This thesis is a collection of essays on the political economy of the interwar years. It aims to address two of the most prominent and characteristic aspects of the interwar international economy; the break-up of the Gold Standard system and the rise of trade protectionism. I argue that extensions to the franchise are crucial to understanding both of these phenomena. Using evidence based on macro-level panel data analysis, micro-level public opinion surveys as well as numerous qualitative sources, I construct an argument that stresses the importance of these changes in voting rights to economic policy decisions; changes that can help explain the unusual nature of the interwar international economy. The effect of the extended franchise will not be examined in isolation however, with the influence of a number of other important aspects of the political and economic environment also taken into consideration. As arguably the most interesting and novel result of these analyses is the suggested effect of the granting of voting rights to women, the voting preferences of women are examined more closely in an additional chapter using a unique record of women’s voting from Weimar Germany. This allows for the difference between men and women’s actual voting preferences to be explored, something that is usually impossible due to the use of secret ballots. The fact that the separation of votes by gender occurred during one of the most important periods in modern history gives the analysis an even greater significance.

The present study offers an in-depth examination of the institutional framework within which money operated as an economic agent in the Roman empire. Analyses focus on Classical Roman Law as reflected in the writings of Roman jurists from the second and early-third centuries CE. The legal sources are augmented by documentary materials, which give independent, albeit sporadic, evidence for actual practice. The thesis follows current trends in economic history to adopt approaches advanced by New Institutional Economics (NIE), while generally accepting Keynesian claims for the endogenous nature of money. Its innovative contribution is in suggesting a complexity-oriented approach to modelling the behaviour of money in the Roman empire; seeing money as a complex economic phenomenon, i.e. as a diverse and manifold apparatus which allows for new patterns of activity to be created by individuals, who self-adjust their use of it to the continuously evolving system in which they operate. The thesis is divided into four parts. The first is introductory. The second concerns the legal institutional framework for economic interaction; with discussions generally organised according to Roman legal categorisation, and considers developments in the role allocated to money in legal definitions for exchange transaction. The third part examines two study-cases of money-related institutions, namely, the instrument of interest, and interest-bearing deposits, demonstrating how money stimulated the interconnected dynamics within and between legal traditions operating under Roman regime. The fourth and last part is dedicated to a more general analysis of the complex nature of Roman money, attempting to model the historical example of Roman money with the help of complexity-oriented visualisations.

This thesis traces the changing conceptions and uses of myth in the poetry and prose of Percy Shelley. Its main argument is framed from a critical-theoretical perspective inspired by Dialectic of Enlightenment by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer. From this methodological standpoint, the study of myth can be related to other aspects of Shelley’s work, like his understanding of history and the problem of necessity and agency. The body of the dissertation is divided into three main parts, each of which is constituted by a series of shorter chapters. The first part deals with the mutually constituting negation of myth by enlightenment, where simultaneously several different but related conceptions of myth are produced and the preliminary principles of enlightenment advanced. Shelley’s earlier conceptions and uses of myth are identified (personification, euhemerism, and allegory), and compared to those of his probable sources as well as of useful analogues, among whom David Hume, William Godwin, the Baron d’Holbach, and John Frank Newton are given special attention. These conceptions of myth are also situated in their intellectual contexts in the fields of eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century mythography and theological debate. At the same time, the philosophical underpinnings of Shelley’s earlier writings (naturalism, scientism, and necessitarianism) are brought to light, and interpreted as having been strategically advanced in his critique of myth and religion. The main subject of the second part is the partial reification of enlightenment as a narrative of natural history. The interaction of theological debate and natural history of religion is explored in the light of literary form and pragmatic situation. Shelley’s political and social writings are described as a natural history of civil society based on political economy, and are situated within the historiographical tradition developed in the Scottish Enlightenment by authors like William Robertson, Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson, and John Millar. These narratives contained embedded within themselves an early concept of sociological necessity, and developed in opposition not only to sacred history but also to the classical narratives of individual political agency. I argue that this historiographical framework became problematic for Shelley in the wake of the Manchester massacre, since it was at odds with his pacifist values and utopian expectations. The final part treats of the reincorporation of some elements originally suppressed in the critique of myth. Shelley’s later mythical dramas are read as an alternative representation of history to that of natural history, where a new conception of collective political agency was developed. Simultaneously, a new concept of truth as praxis is identified as emerging in some of Shelley’s political writings, whereby the truth value of myth and poetry could be reassessed as that of a guide for political action. Finally, I argue that Shelley’s debate with Thomas Love Peacock concerning the social function of poetry catalysed the process by which the attributes of myth were transferred to poetry, and the latter was set against science and other expressions of the calculating faculty.

