TY - JOUR A1 - Heyden, Janika A1 - Natho, Stephanie T1 - Assessing floodplain management in Germany - a case study on nationwide research and actions JF - Sustainability N2 - After a long history of floodplain degradation and substantial losses of inundation areas over the last decades, a rethinking of floodplain management has taken place in Germany. Floodplains are now acknowledged as important areas for both biodiversity and society. This transformation has been significantly supported by nationwide research activities. A systematic assessment of the current floodplain management is still lacking. We therefore developed a scheme to assess floodplain management through the steps of identification, analysis, implementation, and evaluation. Reviewing the data and literature on nationwide floodplain-related research and activities, we defined key elements of floodplain management for Germany. We concluded that research activities already follow a strategic nationwide approach of identifying and analyzing floodplains. Progress in implementation is slow, however, and potentials are far from being reached. Nevertheless, new and unique initiatives enable Germany to stay on the long-term path of giving rivers more space and improving floodplain conditions. KW - assessment KW - ecological condition KW - threatened ecosystem KW - policy KW - floodplain restoration KW - Germany Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/su141710610 SN - 2071-1050 VL - 14 IS - 17 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Thomeczek, Jan Philipp T1 - The voting potential of Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht JF - Political studies review N2 - A new challenger seeks to enter the German party system: Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW). With her new party, former Die Linke politician Sahra Wagenknecht combines a left-authoritarian profile (economically left-leaning, but culturally conservative) with anti-US, pro-Russia and anti-elitist stances. This article provides the first large-n academic study of the voter potential of this new party by using a quasi-representative sample (n = 6,000) drawn from a Voting Advice Application-like dataset that comes from a website designed to explore the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht’s positions. The results show that congruence with foreign policy positions and anti-elitism are strong predictors of the propensity to vote for the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht. In contrast, social/welfare and immigration policies are less predictive for assessing the party’s potential. Among the different socio-demographic groups, the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht has a strong potential among baby boomers, the less educated and East Germans. Regarding party voters, the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht is favoured by supporters of some minor parties like dieBasis, Freie Wähler and Die PARTEI, but also non-voters. Among the established parties, the party’s potential is high among Die Linke voters and, to a lesser extent, voters of the Social democrats (SPD) and Alternative for Germany (AfD). A potential below the average is reported for the supporters of the Liberals (FDP) and Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and most clearly for Green and Volt voters. KW - BSW KW - voting potential KW - Germany KW - populism Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/14789299241264975 SN - 1478-9299 SN - 1478-9302 SP - 1 EP - 9 PB - Sage Publications CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Tjaden, Jasper A1 - Heidland, Tobias T1 - Did Merkel’s 2015 decision attract more migration to Germany? JF - European journal of political research N2 - In 2015, German Chancellor Angela Merkel decided to allow over a million asylum seekers to cross the border into Germany. One key concern was that her decision would signal an open-door policy to aspiring migrants worldwide – thus further increasing migration to Germany and making the country permanently more attractive to irregular and humanitarian migrants. This ‘pull-effect’ hypothesis has been a mainstay of policy discussions ever since. With the continued global rise in forced displacement, not appearing welcoming to migrants has become a guiding principle for the asylum policy of many large receiving countries. In this article, we exploit the unique case study that Merkel's 2015 decision provides for answering the fundamental question of whether welcoming migration policies have sustained effects on migration towards destination countries. We analyze an extensive range of data on migration inflows, migration aspirations and online search interest between 2000 and 2020. The results reject the ‘pull effect’ hypothesis while reaffirming states’ capacity to adapt to changing contexts and regulate migration. KW - migration KW - policy KW - refugee KW - pull effect KW - Germany Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.12669 SN - 0304-4130 SN - 1475-6765 SP - 1 EP - 17 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kuhlmann, Sabine A1 - Franzke, Jochen A1 - Peters, Niklas A1 - Dumas, Benoît Paul T1 - Institutional