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German soldiers were not actively engaged in Gulf War I or the post-11 September war on terrorism. Coincidentally, however, Germany reflected upon fundamental changes in immigration and asylum law in the early 1990s as well as in the early 2000s. Yet, the relationship between immigration, asylum, and terrorism was conceived of very differently. In the early 1990s, measures combating terrorism did not directly relate to immigration and asylum law. Rather, they were primarily connected to criminal law. IN the aftermath of the attacks of 11 September 2001, measures against terrorism and changes in immigration law were intrinsically entwined.
This article conceptualizes tension as a relation between elements in which at least two forces with different directions are involved. How can this concept of tension be applied to the analysis of the peculiar logic of life in common? The article offers a reading, inspired by the method of conceptual history, of the use of the concept of 'force' in three models of society: Hobbes's political model, the economic model proposed by the thinkers of commercial society, and Durkheim's social theory. The analysis sheds some light on the ways in which the presence of contradictory forces can be taken to be constitutive of the social itself. This observation is then used to suggest that the puzzling fascination exerted by the notion of tension can be better understood if we see it pointing to some fundamental features of our way of collectively inhabiting the world.
This article investigates the phenomenon of increasing integration of customers and users into the organizational creation of value, focusing primarily on the dissolving boundaries between production and consumption. Concepts such as "prosuming", the "working customer", "produsing" and "interactive value creation" have been used to describe this phenomenon. Within the framework of a research project at the Goethe-University Frankfurt/Main, this debate was investigated theoretically as well as empirically in three case studies. The research question is as follows: Why do customers participate in "new types of prosuming" or "interactive value creation" and how are these processes coordinated by the firms? The results show a considerable range of motives and forms of coordination: The customers’ primary motives to voluntarily assume tasks and activities were both intrinsic and extrinsic in nature. The organizational models identified range from strategies of rationalization to prosuming as a basic business model to the collaborative and interactive value creation between the company and the web-community.
In this paper, I analyse the reciprocal social influence on investment decisions within an international group of roughly 2,000 mutual fund managers who invested in companies in the DAX30. Using a robust estimation procedure, I provide empirical evidence that the average fund manager puts 0.69% more portfolio weight on a particular stock, if his peers on average assign a weight to the corresponding position which is 1% higher compared to other stocks in the portfolio. The dynamics of this influence on the choice of portfolio weights suggest that fund managers adjust their behaviour according to the prevailing market situation and are more strongly influenced by others in times of an economic downturn. Analysing the working locations of the fund managers, I conclude that more than 90% of the magnitude of influence stems from the social learning. While this form of influence varies much over time, the magnitude of influence resulting from the exchange of opinion is more or less constant.
With this paper, I propose a simple asset pricing model that accounts for the influence from social interaction. Investors are assumed to make up their mind about an asset's price based on a forecasting strategy and its past profitability as well as on the contemporaneous expectations of other market participants. Empirically analysing stocks in the DAX30 index, I provide evidence that social interaction rather destabilises financial markets. At least, it does not have a stabilising effect.
An analyst who works in Germany is more likely to publish a high (low) price target regarding a DAX30 stock if other Germany based analysts are also optimistic (pessimistic) about the same stock. This finding is not biased by the fact that DAX30 companies are headquartered in Germany. In times of bull markets, price targets of analysts who regularly exchange their opinion are higher correlated compared to other analysts. This effect vanishes in a bearish market environment. This suggests that communication among analysts indeed plays an important role. However, analysts’ incentives induce them not to deviate too much from the overall average during an economic downturn.
KippCity
(2014)
On 28 April 2011, on the Rathausplatz of Neukölln, Christine Hentschel's puzzlement vis-à-vis Neukölln's liberation met the neighbourhood's flickering urbanity, which she seeks to capture in a project called KippCity. KippCity is an experiment in tracing urban change while it happens. If space is the 'event of place', as Doreen Massey holds, the space of KippCity is the transformation of Neukölln. This chapter explores the potentials of multistable figures (Kippbilder) for conceptualizing urban change. This potential, Hentschel argues, lies in the flip-moment itself, in the space-time of urban transformation. In Berlin-Neukölln, a neighbourhood long branded as poor and failing, multiple and partly conflicting flip-scenarios have begun to inspire and haunt the neighbourhood and its self-reflective talk. KippCity Neukölln is thus a flickering figure. But unlike an artefact Kippbild, which flickers between duck and rabbit, for example, KippCity Neukölln does not simply tip into a new pre-fabricated form, but rather wavers between different future scenarios. Neukölln's flickering urbanity is thus nervous, full of uncertainty, frustration and enthusiasm. The article shows how the neighbourhood seeks escape from the dystopia of two dominant flip scenarios of ghettoization and gentrification by digging its claws into its 'Now'.
The author, a professor of English linguistics at Freiburg University, was a member of the German Council of Science and Humanities (Wissenschaftsrat) from 2006 to 2012 and, in this capacity, was involved in this advisory body’s rating and assessment activities. The present contribution focusses on issues arising in the rating of research output in the humanities and is informed by his dual perspective, as planner and organizer of the ratings undertaken by the Wissenschaftsrat and as a rated scholar in his own discipline, English and American Studies.
The diagnosis that we are living in a world risk society formulated by Ulrich Beck 20 years ago (Beck, Kölner Z Soziol Sozialpsychol 36:119–147, 1996) has lost nothing of its power, especially against the background of the Anthropocene debate. “Global risks” have been identified which are caused by human activities, technology, and modernization processes. Microplastics are a by-product of exactly these modernization processes, being distributed globally by physical processes like ocean currents, and causing effects far from their place of origin. In recent years, the topic has gained great prominence, as microplastics have been discovered nearly everywhere in the environment, raising questions about the impacts on food for human consumption. But are microplastics really a new phenomenon or rather a symptom of an old problem? And exactly what risks are involved? It seems that the phenomenon has accelerated political action—the USA has passed the Microbead-Free Waters Act 2015—and industries have pledged to fade out the use of microbeads in their cosmetic products. At first sight, is it a success for environmentalists and the protection of our planet?
This chapter deals with these questions by adopting a social-ecological perspective, discussing microplastics as a global risk. Taking four main characteristics of global risks, we develop four arguments to discuss (a) the everyday production of risk by societies, (b) scientific risk evaluation of microplastics, (c) social responses, and (d) problems of risk management. To illustrate these four issues, we draw on different aspects of the current scientific and public debate. In doing so, we contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the social-ecological implications of microplastics.