Deutsch-italienische Wissenschaftsbeziehungen im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert — Dimensionen und Perspektiven

The scientific interrelationships between Italy and Germany in the 18th and 19th centuries — a hitherto neglected area of research — are discussed in an overview according to the following ten dimensions: language knowledge and translations; reviews and bibliographies; library content; personal contents and correspondance; travel reports and travel guides; diaries and autobiographies; university studies and research sojourns; membership in academies and scientific societies; practical and theoretical resonance; comparisons to other countries. This approach, which has to be concretized in future studies, promises at the same time general insights into the logic of science and its progress.     

Mapping Market Areas Using Nonparametric Smoothing

A new method is proposed to map firms' principal market areas using shipment data. The new method is a general one which could prove just as useful in mapping the incidence of disease as in mapping market areas. This method is applied to agricultural data for feeder cattle sales at a video cattle auction. Transportation costs appear to be the main determinant of market area boundaries, but there are many cases where transportation costs alone cannot explain the market areas found. The size and shape of market areas for feeder cattle buyers are large, irregularly shaped, and extensively overlapping.     

Pālisamaya und Sanskritsamāja

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Is Morality Policy Different? Testing Sectoral and Institutional Explanations of Policy Change

We analyze morality policy change from the perspective of punctuated equilibrium theory (PET) to test whether reform dynamics in this policy sector follow a distinct pattern. First, we propose a new measurement scheme capturing changes in the intensity of morality policy output. Second, we demonstrate that morality policy change is strongly punctuated. Finally, and most importantly, we show that the degree of policy punctuations varies between different domains of morality policy, but not according to institutional features operating on the country level, supporting existing PET research, which has discovered similar domain‐specific dynamics in changes of public spending. Specifically, punctuations are particularly pronounced in areas of manifest morality policy, that is, policies characterized by strong value conflicts, whereas punctuations are less pronounced for latent morality policies, that is, policies in which other dimensions of conflict are present next to the value dimension. Significant differences in reform dynamics are neither discerned for countries belonging to the religious or the secular world, nor for countries with majoritarian or consensual democracies. The analysis relies on an original dataset capturing legislative changes in five manifest (abortion, euthanasia, prostitution, pornography, and homosexuality), and three latent morality policies (drugs, gambling, and handguns) in 19 European countries (1960–2010).     

From Blind Spot to Media Spotlight: Propaganda Policy,Media Activism and the Emergence of Protest Events in the Chinese Public Sphere

Abstract

In recent years, popular protest in China has emerged from a state of near-invisibility. Drawing on a diachronic analysis of news media coverage, this paper traces how a number of major protest events gradually entered the Chinese media’s spotlight and came to be portrayed in an increasingly protester-sympathising fashion over the course of the Hu-Wen administration. It argues that these changes were triggered by structural transformations of the Chinese public sphere, but underlines that deliberate policy choices by the political leadership served as a crucial agent of change. Facing proliferating unrest and an increasingly unimpeded flow of information, the central authorities have gradually shifted propaganda policy from a suppressive to a more proactive approach. They have thereby created critical opportunities for Internet users and investigative journalists to push the envelope further towards protester-sympathising accounts. The development is significant as there are good reasons to surmise that increased media coverage has exacerbated the dynamics of popular contention. Theoretically, it deserves to be noted that non-inevitable choices by an authoritarian leadership have led to an outcome in which media coverage of citizens who challenge the state on the streets has become substantially more frequent and positive than before.     

Could Cities in De-Industrialized Regions Become Hot Spots for Attracting Cultural Businesses? The Case of Media Industry in Halle an der Saale (Germany)

Policy-makers from many regions where old industrial structures in the field of manufacturing have collapsed are trying to stimulate entrepreneurial activities of businesses in the cultural industry. The question is whether this strategy could be successful. This article examines the strategy of supporting the sector of media industry (“MI”) by policy-makers in the region of Halle in East Germany, where a strong de-industrialization has taken place after the German reunification. Stimulated by the policy-makers' support measures, there actually was a remarkable development of MI. However, the number of MI firms and their employees did not further increase in recent years, after having reached a certain level. This illustrates the limits of political measures for turning a city's path of industrial development voluntarily.