designs and dynamics of crisis governance at the local level BT - European governments facing the polycrisis JF - Policy design and practice N2 - This article analyses the institutional design variants of local crisis governance responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and their entanglement with other locally impactful crises from a cross-country comparative perspective (France, Germany, Poland, Sweden, and the UK/England). The pandemic offers an excellent empirical lens for scrutinizing the phenomenon of polycrises governance because it occurred while European countries were struggling with the impacts of several prior, ongoing, or newly arrived crises. Our major focus is on institutional design variants of crisis governance (dependent variable) and the influence of different administrative cultures on it (independent variable). Furthermore, we analyze the entanglement and interaction of institutional responses to other (previous or parallel) crises (polycrisis dynamics). Our findings reveal a huge variance of institutional designs, largely evoked by country-specific administrative cultures and profiles. The degree of de-/centralization and the intensity of coordination or decoupling across levels of government differs significantly by country. Simultaneously, all countries were affected by interrelated and entangled crises, resulting in various patterns of polycrisis dynamics. While policy failures and “fatal remedies” from previous crises have partially impaired the resilience and crisis preparedness of local governments, we have also found some learning effects from previous crises. KW - polycrisis KW - pandemic KW - local government KW - intergovernmental relations KW - public administration KW - crisis management KW - Germany KW - France KW - Poland KW - Sweden KW - United Kingdom Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/25741292.2024.2344784 SN - 2574-1292 SP - 1 EP - 21 PB - Taylor & Francis CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Marienfeldt, Justine A1 - Wehmeier, Liz Marla A1 - Kuhlmann, Sabine T1 - Top-down or bottom-up digital transformation? BT - a comparison of institutional changes and outcomes JF - Public money & management N2 - This article analyses incremental institutional change and subsequent organizational and performance outcomes of the digital transformation from a comparative perspective. Through 31 expert interviews, the authors compare two digitalized public services in Germany. Two digitalization approaches are identified. The voluntary, decentralized bottom-up approach involves layering of new rules, limited organizational restructuring, and performance deficits. Conversely, the compulsory, top-down approach with centralized control facilitates displacement of existing rules and far-reaching organizational change; in this study, it is also associated with improved performance. KW - bottom-up KW - digital transformation KW - electronic tax returns KW - Germany KW - institutional change KW - performance KW - vehicle registration KW - top-down Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/09540962.2024.2365351 SN - 0954-0962 SN - 1467-9302 PB - Taylor & Francis CY - Abingdon ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Thomeczek, Jan Philipp T1 - Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW): left-wing authoritarian—and populist? BT - an empirical analysis JF - Politische Vierteljahresschrift N2 - Germany’s relatively stable party system faces a new left-authoritarian challenger: Sahra Wagenknecht’s Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) party. First polls indicate that for the BSW, election results above 10% are within reach. While Wagenknecht’s positions in economic and cultural terms have already been discussed, this article elaborates on another highly relevant feature of Wagenknecht, namely her populist communication. Exploring Wagenknecht’s and BSW’s populist appeal helps us to understand why the party is said to also have potential among seemingly different voter groups coming from the far right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and far left Die Linke, which share high levels of populist attitudes. To analyse the role that populist communication plays for Wagenknecht and the BSW, this article combines quantitative and qualitative methods. The quantitative analysis covers all speeches (10,000) and press releases (19,000) published by Die Linke members of Parliament (MPs; 2005–2023). The results show that Wagenknecht is the (former) Die Linke MP with the highest share of populist communication. Furthermore, she was also able to convince a group of populist MPs to join the BSW. The article closes with a qualitative analysis of BSW’s manifesto that reveals how populist framing plays a major role in this document, in which the political and economic elites are accused of working against the interest of “the majority”. Based on this analysis, the classification of the BSW as a populist party seems to be appropriate. N2 - Die langjährige Stabilität des deutschen Parteiensystems wird aktuell durch eine neue links-konservative Partei herausgefordert: Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW). Erste