Der Abschluss von Swap-Geschäften durch Gemeinden und die Grenzen der Gemeindeautonomie

Gemeinden haben mit Swap-Geschäften zur Absicherung des Zinsrisikos teilweise erhebliche Verluste erlitten. Dieser Umstand führt mittlerweile auch zu Gerichtsverfahren, in welchen die Gültigkeit dieser Geschäfte streitgegenständlich ist. Im folgenden Beitrag werden die Voraussetzungen für die Gültigkeit von Swap-Geschäften der Gemeinden untersucht.     

Do Women Representatives Regender Legislative Bureaucracy? Assessing the Effect of Representative Sex on Women's Presence among US Congressional Staff

Achieving greater female presence in influential positions is a commonly discussed strategy for gender reform in institutions such as the US Congress. Using theory adapted from research on gender in the workplace, this study examines whether women representatives, as ‘managers’ of congressional offices, alter patterns of gender representation in Congress by hiring and promoting more women staffers compared with men representatives. Cross-sectional logistic regression analyses of staffer sex during the 110th and 111th Congresses (2007–10) reveal a positive relationship between women representatives and female presence on congressional staffs. However, the relationship does not hold with respect to the most influential staff positions. These findings provide only limited support for theories that women representatives act as ‘change agents’ by directly facilitating opportunities for women, and highlight the importance of exploring alternative strategies for empowering women and regendering legislative institutions.     

Access to party positions and preference formation: a field experiment

Abstract: Surveys are sometimes used to assess preferences towards policy issues that are remote from experience and that have never been publicly discussed. How do these preferences of isolated survey respondents compare with preferences expressed by voters who have access to advice from competing political parties? I address this question by conducting a field experiment with a sample of the general public in which I experimentally control the subjects’ access to the actual positions of competing parties and interest groups on specific novel policy propositions. Access to party positions decreased approval of the proposed environmental policy among right‐wing voters by over fifty percent, and this effect was similar for different educational groups. When voters had access to party positions, their policy preferences were more consistent with their general political orientation. I conclude by discussing implications of these results for the debate about voter competence and for preference elicitation using surveys.     

Artenschutz im Gentechnikrecht Zugleich zu Problemen von Effektivit?t, Demokratie und Abw?gung im Gentechnikrecht

Der vorliegende Beitrag widmet sich der Frage, ob und inwiefern den Belangen des Artenschutzes im Rahmen der geltenden Vorschriften beim Anbau gentechnisch ver?nderter Pflanzen angemessen Geltung verschafft werden kann. Besch?ftigte sich der Beitrag in NuR 2011, Heft 2 mit dem Artenschutzrecht, nimmt der vorliegende Beitrag das Gentechnikrecht – und das Verh?ltnis von Gentechnikrecht und Artenschutzrecht zueinander in ihren jeweiligen artenschutzbezogenen Vorgaben – n?her in den Blick. Dabei kommen auch Verfassungsprobleme des subkutanen Vorrangs der grünen Gentechnik in den Blick. Sie beziehen sich auf das Demokratieprinzip, den Gesetzesvorbehalt und die vermeintliche grundrechtliche Beweislastverteilung zugunsten der Gentechnik in Bezug auf unsichere naturwissenschaftliche Tatsachenfragen – und damit auf eine Sto?richtung, die (auch) dem BVerfG bisher eher entgangen ist.     

Illiberal China – the ideological challenge of the People’s Republic of China,by Daniel F. Vukovich

Democracy and Decision: The Pure Theory of Electoral Preference by Geoffrey Brennan and Loren Lomasky. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp.x + 237; £30. ISBN 0 521 33040 8

Representation and Party Politics: A Comparative Perspective by B.D. Graham. Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell 1993. Pp.242 + table; £40 (hardback); £13.99 (paperback). ISBN 0 63117 395 1 and 0 63117 396 X

The Market, Competition and Democracy: A Critique of Neo‐Austrian Economics by Stavros Ioannides. Aldershot, Hants: Edward Elgar, 1992. Pp.194; index; bibliography; appendices. £39.95. ISBN 1 85278 531 4

Democracy and Difference by Anne Phillips. Oxford: Polity Press, 1993. Pp.175; index. £39.50 (hardback); £11.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 7456 1096X and 0 7456 10978

Out of the Shadows: Women, Resistance and Politics in South America by Jo Fisher. London and New York: Monthly Review Press; London: Latin American Bureau, 1993. Pp.228; index; bibliography. £17.99 (hardback); £7.99 (paperback). ISBN 0 906156 78 5 and 0 906156 77 7

Democracy in the Third World by Robert Pinkney. Buckingham and Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press, 1993. Pp.182; index; bibliography. £37.50 (hardback); £12.99 (paperback). ISBN 0 3351 5705 X and 0 3351 5704 1

Russia's Road to Democracy: Parliament, Communism and Traditional Culture by Victor Sergeyev and Nikolai Biryukov. Aldershot, Hants: Edward Elgar, 1993. Pp.vii + 227; index; bibliography. £39.95 (hardback). ISBN 1 85278 851 8

Cinderella Goes to Market: Citizenship, Gender and Women's Movements in East Central Europe by Barbara Einhorn. London: Verso, 1993. Pp.vii + 280; index. £34.95 (hardback); £11.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 86091 410 0 and 0 86091 615 4     

Perforating gunshot to the head with a power-actuated tool

The article describes a shortly survived suicide with a powder-actuated tool. A 51-year-old man shot all through his head from the right to the left temple. The pin produced an extensive area of destruction in the brain tissue, but neither in the hospital nor during the autopsy was any projectile found. Finally the pin was detected in a metal fitting of the bed in which the man had killed himself. The suicide instrument was a powder-actuated tool firing a metal pin after igniting a cartridge. Unlike a nail gun using compressed air, pins fired by means of a propellant reach a velocity of up to 150 m/s thus developing a higher destructive potential.