Search

Pursued by authorities throughout the 1930s, Heinrich Habitz left behind a significant paper trail of official documentation, arrest warrants and imprisonment records. As Germany slipped further under National Socialist oppression, Habitz's status as a homosexual man who sold sex marked him as a target of police repression. Even after the end of the war, the Hamburg Prosecutor's Office attempted to locate and again prosecute him under the infamous §175 'sodomy law'. By rights, the study of Habitz should provide insights into the continuities of anti-queer repression between authoritarianism and democracy, but for one key point: 'Heinrich Habitz' existed only as a paper identity in official bureaucracy, and the 'man' authorities repeatedly persecuted was, in fact, a self-identified woman named 'Liddy Bacroff'. Through a series of semi-autobiographical writings, alongside official paperwork, Liddy Bacroff presents the value of but also the difficulties facing the (re)construction of queer and, in particular, transgender (pre)histories. In this instance, the historian is not just faced with the problem of how this life, and others like it, should be represented in historiographical terms. We are left also with the question of how this victim of National Socialist barbarity should (or rather, can) be remembered: as the paper identity that provided a succession of carceral authorities with the justification to persecute and ultimately murder a cisgender gay man, or as the lived experience of a woman whose unique self-understanding allowed her to carve out her place in a society that otherwise relegated her to its margins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the conditions and factors influencing non-university researchers' career transitions back into academia. Using affiliation data in publications of German researchers, their cross-sector career transitions from the public research organisation Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and industry to universities are analysed. Although the rate of transitions is small, there are distinctive windows of opportunity at a junior career stage, especially for Fraunhofer researchers. Researchers who publish more and in more acclaimed journals, Fraunhofer researchers who co-publish with universities, and women are more likely to gain a university affiliation over the course of their career. These results indicate the influence of institutional proximity for cross-domain career transitions. The quality and impact of academic knowledge could be improved if the higher education sector was more open to recruitment of researchers from other sectors. Policy needs to target the barriers that preclude applied researchers from pursuing university careers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational formats that seek to raise police officers' awareness about racial discrimination often focus on formal violations of the principle of non-discrimination or canons of values. First, based on a critical discussion of positions on discrimination in policing and proposals for police training in Germany this paper argues based on human rights for a broader understanding of the challenge to tackle racial discrimination in policing. In reference to neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics, competencies for proactive encounters with affected groups will thereby be explored. Second, it outlines a framework for educational formats on this issue that address police officers as whole persons, who should, in the context of their professional practice, develop the virtue to understand the perspectives of and to build relationships of care with marginalized individuals. An example of a tested format that integrates perspectives from civil society will be presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent migration waves from countries ruled by leaders with autocratic tendencies or under war regimes included also the forced migration of academics who have become targets of widening severe attacks against academic-scientific values, institutions, and students/scholars (GCP EA). Based on empirical research, this paper studies the forced migration of scholars from such countries to Germany after 2015. While putting theoretical concepts deriving from distinct study fields (such as forced migration and exile studies) into a dialog, the paper perceives the migration of these scholars as forced due to risks they encountered in their home countries. It also addresses the complexity of their forced migration as a multidimensional and relational process involving various structural and subjective push-pull drives. In line with the empirical data and post-structuralist theories on migration and forced migration, the paper pursues the following theses: Risks and responses against risks are varied and involve the agency of migrants. Although forced migration is a regulated process concerning migration regimes and laws, it calls for the performance/agency of exiled scholars and other actors' governing activities. As a complex and transformative process, forced migration results in different exilic positions. It is not a predetermined linear process in time and space, but a process with unexpected outcomes, since it entails the ongoing struggle of exiled scholars over/through their academic and social networks and capitals, which function as mediating-pulling drivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peer review has developed over time to become the established procedure for assessing and assuring the scientific quality of research. Nevertheless, the procedure has also been variously criticized as conservative, biased, and unfair, among other things. Do scientists regard all these flaws as equally problematic? Do they have the same opinions on which problems are so serious that other selection procedures ought to be considered? The answers to these questions hints at what should be modified in peer review processes as a priority objective. The authors of this paper use survey data to examine how members of the scientific community weight different shortcomings of peer review processes. Which of those processes' problems do they consider less relevant? Which problems, on the other hand, do they judge to be beyond remedy? Our investigation shows that certain defects of peer review processes are indeed deemed irreparable: (1) legitimate quandaries in the process of fine-tuning the choice between equally eligible research proposals and in the selection of daring ideas; and (2) illegitimate problems due to networks. Science-policy measures to improve peer review processes should therefore clarify the distinction between field-specific remediable and irremediable flaws than is currently the case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the accumulation of financial resources in higher education. Its focus lies on the Quality Pact for Teaching (QPT) , a large-scale funding programme that aimed to improve the quality of tertiary education in Germany. Starting in 2011, the QPT allocated almost 2 billion euros over a 10-year period. Yet, unlike prior national funding schemes, the QPT was strongly inspired by New Public Management measures and marked the first time that a substantial amount of teaching grants was awarded in a competitive manner. My estimations show that institutions with a successful history of acquiring third-party funds coped best under these novel circumstances, thus revealing a clear pattern of cumulative advantage. Although typically dedicated to research purposes, the level of previous third-party funding emerges as a strong predictor of QPT success. Therefore, it appears that the QPT unintentionally contributed to steeper financial gaps in Germany's academic landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives Given the increasing academic interest in older migrants, this study aims at examining the likelihood of establishing contact and cooperation in a survey among first-generation migrants in Germany, comparing migrants of age 50 and older with younger migrants (aged 16–49). Research Design and Methods We analyze data from the Migrants' Welfare State Attitudes (MIFARE) study collected in Germany, which contains information about first-generation migrants from 9 different origin groups living in private households. Potential survey participants were contacted via mail and invited to participate in a paper- or online-based survey. In addition, an incentive experiment was implemented and age-dependent response rates were analyzed. Using logistic regression