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Extremists cooperate internationally to 'influence and succeed' or 'survive and thrive' [Moghadam, A. (2017). Nexus of Global Jihad: Understanding cooperation among terrorist actors. Columbia University Press (p. 21)]. Yet, the question of how such cooperation materializes and develops has been understudied, especially for right-wing extremism in the post-war era. Therefore, this paper studies a phase of heightened transnational activity of West German right-wing extremists between 1972 and 1978. It zooms in on the Nationalsozialistische Kampfgruppe Großdeutschland and the Gruppe Otte, which were spatially and temporally connected by the American neo-Nazi Gary Lauck, who led the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei – Auslandsorganisation. To study and qualify the impact of transnational engagement on the West German extreme right, the paper introduces a new analytical framework that integrates the historical transnational approach with insights from terrorism studies. Pairing known case studies to previously unused primary source material, the paper argues that the transnational connections between the three groups transformed from indirect to direct cooperation, while evolving across ideological, logistical, and operational domains, and resulted in political violence. It concludes that the extremist cooperation marked the professionalization and multi-lateralization of the West German extreme right in the 1970s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Sozialreform is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Background: In Germany there is a large wealth gap between East and West Germans as well as a gap in life satisfaction, with people in East Germany reporting to be less satisfied. This paper intends to shed light on the role of the different levels of wealth and their association with life satisfaction. On a wider scale, this paper examines psychological consequences of wealth inequality between large societal groups. Method: Longitudinal data from the years 2007, 2012, and 2017 of the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) with a sample size of N = 5066 (Nfemale = 2522, Nwest = 3756, mage2007 = 50.46) was used. To test our hypothesis, multiple linear regression models as well as a fixed-effects regression model were run. Furthermore, to examine the development of wealth distribution between different birth cohorts in East and West Germany a latent growth curve model was calculated. Results: Net-worth was found to be a highly significant predictor for life satisfaction. This holds true for variance between respondents as well as for individual change over time within respondents. Additionally, the results show that the wealth gap between East and West Germans in total as well as within most of the birth cohorts increased. Conclusion: Due to their socialistic history and the related obstacles in acquiring wealth as well as the unbalanced distribution of GDR-assets after the reunification, East Germans are significantly less wealthy than West Germans. This has consequences on the mental well-being and the life satisfaction of East Germans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the changes in infant homes for children under the age of three in West Germany after the Second World War by combining two research perspectives. First, it will show that the increase in institutional care in the decade after 1945 was not simply dictated by a growing number of orphans. Instead, it primarily resulted from the way how authorities dealt with single mothers and their children. In a second step, the adverse influence of Maternal Care and Mental Health, the WHO report by British psychiatrist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby, will be analysed. It will become clear that this monograph from 1951 was enormously influential within West German infant home education, such that institutional care for children under the age of three was almost completely abolished only a few years later. Thus, the paper contributes to the historization of residential childcare and of attachment theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior studies have reported a right-leaning bias in the media's reporting of how the public thinks of political issues, raising the question: Why, and to what extent, is this the case? One reason in particular has been discussed in this regard: Journalists judge public opinion to be more right leaning than it actually is (Beckers et al. 2021; Lewis et al. 2004). This paper therefore studies to what extent journalists misjudge audience opinion. The analyses are based on large-scale representative surveys of journalists (1993/2005) and the voting-age population (1994/2005) in Germany. Results show that German journalists (mis-)judge audience opinion to be more right-leaning than the audience sees itself. The results also show that journalists judge audience opinion to be to the right of their own stances, and that journalists in federal states with a right-leaning government and in West Germany judge audience opinion to be even further to the right. Audience feedback does not push journalists' judgements of their audience towards the right, however. These results are discussed vis-à-vis research showing that there is a consistent bias in the depiction of opinions expressed by ordinary citizens, and research documenting that political elites overestimate public support for right-wing policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Esferas is the property of Esferas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Purpose: This study aims to elucidate the quantitative and qualitative differences in employment development between German districts. Building on ideas from competitive development and resource-based theory, the paper particularly seeks to explain enduring East-West differences between rural regions by two different forms of competitive advantage: cost leadership and quality differentiation. Design/methodology/approach: This study follows a two-step empirical approach: First, an extended shift-share regression is conducted to analyze employment development in Western and Eastern German districts between 2007 and 2016. Second, the competitive share effect and other individual terms of the shift-share model are further examined in additional regressions using regional economic characteristics as exogenous variables. Findings: The findings suggest that the above-average employment growth of the rural districts in the West is owed to the successful exploitation of experience in manufacturing that has been gathered by firms in the past 100 years or so. While their strategy is largely based on advanced and specialized resources and an innovation-driven differentiation strategy, the relatively