In der vorliegenden Arbeit soll zum Thema Geschichtsphilosophie die Frage nach einem Ende der Geschichte, wie es 1989 von Francis Fukuyama in seinem viel beachteten Aufsatz „The End of History?“ postuliert wurde, diskutiert werden. Dazu werden zu Beginn die Vordenker oder Ideengeber, auf deren Werk Fukuyama seine Argumentation aufbaut, vorgestellt. Den Hauptteil der Arbeit bildet die Vorstellung und Analyse der 1992 erschienenen Monographie „Das Ende der Geschichte – Wo stehen wir?“ von Francis Fukuyama. Im letzten Teil der Arbeit werden eine Reihe im weitesten Sinne philosophischer Fragen und Kritiken zum Werk Fukuyamas thematisiert.

In der vorliegenden Arbeit soll zum Thema Geschichtsphilosophie die Frage nach einem Ende der Geschichte, wie es 1989 von Francis Fukuyama in seinem viel beachteten Aufsatz „The End of History?“ postuliert wurde, diskutiert werden. Dazu werden zu Beginn die Vordenker oder Ideengeber, auf deren Werk Fukuyama seine Argumentation aufbaut, vorgestellt. Den Hauptteil der Arbeit bildet die Vorstellung und Analyse der 1992 erschienenen Monographie „Das Ende der Geschichte – Wo stehen wir?“ von Francis Fukuyama. Im letzten Teil der Arbeit werden eine Reihe im weitesten Sinne philosophischer Fragen und Kritiken zum Werk Fukuyamas thematisiert.

