"A well-documented and eminently readable examination of the tort reform debate in the United States."
-- "The Advocate"

"A compendium of defenses against decades of tort reform misinformation and disinformation, this monograph will best serve undergraduates as a library reference."
-- "The Law and Politics Book Review"

"This book is an important addition to the growing body of works . . . that consumer advocates and attorneys can use to defend the civil justice system in the legislatures, in courtrooms, and in the court of public opinion."
--"Trial Magazine"

Late night comedians and journalists eagerly seized upon the case of an elderly woman who sued McDonald's when she spilled hot coffee in her lap as a prime example of frivolous litigation. But as Rustad and Koenig argue, cases such as these are an incomplete and misleading characterization of tort law. Corporations have successfully waged a public relations battle to create the impression that most lawsuits are spurious, when in fact the opposite is true: tort law plays a crucial role in protecting consumers from dangerous and sometimes life-threatening hazards. Without legal remedies, corporations would suffer no penalty for choosing profits over public health and safely.

In Defense of Tort Law is the first book to systematically examine the social, legal and policy dimensions of the tort reform debate. This insightful analysis of solid empirical data looks beyond popular myths about frivolous lawsuits, and tackles a variety of contentious issues: Should punitive damages be capped? Who is favored by tort law? Who loses, and why?

Koenig and Rustad's detailed case study analysis also reveals disturbing genderinequities in a legal system that is largely dominated by men. Because women are disproportionately injured by medical products, impermissible HMO cost cutting, medical malpractice and sexual exploitation, restrictions on the rights to recovery in these fields inevitably creates gender injustice. Engaging and up to date, In Defense of Tort Law also identifies aspects of the current law that require further elaboration, including the need for measures to combat cybercrime against consumers.

This new volume presents a wealth of fresh data documenting and analyzing the different positions taken by governments in the development of the European Constitution. It examines how such decisions have substantial effects on the sovereignty of nation states and on the lives of citizens, independent of the ratification of a constitution. Few efforts have been made to document constitution building in a systematic and comparative manner, including the different steps and stages of this process. This book examines European Constitution-building by tracing the two-level policy formation process from the draft proposal of the European Convention until the Intergovernmental Conference, which finally adopted the document on the Constitution in June 2004. Following a tight comparative framework, it sheds light on reactions to the proposed constitution in the domestic arena of all the actors involved. It includes a chapter on each of the original ten member states and the fifteen accession states, plus key chapters on the European Commission and European Parliament. This book will be of strong interest to scholars and researchers of European Union politics, comparative politics, and policy-making.

George Tsebelis' veto players approach has become a prominent theory to analyze various research questions in political science. Studies that apply veto player theory deal with the impact of institutions and partisan preferences of legislative activity and policy outcomes. It is used to measure the degree of policy change and, thus, reform capacity in national and international political systems. This volume contains the analysis of leading scholars in the field on these topics and more recent developments regarding theoretical and empirical progress in the area of political reform-making. The contributions come from research areas of political science where veto player theory plays a significant role, including, positive political theory, legislative behavior and legislative decision-making in national and supra-national political systems, policy making and government formation. The contributors to this book add to the current scholarly and public debate on the role of veto players, making it of interest to scholars in political science and policy studies as well as policymakers worldwide.

"A well-documented and eminently readable examination of the tort reform debate in the United States."
-- "The Advocate"

"A compendium of defenses against decades of tort reform misinformation and disinformation, this monograph will best serve undergraduates as a library reference."
-- "The Law and Politics Book Review"

"This book is an important addition to the growing body of works . . . that consumer advocates and attorneys can use to defend the civil justice system in the legislatures, in courtrooms, and in the court of public opinion."
--"Trial Magazine"

Late night comedians and journalists eagerly seized upon the case of an elderly woman who sued McDonald's when she spilled hot coffee in her lap as a prime example of frivolous litigation. But as Rustad and Koenig argue, cases such as these are an incomplete and misleading characterization of tort law. Corporations have successfully waged a public relations battle to create the impression that most lawsuits are spurious, when in fact the opposite is true: tort law plays a crucial role in protecting consumers from dangerous and sometimes life-threatening hazards. Without legal remedies, corporations would suffer no penalty for choosing profits over public health and safely.