weak employment development of Eastern rural districts might be explained by a lack of comparable long-term experiences and the related need to focus on the exploitation of basic and general resources and, accordingly, on the efficiency-based strategy of cost leadership. Originality/value: This study offers an in-depth empirical analysis of how the competitive share effect, i.e. region-specific resources beyond industry structure, contributes to regional employment development. The analysis reveals that quantitative differences in rural employment development are closely related to qualitatively different levels of input factors and different regimes of competitiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Ataturk Arastirma Merkezi Dergisi is the property of Ataturk Arastirma Merkezi Dergisi and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Air Force in Nigeria is a compelling subject for sociological enquiry, with an entirely different formative process to the Army. At its inception in 1964, Army officers, not career airmen, commanded the force until 1975. However, whereas the Army cast a long shadow over NAF identity, the Air Force had other institutional pathologies. The "Quota System" of ethnicized recruitment within the military, introduced to balance out ethnic representation, was one such issue. The paper examines how this system, along with the tumultuous politics of 1960s Nigeria, ethnicism and Army influence, shaped the NAF's formative years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a theory of incremental theoretical evolution connecting the practice of international politics with disciplinary IR. It theorizes how international political actors engaged in strategic local decision-making exert productive power over dominant scientific ontologies of the international system. We refer to the narratives emerging from these processes as strategic ontologies, defined as gradual reformulations of the subjects, objects, and relational logics of the international system according to positionally determined priorities. As strategic ontologies gain acceptance, their innovations endure beyond the context of their utterance, leading to meso-level theoretical evolution. We substantiate this account with comparative case studies of contested strategic ontologies that have yet to become dominant in either the international arena or IR theory. Without strategic ontology as an analytical lens, scholarship might miss embryonic theoretical innovations in the process of gaining traction. First, we examine how Israel and West Germany engaged in strategic ontological contestation when negotiating a reparations agreement following the Holocaust. Second, we analyze how states have used vulnerability in climate negotiations in 2020–2021 to recast global policy priorities. Recognition of strategic ontologies across contexts illuminates theoretical innovations in real-time and opens a path for dynamic new bridges between the academy and policymaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper introduces the oeuvre of Kurt Drawert and analyzes, by which means and with which aims the contemporary history of German Reunification is reflected critically in his essays, poems and prose. Drawert's work circles around carefully recorded absences that the author himself has experienced and which are possibly reflected more extensively due to his relocation to federal West Germany in 1993. Such absences are shown to be ruinous for post-Soviet individuals in the unified society. But at the same time, they are constitutive for Drawert's poetics, written from the passage through the non-places of his (former) country. Reading his oeuvre from this perspective means comprehending a meticulous measurement in his poetics of the absent: of Heimat, causing an atopian perception (including the increase of retrotopian nationalistic thinking); of speech that has been and still is 'injured' or even lost, causing a not only political aphasia (allegorized by the Kaspar-Hauser-figure); and absence of time, as past is lost with the belated and declined East-- and the present suffers from a global acceleration, causing an asynchronia in transformation that further reduces the society's ability to design the future. Drawert's engagement does not cease with a melancholic exploration of a collective phantom pain, stating a persisting disintegration. Out of the analytical measurement of such 'left-overs' of the reunification process in Germany there evolves a harsh criticism of the contemporary situation surrounding the individual in the global digitized society. A related mission of literature reveals the (always fragmented) truth to the reader-- prolonging a political kind of criticism whose methods trail back to GDR-opposition. Thus, any 'valid' political change would depend on the influence of a common language and maturity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reunification of the socialist German Democratic Republic and the capitalist Federal Republic of Germany presents a unique setting for studying the impact of socio-economic and political change on migration. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the interdisciplinary literature on migration between East and West Germany since reunification, conducted in disciplines such as economics, demography, sociology, and human geography. We synthesise the literature with regard to data-related challenges as well as individual and contextual determinants of migration. We clarify some misinterpretations and discrepancies in previous studies, identify research gaps, and suggest directions for future research. Our review demonstrates that East-West migration mainly occurred in line with what could have been expected based on migration theory with regard to migrants' sex, age, education, labour market position, and social networks. West-East migration, in contrast, was strongly affected by return migrants who often stated non-occupational motives for moving. On the contextual level, differences in wages are better able to explain East-West migration over time than differences in unemployment rates. West-East migration, however, cannot be explained well with such macroeconomic models. This paper contributes a point of reference for future research on this topic, as well as on internal migration and socio-economic disparities in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates to what extent East Germans are represented in the German administrative elite. Based on an original dataset of 512 appointments of top civil servants (TCS) in the Eastern German Länder and Berlin between January 2000 and December 2019, it is investigated (1) whether the descriptive representation of East Germans increases over time and (2) how commonalities and differences between TCS with East or West German origin develop over time. The focus here is on their educational and career background as well as on party politicisation. Findings reveal a clear temporal effect: the descriptive representation of East Germans in top positions in the civil service increases over time. Still, East Germans remain highly under-represented in Eastern Germany's administrative elite. Another important finding is that TCS increasingly converge over time in terms of their educational and career background. A similar converging trend is observable with regard to party politicisation. These findings indicate a trend towards 'normalisation', i.e. an increasing adaptation to West German standards. This adaptation process, however, is taking longer than expected as the after-effects of the West German 'elite imports' in the early 1990s are enduring and profound. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an outline of the debates on the nature of Leiharbeit (contract or temporary work) from the Weimar Era to the end of the economic boom in West Germany, and traces how notions of slavery and freedom were associated with this kind of work through various political systems. It describes long continuities in the pejorative public reception of Leiharbeit since it was first debated in the context of Weimar labour law. Leiharbeit became increasingly associated with slavery, especially during the 1950s, leading to a broad consensus in West German society to eliminate it. This paper argues that the established pejorative notion of Leiharbeit endured increasing pressure during the long 1960s, when the concept of Zeit-Arbeit was pushed forward by a temporary work industry that emerged in response to a high demand for labour resulting from almost uninterrupted full employment during the boom period. Furthermore, this shift was tightly linked to general processes of 'value change' and individualization characteristic of 1960s West German society, whereby Zeit-Arbeit became connected to notions of freedom in working life. The article also considers how gender played a crucial role in the establishment of Zeit-Arbeit during the boom period. In so doing, this article offers new insights into the history of non-standard employment relationships and their public reception in twentieth-century (West) Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an often-overlooked period of conflict, the era of transformation after German re-unification represents a time of collective and individual identity crisis for East Germans, who experienced a loss of their Lebenswelt (lifeworld; Edmund Husserl) and a devaluation of their life achievements that often led to severe discontent, causing conflict both in and between East and West Germany. During this period, People of Colour experienced a discharge of the general tension through a sharp increase in violence directed against them by radical right-wing actors. Since then, their experiences have gone largely unnoticed in popular media and publications, having only recently found their way into a broader discourse of remembrance. This paper seeks to contribute to a shift away from a discussion about People of Colour and towards a position that focuses on their narratives, experiences and opinions. In doing so, it takes a firmly female-centred perspective, using written and video-recorded material from Women of Colour as a doubly marginalised group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employment among mothers has been rising in recent decades, although mothers of young children often work fewer hours than other women do. Parallel to this trend, approval of maternal employment has increased, albeit not evenly across groups. However, differences in attitudes remain unexplored despite their importance for better understanding mothers' labour market behaviour. Meanwhile, the employment of fathers has remained stable and attitudes towards paternal employment do not differ as much as attitudes towards maternal employment do between socio-economic groups. This paper examines attitudes towards maternal and paternal employment. It focuses on Germany, drawing on data from the German Family Demography Panel Study (FReDA). The survey explicitly asks whether mothers and fathers should be in paid work, work part-time or full-time, presenting respondents with fictional family profiles that vary the youngest child's age. Unlike previous studies, the analysis compares the views of respondents with different origins: West Germany, East Germany, immigrants from different world regions, and second-generation migrants in West Germany. The results highlight remarkable differences between respondents from West and East Germany, with the former group displaying strong approval for part-time employment among mothers and fathers of very young children and the latter group reporting higher approval for full-time employment. Immigrant groups are far from homogenous, holding different attitudes depending on their region of origin. Taken together, the results offer a nuanced picture of attitudes towards maternal and paternal employment. We discuss these findings in relation to labour markets participation in Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtually all theories of economic growth predict a positive relationship between population size and productivity. In this paper, I study a particular historical episode to provide direct evidence for the empirical relevance of such scale effects. In the aftermath of the Second World War, 8 million ethnic Germans were expelled from their domiciles in Eastern Europe and transferred to West Germany. This inflow increased the German population by almost 20%. Using variation across counties, I show that the settlement of refugees had large and persistent effects on the size of the local population, manufacturing employment, and income per capita. These findings are quantitatively consistent with an idea‐based model of spatial growth if population mobility is subject to frictions and productivity spillovers occur locally. The estimated model implies that the refugee settlement increased aggregate income per capita by about 12% after 25 years and triggered a process of industrialization in rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study addresses the role of Fritz Schellhorn, the German consul in Cernăuţi (Czernowitz), Romania before and during World War II. Recently Schellhorn has been presented as a rescuer of Jews during the Holocaust. Based largely on Schellhorn's papers in the German Foreign Office Archives, some have argued that it was not, as previously believed, the wartime mayor and Righteous Among the Nations Traian Popovici, but Schellhorn, who prevented the deportation of 20,000 of Cernăuţi's Jews by the Romanians during World War II. The following suggests that Schellhorn occupied a more ambivalent