This thesis concerns the support for the AfD in the federal states Bremen, Saxony-Anhalt, and Baden-Württemberg. In particular, the goal is to explain the support for the AfD among the eligible voters of Bremen, Saxony-Anhalt, and Baden-Württemberg at the most recently elections held in Bremen on 10 May 2015 and in Baden-Württemberg and Saxony-Anhalt on 13 March 2016. This is a disciplined, interpretive case study, which uses the existing models of voting behaviour to explain the voting for the AfD in Bremen, Saxony-Anhalt, and Baden- Württemberg. It employs a sociological model of voting behaviour and a model of rational choice. The goal is to determine whether the support for the AfD in the three selected federal states can be explained using these models of voting behaviour, and if so, which model of voting behaviour best explains the support for the AfD. First, the thesis presents the models of voting behaviour that are used in the study for analysis of the support for the AfD. The next portion of the thesis deals with the party Alternative for Germany. The section of the thesis that follows is devoted to the actual analysis of support for the AfD, first in Baden- Württemberg and then in the federal states Saxony-Anhalt and Bremen. The answers to the research question are presented at the...

Créée en 1719 pour lancer une nouvelle représentation de la sphère « commerciale » au sein de la généralité, la Chambre de commerce de La Rochelle, point central d’une organisation institutionnelle complexe, participe activement à la vie politique et économique du royaume. Malgré la rivalité organique qui la fragilise, cette neuvième chambre parvient finalement à se présenter comme l’interlocuteur privilégié du négociant et son plus fervent défenseur. En tant qu’intermédiaire entre les rouages du pouvoir et les maisons de commerce, elle devient le pilier du négoce de la généralité et aussi sa mémoire, en collectant une abondante correspondance et de nombreux écrits touchant au commerce. Inscrite dans une logique de participation mais aussi de contestation, sa défense des intérêts locaux au sein du vaste intérêt national trouve tout particulièrement à s’exprimer dans les relations commerciales avec l’Europe du Nord. Certes, les préoccupations essentielles du commerce sont ailleurs, dans la mesure où ce circuit maritime ne saurait rivaliser en importance avec le trafic colonial et la traite négrière. Pour autant, les négociants rochelais n’entendent pas se résigner à la situation de fait qui prévaut dans la route du Nord : des denrées coloniales et des marchandises françaises fort convoitées par l’espace septentrional, mais transportées presque exclusivement sous pavillon étranger. Connus pour être de « grands disputeurs et faiseurs de mémoires », les Rochelais ne manquent pas d’analyser au fond les causes de la crise du commerce direct entre le Nord de l’Europe et le royaume. Ils dénoncent non seulement la mainmise quasi hégémonique des Anglais et des Hollandais sur cette voie d’échanges, mais également les mesures adoptées par les bureaux de Versailles qu’ils jugent trop timides. Cette réalité, expliquée jusqu’alors par des considérations d’ordre économique, politique et culturel, se colore de tout autres teintes si l’on prend en considération la norme juridique. Analysée à plusieurs niveaux et dans plusieurs dimensions, cette dernière révèle une inégalité de traitement manifeste entre négociants français et étrangers. Ententes diplomatiques, traités internationaux, législation douanière, cadre institutionnel, toutes les composantes de la règle de droit jouent un rôle important dans le fonctionnement de ce circuit maritime. Toutefois, la corrélation entre la règle de droit et le commerce du Nord ne saurait être appréhendée par la seule étude des échanges avec le port de La Rochelle. Le regard doit se porter également vers les modèles institutionnels et douaniers septentrionaux. Or ces derniers confirment que la spécificité de la norme juridique dans certains États du Nord constitue un élément déterminant de cette carte maritime. Et au-delà de ce constat, l’analyse attentive de l’un des plus anciens monuments du droit maritime médiéval, par ailleurs à l’origine de la ligue hanséatique, conduit à une singulière découverte : ce texte, connu sous le nom de « Lois de Visby » laisse transparaître, dans le berceau même de l’Europe du Nord, une très nette influence romaine. / Created in 1719 to launch a new representation of the "trade” sphere within the general population, the La Rochelle Chamber of Commerce, the central point of a complex institutional organization, participates actively in the political and economic life of the kingdom. In spite of the organic rivalry which weakens it, this ninth Chamber succeeds finally in becoming the privileged representative of the trader and its most fervent supporter. As the middleman between the wheels of power and the trading companies, it becomes not only the mainstay of popular trade, but also its recorder, by collecting numerous items of correspondence and papers relating to trade. In a policy of both participation and dispute, its defense of local interests within the vast national interest is especially to be found in business relations with Northern Europe. Admittedly, the main trade concerns are elsewhere, as this maritime circuit could never compete in importance with colonial traffic and the slave trade. For all that, the Rochelais traders do not intend to give up - which is shown in the route to the North: colonial commodities and French