In Defense of Tort Law is the first book to systematically examine the social, legal and policy dimensions of the tort reform debate. This insightful analysis of solid empirical data looks beyond popular myths about frivolous lawsuits, and tackles a variety of contentious issues: Should punitive damages be capped? Who is favored by tort law? Who loses, and why?

Koenig and Rustad's detailed case study analysis also reveals disturbing genderinequities in a legal system that is largely dominated by men. Because women are disproportionately injured by medical products, impermissible HMO cost cutting, medical malpractice and sexual exploitation, restrictions on the rights to recovery in these fields inevitably creates gender injustice. Engaging and up to date, In Defense of Tort Law also identifies aspects of the current law that require further elaboration, including the need for measures to combat cybercrime against consumers.

In ten years 80 per cent of the legislation related to economics, maybe also to taxes and social aff airs, will be of Community origin." This declaration has been largely quoted, paraphrased and deformed by different authors, creating a persistent myth according to which 80% of the legislative activity of the national legislatures would soon be reduced to the simple transposition of European norms". This book addresses the topic of the scope and impact of Europeanization on national legislation, as a part of the Europeanization debate which raises normative concerns linked to the "democratic deficit" debate. The state of the art shows that there are many assumptions and claims on how European integration may affect national legislation and, more generally, domestic governance but that there is a lack of solid and comparative data to test them. The aim of the book is to give a solid and comparative insight into Europeanization focusing on effective outcomes in a systematic way. This book analyzes the period 1986-2008 and includes an introduction, a global overview of European legislative activities which set the background for Europeanization of national legislatures, 9 country contributions (8 EU member states + Switzerland) including systematic, comparative and standardized data, tables and figures, and a conclusion with a comparative analysis of the European and domestic reasons for Europeanization. All national contributions conclude that Europeanization of national legislation is much more limited than assumed in the literature and public debate. It is limited to 10 to 30% of laws (depending on the country), far less than the 80% predicted by Jacques Delors and mentioned daily by medias and public opinion leaders to demonstrate EU domination on member states. Beside that general statement, the various chapters propose a deep insight on EU constraint over national legislation, providing much information on the kind of laws and policies that are Europeanized, the evolution of this process through time, the impact of Europeanization on the balance of powers and the relations between majority and opposition at national level, the strategies developed by national institutions in that context, and many other issues, making the book of interest to academics and policy-makers concerned with Europeanization and national legislation.

European legislation affects countless aspects of daily life in modern Europe but just how does the European Union make such significant legislative decisions? How important are the formal decision-making procedures in defining decision outcomes and how important is the bargaining that takes place among the actors involved? Using a combination of detailed evidence and theoretical rigour, this volume addresses these questions and others that are central to understanding how the EU works in practice. It focuses on the practice of day-to-day decision-making in Brussels and the interactions that take place among the Member States in the Council and among the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament. A unique data set of actual Commission proposals are examined against which the authors develop, apply and test a range of explanatory models of decision-making, exemplifying how to study decision-making in other political systems using advanced theoretical tools and appropriate research design.

European legislation affects countless aspects of daily life in modern Europe but just how does the European Union make such significant legislative decisions? How important are the formal decision-making procedures in defining decision outcomes and how important is the bargaining that takes place among the actors involved? Using a combination of detailed evidence and theoretical rigour, this volume addresses these questions and others that are central to understanding how the EU works in practice. It focuses on the practice of day-to-day decision-making in Brussels and the interactions that take place among the Member States in the Council and among the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament. A unique data set of actual Commission proposals are examined against which the authors develop, apply and test a range of explanatory models of decision-making, exemplifying how to study decision-making in other political systems using advanced theoretical tools and appropriate research design.

