Sebastian Weber – författare

Essay from the year 2003 in the subject Politics - Topic: European Union, grade: 2, University of Cape Town, course: The Political Economy of International Relations, language: English, abstract: The world order of today, unlike 50 years ago, is dominated by two phenomena: globalization and regionalism. Although globalization is the "e;word on everyone's lips"e;, there are around 170 regional agreements today - half of these concluded since 1990 - with the European Union as probably the best known and the most unique one of these agreements (Moore 2000, p.1). Whereas some argue that regionalism is a threat to the efficiency created through globalization), others regard it either as a mean to participate in the globalization process and therefore a part of it or the only efficient response to the challenges of a continuously deepening polarization generated by the capitalist globalization process (Ruggiero 1997, p.2; Moore 2000, p.3; Mittelman 1999, p.27; Amir 1999, p.54). Whether regionalism contradicts globalization or complements it, depends heavily on the definition of both concepts as well as on the way a region acts within the framework of the global system (Hettne 1999, p.1). In order to address the question, whether the European Union, as a regional project, is contributing or responding to globalization and with respect to Hettne s above mentioned argument, the first chapter of this essay will set the framework for the following discussion by defining the two concepts globalization and regionalism. Chapter three will give a brief overview of the European Union s core policies and its framework as they are crucial to analysing the European Union s role in the world system. Concluding from these two chapters the initial question will be addressed in chapter five, by an analysis of the policies of the European Union. A resume will be taken in the last chapter.

Essay from the year 2003 in the subject Politics - Topic: Globalization, Political Economics, grade: 2, University of Cape Town, course: Third World Politics, language: English, abstract: With the decolonisation starting after World War II African countries became independent from their former European colonisers. While the process of achieving political independence is generally accepted as completed, economic independence remains uncertain. There are various fields in which dependency on former colonisers can be observed. Many African politicians and Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) regard supra-international institutions like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) as western dominated institutions, which impose their ideas of Politics and Economics on the so called third world countries . This can take place in forms of credits to African countries by the IMF. These credits are subject to Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) the receiving country has to implement. A SAP mainly focuses on the liberalisation of a country s economy and thereby takes the country s independence in choosing its own policies. In the last twenty years NGOs, academics and politicians became aware of an emergent debate on a new world order in trade relations. By criticising the trade policy of developed countries, NGOs, such as Oxfam and Attac, accuse these countries of keeping the third world poor and dependent on the first world (Oxfam 2002). By subsidising the own economy and protecting it through tariffs, developed countries hinder the developing countries to increase exports and thereby national income. This essay focuses on this relationship between the third and the first world in international trade. It aims to prove the statement of the NGOs and thereby figure out whether there is a neo-colonial tendency in trade relations between the first and the third world) or not.

Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Pedagogy, Literature Studies, grade: 13 Punkte, University of Frankfurt (Main) (Neuere Philologien), course: World Englishes, language: English, abstract: 1. IntroductionEnglish, being a global language with more than 400 million L1 speakers and many hundreds of millions second language speakers, has its origin in the Anglo-Saxon period (McIntyre 2009: 31). Throughout time the English language has undergone an extensive change. In the beginning there were four major dialects of Old English. Nowadays, English, as a lingua franca, is spoken in all parts of the world and has become the official language in countries like Uganda, Liberia or Ghana (McIntyre 2009: 31). As my term paper is concerned with the topic of e-English, it is vital to mention that the development of the internet and the World Wide Web, two distinctive terms that must be looked at separately, had a huge impact on the development of English (Baron 2003: 2). As a result of the British colonisation, English spread overseas and had been spoken in all parts of the British Empire. The Expansion of the English language still continues nowadays, though not through colonisation, but a mixture of various factors such as politics, economics and most important with regard to my term paper technology (McIntyre 2009: 27). Therefore, the first aspect to point out in this essay focuses on the technical requirements that facilitate language exchange throughout the entire world. This will lead to the analysis of significant differences between spoken and written language in general and the effects of new technologies like the World Wide Web on the English language in particular. Subsequent to this, the major part of the term paper introduces the umbrella term Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) and investigates the question whether CMC could be seen as a new type of language or not. Since the term CMC encompasses a broad spectrum of writing options ranging from personally written off-line texts on the one end of the scale to one-to-one dialogue through e-mails or short messages on the other end (Baron 2003: 52), various types of CMC including e-mail and chat room language will be discussed and presented within this paragraph. The term paper ends with a conclusion, bringing together the results of the multiple factors involved in CMC read before the question of its influence on traditional written English and communication in daily life.

Geleitwort Das hohe Interesse an der Frage, ob und gegebenenfalls wie aus der historischen P- formance von Kapitalanlagen auf die zukünftige Wertentwicklung geschlossen werden kann, erklärt sich von alleine. Anlageentscheidungen – gerade in Investmentfonds – - sieren zu einem wesentlichen Teil auf der Analyse von Vergangenheitsdaten. Bekan- lich liefert die Literatur zum Thema zwar eine Fülle von Einzelergebnissen, ein „Königsweg“ zur Prognose künftiger Erfolgsaussichten ist aber nicht bekannt. Hieraus kann man den Schluss ziehen, ein solches Unterfangen sei schon prinzipiell aussichtslos. Man kann sich aber auch auf den Standpunkt stellen, dass schon ein mo- rates Verschieben der Wahrscheinlichkeitsverteilung hin zu höheren Renditen für den informierten Anleger auf die Dauer zu höheren Erträgen führen wird. In diesem Sinne begibt sich der Autor mit der vorliegenden Studie auf die Suche nach neuer empirischer Evidenz für erfolgversprechende Selektionsprinzipien. Ziel ist hierbei nicht die Selektion besonders renditeträchtiger Assetklassen. Vielmehr geht es darum, in einem gegebenen Anlageuniversum dasjenige Management von - vestmentfonds zu identifizieren, welches seinen Investoren beständig überdurchschni- liche Renditen beschert. Die Beständigkeit bezeichnet man dabei als Persistenz von Fondsrenditen.

Geleitwort Das hohe Interesse an der Frage, ob und gegebenenfalls wie aus der historischen P- formance von Kapitalanlagen auf die zukünftige Wertentwicklung geschlossen werden kann, erklärt sich von alleine. Anlageentscheidungen – gerade in Investmentfonds – - sieren zu einem wesentlichen Teil auf der Analyse von Vergangenheitsdaten. Bekan- lich liefert die Literatur zum Thema zwar eine Fülle von Einzelergebnissen, ein „Königsweg“ zur Prognose künftiger Erfolgsaussichten ist aber nicht bekannt. Hieraus kann man den Schluss ziehen, ein solches Unterfangen sei schon prinzipiell aussichtslos. Man kann sich aber auch auf den Standpunkt stellen, dass schon ein mo- rates Verschieben der Wahrscheinlichkeitsverteilung hin zu höheren Renditen für den informierten Anleger auf die Dauer zu höheren Erträgen führen wird. In diesem Sinne begibt sich der Autor mit der vorliegenden Studie auf die Suche nach neuer empirischer Evidenz für erfolgversprechende Selektionsprinzipien. Ziel ist hierbei nicht die Selektion besonders renditeträchtiger Assetklassen. Vielmehr geht es darum, in einem gegebenen Anlageuniversum dasjenige Management von - vestmentfonds zu identifizieren, welches seinen Investoren beständig überdurchschni- liche Renditen beschert. Die Beständigkeit bezeichnet man dabei als Persistenz von Fondsrenditen.