Suchergebnisse

Discusses the motivations & consequences of the decision of 14 member states of the European Union (EU) to bring sanctions against Austria's 2000 coalition government between the People's Party & the Freedom Party. It is maintained that the "EU 14" had no consistent policy in regard to the sanctions, nor is there any evidence to support the widely held Austrian belief in a conspiracy of the Socialist International. Domestic motives that influenced Belgium, France, & Germany's support of the boycott are examined, along with internal factors that led nations like Denmark to challenge its wisdom. The impact of the conflict between "big" & "small states" is discussed, along with the EU's behavior as a structure with multiple institutions, & the role of Austria itself in the sanction measures. However, even if the boycott was encouraged by the Austrian side, the threats did not prevent formation of Austria's coalition government & the sanctions had little impact on the average citizen or Austrian domestic policy. Potential damage to the EU resulting from the "sanctions affair" is discussed. J. Lindroth

In 2005 hopes for closer European integration were dealt a potentially fatal blow when French and Dutch voters rejected the proposed new European Union constitution. Going beyond the instant analysis of journalists, which placed blame for the failed vote on the two nations’ internal politics, Democracy Needs Dispute examines a collection of media accounts of European policy debates to argue that the problem with the EU is its relative lack of vibrant political conflict. Democracy Needs Dispute offers both up-to-date analysis and a rich theoretical understanding of the problems facing further efforts at European integration. Die Ablehnung der EU-Verfassung in Frankreich und den Niederlanden brachte den Konstitutionalisierungsprozess Europas zu einem abrupten Halt. In diesem Band werden die Gründe für das Scheitern der Volksabstimmungen analysiert und die Mediendebatten untersucht, die dem Abstimmungsprozess folgten.

Presents a genealogy of Eurocentric responses to the question of representation in art & culture to indicate how the new cultural politics of difference is currently building on prior positions on this issue. Both Matthew Arnold & T. S. Eliot sought to construct a Highbrow culture that might act as a higher authority by which to establish standards of cultural representation. US dominance of the cultural market in the post-WWII period signaled a challenge to the white elite's embrace of an eroding highbrow European culture. The decolonization of the Third World produced another significant blow to Arnold's & Eliot's projects. The black diaspora inaugurated by decolonization cast the issue of cultural representation into sharp relief. Issues of hybridity & identity have traversed long-standing catgories of race, class, & gender to create a crisis in representational practices. The cultural workers of the new politics of difference are encouraged to develop strategies that at once explode dominant cultural identities & offer new terms by which people may come together. D. M. Smith

"Besides monitoring and threatening taxpayers with penalties, the cultivation of their attitudes towards taxation is a topic of immediate interest. The importance of tax morality, meaning taxpayers' honesty in taxation, has been confirmed in current research. However, this is nothing new. In 1927 the economist and sociologist Otto Veit published a fiscal sociological study on this very topic. Veit suggests an extensive economic approach of studying tax morality which is thoroughly based on philosophical and contemporary sociological concepts. In his approach, tax morality is an endogenous variable which depends on the behaviour of the individuals concerned. These individuals are tax legislators, tax administrators, and taxpayers. Tax morality is influenced not only by the technical design of a tax system and by law enforcement, e.g. monitoring, whistle blowing, and punishment, but also by social, political, and cultural factors. In this article, Veit and his work on tax morality are presented. Firstly, Veit will be introduced as a fiscal sociologist. Then, his approach of studying tax morality and its philosophical and sociological foundation will be explained. Finally, conformity with Schmölders' approach in the 1950s and 1960s and with very current research on tax morality will be demonstrated. It is the basic message of this article that some of Veit's ideas are of immediate relevance and worth making use of." (author's abstract)