Browsing by Subject "Germany"

This Master thesis belongs to the project of the HELSUS Co-creation Lab. The project topic is about the circular economy and the challenge given by a HELSUS partner UPM-Kymmene Corporation to find opportunities for the circular economy business model from a legal perspective. As an international forest industry company, UPM has developed innovative ways to reduce its waste and to reuse its side in new products, and to use resources sustainably. Circular economy principles already applied in UPM, and develop and implement the technology and innovation of using wood in various new products. However, UPM wants to know what challenges and possibilities the regulations pose in creating new circular business opportunities? At the same time, this thesis chooses Germany and China for comparative research. Both countries have promulgated special circular economy legislation, established the 3R principles of reduce, reuse and recycle, stipulated extended producer responsibility systems, established waste recycling systems, and so on, aim to promote waste treatment and resource recycling legal system. However, the circular economy legal system of these two countries have apparent differences in legislative models, legislative purposes, and institutional arrangements. So, there are two purposes for writing this essay. First, explaining the historical evolution of the circular economy legal system in Germany and China, the objective is to understand the historical evolution of the circular economy law in two counties. Second, evaluative whether they are under circular economic aims in comparative research, the purpose of the comparison is not to determine which country's laws are more suitable for creating new business opportunities. It is to find out the challenges and possibilities of creating new circular business opportunities for UPM. Therefore, the research question is about: What are the challenges and possibilities of creating new business opportunities for UPM when compares the circular economy legal system between Germany and China?

The importance of the computer and information technology has increased significantly with the introduction of the Internet. The technologies should not be reduced to selling and purchasing functions but should also be used as research and business intelligence tool, as well as information source. This study compares the performances of the Finnish and German sawmilling & paper industry by evaluating their public communication. The forest sector has been traditionally important for the economy of both countries and they belong to the global players. In conjunction with the performance analysis, a neural network tool is compiled, optimized and tested. It combines a study related categorization application and the Kohonen’s self-organizing map (SOM). The objective of the automated categorization is to lower manual work and to evaluate text contents more accurately – by taking also the possible future use into account. The research includes two interlinked approaches: web page and performance analysis. The web page analysis compares the design and content of the forest industry companies’ Internet sites. In addition, it is used to select and define the relevant enterprises for the performance analysis. 14 Finnish and 10 German sawmills, as well as 5 Finnish and 12 German paper and paperboard producers fulfilled the research requirements (data collection 2013). The performance analysis is implemented by a content analysis and SOM Tool. The word count data of the content analysis is sorted with a customised classification frame based on the Global Reporting Initiative Guideline and evaluated with the SOM. The SOM algorithms reduce multidimensional, large and complex data to lower dimensional maps which visualizes the distribution of the companies’ performance categories. The results indicate that the business cultures of the selected companies are similar. A closer examination reveals that the clustering by sector is more emphasized that by country. The more detailed determination of the SOM divides the paper sector further by their origin. Most obvious are the differences between sawmill and Finnish paper industry. The sawmill sector highlights especially product, service and macro-environment related aspects. Small German sawmills emphasized further tradition and history The paper sector stressed social responsibility, corporate structure, external activities and environmental issues. Inside the paper sector, the Finnish companies point out corporate strategy, development, organizational profile categories and economical performances. The German paper sector highlights in particular environmental issues and public relation. The web page analysis and related studies evaluate the corresponding categories similarly to the present research and thus support the results of the SOM approach.

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, alternative online news media were predominately thought to spread false information on the coronavirus and heavily engage in conspiracy theories. The populist and far-right news outlets especially were said to strategically exploit people’s fears to further their own hate campaigns against migrants, political elites and the established media. This research aims to give a more detailed account of how five German populist far-right digital news outlets framed the ongoing crisis from January to May 2020 and managed to integrate the topic into their established narratives. For this qualitative content analysis, articles from the digital news sites of Compact, Junge Freiheit, Eigentümlich Frei, Deutsche Stimme and Zuerst were analysed regarding the topics, claims, actors and rhetoric devices that they used. The result of the study was that, rather than being swayed by strategic whims to exploit the crisis at all costs, the outlets relied on their established framing habits and were able to incorporate the crisis into all of their usual reporting. They were able to integrate the topic into overarching narratives, which not only confirmed worldviews held by their established reader base, but may also hold significant sway over new readers seeking reassurance in uncertain times. Finally, the thesis directed attention to the importance that language and presentation played in accomplishing this balancing act, establishing the need for further research on the language of the populist far right online.

