Karl Kaltenthaler – författare

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) gained control over large swathes of Iraq in the summer of 2014 at a breathtaking rate. At the time many rightly wondered how ISIS was able to claim so much territory in the Sunni-dominated portion of Iraq so quickly. Just as unexpected, however, was the downfall of ISIS; by 2017, their hold on the region had crumbed with ISIS focusing on avoiding complete annihilation. This book explores the social and psychological factors behind how ISIS was able to rise in Iraq, control most of it, and why most of that population eventually turned on it. Synthesized by some of the foremost experts on terrorism, the analysis is based on a unique array of public opinion data from surveys, focus groups, and interviews. The authors explain why some Iraqis acquiesced to ISIS while others opposed it, why ISIS lost the hearts and minds of Iraqi Sunni Arabs, and ultimately how this contributed to its battlefield defeats. The in-depth face-to-face interviews with ISIS members are a particularly rich source of data, supplementing empirical findings to draw lessons as to what individual and societal-level factors contribute to radicalization and what can be done to counter radicalization and support deradicalization.

Drawing on numerous interviews with high-ranking and founding members of the European Central Bank (ECB), Karl Kaltenthaler identifies and explains the factors that shape the bank's domestic and international monetary strategies. As at all institutions, politics are very much involved in policy-making at the ECB. Kaltenthaler finds that instead of being unconcerned with how the bank's policies impact the citizens of the Eurozone, the central bankers desire to keep the economy healthy. This desire is driven by the central bankers' two primary personal preferences: to appear competent to as much of society as possible and to maintain broad political support for their operational independence. The policy-making model that offers the best roadmap to a healthy economy is that of the German Bundesbank. To secure the long-term needs of the economy, the decisionmakers in the ECB have created a model that attempts to replicate the Bundesbank's success at the European level and to lend credibility to their own policies. Offering unprecedented access to the internal decisionmaking at the ECB, Policymaking in the European Central Bank will interest readers who want to understand this important European institution.