The title of this contribution is a question with a double meaning: On the one hand it refers to the method, on the other hand it refers to the results of German unification. After a preview of recent evaluations we discuss comparisons of the Federal Republic and the GDR from the 1960s, 1970s,...

As Europe is growing together politically and economically, the international perspective is becoming more and more important in social reporting and welfare research. Are there strong differences in the objective living conditions and the subjective well-being between European nations? Do the...

In this paper I want to deal with three topics: first, with the development and the ups and downs of modernization theory and its treatment of the non-Western world (I); secondly, with some basic social structure distributions and trends of human development for selected societies, including...