Die Heider-Simmel-Studie (1944) in neueren Replikationen

More than sixty years ago Fritz Heider and Marianne Simmel conducted an experimental study, which can be seen as the starting point of attribution theory research. Moving symbols were shown during a short animated cartoon which Ss unanimously described as living objects (mostly people). This quite often quoted study has been replicated several times in Germany in the last few years. These replications show that (1) stories produced by Ss are formed by personal motivations of Ss, and that (2) content of stories can in part be attributed to the research settings and finally (3) it is shown in recent replications that Ss are surprisingly far less inclined to describe the symbols in terms of acting persons or animals than in the original study. Possible reasons for these results are discussed.     

Reflections on the Concept and Measurement of Global Civil Society

This paper argues that the current academic debate about global civil society has reached a point where some assessment or reflection could be useful for informing the course of future research in the field. Behind this call for an assessment is the very nature of the debate and emerging gaps and weaknesses that together produce a potential slow-down in generating new knowledge and understanding of global civil society. There are several shortcomings to the current research approach: the failure to take account of other civil society traditions; the failure to address the relationship between global civil society, conflict, and violence; and, most critically, the neglect of the notion of civility, both conceptually and empirically. The balance of the paper then explores the implications of this new assessment of global civil society research.     

Book reviews

As we have seen, there are great differences between the three books, both in the way demography is treated and in the way the issues are raised: the thematic outline is different, as are the methods used to tackle the many topics covered and the attitudes to the problems triggered by development trends.However, despite these differences, there is a stress throughout on the need to closely follow demographical behaviour and its importance for society as a whole. Thus, while certain trends are common to each of the three countries, future prospects are not quite the same, and there is a call for policy directions which reflect these differences. The underlying motive is not to condition trends (which past experience has shown to be little open to change) but rather to tackle promptly and effectively the problems which these give rise to.