Electrical neuroimaging is based on the analysis of brain electrical activity recorded from the human scalp with multichannel EEG. It offers enormous potential for the dynamic mapping of brain functions, and for the non-invasive diagnosis of neurological and psychiatric conditions. This authoritative reference gives a systematic overview of new electrical imaging methods, with a sound introduction to the basics of multichannel recording of EEG and event-related potential (ERP) data, as well as spatio-temporal analysis of the potential fields. The book enables researchers to measure valid data, select and apply appropriate analysis strategies, and avoid the most common mistakes when analyzing and interpreting EEG/ERP data. Importantly, it informs the research communities of the possibilities opened by these space-domain oriented approaches to the analysis of brain electrical activity, and of their potential to offer even more powerful diagnostic techniques when integrated with other clinically relevant data.

An original account of the importance of diverse forms of fiction in the early American republic-one that challenges the "rise of the novel" narrative What is the use of fiction? This question preoccupied writers in the early United States, where many cultural authorities insisted that fiction-reading would mislead readers about reality. Founded in Fiction argues that this suspicion made early American writers especially attuned to one of fiction's defining but often overlooked features-its fictionality. Thomas Koenigs shows how these writers explored the unique types of speculative knowledge that fiction could create as they sought to harness different varieties of fiction for a range of social and political projects. Spanning the years 1789-1861, Founded in Fiction challenges the "rise of novel" narrative that has long dominated the study of American fiction by highlighting how many of the texts that have often been considered the earliest American novels actually defined themselves in contrast to the novel. Their writers developed self-consciously extranovelistic varieties of fiction, as they attempted to reform political discourse, shape women's behavior, reconstruct a national past, and advance social criticism. Ambitious in scope, Founded in Fiction features original discussions of a wide range of canonical and lesser-known writers, including Hugh Henry Brackenridge, Royall Tyler, Charles Brockden Brown, Leonora Sansay, Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Montgomery Bird, George Lippard, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Jacobs. By reframing the history of the novel in the United States as a history of competing varieties of fiction, Founded in Fiction shows how these fictions structured American thinking about issues ranging from national politics to gendered authority to the intimate violence of slavery.

In ten years 80 per cent of the legislation related to economics, maybe also to taxes and social aff airs, will be of Community origin." This declaration has been largely quoted, paraphrased and deformed by different authors, creating a persistent myth according to which 80% of the legislative activity of the national legislatures would soon be reduced to the simple transposition of European norms". This book addresses the topic of the scope and impact of Europeanization on national legislation, as a part of the Europeanization debate which raises normative concerns linked to the "democratic deficit" debate. The state of the art shows that there are many assumptions and claims on how European integration may affect national legislation and, more generally, domestic governance but that there is a lack of solid and comparative data to test them. The aim of the book is to give a solid and comparative insight into Europeanization focusing on effective outcomes in a systematic way. This book analyzes the period 1986-2008 and includes an introduction, a global overview of European legislative activities which set the background for Europeanization of national legislatures, 9 country contributions (8 EU member states + Switzerland) including systematic, comparative and standardized data, tables and figures, and a conclusion with a comparative analysis of the European and domestic reasons for Europeanization. All national contributions conclude that Europeanization of national legislation is much more limited than assumed in the literature and public debate. It is limited to 10 to 30% of laws (depending on the country), far less than the 80% predicted by Jacques Delors and mentioned daily by medias and public opinion leaders to demonstrate EU domination on member states. Beside that general statement, the various chapters propose a deep insight on EU constraint over national legislation, providing much information on the kind of laws and policies that are Europeanized, the evolution of this process through time, the impact of Europeanization on the balance of powers and the relations between majority and opposition at national level, the strategies developed by national institutions in that context, and many other issues, making the book of interest to academics and policy-makers concerned with Europeanization and national legislation.

