Suchergebnisse

On December 18, 1972, more than one hundred U.S. B-52 bombers flew over North Vietnam to initiate Operation Linebacker II. During the next eleven days, sixteen of these planes were shot down and another four suffered heavy damage. These losses soon proved so devastating that Strategic Air Command was ordered to halt the bombing. The U.S. Air Force's poor performance in this and other operations during Vietnam was partly due to the fact that they had trained their pilots according to methods devised during World War II and the Korean War, when strategic bombers attacking targets were expected to take heavy losses. Warfare had changed by the 1960s, but the USAF had not adapted. Between 1972 and 1991, however, the Air Force dramatically changed its doctrines and began to overhaul the way it trained pilots through the introduction of a groundbreaking new training program called "Red Flag." In The Air Force Way of War, Brian D. Laslie examines the revolution in pilot instruction that Red Flag brought about after Vietnam. The program's new instruction methods were dubbed "realistic" because they prepared pilots for real-life situations better than the simple cockpit simulations of the past, and students gained proficiency on primary and secondary missions instead of superficially training for numerous possible scenarios. In addition to discussing the program's methods, Laslie analyzes the way its graduates actually functioned in combat during the 1980s and '90s in places such as Grenada, Panama, Libya, and Iraq. Military historians have traditionally emphasized the primacy of technological developments during this period and have overlooked the vital importance of advances in training, but Laslie's unprecedented study of Red Flag addresses this oversight through its examination of the seminal program

"The quasi-messianic expectations produced by the election of President Obama in 2008 (America's first African-American president)--followed by the diminution of these expectations--was a stark reminder that redemptive hope is seldom satisfactorily fulfilled. The struggle between idealism and realism currently playing out within the political arena reflects the history of intellectual debates over the role of hope narratives within liberal democratic society. This book begins by tracing the history of the tension between thinkers who have taken a theistic approach to hope by linking it to a transcendental signifier--usually God--versus those intellectuals who have striven to link hopes for redemption to our inter-subjective interactions with other human beings. This book argues that the best way to address the importance and challenge of redemptive narratives in a vibrant democracy is to draw on the best of both religious thought and secular liberal political philosophy. In the 21st century, secular liberal culture needs elements of religion to survive, and conversely religion cannot thrive without adopting insights from secular thought. This book contributes to the building of bridges between religious and liberal social thought by bringing together Richard Rorty, one of America's most profound and controversial neo-pragmatic philosophers of the late 20th century, with early 20th century modern Jewish thinkers, such as Martin Buber and Ernst Bloch. Bringing these different thinkers and traditions together allows for a better appreciate of the need to maintain, rather than overcome, the dialectical tensions between religious and liberal thought. An appreciation of these tensions can prepare the foundations for an alternative redemptive narrative for the 21st century"--