analyses, we compare older and younger migrants with regard to their likelihood of contact, cooperation, reaction to incentives, and mode choice. Results Within the MIFARE study, older migrants are more likely to be contacted than younger ones. Older migrants are also more likely to cooperate in survey research than younger migrants. Both groups respond equally positively to the use of unconditional incentives. Lastly, older migrants show a strong preference to fill out the questionnaire on paper, rather than online. Discussion and Implications Older first-generation migrants living in private households are easier to contact and are more likely to cooperate in survey research than younger first-generation migrants. Offering unconditional incentives and surveys on paper are likely to increase response rates among older migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing academic interest in examining how terrorist attacks shape the majority's attitudes towards minority groups. Yet, little is known of how these minority groups react to the backlash such events provoke. This paper leverages the exogenous occurrence of a series of terrorist attacks during the fieldwork period of two surveys to estimate how such events affect the sentiment of both citizens and asylum seekers in Germany. Results of the natural experiment reveal that the 2016 terror attacks in Nice, Würzburg, and Ansbach substantially increased anti-refugee sentiment among German respondents. In line with this increase in hostility, refugees experienced more discrimination, felt less welcome in Germany, and suffered clinically relevant declines in mental health in the aftermath of the attacks. These results provide a more holistic understanding of how terrorism corrodes intergroup relations and how it affects those that are blamed for the events and thus suffer the brunt of the backlash following their occurrence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conducting a survey with refugee populations involves particular challenges. Among these challenges, sampling, implementation and survey translation are crucial. This becomes even more obvious when trying to access hard-to-survey subgroups of a larger refugee population. This paper demonstrates possible ways of addressing sampling, implementation and translation problems and some of the associated pitfalls based on the example of a quantitative survey intended for refugee parents in the state of Lower Saxony/Germany. First, we argue that based on the need to collect representative data, adjusting the target population may be one way to respond to the lack of a sampling frame for the original target population. Second, we reason that under unforeseen circumstances, such as an ongoing pandemic, ad-hoc changes may be needed in implementation strategies, and we shed light on some disadvantages of self-administered web-based surveys in refugee studies. Third, we claim that surveys involving linguistically and culturally diverse refugee populations benefit to large extent from using a modified variant of the team translation approach (TRAPD). In our conclusion, we critically reflect on adaptable strategies for ensuring well-defined samples, a reasoned implementation and translation practice that meet the challenges of representing a distinct refugee population's diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: In this study, we show results from ambient noise tomography around the KTB (Kontinentales Tiefbohrprogramm der Bundesrepublik Deutschland), a continental deep drilling site located at the western edge of the Bohemian Massif, within the Variscan belt of Europe. At the KTB site, crustal rocks have been drilled down to 9 km depth. Before the drilling activity started, several active seismic surveys had been performed to explore its surroundings during the 1980s and early 1990s, in the frame of an extensive exploration of the area aimed at unravelling the characteristics of the continental lower crust that is exposed at surface in this location. Despite the exploration campaigns held at and around the KTB drilling site, there are important targets that are worth further investigation; these are related in particular to the obduction of lower crustal units to the surface, and to the mechanism of orogenic processes in general. Here we present a new 3-D shear wave velocity model of the area from cross-correlations of ambient seismic noise. The model is obtained by a unique data set composed of 2 yr of continuous data recorded at nine 3-component temporary stations (installed from July 2012 to July 2014) located on top and around the drilling site, and together with the data from 19 permanent stations throughout the region. This paper is focusing on the upper crustal layers, and we show velocity variations at short scales that correlate well with known geological structures in the region of the KTB site, at the surface and at depth. These are used to discuss features that are less well-resolved at present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the increasing need for representative data on refugee health, refugees are underrepresented in health research in Germany and other European countries. Researchers often describe refugees as a hard-to-survey (or hard-to-reach) population. Labelling refugee populations with this phrase reflects the perspective of mainly local European researchers on a population they do not belong to. Moreover, refugees may not describe themselves with this phrase. Drawing upon my fieldwork experience as a member of the Syrian community in Germany who has conducted research with Syrian refugees, this practice paper challenges a common narrative among researchers in Europe in regard to refugee populations. I strongly recommend that researchers who are interested in conducting research with refugee populations involve them in all research design and implementation stages. I further call upon researchers to refrain from using the label 'hard-to-survey' to describe refugee populations before ensuring that they have done enough to engage with and involve their target population in their research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the beginning of the 1990s, absolute gravity has been observed at several locations in Norway with FG5-type instruments to investigate the temporal gravity changes due to glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA). Previous work suggests that some of the estimated secular gravity trends may be affected by remaining unmodelled geophysical effects, such as the effect of local hydrology. In this work, we compute hydrological gravity effects from global hydrological models for the far zone and a combination of regional run-off models and modelling of residual hydrological effects for the near zone. The method developed in this paper is first tested at the geodetic observatory in Wettzell, Germany, where both high-resolution superconducting gravimeter data as well as a regional hydrological model are available. Next, the method is transferred to two Norwegian gravity sites (NMBU and TRYC), with long time-series of frequent absolute gravity observations using FG5-226. At these sites, we investigate the impact of the hydrological gravity correction on data variability as well as estimated secular gravity trends. We find that the data variability is reduced by up to 40 per cent when applying the modelled hydrological gravity effect at TRYC. The reduction is less at NMBU where the amplitude of the hydrological signal and in consequence also the signal-to-noise ratio are smaller. We also note that it is challenging to determine the near zone residual hydrological effects without carefully taking into account the hydrogeological setting of the area for modelling such effects. When utilizing the long corrected absolute gravity series to determine the gravity trends, we find that the estimated trends are not significantly different from the uncorrected observations. However, the uncertainty of the estimated trends is reduced significantly for a limited corrected gravity series. We further suggest repeatability analysis of the absolute gravimeter. From the long time-series at NMBU we find a significant step coinciding with hardware replacement. We find that the fit between observed and modelled secular trends improves when introducing the step. Further analysis of gravity rates at other stations is needed to verify the existence of a real instrumental offset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The U.S. Army medics are often the first responders in the care of