Wealthy people of the world also referred to as “the 1%” have a growing influence on society and the economy. The wealthy can be divided into three major categories, the rich, the super-rich and the ultra-rich, which gives a basis to examine the influence of the wealthy. The aim of this study is to understand wealthy individuals and their investing behaviour on a general level and to examine Germany and Monaco on a deeper level. Wealthy individuals in Germany and Monaco include Christoph Gröner, Dieter Schwarz, Dirk Rossmann, Michael Otto, Monika Bacardi, Tatiana Casiraghi, Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc, and Stefano Pessina. The 1% equals 45 million adults globally whereas the 0,1% of the people equals to 4.5 million adults globally. The main investment categories of the wealthy include passion investments, real estate investments and mobility investments. Cultural capital theory and its three forms, embodied, objectified, and institutionalized states, are used to study and analyse the behaviour of the differences between the wealthy in Germany and Monaco. The data collection of this literature review consists of academic literature and articles on luxury, geographies of the super-rich, elite mobilities, wealth, and the super-rich, as well as, documentaries on the lifestyle of the wealthy in Germany and Monaco. The findings of this study suggest how the main categories of the wealthy have diverse investing and lifestyle behaviour. Strategies to increase or maintain an individual’s wealth includes tax havens, offshores, charitable organisations and investments. Bourdieu’s theory on cultural capital indicates how an individual’s background influences a person’s future but does not prevent people from lower-class backgrounds to achieve the same things as the people from upper classes.

This master's thesis examines how the statutory minimum wage reform introduced in 2015 has affected the German labor market structure and what conclusions can be drawn from it with an eye to the future. The purpose is to understand how the labor market has reacted and adapted to significantly increased labor costs in the short term. Additionally, we must consider the potential long-term adverse effects in Germany and the EU since we are gradually transitioning into an era of higher minimum wages. The topic of this thesis is partly motivated by the upcoming European minimum wage directive, whose main objective is to provide adequate working and living conditions for all European workers in the near future. The subject is also topical because the minimum wage's role is even more emphasized during the economic recession. The structure of the thesis is a literature review, and the latest scientific literature has been used as an aid in the analysis and interpretation of observations. The goal is also to find out where further research should be directed. The examination of the minimum wage effects is divided between the short, medium, and long term. The primary focus has been on evaluating the key adjustment channels behind the observed employment elasticities and to what extent these mechanisms could be utilized in future minimum wage reforms. In other words, how to efficiently avoid the possible harmful effects of the minimum wage. In the case of Germany, the focus is on the adjustment mechanisms (e.g., the price pass-through effect, a degree of monopsony power, reductions in working hours) used by firms and the employment market dynamics that could explain the relatively small-scale observed unemployment effects in the short and medium term, such as the degree of compliance with the policy and the level of market competition. The putty-clay model is used for the longer-term evaluation, where possible adverse effects are examined from the viewpoint of automation and digitalization. Examining the long-term effects is essential, but unfortunately, it has not yet been extensively studied. Evidence suggests that the current minimum wage development may accelerate capital-labor substitution and reduce the demand for low-skilled workers in automatable jobs. Because this development is slow, future research should concentrate on distinguishing between short-and long-term effects more effectively. At present, the long-term employment effects are still ambiguous and theoretical but potentially quite substantial due to investments in physical capital and technological solutions. Consequently, minimum wage increases and related policy adjustments should be made considering the country's economic reality.

This paper examines the energy policy development of three European Union member states of Finland, Germany and Poland before and after the Ukraine crisis of November 21st, 2013. The theory of securitization/desecuritization/riskification is used to examine if the crisis caused any changes in the perception of Russian energy, and if this had an effect on the domestic energy policy choices of the three member states. This paper will also look if the Energy Union can be considered a Regional Security Complex, built around the perceived threat or risk of Russian energy, and if this will lead to greater integration or disintegration of the EU. This paper is structured as a comparative case study where all the three member states energy policy developments before and after the crisis are compared to each other and analyzed. This paper finds that all of the three member states had very similar reactions to the Ukraine crisis, but only Finland and Poland saw any true changes in their energy policy choice making. Finland riskified Russian energy (especially gas and oil) but maintained their bilateral energy relations with Russia through partly state-owned companies, with the most prominent project being the Fennovoima nuclear power plant project. Finland has begun to move towards reducing Russian fossil fuels from their energy base, and is transitioning towards domestic wood-based biofuels, nuclear energy, renewables and energy connections with the Baltic states. Germany successfully desecuritized Russian energy after the crisis and continued their bilateral energy projects with Russia. The most prominent German-Russian energy project was the Nord Stream 2 project which like the Fennovoima project, is operated under state owned companies and has soured Germanys relations with Eastern EU member states. Polish reaction to the Ukraine crisis were the complete securitization of linked energy. The Polish government had overseen energy policy decisions in the past, but the crisis pushed them to take direct governmental control of energy policy and they intend to end the use of Russian energy altogether in the future. Poland also turned strongly against German energy policy line in the EU and has emerged as a staunch opposition to EU climate regulations, Nord Stream 2 project and bilateral energy trade with Russia. The Energy Union was shown not be a sign of a Regional Security Complex forming around Russian energy in the EU and will more likely lead to further disintegration of the EU energy policy as the conflicting energy security needs, and interpretations, will divide the EU on the issue of Russian energy.

