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In the years around the Second World War, policymakers in the US & Western Europe faced security challenges occasioned by the development of new technologies & the emergence of transnational ideological conflict. In coming to terms with these challenges, they developed the historically novel practice in which a state might maintain a long-term, peacetime military presence on the territory of another sovereign state without the subjugation of the latter. Such arrangements between substantive equals were previously unthinkable: under the inherited understanding of sovereignty, in which there was a tight linkage between military presence & territorial authority, such military presences could be understood only in terms of occupation or annexation. This text applies concepts derived from pragmatist thought to a historical study of the relations between the US & its wartime allies to explain the origin of this phenomenon.

In Armed Guests, Sebastian Schmidt develops a theory to explain the emergence of this phenomenon, which he calls "sovereign basing," and in doing so, shows how this new practice fundamentally changed state sovereignty and the very nature of security competition. He applies concepts derived from pragmatist thought to a historical study of the relations between the United States and its wartime allies to explain how sovereign basing originated through the efforts of policymakers to come to grips with the unique security environment of the postwar era.

In the years around the Second World War, policymakers in the US & Western Europe faced security challenges occasioned by the development of new technologies & the emergence of transnational ideological conflict. In coming to terms with these challenges, they developed the historically novel practice in which a state might maintain a long-term, peacetime military presence on the territory of another sovereign state without the subjugation of the latter. Such arrangements between substantive equals were previously unthinkable: under the inherited understanding of sovereignty, in which there was a tight linkage between military presence & territorial authority, such military presences could be understood only in terms of occupation or annexation. This text applies concepts derived from pragmatist thought to a historical study of the relations between the US & its wartime allies to explain the origin of this phenomenon.

The present book proposes a systematic understanding about the conditions, mechanisms, influences, and processes evolving into a creative behavior in music, based on interdisciplinary perspectives of the cognitive sciences.In his research study, Sebastian Schmidt focuses on so-called musical extrapolations' processes which bring the elusive quality of music into mental existence by creating extrapolations about possible future occurring events, their musical meanings, and the interrelations of their meanings. These processes, involved while music is being listened to and composed, are defined as the result of implicit and explicit problem-solving processes which are guided in tangible ways by factors of intrinsic activities and motivation, pre-disposed and experience-based structures, and environmental pressure. Contents Perspectives of Developmental Psychology - Between Pre-disposed Structures and Musical Experience Perspectives on Creativity in General and while Music is being Listened to and Composed At the very Heart (of Music) The Model of Musical Extrapolations - Basic Factors and their Inter-dependencies Perspectives of Investigation Based on the Outlined Model of Musical Extrapolations Target Groups Lecturers and students of media sciences Media researcher, systematic musicologists, educational psychologists, and creativity researcher About the Author Sebastian Schmidt received his doctorate at the University of Music in Karlsruhe, Germany. His research specializes in the tension field between musicology, music theory,and the cognitive sciences

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the security commitment it entails are cornerstones of the current international order. Despite this centrality, international relations scholarship is ill equipped to explain the origin of the American commitment to Europe in the form of a long-term, peacetime military presence. At the time, this disposition of military forces represented a historically novel practice. The rational and norm-oriented logics of action that characterize much international relations theory explain cooperation as proceeding from a foundation of given interests. This perspective constrains the ability of analysts to make sense of the dynamic nature and potential creativity of cooperative endeavors. Building on a pragmatist understanding of action, this paper conceptualizes cooperation as a contingent process, characterized by the reciprocal relationship of means and ends, through which actors' initially ambiguous interests become more concrete. The ends of cooperation emerge endogenously, and the potential for creativity is inherent in the process. This dynamic resulted in the specific form of the American commitment to Europe. A pragmatist account foregrounds agency and in doing so draws attention to important developments that traditional analyses may overlook or assume in the effort to reconstruct a pre-existing structure of interests as the basis for cooperation. By underlining the processual cast of action, this paper also helps recontextualize institutionalization as one step within a broader cooperative dynamic.