Vegetables are a significant component of agricultural farming systems in Africa and have recently moved into the focus of research organizations, development partners and policy makers. Beyond income generating opportunities for producers, vegetable production for domestic and export markets is an important driver for growth due to employment opportunities in production, processing and trade. Providing the latest socioeconomic research methodologies alongside empirical examples, this volume explores the potential for vegetable production to alleviate poverty, the impact of food production standards on various stakeholders, an assessment of markets and marketing potential for different crops and advanced economic approaches to production.

Dieses Buch vermittelt fundiertes Insiderwissen uber die sozialen, politischen und wirtschaftlichen Entwicklungen in China. Die Volksrepublik ist seit Jahrzehnten ein Markt, den kein Land oder Unternehmen mehr ignorieren kann. Chinas steigende Investitionen entlang der Seidenstrasse, sein Umgang mit einer die Welt erschutternden Pandemie, Handelskonflikte mit der EU oder den USA - das Grossthema China gewinnt taglich an Komplexitat. Deshalb ist eine fundierte, verstandliche Einordnung des Landes wichtiger denn je. Mit ihrer einzigartigen Kombination aus persoenlichem Erfahrungsbericht und objektiver Analyse oekonomischer Trends bieten die Autoren wertvolle Einsichten in das Leben und Arbeiten in China. Die 2. Auflage wurde umfassend aktualisiert und berucksichtigt auch die derzeitigen wirtschaftlichen Entwicklungen, wie zum Beispiel die neue deutsch China-Politik, wirtschaftliche Entkoppelungsszenarien, sowie die Ausweitung der chinesischen Industriepolitik mit direkten Auswirkungen auf die Wirtschaftsbeziehungen zu Deutschland. Das Buch ist der ideale Wegweiser fur alle, die mit China in Beruhrung kommen und neben dem wirtschaftlichen Erfolg auch das kulturell-soziale Miteinander verfolgen.

Diese Studie richtet sich an all diejenigen, die an der Transformation politischer Systeme im allgemeinen und an den Problemen der europaischen Integration im speziellen interessiert sind. Sie unterscheidet sich in theoretischer und empirischer Hinsicht von bisherigen Arbeiten zur europaischen Integration. Den Untersuchungen liegt nicht nur eine aussergewohnliche Datenbasis zugrunde, sondern es werden auch neue Methoden zur Berechnung von Machtverteilungen, zur Analyse von Gesetzgebungsprozessen und zur Modellierung von Verhandlungssituationen eingefuhrt.
In einem ersten Teil werden die Grunde fur die nationale und parlamentarische Integration am Beispiel der europaischen Institutionenpolitik aufgezeigt. Es liegen Verfahren vor, welche uber die Beteiligung des Europaischen Parlaments und uber die Absenkung des Entscheidungskriteriums im Ministerrat die formalen Voraussetzungen fur die Transformation in ein europaisches Mehrheitssystem schaffen. Im zweiten Teil werden die Konsequenzen dieser formalen Vorgaben fur die Handlungsfreiheit der Mitgliedsstaaten und die Parlamentarisierung europaischer Entscheidungen analysiert. Am Beispiel von reprasentativen Fallstudien wird gezeigt, wie Mitgliedstaaten, Kommission und Europaisches Parlament ihre unterschiedlichen Politikvorstellungen koordinieren. Letztlich gibt die Qualitat der Vereinbarungen Aufschluss, wie weit Europa auf dem Weg zum Mehrheitssstem vorangeschritten ist."

