Notes on contributors

The pre-unification European and foreign policy of the ‘old’ Federal Republic was marked by four principal traits: an emphatically Western orientation, a strong commitment to multilateralism underpinned by close bilateral relations with France and the US, its civilian character, and Euro-centrism. Although it took place in radically different circumstances and under radically different conditions to the first, the second German unification nonetheless gave rise to fears among the political leaders of many other states in Western, Central and Eastern Europe – and among the proponents of some international relations theories – that it would herald sweeping changes in Germany's foreign policy orientation and profoundly destabilise inter-state relations in Europe. The contributions to this volume show that, in the decade following the second unification, there has been more continuity than change in German European and foreign policy. The most important change concerns attitudes and behaviour in respect of the use of military force. Under the pressure of its Western allies and events in the Balkans which have forced it to choose between opposition to war and opposition to genocide, Germany has shed much of its earlier inhibitions concerning the use of military force and become much more like a ‘normal’ big power in Europe. However, because this trend has been explicitly encouraged and welcomed by Germany's allies and partners and because it has taken place exclusively within the multilateral frameworks of NATO and the EU, it does not presage the return of a political ‘Frankenstein monster’ or the revival of the pre-Second World War patterns of European inter-state rivalry. The second German unification will assuredly not turn out to be a re-run of the first.     

Exzessive individuelle Gewalt. „School Shootings“ und „Lone Wolf Terrorism“ als soziale Phänomene

Since the middle of the 1990s both, school shootings as in Littleton 1999 or Newtown 2012 and terrorist attacks by lone offenders (lone wolf terrorism) as in Oslo 2011 or Aurora 2012 are perceived as extremely disputed social phenomena. They have not only shocked and unsettled the western world but triggered public debates about arms control and school safety. Despite these broad debates, academic analyses of the phenomena are still in their early stages. Thus, the article discusses the current status of research and discusses problems as well as blind spots of previous approaches in the social sciences. Following this criticism, it suggests a new conceptual approach that conceives school shootings and attacks of lone offender terrorism phenomenologically as manifestations of “excessive individual violence”. Further, the article argues that the communicative meaning of this kind of violence is of utmost significance, it outlines the social embeddedness of the social phenomenon of excessive individual violence and describes crucial fields of further research.     

Experimente in der Politikwissenschaft: Vom Mauerblümchen zum Mainstream

The use of experimental research designs is on the rise. Internationally, experiments are becoming ever more established in the field, as shown by the increasing number of journal articles, books, and conferences. In German political science, however, using experimental methods is still rather uncommon. After a (brief) discussion of the relevance of experiments for political science, we will—in general terms—introduce the logic of experimental research as well as different types of experiments. Then we shall provide a (selective) overview of experimental research in political science that has been conducted: First, we cursorily review the state of (experimental) research done in the fields of elections and public opinion, public goods and collective action, social trust and finally legislative bargaining and decision-making. Following that, we discuss in greater detail the field experimental strand of research studying voter mobilization.     

Alles eine Frage des Managements?

NPM-driven agencification thoroughly changed the face of public administrations in many modern democracies. Despite high expectations and more than a decade of experience the effects of these reforms are still widely disputed. This contribution presents a neo-institutionalist model to evaluate empirically the explanatory power of those factors commonly considered as the most relevant for executives’ discretion in decision-making. Perception-data taken from the German federal administration confirm the hypothesized correlation between the distance from government and perceived discretion of agency executives. However, in-depth analysis reveals that some of the most common instruments to achieve autonomization fail to deliver.     

Parental support,coping strategies,and psychological adjustment: An integrative model with late adolescents

The purpose of this study was to apply an Integrative predictive model to examine interrelationships among parental support, adaptive coping strategies, and psychological adjustment among late adolescents. Findings using new measures of parental support and adaptive coping with 241 eighteen-year-old college freshmen supported hypotheses. Social support from both mother and father and a nonconflictual relationship between parents were positively associated with adolescents' psychological adjustment. Adolescents with high parental support were better adjusted and less distressed than were those with low parental support. Additionally, an integrative structural equation model showed that parental support was associated with psychological adjustment both directly and indirectly through a higher percent of approach coping strategies.This work was supported in part by grants from the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, the University Research Institute, University of Texas at Austin, and the William T. Grant Foundation.Received Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Research interests include stress and coping processes among adolescents and adults and coping with chronic illness.Research interests include adolescent coping and development and anxiety processes.Received Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. Research interests include social ecological perspectives on psychological functioning, health services research and evaluation, depression, and alcoholism.