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The multilingual European Thesaurus on International Relations and Area Studies (European Thesaurus) is a special subject thesaurus for the field of international affairs. It is intended for use in libraries and documentation centres of academic institutions and international organizations. The European Thesaurus was established in a collaborative project involving a number of leading European research institutes on international politics. It integrates the controlled terminologies of several existing thesauri. The European Thesaurus comprises about 8,200 terms and proper names from the 24 subject areas covered by the thesaurus. Because of its multilinguality, the European Thesaurus can not only be used for indexing, retrieval and terminological reference, but serves also as a translation tool for the languages represented. The establishment of cross-concordances to related thesauri extends the range of application of the European Thesaurus even further. They enable the treatment of semantic heterogeneity within subject gateways. The European Thesaurus is available both in a seven-lingual printversion as well as in an eight-lingual online-version. To reflect the changes in terminology the European Thesaurus is regularly being amended and modified. Further languages are going to be included.

"Since the development of the Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change (IDGEC) Science Plan in 1998 has become an important subject of inquiry. The Science Plan put institutional interaction on the agenda of global change research when only a handful of scholars had raised the general issue. Their work drew attention to the risk of 'treaty congestion' [...] and to an increasing 'regime density' [...] in the international system. Today it is widely recognized that 'the effectiveness of specific institutions often depends not only on their own features but also on their interactions with other institutions' [...]. Many environmental issue areas are cocoverned by several international institutions with governance also involving institutions at lower levels of societal and administrative organization (regional, national, local) [...]." (excerpt)

"Im Zuge der Auseinandersetzung um nachhaltigere Naturnutzungsformen werden Flusseinzugsgebiete als Einheiten eines integrierten Managements von Land- und Wasserressourcen auf europäischer und internationaler Ebene propagiert. Der Beitrag wendet Oran Young's institutionalistische Analyse von Umweltregimen auf das Flussgebiete an (institutional fit, scale and interplay, Young 2002), kombiniert mit Einsichten aus der STI-Forschung (science, technology, innovation) zur Kopplung zwischen Wissenschaft und anderen gesellschaftlichen Akteuren. Die empirische Analyse vergleicht 30 Flussgebietsinitiativen in 22 Ländern, die sich an dem UNESCO-Programm 'Hydrology, Life, Environment and Policy' (HELP) beteiligen, mit dem Ziel, die Kommunikation zwischen Wissenschaft, Politik, Verwaltung und Interessengruppen ('Stakeholder Dialogue') im Flussgebietsmanagement effektiver zu gestalten. Die Datengrundlage bilden Selbstdarstellungen in HELP-Anträgen und Websites und ca. 20 Interviews mit regionalen Experten. Die vorläufigen Ergebnisse zeigen, dass das Konzept des Flussgebietsmanagements international breit diffundiert ist, aber der Grad der Institutionalisierung nach Ländern noch große Unterschiede aufweist. Es wird eine Typologie der Flussgebietsinitiativen erstellt und darüber hinaus analysiert, wie das 'boundary-management' zwischen Wissenschaft, Politik und Stakeholdern gestärkt werden kann." (Autorenreferat)

Am Beispiel biographischer Interviews mit Unternehmensgründerinnen in Griechenland werden die verschiedenen Motivationen griechischer Frauen, sich in eine selbständige Erwerbstätigkeit zu begeben, vor dem Hintergrund traditioneller und hierarchischer Familienstrukturen thematisiert. Für die Frauen ist der Weg der selbständigen Erwerbstätigkeit ein Teil ihres Ringens um Unabhängigkeit von der traditionellen Familie und um soziale Anerkennung. Zusätzlich werden die Motive für Unternehmensgründungen unter griechischen Migrantinnen nach Athen erörtert, die zum Teil mit den gleichen Problemen der sozialen Exklusion zu kämpfen haben wie internationale Migrantinnen. Die nach Autonomie und Lebenskontrolle strebenden Frauen werden in zwei Gruppen eingeteilt: Frauen aus der Mittelschicht suchen nicht nur eine professionelle Perspektive, sondern vor allem eine Lebensperspektive, weg von der Unterdrückung durch ihre Eltern, die ihnen ihre Karriere vorschreiben möchten. Frauen aus der Arbeiterklasse suchen finanzielle und materielle Unabhängigkeit. Abschließend werden anhand des Scheiterns eines Fallbeispiels die Maßnahmen des NOW Projekts in Griechenland beschrieben, welches zum Ziel hat, Benachteiligte und Arbeitslose durch Selbständigkeitsprojekte zu integrieren. (ICH).

