New Economy,Risikokapital und die Mythen des Internet

In diesem Artikel wird aus einer neoinstitutionalistischen Perspektive die Funktionsweise risikokapitalfinanzierter Unternehmen analysiert. Als Beispiel dient dabei der Internet-Hype von 1995 bis 2000. Aufgrund des schnellen Wachstums der [nternetunternehmen und der Möglichkeit, Anteile von sehr jungen Unternehmen an den Börsen zu handeln, war diese Branche ein geeignetes Investitionsfeld für Risikokapitalgesellschaften. Insofern davon ausgegangen wurde, dass eine schnelle Marktpenetration über Erfolg oder Misserfolg von Unternehmen im Internet entscheidet, waren nicht kurzfristige Profitabilität, sondern Nutzerzahlen, Bildschirmbesucher und Umsatzsteigerungen wichtig. Da die Geschäftsmodelle risikokapitalfinanzierter Unternehmen vorrangig auf einem Nachfluss von Geldern aus dem Kapitalmarkt aufgebaut sind, ist es für sie von wesentlicher Bedeutung, die ?Meilensteine“ auch zu erreichen, die sie bezüglich Nutzerzahlen, Umsatzsteigerung und Ergebnisverbesserung aufgestellt haben. Kapitalmarktorientierte Unternehmen nutzten deswegen ausgeprägt Möglichkeiten, um Nutzerzahlen, Bildschirmbesucher, Umsatz und Unternehmensergebnisse zu schönen. Die so entstehenden ?Unternehmensrealitäten“ basieren darauf, dass die Geldnachflüsse aus dem Kapitalmarkt sich fortsetzen. Wenn sie ausbleiben, brechen die Unternehmen wie Kartenhäuser in sich zusammen.     

A six-year follow-up study of anorexia nervosa subjects with teenage onset

Fifty-one adolescent onset anorexia nervosa (AN) cases recruited after community screening were compared with fifty-one age-, sex- and schoolmatched cases with regard to comorbidity and personality disorders at age 21 years. All 102 cases had originally been examined at a mean age of 16 years. Outcome according to the Morgan-Russell scales was fairly similar to that reported in recent clinic-based samples. Most of the former AN cases were recovered in respect of weight but outcome in social areas was restricted. Obsessive compulsive and avoidant personality disorders and empathy disorders were very much more common in the AN than in the comparison group. Obsessive compulsive behaviors showed a high degree of stability over time and were unrelated to weight problems. Together with empathy disorders they tended to predict outcome better than the eating disorder as such. Affective disorders were common but tended to follow the course of the eating disorder rather than precede or postdate it.Received Ph.D. on Anorexia Nerevosa in Swedish Urban Teenagers at Göteborg University in 1990. Major research interests concern the epidemiology and background factors of eating disorder.Received Ph.D. in 1981 at the University of Uppsala on Neuropsychiatric aspects of perceptual, motor, and attentional deficits in seven-year-old Swedish children. Major research interests are autism, Asperger syndrome, anorexia nervosa, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, mental retardation, lefthandedness, and behavioral phenotypes.Received Ph.D. in 1987 at The University of Uppsala on Deficits in Attention, Motor Control and Perception: Follow-Up from Pre-School to Early Teens. Her major research interests concern attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.     

Effect of Media Environment Diversity and Advertising Tone on Information Search,Selective Exposure,and Affective Polarization

This paper examines the effects of our modern media environment on affective polarization. We conducted an experiment during the last month of the 2012 presidential election varying both the choice of media sources available about the major presidential candidates, and the tone of political advertisements presented to subjects. We posit that voters in a high-choice, ideologically-diverse media environment will exhibit greater affective polarization than those in a “mainstream” ideologically neutral environment. We also hypothesize that subjects who are exposed to negative rather than positive political advertisements will show increased affective polarization. We provide causal evidence that the combination of a high-choice ideologically diverse media environment and exposure to negative political ads, significantly increases affective polarization. We also find that both overall information search and selective exposure to information are influenced by our experimental manipulations, with the greatest amount of search, and the most biased search, conducted by Romney supporters in the Negative Ads, Diverse Media condition.     

