Allocative or Distributive Aims of Income Taxation?

Relations of income tax legislation and economic development are traditional subjects of German public finance. Reginald Hansen's book (1996) on practical consequences of the “Methodenstreit” for income taxation is considered under three aspects: history of economic thought, tax-systems and aims of income taxation. The introduction is followed by four paragraphs: 1. Long-term views of income taxation, 2. Reginald Hansen's comments on income taxation in Germany, 3. From Schmoller and Wagner to the modern German type of income taxation, 4. “Ability to pay,” “Pay as you use” or what else? The article demonstrates progressive and restrictive results of the long-term view focusing on the evaluation of income taxation principles.     

More on Ultimate and Immanent Justice: Results from the Research Project “Justice as a Problem within Reunified Germany”

In earlier studies it was shown that two domain-specific variates of belief in a just world, namely belief in immanent justice and belief in ultimate justice concerning severe illness, differ systematically and significantly. Only immanent justice leads to accusation and derogation of innocent victims while ultimate justice is concordant with positive evaluations of victims and helping behavior. With regard to the research project Justice as a Problem within Reunified Germany (GiP, from the German Gerechtigkeit als innerdeutsches Problem), two new scales were developed for purposes of measuring general belief in immanent and ultimate justice. Using a sample of 929 West Germans and 1,275 East Germans, some of the correlation patterns found in earlier studies could be replicated. For example, immanent justice did correlate with draconian judgments (the proneness to strict and severe judgments), while ultimate justice was associated with mildness. Only ultimate justice correlated with existential guilt about the underprivileged. Beside this confirmation of earlier findings, new correlation patterns were revealed. For example, only immanent justice correlated with the equity principle, whereas ultimate justice corresponded to the need and equality principles.     

Mutual and Self Perceptions of Opposing Advocacy Coalitions: Devil Shift and Angel Shift in a German Policy Subsystem

In political conflicts, actors tend to assume that opponents behave maliciously. This phenomena is part of the “devil shift,” which was introduced in advocacy coalition framework research. We present a multivariate analysis of the perceptions of motives and actions of opposing coalitions in a political conflict and thereby analyze a major dimension of the “devil shift” and of its antonym “angel shift.” The conflict concerning the German infrastructure project Stuttgart 21 serves as a case study. We show that the radicalness of policy‐specific beliefs is the most important predictor for the intensity of mutual misperception in the researched conflict. The results further point to a more systematic inclusion of an actor's deep normative core beliefs in future analyses of distorted perception. Another central finding relates to the importance of the personal environment: actors in the subsystem share the same policy core beliefs with the majority of people in their personal environment.     

德国警察制度简析

本文系统地介绍评述了德国的警察制度:分别从联邦与州两个层面着重讨论了德国警察机构的设立依据、组织原则、具体机构的管辖范围、管辖权限、人员组成、机构之间的相互关系,乃至警察机关与检察院等司法机关之间的关系等问题,并在适当的地方作了与我国相似机构的对比,最后对德国错综复杂的警察制度作了全局性的总结与分析。     

Collaborative leadership in EMU governance: a matter of cognitive proximity

Abstract

Collaborative leadership has stood at the heart of European politics since its inception. Yet EU scholars have only recently started to examine the concept and mainly from an institutional perspective. This article conceptualises the phenomenon of collaborative leadership from an actor-centered perspective. It explores a central condition for successful collaborative leadership identified in the literature: the existence of shared beliefs among the leaders involved. To do this, the article focuses on four events in the history of European Economic and Monetary Union. Using the method of cognitive mapping, the study establishes the extent of congruence in the beliefs on European integration and fiscal and monetary policy of the four leadership trios overseeing these events. On the basis of a survey of leading experts in the field, the article reveals that the level of cognitive proximity in leaders’ beliefs aligns with the perceived success with which the trios exerted collaborative leadership.     

马克思是怎样了断与鲍威尔的思想关系的——对《德意志意识形态》三个片段的解读和分析

经过《论犹太人问题》和《神圣家族》的铺垫,马克思在《德意志意识形态》中彻底了断了与布鲁诺.鲍威尔思想关系。本文通过对这一著述中的三个片段的解读,甄别了马克思、恩格斯论述问题的逻辑和方式,把握了其进行思想论战的特征和思路,指明他与鲍威尔思想之间的纠葛源于两者观照、理解和把握世界方式的巨大差别:是从观念、精神和自我出发还是根源于现实、感性和实践?     

德国食品法中健康保护的机构、方法和程序

德国现代食品法的重要内容包括基本原则和理想模型,主要有预防原则、成熟的消费者理想模型、透明原则、可追溯性原则和分级责任,其对行政机关和市场主体的行为进行了规范。在食品行政管理领域,欧盟层面的立法和司法主要由欧盟主导,但食品监督和管理责任由成员国承担。德国同样采用立法权限集中、行政管理权限分散的模式。在实行许可自由原则的基础上,德国食品法还规定了广泛的风险预防措施、对消费者的多种保护方法,及其"黑名单"、食品行业自我监督和质量保证和大个体商业企业监督等制度。此外,《欧洲人权公约》和德国《基本法》规定了在食品法领域针对国家措施的法律救济途径。     

Refracted axis: Kitayama Jun'yū and writing a German Japan

The question of how individuals navigate a given regime is inevitably a delicate one, but one no less important because of its sensitivity. This article examines the case of one Kitayama Jun'yū – author of dozens of works during the 1930s and 1940s that purported to introduce Japan to a German audience – and his changing rhetorical strategies in presenting a Japan that would be acceptable to his readership. It employs an adapted notion of Bhabha's concept of ‘mimicry’ as a means to understand both developments internal to Kitayama's works as well as their changing reception. This framework recognizes that power dynamics played an influential role in cross-cultural exchange between the two countries; at the same time, it enables a depersonalized engagement with cultural politics that does not rest on identifying individual authorial political allegiances. Drawing on both Kitayama's writings and archival materials that reflect official and semi-private responses to his work, this article offers a closer look at how a particular Japanese intellectual negotiated Japan's place within the discursive space of the National Socialist regime.