6.9 Digression: Alternate views 
In the present paper, the case "Liechtenstein and the German tax affair" was analyzed using 
the model of social framing of issues developed by Eichhorn as part of the agenda-setting 
approach, in order to identify the influence processes, structures and actors underlying the 
case from a communications perspective. The model has proven to be well suited, since it 
offers a comprehensive approach for answering the questions relating to actors, framing of 
issues, and influence processes. 
The model does not fully answer one of the questions raised, however: How can the timing of 
the eruption of the tax affair be explained? As mentioned in the introduction, the LGT data 
had been available to the German authorities for one and a half years already. 
With the help of the Eichhorn model, we have identified the actors in the present case, filtered 
out the individual issues and the issue structures, and shown the influence process. We have 
not gleaned any information concerning the question of timing, i.e. the point in time when the 
Zumwinkel arrest was staged. The explanation according to Eichhorn would be that the "straw 
broke the camel's back", i.e. that interest-policy upheavals among the political actors in 
Germany led to the "eruption" of latent, unresolved differences of opinion and the associated 
emotions, such as "tax competition vs. tax harmonization" (see also Chapter 6.6.1) or 
"German citizens investing money in Liechtenstein that is not declared to the German tax 
authorities". In the opinion of the author, this explanation does not cover everything, however. 
The involved actors act in various arenas. Arenas are places in which battle is waged and the 
actors have to pit their strength against each other or — in the figurative sense — try to assert 
their interests. Already due to the different roles they play in the social structure, actors with a 
society already act in different arenas. This is even more true of actors acting in the 
international environment. This results in a confusing and complex picture. 
The connection between the different actors in the different arenas and the time of their 
actions may be explainable with the help of the garbage-can model. The garbage-can model 
describes the decision-making behavior of organizations and was first formulated by Michael 
Cohen, James March and Johan P. Olsen in 1972. In works in accordance with a simple yet 
complex principle: actors, problems, solutions, and possibilities are thrown into a garbage 
can. The "random" encounter of fitting elements initiates a process that ultimately results in a 
solution (see Eichhorn 2005, 151). 
The application of this model would accommodate those political observers who believe that 
the events surrounding 14 February and afterwards were a pure coincidence. It was probably a 
coincidence that the prominent house search of Klaus Zumwinkel in the media took place on 
14 February, Valentine's Day and the birthday of Reigning Prince Hans-Adam II, the Head of 
State of the Principality of Liechtenstein, and that precisely on that day the Futuro project — a 
vision for the Liechtenstein business location and financial center — was presented. But was it 
actually a coincidence that the beginning of the tax affair took place one week before the 
long-planned official visit by Prime Minister Otmar Hasler to Federal Chancellor Merkel and 
Federal Minister of Finance Peer Steinbriick? The last visit by a Liechtenstein Prime Minister 
to Berlin had been in 1992! For some observers, that is too much of a coincidence, and they 
assume that the timing was planned or at least an opportunity was seized — the existence of a 
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