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"Haben Nichtwähler einen starken Einfluss auf die Regierungsbildung, wie oft vermutet wird? Um diese Frage zu beantworten, muss man ermitteln, wie wahrscheinlich eine Beteiligung der Nichtwähler zu einer anderen Regierungsbildung geführt hätte. Diese Wahrscheinlichkeit wurde für alle Bundestagswahlen seit 1949 untersucht. Dabei erweist sich das politische System der Bundesrepublik in dieser Hinsicht als fehlertolerant. Nur in zwei Fällen, 1994 und 2005, hätte sich bei einer weitaus höheren Wahlbeteiligung eine andere Regierungsbildung ergeben können."[Autorenabstract], "Do non-voters have a strong influence on the formation of government, as often assumed? In order to answer this question, one would need to determine how likely the participation of non-voters would have led to a different formation of government. This probability of government change has been examined for all German national elections since 1949. The conclusion is that Germany’s political system has proved to be fault-tolerant in this respect. In only two elections, 1994 and 2005, the probability of government change would have been higher than zero."[author´s abstract]

"An objective and a subjective approach to study well-being is introduced. The objective approach is particularly useful to compare the quality of life of given societies across time and space. Using the objective approach, we can identify strong differences of quality of life between European countries. In comparison to Western Europe, East European countries tend to have a rather low quality of life. Austria, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Belgium form a cluster of countries with high quality of life. The subjective approach to study well-being is useful for investigating the importance of dimensions of social inequality for people themselves. It is shown that most of the inequality dimensionstraditionally analysed by social scientists affect people's subjective well-being. However, it is also shown that some of the more materialistic inequality dimensions (such as income) tend to be less important in rich societies, while certain non-materialistic dimensions (such as family) are getting more important. The subjective approach to study well-being is also used to investigate the importance of characteristics of societies for people's well-being." (author's abstract)

Die Planung und Optimierung produktionstechnischer Prozesse, Abläufe und Strukturen hat eine wettbewerbsentscheidende Bedeutung. Um die Defizite existierender Software-Werkzeuge und Methoden beseitigen zu können, bedarf es einer softwarebasierten Methodik zur kontinuierlichen kostenorientierten Planung und Optimierung produktionstechnischer Systeme. Der wesentliche Nutzen des, vor diesem Hintergrund entwickelten Planungstools, liegt zum einen in den verkürzten Planungszeiten und zum anderen in dem implementierten Kostenrechnungssystem, mit dessen Hilfe sowohl eine kostenorientierte Neuplanung als auch die wirtschaftliche Optimierung bestehender Produktionssysteme ermöglicht wird. Der Einsatz des erstellten Software-Werkzeugs in der planerischen Praxis weist die Funktionsfähigkeit und Plausibilität der entwickelten Methoden nach., Planning and optimization of production processes, workflows and structures is a major factor for companies’ competitiveness. New software based methods are required to eliminate the deficits of existing software tools and methods for a continuous cost-oriented planning and optimization of production systems. The major benefits of the developed planning tool are a reduction in planning time and the implemented cost accounting system that supports a cost-oriented design of new and existing production systems. The practical application of the planning tool demonstrates the functionality and plausibility of the developed methods.

"'If (voter) turnout was 100%, would it affect the election result?' (Bernhagen and Marsh 2007) is a frequently asked research question. So far, the question has been primarily answered regarding the changes in the distribution of votes. This article extends the analysis to changes in the distribution of seats and government formation. It proposes a method that factors in apportionment methods, barring clauses, size of parliaments, leverage of nonvoters, closeness of election results, and individual characteristics of nonvoters. The method is then applied to German national elections from 1949 to 2005. The application shows that Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD) would have gained from the counterfactual participation of nonvoters, although usually not enough to result in a government change. However by the 1994 and 2005 elections evidence shows that such a government change could have happened." (author's abstract)

"Electoral turnout is shown to be higher and less socially skewed in member states of the enlarged European Union than in the United States. The differences in the levels of turnout can partly be related to differences in election procedures, but since the procedural rules provide similar incentives or disincentives to all social groups they cannot explain the much higher inequality of electoral participation in America. There is some evidence to sustain the notion that the higher inclusiveness of the West European welfare state fosters political integration and the equality of electoral participation. In line with this notion differences between Europe and America diminish considerably when the analysis is confined to the pensioner generation whose integration into welfare state schemes is largely similar on both sides of the Atlantic." (author's abstract)

"An election outcome reflects institutional, behavioural and attitudinal influences. We set out a model showing it is a function of the electoral system, the offices at stake and the number of parties competing as well as the choices of voters and the level of turnout. Therefore, any attempt to estimate the impact of increased turnout on an election outcome must go beyond a comparison of the party preferences of voters and non-voters. This paper presents a model which integrates six different types of influences that collectively determine election outcomes. It demonstrates empirically that maximum turnout falls well short of 100 percent turnout. It also shows the effect of proportional representation and multiple parties in reducing the net benefit that any one party could expect from increased turnout and the inadequacy of using shares of the popular vote to predict increased turnout effects in the United States. It leaves open the normative debate between advocates of civic participation and the libertarian value of being free not to vote." (author's abstract)