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Ende der 1970er Jahre sah sich die SED in der DDR gezwungen angesichts hoher Auslandsverschuldung und gestiegener Importpreise für fossile Energieträger stärker in heimische Energiequellen und rationellere Energieanwendung zu investieren. In diesem Kontext und um Anschluss an die internationale Entwicklung zu halten wurde Ende der 1970er und in den 1980er Jahren die Nutzung oberflächennaher und tiefer Geothermie gefördert. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit wird neben einer chronologischen Darstellung der Geothermieförderung in der DDR eine Einordnung in deren Energiepolitik, der Wärmeversorgung und der Förderung anderer erneuerbarer Energien geleistet. Aufgrund des geringen historischen Forschungsstandes zur Geothermie und der Wärmeversorgung in der DDR allgemein wurde dieser Arbeit ein explorativer Ansatz zugrunde gelegt. Als Quellenbasis dienten unter anderem Artikel aus wissenschaftlichen Zeitschriften der DDR und verschiedene Archivbestände. Ende der 1970er Jahre bis 1983 versuchte die SED den Einsatz von Wärmepumpen für die Wärmeversorgung zu fördern. Obwohl zahlreiche Pilotprojekte wie die Wärmepumpenheizzentrale Dresden fertiggestellt wurden stießen die politischen Planvorgaben auf materielle Engpässe und wenig Nachfrage in der Wärmeversorgung. Nach der abrupten Reduzierung der Zielvorgaben für die Wärmepumpenförderung wurde ab 1984 mit besonderem politischem Interesse die Tiefengeothermie gefördert und hierfür der Spezialbetrieb VEB Geothermie Neubrandenburg gegründet. Von den geplanten Anlagen zur Versorgung von Wohngebieten mit insgesamt 110 MW thermischer Leistung konnten bis zum Ende der DDR tiefengeothermische Heizzentralen in Waren, Neubrandenburg und Prenzlau fertiggestellt werden, was 22% der geplanten Leistung entsprach. Somit scheiterte auch das Großprojekt einer geothermischen Wärmeversorgung von Schwerin. Grund waren unter anderem übersteigerte Planvorgaben, der materielle Mangel in der Wirtschaft der DDR und nicht ausreichende Erfahrungen mit der jungen Technologie.:1. Einleitung 3 2. Energiepolitik in der DDR 7 2.1 Energiepolitik der SED 7 2.2 Regenerative Energiequellen in der Energiepolitik 9 3. Erdwärme in der Energiewirtschaft der DDR 13 3.1 Akteure der Energiewirtschaft 13 3.2 Wärmeversorgung 15 3.3 Nutzung regenerativer Energiequellen 18 4. Oberflächennahe und tiefe Geothermie 22 4.2 Wärmepumpen zur Nutzung von Umweltwärme 22 4.2.1 Wärmepumpen für die rationelle Energieanwendung 22 4.2.2 Fallbeispiel Wärmepumpen-Heizzentrale Dresden 28 4.2.3 Vorzeitiges Ende der Wärmepumpenförderung 33 4.3 Tiefengeothermie im Norden der DDR 35 4.3.1 Hohe Erwartungen an die Tiefengeothermie 35 4.3.2 Grenzen der Leistungsfähigkeit des VEB Geothermie 41 5. Zusammenfassung 48 Literatur 51 Archivalische Quellen 54 Abbildungs- und Tabellenverzeichnis 56 Abkürzungsverzeichnis 57 Physikalisch-technischer Anhang 58 / At the end of the 1970s the socialist party of the GDR was forced by high debts in foreign currency and risen import prices for fossil fuels to invest in indigenous energy sources and more rational energy applications. In this context and to take pace with the international development the SED began at the end of the 1970s and during the 1980s to support the use of geothermal heating. This thesis consists of a chronological representation of the geothermal energy support in the GDR and contextualizes East German energy policy, heat supply and use of other renewable energy sources. Historical sources consist to the main extent on archive material and scientific papers from the GDR. Until 1983 the SED tried to promote the application of heat pumps for heat supply. Even though several pilot projects like the heat pump station in Dresden were successfully erected, the political plan targets collided with material short supply and low demand in the heating business. After the sudden reduction of the political targets concerning heat pumps, special political interest was given to geothermal energy in higher depths since 1984. Therefore a special company the VEB Geothermie Neubrandenburg was founded. From the planned stations for heat supply of residential areas with a total power of 110 MW only 22% were actually finished until the end of the GDR in 1990. Those stations were located in Waren, Neubrandenburg and Prenzlau in the northern part of East Germany. Consequently failed the major project of a geothermal heat supply of the city of Schwerin. Reasons were excessive plan targets, the material short supply in the East German economy and a lack of experiences in the young technology.:1. Einleitung 3 2. Energiepolitik in der DDR 7 2.1 Energiepolitik der SED 7 2.2 Regenerative Energiequellen in der Energiepolitik 9 3. Erdwärme in der Energiewirtschaft der DDR 13 3.1 Akteure der Energiewirtschaft 13 3.2 Wärmeversorgung 15 3.3 Nutzung regenerativer Energiequellen 18 4. Oberflächennahe und tiefe Geothermie 22 4.2 Wärmepumpen zur Nutzung von Umweltwärme 22 4.2.1 Wärmepumpen für die rationelle Energieanwendung 22 4.2.2 Fallbeispiel Wärmepumpen-Heizzentrale Dresden 28 4.2.3 Vorzeitiges Ende der Wärmepumpenförderung 33 4.3 Tiefengeothermie im Norden der DDR 35 4.3.1 Hohe Erwartungen an die Tiefengeothermie 35 4.3.2 Grenzen der Leistungsfähigkeit des VEB Geothermie 41 5. Zusammenfassung 48 Literatur 51 Archivalische Quellen 54 Abbildungs- und Tabellenverzeichnis 56 Abkürzungsverzeichnis 57 Physikalisch-technischer Anhang 58