sick and injured soldiers on the battlefield, sick call in a Role 2 aid station and garrison clinics. Sick call medics are required to utilize the Algorithm Directed Troop Medical Care (ADTMC) to care for and then render a disposition for these soldiers. The current ADTMC manual is a thick, heavy paper manual. A desktop and smartphone application has been developed that contains the entire ADTMC manual algorithm-based content. Our goal is to enhance the medics' clinical learning and critical thinking skills while improving their evaluation, disposition, and documentation during patient encounters.Materials and Methods: The application was field-tested with the 173rd IBCT (A) while attending a field exercise at Grafenwoehr, Germany. At the unit's Role 2 tent setup, the use of the paper manual to the utilization of the same material via the ADTMC application was compared by observing the medics' workflows directly while they were caring for ill and injured soldiers.Results: Medics, while examining patients, would demonstrate 50% faster exam time using the application compared to medics using only the manual. Moreover, a 50% decrease in document processing time as a result of digitization of the paper documentation process was confirmed. The application ("app") enabled the medics to continue their screening assessments and patient disposition duties on a desktop computer or a smartphone without the need to refer to the paper manual.Conclusion: Medics, by adopting this tool, will become quicker, more efficient, and develop critical thinking skills. In other words, the ability to objectively evaluate patients in order to form a proper disposition of sick and injured soldiers during training, in the field, as well as in garrison. When utilized properly, the ADTMC application ensures that soldiers reporting to sick call are expeditiously routed to the appropriate level of care, and is a vehicle for further training for medics in the care of soldiers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using peer review to assess the validity of research proposals has always had its fair share of critics, including a more-than-fair-share of scholars. The debate about this method of assessing these proposals now seems trivial when compared with assessing the validity for granting funding by lottery. Some of the same scholars have suggested that the way grant lottery was being assessed has made random allocation seem even-handed, less biased and more supportive of innovative research. But we know little of what researchers actually think about grant lottery and even less about the thoughts of those scientists who rely on funding. This paper examines scientists' perspectives on selecting grants by 'lots' and how they justify their support or opposition. How do they approach something scientifically that is, in itself, not scientific? These approaches were investigated with problem-centered interviews conducted with natural scientists in Germany. The qualitative interviews for this paper reveal that scientists in dominated and dominating field positions are, more or less, open to the idea of giving a selection process by lots a try. Nonetheless, they are against pure randomization because from their point of view it is incompatible with scientific principles. They rather favor a combination of grant lottery and peer review processes, assuming that only under these conditions could randomly allocated funding be an integral and legitimate part of science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses public visions of microalgae as a food source to explain present innovation paths of a yet unproven scientific technology. The paper highlights the multi-perspectivity of contested futures, focusing on the role of generalized narratives as boundary objects. Using disaggregative policy Delphi, we reveal the key-narratives of microalgae nutrition with regard to expectability, desirability, and popularity. The study involved a two-round online survey with 229 participants, who were asked open and closed questions. We then clustered the answers and gave feedback in form of generalized narratives. Participants want microalgae to sustainably feed the world, while they also expect microalgae to be more likely a health product or an inconspicuous food substitute. Our findings show that Delphi methods are not only suitable to look into the future, but also for empirical research into perspectives on the future that help distinguish and hone the cognitive interest of politicians and researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we address gender differences in the host language proficiency of humanitarian migrants. Prior research has produced inconclusive results with regard to women's host language proficiency relative to that of men: sometimes women's proficiency exceeds that of men, sometimes women lag behind men, and sometimes there are no substantial differences. Using data on recent humanitarian migrants in Germany, we investigate factors contributing to similarities and differences in men's and women's language proficiency. We consider gender differences with respect to the family-related factors: marital status, children's ages and children's childcare situations are important for women but not for men. These findings point to the continued relevance of a gendered division of work. It also becomes clear that gendered role expectations are particularly consequential for mothers and wives. Moreover, we find evidence that women are more efficient learners than men are, while they have fewer learning opportunities than men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction Some claimants harbor perceptions of injustice about the way they have been treated. In particular, those with ongoing and disabling pain have been generally dissatisfied by the way they have been managed by the systems designed to offer them financial compensation. Aim In this paper we aim to explore possible factors that may contribute to their dissatisfaction. Method We review the historical development of the various systems in which monetary compensation was awarded for personal injury. Findings In the latter years of the 19th century, a significant trade-off occurred in the German workers' compensation systems. On the one hand, employers accepted the principle of no-fault insurance and agreed to provide injured workers with monetary compensation and medical treatment. On the other hand, employees agreed to relinquish the right to sue their employer for negligence. However, awards under this legal system did not include assessments for ongoing pain, humiliation, or loss of social status as were incorporated in previous systems. Conclusion Although the Prussian and German approach provided a utilitarian model for similar systems around the world, its failure to include some long-established benefits of a moral nature may have contributed to the current perceptions of injustice expressed by many injured workers experiencing persistent pain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how a new theory on the ontology of musical works, Musical Stage Theory, can address the problem of change in musical works. A natural consequence of the ontological framework of this theory is that musical works change intrinsically through a change in the sonic-structural properties of performances. From this a surprising consequence follows: everyone can change a musical work. Still, it seems that some changes matter more than others. The article offers a revisionary reply to this concern by arguing that normative change is not a change in the ontological nature of the work but rather in its authenticity conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Border crossing migration always includes (re-)negotiation of world views, home and the meaning of arrival. This negotiation of arrival takes place within the broader societal contexts of the countries of origin and of arrival but is also a mediation with oneself and with social networks. This holds true especially for refugees and émigrés who have to leave their habitual places of living involuntarily. This paper examines the lives of Yazidi women, who survived captivity and sexual enslavement by the self-declared Islamic State and subsequently decided to resettle from the Kurdistan Region of Iraq to Germany. First, the study addresses the complex processes of managing and re-establishing social belongings with a sociological concept of arrival and outlines some lessons from historical forced migration research. It then presents the findings and analysis of five face-to-face narrative interviews with Yazidi survivors. What similarities and differences exist between these individuals and historical cases of forced migrants and their arrival? Are there different patterns of coping with their individual and collective experiences and of developing new life projects? Our findings show how Yazidi émigrés continue to experience and negotiate the complexities of migration between weak and strong belonging to social spaces of origin and of arrival. [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]