products, strongly desired by the North, but transported almost exclusively under a foreign flag. Famous for being "big debaters and memory makers", the Rochelais do not fail to analyze the root causes of the direct business crisis between Northern Europe and the kingdom. They denounce not only the almost hegemonic control that both the English and the Dutch have over these trade routes, but also the measures adopted by the Versailles offices which they consider too timid. This reality, explained until then, by economic, political and cultural considerations, looks completely different if we consider the legal rule. Analyzed on several levels and in several dimensions, the latter reveals an obvious disparity of treatment between French and foreign traders. Diplomatic agreements, international treaties, customs legislation, institutional framework, all the components of legal rule, play an important role in the functioning of this maritime circuit. However, the correlation between legal rule and trade with the North could not be explained merely by the observance of trade exchanges with the port of La Rochelle. The northern institutional and customs models must also be examined. And yet these models confirm that the specificity of legal rule in some Northern States constitutes a determining element of this maritime chart. Furthermore, the careful analysis of one of the oldest monuments of medieval maritime law, at the origin of the Hanseatic league, leads to a singular discovery: this text, known by the name of "Lois de Visby" shows clearly, in the cradle of Northern Europe, a very clear Roman influence.

This study describes and analyses the influence of immigration and integration of German expellees and refugees in the former administrative district of Osnabrueck. It is a contribution to a new regional social and economic history as well as to the history of integration of German refugees after World War II. The main goals are to close the gaps in regional pre and post war history of population, administration and economy. To a certain extent this thesis is of global importance with respect to the history of refugee integration in Germany. It deals with the refugee administration that was in place until the 1970s as well as the methodology of econometric analysis. The latter is used to show the process of modernisation from an agrarian economy to one that is dominated by industry and services. The applied methods are those of narrative history as well as social and econometric statistics on historical long-term analysis. The study describes and analyses the regional history of population, administration and economy, the latter with special respect to history of farming. To show the impact of expellees on social and economic structure, each of the three sections is analysed in a similar way: Chronologically by comparing the history and structures from about 1900 to 1945 with the period after World War II up to the 1970s. Geographically by comparing regional to country and national statistical patterns. It can be shown that the refugee administration suffered from early "ad hoc administration" days until its agony in the 1970s from the dualism with the traditional social administration. At the beginning there was no survival without the support of British military government, which consideres this area as a test field for the influence of new democratic conditions on pre-democratic administrative structures and daily work. In the 1950s the influence of military government was replaced by political power of refugee organisations and party. There decline leads to agony and subsequent take-over by traditional administration in the 1970s. The study shows the role and impact of refugees as part of the labor immigration in between the "Fremdarbeiter" and the "Gastarbeiter" on regional economy. It displays the intersectoral changes by the shifts in figures and index’ of gainfully employed people (domestic and refugees) demonstrating the shift towards an industrial or service oriented economy. From a refugee point of view there was no integration in the sense of equal opportunities in the job market as compared to native Osnabrueckians. This led to a decline in social status, especially for those who had been independent farmers in the east. The "integration" by discrimination and declining social status caused geographical and job mobility especially among the younger refugees – into better paid and modern jobs. Qualified refugee labour sped up the long term process of industrialization. Those sub areas which in pre-war times had been dominated by an agricultural sector on a 19th century level changed to an industrialized or service driven level within 15 years – much faster than during the Industrial Revolution. The study shows also that refugees had been a very successful political vehicle for claiming and getting public economic subsidaries – which mostly reached not the immigrants but native (Emsland-) farmers and companies. All in all the integration of refugees was a bivalent process of interdependent mutual adaption: On the one hand that of immigrants towards the conditions to live and work in the Osnabrueck area. On the other side the impact of refugees onto speed and direction of post war development and modernization of regional structures. The general result is that refugee immigration and integration had a major impact on regional post war development and modernisation of an administration with a pre-democratic understanding and an pre-war economy dominated by agriculture.