Umfragen deuten an, dass das BSW bundesweit bis zu 10 % der Stimmen gewinnen könnte. Die Einordnung als links-konservativ oder in Anlehnung an die englische Literatur links-autoritär wurde bereits medial intensiv diskutiert. Weniger Beachtung hat bislang die populistische Kommunikation von Wagenknecht gefunden. Die populistische Ansprache durch das BSW kann bei der Beantwortung der Frage behilflich sein, warum das BSW scheinbar gegensätzliche Gruppen wie Wähler:innen der Linken und der AfD gleichzeitig ansprechen kann, da populistische Einstellungen unter den Wähler:innen beider Parteien weit verbreitet sind. Der vorliegende Beitrag analysiert die Rolle der populistischen Kommunikation von Wagenknecht und dem BSW mithilfe qualitativer und quantitativer Methoden. Dazu wurden zunächst alle Reden (ca. 10.000) und alle Pressemitteilungen (ca. 19.000) aller Linken-Bundestagsabgeordneten der gesamten parlamentarischen Lebensdauer der Fraktion (2005–2023) untersucht. Die Ergebnisse dieser quantitativen Analyse zeigen, dass Wagenknecht unter den Linken-Abgeordneten mit Abstand am häufigsten populistische Kommunikationselemente einsetzte und sie ebenso in der Lage war, einige der populistischsten Abgeordneten zum BSW-Beitritt zu überreden. Der Artikel schließt mit einer qualitativen Auswertung der populistischen Rhetorik im BSW-Parteiprogramm. Es wird deutlich, dass hier insbesondere die Kritik an der Politik- und Wirtschaftselite eine wichtige Rolle spielt. Diese Elitenkritik wird mit einem starken Bevölkerungsbezug kombiniert, der beispielsweise in der Ansprache der „Mehrheit“ deutlich wird. Insgesamt erscheint damit die Klassifizierung als populistische Partei gerechtfertigt. KW - populism KW - Germany KW - BSW KW - mixed methods KW - new parties KW - Populismus KW - Deutschland KW - neue Parteien Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11615-024-00544-z SN - 0032-3470 SN - 1862-2860 PB - Springer VS CY - Wiesbaden ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schwieder, Marcel A1 - Wesemeyer, Maximilian A1 - Frantz, David A1 - Pfoch, Kira A1 - Erasmi, Stefan A1 - Pickert, Jürgen A1 - Nendel, Claas A1 - Hostert, Patrick T1 - Mapping grassland mowing events across Germany based on combined Sentinel-2 and Landsat 8 time series JF - Remote sensing of environment N2 - Spatially explicit knowledge on grassland extent and management is critical to understand and monitor the impact of grassland use intensity on ecosystem services and biodiversity. While regional studies allow detailed insights into land use and ecosystem service interactions, information on a national scale can aid biodiversity assessments. However, for most European countries this information is not yet widely available. We used an analysis-ready-data cube that contains dense time series of co-registered Sentinel-2 and Landsat 8 data, covering the extent of Germany. We propose an algorithm that detects mowing events in the time series based on residuals from an assumed undisturbed phenology, as an indicator of grassland use intensity. A self-adaptive ruleset enabled to account for regional variations in land surface phenology and non-stationary time series on a pixelbasis. We mapped mowing events for the years from 2017 to 2020 for permanent grassland areas in Germany. The results were validated on a pixel level in four of the main natural regions in Germany based on reported mowing events for a total of 92 (2018) and 78 (2019) grassland parcels. Results for 2020 were evaluated with combined time series of Landsat, Sentinel-2 and PlanetScope data. The mean absolute percentage error between detected and reported mowing events was on average 40% (2018), 36% (2019) and 35% (2020). Mowing events were on average detected 11 days (2018), 7 days (2019) and 6 days (2020) after the reported mowing. Performance measures varied between the different regions of Germany, and lower accuracies were found in areas that are revisited less frequently by Sentinel-2. Thus, we assessed the influence of data availability and found that the detection of mowing events was less influenced by data availability when at least 16 cloud-free observations were available in the grassland season. Still, the distribution of available observations throughout the season appeared to be critical. On a national scale our results revealed overall higher shares of less intensively mown grasslands and smaller shares of highly intensively managed grasslands. Hotspots of the latter were identified in the alpine foreland in Southern Germany as well as in the lowlands in the Northwest of Germany. While these patterns were stable throughout the years, the results revealed a tendency to lower management intensity in the extremely dry year 2018. Our results emphasize the ability of the approach to map the intensity of grassland management throughout large areas despite variations in data availability and environmental conditions. KW - Analysis-ready data KW - Big data KW - Large-area mapping KW - Germany KW - Common agricultural policy KW - Time series KW - Land use intensity KW - Optical remote sensing KW - Multi-spectral data KW - PlanetScope Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2021.112795 