Populationorder From Domains That Focus

¶ … PopulationOrder

From domains that focus on the appearance and development of the human being, such as history, geography, linguistics, philosophy or psychology to more objective areas such as biology, physics or natural sciences, it seems that for every segment that contributes to the extended field of knowledge, there is a science and a domain of activity that has devoted itself to the research and constant achievement of new information regarding that particular area of interests. Therefore, one should not appear surprised that there also exists a science concerned with the society one lives in, a science called Sociology.

Yet, most of the people are taken aback by the existence of this new science with pretentions of studying what they consider as being obvious and which questions facts that are assumed as being true by most of the members of a group. Generally, people think that they know everything or at least what needs to be known about the society they live in and, anyway, these pieces of information do not have a specific beginning point or a particular base. One is aware of them due to the simple fact that they express the day-to-day reality.

Up to a point, this approach may be understandable for psychologists and sociologists. To begin with, people did not wait for a science called sociology to appear in order to start wondering and searching for answers to their questions regarding the group or the society they lived in. Today, sociologists refer to this period as "the sociology of common sense," meaning it was not founded on a scientific base.

Secondly, every member of a society with a minimum intellectual level is capable of talking about what is good and what is bad in his or her group, what needs to be improved and how should the life of this group be organized.

Yet, the mechanisms that stand behind a modern society are more complex than people generally assume. A population's needs, problems or issues are extremely diversified and one can only satisfy and, respectively, resolve them through the agency of a critical thinking which would gain a better understanding of the problems by exploring not only the effects, but also the causes, along with suitable intervention strategies and methods of avoiding particular issues.

Therefore, the current paper work focuses on the importance of using critical thinking when trying to identify the causes of social problems or issues, by taking the example of a certain segment, the population of Germany.

The name of the German state and the historical actions and events that relate to it made the history of this country remarkable and Germany became one of the most important figures, especially for the last century, a country known as extremely influent, powerful, with a significant number of resources of all kinds: human, territorial, financial, political etc. In other words, one of the greatest state powers from Europe.

As a main characteristic of Germany's history, one can say that a constant issue was related to the division of the country's territory into some kind of confederations, federations or unitary states. In 1849 there were issues about monarchical vs. liberal government. Then, in 1919, with the major role of Prussia being dominant in the territory, there were questions regarding the number and size of the constituent states, called "Landers." But the major event that shook Germany from basement was the state's engagement in the two World Wars, action that subsequently proved to be devastating for it, especially when referring to the Second World War.

In 1945, at the end of the War, Germany failed to achieve its goals and surrendered. One should remind the contribution of Adolf Hitler to this failure. Although the name of the despotic leader is generally related to the Holocaust phenomenon, what interests for the current issue is the other category of negative effects that Germany suffered, the major territory loss. The country was reprieved of a quarter of its pre-war territory and, four years later, in 1949, was divided into two distinctive federations, West Germany and East Germany, separated by the famous Berlin's Wall, the symbol of the German's Communism. While West Germany was founded as a democratic, federal and welfare state, East Germany became component of the Communist block and developed a completely different political and ideological approach.

Although being reunified in 1990, the impact of this long-lasted separation of the German's territory strongly affected Germany's politics, economy and industry and continues to influence the type of issues the country must face, even after a decade of unification. Particularly, these issues relate to the financial area and constant try of fiscal equalization, political parties and political behavior, unemployment, immigration policies and social security. German analysts and sociologists appreciate these as being the direct effect of the above-mentioned territorial division and constantly search for methods and intervention strategies.

To begin with, one must say that these issues are subject of long and numerous discussions, political posturing and legislation and, In particular cases, the debate regarding them was brought to the authorities and the court's attention and also, became subjects of constitutional amendments.

Next, one should explain the nature and causes of these issues in detail.

The first important consequence of Germany's division and also, an obvious sign that it still remains affected by this reflects in the area of political parties and political behavior. In the occidental and eastern side of the country, these are significantly marked by differences. For example, in east, there is a constant and even growing support for the former communists, while in the other case, this support almost totally lacks.

In financial terms, Germany has long tried to achieve an approximately equal fiscal level among the whole territory of the country. This remains a challenging task, despite of the great amount of money that has been transferred from one side to another.

On the other hand, Germany faces not only problems related to historical events as the division and further unification, but also new issues which regard more recent and politically external events. Together with the inclusion of new central and eastern European members in the European Union, Germany confronted itself with new debates regarding unemployment and immigration and had to find a balance between the European policy and the one of their own (Gunlicks, Arthur B. (2003). German Public Policy and Federalism: Current Debates on Political, Legal, and Social Issues, pages 1-3). While UE grants liberty of movement among countries for all its members, for all good and services, this became contradictory to Germany's own benefits, as this affected the rate of unemployment for German citizens and also, raised issues of social security.

The case of Germany is extremely interesting and presents a series of particularities, due to the direct relation between past and current issues. The way in which history affects current reality makes the analysis of Germany's problems very approachable, due to the visibility of facts.

In order to find suitable intervention strategies, specialized institutions have been organized, not only on the territory of the country, but also outdoors. Such an organization is present in the United States, and activates under the name of "The American Institute for Contemporary German Studies" (AICGS). Its activity regards following the transformation of Germany's political and constitutional environment since 1990. Analyzing the case of Germany is useful not only in providing an extremely interesting review of the last decade, but it is also important for specialists, as they can use this information in order to anticipate the further period in the state's existence and eventually try to prevent new problems or at least, to learn how to face them.