„Selbstbewusst“ und „stolz“. Das außenpolitische Vokabular der Berliner Republik als Fährte einer Neuorientierung

The article sketches a newly developed analytical approach (“vocabulary analysis”) inspired by philosophy of language. Without engaging in the debate as to whether Germany’s foreign policy is best characterised either in terms of continuity or change, the article reconstructs the development of the German foreign policy practice between 1986 and 2002 on the basis of the foreign policy elite’s discourse. In an exemplary fashion it illustrates the use of the key concepts Germany, Europe, power, responsibility, self-confidence and pride. We conclude that vocabulary analysis reveals astonishing shifts in the semantic web of which German foreign policy discourse is “woven” — shifts which will also leave traces in Germany’s foreign policy identity.     

Enforcement of Civil Rights Law in Private Workplaces: The Effects of Compliance Reviews and Lawsuits Over Time

Has federal antidiscrimination law been effective in moving women and minorities into management? Early studies show that government affirmative action reviews improved the numbers, and rank, of blacks, but evidence of what has happened since 1980 is sparse. There is little evidence that civil rights lawsuits improved the employment status of women or African Americans. We examine establishment‐level effects of compliance reviews and lawsuits on the percentage of women and blacks in management. We find that compliance reviews, which alter organizational routines, had stronger and more lasting effects than lawsuits, which create disincentives to discriminate. We also find that deregulation was more consequential for compliance reviews than for lawsuits: Compliance reviews initiated in the 1980s were less effective than those initiated in the 1970s. Not so for lawsuits. Compared to lawsuits, compliance reviews appear to have a greater capacity to elicit lasting organizational change, but their effects are mediated by the regulatory environment.     

Administrative and Court Reform in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract:   The pre-accession programmes of the European Union and the candidate countries have focused heavily on law reform. Only relatively recently, it was recognised that successful administrative and court reform would be just as necessary in order to achieve the desired goals, namely that the candidates would eventually be able to take on their obligations as new members of the Union. Unfortunately, it has now become evident that it is easier to write new laws than to get them properly applied in every day practice. This article describes a number of cases to illustrate the problem. It shows that administrators and judges in Central and Eastern Europe have significant difficulties with Western working methods, specifically the application of international norms in the national legal order, due process and procedural safeguards, treatment of precedents, resolution of ambiguities and lacunae in the law, etc., which may in turn result in unjust and sometimes absurd application of laws. These difficulties cannot be resolved merely by organising ever more training courses and other theoretical programmes. The author claims that the majority of efforts promoting administrative and court reform applied so far have rendered only meager results. Therefore, additional and more creative measures have to be designed and implemented and have to be continued for years beyond accession of most of these countries to the EU in 2004. Otherwise, rule of law deserving its name will not materialise in the new Member States. The author concludes by offering some ideas based on many years of experience in the region.     

Republican Freedom,Popular Control,and Collective Action

Republicans hold that people are dominated merely in virtue of others' having unconstrained abilities to frustrate their choices. They argue further that public officials may dominate citizens unless subject to popular control. Critics identify a dilemma. To maintain the possibility of popular control, republicans must attribute to the people an ability to control public officials merely in virtue of the possibility that they might coordinate their actions. But if the possibility of coordination suffices for attributing abilities to groups, then, even in the best case, countless groups will be dominating because it will be possible for their members to coordinate their actions with the aim of frustrating others' choices. We argue the dilemma is apparent only. To make our argument, we present a novel interpretation of the republican concept of domination with the help of a game‐theoretic model that clarifies the significance of collective action problems for republican theory.     

Where the whole city meets: youth,gender and consumerism in the social space of the MEGA shopping mall in Aktobe,western Kazakhstan

ABSTRACT

The shopping mall entered Central Asia's commercial sector as a result of the economic transformation of post-Soviet space. Constructed near the centre of the city, the shopping mall overwrites the urban landscape, dominating it as a symbol of modernity. It functions as a gateway of global consumerist culture to the Eurasian steppe. Using the MEGA shopping mall in Aktobe, in western Kazakhstan, as an example, this article shows that the building acts as a stage for the construction of a new social and cultural space. This study focuses on the ways in which young women interact with the mall's spaces. The mall turns out to be a playground not only for children, but also for the whole younger generation, who come to this unique place to see and be seen. The mall became a hot spot of youth culture in the post-socialist worker's city by offering more than a mere shelter from dust and snow storms on the steppe. The available amenities made it a favourite place for meeting, consuming and dreaming. Young women especially are attracted to MEGA to experience the newest fashions and build social relationships.     

Feedback loops in a world of complexity: a cybernetic approach at the interface of foreign policy analysis and international relations theory

Feedback in foreign policy occurs when a state's foreign policy affects the international context of that state and those changes in context subsequently impact on the state's future foreign policy decisions. In this way, feedback loops can develop, which may become self-reinforcing and in which foreign policy and international context continuously affect each other. Even though such processes are ubiquitous especially in a globalized world, they have hitherto received little systematic attention. We introduce cybernetics as a perspective that puts such feedback effects at the centre of attention and provides an accessible sequential framework for analysing them. Such a cybernetic analysis not only demonstrates the significance of feedback processes in foreign policies but also speaks to several recent debates in international relations theory and foreign policy analysis. In particular, it highlights processes of learning and change, of non-linearity and indeterminacy, and enables the researcher to integrate insights from structure- and agency-based approaches. We outline the merits of a cybernetic analysis by discussing the effects of feedback in the United States' War on Terror.     

Speaking Different Languages or Reading From the Same Script? Word Usage of Democratic and Republican Politicians

Words are believed to be indicators of the values that are important to politicians and an impressive amount of empirical research has analyzed variations in language use. While it is generally accepted that there are value differences between Democrats and Republicans, the extent to which these differences are reflected in word usage has been theorized but is largely untested. The connection between values and language is, theoretically, not limited just to politicians, but should be especially evident among politicians as representatives of existing ideological poles. In this article, we examine elite rhetoric through the lens of four value-centered theoretical frameworks (Lakoff’s Parenting Styles model, Moral Foundations Theory, Schwartz’s Values Theory, and Motivated Social Cognition Theory). Contrary to the expectations posited by these four theories, we find little reliable evidence of value-related language differences between Democratic and Republican politicians. Our findings suggest that, at least when it comes to elite rhetoric, widely accepted theoretical claims about the value-based nature of political language and political differences are not consistently supported by empirical analysis.