300 Sozialwissenschaften
Refine
Has Fulltext
- yes (31) (remove)
Document Type
- Postprint (31) (remove)
Is part of the Bibliography
- no (31)
Institute
- Extern (31) (remove)
According to the author, chairman of the Foreign Policy Committee in the German parliament (Bundestag), German foreign policy is based on a strong parliamentary consensus: continuing as a Western European country, co-operating with our partners in the European Union and the NATO, acting as a responsible member of UN and OSCE. Germany firmly stands up to these basic decisions, also today in a changed world, concentrating on reaching two major goals: building up a new security architecture for Europe as a whole and reuniting Europe by enlarging the European Union. Moderate and co-operate in style, Germany will continue to be a reliable partner, willing and ready to accept even more responsibilities in Europe and beyond Europe.
The ten-years presidency of Alberto Fujimori in Peru is a classic example of the sort of hybrid democracy that emerged in various Latin American countries in the 1990s, combining a mixture of democratic and clearly non-democratic elements. Fujimori was one of the more autocratic Latin American leaders of the 1990s, he is being the only regime formally to break with pre-existing constitutional rules. Closely tied to the military and intelligence apparatus, his government involved a concentration of political power that reduced the scope and autonomy of other branches of the state. But, unlike previous Latin American military dictatorships, Fujimori’s government enjoyed a considerable popularity, born out of disaffection for representative institutions. The article argues, however, that these characteristics of apparent strength carried within them the seeds of their own destruction. Far from establishing lasting political stability, the regime was weakly based. Within six weeks of his inauguration for a third term in July 2000, Fujimori was obliged to announce his intention to withdraw from politics. Two months later, he was ousted altogether.
After the democratic euphoria of the early 1990s, today the "third wave of democratization" seems to be less a triumph of political liberalism and much more a success story of a "defective" form of democracy. The authors argue that none of the strategies which can be found in contemporary democratization studies is satisfactory. They offer an alternative two-step-strategy of (1) specifying the root concept of democracy and (2) building subtypes of democracy which are based on this specified root concept. In doing so, the authors conceptualize the model of embedded democracy, from which they generate the concept of "defective democracy" and present a typology of these "defective democracies".
While at the time of Goethe, Turkey and other parts of the world seemed to be far away. Today’s Germany is confronted with the pressure of globalization. With regard to environmental issues or the threat of terrorism, international co-operation and combined efforts are strongly demanded. Unfortunately, the German higher education system is not prepared to face these challenges. The article calls for the education of an elite at German universities, which is fit to work in national as well in international institutions. The author presents the Master’s of International Relations coursework at the Technical University of Dresden.
Confronted with new dimensions of international problems, Germany needs a new foreign policy elite that is able to deal with the pending challenges in world politics. Therefore, the author points out, it is necessary to reorganize the German way to recruit personal for international tasks and the manner of its education at German universities. Furthermore, the German society should revise its general hostile attitude towards the elite and recognize it as an important driving force in politics.
The author detects some of the causes for the less than satisfactory representation of the German foreign policy elite on the international level within the German university structure. The article also reflects upon the issue of the 'content' of a possible and desirable German 'Weltpolitik' which is seen in Global Public Policy - an example of which is provided and reasons given for the ability of the German elite to be proactively engaged in the promotion and management of Global Public Policy Networks.
The security policy of Pakistan is aimed at a reduction of nuclear threats in the South Asian region. It is only natural, that a state, whose national security is endangered by a mighty neighbor, will have to strengthen its defense capacities. Unfortunately, the effective collective measures to prevent and to remove threats to peace and international security as laid down in the Charter of the United Nations prove to be an unreliable promise. Ever since India carried out its first nuclear tests in 1974, Pakistan has been forced into a race to catch up with the capabilities if its neighbor. Nevertheless, Pakistan chose a minimalist approach and refrained from converting its nuclear capabilities into weapon systems. Pakistan is against an arms race in the South Asian region, and opposes the concept of first use of nuclear weapons. To ensure lasting peace, a common vision on disarmament is necessary.
