Humanities & Social Sciences

Der Zauber der Medien speist sich aus ihrem Geheimnis: Den Usern von heute sind Laptop, Smartphone oder Tablet eine Blackbox, die ihre Sinne im Bann hält und die Techniktricks im Inneren hinter einer opaken Oberfläche verbirgt. Doch solche Verzauberung ist nicht neu. Umihr auf die Spur zu kommen, nähert sich dieses Buch der Mediengeschichte der Zauberei an der Schwelle zwischen magischem Moment und Ent-Täuschung. Nicht seltenfolgt einer geradezu übernatürlich wirkenden Zaubervorführung die wissenschaftliche Erklärung und Offenlegung ihrer Tricks. Ein solcher Akt der Entzauberung mag zwar magische Momente als faulen Zauber demaskieren. Er rückt dafür jedoch die Technologien der Täuschung ins Rampenlicht: Erst die Ausnutzung physikalischer Gesetze, das Konstruieren mechanischer Zauberapparate und das Spiel mit der Wahrnehmung der Zuschauer machen deren ,Verzauberung’ möglich. Sie erlaubt, die Frage nach Wissen, dem medialen Zugriff auf unsere Sinne und dem sinnlichen Zugriff auf unsere Welt erneut zu stellen.

Long before the Swiss Criminal Code was enacted with its provisions on sentencing, the assessment of the specific punishment in individual cases was seen as the most difficult and demanding, but also the most important task of the court. The aim of this treatise is to examine the sentencing in In general and the ban on double use in particular, “to draw up a guide to a more verifiable sentencing system”. In the first part, Switzerland's sentencing law is examined in its historical, dogmatic and practical dimensions and condensed into a test program. In the second part, the ban on double use is discussed, analyzed and incorporated into the concept of sentencing developed in the first part.

The famous ‘Silk Roads’ have long evoked a romantic picture of travel through colourful civilizations that connected the western and eastern poles of Eurasia, facilitating the exchange of exotic luxury goods, peoples, pathogens and ideas. But how far back can we trace such interaction? Increasing evidence suggests considerable time-depth for Trans-Eurasian exchange, with the expanding urban networks of the Bronze Age at times anticipating later caravan routes. Tying the Threads of Eurasia applies advanced GIS modelling and critical social archaeology to carefully selected material remains from these earlier connections in order to understand and explain macro-scale processes of interaction in the wider ancient Near East between 3000 and 1500BC. Evidence related to precious stone, metal and textile objects found in Transcaucasia, eastern Anatolia and Central Asia are examined critically and spatially to provide new insights into changing socio-economic relations within and beyond these case-study regions. This book will be of interest to archaeologists and historians researching routes of exchange and interaction, macro-scale historical change or GIS approaches to archaeology, and to specialists of the Bronze Age Near East, especially Anatolia, the Caucasus, Central Asia and Iran.

Constant change is a permanent feature of contemporary European societies – not least in relation to their religious landscapes. This transformation is driven by various religious and socio-cultural factors, some of which are intertwined, in conflict, or mutually dependent upon each other: ongoing individualization, issues of gender identity and sexual orientation, digitalization and artificial intelligence, and ecological crises. In this context, religion is caught in the tension between several – sometimes opposing – forces, and progressive secularization meets the increasing public visibility of religion due to migration and religious pluralization. How can religions, with their moral, cultural, and symbolic reservoirs, contribute to holding diverse communities together, beyond national identity? Can religions promote the social cohesion of European societies? Can the imagination that drives different religious traditions provide religious and non- religious Europeans with resources to promote individual and collective change for the better? This 8th volume in the series EUARE LECTURES contains the six keynote lectures dealing with these – and many other – questions as these lectures were presented at the European Academy of Religion’s Annual Conference, organized by the Research Centre Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Society at the University of Vienna. Authors of these papers are Franz Fischler (Former EU Commissioner and President of the European Forum Alpbach), Grace Davie (University of Exeter), Isabella Guanzini (Catholic Private University of Linz), Rik Torfs (KU Leuven), Tariq Modood (University of Bristol), Hans Schelkshorn (University of Vienna).