Background Atopic diseases are among the most common chronic conditions in childhood. Causes of allergies are manifold. The aim of this paper is to evaluate risk factors for atopic diseases and unremitting wheeze and to examine if there is an association between measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination and atopic dermatitis, asthma and unremitting wheeze in Bavarian pre-schoolers. Methods Parents filled out a questionnaire on children's health and environmental and socioeconomic factors. The questionnaire was administered within the Health Monitoring Units in a cross-sectional study in Bavaria, Germany (2014/2015). Data on vaccinations were obtained via the School Entrance Examination, a mandatory examination for pre-school children in Bavaria. Rates of influential factors of atopic diseases and wheeze, MMR and DTP (diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus) vaccination were calculated for all children stratified by health outcomes. To examine if there is an association between MMR vaccination and health outcomes, a multiple logistic regression analysis was performed. Results Data were available for 3237 individuals. Symptoms and diseases were more frequent in boys. Higher parental education was associated with a higher prevalence of atopic dermatitis. There were no significant associations between any of the health outcome groups and MMR vaccination in the multiple logistic regression models with adjustment for potential confounders. Conclusions The present study is in line with the current state of research that MMR vaccination is not associated with atopic diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kurt Schwitters is known for ‘Merz’, a term he used to describe the collages and assemblages he began to make sometime around 1918. With supports of paper, cardboard or wood but not of cotton or linen canvas, these are composed of detritus that he scavenged from the streets. His early Merz pictures in particular make liberal use of cloth, especially cloth that is soiled and frayed. This essay relates the unexpected lack of cloth as ground and its tawdry presence as figure to the extreme material shortages in Germany during the war and in the early Weimar era. It also considers how the reception of Merz can be productively contextualized by way of reference to the exigencies of the time, in particular to the Ersatzkultur (culture of substitute materials) that held sway. The political dimensions of Schwitters’ work are thereby brought to the fore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to solving the following research puzzle: When the influx of refugees from Syria and elsewhere to Germany significantly increased, German society and politics seemed to be rather robust in the face of xenophobic and right-wing populist movements; however, only 2years later, the Alternative fűr Deutschland made it into the Bundestag , and in late 2018 Chancellor Angela Merkel could solve a governmental crisis triggered by the 'refugee crisis' only by announcing her stepwise withdrawal from political offices. The making of the 'refugee crisis' was facilitated by a securitization policy. On three crucial cases of domestic politics — security, socio-economics, and socio-cultural politics — it is shown that right-wing populism proved to be capable of dominating the political agenda as it came up with argumentation figures that were — though not hegemonic — also prominent among leading politicians on the whole political spectrum in Germany from the right to the left. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do educational systems prepare workers for the labor market? Stratification research has often made a distinction between two ideal-types: "qualificational spaces," exemplified by Germany with a focus on vocational education, and "organizational spaces," exemplified by France with a focus on general education. However, most studies that investigated this distinction did so by focusing only on the size of the vocational sector, not on whether graduates with a vocational degree actually link strongly to the labor market. Moreover, they often studied male workers only, ignoring potential gender differences in how school-to-work linkages are established. In this paper, we map the change in education–occupation linkage in France and Germany between 1970 and 2010 using an approach that can distinguish between changes in rates and changes in the structure of school-to-work linkages. Surprisingly, we find that the German vocational system in 1970 was not, on average, substantially more efficient in allocating graduates to specific occupations than the French system. This finding is a major departure from earlier results, and it shows that the differences between 1970's France and Germany, on which the qualificational-organizational distinction is based, are smaller than previously assumed. Partly, this is due to the fact that the female labor force was omitted from earlier analyses. We thus show that ignoring the female workforce has consequences for today's conception of skill formation systems, particularly because a large share of educational expansion is caused by an increase in female enrollment in (higher) education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Prevalence of overweight and obesity in Germany is increasing. High body weight can affect children's growth and development. This paper aimed to determine the association between body mass index (BMI) and visual impairment among preschool children and explore the potential role of obesity in predicting visual developmental disorder. Methods Six consecutive years of data from the School Entry Examination were collected for all preschool children aged from 4 to 6 years residing in Rhine-Neckar County and the City of Heidelberg, Germany from 2013 to 2018. Univariate and multivariate regression were used to analyze the complete data, multiple imputation was used to deal with missing data. Results Among the group with an immigrant background, children with obesity [OR = 1.20, 99% (1.02–1.42)] were more likely to have visual impairment compared to those with normal body weight (P  <   0.01) after adjusting for survey year, age, and gender of children, education and occupation of parents, screen time-frequency, whether a television was in their bedroom, and quality of preschool outdoor environment. Conclusion There were significant associations between obesity and visual impairment among German preschool children with immigrant backgrounds. Strategies to support vulnerable groups were needed across all regional schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The order of crystallization of minerals from melt is of prime importance for an understanding of magma fractionation and chemical differentiation from the magma chamber to the planetary scale. Determination of the crystallization sequence based on petrographic observations, however, is often ambiguous; especially in multiply saturated, nearly eutectic felsic melts. This paper presents a novel approach to estimate the order of crystallization of minerals in igneous systems based on a quantitative study of their spatial distributions. Statistical modelling of crystallization demonstrates that later crystallizing mineral phases are generally more clustered. A simple inversion model is then derived to calculate the crystallization sequence and the volume fraction of older minerals present in the system at the onset of crystallization of a later (younger) phase. Application of the model to a sample of equigranular granodiorite (Fichtelgebirge granite batholith, Germany) indicates that plagioclase was the first liquidus phase. It was followed by biotite, K-feldspar, and quartz at 41, 48, and 63 vol. % crystallized, respectively, which is in qualitative agreement with experimental phase equilibria results for moderately hydrous granitic melts. If phase equilibria for a given composition are known or assumed, the crystallization sequence thus constrains the intensive variables (e.g. water content) and their evolution during magma solidification. The model thus provides a novel and independent approach to reconstruct the magma crystallization path that would be inaccessible by other methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) guidelines state that heart failure nurse specialists (heart-failure nurses) with specific competences are essential for a successful heart-failure-management programme. Thus, the Heart Failure Association (HFA) of the ESC developed the heart failure nurse curriculum (HFA curriculum). Several ESC member states developed cardiovascular education programmes to enable nurses to deliver high specialist care, but little is known of whether these curricula are in line with the HFA curriculum. Therefore, this paper describes the extent to which cardiovascular education programmes in Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany correspond to the HFA curriculum. Methods and results: A case study approach was adopted to obtain an in-depth understanding of the programme contents in relation to the HFA curriculum. For this purpose, representatives of the educational programmes and/or delegates of the national cardiovascular nursing organization shared their educational curricula. All of the studied cardiovascular education programmes aim to provide heart failure and/or cardiovascular nurses with essential competences for implementation of evidence based and guideline derived care. However, every cardiovascular education programme has a different focus/area of attention. Cardiovascular education in Belgium discusses aspects of all core-learning objectives of the HFA curriculum and emphasizes mostly knowledge aspects of these. Learning objectives in cardiovascular education in The Netherlands focus on chronic diseases in general and on learning objectives concerning patient education, support in self-care and management of device and pharmacological therapy. Cardiovascular education in Germany discusses most learning objectives; however, not all learning objectives receive equal attention. Conclusions: Although local cardiovascular education programmes adopt certain aspects of the HF curriculum, the curriculum as a whole is not adopted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik, West Germans began to accept the more permanent division of the country and rediscovered the regional fundaments of their federal political system. A catalyst for this process was provided by a massive regionalization of the daily press in the aftermath of the recession in 1973. That regionalization entailed the delineation of new regional distribution and advertising areas, the launch of new editions, the growth of regularly and irregularly published alternative papers and a stronger emphasis on regional news. In the 1970s regionalization cut across all segments of the market and across party affiliations and affected established papers, the irregular alternative press and even television and broadcasting. It propelled the West German daily press to its height point in German history, with more than 25 million copies per day in 1982. The new regional focus of the daily press increased public awareness of regional protests, regional identity politics and regional scandals during the chancellorship of Helmut Schmidt (1974-82) to such an extent that the article concludes that the 1970s were not only a 'global' decade, but also a regional decade. The history of the regional press that is presented in the article for the first time facilitates a new view of regional changes in economic prosperity, criticism of the federal state and the emergence of regional consumer markets between 1974 and 1982. The analysis provides a cornerstone for a more detailed media history of the Bonn Republic and a new understanding of the 1970s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Petitions, as one of the most popular forms of political participation, offer citizens a bottom-up, comparatively low effort means to communicate their wishes to politicians and the public. This article analyses all steps of the petitions process to assess whether it provides all citizens with equal opportunities for participation as well as for realising political voice, with a particular focus on the role of online petitions and the German Bundestag. By surveying hundreds of petitioners--both those using traditional paper petitions and those who use the Internet to submit a petition--along with a representative survey of the population, this study confirms the traditional sociodemographic biases in participation. Online petitions attract younger people and support realising voice through recruiting supporters but do not offer more equality in participation. While the Petition Committee of the Bundestag does not treat certain groups of petitioners preferentially, those submitting petitions on paper have better chances for realising political voice. Overall only a few citizens feel they have realised political voice through their petition, resulting in widespread dissatisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What theories explain variation in public opinion toward asylum seekers? We implement a survey experiment in which a representative sample of German residents evaluates vignettes of asylum seekers, which randomly vary attributes that speak to deservingness, economic and religious threat, and gender considerations of attitude formation. We find strong support for deservingness theories. Economic and religious threat theories also receive empirical support. Gender plays a negligible role. Importantly, we also document that economic and—to a lesser extent—religious threat considerations only matter when respondents evaluate economic refugees. By contrast, political refugees are welcomed nearly unconditionally. Our paper thus replicates key findings from Bansak, Hainmueller, and Hangartner (2016) and Czymara and Schmidt-Catran (2016) using a representative sample and points to an important interaction effect in public opinion formation toward asylum seekers: economic threat only gets activated when refugees' deservingness is in doubt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose of the Study: Against the context of a rapidly aging population, the theme of senescence has been figuring increasingly prominently in contemporary German theater. This paper discusses the depiction of old age in one notable example, Theresia Walser's King Kong's Daughters, a hugely successful black comedy set in a nursing home. Design and Methods: This paper takes an interdisciplinary approach in its analysis of Walser's play, drawing not just on drama and theater studies, but also on performance, film, and cultural studies as well as the sociology and psychology of aging. Results: King Kong's Daughters might seem to be pervaded with negative ageist stereotypes. It is argued here, however, that Walser skillfully exploits the special formal qualities of theatrical performance—in particular, its liveness, corporeality, and communality—to illuminate both what it is like to be old and what it is like to care for the elderly in today's world. Implications: Given demographic developments, senescence seems set to increasingly inform the themes, motifs, and characters of theater in Germany and beyond. Paying closer attention to how old age is invoked on the contemporary stage can generate insights that are not only of interest to theater scholars, but are also of value to gerontologists and age scholars more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Quality of life is included in the economic evaluation of health services by measuring the preference for health states, i.e. health state utilities. However, most intervention studies include a disease-specific, not a utility, instrument. Consequently, there has been increasing use of statistical mapping algorithms which permit utilities to be estimated from a disease-specific instrument. The present paper provides such algorithms between the MacNew Heart Disease Quality of Life Questionnaire (MacNew) instrument and six multi-attribute utility (MAU) instruments, the Euroqol (EQ-5D), the Short Form 6D (SF-6D), the Health Utilities Index (HUI) 3, the Quality of Wellbeing (QWB), the 15D (15 Dimension) and the Assessment of Quality of Life (AQoL-8D). Methods: Heart disease patients and members of the healthy public were recruited from six countries. Non-parametric rank tests were used to compare subgroup utilities and MacNew scores. Mapping algorithms were estimated using three separate statistical techniques. Results: Mapping