Spreading Hindutva through education: Still a priority for the BJP?

This article explores how the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has pursued its ideology of Hindu nationalism through educational reforms. It pays most attention to the reforms undertaken by the first BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, from 1998–2004. A key argument is that these reforms mirrored BJP’s ideology. The reforms were legitimized with reference to certain challenges facing contemporary Indian society, particularly the threats represented by value degradation and a weakening of indigenous traditions. I view such arguments in terms of sublimating all challenges to the cultural realm. Moreover, these reforms aimed to establish an education system based on a coherent, integrative framework, concurring with the ideological outlook of the BJP. In the final part of the article, I examine the current NDA regime and seek to explain why similar reforms do not appear to be high on Prime Minister Modi’s agenda. By doing so, the article sheds light on the question of Modi’s commitment to Hindu nationalist ideology. A major argument is that to Modi, Hindutva-inspired reforms of the education system collide with the promises made during his electoral campaign and with key elements of the political programs he has initiated so far.     

Governance through government networks: The G8 and international organizations

As an informal grouping without headquarters, permanent staff or legal powers, the world’s major industrialized countries must rely on other actors, in particular international organizations, to manage global problems. This article examines how the Group of Eight contributes to global governance by cooperating with international organizations in the cases of debt relief and the fight against terrorist finance. It shows that the G8 draws on international institutions with the aid of government networks and argues that this cooperation is stronger, the greater the Group’s concentration of relevant power and the more important it considers the institutions’ resources.     

Are women more likely to throw the rascals out? The mobilizing effect of social service spending on female voters

Public Choice - This study focuses on gender differences in voter reactions to a corruption scandal in one’s preferred party. We analyze, in a framework of ‘exit, voice and...     

The importance of discretion for welfare services to minorities: Examining workload and anti-immigration attitudes

Migration influx in Western countries resulting in increasingly diverse societies results in more complex situations for bureaucrats in their client interactions in welfare organizations. The role of discretion for services to clients has received much attention in the public administration research and therefore this study explores the relation among perceived workload, anti-immigration attitudes, perceived discretion, and perceived difficulty in working with migrants. The paper examines the function of perceived discretion as moderator or mediator variable in this constellation. The relations are examined by using structural equation modelling based on a survey among Swedish welfare bureaucrats (N = 1,319). The results show that heavier perceived workload increased the likelihood of experiencing work with migrants as difficult and that greater perceived discretion decreased the likelihood of experiencing work with migrants as difficult. The results suggest that perceived discretion functions as a mediator for the relation between perceived workload and difficulty in work with migrants: potentially functioning as a ‘buffer’ for organizational pressure. We also found that bureaucrats who hold negative attitudes towards migrants were more likely to express their work with migrants as more difficult. This paper contributes to the public administration literature by increasing our knowledge on how discretion has significance in relation to when bureaucrat's behaviour is determined by specific organizational and personal factors.     

Proffering Pork: How Party Leaders Build Party Reputations in Brazil

Despite its highly candidate-centered electoral law, recent studies have shown that Brazilian party leaders are more powerful, and Brazilian parties are more unified, than alleged by long-dominant scholarship. Examining post-War and contemporary democracy in Brazil, governed by the same federal legislative electoral law, this article provides a controlled test of the role of leadership and electoral law in driving party unity. The combination of leadership intervention to enforce unity, increased unity, and partisan tides in contemporary Brazil, in contrast to an absence of leadership intervention, lower unity, and no partisan tides in the post-War, provides strong support for the role of the leadership in generating unity, as emphasized in the collective action theory of party organization. The findings also suggest that a general theory of variation in party unity requires examining factors that lead to variation in party leaders' incentives to enforce unity, in addition to the current emphasis on backbenchers' incentives to defy the leadership.