"Die Einwände von Walter Müller sowie von Wolfgang Jagodzinski und Markus Quandt gegen unsere Analysen basieren vor allem auf den verwendeten Maßzahlen und der Nichtberücksichtigung weiterer Variablen. Ein Teil der Einwände beruht auf Mißverständnissen der Untersuchungshypothese, ein anderer Teil berücksichtigt nicht, daß wir unsere Ergebnisse mit verschiedenen Verfahren gewonnen haben. Es zeigt sich, daß der Rückgang der Erklärungskraft soziodemographischer Variablen auch bei Verwendung anderer Maßzahlen und weiterer Variablen feststellbar ist." (Autorenreferat), "The critics of our article concentrate mainly on the coefficients used and the misspecification of our model. Some of their arguments are due to a misunderstanding of the tested hypothesis. Other arguments ignore the fact that we reported the results of different techniques. Even if other coefficients and models are used, the supposed decline of predictive power of socio-demographic characteristics can be shown." (author's abstract)

"Die empirisch kaum prüfbare 'Individualisierungshypothese' wird dahingehend spezifiziert, daß eine abnehmende Erklärungskraft sozio-demographischer Merkmale für nicht-ressourcengebundene Verhaltensmöglichkeiten mit zunehmender gesellschaftlicher Differenzierung erwartet wird. Diese Hypothese wird durch eine Untersuchung der Veränderung der Prognosefähigkeit statistischer Modelle zur Erklärung individueller Parteipräferenz im Zeitraum 1953-1992 an insgesamt 37 Surveys überprüft. Für verschiedene Operationalisierungen der Parteipräferenz, der Kirchgangshäufigkeit und der Gewerkschaftsmitgliedschaft kann die Hypothese der abnehmenden Erklärungskraft demographischer Variablen empirisch vorläufig bestätigt werden." (Autorenreferat)

"Die Individualisierungshypothese impliziert mit zunehmendem gesellschaftlichen Wohlstand ansteigende Heterogenität von Lebenslagen einerseits, und abnehmende Prägekraft sozialer Klassen und Schichten andererseits. Zur Untersuchung dieser beiden Implikationen wird die Heterogenität und Klassenstrukturierung der 25 Länder der heutigen EU sowie von Bulgarien, Rumänien und der Türkei ermittelt. Diese Werte werden dann in Abhängigkeit vom Bruttoinlandsprodukt dieser Länder untersucht. Dabei zeigt sich, dass die Heterogenität von Lebenslagen in den wohlhabenderen Ländern kleiner ist als in den ärmeren. Bei der Klassenstrukturierung zeigt sich dagegen für einzelne Lebensbereiche das aus der Individualisierungshypothese erwartete Muster. Die Befunde werden dahingehend gedeutet, dass es Individualisierung als umfassenden, alle Lebensbereiche einschließenden Prozess nicht gibt. In einzelnen Lebensbereichen zeigt sich aber eine De-Institutionalisierung, der wahrscheinlich lebensbereichsspezifische Ursachen zu Grunde liegen. Der Aufsatz führt exemplarisch ein bislang zur Untersuchung von Individualisierungshypothesen nicht verwendetes Forschungsdesign vor. Es wird argumentiert, dass dieses Forschungsdesign die Möglichkeit zur Untersuchung vielfältiger Implikationen der Individualisierungshypothese eröffnet." (Autorenreferat), "Individualization implies pluralization of social positions and a decreasing impact of social classes on life chances, behaviors and attitudes. To analyze these implications we calculated the heterogeneity of social positions and the class impact on various dependent variables for 28 countries. The resulting measures were then analyzed regarding the wealth of the nations. Our analysis shows that heterogeneity of social positions does not increase with the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), while the class-impact does decrease for at least some dependent variables. Based on our findings, we conclude that individualization cannot be seen as a general social process. Instead there is some deinstitutionalization for specific life spheres, which cannot be explained on the common ground of individualization theory. The article illustrates a new design to analyze implications of individualization theory. It is argued that this new design establishes a possibility to analyze a variety of implications of the individualization theory." (author's abstract)

"In sociology, the appropriateness of national approaches for understanding social inequality in today's societies is being increasingly questioned, and EU-wide approaches are advocated instead. In this paper, we link the growing debate about national or EU-wide approaches to reference group theory, investigating whether comparisons with foreign countries influence levels of individual life satisfaction. Our results indicate that, on the one hand, more people can be assumed to have a national frame of reference than a broader international one, on the other hand, among those who do have an idea of how average people in other countries live, cross-border comparisons certainly influence people's satisfaction with life. Upward comparisons in particular are important: The more people feel personally deprived, relative to other countries, the less satisfied they are with their lives. In contrast, the feeling of relative gratification has a much smaller impact on life satisfaction, and often no impact at all. This leads us to conclude that EU-wide approaches to inequality do make sense, but that there is also no need to jettison national approaches completely." (author's abstract)