algorithms achieved a high degree of precision. Based on the mean absolute error and the intra class correlation the preferred mapping is MacNew into SF-6D or 15D. Using the R squared statistic the preferred mapping is MacNew into AQoL-8D. Implications for research: The algorithms reported in this paper enable MacNew data to be mapped into utilities predicted from any of six instruments. This permits studies which have included the MacNew to be used in cost utility analyses which, in turn, allows the comparison of services with interventions across the health system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses speeding, that is, "too fast" responses, in web surveys. Relying on the response process model, we argue that very short response times indicate low data quality, stemming from a lack of attention on the part of respondents. To identify speeding, prior research employed case-wise procedures. Using data from nine online surveys, we demonstrate that response behavior of individual respondents varies considerably during a survey. Thus, we use case- and page-wise procedures to capture speeding behavior that taps different, although related, phenomena. Moreover, page-specific speeding measures capture aspects of data quality that traditional quality measures do not cover. Employing both page-specific and case-wise speeding measures, we examine whether removing speeders makes a difference in substantive findings. The evidence indicates that removing "too fast" responses does not alter marginal distributions, irrespective of which speeder-correction technique is employed. Moreover, explanatory models yield, by and large, negligible coefficient differences (on average about one standard error). Only in exceptional cases differences exceed two standard errors. Our findings suggest that speeding primarily adds some random noise to the data and attenuate correlations, if it makes a difference at all. The paper concludes by discussing implications and limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extramarital sexuality has always been regarded as a transgression of the accepted norms. The increasing criminalization of extramarital sexuality after the Reformation led to an intensification of the prosecution of illegitimacy by secular authorities. But in the pluriform early modern legal landscape, a whole range of judicial, semi-judicial and extrajudicial institutions and mechanisms existed to exercise control over deviant behavior.  This paper focuses on the institutional setting in which social control over illegitimacy was exercised in the early modern period in Holland and Germany, working with Martin Dinges' concept of the "uses of justice." Both regions experienced several waves of criminalization of sexuality during and after the Reformation, and women were disproportionately affected by this. However, research for both regions has shown that women were not only "passive victims" in this process but also shaped the institutions by actively making use of them. It has been suggested in the literature that, in the early modern period, Dutch women enjoyed a rather favorable position compared to women in neighboring countries and that they were granted considerable leeway in social and legal respects. Considering the differences in the legal system in both countries, the question arises whether there were fundamental differences in the way that social control was exercised over illegitimacy in Germany and the Netherlands and whether Dutch women were truly granted more leeway in a social and legal respect with regard to illegitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines changes in how early modern German burghers conceptualized the role of anger and provocation in cases of insult and defamation. Reflecting the wider culture's conflicted assessment of anger, considerable debate existed among urban magistrates as to whether anger could excuse or mitigate a defendant's culpability for defamatory outbursts; some jurists concluded that anger negated the punishable animus of the offense, while others rejected the defense as a threat to public order. Because of the high social value of public reputation in this period, however, early modern German law assumed, and to some extent, justified, the forceful defense of honor. Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, the law increasingly came to legitimize the expression of anger in insult cases, recognizing it as a potentially mitigating or exculpatory factor. Many territorial and civic codes also defined a legal "right of retort" that allowed a certain measure of verbal "self-help" when individuals judged that their honor had been offended. These developments complicate Norbert Elias' suggestion that standards of civility emerging in this period increasingly proscribed the passionate defense of honor and the pursuit of private justice. Far from demanding the suppression of anger, the law increasingly came to protect it, while at the same time seeking to tame its more destructive manifestations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last two hundred years or so have seen the transformation of medical practice from a clinical art to the application of science to the diagnosis and treatment of disease. There has been a historical debate about how the use of technology and discoveries of the laboratory have become integrated within medical practice. In trying to understand the evolution of “scientific medicine,” this has generally focused on the tensions between the differing cultures, persons, and professions of the “laboratory” and “clinic” and sought to explain how they were resolved within specific institutions. This paper looks again at the “Glasgow School” (the subject of a number of seminal papers on this subject) and the forces that shaped it, by exploring the career of Leonard Findlay, whose training in Glasgow, and in Berlin (where he worked in a department in which science and medicine were integrated), defined a style of clinical medicine that formed the model for a new sort of university department of medicine in which clinicians and scientists worked side by side, albeit under the leadership of the former. As a clinician exposed in Berlin to the emerging new sciences of nutrition, microbiology, and immunology, which were particularly relevant to the care of sick children, Findlay created in Glasgow a department of medical pediatrics, which owed less to local factors, figures, and forces and more to his experience in Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Introduction: Physician adherence to guideline recommendations regarding the provision of counseling and support for smokers willing to quit is low. A lack of training during undergraduate medical education has been identified as a potential cause. This prospective intervention study evaluated a novel teaching module for medical students.Methods: As part of a 6-week cardiovascular course, 125 fourth-year undergraduate medical students received a multimodal and interactive teaching module on smoking cessation, including online learning material, lectures, seminars, and practical skills training. Short- and medium-term effects on knowledge, skills, attitudes, and self-reported practice were measured using written examinations and an objective structured clinical examination at the end of the module and 6 months later. Results were compared to data obtained from a historical control cohort (n = 70) unexposed to the intervention.Results: At the 6-month follow-up, scores in the knowledge test were significantly higher in the intervention than the control group (61.1% vs. 51.7%; p < .001). A similar pattern was observed in the objective structured clinical examination (71.5% vs. 60.5%; p < .001). More students in the intervention than control group agreed that smoking was a chronic disease (83.1% vs. 68.1%; p = .045). The control group was more likely to report recording smoking status (p = .018), but no group difference was detected regarding the report of advising to quit (p = .154).Conclusions: A novel teaching module for undergraduate medical students produced a sustained learning outcome in terms of knowledge, skills, and attitudes but not self-reported practice.Implications: Studies across the world have identified considerable knowledge gaps and deficits in practical training with regard to smoking cessation counseling in undergraduate medical students. This paper describes a teaching intervention informed by current recommendations for the design of educational activities aimed at enabling medical students to