Application of AHP in Aerospace Configuration Management

Aerospace products undergo frequent modifications throughout their product life cycle due to changes in requirements, technology, policy or environmental concerns. These modifications/changes are dealt with through configuration management (CM), which is a techno-managerial function. Conflicting interests of teams involved, complexity due to a long product life cycle spanning over years, R&D nature and techno-political compromises often end up in sub-optimal decisions during aerospace product development. In this article, an attempt is made to apply a scientific method to CM decision-making rather than leave it to techno-political compromises. The CM decision-making is modelled as a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem and is solved using analytic hierarchy process (AHP). As an example, the CM change proposal on propellant tank material in aerospace is taken up and solved using the model. The authors believe that results of the study will also pave way for substitute development with improved attributes, realized through advances in technologies such as nanotechnology and additive manufacturing, as mentioned in directions for future research.

Germany’s Energiewende at a Crossroads

This article examines Germany’s current climate and energy policies. Nearly two decades on, Germany’s Energiewende—the transition to a less carbonintensive economy—is at a crossroads. While remarkable advances have been made, the technical difficulties of expanding the energy transition beyond the electricity sector, the mounting costs of the transition itself, and now the covid-19 pandemic are slowing further progress. Maintaining the momentum of the Energiewende would require collaborative action, yet the principal political players have different agendas, making it difficult to reach decisions. In this article, we consider three of those actors: the German public, the opposition parties, and the government. We find that agreements on German climate policy have been diluted in political compromises and that real progress is being blocked. These problems will only increase as Germany deals with the consequences of the pandemic and faces a transition in national leadership in 2021.

Oligarchy in the Jokowi government and its influence on the implementation of legislative function in Indonesia

The weak implementation of the House of Representatives’, or Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat’s (DPR), function indicates stagnation in Indonesia’s democracy. This fact is due to the party oligarchy’s stronghold in the Jokowi government, which ignores the nature of public representation that should be carried out. The oligarchy controls the government and DPR’s performance in establishing political compromises for every legislative policy with the government to facilitate the affairs of party oligarchs, who are also the members of the Jokowi government coalition. In addition, they engage in cartel politics to secure their respective power and material interests. This article examines the roles of party oligarchs in influencing the implementation of political functions in the DPR. Ironically, the coalition formed by the party oligarchy has helped the Jokowi government and the DPR to secure government policies and the economic and political interests of the oligarchic group.

Conferences of Minister Presidents of the German States in 1948—1949 and Their Political Significance

The activity and political significance of the conferences of the Minister Presidents of the German states during the years of the institutionalization of the Federal Republic of Germany (1948—1949) are considered. It is concluded that in the absence of a number of significant central authorities, it was the conferences of the heads of state governments that played a coordinating role to fill them up on the German side. It is noted that the Minister Presidents also served as a converging point between the allies, the regional elite, political parties and bizone authorities. It is shown that various formats of work of heads of state governments at the interzonal level allowed them to take part in the discussion of almost all key problems of the western zones of occupation. It is emphasized that the two-zone meetings of the Minister Presidents with the military governors and the three-zone conferences of the Minister Presidents themselves, which in fact became the main instruments for reaching political compromises, had a particular impact. It is pointed out that this was especially clearly manifested during the discussion of the “Frankfurt Documents”. It is concluded that, at the same time, the dependence on the military administrations of the allies, the party elite and bizone authorities at the same time did not allow these conferences to evolve into something more than a platform for building consensus, and thereby pursue a full-fledged independent policy.

Gordian knots in Europeanised private law: unfair terms, bank charges and political compromises

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Sovereignty under the League of Nations Mandates: The Jurists’ Debates

The mandate system took shape at an inflexion point in the evolution from an international system based on rule over territories to one based on rule over peoples. Political compromises made at the Paris Peace Conference resulted in the creation of a new political agent, the League of Nations Mandate, with no clear sovereign. In seeking to systematize this political outcome, jurists located sovereignty with the victorious Great Powers, the League itself, and with the peoples of the mandate territories. Yet they never achieved a consensus, which created an absence at the centre of the mandate system that politics would have to fill throughout the interwar period.

Henry II, the Laughing King

Chapter 5 explores how Henry II used laughter to exercise power indirectly, and how contemporary writers exploited this to comment on the changing direction of English government. Henry laughed while negotiating political compromises, wittily forced enemies into compliance, and joked while overturning operations of the law. He especially laughed and joked when he felt that abstract ideas of authority had produced injustices he wanted to overturn. By joking, Henry could supplement the mechanisms of government, reinforcing his charismatic authority without explicitly undermining official procedure. Some court writers thus amplified the king’s laughter as a way of critiquing government by code and bureaucracy. Referencing both the intellectual discourses that dignified joking as a truth-telling device, and the narrative tropes that imagined laughter as a mouthpiece for divine authority, these writers created an image that covertly reinstated the sublime authority of royal charisma at variance with the direction of contemporaneous governmental change.

Federal Democracy between Autonomy and Interdependence

According to common concepts of federalism, a federal system should balance unity and diversity, integration and differentiation, centralization and decentralization. Although there is no principle that determines an appropriate balance or an optimal combination, in reality, these contradictory requirements are met by political compromises and ongoing processes of allocating and reallocation power and resources.

Not Ready for Democracy

Comparing Egypt and Tunisia, Tarek Masoud argues that the distinctive make-ups and strengths of civil society in those two countries explain why their transitions took different paths. He dismisses previous arguments about the role of the army or the democratic commitment of politicians, arguing instead that Tunisian civil society was stronger and had a less pronounced religious coloration than Egypt’s, with the result that its secular politicians could easily acquire a substantial political base, leading to more balanced electoral results. As no single party or camp had hegemony, leading politicians were forced to make the necessary political compromises. Masoud then builds on this conclusion to suggest a more structural argument: that the greater economic development, industrialization and urbanization of Tunisia explains why its civil society had those specific features that Egypt’s lacked.