Mit der Querschnittsstudie "Wir und die Anderen – Gruppenbezogene Menschenfeindlichkeit im organisierten Sport in Sachsen" wurde erstmals das Syndrom Gruppenbezogener Menschenfeindlichkeit im organisierten Sport untersucht. Das Konzept der Gruppenbezogenen Menschenfeindlichkeit – ausgehend von einer Ideologie der Ungleichwertigkeit – wurde von Prof. Wilhelm Heitmeyer (Universität Bielefeld) entwickelt. Die Ergebnisse ermöglichen explizite Aussagen über Ausmaß und Ursachen Gruppenbezogener Menschenfeindlichkeit für den gesellschaftlichen Bereich des Sports.
Die Studie wurde im vereinsorgansierten Sport im Bundesland Sachsen durchgeführt. Insgesamt wurden 1.502 Sportlerinnen und Sportler in der ersten Hälfte des Jahres 2012 befragt. In der Stichprobe spiegeln 147 Sportvereine mit 38 Sportarten die Vielfalt der Sportpraxis wider.
Es wird der Frage nachgegangen, wie Menschen im Sport auf Grund ihres Geschlechts, ihrer sexuellen Identität, Religion oder ihrer kulturellen und ethnischen Herkunft wahrgenommen werden und ob diese Merkmale mit feindseligen Mentalitäten im Sport einhergehen können. Vorurteile gegenüber Menschen mit diesen bestimmten Gruppenzugehörigkeiten teilen einen gemeinsamen Kern, der sich auch im Gesellschaftsbereich Sport als Ideologie der Ungleichwertigkeit empirisch identifizieren lässt. Das Syndrom der Gruppenbezogenen Menschenfeindlichkeit setzt sich in dem vorliegenden Bericht aus den Elementen Fremdenfeindlichkeit, Islamfeindlichkeit, der Abwertung von Homosexuellen (Homophobie), Rassismus, Antisemitismus, Sexismus und der Abwertung von Menschen mit Behinderung zusammen.
Die untersuchten Vorurteile hängen empirisch eng miteinander zusammen. Im Ergebnis zeichnen sich zwar Fremdenfeindlichkeit, Rassismus, Islamfeindlichkeit und die Abwertung von Homosexuellen im organisierten Sport als vorrangig handlungsrelevante Dimensionen ab, gleichwohl lässt sich feststellen, dass Sporttreibende, die einer bestimmten Gruppe gegenüber feindselige Mentalitäten haben, auch häufiger dazu neigen, andere Gruppen wie Frauen, Juden/Jüdinnen oder Menschen mit Behinderung abzuwerten. Das Ausmaß Gruppenbezogener Menschenfeindlichkeit lässt sich teilweise durch soziodemografische und strukturelle Faktoren (Alter, Geschlecht, Bildung, Einkommen, Gemeindegröße) und (sport-) spezifische Faktoren wie Nationalismus, Demokratiekritik und -feindlichkeit, Autoritarismus und Gewaltbilligung erklären.

Ziel des Forschungsvorhabens war, das in einer vorangegangenen Studie entwickelte CSR-Evaluierungs- und Steuerungsinstrument (Erfassung CSR-Aufwand anhand von Maßnahmekatalogen) theoretisch-konzeptionell zu schärfen, empirisch tiefer zu überprüfen und für die Praxis zu operationalisieren. Theoretisch-konzeptionell wurde das CSR-Evaluierungs- und Steuerungsinstrument unter anderem dahingehend angepasst, dass zu einzelnen CSR-Kategorien ("Mitarbeiter", "Partner", "Kunden", "Gesellschaft" und "Kapitalgeber") Beispiele, Prüfkriterien und Hinweise ergänzt wurden. Ein Ergebnis der empirischen Überprüfung des Instruments ist, dass die Daten als Grundlage zur Ermittlung einer CSR-Quote (= CSR-Aufwand/Umsatz) in Unternehmen nicht, beziehungsweise nicht für alle Stakeholdergruppen gleich verfügbar sind und teils nur mit hohem Aufwand beschafft werden können. Die Studie sieht als eine praktische Einsatzmöglichkeit des CSR-Evaluierungs- und Steuerungsinstruments an, etablierte Instrumente der Nachhaltigkeitsberichterstattung (z.B. Richtlinien der Global Reporting Initiative) zu ergänzen.

Trotz ihrer grossen Zahl und kulturellen Vielfalt fanden katholische Migrantengemeinden in Öffentlichkeit und Forschung bislang nur wenig Beachtung.
Die vorliegende Studie gewährt nun einen religionssoziologischen Einblick in zwei englischsprachige Gemeinden. Am Beispiel europäischer Expats, afrikanischer Asylsuchender und weiterer Personengruppen geht der Autor der Frage nach, wie in katholischen Migrantengemeinden die Ressourcen, die Handlungsspielräume und damit das Wohlbefinden von Zuwanderern beeinflusst werden.
Interviews mit verschiedenen Protagonisten zeigen, wie die sozialen Bedingungen in den Migrantengemeinden die Vernetzung ihrer Mitglieder fördern und die Aneignung von migrationsrelevanten Kompetenzen vereinfachen.

Whether increasing life expectancy leads to better health remains still controversial. Three topics are explored: (1) vanguard groups which inform about possible levels of health if the general social and environmental conditions were to approach those of the vanguard group; (2) the social and behavioral determinants of health differentiated into proximal and distal factors; (3) vulnerable groups such as migrants and the health differences between migrant groups. Newly available population-based data as well as new study designs and advanced statistical modelling form the basis for the empirical analyses.