"Civil society ranks high in academic and political discussions on democracy. It is perceived as a remedy to the legitimacy crisis of national systems and as a promise to turn international governance more democratic. But civil society is an illusive concept and contending conceptual frames govern the normative reflections and political recommendations which give legitimacy to civil society engagement. Therefore, researchers in RG 4 set out to exploit existing research comparing theoretical and methodological approaches intended to justify and measure the democratic value added by civil society participation. Furthermore, they engaged in comparative research to analyse the rise and metamorphosis of civil society in different parts of the world and compared it with the incantation and uses of civil society in the EU." (excerpt)

"'Efficient and Democratic Governance in the European Union' was the topic investigated by the international research project CONNEX during the four years (2004-2008) of its life time. Multi-level governance stands for the high interdependence of political responsibilities executed at regional, national and European levels in close collaboration of public and private actors. Efficiency and democratic legitimacy are not easily attained since multi-level governance incites complexity. Furthermore, governance with stakeholders and civil society by-passes established mechanisms of representation and blurs responsibility. Democratic representation and accountability, however, are the very foundation of legitimate governance.
The papers contained in this volume were presented at the network's Final Conference which took place at the University of Mannheim on March 6-8, 2008.1 The plenary sessions were dedicated to the core issues of the CONNEX governance research: (1) Institutions and instruments for efficient EU governance, (2) Accountability and representation in a multi-level system and (3) Civil society involvement, social capital and interest intermediation." (excerpt)

"Levels of political involvement still are surprisingly different among European citizenries. Apparently, neither the establishment of democratic institutions nor the rise in competences among mass publics has lead to a convergence of the levels of political involvement. Only at a very general level, systemic differences can be noted between the settled democracies of North-western Europe and the newer democracies of Southern Europe. The analyses presented here examine several explanations of the cross-national differences in political involvement by developing multi-level models combining the impact of various factors at the individual and the macro level using the first wave of the European Social Survey (2002-2003) as the primary data source. The results show that of the social capital factors, only the support for norms and values contributes to the explanation of political involvement after the conventional antecedents at the individual level are taken into account. Neither social capital understood as an individual resource, nor social capital understood as a conditional effect at the macro level, appears to be very relevant for the explanation of differences in political involvement. Instead, the multi-level models tested here underline the relevance of conventional individual-level factors. Cross-national differences in political involvement are mainly due to differences in the distributions of these factors in the various countries." (author's abstract)

"There are more children in Icelandic families than in the other Nordic countries. Workforce participation in Iceland is also amongst the highest in the West. The need for family support is therefore immense. While overall expenditures on families with children in Iceland have converged with those of other Nordic nations in the last few years, the expenditures per child up to age 17 are still significantly lower in Iceland. This is more marked for expenditures on benefits; expenditures on services are comparable with those found in other Nordic countries. During the 1990s, significant policy changes occurred in Iceland, which have improved the legal rights and conditions of families with children. These applied, for example, to rights to paternity and maternity leaves, children's right to receive care from both parents, and a stronger status for joint care. The rights of same-sex couples were significantly enhanced in 2006. Day care services (pre-school) have extensively grown since the early 1990s (increased rates of use and longer care hours) and so have after-school services. On the other hand, expenditures on child benefits have fallen since 1990. It is not clear at this stage whether this has changed the extent of poverty amongst families with children." (author's abstract).

"Zivilgesellschaftliche Vereinigungen werden in Dienstleistungsvereine die überwiegend private Interessen bedienen (z.B. Sportclubs), Wohltätigkeitsvereine, die überwiegend sich öffentliche Angelegenheiten zu eigen machen, und religiöse Verbände unterteilt, die sowohl Interessen bedienen wie sich öffentliche Angelegenheiten zu eigen machen. Die Kollektivorientierung sollte - sowohl als Einstellung von Personen wie als Forderung der Sozialordnung eines Landes - das Engagement in Wohltätigkeitsvereinen stärker steigern als das Engagement in Dienstleistungsvereinen. Dies wird als Musterhypothese bezeichnet. Sie wird in Interzeptmodellen hierarchischer linearer Regressionen überprüft, wobei weitere Einstellungen und Ressourcen von Personen und die Gelegenheitsstruktur des Landes kontrolliert werden. Die Persondaten stammen aus dem Europäischen Sozialen Survey 2002, die Landesdaten beziehen sich auf die politische Ordnung, die religiöse Tradition, die wirtschaftliche Freiheit, den wirtschaftlichen Entwicklungsstand und die kulturelle Heterogenität. Die Musterhypothese wird weder für Personen noch für Länder bestätigt. Nach den Einflüssen auf Person- wie auf Landesebene muss in der Zivilgesellschaft zwischen säkularen - also Dienstleistungs- wie Wohltätigkeitsvereinen - und religiösen Vereinen unterschieden werden." (Autorenreferat)

