A Hazard Analysis of Consumers’ Switching Behaviour in German Food Retailing For Dairy Products

German food retailing is characterized by fierce competition among retail chains for consumer shopping. This paper considers the switching behaviour using data of white dairy product purchases. The empirical investigation uses a survival analysis approach, in particular hazard analysis. The results extend the knowledge of shopping behaviour by providing a new set of explaining variables and the importance of the first store, defined as store with the major share of household budget, becomes apparent. On average, households buy dairy products 42 times per year. Thereof 58 % are retail chain switches and in 41 % of all cases the households remain at the previously visited retail chain. Generally a low customer loyalty is visible in this investigation. It is shown that switching behaviour is widely influenced - amongst others - by percentage of private label products, percentage of special offers and price consciousness

Civil society in Central and Eastern Europe: The ambivalent legacy of accession

Civil society organisations in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have remained weak players compared to their counterparts in established democracies. Given the particular incentives that the EU offered for the empowerment of non-state actors during pre-accession, it has often been assumed that EU intervention improved this situation. We argue that, instead, the EU's impact was highly ambivalent. Although the EU aid and EU-induced policy reform levelled the way for established actors' involvement in multilevel politics, it reinforced some of the barriers to development that the civil society organisations face in CEE. In particular, EU measures have failed to address the lack of sustainable income, of formalised interactions with the state and of grassroot support. Drawing on the experiences of trade unions and environmental groups, we show that this ambivalent 'legacy of accession' is due to an unfortunate interrelation between various, often implicit mechanisms of the EU's enlargement regime on one hand, and particular problems inherited from state socialism and transition on the other. Acta Politica (2010) 45, 41-69. doi: 10.1057/ap.2009.1

A space between two worlds: St. Petersburg in the early eighteenth century

In May 1703, Tsar Peter I of Russia is alleged to have led a small military foray to the Baltic coastline, near the mouth of the river Neva. Accounts of this occasion, both contemporary and retrospective, vary considerably on the precise chronology of the decision-making process and the question of whether the tsar himself was actually present. Regardless of the precise details, the area was claimed (or, some argue, reclaimed) in the name of Russia and plans were made to build a fortress in order to consolidate the Russian presence. This foundation and the associated myths, which have been explored by many writers and historians over the intervening centuries, feature in most discussions of St. Petersburg’s history. One such myth, which presents Peter creating his new city out of nothing, in a wilderness, was essentially poetic license on the part of later writers such as Vasilii Trediakovskii and Aleksandr Pushkin. In fact, the area was the site of a Swedish fortress known as “Nienschants,” the town of Nien, with a population of around four thousand, and a number of smaller settlements nearby that existed before the city was founded. Indeed, given the paucity of usable stone in the region, the ruins of the old fortress likely provided material used in the initial stage of St. Petersburg’s construction, particularly in the foundations of buildings