The "East German National Park Programme" of 1989/1990 was considered a coup de main, resulting in the immediate protection of 4.5% of the GDR's territory. The authors of this programme later described the approach and its success as "using a window of opportunity during the transition phase of state and nation." This leads to the question whether a state's transformation period constitutes a preferred time frame and momentum for spatial conservation success. Conservation efforts in Azerbaijan showed a similar success as the East German National Park Programme. In a country with the highest biodiversity in Europe, increasing the share of protected land from 5.0 % in 2001 to 10.3% in 2015 constitutes a remarkable achievement. Thus, the country became an interesting case study regarding the question whether "hot moments for conservation" exist in times of political and governmental changes, and if spatial success in nature conservation can be linked to political transformation. This thesis attempts to identify how the protected area (PA) network in Azerbaijan could be expanded by 100%, what achievements were made, and what conditions still need to be met for the quantitative and qualitative improvement of the PA network. To this end, I consider this increase under landscape-ecological, historical and institutional aspects. The local culture and political pre-sets in the country present additional issues for analysing the past 25 years of nature conservation in Azerbaijan. ; "Die Krise als Chance – Naturschutz in einer neuen Dimension", so lautet der Titel des 1999 erschienen Buches von M. Succow, H.D. Knapp und L. Jeschke. Die Autoren legen hierin erstmals die jüngere Geschichte des Naturschutzes in der Wendezeit Ostdeutschland umfassend dar. Basierend auf ihren Erfahrungen (wie der Unterschutzstellung von 4,5 % der Landfläche der DDR, dem so genannten Nationalparkprogramm von 1989/90) vertreten die Autoren dabei die These, dass in Zeiten gesellschaftlichen und politischen Umbruchs eines Staats und einer Nation gute Chancen für den Naturschutz im Allgemeinen wie auch die Ausweisung von Schutzgebieten im Speziellen bestehen. Seit dem Zusammenbruch der Sowjetunion sind die damit neu entstandenen Staaten wie Aserbaidschan, Kirgistan, oder Turkmenistan dramatischen sozialen, politischen und wirtschaftlichen Änderungen unterworfen. Der Übergang von einer zentralisierten Planwirtschaft zu Marktwirtschaft, die Dezentralisierung von Macht sowie ein grundlegender sozioökonomischer Wandel hatten großen Einfluss auf Landnutzung, Landmanagement und Schutzbemühungen in der gesamten Region. Am Beispiel von Aserbaidschan wird der Frage nachgegangen, ob Phasen der politischen Transformation einen bevorzugten Zeitrahmen und Impuls, ein "Window of Opportunity" für Naturschutz und die Ausweisung von Schutzgebieten darstellen. Denn, in einem Land mit der größten Biodiversität in Europa stellt der Anstieg der geschützten Landfläche von 5,0 % im Jahr 2001 auf 10,3 % im Jahr 2015 eine bemerkenswerte Leistung dar. Die vorliegende Dissertation identifiziert, wie das Netz geschützter Flächen in Aserbaidschan um 100 % erweitert werden konnte und welche Bedingungen für den quantitativen und qualitativen Ausbau des Schutzgebietssystems noch zu erfüllen sind. Vor diesem Hintergrund werden die historischen, landschaftsökologischen und institutionellen Rahmenbedingungen betrachtet und analysiert. Die kulturellen und politischen Gegebenheiten des Landes sind zusätzliche Ansatzpunkte für die Analyse des praktischen Flächennaturschutz in Aserbaidschan seit der Unabhängigkeit.

In the presence of the zero lower bound, standard business cycle models with a Taylor-type monetary policy rule are prone to equilibrium multiplicity. A drop in confidence can drive the economy into a liquidity trap without any change in fundamentals. Using a prototypical sticky-price model, I show that Ricardian fiscal spending rules that prevent real marginal costs from declining in the face of a confidence shock insulate the economy from such expectations-driven liquidity traps.

I show that the zero nominal interest rate bound may render it desirable for society to appoint a fiscally activist policy-maker who cares less about the stabilisation of government spending relative to inflation and output gap stabilisation than the private sector does. I work with a simple New Keynesian model where the government has to decide each period afresh about the optimal level of public consumption and the one period nominal interest rate. A fiscally activist policy-maker uses government spending more aggressively to stabilise inflation and the output gap in a liquidity trap than an authority with preferences identical to those of society as a whole would do. The appointment of an activist policy-maker corrects for discretionary authorities' disregard of the expectations channel, thereby reducing the welfare costs associated with zero bound events.

Recent years have seen an increasing interest among international relations scholars in applications of pragmatist thought. Few works, however, have gone beyond discussing the epistemological and methodological implications of pragmatism. This article draws on a pragmatist understanding of human action to develop a novel explanation of norm change in contexts not amenable to more common analytical approaches. Specifically, concepts derived from pragmatism help explain how the creative recombination of practices by actors in response to changes in the material and social context of action can transform largely tacit notions of appropriate behavior. The article demonstrates the value of the approach by explaining the origin of a common contemporary security practice unknown prior to the Second World War and incompatible with the then-prevailing norms of sovereignty: the long-term, peacetime presence of one state's military on the territory of another equally sovereign state.

I characterize optimal monetary and fiscal policy in a stochastic New Keynesian model when nominal interest rates may occasionally hit the zero lower bound. The benevolent policymaker controls the short-term nominal interest rate and the level of government spending. Under discretionary policy, accounting for fiscal stabilization policy eliminates to a large extent the welfare losses associated with the presence of the zero bound. Under commitment, the gains associated with the use of the fiscal policy tool remain modest, even though fiscal stabilization policy is part of the optimal policy mix.