A hidden and complex heritage: Reflections on the history of Germany's women's movements

This paper examines the conditions of early feminism in Germany, the differing attitudes and strategies adopted by early feminists, characterizations of the movement in historical accounts and the relationship of contemporary feminism in Germany to its earlier manifestation. The conclusion reached is that our feminist heritage is a hidden and complex one and can only be understood fully if the ‘underside’ is examined ‘from below’.     

Agenda-setting in the German Bundestag: origins and consequences of party dominance

The procedure for setting the agenda in the German Parliament originated in the middle of the nineteenth century in the Prussian Chamber of Deputies in which an informal committee arranged the agenda by an inter-party consensus. This party-dominated procedure, continued in the Reichstag of the Empire and the Weimar Republic, was institutionalised in the German Bundestag in the second half of the twentieth century. It takes account of the central role of the Fraktionen in the Bundestag and of the specialisation and division of labour that developed within them. The procedure is designed to achieve consensus among all parties and to distribute agenda-setting power between parliament and cabinet. Though remarkably decentralised, it has predictable outcomes that contribute to the impression that the Bundestag is a stage-managed parliament.     

Militär und Gewalt. Eine konzeptionelle Skizze

The article presents the empirical evidence of violence and the military. It describes acts of violence by, of and within the military and by the members of military organizations. It turns out that, as with modernity in general, violence is an inherent aspect of the military in modern societies, albeit an ambivalent one. Violence by, of and within the military cannot be framed negatively only; it disposes of productive capabilities. The chapter tries to conceptualize the empirical evidence and proposes a 2 × 2 Violence-Military-Matrix. It is argued that violence can be differentiated as constructive-legitimate violence on the one hand and destructive-illegitimate violence on the other hand. With regard to the fields of violence, the extra-organizational and the intra-organizational dimension are differentiated. At the end, it is argued that taming violence transgressions in terms of destructive-illegitimate violence is a Sisyphean task. The proposed conceptual approach to violence and the military may inform the future debate on the sociology of violence.     

Criminal Behavior in Opioid‐Dependent Patients Before and During Maintenance Therapy: 6‐year Follow‐Up of a Nationally Representative Cohort Sample

Lifetime prevalence of opioid dependence is about 0.4% in western countries. Opioid‐dependent patients have high morbidity and mortality and a high risk of criminal behavior. Few studies have addressed the long‐term impact of opioid maintenance therapy on convictions and criminal behavior. The PREMOS study is a prospective, longitudinal, naturalistic clinical study of a nationally representative sample of 2694 opioid‐dependent patients to investigate convictions and criminal behavior at baseline and after 6 years of maintenance treatment. At follow‐up, 2284 patients still were eligible (84.7%). A comprehensive assessment including a patient and doctor questionnaire, and the EuropASI was completed at baseline and follow‐up. Data on criminality at follow‐up had been received for 1147 (70.6%) patients. A large number (84.5%) of them had been charged or convicted at any time before baseline assessment, most frequently with drug‐related offenses (66.8%), acquisitive crime (49.1%), or acts of violence (22.0%). Reported charges and convictions had declined to 17.9% for the last 12 months before follow‐up, which was also reflected by a significant decrease in the EuropASI subscore “legal problems” from 1.52 at baseline to 0.98 after 6 years. These data indicate a significant and clinically relevant reduction in criminal behavior in opioid‐dependent patients in long‐term maintenance treatment. Maintenance therapy is effective in the reduction in both narcotics‐related and acquisition crime.