"In recent years politicians and social scientists have become ever more concerned with citizens' participation in informal networks ('social participation'). From both fields, the state has theoretically been proposed as an important determinant of social participation. Differing state institutions would explain the large country level differences in the average level of social participation. This article studies the impact of a range of state institutions on participation in broad, informal networks. The editors distinguish two aspects of social participation: the quantity (the number of social meetings) and the quality (the character of the informal relationships in the form of help provision). Taking up a new institutionalist approach, they test three explanations that have been raised theoretically but have not - or not sufficiently - been tested empirically before. The crowding out thesis claims that a large welfare state undermines the role of informal networks as an economic safety net, and therefore has a detrimental effect on social participation. According to the economic safety thesis a large welfare state and economic prosperity at the national level will offer citizens the resources and financial security to look for self actualization through social participation. Finally, the safe refuge thesis claims that people who life in a hostile socio-political environment that gives them little civic autonomy in the public sphere will opt for participation outside of the public sphere - that is around secure ties in informal networks. They test these lines of reasoning in a multilevel research design on data of the European Social Survey 2002. They simultaneously test the impact of the social security, economic development, democracy, civil rights and state corruption on social participation. The crowding out thesis is refuted by the data: social security expenditure has no impact on social participation. Economic prosperity, on the other hand, stimulates social participation, which is in line with the economic safety thesis. The most important determinant of social participation, however, is the level of corruption in a society. In corrupt societies people have less social meetings and provide less help to others than in incorrupt societies." (author's abstract)

"The aim of this paper is to investigate the hypothesis of a causal effect of individual labour-market-security and -integration on fertility by looking at the timing of first birth decisions after leaving the educational system. The analysis focuses on two major research questions: First, how is the timing of first parenthood related to previous labour market performance? Second, can we identify differences in first birth risks depending on individual labour market performance? In other words, to what extent do successfully integrated individuals differ with respect to their fertility decisions from those who are poorly integrated (as indicated by discontinuous or precarious employment patterns)? Integral to the analysis is a cross-national comparison of the relevance of institutional settings and their impact on family formation. In this context the editor focuses on the continental conservative German system and the liberal welfare state of the UK. He conceptualizes the initial transition to parenthood as the result of a rational as well as biographical planning process. The empirical investigation of the length of time up to first birth is based on an event history analysis, applying a piecewise constant exponential model to data from the SOEP and the BHPS. Results show the well known patterns of a still widely traditional division of labour between men and women on one hand side and extensive antagonisms of occupational and familial role. The cross-national comparison underlines the picture that this situation is especially virulent in Germany. In the case of German men with weak labour market integration he finds clear evidence of reduced probabilities of first birth - which is most likely due to limited breadwinner qualities. A reduced first birth risk also comes to the fore for women in Germany and the UK who show levels of extensive labour market integration (as indicated by a high amount of doing overtime work, e.g.). Yet an incomplete labour market integration of German women (as indicated by part time employment) also goes hand in hand with a reduced first birth risk. Among British women the editor cannot identify any clear fertility effects, related to initial labour market integration. This may be due to the fact that instable patterns of labour market entry are much more common in the UK and thus do not invoke any unsettling effect on fertility decisions." (author's abstract)

"Slowenien und Estland als zwei kleine Staaten und soziale Systeme haben einige gemeinsame Charakteristika. Sie unterscheiden sich doch in vielerlei Hinsicht. Beide sind wirtschaftlich erfolgreich, Slowenien ist zwar nach den meisten Indikatoren wohlhabender, aber Estland ist dynamischer und wächst schneller. Während die slowenische Elite ihre wirtschaftliche Entwicklung und politische Stabilität auf Prinzipien (und der Ideologie) des so genannten Gradualismus aufgebaut hat (das gilt vor allem für den linksliberalen Block, der aber 12 Jahre an der Macht war - von 1992 bis 2004), hat dagegen Estland einen anderen Weg gewählt, die einheimische Elite entschloss sich für eine radikale (neo)liberale Wende und Deregulierung - Strategie mit allen (un)erwünschten sozialen Konsequenzen. Beide Entscheidungen sind teilweise historisch bedingt ('path dependency') teilweise aber auch Ausdruck der Eliten-Konfiguration, deren Interessenlage und der ideologischen Vorstellungen über künftige sozialwirtschaftliche Ordnung (oder Typ des Kapitalismus)." (Autorenreferat)