Germany's plagiarism plague
I have reported at length on the plagiarism scandal that cost Germany's former defence minister his PhD and his job (See * for a summary).
Now the university's investigation has found formally that he deliberately committed plagiarism, grossly violating acceptable research practices (here for English-language coverage) **.
Now we have a possible new case: the liberal party's Silvana Koch-Mehrin is being investigated by her university. Even though she's a senior member of her party - and a vice-president of the European Parliament - her case isn't getting nearly as much attention as that of zu Guttenberg (despite what the BBC claims). I think that this is because:
a) she is far away from national politics (the European Parliament is in some ways more powerful than a national parliament, and certainly as a VP, Koch-Mehrin has a great deal of influence. But the EP is in Brussels, and complicated, so it doesn't hit the news all that much)
b) Unlike zu Guttenberg, she hasn't hitched her political career to the "morally upright and straight talking" bandwagon, so the deception doesn't seem quite so bad.
c) The scale of the plagiarism doesn't seem to have been as massive: about half of the pages in zu Guttenberg's dissertation (or rather, "dissertation") apparently contained plagiarism, whereas it's only just over a quarter of the pages of Koch-Mehrin's dissertation (and most of the copying seems to have been from standard textbooks rather than newspaper columns and the like).
d) There is no chance that she will be prosecuted for copyright infringement, as Germany has a statute of limitations and Koch-Mehrin received her doctorate more than five years ago.
e) She is not an aristocrat
As I said in my first post on plagiarism, having a PhD in Germany is a passport to high office in business and politics, so the pressure on an ambitious person to get one is immense. I wonder how many German public figures have a doctoral skeleton in their closet. Perhaps we shall find out...
* Summary: Baron Karl-Theodore etc, etc, zu Guttenberg plagiarised large parts of his doctorate, became minister a few years later, the plagiarism subsequently emerged and after much to-and-fro he resigned in a huff.
** The full report is due to be released next week (Zu G. had originally tried to block its release, but has changed his mind). There is in theory a chance that he will be prosecuted for copyright infringement, but the news reporting is silent on this question, so presumably this option has been quietly dropped. If he does get prosecuted, I shall let you know.
Now the university's investigation has found formally that he deliberately committed plagiarism, grossly violating acceptable research practices (here for English-language coverage) **.
Now we have a possible new case: the liberal party's Silvana Koch-Mehrin is being investigated by her university. Even though she's a senior member of her party - and a vice-president of the European Parliament - her case isn't getting nearly as much attention as that of zu Guttenberg (despite what the BBC claims). I think that this is because:
a) she is far away from national politics (the European Parliament is in some ways more powerful than a national parliament, and certainly as a VP, Koch-Mehrin has a great deal of influence. But the EP is in Brussels, and complicated, so it doesn't hit the news all that much)
b) Unlike zu Guttenberg, she hasn't hitched her political career to the "morally upright and straight talking" bandwagon, so the deception doesn't seem quite so bad.
c) The scale of the plagiarism doesn't seem to have been as massive: about half of the pages in zu Guttenberg's dissertation (or rather, "dissertation") apparently contained plagiarism, whereas it's only just over a quarter of the pages of Koch-Mehrin's dissertation (and most of the copying seems to have been from standard textbooks rather than newspaper columns and the like).
d) There is no chance that she will be prosecuted for copyright infringement, as Germany has a statute of limitations and Koch-Mehrin received her doctorate more than five years ago.
e) She is not an aristocrat
As I said in my first post on plagiarism, having a PhD in Germany is a passport to high office in business and politics, so the pressure on an ambitious person to get one is immense. I wonder how many German public figures have a doctoral skeleton in their closet. Perhaps we shall find out...
* Summary: Baron Karl-Theodore etc, etc, zu Guttenberg plagiarised large parts of his doctorate, became minister a few years later, the plagiarism subsequently emerged and after much to-and-fro he resigned in a huff.
** The full report is due to be released next week (Zu G. had originally tried to block its release, but has changed his mind). There is in theory a chance that he will be prosecuted for copyright infringement, but the news reporting is silent on this question, so presumably this option has been quietly dropped. If he does get prosecuted, I shall let you know.