Multiple refugee regimes govern the lives of forced migrants simultaneously but in an often conflicting way. As a mechanism of inclusion/exclusion, they tend to engender the violence they sought to dissipate. Protection and control channel agency through mechanisms of either tutelage and victimisation or criminalisation. This book contrasts multiple groups of refugees and refugee regimes, revealing the inherent coercive violence of refugee regimes, from displacement and expulsion, to stereotypification and exclusion in host countries, and academic knowledge essentialisation. This violence is international, national, society-based, internalised, and embodied - and it urgently needs due scholarly attention.

In Bolivia's plurinational conjuncture, novel political articulations, legal reform, and processes of collective identification converge in unprecedented efforts to 're-found' the country and transform its society. This ethnography explores the experiences of Afrodescendants in plurinational Bolivia and offers a fresh perspective on the social and political transformations shaping the country as a whole. Moritz Heck analyzes Afrobolivian social and cultural practices at the intersections of local communities, politics, and the law, shedding light on novel articulations of Afrobolivianity and evolving processes of collective identification. This study also contributes to broader anthropological debates on blackness and indigeneity in Latin America by pointing out their conceptual entanglements and continuous interactions in political and social practice.

What is at stake for how the Internet continues to evolve is the preservation of its integrity as a single network. In practice, its governance is neither centralised nor unitary; it is piecemeal and fragmented, with authoritative decision-making coming from different sources simultaneously: governments, businesses, international organisations, technical and academic experts, and civil society. Historically, the conditions for their interaction were rarely defined beyond basic technical coordination, due at first to the academic freedom granted to the researchers developing the network and, later on, to the sheer impossibility of controlling mushrooming Internet initiatives. Today, the search for global norms and rules for the Internet continues, be it for cybersecurity or artificial intelligence, amid processes fostering the supremacy of national approaches or the vitality of a pluralist environment with various stakeholders represented. This book provides an incisive analysis of the emergence and evolution of global Internet governance, unpacking the complexity of more than 300 governance arrangements, influential debates and political negotiations over four decades. Highly accessible, this book breaks new ground through a wide empirical exploration and a new conceptual approach to governance enactment in global issue domains. A tripartite framework is employed for revealing power dynamics, relying on: a) an extensive database of mechanisms of governance for the Internet at the global and regional level; b) an in-depth analysis of the evolution of actors and priorities over time; and c) a key set of dominant practices observed in the Internet governance communities. It explains continuity and change in Internet-related negotiations, opening up new directions for thinking and acting in this field.

Civil society has become an indispensable part of the global discourses on democratization, good governance, sustainable development, and security. Differing perspectives view civil society as a legitimizing actor, a critical partner, and even a serious challenger in these discourses. This paper examines the ways in which civil society actions contribute to Security Sector Governance and Reform (SSG/R) and Sustainable Development Goal-16 (SDG-16). It argues that civil society’s ability to make significant contributions to SSG/R and SDG-16 rests on the interplay between endogenous factors such as its plurality, robustness, and civility and exogenous variables such as the regime type, state capacity, and relations with security providers. The differing combinations of these factors enable civil society to perform three major roles: (1) an agent of democratic accountability and civilian oversight; (2) a space for new discourses on security and development; and (3) an alternative provider of people-oriented security. This paper uses case studies of the Philippines, Tunisia, and Somalia, among others, to show the variation in the performance of these roles, the gains achieved by civil society organizations (CSOs), and the limitations and challenges posed by their involvement. It argues that efforts of civil society to improve SSG help meet some of the targets of SDG-16 that relate to improving accountability, transparency, and participation. This paper concludes by examining the implications of civil society’s participation in the future sustainability of SSG/R as a framework and the progress toward the realization of SDG-16 and providing viable policy recommendations for actors at the international, state, and societal levels.