After the September 11 attacks in 2001 the President of the United States, George W. Bush, declared a global war on terrorism – and a war to rescue the Afghan women from their terrorist men. Feminist scholars and activists worldwide criticized the Bush government for using feminist rhetoric to justify the war. However, the development of this discourse throughout the tiring years of warfare and the co-optation of the U.S. rhetoric by other coalition partner countries have been overlooked in the research. This thesis examines the gendered narratives and the women’s rights rhetoric of U.S. and German state officials in 2001−2002 and 2007−2008. The theoretical framework of this thesis is located on the diverse and interdisciplinary field of feminist security- and international relations studies. The research questions are: How was the Afghan war justified through gendered narratives and rhetorical tools? How did the deployment of women’s rights rhetoric change during and in-between this period? Were there some distinctions in the use of rhetoric and gendered categorizations between the U.S. and German administration officials, two countries with very different foreign policy traditions? The source material of this thesis consists mainly of speeches, press briefings, debates and statements given by the state officials from the United States and Germany in 2001−2002 and 2007−2008. The speech material was collected from the online databases of the U.S. Department of State, the White House, the German Federal Government and the debate records of the German Parliament. The methodological framework of discourse analysis was used for analysing the rhetoric. Especially two tools of discourse analysis were utilized: the analysis of hegemonic discourses and the analysis of rhetoric and argumentation. By de-naturalizing the hegemonic discourses and identifying simplifying narratives, this thesis aims to reveal how discourses can consolidate power, essentialize gender roles and situate the human subjects through discourse to unequal positions of power. However, women’s rights rhetoric practised by major world leaders is not seen as necessarily positive or negative per se: What matters is the framing and the context of the rhetoric. By analyzing the gendered rhetoric, this thesis intends to find more nuanced ways of using and manipulating gendered categories to legitimize domination and control. In the years 2001 and 2002, the first two years of the war, the Bush administration utilized the image of the masculine hero, who must protect his country under threat. Even though this hero could be a woman or man, the virtues that he represented were congenitally masculine: strength, force, heroism and courage. He had to protect the country from a new type of an enemy: the mad, savage- or even animal-like, women-hating terrorist. His sadistic treatment of women was emphasized to show his barbarism. The depiction of a normal and civilized Muslim man was almost non-existent in the discourse, the image of the terrorist Muslim man was dominant. The corruption and human rights abuses of the Northern Alliance members in the Karzai government were left unaddressed. The role of the American woman in this discourse was to be calm, collected and supportive, as embodied in the First Lady, Laura Bush. The Afghan women were treated as one singular, homogenic group in the discourse – as objects to be saved. In the German discourse the masculine protector was not as celebrated as in the U.S., the discourse of the Afghan women was almost identical. The Gerhard Schröder administration also wanted to carry its responsibility towards the women-liberating West. By 2007−2008 the war had turned out to be tiring and extremely challenging, but the masculine protector was still standing strong in the U.S. discourse. There were no signs of hesitation, regret, admitting mistakes or a change of strategy with Karzai’s government, Northern Alliance and its alleged corruption. The situation of Afghanistan’s women was painted as a success story, with no real need to talk about the still prevailing misogyny. There were no separate big speeches discussing the still existing problems in women’s rights sector. The critical voices from the opposition parties were challenging the discourse of the government led by chancellor Angela Merkel in 2007−2008 in Germany. Yet again the German administration utilized the threat of Afghan women falling back in the hands of Taliban and women being massacred to silence the war opposers. Critical voices coming from Afghan women about the warlordization and corruption of Northern Alliance were still ridiculed or silenced, as demonstrated in the case of the Afghan activist and former parliamentarian, Malalai Joya. The voices of silent and grateful women were however accepted easily as representing “all” Afghan women. This thesis sheds new light on the feminist analysis of the War on Terror by demonstrating how easily Bush administration’s rhetoric was co-opted by another coalition country. The analysis shows that even after seven years of warfare, women’s rights were still strongly utilized in the war legitimizing discourse by both countries under scrutiny. This thesis concludes that the utilization of feminist rhetoric by major world powers should not only be criticized but it could also be used to push forward the implementation of feminist policies. The deconstruction of the hegemonic war narratives and listening also to criticism and contestation could open new discursive spaces for building long-lasting peace in Afghanistan.