Talent Management in Life Insurance Industry,Rediscovering L. von Mises Theory

The idea of development accompanied the human kind since ancient times. Greek philosophers were seeking for the laws and movements which determined the nature, but they did not support the clear solutions and answers, neither did most of their present successors. According to the opinion of authors of this paper, the world economy can be driven in two possible ways, which basic assumptions are： total order and complete chaos. All interstages are temporary. The only solution to put today＇s world economy in order is to follow Austrian School＇s principles, particularly in the context of globalization processes, which enables world to achieve new opportunities, but simultaneously put organizations at global threats. Life insurance companies are interested in using the first and avoiding the latter.     

Mission Accomplished: Die Wiederwahl von George W. Bush

Ohne Zusammenfassung „A date which will live in infamy.“ (Franklin D. Roosevelt über den 7. Dezember 1941) „The Pearl Harbor of the 21 ^st century took place today.“ (George W. Bush am 11. September 2001) Für Anregungen bin ich Thomas Gschwend, Max Kaase, Albert-Leo Norpoth und Altfrid Norpoth dankbar.     

Siegfried Landshut: Politik. Grundbegriffe und Analysen. Eine Auswahl aus dem Gesamtwerk in zwei Bänden. Hg. von Rainer Nicolaysen

Politische Vierteljahresschrift -     

Die deutsche Föderalismusreform — von außen betrachtet. Ein Vergleich von Systemproblemen des deutschen und des schweizerischen Föderalismus

Ohne Zusammenfassung Ich danke meiner Mitarbeiterin Andrea Iff für ihren eigenen Diskussionsbeitrag zum Thema, von dem ich viel gelernt habe, sowie Adrian Vatter und Stephan Heichel (Universit?t Konstanz) für kritische Kommentare.     

Steuerung jenseits von Hierarchie

The paper sheds new light on recent debates about governance and approaches contemporary problems of governing from the perspective of contemporary theories of power. The concept of “soft governing” is developed in order to capture horizontal mechanisms of power intentionally used to govern beyond formalised hierarchies characteristic of processes of governance. The paper describes in particular the horizontal forms of governing through discursive practices, argumentation and symbols and the ways in which they interact. The example of campaigns against female genital mutilation is introduced in order to illustrate possible forms of governing beyond hierarchy.     

Parteipolitikverflechtung. Über den Einfluss der Bundespolitik auf Landtagswahlentscheidungen von 1976 bis 2000

In anticipation of the existence of an “electoral cycle”, most studies on the relationship between federal politics and Laender election outcomes in Germany have relied on the scheduling of a Laender election as an independent variable. Election results of the federal government parties in Laender elections were then explained as a function of the time elapsed since the last federal election. This paper explores the explanatory power of the electoral cycle argument before and after 1990. It rejects time as a relevant explanatory variable for the study of the interdependence of federal and Laender election outcomes after the German reunification. However, this does not imply that the influence of federal politics on Laender election outcomes has vanished, as some recent studies have claimed. My regression analyses show that the causal link between federal and Laender election outcomes still holds: the higher the decline in the federal government’s popularity, the higher are the losses of federal government parties in Laender elections. The influence of federal politics on Laender election outcomes has grown, rather than declined, since reunification.     

Kristine Kern: Die Diffusion von Politikinnovationen. Umweltpolitische Innovationen im Mehrebensystem der USA

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Individualisierte Wahlkämpfe im Wahlkreis. Eine Analyse am Beispiel des Bundestagswahlkampfes von 2005

Constituency campaigns are an important subject matter for students of political parties, voting behavior and political communication. In all three fields, constituency campaigns are perceived as elements of centralized high-tech campaigns strategically targeting particular segments in electoral markets. In this paper, we propose an alternative understanding of local campaigns and use the case of the German Parliamentary Elections in 2005 to provide empirical evidence for this view. We analyze constituency campaigns from an actor-centred perspective, which assumes local campaigns to signal independence of individual candidates from their parties. We label this phenomenon individualized campaigning. We argue that individualized campaigning is, on the one hand, driven by changing electoral markets. On the other hand, we argue, however, that electoral incentives and particular types of electoral competitiveness foster individualized constituency campaigning. We test this latter hypothesis with regard to the German mixed-member electoral system and on the basis of a survey of all candidates standing for election in 2005.     

Ein Bericht von der Heimatfront

For a considerable period, the ISAF mission of the German army to Afghanistan has been opposed by a majority of German citizens. This discrepancy between elite decisions and public opinion suggests that the process of political representation does not work smoothly. This paper shows that political elites hardly engaged in political leadership concerning this issue. Moreover, voters did not give strong incentives for elite responsiveness by casting policy votes on the Afghanistan issue. Even in the 2009 election, the Afghanistan issue did not play a major role in voting choice. At the same time, public opinion appears to have affected elite decisions. Accordingly, the process of political representation appears to work more smoothly than suggested at a first glance.     

Zur statistischen Analyse von Vollerhebungen

When analyzing superpopulation data, inferential statistical methods should be used. Empirical tests of hypotheses are subject to a variety of stochastic processes, or “errors”, even if the data involved in those tests are not the product of random sampling. Assumptions about the nature of these processes have to be an explicit part of the analysis and need to be justified. Using several examples of published research, we make transparent that all substantive conclusions are conditional on the assumptions about the nature of the stochastic processes that are at work in generating superpopulation data.     

Jenseits von Distanz und Richtung. Die Verbundmessung von Politikpräferenzen im Vergleich mit dem Distanz- und dem Richtungsmodell des Wählens — Empirische Befunde eines Methodenexperiments

The analysis of issue voting is of central importance in empirical electoral research. In this context, policy positions of voters and parties are normally surveyed by means of bipolar policy scales developed within the spatial model of voting. Even if such policy scales are widespread, their use can be criticised for a series of theoretical and methodological reasons. Beyond this background, conjoint measurement of policy preferences is presented as an alternative mode of operationalization. Using data from a methodological experiment it is shown that (full profile) conjoint measurement is superior to the use of traditional policy scales in the proximity and the directional model of voting.