position. First, it argues that his actions should be considered in light of power and interethnic relations in the region. Second, it shows that Schellhorn's legacy includes a decades-long struggle to obstruct the compensation of many Romanian Holocaust survivors by West Germany. Emphasizing Romania's sole responsibility for the crimes, Schellhorn engaged in a range of postwar interactions—sometimes public, sometimes hostile—with Jewish survivors he had helped and others he had not. The article thus examines Schellhorn's wartime and postwar activities anew. For one thing, it places these against the backdrop of the Holocaust in Romania's particular dynamics and contested aftermath. But beyond this, it contributes to the debate over the static labels used to categorize people's behaviors during the Holocaust and thereby explores the wider and complex links between history, memory, and reckoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thirty years after reunification, East and West Germany are still characterized by a considerable difference in satisfaction with democracy (SWD). This paper proposes and tests a model which assumes SWD to be shaped by the interests (economic and cultural) and moral values individuals demand to see fostered by the democratic system. Empirical application of the model reveals substantial differences between the East and West German SWD function in that the satisfaction of economic interests is much more important in the East than the West whereas the opposite applies to moral concerns. Demands on redistribution and immigration policies—conceptualized as proximate drivers of SWD—also shape SWD differently in the East and the West, in addition to being shaped by interests and morals in different ways. East–West differences in the relationship between economic demands and SWD are more important than differences in the levels of demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the history of the West German debate about whether, how, and why adoptive parents should or should not tell their children the truth about their origins. Concepts of biological and social parenthood, family, parental love, and the maternal bond play a role in this context, as does the ensuing legal discussion on full and partial adoption, anonymous adoption, and finally the novel instrument of "open adoption" that was developed in the 1970s. The conclusion attempts to place these discussions within the context of a more comprehensive history of truth. In drawing attention to how the current trend towards unconditional truth-telling has been shaped by changing historical contexts, the paper reveals that the answers are context-bound, that it is advisable to carefully ponder what effects the overarching emphasis on a single form of truth (or secrecy) may have, and what dangers it may hold. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When Philip Roth died in May 2018, he was the best-known American writer in Germany. By that point, his difficult early years on the German book market were long forgotten. If one investigates the archives of Rowohlt Verlag, where Roth's first books were published in Germany, there is explicit talk of a "risk." The publisher feared that Roth's portrayal of Jewish characters in all their ambivalence and complexity could affirm anti-Semitic sentiment in Germany. Therefore, Rowohlt's efforts to position Roth in the literary field of the Federal Republic were accompanied by deliberate risk management. This paper reconstructs the publishing house's strategy and its contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over two decades from 1949 until the resumption of the diplomatic relations between these two countries in 1972, West German companies never gave up on the Chinese market despite substantial difficulties caused by Cold War frictions. This paper exams the payment transactions and terms of credits for financing industrial projects between the PRC and West German companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the archival materials related to Christian political parties in West Germany and the Federal Republic of Germany after 1945. It highlights their historical significance for understanding the history and development of these parties. It includes personal papers, party records, and documents from key figures in politics and diplomacy, shedding light on regional differences, political styles, and forgotten issues.

Social norms are put forward as a prominent explanation for the changing labour supply decisions of women. This paper studies the intergenerational transmission of these norms, examining how they affect subsequent female labour supply decisions, taking into account not only the early socialization of women but also that of their partner. Using large representative panel data sets from West Germany, results suggest that women with partners who grew up with a working mother are more likely to participate in the labour force, work longer hours and earn higher labour income. The main contribution of our study is that we assess a variety of potential mechanisms for this intergenerational link. We find no evidence that this finding reflects assortative mating; rather, analysis suggests that the partner's preferences are based on their experiences with the employment of their mothers and play a decisive role for the labour supply decision of partnered women. Moreover, we identify various effect heterogeneities, finding stronger associations for women with potentially less bargaining power. Our results suggest that policy measures supporting the labour force participation of today's mothers will increase the female labour force participation of the next generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1940s to 1960s, the German Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) had a relatively high proportion of former Nazis among its employees. Reasons were a system of uncontrolled chain recruitment and the initially high esteem of "expertise" acquired in wartime. By taking over personnel from various agencies of the Third Reich, the BND acquired various inherent dangers for the institution and its public perception. This biographical micro-study explores, how a Nazi past was assessed within the BND during the Cold War. The process of evaluating individual incriminations allows conclusions about the BND's general perception of staff continuities between the Third Reich and the Federal Republic. Herbert Kukuk was an enthusiastic Nazi who made his career in central institutions of the NSDAP. The BND accepted that the 1947 hired employee provided only scanty information about his past and also tolerated obvious contradictions. This was typical for dealing with the Nazi past and did not change when perceptions in society regarding the recent past and the integration of