospital. In addition to the theoretical background of management sociology, the discussion draws attention to what research needs, both methodologically and metatheoretically, to be able to be sensitive not only to the empirical co-presence of multiple institutional logics and perspectives, but also to permit the question as to how these logics and perspectives are related to each other in concrete practice.     

Kommunale Repräsentation auf den Landtagen Schwäbisch-Österreichs. Eine Prosopograhie der Abgeordneten aus der Grafschaft Hohenberg und der Landvogtei Schwaben,Schriften zur Südwestdeutschen Landeskunde

Anthony Fletcher: Reform in the Provinces: The Government of Stuart England. (Yale University Press, 1986; pp.xiv, 386; ISBN 0521 330637; £22.00.)

J.C.D. Clark: Revolution and Rebellion: State and Society in England in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. (Cambridge University Press, 1986; pp.x, 182; ISBN 0521 33710 0; pb, £6.95 ($9.95.))

J.M. McEwen (ed.): The Riddell Diaries, 1908–1923. (The Athlone Press, London and Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1986; pp. xviii, 430; ISBN 0 485 11300 7; £25.00.)     

Zwischen Ökonomie und Politik. Zur diskursiven Konstruktion des Begriffs „Sozialmodell“ im Sarkozy-Wahlkampf 2005–2007

In “general economic-political discourses”, actors from the spheres of politics, economics and mass media struggle over the valid perception of the relations between the economy, politics, and society as a whole. The discourse on the “modèle sociale français“ provides a case in point: A concept that had been associated for many years with the economic success of the fifth republic, but in the 2000s became a central element of a crisis-rhetoric that helped to pave the way for the reform agenda of Nicolas Sarkozy. Building on this example, the article analyzes how economic-political discourses are established and transformed. On the one side, it reflects upon the importance of discourse research for economic sociology in general; on the other, it shows how general economic-political discourses help to legitimize certain positions in public debates, and how they depict specific scientific problems as relevant for society. Mediators of public and scientific debates benefit from this, just as political and economic actors do as they generate public approval for their corresponding reform-agendas.     

Die Bedeutung institutioneller Regeln für das Handeln an Börsen. Eine soziologische Perspektive auf Aktienrückkäufe in Deutschland

The amendment of the German Stock Companies Act in 1998 regarding the repurchase of shares makes it possible to study the acceptance of a capital market strategy at managerial level as well as its effects on investors. Both are sociologically intertwined with the belief of the agents in the efficiency of share repurchases. In the U.S., this pattern has been observed ever since the prevailing of the “Agency Logic”. Based on the largest data set so far, the paper shows that repurchase programs have also been well established in the German business world in the meantime. Short-term market reactions are significantly positive and imply an informal, yet institutionalized rule of action for investors. However, both trends apply especially in times of negative markets and, generally, not in the long-run—which makes them a “bad signal” for private investors. The results present robust evidence in central aspects against the dominant economic explanation (the “Signalling Theory”) and suggest practical actions for politicians, entrepreneurs and investors.