This open access publication outlines the underlying framework for gathering data on civic knowledge, attitudes, and engagement as well as contextual information, and it describes the assessment design for the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement’s (IEA) International Civic and Citizenship Education Study 2022. The IEA International Civic and Citizenship Study (ICCS) investigates how young people are prepared to undertake their roles as citizens in a range of countries in the second decade of the 21st century. ICCS 2022 is a continuation of two earlier IEA studies, ICCS 2009 and ICCS 2016, and, for the first time, this survey includes the option of a computer-based assessment. Responding to enduring and emerging challenges of educating young people in a world where contexts of democracy and civic participation continue to change, the study addresses issues related to young people’s engagement through digital technologies, migration and diversity, perceptions of the political system, global citizenship, and education for sustainable development. Over the past 50 years, IEA has conducted comparative research studies in a range of domains focusing on educational policies, practices, and outcomes in many countries around the world. Prior to ICCS 2022, IEA conducted four international comparative studies of civic and citizenship education, with a first survey implemented in 1971, a second one in 1999, third in 2009 and fourth in 2016. ICCS 2022 data will allow education systems to evaluate the strengths of educational policies, both internationally, and in a regional context, and to measure progress in achieving critical components of their educational policy agendas.

Web archives enjoy an increasing awareness and usefulness across a range of fields and disciplines, contributing to historical studies with archived web material, but also about the internet. Knowing how the web is imagined is essential for interpreting archived web material, especially during a highly transformative age in which technology advances at a rapid pace. This chapter investigates such a time of studying the Dutch web between 1994 and 2004, confirming that discourse surrounding the internet is appropriated differently. By means of a thematic analysis of a purposive sample of public media, the chapter presents 5 discursive themes that each reflect specific understandings of the Dutch web situated in a particular context, specified through social structure, scope, and time.

In dieser Arbeit wird die Bedeutung von Kosten untersucht, die im Rahmen einer Konkurrenzanalyse von Wettbewerbsunternehmen erfasst werden können. Der Autor stellt zunächst unterschiedliche Instrumente und Quellen vor, aus denen Informationen über Konkurrenten zu gewinnen sind. Die Bedeutung von Kosteninformationen über Wettbewerber wird empirisch mit Hilfe des Unternehmensplanspiels MARGA untersucht. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Unternehmen, die über eigene Kostenvorteile im Vergleich zu ihren Wettbewerbern informiert sind, ein anderes strategisches Entscheidungsverhalten zeigen. Sie sind wirtschaftlich erfolgreicher, als Unternehmen, die ihre Kostenvorteile nicht kennen. Abschließend wird daher die Berücksichtigung von Kosten in der Konkurrenzanalyse ausdrücklich empfohlen.

"This study uses unique firm-level data from EIBIS to identify EU firms' climate strategies and the firm characteristics associated with them. Through a clustering analysis, the these strategies are divided into five distinct clusters, in line with the correspondent literature. We then investigate the role of various firms' characteristics in their adoption based on a multi-logit regression. The findings show that almost half of the EU firms either adopt ""wait-and-see"" strategies or plan to invest in tackling climate change risks. More climate-friendly strategies appear to be positively associated with awareness of climate-related risks, especially with firms that see the transition to a low-carbon future as an opportunity. Similarly, those strategies are followed by large firms that are innovative, face fewer credit constraints and operate in an environment where there is a strong push for climate action from various stakeholders. These findings can guide policymakers on supporting firms' transformation to play their part, as an integral part of our society, in the road to a clean, affordable, and secure energy future."