The comprehensive transformation after the breakdown of communist rule was also reflected in a profound change in national policies. The dominating approach in the days of the old regime were grounded in the concept of a single nation state. The years since 1989 witnessed a rise of new democratic attitudes towards national and ethnic minorities. National minorities make up 3 to 4% of the population. Their total number is estimated to be approximately 1.0 to 1.3 Million people. Contemporary national policy rejects the principle of assimilation (polonization) of national and ethnic minorities while supporting their integration.
The Bush Administration supported, earlier than some West European NATO partners, the reunification of the two German states. When the crisis of the political system in East Germany escalated in 1989, the US-government tried to link the support for far-reaching democratic reforms with a rapid involvement of all NATO members in the unification strategy of the Bonn government. For the Bush administration, the most complicated task was to convince the Moscow leadership that a loss of the GDR as a strategic domain in the Central Europe, and NATO membership of a united Germany, would not undermine security interests of the Soviet Union. At the End of the East-West-Conflict, German unification was in full accordance with the global strategic interests of the United States.
The end of the Cold War opened a window for a new era in world security. Instead of rising to this extraordinary occasion, the United States has adopted a regressive Great Power approach to military security. Rather than promote 'win-win' solutions for peace, security, disarmament, and democracy, it treats international security as a 'zero-sum' game. This article discusses examples in the areas of military spending, military research and development, and arms production and export. It also looks at US policy regarding the use of force, including the role of the United Nations, military intervention in other nations, military alliances, and multilateral military action. In conclusion, the article comments on whether we can expect more constructive action under a new administration and congress.
Ghana’s local government system has been subject to various reform attempts which all involved some sort of decentralisation. This article tries to link decentralisation to changing national policy frames and the various governments’ need to maintain political control. Consequently, decentralisation becomes a dependent variable of the so called bureaucratic development state. After a brief discussion of the colonial and post-colonial local government system in Ghana, emphasis is placed on the crisis of the post colonial state and the emergence of a new local government system in 1988 - which was successfully transformed into the administrative system of Ghana’s 4th republic after 1992. Local participation has been substantially improved an sustained by the introduction of the District Assemblies Common Fund in 1993 which transfers 5% of the national tax income to the districts.
During the 1990s the relations between Russia and China developed intensivly. At the highest level, between 1992 and 1998, six summits took place. Both countries declared a "strategic cooperative partnership", designed to contribute to a "multipolar world" and a "well-balanced international political order". Both Russia and China endaveour to use their alliance to raise the importance of their respective places compared against the USA, EU and Japan. Policy changes in Russia have been especially instrumental in solving former conflicts between the two countries, and in developing a new quality to the bilateral relationship. Both countries have shown a strong interest in political and territorial integrity, both expect much from the markets, they need each other as partners in developing new weapon systems and both expect many advantages by normalising the situation along their joint borderline. Though future prospects of a Russian-Chinese partnership are reasonably foreseeable, it is clear that differences will remain. A complete balance of interests may not be seen.
Considering the problems of retirement security systems leads one to look beyond the border in order to get a glimpse of the way things work in other societies. Contrary to formal public pension schemes in South American and East European industrial countries, the predominant pension system in Asia is of an informal nature, based upon the extended family structure. The rise of the city-state of Singapore has been accompanied by the development of a comprehensive social security system within the framework of the Central Provident Fund (CPF). The CPF is based on a symbiosis of Western social concepts and Eastern pragmatism. The article gives an insight into the development of this system, and the way it works underpresent political and economic conditions.
The border between Germany and Poland today is undisputed and definite, and thought to promote great co-operation and a culture of good-neighbourliness. Relations between the two governments are progressing nicely. But public opinion and behaviour are still lagging behind. The author describes how thought and emotions on the Polish side are still influenced by memories of the past, especially of the German occupation during the Second World War, and the slow pace of progress in overcoming that memory. He shows that the "shadows of history" have strongly influenced Polish politics in the context of German reunification. Special emphasis is given to the role of the Catholic Church in the controversial debate on the relations towards Germany in the 1950s and 1960s.