former Nazis changed in the 1960s. Although Kukuk's pre-1945 occupations were known, he was consistently well evaluated and promoted. The Kukuk case makes clear that in the BND, awareness of the Nazi burden set in much later than in West German society, and the learning process, which the BND authorities followed hesitantly, dragged on until the 1980s. Methodologically, this paper emphasizes that biographical micro-studies can provide information about the evaluation criteria state authorities in West Germany and Austria after 1945 applied to an occupational biography during the Third Reich, and thus about changing perceptions regarding the integration of the Nazi functional elites in post-war societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Very few researchers have focused on the question of: if and to what extent, regional economic disparities affect military base closures. In this paper, we aim to explain regional patterns of military base closures in the Czech Republic, a country that has experienced a sharp decline in military employment and expenditures since the beginning of 1990s. Three groups of predictors of closure were considered: local (size, age, location and hierarchical position of the military base); regional (wages, unemployment, city size, the initial level of militarisation of the district); and national-level predictors (geostrategic priorities and restructuring of the Czech Armed Forces). Our research is informed by the theory of public choice and its application to the decision-making processes concerning military base closures and realignments. We employed a combination of regression models to determine which group of the above-mentioned factors affected the spatial distribution of military bases in the period 1994–2005. While geostrategic factors (such as distance from the border with West Germany) and restructuring of the army (type of a military base) were the most important, regional economic disparities showed no significant correlation with the intensity of military base closures/downsizing. We did not demonstrate that military bases in economically lagging regions had been systematically protected in the Czech Republic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Germany is among the largest countries in the world in terms of total GDP, owing largely to rapid industrialization and expansion of economic activities into several sectors. This paper contributes to the literature on German economic development by investigating the evolution of industry diversification in Germany; particularly focusing on the recent concepts of related (RV) and unrelated variety (UV) in West German regions. It also identifies the statistical and economic determinants of variation in variety over time. Among several industry structure measures; RV is the only measure that reveals a pronounced increasing trend. Since RV is composed of two parts: 1) entropy at five-digit within a two-digit classification, and 2) shares of two-digit sectors in total output, we examined which of the two components dominate. Our findings suggest that the entropy component within two-digit sectoral shares of the RV index is more dominant than the two-digit sectoral shares themselves. We further examined entries and exits of the firms among regions with top and bottom rankings in RV. Findings suggest that both the top and bottom regions experienced an increase in the total number of industries, however, exits were much less pronounced in the bottom regions. It suggests that an increase in variety among top regions is the result of the creative destruction type effect where new industries force inefficient old industries to leave the region. Finally, analysis shows support for the inverse u-shaped relationship between development and diversification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Football proved to be one of the few areas that fueled West Germany's ambition to reintegrate Saarland into the fractured post-war republic. Denied participation with the German football federation in the wake of the Second World War, yet unwilling to don French colors, Saarland's national football team (Saarländische Fußballnationalmannschaft) epitomised the uneasy space embodied by its citizens. Unable to compete in the 1950 World Cup – despite FIFA recognition – Saarland focused instead on dominating the lower French leagues and creating their own tournament. Despite two losses to eventual champions West Germany in the qualifying round of the 1954 World Cup, Saarland's footballers and their supporters left no doubt as to their cultural and political desire to reunite with the nation that had been denied to them. Studying Saarland and its football team this way, this paper juxtaposes sport, politics, and nationalism within the context of post-WWII German history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper answers three research questions: What is the impact of fixed-term employment on the well-being of partners? How do these spillover effects differ by gender, and do gender differences depend on socialization in East or West Germany? Do individual well-being, perceived job insecurity, and financial worries mediate the spillover effects? We use longitudinal data from the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), 1995–2017, and a sample of heterosexual couples living together, to estimate fixed-effects panel regression models. In contrast to previous studies, we consider asymmetric effects of entering and leaving fixed-term contracts by focusing on transitions from unemployment into fixed-term and fixed-term into permanent jobs. Confirming previous research on spillover effects of unemployment, we find that fixed-term re-employment increases partners' well-being and that these effects are larger in case of re-employment by men and partners' socialization in West Germany. We also show that transitions from fixed-term to permanent jobs do not substantially increase the well-being of partners with little differences by gender and place of socialization. While the spillover effect of re-employment is mediated by changes in the well-being of the individual re-entering the labor market, changes in job insecurity and financial worries due to transitions from fixed-term to permanent jobs are too small to produce meaningful effects on well-being. Although fixed-term contracts have been referred to as a new source of inequality, our results show that they cause little difference in the well-being of individuals and their partners and that finding a job matters more than the type of contract. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crisis-induced refugee migration raises questions of fair responsibility-sharing among political territories. This is relevant for nation states and for subnational territories alike. Theories addressing this problem have mainly been developed with regard to international responsibility-sharing. They assume collective action problems when it comes to organising intergovernmental transfer schemes, something which cannot be easily overcome. It is not well understood how effective transfer schemes can be institutionalised when no hierarchical decision-making is in place. Complementary to that perspective, this paper builds upon constructivist institutional theories that suggest paying more attention to guiding ideas, which can be called upon when intergovernmental transfer schemes are at stake, and to criteria of rationality that can legitimately claim to embody this idea. Legitimate criteria of rationality are typically the result of "investments in form", i.e. social practices which imbue material objects with certain qualities so that they stand for particular guiding ideas. The article tests this assumption empirically by tracing the institutionalisation process of the Königstein key (Königsteiner Schlüssel) as a dynamic formula for determining state quotas in Germany's refugee federalism. While important precedents of physical intergovernmental responsibility-sharing in refugee matters had already existed in West Germany, their translation to the territorial dispersal of non-German asylum seekers was highly controversial in the 1970s. In this case, resorting to the Königstein key proved to be feasible in part because, by then, the formula had already become a symbol of the idea of federal justice through its use in a variety of different and far less controversial policy fields. However, during the recent wave of refugee immigration it has increasingly become the object of critique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the social and symbolic meanings of recipes in the creation of community imagined online. Linking scholarship on the social relevance of recipes with research on food memories, identity, as well as research on memory in the digital age, I examine how internet users remember the German Democratic Republic (GDR) through recipes they post and discuss online on the two most popular German-based recipe sharing websites. My findings show that sharing and commenting on recipes is a form of collective identity labor through which Internet users create, negotiate and maintain symbolic boundaries between East and West Germany. Specifically, I identify key dynamics of how recipes – as vehicles of identity labor – perform collective GDR identity: negotiations about authenticity and collective affirmations of GDR identity which both serve as symbolic demarcations within a Western-centered reunified Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides summaries of several research papers published in the journal "International Security".Topics include the impact of Russian-Ukraine war on a state's social status,the dynamics of atonement between West Germany and Israel after the Holocaust, and the China's changing nuclear posture in the context of its rivalry with the United States.

Copyright of Psychosozial is the property of Psychosozial-Verlag GmbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Most historiographies of the crossroads of environmental and reproductive health in 20th century start and end with the case of thalidomide. Despite its global scope, thalidomide today stands for sharp contrasts: in the numbers of victims, in institutional responses to the disaster, and also—more generally—in regulatory approaches to potential risks and national cultures of reproductive justice and disability rights. This paper takes a closer look at two countries that have been seen as emblematic of this divide in regulatory frameworks, despite similarities and interconnections in other areas, such as (pharma)industrial production, science, and robust feminist environmental health movements: the U.S. and West Germany. It argues that thalidomide needs to be historically contextualized within a broad framework of concepts and models of environment from research on exogenous reproductive effects. To do so, it reconstructs what counted as environment in research on reproductive health and birth defects in these two national settings in the postwar decades. It looks at transformations made across multifaceted initiatives, studying collective landscapes and workplaces as potentially dangerous "outer worlds," as well as smaller scale and more individualized environments, i.e., the maternal metabolism, uterus, lifestyle, or social interactions. The article thereby aims to explicate concepts and debates about the environment that influenced later national divisions in politics of science and technology, hinting of the democratic challenges these posed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Soziale Welt is the property of Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We provide comprehensive evidence on Germany's home care subsidy for one- and two-year-old children. In West Germany, take-up was 60 percent, and the subsidy reduced mothers' probability to work within three years after childbirth by 1.4 percentage points and increased exclusive parental care by 6.5 percentage points. The subsidy improved children's development at age six, with the exception of children who do not speak German at home. In East Germany, 30 percent of families used the subsidy, neither affecting maternal employment nor exclusive parental care. As an income transfer, the subsidy did not benefit families with the least economic resources most. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

East German sinologists organized an international conference on East Asian studies in Leipzig in October 1955, bringing together scholars from most communist states and several scholars from Western Europe. This conference served to unite sinologists from both the Communist Bloc and West Germany in the early Cold War era. Since the Chinese delegation was particularly honored, this article suggests that China expanded its political influence in East Europe after the Korean War and the death of Stalin, which prompted a tension within the international communist community, especially between China and the Soviet Union. Moreover, this conference demonstrated a strong "modern turn" in the rising field of Asian studies, sinology in particular, because of the rise of the People's Republic of China in the 1950s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State and non-state actors often try to provoke moral emotions like guilt and shame to mobilize political change. However, tactics such as 'naming and shaming' are often ineffective, suggesting that policy makers engage in norm violations in ways that minimize moral emotions. We argue that when violating norms, decision makers deal with guilt and shame through coping mechanisms that allow them to pursue policies that contradict their moral standards. We conceptualize guilt and shame as two separate phenomena that provoke distinct reactions. Shame is more likely to provoke immature defenses like denial and distortion, while guilt provokes a more mature and reparative reaction. We provide empirical evidence for this theory by examining two crucial issues on the state of Israel's political agenda during the first decade of its existence. We analyze political debates over the return of the Palestinian refugees and the reparation agreement between Israel and West Germany, using a series of primary sources from three different political forums. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite considerable advances in flood forecasting during recent decades, state-of-the-art, operational flood early warning systems (FEWS) need to be equipped with near-real-time inundation and impact forecasts and their associated uncertainties. High-resolution, impact-based flood forecasts provide insightful information for better-informed decisions and tailored emergency actions. Valuable information can now be provided to local authorities for risk-based decision-making by utilising high-resolution lead-time maps and potential impacts to buildings and infrastructures. Here, we demonstrate a comprehensive floodplain inundation hindcast of the 2021 European Summer Flood illustrating these possibilities for better disaster preparedness, offering a 17-hour lead time for informed and advisable actions. A hindcast experiment of the 2021 summer flood in West Germany unveils a 17-hour lead time for preparedness and advisable action, holding promise for impact-based forecasting of inundated roads, railways and building footprint in real-time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses how British popular music culture defined and responded to Krautrock, a subgenre of West German underground rock, during the 1970s. It examines and contextualises British and West German interactions in popular music immediately before Krautrock and at the time of its early definition. The article then explores how so-called Krautrock bands related to the British public and press and how they were described and understood in relation to their nationality. The article suggests that stereotypes and prejudices, shaped by the memory of World War 2, remained a significant aspect of British discourse on West Germany into the 1970s. However, interest in Krautrock gave rise to social and cultural interactions that inspired some to challenge and renegotiate ideas of Germany and Germanness. To some, bonds made through music, culture and politics proved more profound than the history of conflict between Britain and Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prominent theoretical positions in sociology and labor economics disagree whether educational expansion has outstripped the demand for qualified labor (overexpansion), or whether economies face a skill shortage despite increases in education (underexpansion). Focusing on the United Kingdom and West Germany, two countries with dissimilar skill formation institutions, patterns of expansion, and labor markets, this paper asks to what degree expansion of education has been absorbed. I point out shortcomings of wage-centered analyses and develop an approach that focuses on trends in self-assessed over- and underqualification. Using repeated surveys among workers and official labor market statistics, I estimate regression models that link the cohort-level expansion of education to the cohort-level prevalence of mismatch. Results suggest overexpansion in the United Kingdom, with overqualification increasing and underqualification decreasing over historical times and cohorts. West Germany, on the other hand, shows signs of underexpansion. While dominant theoretical accounts focus on the under-/overexpansion of tertiary education, my results show that mismatch-dynamics in both contexts are strongest for workers without university degrees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Europe, people from post-Soviet countries tend to hold more negative attitudes toward immigration than people from Western societies. This pattern is also evident in the former East and West Germany. In line with the modernization hypothesis, previous research shows that worldviews have become more liberal across generations in Western societies over the last century. This study examines whether such processes of liberalization have taken place at a different pace in Western societies and in post-Soviet societies. To this end, I assess whether changes in attitudes toward immigration across birth cohorts differ between residents of post-Soviet countries and inhabitants of other types of welfare states. Using data from the European Social Survey, the German Socio-Economic Panel Study, and the German General Social Survey, this study shows that the pattern of later-born cohorts holding more liberal attitudes toward immigration is less pronounced in post-Soviet states than in other types of welfare states. These findings have implications for research on attitude change over time and the long-term persistence of communist practices, behaviors, values, and norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Electricity grids are crucial for the energy transition. Despite its importance for renewable energy, the literature on grid ownership at the local level in Germany lacks up-to-date knowledge. Existing research does not state the extent to which municipalities own distribution system operators (DSOs). Based on a novel dataset on grid operators in 10,800 German municipalities, this paper can provide for the first time an overview of the current ownership of electricity distribution companies. Although the electricity infrastructure is decentralised, ownership remains centralised in the hands of Germany's leading energy companies and concentrated in affluent population centres. • Novel dataset on 10,800 German municipalities' grid operators. • In-depth overview of municipal and non-municipal DSOs in Germany. • Incumbent energy firms continue to lead German DSO market amid grid transition. • Disparities in utility ownership persist between East and West Germany. • Municipal DSOs more common in larger cities and industrial southern Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Demographics are important prognostic factors in malignant diseases. A nationwide analysis concerning the prognostic impact of demographics in head and neck cancer (HNC) patients (HNCP) has not been performed previously. Methods: A retrospective analysis of data from the Center for Cancer Registry Data (ZfKD) and the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) between 2002 and 2017 was performed. A total of 212′920 HNCP were included. Incidence, tumor stage, age development, sex