@phdthesis{Radtke2020,
  author    = {Radtke, Ina},
  title     = {Organizing immigration},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {174},
  year      = {2020},
  abstract  = {Immigration constitutes a dynamic policy field with - often quite unpredictable - dynamics. This is based on immigration constituting a 'wicked problem' meaning that it is characterized by uncertainty, ambiguity and complexity. Due to the dynamics in the policy field, expectations towards public administrations often change. Following neo-institutionalist theory, public administrations depend on meeting the expectations in the organizational field in order to maintain legitimacy as the basis for, e.g., resources and compliance of stakeholders. With the dynamics in the policy field, expectations might change and public administrations consequently need to adapt in order to maintain or repair the then threatened legitimacy. If their organizational legitimacy is threatened by a perception of structures and processes being inadequate for changed expectations, an 'institutional crisis' unfolds. However, we know little about ministerial bureaucracies' structural reactions to such crucial momentums and how this effects the quest for coordination within policy-making. Overall, the dissertation thus links to both policy analysis and public administration research and consists of five publications. It asks: How do structures in ministerial bureaucracies change in the context of institutional crises? And what effect do these changes have on ministerial coordination? The dissertation hereby focusses on the above described dynamic policy field of immigration in Germany in the period from 2005 to 2017 and pursues three objectives: 1) to identify the context and impulse for changes in the structures of ministerial bureaucracies, 2) to describe respective changes with regard to their organizational structures, and 3) to identify their effect on coordination. It hereby compares and contrasts institutional crises by incremental change and shock as well as changes and effects at federal and L{\"a}nder level which allows a comprehensive answer to both of the research questions. Theoretically, the dissertation follows neo-institutionalist theory with a particular focus on changes in organizational structures, coordination and crisis management. Methodologically, it follows a comparative design. Each article (except for the literature review), focusses on ministerial bureaucracies at one governmental level (federal or L{\"a}nder) and on an institutional crisis induced by either an incremental process or a shock. Thus, responses and effects can be compared and contrasted across impulses for institutional crises and governmental levels. Overall, the dissertation follows a mixed methods approach with a majority of qualitative single and small-n case studies based on document analysis and semi-structured interviews. Additionally, two articles use quantitative methods as they best suited the respective research question. The rather explorative nature of these two articles however fits to the overall interpretivist approach of the dissertation. Overall, the dissertation's core argument is: Within the investigation period, varying dynamics and thus impulses for institutional crises took place in the German policy field of immigration. Respectively, expectations by stakeholders on how the politico-administrative system should address the policy problem changed. Ministerial administrations at both the federal and L{\"a}nder level adapted to these expectations in order to maintain, or regain respectively, organizational legitimacy. The administration hereby referred to well-known recipes of structural changes. Institutional crises do not constitute fields of experimentation. The new structures had an immediate effect on ministerial coordination, with respect to both the horizontal and vertical dimension. Yet, they did not mean a comprehensive change of the system in place. The dissertation thus challenges the idea of the toppling effect of crises and rather shows that adaptability and persistence of public administrations constitute two sides of the same coin.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Gulina2010,
  author    = {Gulina, Olga R.},
  title     = {Rechtspolitische und rechtliche Probleme der Zuwanderung},
  publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam},
  address   = {Potsdam},
  isbn      = {978-3-86956-066-3},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-43127},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {302},
  year      = {2010},
