Suchergebnisse

Drug use and drug control are theoretically — in terms of both social psychology and sociology — viewed as complementary components of a complex social and historical interaction process. Subsequently historical and other evidence is presented to substantiate the theoretical hypotheses. This lays the ground for the presentation and interpretation of the actual drug control system in Germany and the European Union. Again some theoretical hypotheses and their empirical grounding are presented concerning the logic of development trends. In the final part, the evolution of drug laws and their implementation are viewed. Recent developments can be regarded as taking place in stages based on certain changeable paradigms: the abstinence paradigm, the medicalization paradigm and the acceptance paradigm. For the time being there seems to be a slow transition from the first to the latter, implying that elements of all three are presently active in a diversity of policies and strategies, differing between states and regions of the German federal state and the European Union as well as between different levels of drug policy and drug care.

This paper tries to ascertain the economic benefits and costs of defence sector down-seizing in Germany, whether it were the result of official international commitments or of the reduction in the military budget. In the first category came reductions in forces and equipment under international treaties. As a result of reductions and transfer of forces up to 0,8% of employment dissappeared. This was taking place simultaneously with a reduction in equipment as the combined results of down-seizing of forces and the involuntary acquisition of equipment from the former GDR's army. The reduction in military spending, as part of a general redistribution of public expenditure, was the second reason for the shrinkage of the defence sector. But assessment of the impact of such reductions obviously depended on the type of expenditure concerned. Generally speaking, if the defence budgets of the last few years were compared, the changes in the relative importance of certain budget items would be seen to be "fiscal conversion" since, on the one hand, the type of expenditure had changed and, on the other hand, the overall volume of credits devoted to defence had fallen to the benefit of civilian expenditure. All in all, the positive macro-economic effects of this reallocation of budget resources came to less than 0,5% of GNP. (BICC-Hck)

The German federal government's fiscal consolidation package, announced in June, is designed to permanently reduce the federal deficit to a new target level. This article uses a three-region version of the European Commission's QUEST model to gauge the impact of the package on Germany and the spillover to the rest of the euro area and the rest of the world.

When the Labour Government began to nationalize industries in Great Britain, swarms of social scientists descended upon that island. They wanted to study this "great experiment," which many of them viewed as the trail-blazer for an inevitable trend in all modern industrial societies. That was nine years ago. Now it seems that the nationalization dogma has lost most of its force even in Labour circles. But another great experiment has been in progress on the Continent, in West Germany: Mitbestimmung, the scheme under which labor participates in the management of private industrial corporations. In part it was born out of British disillusionment with socialism's erstwhile cure-all. Because of its novelty and uniqueness, it is attracting increasing attention from social scientists. But this time, the different disciplines are unevenly represented. Economists, and especially experts in labor relations, have shown the most interest. When they run across a student of politics in pursuit of the same quarry, they often express surprise. And the Germans, who are being visited, interviewed, questioned, polled, and subjected to every conceivable form of social scientific scrutiny, react even more strongly. They are positively puzzled: "You are not a Nationaloekonom? But then surely an Industrie- or Betriebssoziologe, or perhaps a Jurist …." The political scientist is an animal of which few of them have heard. And fewer still can imagine off-hand why he would want to concern himself with co-determination.