distribution, age‐, residence‐, and diagnosis‐time‐specific survival were examined. Results: Mean age of HNCP increased more rapidly than in the general population (slope coefficient: 0.29 vs. 0.20; p < 0.0001). Higher age and male sex were associated with a worse prognosis. Whereas overall survival (OS) increased from the early to the later observation period for HNCP <70 years, no OS improvement for HNCP >70 years was found. Furthermore, an OS disadvantage was observed for East Germany compared to West Germany (median 47 vs. 60 months; p < 0.0001). This disparity was associated with a disproportionately high ratio of men in East Germany (men/women: 4.4 vs. 3.1; p < 0.0001) and a lower mean age (61 vs. 63 years; p < 0.0001). In addition to stage, age and sex, residence in East Germany were confirmed as an independent factor for OS in a multivariate analysis. Conclusion: Finally, three decades after the German reunion, a survival disadvantage for patients in East Germany still exists. This discrepancy may be a result of socioeconomic disparities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Noise was among the most contested issues in the large open offices that proliferated after World War II in Europe and North America. The "landscape" offices that developed out of the German Bürolandschaft movement were known for large floor plates filled with misaligned desks. They were meant to improve employees' communication, but their acoustic design prompted worker anxieties about distraction and diminishing privacy. While early remediation efforts sought to quiet offices, in the 1960s designers began adding random, unintelligible noise to mask distractions and arranging employees according to their expected sound levels. This shift from eliminating noise to embracing it as a space-defining element reflected a powerful new acoustic paradigm. The Bürolandschaft movement waned in the 1970s, but the judicious spatial deployment of noise remains an invaluable technique as designers consider how architecture can help or hinder communication and collective intellectual activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Germany previously had a three-track educational system that was initially established as part of the Weimar Constitution in 1919. In the 1960s, reformist calls to establish comprehensive middle schools in West Germany gained traction. However, comprehensive middle schools only occupied a marginal position in the German educational system. Amendments to the system were proposed in the 1964 Hamburg Agreement, which retained the three-track system but established a 2-year "orientation phase", delaying the tracking of students into separate academic and vocational paths. However, the German Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) shock in 2000 led to the three-track system being harshly criticized, prompting every German state to simplify the system to two tracks and provide incentives for working people to enroll in higher education. This established a pathway to higher education for all, including those who had been tracked out when they were younger. Additionally, Germany made further reforms to vocational education, proposing an "additional qualification plan" to maintain pace with the demands of industrial development. Moreover, the Vocational Training Act was revised in 2020 to include advanced vocational education with degrees at three levels, making the value of vocational education comparable to traditional higher education. The early tracking in Germany's educational system has been widely criticized, with critics indicating it requires 10-year-old children to decide on their future career paths. However, this characterization is somewhat unfair: As is true in many other countries, parents usually make such decisions for their children, and the system includes streamlined provisions for transfers, with more than 30% of vocational students ultimately transferring to universities. Moreover, although Germans with a university degree typically have higher incomes than do those without, they fare no better than skilled workers with a vocational degree in terms of employment security and return on investment in education. Furthermore, although vocational students face obstacles when electing to pursue a university degree, the high quality of vocational education in Germany and the bright career prospects for vocational school graduates demonstrate the wisdom underlying the early tracking policy in German education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The study aimed to investigate the association between the start age of non-parental Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) and psycho-social problems in adolescence. The similarities and differences between West and East Germany were also investigated in a natural experiment. Methods: Our sample consisted of 1022 children (621 from West Germany, 401 from East Germany) aged 3–4 years at wave 2003–2006 that were followed up to wave 2014–2017 as adolescents (mean ± SD age = 14.4 ± 0.03 years) in the KiGGS study. The psycho-social problems were measured by the parent-reported Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) at wave 2014–2017. Linear regression was used to explore the relationship between ECEC-start-age and psycho-social problems in adolescence in Germany, and stratified by West and East Germany. Results: Those who started ECEC between 2 and 3 years old (reference) had the lowest scores of psycho-social problems in the whole Germany and in West Germany in adolescence. In comparison, those who started ECEC older than 3 years old had higher scores of internalizing psycho-social problems in both West Germany (with statistically significant results) and East Germany (with a relatively larger effect size but insignificant results). Those who started ECEC younger than 1 year old had statistically significant higher scores for externalizing psycho-social problems in West Germany, even though less children started ECEC younger than 1 in West Germany compared to East Germany. This significant association was not found in East Germany. Those who started ECEC between 1 and 2 years old tended to have higher scores of externalizing psycho-social problems in both West and East Germany. Conclusion: The results suggest that if children start ECEC older than 3 years or younger than 2 years, more attention needs to be given to internalizing or externalizing psycho-social problems respectively. The regional differences for children younger than 1 year old may suggest a selection effect in West Germany where only fewer parents bring babies to ECEC, while the regional similarities for children over 3 years old indicate the importance of providing access to ECEC for children over 3 years old. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]