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Inside Party Headquarters
Everyday life in the East German Socialist Unity Party revolved heavily around maintaining the “party line” in all areas of society, whether through direct authority or corruption. Spanning a long period of the GDR’s history, from 1946 through 1989, Rüdiger Bergien presents the first study that examines the complexities of the central party’s communist apparatus. He focuses on their role as ideological watchdogs, as they fostered an underbelly and “inner life” for their employees to integrate the party’s pillars throughout East German society. Inside Party Headquarters reviews not only the party’s modes power and state interaction, but also the processes of negotiation and disputation preceding formal Politburo decisions, advancing the available detail and discourse surrounding this formative and volatile stretch of German history.
Roadblocks to the Socialist Modernization Path and Transition
This open access book examines how different economic systems impacted the development of East Germany and Poland. Through comparing these countries while they were centrally planned socialist economies with the periods when they transitioned to capitalism, the inability of socialist economies to modernize effectively and produce sustained economic growth is highlighted. Particular attention is given the role of technological progress in economic growth, peculiar institutions, the creation and transfer of knowledge, and post-socialist transformations. The book presents a detailed analysis of the barriers to modernization and growth implied by Soviet-type state socialism and the differences and similarities between the transition of East Germany and Poland to capitalist market economies. It will be relevant to students and researchers interested in comparative systems and the political economy.
Higher Education in Africa
The idea that developing all sectors of the educational palette is influential for socio-economic development was adopted later in Sub-Saharan Africa than in other world regions. Most efforts went primarily into developing the first stages of education, and rightly so, for many children could not access education at all. Today, all African governments recognize the importance of higher education and increasingly invest in it. They are facing two major, interlinked challenges: rapid population growth and decline in the quality of education. Indeed, despite fertility decline, the region has been confronted with substantial population growth, which will continue for many decades; as such, there is a necessity to increase investment in education. This, in a situation of limited resources, has been at the expense of the quality and the burgeoning of private institutions of higher education. The contributions here discuss the development, quality, and outcomes of higher education in Africa, with a specific focus on relations between Africa and Europe. Issues related to the mobility of African students and scholars are discussed in several national and international case studies.
Elite Cohesion in Mediatized Politics
This book presents the first comprehensive analysis of the political communication elite- high-ranking journalists, editors, politicians and their communication advisors - that shapes the content and form of political messages, news, debate and decisions in modern democracies. Based on an innovative combination of elite theory and political communication studies, the book develops an integrated and comprehensive approach to elite cohesion in political communication, focusing on the extent and patterns of attitudinal consonance among media and political elites. Building on unique survey data from more than 1,500 high-ranking politicians and journalists in six European countries (Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Austria, France and Spain), the book provides unique insights into current reality of mediatized politics, and the key players shaping it.
Handbook of Meta-Research
A collective project arising from a dynamic configuration of research concerned with systematic, critical and reflexive inquiry into the normative frames, institutional workings and lived realities of research, this dexterously-crafted Handbook acts as a working guide to the rapidly-evolving interdisciplinary field of meta-research. Bringing together cutting-edge multidisciplinary scholarship, it expertly outlines key domains including the public value, policy and governance of research, knowledge dynamics, and research cultures and careers. This title contains one or more Open Access chapters.
How Computers Entered the Classroom, 1960–2000
In the history of education, the question of how computers were introduced into European classrooms has so far been largely neglected. This edited volume strives to address this gap. The contributions shed light on the computerization of education from a historical perspective, by attending closely to the different actors involved – such as politicians, computer manufacturers, teachers, and students –, political rationales and ideologies, as well as financial, political, or organizational structures and relations. The case studies highlight differences in political and economic power, as well as in ideological reasoning and the priorities set by different stakeholders in the process of introducing computers into education. However, the contributions also demonstrate that simple cold war narratives fail to capture the complex dynamics and entanglements in the history of computers as an educational technology and a subject taught in schools. The edited volume thus provides a comprehensive historical understanding of the role of education in an emerging digital society.
Bringing Culture to the Masses
Cultural life in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) was strictly controlled by the ruling party, the SED, who attempted to dictate how people spent their free time by prohibiting privately organized leisure time pursuits and offering instead cultural activities in state institutions and organizations. By exploring the nature of dictatorial rule in the GDR and analysing the population’s engagement with state-organized cultural activity, this book challenges the current assumptions about the GDR’s social and institutional history that ignore the interaction and inter-dependence between ‘rulers’ and ‘ruled’. The author argues that the people’s cultural life in the GDR developed a dynamic of its own; it was determined by their own interests and by the input of cultural functionaries, who often aimed to satisfy popular demands, even if they were at odds with the SED’s cultural policy. Gradually, these developments affected SED cultural policy, which in the 1960s became less focused on educationalist goals and increasingly oriented towards popular interests.
Is Star Trek Utopia?
Star Trek has transcended science fiction through its use of elements that have crucial roles in classical utopian tradition. New technologies change a civilization, a miniature society unfolds on a spaceship, and an android teaches humanity. Star Trek has been answering many questions about our own world for 50+ years, and since the days of Captain Kirk, the franchise has become one of the world's best-known cultural phenomena. This book documents what the Star Trek franchise has in common with classic utopias. Chapters analyze how technology changes society and how the Federation embodies utopian ideals. Also explored are the political relations among alien species that reflect past and present conflicts in our real world and how the Borg resembles an anti-utopian society.
Red Prometheus
This analysis of the relationship between science and totalitarian rule in one of the most technically advanced countries in the East bloc examines professional autonomy under dictatorship and the place of technology in Communist ideology. In Cold War-era East Germany, the German tradition of science-based technology merged with a socialist system that made technological progress central to its ideology. Technology became an important part of East German socialist identity--crucial to how Communists saw their system and how citizens saw their state. In Red Prometheus, Dolores Augustine examines the relationship between a dictatorial system and the scientific and engineering communities in Ea...
Building on Progress
This publication provides a comprehensive compendium of the current state of Germany’s research infrastructure in the social, economic, and behavioural sciences. In addition, the book presents detailed discussions of the current needs of empirical researchers in these fields as well as of opportunities for future development. The importance of solid data for both public policy and the social and economic sciences is obvious. Today, empirical research is essential in finding solutions to many of the major challenges our society faces, such as environmental change, turbulent financial markets, and population growth. Based on 68 advisory reports by more than 100 internationally recognised authors from a wide range of fields, the book provides recommendations by the German Data Forum (RatSWD) on how to improve the research infrastructure so as to create conditions ideal for making Germany’s social, economic, and behavioural sciences more innovative and internationally competitive.
