Rebuilding public administration in the New German Länder: Transfer and differentiation

The rebuilding of public administration in the new German Länder can be described as a process of increasing differentiation. The new states share the common legacy of ‘democratic centralism’ and face similar reform challenges; but the analysis of the establishment of state administrations, local government reform and personnel policy reveals important differences amongst the states. West‐East institutional transfer plays a decisive role in creating effective institutions of governance in the East. However, it does not imply the imposition of a uniform West German ‘model'; rather, institutional transfer encourages administrative differentiation.     

Online-Öffentlichkeiten als Gegenstand empirischer Forschung

So far, research of online public spheres has mainly been carried out as an online version of offline public spheres. The possibilities of the new medium to create new and Internet-specific forms of a public sphere have been ignored both on the theoretical and empirical level. In this article, I propose an approach that allows for the conceptualization of new forms of online public spheres. It takes the Internet user, the providers of web sites and the structural specificities of the Internet into account. The main thrust of the article is the question as to where the Internet provides public spheres that fulfill functions similar to their offline siblings yet are characterized by an Internet-specific quality. Taking the case of online public spheres that are created by search engines, it can be illustrated how these Internet-specific forms of the public sphere may be analyzed empirically. In order to be able to judge their potential, online public spheres are compared with printed mass media. In a final reflection, I propose a theoretical framework that could be fruitful for the explanatory interpretation of the patterns found in the empirical analysis.     

Rohstoffgewinnung im Spannungsfeld des Bodendenkmalschutzes – dargelegt am Beispiel Nordrhein-Westfalens

Zusammenfassung Die Umweltvertr?glichkeitsprüfung (UVP) soll sicherstellen, dass bei bestimmten Vorhaben die Auswirkungen auf die Umwelt, unter anderem auf Kulturgüter, nach einheitlichen Grunds?tzen zur wirksamen Umweltvorsorge frühzeitig und umfassend ermittelt, beschrieben und bewertet werden, damit das Ergebnis so früh wie m?glich bei allen beh?rdlichen Entscheidungen über die Zul?ssigkeit des Vorhabens berücksichtigt wird (1 UVPG). Die UVP ist unselbstst?ndiger Teil beh?rdlicher Zulassungsverfahren (2 UVPG). Sie ersetzt weder fehlende Umweltstandards, noch modifiziert sie das materielle Recht. Der Umfang der vom Tr?ger des Vorhabens vorzulegenden Unterlagen (Umweltvertr?glichkeitsstudie – UVS –) richtet sich nach der materiell-rechtlichen Entscheidungserheblichkeit der Umweltauswirkungen (6 Abs. 1 UVPG). Die UVP ist nicht als ein Suchverfahren konzipiert. Die notwendige Durchführung einer UVP verpflichtet weder den Vorhabenstr?ger noch die Beh?rde dazu, Umweltauswirkungen zu ermitteln, auf die es rechtlich nicht ankommt oder die sich der Erfassung mit den herk?mmlichen Erkenntnismitteln entziehen.     

Restating the Acquis Communautaire? A Critical Examination of the ‘Principles of the Existing EC Contract Law’

The article examines the 'Principles of the Existing EC Contract Law' (Acquis Principles) published by the European Research Group on the Existing EC Contract Law (Acquis Group), a key player within the academic network charged with the preparation of a 'Common Frame of Reference'. The Acquis Principles may therefore have a considerable impact on the shape and development of EC Contract Law. It is argued that the Acquis Principles do not constitute merely a restatement, or systematic revision, of existing EC private law. To a significant extent, the Acquis Group has drafted 'desirable rules', based on 'political' decisions that may even entail a transformation towards a regulatory model of private law. At the same time, the Acquis Principles clearly demonstrate that the acquis communautaire is not a coherent system of contract law that can be taken to have emancipated itself from the acquis commun .     

Moral Reasoning and the Use of Procedural Justice Rules in Hypothetical and Real-Life Dilemmas

The use of Leventhal's procedural justice rules in moral judgments was examined (1) in the match examples of the Colby and Kohlberg moral judgment interview manual (Study 1), (2) in hypothetical dilemmas given to a sample of 41 participants in professional ethics classes, and (3) in the real-life moral dilemmas produced by this sample (Study 2). Consistent support was found for the hypothesis that bias suppression is used more frequently at the higher moral reasoning stages. A higher number of justice rules were employed in solving a real-life than hypothetical moral problem, and most procedural justice rules were used more frequently in the real-life dilemma.     

Patterns of Truthfulness

The encounter of Advaitins with bhakti represented a new departure, in seventeenth century India, and gave birth to a new style in philosophy. It was a time when rational inquiry emancipated itself to a certain extent from the tradition of commentaries and exegesis. But we should not confuse two different ideas of rationality. Using one’s own reason in religious matters is one thing, and this is what the new philosophers did in India; spreading the lights of Reason is another thing, and this was not an issue in India.     

Making the second step before the first: Assessing organized crime

The debate on organized crime has shifted from the question of “myth or reality?” to efforts to come to an assessment of the nature and extent of organized crime. This paper discusses the possibilities and limits of such an endeavor in the case of Germany. A meaningful assessment requires linking the concept of organized crime to clearly defined empirical referents, having a thorough understanding of their dynamics and interrelations, and obtaining valid and reliable data. It is argued that these requirements cannot be met given the present paucity in theory and data. From the available aggregate data contained in the official crime statistics and annual situation reports on organized crime drawn up by the federal police agency BKA no overall trends are discernible. Where trends are identifiable, they mostly pertain not to patterns of criminal cooperation but to contextual factors. In contrast, the analysis of individual cases may serve to shed some light on the situation of organized crime, provided they are put in perspective with a differentiated conceptualization. A four-fold typology of criminal networks based on differences in the social embeddedness of criminal actors suggests that the seriousness of the problem may depend on the likelihood of the manipulation of relevant decision-making processes. Germany is not characterized by alliances between underworld and upperworld, but the existence of criminal networks within the upperworld gives grounds for concern.