Iran has one of the world’s highest rates of drug addiction, estimated to be between two and seven per cent of the entire population. This makes the questions this book asks all the more salient: what is the place of illegal substances in the politics of modern Iran? How have drugs affected the formation of the Iranian state and its power dynamics? And how have governmental attempts at controlling and regulating illicit drugs affected drug consumption and addiction? By answering these questions, Maziyar Ghiabi suggests that the Islamic Republic’s image as an inherently conservative state is not only misplaced and inaccurate, but in part a myth. In order to dispel this myth, he skilfully combines ethnographic narratives from drug users, vivid field observations from ‘under the bridge’, with archival material from the pre- and post-revolutionary era, statistics on drug arrests and interviews with public officials. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core at doi.org/10.1017/9781108567084.

Was geschieht mit der Stadt und dem urbanen Leben in Kriegszeiten? Dass Städte vom Krieg nie unberührt waren, ist offensichtlich, doch ist es ein Merkmal kriegerischer Gewalt spätestens ab 1914, dass die Grenzen der Front sich auflösen und zwischen der "Heimatfront", dem eigentlichen Kriegsgeschehen und dem Nachkrieg ein Kontinuum entsteht. Wie gestaltet sich unter diesen Bedingungen die kulturelle Produktion – zwischen privatem Notat und öffentlichem Auftritt, zwischen Zensur und propagandistischer Instrumentalisierung? Welche Art von Literatur entsteht in dieser Situation, und welche Art von Literatur reflektiert sie im Rückblick? Auf welche Weise wird die Stadt zum ideologischen Schlachtfeld – nicht zuletzt auch im Ringen um den Entwurf einer Nachkriegskunst und -gesellschaft? Wie unterscheiden sich Großstädte, die während des Kriegs okkupiert sind, von solchen, die nah, und solchen, die fern dem Kampfgeschehen liegen? Wie wirkt sich die Kriegserfahrung, die an vielen Orten nach Kriegsende in Bürgerkriegszustände übergeht, auf die urbane Kultur der Nachkriegszeit aus? Solchen Fragen gehen die Beiträge dieses Bandes in einer vergleichenden europäischen Perspektive für die Zeit von 1914 bis 1945 nach.; Was geschieht mit der Stadt und dem urbanen Leben in Kriegszeiten? Dass Städte vom Krieg nie unberührt waren, ist offensichtlich, doch ist es ein Merkmal kriegerischer Gewalt spätestens ab 1914, dass die Grenzen der Front sich auflösen und zwischen der "Heimatfront", dem eigentlichen Kriegsgeschehen und dem Nachkrieg ein Kontinuum entsteht. Wie gestaltet sich unter diesen Bedingungen die kulturelle Produktion – zwischen privatem Notat und öffentlichem Auftritt, zwischen Zensur und propagandistischer Instrumentalisierung? Welche Art von Literatur entsteht in dieser Situation, und welche Art von Literatur reflektiert sie im Rückblick? Auf welche Weise wird die Stadt zum ideologischen Schlachtfeld – nicht zuletzt auch im Ringen um den Entwurf einer Nachkriegskunst und -gesellschaft? Wie unterscheiden sich Großstädte, die während des Kriegs okkupiert sind, von solchen, die nah, und solchen, die fern dem Kampfgeschehen liegen? Wie wirkt sich die Kriegserfahrung, die an vielen Orten nach Kriegsende in Bürgerkriegszustände übergeht, auf die urbane Kultur der Nachkriegszeit aus? Solchen Fragen gehen die Beiträge dieses Bandes in einer vergleichenden europäischen Perspektive für die Zeit von 1914 bis 1945 nach.

Nature minimizes the hazards, while man maximizes them. This is not an assumption, but a basic idea of the findings of scientists from all over the world. The last two centuries have witnessed the indiscriminate development and overexploitation of natural resources by man causing alterations and impairment of our own environment. Environmental contamination is the result of the irrational use of resources at the wrong place and at the wrong time. Environmental contamination has changed the lifestyle of people virtually all over the world, and has reduced the extent of life on earth. Today, we are bound to compromises with such environmental conditions, which was not anticipated for the sustenance of humanity and other life forms. Let us find out the problem and its management within this book.