Suchergebnisse

Abstract
Hinter dem spröden Begriff Verwaltungsvereinfachung steht die Vorstellung, der Staat solle gezielter und entschlossener handeln – eine Forderung, die im 20. Jahrhundert immer wieder laut wurde. In den europäischen Krisenzeiten nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg verfing das "Evangelium der Effizienz" (Ernst Fraenkel) insbesondere im Bereich der Haushaltspolitik. Die Staatsfinanzen standen im Zentrum zeitgenössischer Debatten um Demokratie und Diktatur, und sie verwiesen auf die Erfordernisse einer internationalen Ordnung der Ökonomie. Stefanie Middendorf analysiert anhand der deutschen Erfahrungen zwischen 1914 und 1945, wie in der staatlichen Budgetplanung ein Aggregatzustand der Ausnahmeherrschaft entstand, der transformative Wirkung entfaltete und alltägliche Praktiken des Regierens zu Triebkräften der Ermächtigung werden ließ.

How do states govern in times of crisis and why did a state budget become the "book of fate" for Germany? The history of the Reich Ministry of Finance provides answers to these questions. This volume shows how the desire for reempowerment and leadership in financial politics after 1919 played a role in allowing democratic negotiation to become the exception and dictatorial rule to become the new normal

Abstract
In the aftermath of the First World War, the Weimar Republic found itself in financial disarray. Originally put forward by the antirepublican right, the idea of a forced loan emerged. The idea triggered harsh controversies regarding the shortfalls in the new state's sovereignty and its lack of fiscal power within the framework of an international order. The conflicting images of the Weimar state effected the decisions finally taken. This article argues that a rhetoric of emergency was combined with notions of the expert as an apolitical figure in order to legitimize compulsory lending. Yet, contrary to contemporary perceptions, the Weimar forced loan was not a result of governmental impotence or an exceptional incident within the history of public finance. As a political tool, it helped to solve conflicts on the national as well as the international level, if only for a short period of time. As an instrument of state finance, it was not an act of failure to still fiscal needs the 'normal way' but a conscious claim for the autonomy of the Weimar state. But the conviction that compulsory loans might be a legitimate element of fiscal politics under the auspices of a strong and well-informed state emerged only with the Second World War – in Germany as well as on an international level.

In the aftermath of the First World War, the Weimar Republic found itself in financial disarray. Originally put forward by the antirepublican right, the idea of a forced loan emerged. The idea triggered harsh controversies regarding the shortfalls in the new state's sovereignty and its lack of fiscal power within the framework of an international order. The conflicting images of the Weimar state effected the decisions finally taken. This article argues that a rhetoric of emergency was combined with notions of the expert as an apolitical figure in order to legitimize compulsory lending. Yet, contrary to contemporary perceptions, the Weimar forced loan was not a result of governmental impotence or an exceptional incident within the history of public finance. As a political tool, it helped to solve conflicts on the national as well as the international level, if only for a short period of time. As an instrument of state finance, it was not an act of failure to still fiscal needs the 'normal way' but a conscious claim for the autonomy of the Weimar state. But the conviction that compulsory loans might be a legitimate element of fiscal politics under the auspices of a strong and well-informed state emerged only with the Second World War – in Germany as well as on an international level.

The supposedly commercial products of the culture industry are increasingly facing sales difficulties because growing numbers of self-assertive consumers are downloading products at will, thus no longer following the given rules of the market. Not only multinational record companies, but also representatives of 'high' culture are adamant in their criticism of the current 'culture for free' tendency. The latter can hardly be characterized as profit-oriented – nor would they describe themselves that way – but they contend that bootleg copies are a threat to their livelihood, and that the culture of piracy paves the way for harebrained mass products. The discussion encompasses copyright laws and the ways consumers are appropriating cultural products as well as the question whether or not these tendencies will fundamentally change the production of culture. Such debates are charged with cultural criticism, but in essence of economic nature. In addition, the cultural sector is faced with the accusation of waning societal relevance. In the arts and features sections of newspapers and magazines, journalists and essayists bemoan that pop culture is no longer 'the voice and mirror of political and social change, like twenty or thirty years ago'. Although popular culture may have evolved from its original return and distribution strategies as well as its constitutive (at least for some) connection to youth and protest movements, a medially conveyed, market-driven culture that is accessible to a wide audience remains a characteristic feature of modern societies and their self-perceptions.

The supposedly commercial products of the culture industry are increasingly facing sales difficulties because growing numbers of self-assertive consumers are downloading products at will, thus no longer following the given rules of the market. Not only multinational record companies, but also representatives of 'high' culture are adamant in their criticism of the current 'culture for free' tendency. The latter can hardly be characterized as profit-oriented – nor would they describe themselves that way – but they contend that bootleg copies are a threat to their livelihood, and that the culture of piracy paves the way for harebrained mass products. The discussion encompasses copyright laws and the ways consumers are appropriating cultural products as well as the question whether or not these tendencies will fundamentally change the production of culture. Such debates are charged with cultural criticism, but in essence of economic nature. In addition, the cultural sector is faced with the accusation of waning societal relevance. In the arts and features sections of newspapers and magazines, journalists and essayists bemoan that pop culture is no longer 'the voice and mirror of political and social change, like twenty or thirty years ago'. Although popular culture may have evolved from its original return and distribution strategies as well as its constitutive (at least for some) connection to youth and protest movements, a medially conveyed, market-driven culture that is accessible to a wide audience remains a characteristic feature of modern societies and their self-perceptions.

Organised Modernity? Construction and Conception of Mass Culture in France Since the end of the nineteenth century, the rise of mass culture in France was an ambivalent experience giving stimulation to attempts of scientific re-conceptualisation and regulation of society. On the basis of this observation, the article analyses scientistic descriptions of mass culture and cultural policies as conceptions of order and practices of ordering. At the turn of the 19th century, the early French theories of mass culture remained post-liberal compromises. After the end of the Second World War, intellectuals and cultural technocrats developed more large-scale projects of collective renewal by dirigisme. In the 1970s, the thus developed configuration of experts and cultural planning of the state suffered a serious crisis raising the questioning of the organisability of the modernity of massculture. The French history of the perception of mass culture therefore appears as a history of cultural engineering and its limitations.