Suchergebnisse

The Family System Test (FAST), developed by Thomas M. Gehring, is an important new tool for investigating family relations. Based on the structural-systemic theory of families, it is a figural technique for representing emotional bonds (cohesion) and hierarchical structures in the family or similar social systems. In this unique volume, the editors draw on current theory and research in family or similar social systems together with a variety of empirical studies that have used the FAST, to provide a comprehensive overview and assessment of the test and its use in various clinical research con

"While the ubiquity of communication in European, and international, governance may be
empirically observed, its relevance for collective decision processes is still subject to dispute. The question is whether communication constitutes a factor influencing outcomes separately from other important explanatory factors like established interests (preferences) and power. On this issue, a new line of conflict has developed in recent years (e.g. Eriksen/Weigard 1997, Risse 2000) along the firmly established divide between rationalists and constructivists (Keohane 1988, Lapid 1989). For rationalists, communication plays an inferior role compared to other explanatory factors. Empirically observed communication among actors is frequently treated as unimportant 'noise'. After all, coordination, even cooperation in Prisoners' Dilemma situations, may 'evolve' without communication (Axelrod 1984). If rational choice theory recognizes that communication may matter even for rational utility maximizers, it does so in the forms of cheap talk (Farrell/Rabin 1996) and signalling (Morrow 1994). The constructivist side of the meta-theoretical divide, having been concerned in the past basically with the role of norms and institutions for the formation and development of actors' preferences and having complemented the rationalist 'logic of consequentialism' with a norm-oriented 'logic of appropriateness' (March/Olsen 1998), witnesses a 'cognitive turn' (Checkel 1996). Communication has been introduced into the analysis of European and international politics in the forms of epistemic communities (Haas 1989, 1992), speech act theory (see Kratochwil 1989: 30-39, 1993) and communicative action (Müller 1994, Risse-Kappen 1996, Risse 2000). Drawing on the Theory of Communicative Action developed by Jürgen Habermas (1981), it is argued that neither European nor international governance are limited to the balancing of fixed preferences. Through communication, actors may convince each other, and thereby affect each others' preferences. Reasons are identified, in addition to power, as a second source of influence on the outcomes of co-ordination processes." (excerpt)