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.     

Implementing “new public management”: The case of employment services in Quebec

Abstract: This article describes a reform to improve delivery of state‐funded employment services in the province of Quebec. It is based on a six‐year field study conducted during the reform process and presents the reform's objective, the way it was implemented, and some of the lessons learned during the reform process. This study focuses on three points: the key steps that led to the implementation of an output‐based contracting system between the state and non‐profit organizations; why the process of implementing private‐sector practices was unexpectedly long and complex; and the side‐effects associated with the reform.     

Form vs. substance in selection through competition: elections,markets, and political economy

Any competitive process selects among qualities possessed by the competitors, and with different processes selecting for different qualities. While the competitive form is universal, the substantive qualities that are selected depend on the particular environment within which competition occurs. With respect to athletic competition, for instance, diving selects for different qualities than swimming: a champion diver need not be a champion swimmer. Markets and politics are both forms of competitive endeavor, and it is reasonable to think that competition will select for excellence within each environment. This purely formal property of competition, however, generates different substantive qualities across environments, as we explore in this paper.     

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.     

From vanguard to laggard: Germany in European security and defence policy

Guided by a federalist vision of European integration, Germany used to be a staunch supporter of a European security and defence policy. Whereas Germany's rhetorical support has remained unchanged, it has turned into a laggard in implementing the commitments arising from a European Rapid Reaction Force. Drawing on an interactionist framework, this article demonstrates that Germany's change of course is neither in line with a Europeanised identity nor a result of any deliberate grand strategy to renationalise defence policy. Rather, Germany's failure to live up to its commitments is best understood as an unintended consequence of its integrationist policies in the early 1990s.