1m Vorwort einer Dissertation finden sieh in der Regel viele Angaben des Doktoranden iiber Beziehungen zu Bekannten, Freunden, Verwand ten, Kollegen und Professoren, die zum Gelingen der Doktorarbeit einen Beitrag geleistet haben. Dem Leser bleibt es dann haufig iiberlassen, die "wiehtigsten" Verbindungen zu identifizieren und eine Bewertung des vorgetragenen berufliehen Werdegangs vorzunehmen. Nur auf diesen ersten Seiten kann sieh der Leser - ungestort vom Analyseraster des Autors - eine eigene Meinung bilden; daher werden sie allgemein als der "nieht wissensehaftliehe" Vorspann einer Arbeit bezeiehnet und verfiihren das professionelle Publikum zum sofortigen Weiterblattern. Wie ist aber diese Leserreaktion zu interpretieren bzw. wie kann ihr schon aus Dankbarkeitsgriinden entgegengewirkt werden ? Eine Interpretationsmogliehkeit ware, daB die zahlreiehen und diffusen Angaben des Autors eine Bewertung nieht zulassen. Genauso konnte man vermuten, daB alle Promovenden die gleiehen Voraussetzungen haben und die Beziehungen eine "quantite negligeable" darstellen. Aus (sozial-)wissensehaftlieher Sieht konnen beide SehluBfolgerungen nieht iiberzeugen. Natiirlieh kann man zunaehst aussehlieBen, daB der Vorspann fUr einen Vergleieh mit anderen Promovenden geeignet bzw. der Autor an einem solchen interessiert ist. Festzuhalten bleibt jedoeh, daB die nieht-wissensehaftlichen Angaben des Autors kein iibermiiBiges Interesse beim Leser hervorrufen und eine Strategie entwiekelt werden muS, die das vorsehnelle Uberbliittern dieses Absehnitts verhindert. Abhilfe konnten sieherlieh systematisehere Hinweise iiber das Gelingen einer Promotion verspreehen, die das Interesse des Faehpublikums auf sieh ziehen. Dabei sollte auf Verfahren wie beispielsweise die Netzwerk analyse zuriiekgegriffen werden, die aueh im Mittelpunkt der folgenden Arbeit stehen."

For decades the European Union tried changing its institutions, but achieved only unsatisfying political compromises and modest, incremental treaty revisions. In late 2009, however, the EU was successfully reformed through the Treaty of Lisbon. "Reforming the European Union" examines how political leaders ratified this treaty against all odds and shows how this victory involved all stages of treaty reform negotiations--from the initial proposal to referendums in several European countries.

The authors emphasize the strategic role of political leadership and domestic politics, and they use state-of-the-art methodology, applying a comprehensive data set for actors' reform preferences. They look at how political leaders reacted to apparent failures of the process by recreating or changing the rules of the game. While domestic actors played a significant role in the process, their influence over the outcome was limited as leaders ignored negative referendums and plowed ahead with intended reforms. The book's empirical analyses shed light on critical episodes: strategic agenda setting during the European Convention, the choice of ratification instrument, intergovernmental bargaining dynamics, and the reaction of the German Council presidency to the negative referendums in France, the Netherlands, and Ireland.

For decades the European Union tried changing its institutions, but achieved only unsatisfying political compromises and modest, incremental treaty revisions. In late 2009, however, the EU was successfully reformed through the Treaty of Lisbon. "Reforming the European Union" examines how political leaders ratified this treaty against all odds and shows how this victory involved all stages of treaty reform negotiations--from the initial proposal to referendums in several European countries.

The authors emphasize the strategic role of political leadership and domestic politics, and they use state-of-the-art methodology, applying a comprehensive data set for actors' reform preferences. They look at how political leaders reacted to apparent failures of the process by recreating or changing the rules of the game. While domestic actors played a significant role in the process, their influence over the outcome was limited as leaders ignored negative referendums and plowed ahead with intended reforms. The book's empirical analyses shed light on critical episodes: strategic agenda setting during the European Convention, the choice of ratification instrument, intergovernmental bargaining dynamics, and the reaction of the German Council presidency to the negative referendums in France, the Netherlands, and Ireland.