deliver adequate behavior change counseling. The teaching module was tailored to the needs of a specific healthcare system. Given its effectiveness as demonstrated in this prospective study, a rollout of this intervention in medical schools might have the potential to substantially improve medical students' knowledge, skills, and attitudes in relation to smoking cessation counseling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the institutional persistence of systems of national laboratories (SNLs) that unlike other public and private research organizations appear to have experienced only minor institutional shifts in recent years. Although national laboratories started as time-limited mission-oriented projects, most of them have remained in operation as continuously renewed multi-purpose organizations. By comparing the SNLs in Germany and the USA, this paper discusses the relationship between the system and the organizational level and concludes that incremental organizational rearrangements have enabled the institutional persistence of SNLs despite considerable changes in their political and funding environments. The paper applies recent advances in institutional theory and thus contributes to a better understanding of institutional change in path-dependent public R&D systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regularized intergovernmentalism refers to a distinct kind of foreign policy practice that connects and intertwines foreign policy processes in particular ways. This paper puts forth a concept to properly capture and expose such distinctive foreign policy realities characterizing certain periods and places. With this concept, the article systematically scrutinizes the intergovernmental fabric of bilateral Franco–German relations from 1963 to 2009. The characteristic features of Franco–German regularized intergovernmentalism represent a crucial foreign policy connection, foundational for European affairs of the past half century and a defining feature of Europe’s post-war order and regional governance. Exploring key aspects of what it is that links France and Germany in particular ways, this paper offers a historically deeply grounded constitutive analysis. Based on its constitutive inquiries, the papers points at new possibilities of causal theorizing and explores some of regularized intergovernmentalism’s hypothesized effects and limitations. Franco–German intergovernmental affairs may be the most developed instance of this practice. But regularized bilateral intergovernmentalism is not a Franco–German idiosyncrasy. Rather, it is an important and apparently growing approach to structuring foreign policy conduct, and seems an increasingly prominent aspect of how the world is organized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent debates in science and technology studies, as well as more practical approaches to science policy both at national and European level, have stressed the relevance of citizen participation in the field of science. This paper investigates what some of the key actors in this debate, civil society organisations, expect from participation. The paper presents two case studies of civil society participation in the field of novel biotechnologies in Germany and in Spain. Despite the differences between the experiences of participation in these two countries, our study shows that current institutional approaches, which are inspired by the 'democratisation of expertise' perspective and set up essentially at the 'downstream' level, seem less promising than 'upstream' models of participation, which, in contrast, appear more meaningful from a 'co-production of science' framing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses two early plays from the era of the German Reformation, the Tragedia Johannis Huss (1537), by Johannes Agricola, and Ein heimliche Gespräch vonder Tragedia Johannis Hussen (1538), by Johannes Cochlaeus. Agricola's play dramatized the trial and execution of Jan Hus, the Bohemian priest and reformer who was executed by the Council of Constance in 1415. A number of accounts of Hus's trial were published in the 1530s as part of the Lutheran campaign against the convocation of a general church council; this paper argues that Agricola's turn to drama represented a broadening of the Lutherans' use of printed and oral media in publicizing their attack on the council. Cochlaeus's play was a direct response to Agricola's, but utilized different means to undercut the potential impact of Agricola's Tragedia. Cochlaeus satirized his Lutheran opponents and their wives, thus using the comic potential of the stage to expand his own polemical arsenal against Luther and his followers. Through these two plays, this paper examines both the development of Lutheran historical arguments against church councils and the dynamics of the propagandistic interchanges between Roman and Lutheran authors in the second decade of the Reformation. It ultimately argues that these two authors' use of dramatic media exemplified efforts by both churches to reach audiences in new and potentially more effective ways in order to reify their differences and galvanize their followers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an introduction to a series of articles reporting results from the EU concerted action ‘Gender, Culture and Alcohol Problems: A Multi-national Study’ which examined differences in drinking among women and men in 13 European and two non-European countries. The gender gap in alcohol drinking is one of the few universal gender differences in human social behavior. However, the size of these differences varies greatly from one society to another. The papers in this issue examine, across countries, (1) men's and women's drinking patterns, (2) the prevalence of men's and women's experience of alcohol-related problems, (3) gender differences in social inequalities in alcohol use and abuse, (4) gender differences in the influence of combinations of social roles on heavy alcohol use, and (5) how societal-level factors predict women's and men's alcohol use and problems on a regional and global level. Country surveys were independently conducted and then centralized at one institution for further data standardization and processing. Several results indicated that the greater the societal gender equality in a country, the smaller the gender differences in drinking behavior. In most analyses the smallest gender differences in drinking behaviour were found in Nordic countries, followed by western and central European countries, with the largest gender differences in countries with developing economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the first results of an ongoing research project at the University of Trier (Germany), which has been funded since March 2002 by the German Research Association (DFG). The aims of the project are: (1) to develop a lexicographical working environment for a particular dictionary project, the new Middle High German Dictionary; and (2) to customize this system for the requirements of other dictionary projects. In the first section of this paper the starting position is outlined and the goal of the project is introduced. The second section describes the technical concept and the realization of our system as a client-server architecture with a relational database in its center. In the third section we present the essential features of the system supporting all different steps of compiling dictionary entries up to the publishing in different media. Finally, we end the paper by giving a short conclusion and looking briefly at the prospects of our future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Real-time response (RTR) measurement is an important technique for analyzing human processing of electronic media stimuli. Although it has been demonstrated that RTR data are reliable and internally valid, some argue that they lack external validity. The reason for this is that RTR measurement is restricted to a laboratory environment due to its technical requirements. This paper introduces a smartphone app that 1) captures real-time responses using the dial technique and 2) provides a solution for one of the most important problems in RTR measurement, the (automatic) synchronization of RTR data. In addition, it explores the reliability and validity of mobile RTR measurement by comparing the real-time reactions of two samples of young and welleducated voters to the 2013 German televised debate. Whereas the first sample participated in a classical laboratory study, the second sample was