The end of the cold war division of the Baltic Sea in 1989, and the three Baltic states’ return to independence in 1991 created new opportunities for the decision-makers of the area, as well as new possibilities for fashioning security in the region. This article will examine the security debate affecting the Baltic Sea region in the post-cold war period, and in particular, the relevance of the European Union to that debate. The following section will examine various concepts of security relevant to the Baltic region; the third section looks at the EU and the Baltic area; and the last part deals with the implications that EU membership by the Baltic Sea states may have for the security of the Baltic Sea zone.
The article mobilises the concept of strategic culture in order to identify the impact of history upon contemporary security policy. The article will first look at the "wholesale construction" of a strategic culture after the Second World War in West Germany before exploring its impact upon security policy since the end of the Cold War in two areas: the Bundeswehr's out-of-area role and conscription. The central argument presented here is that the strategic culture of the former Federal Republic now writ large on to the new united Germany sets the context within which security policies are designed. This strategic culture, as will be argued, acts as both a facilitating and a restraining variable on behaviour, making certain policy options possible and others impossible.
The author shows the strong relation between political developments, frontiers and their graphical representation on maps. Human rights, economic globalisation and the European integration process do change national policy and erode classical border lines. Still today, maps with lines and colours as their main graphic elements represent the world of the 19th century with separate national states in atlases, schoolbooks and electronic media. The main argument of the article insists on stressing the political character of maps and showing the contradiction between the cartographic picture of the world and the recent international transformations. The author concludes with the question of whether maps can reproduce these new developments at all.
The fiscal reform of 1994 was introduced to strengthen the redistributive function of central government. In the aftermath of the reform it turned out, however, that the dominating cleavage is not necessarily the rivalry between "centre" and "regions", mainly because of the very complex relationships within the provinces. Though taxation itself is highly centralized there is a growing tendency of expensation of "extra-budget revenues". That is why the share of the central government concerning all revenues fell to 27%, falling considerably short of the purpose of the fiscal reform to increase the rate of central redistribution to 60% of the national fiscal ressources. Local communities have turned out to be rather successful in collecting non-tax revenues, concentrating on the non-state sectors of the economy. The problem is not so much the threat of fiscal decentralization but the definition of rules and procedures in the relationship between centre, provinces and local administrations.
In 1988, the Government of the People’s Republic of China established the island of Hainan as a province and made it a Special Economic Zone. While the hope for a spectecular economic take off was the main driving force behind this decision, it provided China with an area where far reaching trial-and-error politics could be. Hence the new provincial government was granted the privilege of setting its own legal framework for administering the special economic policies and establishing a governmental structure guided by the principle of "Small government, big society". Although some of the efforts to reduce the administration in terms of scope and resources, to develop and strengthen non-governmental organizations and provide economic actors with a minimum of freedom and reliability proved successful, the overall results are mixed: While well-being and opportunities for self-fulfillment clearly grew, political participation is still confined to areas defined by the Communist Party.
Auf der Suche nach einem neuen Ideal : zu Theorie, Norm und Praxis des Rechtsstaats in der VR China
(1998)
Besides establishing a legal system for the needs of economic construction, legal theory and legislation in China are extending their concern from an instrumental concept of law to a more value based notion, thus supplementing "rule by laws" by elements of the "Rechtsstaat" (rule of law). Whereas legal and constitutional theory take more and more bold views concerning integrating structures of checks and balances and division of powers into the legal system, urging for statutory control of the ruling party, for reforming the National People’s Congress into a responsible legislative body based on real representation of the people, providing for constitutionality of legal norms by a system of judicial review etc., legislation has started to deal with certain aspects of the Rechtsstaat in fields as administrative, criminal and criminal procedure law. In view of grave problems of implementation, this legislation may partly be regarded more to be an expression of intention to develop gradually a new ideal and a new legitimation for the political system than well established actual practice.