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This article examines what can be the contribution of Sociology to the 'new science of happiness', and what can such happiness studies contribute to Sociology? It does so by presenting the example of a quantitative analysis of European Social Survey data for the UK on social capital and life satisfaction by age. It reveals heterogeneity in the relationship between social capital and SWB by age with, for instance, socialising being more strongly associated with SWB among younger and older people compared to a mid-age group. Using this analysis as a case study, the first aim is to illustrate how sociological theory can crucially enrich research on SWB by relating the under-theorised field to broader narratives. While a range of empirical findings on the correlates of subjectively reported happiness have been dutifully collected over decades, solid theory building has often been neglected. It is crucial, however, to draw the various pieces of evidence together in order to formulate viable theoretical frameworks. Sociology is a science rich in useful approaches for the study of well-being. Role-identity theory as well as socialisation theory allow us in this paper to develop testable hypotheses for well-being data and give the research field a much-needed grounding. At the same time, it is demonstrated in this article how analysing data on life satisfaction can deliver much needed empirical tests of and new perspectives on long-standing sociological theories. For instance, the unresolved debate about homo sociologicus and homo economicus as competing conceptions of man can gain new perspectives from data on SWB.

Die Grundlagen für die Neuausrichtung der Streitkräfte sind geschaffen. Am 27. Mai 2011 hat der Bundesminister der Verteidigung, Dr. Thomas de Maiziere, die Verteidigungspolitischen Richtlinien in Kraft gesetzt und am 26. Oktober 2011 die Grobstruktur der Bundeswehr gebilligt. Das übergeordnete Ziel dieser strukturellen Planungen ist die Stärkung der Einsatzorientierung und Einsatzfähigkeit der Bundeswehr unter Berücksichtigung der verfügbaren finanziellen und personellen Ressourcen. (Europäische Sicherheit & Technik / SWP)

"Neue Indikatoren für das Wohlergehen des Landes sind unabdingbar. Zur Verbesserung von Politikmaßnahmen ist eine systematische Gesetzesfolgenabschätzung unter Einbeziehung der Erkenntnisse der Glücksforschung notwendig." (Autorenreferat)

Der Diskurs über die Neuvermessung von Fortschritt und Wohlergehen gewinnt international zunehmend an Bedeutung. Globale Anstrengungen haben das Potenzial, einen Paradigmenwechsel herbeizuführen, der beeinflusst, wie wir Fortschritt definieren und folglich unser Zusammenleben gestalten. Anhand von Fallstudien aus verschiedenen Ländern mit Vorreitercharakter werden Unterschiede und Gemeinsamkeiten sowie bislang Erreichtes und zukünftige Herausforderungen erkennbar. Durch zahlreiche nationale runde Tische werden derzeit neue Indikatorensysteme zur Messung des Wohlergehens aufgebaut. Solche Maßzahlen können die Bürger zielgenauer über den Fortschritt in ihrem Land informieren und bieten Entscheidungsträgern eine wichtige Leitlinie für politisches Handeln. Wichtig wird in Zukunft sein, dass die Indikatorensysteme an prominenter Stelle in der Sozialberichterstattung verankert werden und mit einer durchdachten Kommunikationsstrategie in die nationalen politischen Debatten eingespeist werden. Besonders effektiv wären dabei eine jährliche indikatorenbasierte State of the Union Rede des Regierungschefs und eine institutionalisierte Gesetzesfolgenabschätzung zur Lebensqualität. Wenn die portraitierten Maßnahmen mit Energie weiterverfolgt werden, kann am Ende ein Sieg für evidenzbasierte Politikmaßnahmen und die demokratische Kultur im Sinne von mehr Transparenz und Rechenschaft die Belohnung für die getätigten Anstrengungen sein.

Modernist planning theory assumed that planning, architecture, and urban design by themselves could transform society and create new forms of collective association and personal habits. Using James Holston's The Modernist City, an Anthropological Critique of Brasilia as my starting point, I argue in this paper that Brasilia clearly exemplifies the limits of planning theory itself. Even if it provided Brasilia's planners with a specific and explicit set of guidelines, concepts, and principles, these ended up creating a "formalistic shell for living" that did not transform the status quo but made it even more explicit. As such, Brasilia reminds us that the development of cities is mostly the consequence of personal decisions and choices that cannot be determined a priori. Therefore, planning theory can only help planners, architects, urban designers and politicians (to name a few) "create conditions that might set in motion processes" (Abu-Lughod 1993:32), but it can nonetheless never provide us with totalizing solutions that always objectify and consider people passive recipients of planning and thus fail to include the unintended, the unexpected, the subversive, the political. ; http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/120326/1/Kroll_BrasiliaOrTheLimitsOfTheory.pdf

Policymakers in the OECD countries still generally look upon the SDGs as a development policy issue. The task for high-income countries, one might assume, is simply to provide greater levels of official development assistance (ODA), specifically, pushing efforts closer to the target of 0.7 percent of GDP, which few countries have managed so far. The truth is, however, that the SDGs will not just require rich countries to increase development funds for others; they will need fundamental policy changes in their own countries. If the MDGs were the telescope through which rich countries viewed the developing world, the SDGs are the mirror in which they see their own policies and performance reflected. In other words, every country is now a developing country when it comes to an economic and social model which is both sustainable and socially just

While the economic voting hypothesis is a well-researched approach to explain behavior at the ballot box, a broader perspective of economic, social and environmental issues regarding a government's chances to get re-elected is still missing in the literature. In this context, this paper makes use for the first time of the Agenda 2030 with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as the comprehensive policy framework that all 193 UN member states have pledged to achieve. The objective of our study is therefore to examine the relationship between SDGs' progress and the likelihood of re-election. Our analysis of 124 countries regarding performance on the SDGs over time and voting behavior shows: the chance to get re-elected as a government significantly increases for progress made towards SDG 5 (Gender Equality). Notable differences are also found for high-income vs. low-income countries. The fact that governments are rewarded at the ballot box for successful action towards gender equality is encouraging, while the mechanisms behind other SDG areas deserve more research.

All 193 UN member states have pledged to achieve 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), following the guiding principle to leave no one behind. At the same time, rising populist movements increasingly influence the political debate in many countries by challenging multilateral cooperation and liberal democracy. This paper contains the first empirical study of the relationship between the SDGs and populism. In order to analyse the nexus between these growingly important concepts, we introduce a new "Sustainability-Populism Framework". It allows us to asses how the performance on the 17 SDGs over time relates to electoral support for populist parties, resulting in a classification of 39 countries into four categories. Moreover, in a regression analysis, we find that for each 1-point increase on the aggregate SDG Index (out of 100) over time, the vote share of populist parties on average drops by about 2 percentage points. Our results lend some support to the notion that a strong commitment to the SDGs (overall, as well as in particular to SDGs 1, 2, 11 and 15) could be part of an appropriate and effective answer to populism. We hope to initiate a timely debate on populism and sustainable development with our study, along with more research into this complex relationship.