  abstract  = {Die Zuwanderung und der Integration von Zuwanderern aus den GUS-Staaten in Deutschland ist eine bedeutsame politische und rechtliche Thematik. Diese Thematik ist in Deutschland bisher noch wenig untersucht und nur in Teilbereichen bearbeitet. Deshalb untersucht das vorgestellte Werk folgende Fragen und Aspekte: Analyse der Zuwanderung aus den GUS-Staaten; Darstellung von Zuwanderungsgruppen aus den GUS-Staaten und ihres rechtlichen Status; die Wellen der Zuwanderung anhand der Zuwanderer aus den GUS-Staaten, einschließlich (Sp{\"a}t)Aussiedlern und j{\"u}dische Zuwanderern, tschetschenischen Asylsuchenden, Familienangeh{\"o}rige, Studierende, qualifizierte Arbeitskrafte usw., Analyse der Integrationsprogramme und Integrationsmaßnahmen f{\"u}r die Zuwanderer aus den GUS-Staaten; Darstellung der Integrationschancen und Integrationshemmnisse am Beispiel der Zuwanderer aus den GUS-Staaten, einschließlich das Recht auf Annerkennung der akademischen und beruflichen Qualifikation, das Recht auf Arbeit u.a., die russischen R{\"u}ckkehr- und (Reintegrations-) Programme f{\"u}r die im Bundesgebiet lebenden Zuwanderer aus den GUS-Staaten - ihre Analyse und Bewertung. Eine weitere Besonderheit der Ver{\"o}ffentlichung besteht darin, dass die Autorin Ihre wissenschaftlichen Ausf{\"u}hrungen zur rechtlichen Stellung der GUS-Zuwanderer und zu den Erfolgen bei ihrer Integration, aber auch zu den Integrationshemmnissen und Integrationsproblemen auf eine soziologische Befragung von Zuwanderern aus den GUS-Staaten in den L{\"a}ndern Brandenburg und Berlin st{\"u}tzt. Die empirische Untersuchung bezieht sich auf den Zeitraum 1991 bis 2009.},
  language  = {de}
}
@phdthesis{Graeber2021,
  author    = {Graeber, Daniel},
  title     = {Four essays on the socio-economic causes and consequences of individual health as well as public health crises},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-51517},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-515175},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {XIV, 249},
  year      = {2021},
  abstract  = {Inequalities in health are a prevalent feature of societies. And as societies, we condemn inequalities that are rooted in immutable circumstances such as gender, race, and parental background. Consequently, policy makers are interested in measuring and understanding the causes of health inequalities rooted in circumstances. However, identifying causal estimates of these relationships is very ambitious for reasons such as the presence of confounders or measurement error in the data. This thesis contributes to this ambitious endeavour by addressing these challenges in four chapters. In the first Chapter, I use 25 years of rich health information to describe three features of intergenerational health mobility in Germany. First, we describe the joint permanent health distribution of the parents and their children. A ten percentile increase in parental permanent health is associated with a 2.3 percentile increase in their child's health. Second, a percentile point increase in permanent health ranks is associated with a 0.8\% to 1.4\% increase in permanent income for, both, children, and parents, respectively. Non-linearities in the association between permanent health and income create incentives to escape the bottom of the permanent health distribution. Third, upward mobility in permanent health varies with parental socio-economic status. In the second Chapter, we estimate the effect of maternal schooling on children's mental health in adulthood. Using the Socio-Economic Panel and the mental health measure based on the SF-12 questionnaire, we exploit a compulsory schooling law reform to identify the causal effect of maternal schooling on children's mental health. While the theoretical considerations are not clear, we do not find that the mother's schooling has an effect on the mental health of the children. However, we find a positive effect on children's physical health operating mainly through physical functioning. In addition, albeit with the absence of a reduced-form effect on mental health, we find evidence that the number of friends moderates the relationship between maternal schooling and their children's mental health. In the third Chapter, against a background of increasing violence against non-natives, we estimate the effect of hate crime on refugees' mental health in Germany. For this purpose, we combine two datasets: administrative records on xenophobic crime against refugee shelters by the Federal Criminal Office and the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees. We apply a regression discontinuity design in time to estimate the effect of interest. Our results indicate that hate crime has a substantial negative effect on several mental health indicators, including the Mental Component Summary score and the Patient Health Questionnaire-4 score. The effects are stronger for refugees with closer geographic proximity to the focal hate crime and refugees with low country-specific human capital. While the estimated effect is only transitory, we argue that negative mental health shocks during the critical period after arrival have important long-term consequences. In the last Chapter of this thesis, we investigate how the economic consequences of the pandemic and the government-mandated measures to contain its spread affect the self-employed - particularly women- in Germany. For our analysis, we use representative, real-time survey data in which respondents were asked about their situation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings indicate that among the self-employed, who generally face a higher likelihood of income losses due to COVID-19 than employees, women are 35\% more likely to experience income losses than their male counterparts. We do not find a comparable gender gap among employees. Our results further suggest that the gender gap among the self-employed is largely explained by the fact that women disproportionately work in industries that are more severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our analysis of potential mechanisms reveals that women are significantly more likely to be impacted by government-imposed restrictions, e.g., the regulation of opening hours. We conclude that future policy measures intending to mitigate the consequences of such shocks should account for this considerable variation in economic hardship.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Gloeckner2010,
  author    = {Gl{\"o}ckner, Olaf},
  title     = {Immigrated Russian Jewish elites in Israel and Germany after 1990},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-50369},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  year      = {2010},
  abstract  = {Russian Jews who left the Former Soviet Union (FSU) and its Successor States after 1989 are considered as one of the best qualified migrants group worldwide. In the preferred countries of destination (Israel, the United States and Germany) they are well-known for cultural self-assertion, strong social upward mobility and manifold forms of self organisation and empowerment. Using Suzanne Kellers sociological model of "Strategic Elites", it easily becomes clear that a huge share of the Russian Jewish Immigrants in Germany and Israel are part of various elites due to their qualification and high positions in the FSU - first of all professional, cultural and intellectual elites ("Intelligentsija"). The study aimed to find out to what extent developments of cultural self-assertion, of local and transnational networking and of ethno-cultural empowerment are supported or even initiated by the immigrated (Russian Jewish) Elites. The empirical basis for this study have been 35 half-structured expert interviews with Russian Jews in both countries (Israel, Germany) - most of them scholars, artists, writers, journalists/publicists, teachers, engineers, social workers, students and politicians. The qualitative analysis of the interview material in Israel and Germany revealed that there are a lot of commonalities but also significant differences. It was obvious that almost all of the interview partners remained to be linked with Russian speaking networks and communities, irrespective of their success (or failure) in integration into the host societies. Many of them showed self-confidence with regard to the groups' amazing professional resources (70\% of the adults with academic degree), and the cultural, professional and political potential of the FSU immigrants was usually considered as equal to those of the host population(s). Thus, the immigrants' interest in direct societal participation and social acceptance was accordingly high. Assimilation was no option. For the Russian Jewish "sense of community" in Israel and Germany, Russian Language, Arts and general Russian culture have remained of key importance. The Immigrants do not feel an insuperable contradiction when feeling "Russian" in cultural terms, "Jewish" in ethnical terms and "Israeli" / "German" in national terms - in that a typical case of additive identity shaping what is also significant for the Elites of these Immigrants. Tendencies of ethno-cultural self organisation - which do not necessarily hinder impressing individual careers in the new surroundings - are more noticeable in Israel. Thus, a part of the Russian Jewish Elites has responded to social exclusion, discrimination or blocking by local population (and by local elites) with intense efforts to build (Russian Jewish) Associations, Media, Educational Institutions and even Political Parties. All in all, the results of this study do very much contradict popular stereotypes of the Russian Jewish Immigrant as a pragmatic, passive "Homo Sovieticus". Among the Interview Partners in this study, civil-societal commitment was not the exception but rather the rule. Traditional activities of the early, legendary Russian „Intelligentsija" were marked by smooth transitions from arts, education and societal/political commitment. There seem to be certain continuities of this self-demand in some of the Russian Jewish groups in Israel. Though, nothing comparable could be drawn from the Interviews with the Immigrants in Germany. Thus, the myth and self-demand of Russian "Intelligentsija" is irrelevant for collective discourses among Russian Jews in Germany.},
  language  = {en}
}