Magisterarbeit aus dem Jahr 2004 im Fachbereich Geowissenschaften / Geographie - Wirtschaftsgeographie, Note: sehr gut, Rheinisch-Westfalische Technische Hochschule Aachen (Institut fur Angewandte Geographie der RWTH Aachen - Lehr- und Forschungsbereich Wirtschaftsgeographie der Dienstleistung), Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: Im Anschluss an die Einleitung wird in Kapitel 2 eine definitorische Abgrenzung der Grundbegriffe erarbeitet. Es werden die verschiedenen Dimensionen des EC und die Erscheinungsformen der Logistik dargestellt. Kapitel 3 geht auf die Hintergrunde und die Entwicklung des Internets ein, bevor in Kapitel 4 versucht wird, einen Zusammenhang zwischen der Old Economy und der Internet-Okonomie" herzustellen. Kapitel 5 stellt die Potentiale der Old Economy durch den Einsatz von EC anhand einer Literaturanalyse dar. Neben den unterschiedlichen Marketinginstrumenten und der Distributionslogistik einer Unternehmung werden die Risiken und Hemmnisse bei EC erlautert. Das Kapitel schliesst mit der Darstellung von EC-Potentialen in der Automobilindustrie und der Textilwirtschaft. Kapitel 6 stellt die Anwendung der gewonnenen Erkenntnisse des vorangegangenen Kapitels in den Mittelpunkt. Nach einer Einordnung von Integratoren wird analog zu Kapitel 5 versucht, Optimierungsansatze auf Grundlage der verschiedenartigen Potentiale zu erarbeiten. In Kapitel 7 werden Hypothesen fur die qualitativ empirische Untersuchung mittels ExpertInnengesprachen formuliert, Uberlegungen zum Analyseverfahren sowie der Interviewleitfaden vorgestellt. Basierend auf dem Leitfaden werden die Ergebnisse der empirischen Untersuchung dargestellt. Die Untersuchung gliedert sich in drei Teile. Im ersten Analyseblock stehen allgemeine Einschatzungen im Mittelpunkt. Der zweite Teil bezieht sich auf die Nutzung von EC im Unternehmen, bevor der letzte Teil die logistischen Zusammenhange analysiert. Kapitel 8 stellt die raumlichen Auswirkungen der Optimierungsansatze dar, und in Kapitel

Der Geisterwaldkatalog stellt eine Bibliographie aller nach 1945 in Deutschland (incl. DDR), sterreich und der Schweiz erschienenen Phantastik-Heftromane dar. Sammlern soll damit ein, in dieser Form bislang einmaliges, Werk an die Hand gegeben werden, in dem sie alle Hefte aufgelistet finden, Informationen zu einzelnen Serien erhalten, und nachvollziehen k nnen von welchen Autoren die einzelnen Hefte geschrieben wurden. Au erdem erhalten sie eine bersicht dar ber, welchen Wert ihre Sammlung besitzt. Hiermit liegt nun Band 1 - Horror/Grusel & Mysterie vor. Weitere Genre sollen folgen.

This new book presents a wealth of new data documenting and analyzing the different positions taken by European governments in the development of the European Constitution.
Understanding how constitutional decisions are taken in the EU is of great societal and scientific relevance. This volume examines how these decisions have substantial effects on the sovereignty of nation states and on the lives of citizens, independent of the ratification of a constitution. Few efforts have been made to document constitution building in a systematic and comparative manner, including the different steps and stages of this process. This book examines European Constitution-building by tracing the two-level policy formation process from the draft proposal of the European Convention until the Intergovernmental Conference, which finally adopted the document on the Constitution in June 2004. Following a tight comparative framework, it sheds light on reactions to the proposed constitution in the domestic arena of all the actors involved. The volume includes a chapter on each of the original ten member states and the fifteen accession states, plus chapters on the European Commission and European Parliament.
Building a clear understanding of the affects of constitutional decisions, this book will be of strong interest to scholars and researchers of European Union politics, comparative politics, and policy-making.