Munich Social Science Review Mssr Volume 5

This volume continues the discussion of the Dutch project of “improving democracy” of Munich Social Science Review (MSSR), Volume 3, and the theoretical and empirical analysis of the issue of democracy in general. It concludes with four shorter contributions discussing Katharina Kohl’s art work “Questioning the Personnel” (Personalbefragung) which, as pointed out by Claudia Postel, “refers to the relations of power in democracy. ...Through Katharina Kohl’s work, the NSU murder series and the collective failure of the institutions responsible for safeguarding democracy and its citizens have been rescued from oblivion to serve as a means of education and enlightenment – in the sense of strategic decisions for a future-orientated change management.” Dieser Band setzt die Diskussion des niederländischen Projekts, die „Demokratie zu verbessern“, aus Volume 3 der Munich Social Science Review (MSSR) fort und liefert einen generellen Beitrag zur theoretischen Analyse der Demokratie und demokratischer Institutionen. Er schließt mit vier kürzeren Artikeln zu Katherina Kohls künstlerischer Arbeit „Personalbefragung“. Diese Arbeit, so führt Claudia Postel in ihrem Artikel aus, „bezieht sich auf Machtbeziehungen in der Demokratie...Durch Katharina Kohls Arbeit, wird die NSU-Mordserie und das kollektive Versagen der Institutionen, die die Demokratie und die Bürger schützen sollten, vor dem Vergessen bewahrt, um so der Bewusstseinsmachung und der Aufklärung dienen zu können.

This volume sets out with a discussion of the Dutch project of improving democracy and ends with a discussion of the Robot revolution. It contains contributions such as Peter Brouwer and Klaas Staal, The Future Viability of the Dutch Democracy; Hannu Nurmi, Remarks on “The Future Viability of the Dutch Democracy;” George Tsebelis and Jesse M. Crosson, Can the Dutch Electoral System be Improved Upon? Ryan Kendall, Decomposing Democracy: A Comment on “The Future Viability of the Dutch Democracy;” Peter Emerson, Can Rights Be Wrong? Towards a Less Majoritarian More Inclusive Democracy; Jan Oreský and Prokop Čech, Alternative Voting, Alternative Outcomes: 2018 Presidential Election in the Czech Republic; G. M. Peter Swann, Stalemate by Design? How Binary Voting Caused the Brexit Impasse of 2019; Florian Follert, Improving the Relationship between Citizens and Politicians; Sascha Kurz, Which Criteria Qualify Power Indices for Applications? - A Comment on “The Story of the Poor Public Good Index;” Matthias Weber, Thoughts on Voting Power and the Public Good Index; Claude Hillinger, The Case of Utilitarian Voting Christian Klamler, Utilitarian Voting - Some Empirical Evidence; Chris Hudson, Robots: Present and Future; and Bruce Morley, Robots Are Coming. Review of “John Hudson, The Robot Revolution: Understanding the Social and Economic Impact”

The volume has two main issues. One focuses on Mikael Agricola and his contribution to reformation in Finland and the Finnish language. The corresponding articles are Heidi Salmi, German Influence on the Finnish in Mikael Agricola, Jyrki Knuutila, The Impact of the Reformation on Finland from the Perspective of Finnish Students at Wittenberg University (1531–1633), and Andreas Pawlas, Mikael Agricola and the Finnish Identity. Is Mikael Agricola the root for the special link between Finland and Germany when it comes to culture and language? Kirsti Siitonen and Katri Annika Wessel contribute a report on the teaching and research of Finnish language and culture in German universities. The first university to offer modules in Finnish was the University of Greifswald, where teaching began in 1921. The second focus is on voting. The article by J. Antonio Seijas-Macias, Power Index of Finnish Parties: Evolution of the Parliament System, resumes methods and results presented in Manfred J. Holler’s A Priori Party Party Power and Government Formation: Esimerkkinä Suomi published in Volume 1 of FGY-PE. Holler’s analysis ended in 1978 when his article was first published. Seijas-Macias’ article is accompanied by two studies of recent elections in Finland and Germany: Lasse Nurmi and Hannu Nurmi, From Center-Right to Center-Left: The 2019 Parliamentary Election in Finland, and Christoph Dörffel, Andreas Freytag, and Miriam Kautz, The 2019 State Election in Thuringia and the Populist Threat. There are ob-vious differences but also simularities. – Back to the beginning of this volume. Jussi Pajunen and Mikko Karjalainen’s article analyzes a rather dark chapter of Finnish-German cooperation, the Finnish volunteer battalion of the Waffen SS in 1941-1943.

This timely book presents a critique of binary majority rule and provides insights into why, in many instances, the outcome of a two-option ballot does not accurately reflect the will of the people. Based on the author's first-hand experience, majority-voting is argued to be a catalyst of populism and its divisive outcomes have prompted countless disputes throughout Europe and Asia. In like manner, simple majority rule is seen as a cause of conflict in war zones, and of dysfunction in so-called stable democracies. In order to safeguard democracy, an all-party power-sharing approach is proposed, which would make populism less attractive to voters and governments alike. In geographically arranged chapters, well-tested alternative voting procedures (e. g. non-majoritarian Modified Borda Count) are presented in case studies of Northern Ireland, Central Europe, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Russia, China, North Korea and Mongolia.

In this volume Iurie Stamati analyzes the archaeological discourse on the place of the old Slavs in the medieval history of Moldova of the Soviet period.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Ant Algorithms, ANTS 2002, held in Brussels, Belgium in September 2002. The 17 revised full papers, 11 short papers, and extended poster abstracts presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 52 submissions. The papers deal with theoretical and foundational aspects and a variety of new variants of ant algorithms as well as with a broad variety of optimization applications in networking and operations research. All in all, this book presents the state of the art in research and development in the emerging field of ant algorithms