Der Aufstieg der Beratung zur transnationalen Regierungsform im Feld des Managements

In the twentieth century management consulting has become a transnational form of governing the firm. Seeking advice from consultancy is part of everyday corporate governance, having worked for a consultancy is a guarantee for sought after skills in once career and management concepts developed in consulting contexts are accepted as genuine management knowledge even in academic terms. This development is the outcome of a process of professionalizing management and management consulting, at the heart of which stands a discursive redefining of the firm and its governance. The discursive change of the field of management coincides with the transnationalization of the political field, a development that opens up a whole new bunch of possibilities for professional service firms such as management consultancies to engage in professionalization projects. As a result management consultancies have become decisive agents and a power of consecration in an increasingly autonomous field of management. The research is conducted by using an analytical framework that draws on Bourdieu’s heuristics on practice fields and his studies on the field of power as well as on Foucault’s concept of governmentality.     

Free choice of legal fee shifting rules?

In every country in the world parties to private litigation are subject to a predetermined fee shifting regime. While there are no institutionalized opt-out provisions so far, we demonstrate that such provisions could improve welfare. We argue that private negotiations are not a viable alternative to such opt-out provisions. We derive the conditions under which welfare improvements occur and suggest an applicable design for such an opt-out scheme.     

Biological attacks and the non-state actor: A threat assessment

In a climate of political concern about the deliberate dissemination of pathogenic micro-organisms, this article assesses the nature and scope of the threat to national security posed by actors other than states. Key factors include the motivations and disincentives for carrying out a biological attack and the technical challenges likely to be encountered by a non-state organization that decides to use disease as its weapon of choice. The assessment concludes that non-state organizations do not at present pose a great threat, that biological attacks should generally not be regarded as a ‘WMD’ issue, but also that the conduct of individual scientists engaged in pathogen research warrants careful monitoring.