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Konzepte für die zukünftige institutionelle und organisatorische Ausgestaltung des Schienenpersonenverkehrs in Deutschland
No full textBetween Civilianization and Cyborganization – a ‘Zeitenwende’ in Depicting German Soldiers on Facebook?
No full textAfter WW2 topics related to the military are sensitive issues in Germany. The civil society is still suspicious regarding armed operations (Jacobs & Pötzschke 2021) and the use of military force. Thus, in his studies on heroism Koch (2021) notices a “trend to civilize the military hero” in Germany: Soldiers may still be presented as strong individuals with exceptional skills, but meanwhile avoiding the use offorce and appear as helper. On the other hand, Shim & Stengel (2017) observe a ‘cyborganization’ of German soldiers, a strong display of technology and weaponry, in the pictures of the Afghanistan mission published by the Bundeswehr. Overall, only few studies deal with the self-representation of the Bundeswehr – and even less with the depiction of German soldiers and armed forces nowadays.However, this is of high interest, because when Russia fully invaded Ukraine in 2022, Chancellor Scholz declared a ‘Zeitenwende’ and correspondingly the political and societal awareness of the military shifted (Graf 2023): The German minister of defense e.g. claimed to get the Bundeswehr combat-ready.Therefore, the question rises, if also the way in which the military represents itself changed. Thus, this contribution proves if Koch’s thesis about the civilianization of military heroes is valid for the selfrepresentation of the Bundeswehr nowadays or if weaponry gains relevance. A visual framing analysis of pictures and videos published by the Bundeswehr on Facebook after March 2022 shows the soldiers are still depicted as helpers in need, but also technical representations gain relevance. This can ease the society’s growing feeling of insecurity, because emphasizing technical aspects insinuates control (Shim & Stengel 2017). Finally, the visual self-representation of the Bundeswehr on Facebook equally addressesthe attempt to avoid armed force and to maintain control in uncertain times
The Logic of Connective Faction: How Digitally-Networked Elites and Hyper-Partisan Media Radicalize Politics
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Abschlussbericht für DFG Projekt "A 'gold standard' of institutional assessment? Operationalizing and explaining political biases in large numbers of international organization evaluation reports"
No full textThis research project examined the role of political influences in evaluation processes within international organizations (IOs). Evaluations are widely used as tools for accountability and learning, but concerns have been raised about their neutrality and independence. While previous research has largely relied on perception-based evidence, this study systematically analysed the content of evaluation reports to assess whether political biases shape evaluation findings and recommendations. At the core of the project was a quantitative content analysis of 1,082 evaluation reports. Based on novel conceptualizations of evaluation biases and using a state-of-the-art fine-tuned BERT language model, nearly one million sentences from these reports were classified as positive, neutral, or negative. Additionally, the recommendations given in a sample of 240 evaluation reports were manually coded regarding the type and depth of recommendations given. Findings show on the one hand that evaluation findings—the assessments of IO performance—do not exhibit systematic biases based on whether evaluation units (in terms of their budget, staffing and agenda) are controlled by IO administrations or member states. Evaluation recommendations on the other hand, do reflect stakeholder influence. Reports from IO administration-controlled evaluation units contained broader, less specific recommendations that tended to favour increasing organizational resources while avoiding proposals for additional oversight. In contrast, member state-controlled evaluations were more targeted and focused on strengthening accountability mechanisms. These patterns suggest that political considerations influence how evaluation results are translated into policy recommendations. Another key finding concerns the role of the commissioning entity. Evaluations commissioned by decentralized operational units, which are closely involved in project/program implementation, tended to be systematically more positive than those conducted by independent central evaluation units. This suggests that decentralized evaluations may be subject to direct or indirect pressure to present findings in a more favourable light.All data and the language model were published. Substantive findings were presented at conferences and published in a book with Oxford University Press and in leading journals of political science (with peer review). Beyond academic contributions, the project was characterized by intensive exchange with practitioners. Regular consultations were held with evaluation professionals from the UN system, development agencies, and international organizations. Key findings were presented to the UN Evaluation Group and shared in various practitioner networks to ensure that the research remained relevant for those working directly with evaluation processes
Distinguishing Next Society
No full textNext society differs from modern society in its use of electronic and digital media. Computers – encompassing platforms, programmes, algorithms and machine learning models – are beginning to participate in communication in a way that were previously exclusive to humans. This paper explores the concept of ‘interpenetration’, the mutual accessibility of the complexity among social systems, psychic systems and computers, to examine the distinctions that will shape this next society. Three key distinctions emerge: the distinction of communication between the local and the global, of perception between seeking irritants and protecting against them, and of the computer between predictive data and data space. Together, these distinctions define the ‘reality’ of the next society. A calculus of medium and form describes the operation that differentiates and reproduces this society: while its forms are unstable, its medium remains stable. Ultimately, the communication of digital data both constitutes and reproduces the next society. Data complement values as the two connective media of society – one operating at the normative, the other at the cognitive level
Layoff Announcements of German Listed (Family) Firms
No full textThe dissertation analyzes layoff announcements of 273 German listed (family) firms and their capital market effects for the period from 2000 to 2020. The empirical results show that the German capital market differentiates between shareholder identity, characteristics and motivations of layoff plans. Family blockholders are seen as valuable for corporate governance, with family ownership as decisive element. Family blockholders are typically strongly invested in the family firm, hence not diversified. The long-term orientation and risk-aversity is also reflected in a more conservative financial policy. Family firms announce less layoff plans, and if so, in a more consensus-oriented manner. The high value of human capital is also recognized by the capital market, perceiving higher layoff ratios more negatively in family firms. Basis of this dissertation is a hand-collected dataset of shareholder structures in Germany, for which layoff announcements were collected and classified for the respective sample period. The dissertation applies an event study methodology, and controls for influencing factors via a cross-sectional regression