The Bundeswehr and the Kunduz air strike 4 September 2009: Germany's post-heroic moment?

The article sets out to investigate Germany's involvement in the controversial 2009 Kunduz air strike in Afghanistan. Utilizing a theoretical framework derived from existing literature on postheroic warfare, it employs a detailed case study of this particular military engagement to highlight the operational, strategic, and cultural dimensions of Germany's operations in Afghanistan. Through an analysis of primary documents and field interviews, this paper concludes that German public opinion, politicians, soldiers and media reacted in ways that mirror closely theories of postheroic warfare. These included widespread condemnation of the air strike, increasing doubts about the Afghan mission, and emphasis on low-risk stand-off precision weapons, which paradoxically resulted in higher civilian casualties. Germans still have a long way to go to accept the brutal realities of military engagements that the Bundeswehr increasingly confronts during its expanded scope of post-cold war military operations.     

Wiener Juristische Gesellschaft

Die Zukunft hat begonnen: Die Reform des Studiums der Rechtswissenschaften am Wiener Juridicum     

Föderalismus als Entdeckungsverfahren &;ndash; Zur Theorie und Empirie des innovativen Bundesstaates am Beispiel Österreichs

Differenzierungen im Recht gehören zu den Wesensmerkmalen des Bundesstaates. Der vorliegende Beitrag geht der Frage nach, wie über diese Differenzierungen föderalistischer Wettbewerb entsteht und wechselseitiges Lernen ermöglicht wird. Nicht zu vernachlässigen ist aber auch der Effekt der Rechtsangleichung durch kooperativen Föderalismus. Beide Phänomene sind Bausteine einer Theorie des innovativen Bundesstaates.     

Fiscal Federalism in Transition: Evidence from Ukraine

Effects of fiscal federalism on redistribution and economic growth are analyzed for Ukraine, a country with large regional differences. Since there is virtually no such empirical literature, except a study of the German case, and since there are several potential flaws, the results must be interpreted in a very tentative way. We find that this relatively poor, disorganized country with little democracy has effectively redistributed income from relatively wealthy to relatively poor regions and thus promoted regional economic convergence, and even dampened the recession in both types of regions. We also find that the evidence does not reject the view that relatively poor regions used the transfers in a growth-conducive fashion, and the paper argues that the findings may have implications beyond the case of Ukraine. But the analysis is tricky, uncertain, and merely a small step to an interesting research issue.