Suchergebnisse

This article examines the development of the east German party system from the peaceful revolution in the former GDR to the aftermath of the 1994 federal election. It takes into account its format, polarisation, fragmentation, asymmetry, volatility, legitimacy, segmentation and government durability. The analysis shows that there was not only a complete transformation of the former GDR's party system between autumn 1989 and autumn 1990 but also a general change of the east German party system between 1990 and 1994. Both at the federal and at the Land level, the high volatility resulted in a considerably less fragmented system with a parliamentary format reduced to three parties: the CDU, SPD and PDS. The change in the electoral dimension also led to an increase in segmentation and to government instability at the Land level and coincided with a decrease of ligitimacy. Reasons for the party system change are to be be found in developments at the macro-level, that is, the institutional framework party competition is subject to, at the micro-level, that is the cleavage structure and issue structure of east German society, and at the meso-level, that is the resources and political behaviour of the relevant parties. (German Politics / FUB)

Aspects of political culture, i.e. concerns with the 'subjective' dimension of politics including dominant political orientations, perceptions and interpretations, always have been particularly relevant with regard to the case of Germany and its great variety of political regimes during the last century. This is true both with regard to political science and practical politics. This volume provides a comprehensive overview concerning the major historical legacies, regional and sub-cultural variations, and current problems of democratic orientations, national identity and relationships to the outside world

The article offers a description of the system of higher technical education in Germany. Being a leading country, it has been implementing new stages, schemes and plans of the education development for many centuries; its learning technologies are borrowed from other countries, and students from all over the world dream of getting into one of the higher education institutions. This country is one of the leading countries in the technical specialists training, and therefore it is analyzed and systematized the system of higher technical education in Germany in the article. The higher technical institutions are divided into universities and higher applied professional schools and the curriculum examples are provided. There are different study areas in German technical universities and they are represented and compared. Different education programs at various faculties of educational institution are described in the article. The learning hours are defined, the practical and theoretical percentage of studying is illustrated. It is discussed that professional higher technical education in higher applied professional schools in Germany is based on the dual training of workers in various specialties. The dual training system is defined. The number of international students, the countries where they come from are shown. It is stated that Germany is an open country for international students and study here is widely oriented on new comers. It is actualized the education payment ways and described the possibilities of free learning. The authors conclude that universities represent a general model of learning while a student may combine learning with work in higher applied schools. A student can choose between full-time and part-time forms of studying.