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donate Summary for Blätter 9/2008
Rolf Mützenich
Atomic shadows
The second nuclear age
The global spread of nuclear weapons demonstrates that disarmament is more urgent than ever. Rolf Mützenich, expert on disarmament and member of German parliament (SPD), argues that both the USA and Russia are responsible for the proliferation of nuclear weapons by not fullfilling disarmament agreements.
Volker Perthes
Iran's rationality
The politics of a regional power
The conflict over Iran's nuclear programm has increasingly come to dominate world politics. While many political analysts see Iran as a potentially irrational – and therefore highly dangerous – actor, Volker Perthes, director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin, shows how the Iranian regime's politics is driven by its rational intersts as a regional power.
James K. Galbraith
The failure of monetarism
Milton Friedman's theory on the global financal crisis
Monetarism, i.e. the stable value of money as a central device of policy, is at the heart of Milton Friedman's economic theory. However, the success story of this theory in the media and politics is merely due to its sheer simplicity, says renowned American economist James K. Galbraith. According to Galbraith, the ongoing financial crisis demonstrates daily that we need more market control and political intervention instead of more Friedman.
Heribert Prantl
The dark side of prevention
Practices of the surveillance state
Public video control, online surveillance and gene data... the political plans concerning ever-growing safety bring us closer to "Big Brother" every day. Heribert Prantl, journalist for Germany's leading newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, analyses so-called crime prevention as an all-encompassing attack on citizens rights.
Roland Roth and Dieter Rucht
Movement republic of Germany
The history of post-war Germany can be interpreted as a "history of social movements". Roland Roth and Dieter Rucht analyse the history and the political impact of new social movements in Germany from 1949 to 2009. What is the future, they ask, of social movements in Germany?
Stefanie Ehmsen
Halfway to a half of heaven
Four decades New Women's Movement
Though rarely discussed, the "New Women's Movement" came into being in 1968 as well. It criticised the male-dominated student movement and argued that "the private is political". What are the results of this new beginning in gender politics? Stefanie Ehmsen, lecturer in political science at the Freie Universität Berlin, discusses women's movements' institutionalisation in both Germany and the United States. Her conclusion: gender equality still has a struggle ahead.
Jutta Roitsch
Restoration instead of Change
Education in crisis
The so-called dual system (internal apprenticeship and trading schools) is in a deep crisis. Journalist Jutta Roitsch (Frankfurter Rundschau) shows why every attempt to reform the system runs into numerous obstacles.
Published 2008-09-16
Original in German
Contributed by Blätter
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