Series

This series of publications deals with all kinds of social anthropological relationships and conflicts in different societies and types of society. For example, this can encompass examining family relationships, social differences and structures, and power relations and conflicts between ethnic groups, big men and the societies they belong to. The studies in the series analyse concepts such as kinship, castes and ‘ethnoclasses’ (socio-cultural groups which in general have a low social status and which display ethnic characteristics that distinguish them as immigrants or descendants of immigrants) in the same critical depth as gender and nation building. It also welcomes studies from a variety of related fields such as ethnology, cultural studies and social geography, along with works written in different languages.

The series of publications entitled “Ethik in den Sozialwissenschaften” (Ethics in Social Science) provides a forum for academic contributions to the debate on the current moral problems affecting social structures and systems. From an ethical point of view, this series focuses on addressing the question of what ef-fects social institutions and regimes have on human dignity and the welfare of communities. It discusses moral dilemmas so as to highlight general acceptable solutions to them. It takes up the challenge of using normative theories to ana-lyse sociological problems in order to develop ethical criteria for developing operable solutions to them. As a result, the series welcomes contributions from the entire range of subjects related to social science and ethics. Its goal is to constructively criticise structural contexts to which no satisfactory solutions have been found so far.

Our healthcare system is being confronted with fundamental moral and political challenges which affect its basic focus and character, such as persistent and controversial discussions on approaches to health and illness, matters of principle related to fairness and solidarity, medical utopias and dystopias, corruption and ethical questions, the debate about professional identity and commercialization, and the relationship between economics and medicine, to name but a few. This interdisciplinary series of publications encourages the reader to consider fundamental issues related to healthcare. It transcends not only basic medical ethics but also legal, political and economic issues.

The series of “Now Media” publications offers igniting insights into innovative media formats. The series specialises on journalism, marketing and merchandising. All “Now Media” products reflect latest trends based on the digital marriage of technology and content: liquid, interactive, prosumer-oriented, cloud-based, in real-time or on demand. The series is designed for a multilingual and global audience and reaches out to entrepreneurs, students and scientists as well as to all interested users.

Analysing economic phenomena from a sociological perspective poses a number of transdisciplinary challenges which are both highly topical and relevant. This means that the complementary research fields of economic sociology and political economics are among the most dynamic areas of the social sciences in both theoretical and empirical terms. Economic sociology offers analytical perspectives on the logic of economic activity and the way it is embedded into social structures, which are arranged in a continuum of market relations, networks, organisational hierarchies and other coordinating bodies. Research papers from this field therefore deal with a vast array of subjects, ranging from entrepreneurship, innovation and organisation in the workplace to monetary economics and financial markets. Political economics complements and supplements economic sociology’s focus on action by taking institutional interaction between economic and political systems into consideration and by treating the state’s involvement in the organisation of economic processes as particularly significant. In this respect, the issue of variations in capitalist market economies in the context of globalisation assumes a central role. The series of publications entitled “Wirtschaftssoziologie und Politische Ökonomie” (Economic Sociology and Political Economics) therefore provides a forum for theoretical and empirical works from these research areas with no thematic restrictions.

This publication series is dedicated to advancing the research on terrorism and extremism, to fleshing out possible countermeasures, and to discussing policy responses on national and international levels. By combining the different perspectives and methodologies of scientific fields like political science, psychology, religious and cultural studies or sociology, the series analyses the issue of terrorism and extremism in all its complexity. Each publication adheres to high scientific standards and presents new results in its respective academic field. At the same time, they offer relevant insights into various aspects of terrorism and extremism, and are therefore directed not only at a professional audience but equally at readers who share an interest in these important topics.

The series of publications entitled “Freiburger Schriften zur Finanzwissenschaft und Wirtschaftspolitik” (“Freiburg Publications on Finance and Economic Policy”) publishes papers from the pre-eminent fields of economics research, which are also rich in tradition, at the University of Freiburg. The array of subjects which these analyses address ranges from the pension system and employment policy, education policy, demography, European and international governance, fiscal sustainability, federalism, healthcare policy, real estate economics, migration, tax and performance-based competition, the causes and effects of transnational conflicts, violence, crime, terror and corruption to behavioural economics and satisfaction research. These studies approach problems from both a theoretical perspective as well as using a selection of econometric, experimental or qualitative research methods. What links them is that they all address both political and social as well as topical academic issues. Their authors’ common, overarching goal is to provide well-founded recommendations on using their findings in politico-economic consulting and to help implement them.