Prospects for communication policy

At stake in communication policymaking is control and use of technologies central to the process of governance in society. Future policies must admit a broader range of social goals than present ones. Defining such goals will require shifting conceptual approaches from regulation to investment, from information goods to communication resources, and from consumerism to politics. Persons engaged in communication policy research and planning had best avoid traps of being blinded by the technology, underestimating the political process and making easy assumptions about goals and values.David Grey, Edwin Parker and Donald Dunn of the faculty of Stanford University were especially helpful in the preparation of this article.     

Agile programming – Introduction and current legal challenges

Within the realms of software development, customers must specify the requirements of their new software before the start of the project. Today, this leads to considerable delays with respect to the start of the project. In addition, the integration of new requirements into a system already developed in parts is becoming increasingly time-consuming and cost-intensive. Yet the specifically necessitated functions of a software are often only revealed through the process of development. By means of agile programming, changes in the requirements of a software product can be handled flexibly in shorter development cycles. In the following, the framework of agile software development projects as it applies under German law is described and current legal problems of such projects – in particular, the issue of contract type and the new building contract law – are considered. The unplanned project design appears contrary to the legal approach. The article shows, however, that agile software products development provides customers with dynamic and quickly scalable products and that customers can leave the project after individual project steps. The new development of building contract law, which focuses on subunits and approvals, is also very much in line with the above-mentioned programming.     

Islam and Ethnicity in the Republics of Russia

An American sociologist reports results of survey research conducted in 1993 among Muslims in the five Islamic Autonomous Republics of Russia (N = 4,955). The data demonstrate that the strength of Islam as both a religious and social institution varied regionally despite the shared experience of Soviet anti-religious policies. Muslims in Chechnya and Dagestan were much more likely to report that they actively practiced Islam than Muslims living in Kabardino-Balkariya, Tatarstan, and Bashkortostan. Moroever, religious practice was high among non-traditional groups of Chechentsy and Avartsy. The young, the urban migrants, the highly educated, and men reported high levels of active worship. In Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, and Kabardino-Balkariya, in contrast, active religiosity was primarily confined to old, rural women with low levels of education. These differences, it is argued, are linked to the Sufi Islam tradition present in Chechnya and Dagestan but absent in the other Muslim autonomous republics. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: O50, R10, Z1.     

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