"Neighbours and Successors of Rome investigates development in the production of glass and the mechanisms of the wider glass economy as part of a wider material culture in Europe and the Near East around the later first millennium AD. Though highlighting and solidifying chronology, patterns of distribution, and typology, the primary aims of the collection are to present a new methodology that emphasises regional workshops, scientific data, and the wider trade culture"--

"This book examines US recourse to military force in the post-9/11 era. In particular, it evaluates the extent to which the Bush and Obama administrations viewed legitimizing the greater use-of-force as a necessary solution to thwart the security threat presented by global terrorist networks and WMD proliferation. The Bush administration's use-of-force policy centered on advocating preemptive self-defence options, which were really preventive in nature. For example, it is argued that they responded to potential long-term threats based on ambiguous evidence. Central to this cloaking of preventive options in the more legitimate language of preemptive self-defence was an expanded notion of what counts as an imminent threat. Despite the Obama administration's avowal to multilateralism and professed US adherence to global norms, it did not expressly reject his predecessor's reasoning on the preemptive/preventive use-of-force. Indeed, the Administration's counter-terrorist campaign against Al Qaeda and in particular its drone program made the use-of-force in self-defence a widespread, regular, even commonplace occurrence during Obama's tenure. Despite being positioned at different points on the political spectrum, the book therefore concludes that Bush and Obama have chosen a remarkably similar approach towards expanding the use-of-force in self-defence. "--

"South Korea's phenomenal rise has been studied extensively by political scientists and economists both in terms of its impact on democratization and as a role model for economic development. Yet little attention has been devoted to exploring the nexus between economic development and foreign policy. In South Korea's Rise, Uk Heo and Terence Roehrig propose a new theoretical framework to illustrate how an increase in a country's economic prosperity can bring about change to its foreign policy, prompting greater involvement in the international system, the transition to democracy, an expanded set of interests and increased tools to pursue its foreign policy goals. As a rising middle power, analysis of South Korea's foreign policy is crucial to our understanding of the power structure and future relations in East Asia. This is essential reading for all students and scholars with an interest in Asia, foreign policy and global economics"--

"Most research on framing has focused on media and elite frames: the ways that the mass media and politicians present information about issues and events to the public. Until now, the process by which citizens' opinions may affect the initial frame-building process has been largely ignored. The two-way flow of influence between public opinion and decision-makers has been analyzed more from a top-down than a bottom-up perspective. Olmastroni addresses this issue by introducing a cyclical model of framing. Additionally, most empirical studies on media framing have centered on the United States. Olmastroni's text seeks to overcome this limitation of prior research by examining different types of framing in three different countries. Framing War uses the recent war on Iraq as a case study, focusing on the elite and media framing of this event in order to examine the interaction between the political elite and the mass public in three Western democracies--France, Italy, and the US--during the early and on-going stages of the military crisis. The book analyzes whether and, potentially, the extent to which decision-makers tracked and responded to public opinion in presenting their foreign policy choices. It examines the strategies and approaches that governments potentially adopted to influence public opinion towards either the need for or the lack of need for a military intervention. By representing the framing paradigm as a cycle, Olmastroni shows how each actor within the system (i.e., government and other elites, news media, and public opinion) is linked to the others and contributes to the final representation of an issue. In contrast with other theoretical perspectives of framing, this book states that the framing influence does not only proceed from the government to the public, but it often moves at the same level of the system, with each actor playing different roles. Olmastroni's insights on framing are significant for researchers in international relations, political communication, public opinion, comparative politics, and political psychology, as well as policy analysts, journalists, and commentators"--

With a foreword by Stephen Bronner, this volume edited by Diana Boros and James Glass consists of reflections from contemporary political and social theorists on the concept of public space and what it means in the context of modern political life. The contributors lay the foundation for thinking about public space, moving beyond historical analyses of Frankfurt School theorists to offer a new perspective on how to think about public space, how to theorize its implications, and how to construct a theory of democratic political life through political action that takes seriously how politics workwithin the public space. The contributors, including Douglas Kellner, David Ingram, Lauren Langman, Lars Rensmann, Michael Thompson, Michael Diamond, C. Fred Alford, Mary Caputi, and Malcolm Miles, come from a variety of scholarly backgrounds but all are in agreement that a democratic politics will not be viable in protecting rights, tolerance, and freedom unless it is grounded in a theory that embraces participation in public life, as well as art and protest as democratic action in the public space.