Die Entwicklung der Rechtsprechung zum Umweltinformationsgesetz in den Jahren 2007 und 2008

Zusammenfassung  Der Artikel gibt einen überblick über die in den Jahren 2007 und 2008 ergangene Rechtsprechung zu grundlegenden Fragen des Umweltinformationsgesetzes (UIG) des Bundes und einzelner L?nder. Die Entscheidungen werden anhand des Sachverhaltes kurz zusammengefasst und bei Bedarf durch die Verfasser kommentiert. Der Artikel ist nach den einzelnen Themenbereichen des UIG strukturiert, denen sich die jeweiligen Entscheidungen zuordnen lassen.     

politicizing biographies: the forming of transnational subjectivities as insiders outside

We take our own life stories as points of departure to look at some of the ways in which women were politicized in Argentina and West Germany (our respective countries of origin), focusing on similarities as well as differences in our politicization processes. We aim at putting present discussions about global political movements into a historical perspective. We want also to illuminate the centrality of political identities in the construction of specific (gendered) subjectivities. Our focus lies on theorizing the ways through which privileged (gendered) identities critically re-read their own position and transform their own understanding of themselves and the world through the field of the political. Methodologically, we want to contribute to ways of re-thinking Feminist methodologies by experimenting with a form of analysis in which we are alternately the subject and the object of our research process. The aim of this intervention is to transgress the binary oppositions between researcher/researched and challenge traditional understanding of social science where researchers provide analysis and informants have ‘experience’. One of our conclusions is that the 68 movement provided subject positions for living alternative normalities as an ‘insider-outside’, that is, for those who belonged to normalized groups in their respective societies, but for different reasons (of which we analyse some concerning our formation as ‘women’) could not identify with the dominant normalities offered to them. At the same time, the dominant male instrumentality of the movement estranged (some) women and allowed them (or forced them into) a kind of distanced engagement that, perhaps paradoxically, provided a basis for sustaining their political subjectivities through transformative experiences of defeat.     

Migration past and present: changing patterns in Kyrgyzstan

Internal and international labour migration is a main livelihood strategy for many people in rural areas of Kyrgyzstan. It is estimated that approximately one-third of the employable population of Kyrgyzstan is working abroad. However, current labour migration phenomena are not exceptional since Central Asia's history has always been characterized by the movement of people, including external and internal, forced and voluntary, legal and illegal, permanent and temporary, ethnically or economically motivated migration. This article gives an overview of the historical and present migration processes with a special focus on three village communities in rural Kyrgyzstan. It deals with the opportunities and difficulties with which labour migrants and their non-migrating family members are confronted today. The results are based on extensive field work in Kyrgyzstan.     

Cognitive limitations and affirmative action: The effects of aggregate versus sequential data in the perception of discrimination

The present experiment examined whether or not relatively simple cognitive and information-processing limitations may prevent us from recognizing instances of organizational discrimination. It was hypothesized that the perception of discrimination would be more difficult when the relevant information had been presented in a case-by-case basis rather than in aggregate format. The obtained results provided strong support for the original hypothesis. Subjects who had been presented with company data in aggregate format provided significantly higher ratings of discrimination than those subjects for whom the information had been presented in sequential form. The implications of these findings to the policy of affirmative action are also discussed.     

Fragmented control: Governing contentious labor organizations in China

How does an authoritarian state govern contentious civil society and what are the effects on grassroots mobilization? This article theorizes the relationship between repression and mobilization by examining the case of informal labor organizations in South China that threaten social stability. Findings based on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork inside these organizations suggest that the central state's mandate to maintain social stability is refracted through the interests and capabilities of local agencies. This results in “fragmented control”: divergent, even conflicting, forms of state governance over civil society. Local authorities work at cross‐purposes by simultaneously repressing, co‐opting, and neglecting underground organizing. Fragmented control generates political uncertainty on the part of activists and induces them to engage in “censored entrepreneurialism”—a set of tactical adaptations characterized by a mixture of self‐censorship and entrepreneurial experimentation.