equipped with our mobile RTR system and watched the debate at home. Results indicate that the mobile RTR system yields similar results to the lab-based RTR measurement, providing evidence that laboratory studies using RTR are externally valid. In particular, the argument that the artificial reception situation creates artificial results has to be questioned. In addition, we conclude that RTR measurement outside the lab is possible. Hence, mobile RTR opens the door for large-scale studies to better understand the processing and impact of electronic media content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In survey research, a consensus has grown regarding the effectiveness of incentives encouraging survey participation across different survey modes and target populations. Most of this research has been based on surveys from the United States, whereas few studies have provided evidence that these results can be generalized to other contexts. This paper is the first to present comprehensive information concerning the effects of incentives on response rates and nonresponse bias across large-scale surveys in Germany. The context could be viewed as a critical test for incentive effects because Germany's population is among the most survey-critical in the world, with very low response rates. Our results suggest positive incentive effects on response rates and patterns of effects that are similar to those in previous research: The effect increased with the monetary value of the incentive; cash incentives affected response propensity more strongly than lottery tickets do; and prepaid incentives could be more cost effective than conditional incentives. We found mixed results for the effects of incentives on nonresponse bias. Regarding large-scale panel surveys, we could not unequivocally confirm that incentives increased response rates in later panel waves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ‘New Woman’ was an important part of the culture and society of Weimar Germany, both as a discursive figure and as social reality. However, the interdependencies between these two aspects—the ‘New Woman’ as a media phenomenon and as a lived reality—have not yet been investigated in depth. Using the example of the tabloid newspaper Tempo (1928–1933) and its interaction with its readership, this article sheds light on the ways in which Germans reconciled the ‘New Woman’ ideal with their own experiences at the end of the Weimar Republic. Most importantly, it shows the struggle of many readers to accommodate new ideas about ‘modern’ relationships between men and women at a time when traditional morals persisted in a rapidly deteriorating economic climate.A number of scholars have pointed to a change in the media-driven construction of images of femininity in the late 1920s, with the modern, independent ‘New Woman’ making way for a more conservative ideal of motherhood and devotion. This article argues that this shift in the discourse on femininity did not reflect a change in the self-definition of German women. Rather, the interaction of Tempo’s female and male readers with the paper suggests that they tried to accommodate new concepts of modern femininity with persisting traditional ideas about women’s role in society, arriving at a hybrid type of ‘moderately modern’ womanhood. Thus, only the image of the ‘New Woman’ constructed in the media changed at the end of the 1920s, while the self-definition of German women remained relatively stable—even beyond 1933. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Linked Article: Calabrese et al. Br J Dermatol 2022; 186:925–941. The interleukin‐1 (IL‐1) family are a group of chemicals called cytokines that form part of our immune system. Unfortunately, the body may start to use these cytokines inappropriately (dysregulation), and they may stimulate certain white blood cells (neutrophils) to increase in number causing inflammation without an infectious trigger. In this paper, the authors from Italy and Germany review the role of the different members of the IL‐1 family in inflammatory skin disorders and the progress being made to develop antibody treatments aiming to reverse their effects. Interleukin‐1 antagonists such as anakinra and canakinumab have already proved useful in the treatment of disorders directly related to neutrophil proliferation, but there is evidence that this group of drugs may also be beneficial in commoner disorders such as psoriasis and atopic eczema. Sometimes a drug that blocks a single cytokine molecule may have limited effect. Laboratory studies suggest that agents that block receptors on the cell surface membrane may be more effective at reducing skin inflammation caused by several IL‐1 subsets. One promising target is IL‐1 receptor accessory protein (IL‐1R3). The authors stress the need for drugs that target the harmful effects of the IL‐1 family at several levels. Linked Article: Calabrese et al. Br J Dermatol 2022; 186:925–941. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migrant networks are usually regarded as helpful for the labor market integration of recently arrived immigrants. From a general assimilation perspective, however, it has been questioned whether they are really the right sort of ties to help immigrants succeed in the host society, or whether, instead, they constitute some sort of mobility trap. Empirical evidence from available studies is mixed, and a reference to more general social capital theory suggests that the effect might be contingent on the institutional context of the receiving country, the specific immigrant groups involved, and the particular types of jobs. In this paper, we study the impact of migrant networks on the labor market integration of recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union to Germany. This turns out to be a strategic test case, for both theoretical and methodological reasons. Relying on longitudinal data and using discrete event history models, we show that the findings are different for two distinguishable groups involved, Ethnic Germans and Jewish Quota Refugees, and that whether the effects are positive or negative further depends on whether or not these groups seek entry to higher-status jobs in the professional, managerial, or technical occupations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the excise taxes (Ungeld) paid by town residents on the consumption of beer, wine, mead and brandy represented the single most important source of civic revenue for many German cities. In a crisis, these taxes could spike to 70–80% of civic income. This paper examines civic budgets and ‘behind-the-scenes’ deliberations in a sample of towns in southern Germany in order to illuminate how decisions affecting consumer taxes were made. Even during the sobriety movements of the Reformation and post-Reformation period, tax income from drinkers remained attractive to city leaders because the bulk of the excise tax burden could easily be shifted away from privileged members of society and placed on the population at large. At the same time, governments had to maintain a careful balance between what they needed in order to govern and what the consumer market could bear, for high taxes on drinks were also targeted in many popular revolts. This led to nimble politicking by those responsible for tax decisions. Drink taxes were introduced, raised, lowered and otherwise manipulated based not only on shifting fashions and tastes but also on the degree of economic stress faced by the community. Where civic rulers were successful in striking the right balance, the rewards were considerable. The income from drink sales was a major factor in how the cities of the Empire survived the wars and other crises of the early modern period without going into so much debt that they lost their independence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper offers a theory to explain cross-national variation in administrative law doctrines and practices. Administrative law regimes vary along three primary dimensions: the scope of delegation to agencies, agencies' exercise of discretion, and judicial practices of deference to agencies. Working with a principal-agent framework, we show how cross-national differences in institutions' capacities and the environments they face encourage the adoption of divergent strategies that lead to a variety of distinct, stable, equilibrium outcomes. We apply our model to explain patterns of administrative law in the United States, Germany, France, and Commonwealth jurisdictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]