This thesis deals with the political crisis in Hungary (and by extension Austria-Hungary as a whole) at the turn of centuries. Attempts to modernize the armed forces and increase their size led, especially in Hungary, to a broad discussion about relations between the army and the nation and the position of Hungary within the monarchy. Thesis describes basic characteristics of political development in relation to the army question during years 1902-1912, its actors, their aims, motivations and results. Keywords: Austria-Hungary, compromise, dualism, army, crisis

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, Salzburg, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 185-200) and index.

In late January 2000, the EU14 initiated a protest co-ordinated by the Portuguese EU Presidency against the coalition between Wolfgang Schüssel’s ÖVP and Jörg Haider’s right-wing extremist/populist FPÖ, accused of violating EU fundamental values expressed in Article 6(1) TEU. When the government took office on 4 February diplomatic ‘sanctions’ were launched. During spring, the EU14’s wider interpretations of the sanctions, clumsy handling of Austrian countermeasures and deficient strategy on dismantling the protest contributed to crisis escalation. The solution was the appointment of so-called ‘wise men’ to evaluate the political nature of the FPÖ and the effects of the EU14’s ‘diplomatic whipping’ on government policies. Shortly after the Wise Men Report was published the EU14 lifted the ‘sanctions’ unconditionally, but insistent question marks remained. At the informal European Council meeting in Biarritz 13-14 October, the EU14 and the Austrian government agreed on amendments to the trigger mechanisms for the ‘sanctions article’, Article 7 TEU, incorporated in the Nice Treaty from December 2000. This study argues that the EU14’s interests and preferences concerning Article 6(1) TEU, coupled with a consensus-reflex and imagined and ‘real’ time pressure manifested in groupthink and ‘tele groupthink’, a concept including telephone diplomacy, affected the norm during its ‘journey’ through five stages: warning, implementation, crisis escalation, crisis de-escalation, and consequences. A central claim is that both self-interested behaviour and ideational/normative motives guided the EU14, but in a ‘more or less’ way. Mutually complementary arguments from both the rationalist and constructivist paradigms prove compelling in investigating this particularly complex and multi-faceted case. This study concludes that the EU14-Austria crisis resulted not in a rupture in the integration process, but in consolidation of EU fundamental values expressed in Article 6(1) TEU. Thanks to mixed experiences with the EU14’s ‘diplomatic whipping’ of the FPÖ-ÖVP government, the Union took another step towards tighter monitoring of Member States’ compliance with its constituent values. This step was reflected in amendments to Article 7 TEU. The EU14-Austria crisis, as here presented, illustrates the claim that Union-wide crises can have a positive effect on its normative foundation.

The title of this work is “Indivisible and Inseparable” the motto of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This motto is just one of many ways in the Austro-Hungarian Empire fought against the centrifugal forces seeking to destroy it. I argue here that the historic theory of decline and fall is misguided as a model for understanding the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and question its usefulness when applied to other nation states and empires as well. I suggest that the Austro-Hungarian military, specifically its condition prior to the First World War, is an ideal lens for exploring the dissolution of the Empire at the end of the war in 1918. The Austro-Hungarian military was composed of over 10 different nationalities at a time of surging nationalism, and was the single most important institution charged with the preservation of the Empire. This unique linkage with the state of the Empire as a whole renders the military, in particular the Common Army, extremely useful for examining this issue. I will discuss the structure of the military, its response to the problems posed by nationalism, and contemporary public views about the military within the Empire.

The scope of this dissertation is to investigate the impact of pension reform on the financial incentives to retire for private sector workers in Austria. How do financial incentives embedded in the Austrian pension system affect individual retirement behavior? Was pension reform effective in changing these financial incentives in order to affect retirement behavior? How would future reform scenarios impact retirement behavior? Micro-estimating the impact of financial incentive measures on the probability of retirement shows that the behavioral response to financial incentives in Austria is relatively large in international comparison. Simulations demonstrate that pension reform was ineffective in providing incentives for delayed retirement. However, there are future reform scenarios that would have a huge impact on retirement behavior by altering the financial incentives.

No description available.

The paper investigates the determinants of internal migration within late imperial Austria. In contrast to the modernization paradigm which studies onedirectional migration flows from rural to urban areas, our approach highlights that spatial mobility consisted of movements in both directions. Using data on all districts of the Austrian part of the Hapsburg Monarchy, we find that in- and outmigration rates are positively correlated, and that the modernization paradigm in migration research is consistent with our results for net-migration rates, but inconsistent with those for out-migration. (author's abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

Self-drive day trip tourism has an enormous economic importance for the region of Lower Austria which surrounds Austria´s capital Vienna. The residents of Lower Austria and Vienna form the vast majority of day-trip visitors to Lower Austria. Despite the importance of the segment of day trip tourism for regional tourism marketing organizations (TMOs) this group of tourists is difficult to grasp. Promoting blogs of residents about their leisure time activities in a region is a promising marketing instrument for regional TMOs to address this market segment. This doctoral thesis project proposes and validates a behavioral model based on the technology acceptance model (TAM) for modeling behavioral intentions of three main participatory patterns in online communities based on blogs. Based on the results of this project possible starting points for subsequent research are identified and recommendations for TMOs intending to implement such regional blog communities are provided. The findings of this research project support practitioners by providing a deeper understanding of the motives of prospective participants. As the elements of the proposed behavioral model are based on previous research and conceptualized independent of the topic of interest of the blog community, the findings are additionally indicatory for research on blog communities in other fields. (author's abstract)

"Zugl.: Graz, Universität, Diss., 1997"--T.p. verso. / Includes bibliographical references.

The national development of the ethnic groups of the Habsburg Monarchy were influenced by the policies undertaken toward them by their rulers, the Austrian Germans and, after 1867, the Magyars of Hungary. Contrasts can be identified between those groups living in the Austrian part of the Monarchy and those living in the Kingdom of Hungary, a trend that can be identified in the Monarchy's South Slav populations (Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes), as this population inhabited territories on both sides of the dualist border. The present study examines the differences in the nationality policies toward the South Slavs on the part of the governments of Cisleithanian Austria and the Kingdom of Hungary during the decades prior to the First World War. The concluding section examines how these nationality policies influenced the post-1914 development of the South Slav groups.