SN - 0034-4257 SN - 1879-0704 VL - 269 PB - Elsevier CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zielhofer, Christoph A1 - Schmidt, Johannes A1 - Reiche, Niklas A1 - Tautenhahn, Marie A1 - Ballasus, Helen A1 - Burkart, Michael A1 - Linstädter, Anja A1 - Dietze, Elisabeth A1 - Kaiser, Knut A1 - Mehler, Natascha T1 - The lower Havel River Region (Brandenburg, Germany) BT - a 230-Year-Long historical map record indicates a decrease in surface water areas and groundwater levels JF - Water N2 - Instrumental data show that the groundwater and lake levels in Northeast Germany have decreased over the past decades, and this process has accelerated over the past few years. In addition to global warming, the direct influence of humans on the local water balance is suspected to be the cause. Since the instrumental data usually go back only a few decades, little is known about the multidecadal to centennial-scale trend, which also takes long-term climate variation and the long-term influence by humans on the water balance into account. This study aims to quantitatively reconstruct the surface water areas in the Lower Havel Inner Delta and of adjacent Lake Gulpe in Brandenburg. The analysis includes the calculation of surface water areas from historical and modern maps from 1797 to 2020. The major finding is that surface water areas have decreased by approximately 30% since the pre-industrial period, with the decline being continuous. Our data show that the comprehensive measures in Lower Havel hydro-engineering correspond with groundwater lowering that started before recent global warming. Further, large-scale melioration measures with increasing water demands in the upstream wetlands beginning from the 1960s to the 1980s may have amplified the decline in downstream surface water areas. KW - long-term hydrological changes KW - historical maps KW - review of written KW - sources KW - preindustrial to industrial period KW - hydro-engineering history; KW - effects of global warming KW - drying trend KW - wetlands KW - drainage works to KW - create cropland KW - Lower Havel River Region KW - Brandenburg KW - Germany Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/w14030480 SN - 2073-4441 VL - 14 IS - 3 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Juang, Linda P. A1 - Schachner, Maja A1 - Aral, Tuğçe A1 - Schwarzenthal, Miriam A1 - Kunyu, David Khisoni A1 - Löhmannsröben, Hanna T1 - Effects of a brief self-affirmation writing intervention among 7(th) graders in Germany BT - testing for variations by heritage group, discrimination experiences and classroom diversity climate JF - Social psychology of education : an international journal N2 - We tested whether a brief self-affirmation writing intervention protected against identity-threats (i.e., stereotyping and discrimination) for adolescents' school-related adjustment. The longitudinal study followed 639 adolescents in Germany (65% of immigrant descent, 50% female, M-age = 12.35 years, SDage = .69) from 7(th) grade (pre-intervention at T1, five to six months post-intervention at T2) to the end of 8(th) grade (one-year follow-up at T3). We tested for direct and moderated (by heritage group, discrimination, classroom cultural diversity climate) effects using regression and latent change models. The self-affirmation intervention did not promote grades or math competence. However, in the short-term and for adolescents of immigrant descent, the intervention prevented a downward trajectory in mastery reactions to academic challenges for those experiencing greater discrimination. Further, it protected against a decline in behavioral school engagement for those in positive classroom cultural diversity climates. In the long-term and for all adolescents, the intervention lessened an upward trajectory in disruptive behavior. Overall, the self-affirmation intervention benefited some aspects of school-related adjustment for adolescents of immigrant and non-immigrant descent. The intervention context is important, with classroom cultural diversity climate acting as a psychological affordance enhancing affirmation effects. Our study supports the ongoing call for theorizing and empirically testing student and context heterogeneity to better understand for whom and under which conditions this intervention may work. KW - Brief self-affirmation writing intervention KW - Adolescents of immigrant KW - descent KW - School-related adjustment KW - Classroom cultural diversity KW - climate KW - Germany Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-023-09789-9 SN - 1381-2890 SN - 1573-1928 PB - Springer CY - Dordrecht ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Franzke, Jochen ED - Nunes Silva, Carlos T1 - German local authorities in the COVID-19 pandemic BT - challenges, impacts and adaptations T2 - Local government and the COVID-19 pandemic N2 - This study evaluates the challenges, institutional impacts and responses of German local authorities to the COVID-19 pandemic from a political science point of view. The main research question is how they have contributed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and to what extent the strengths and weaknesses of the German model of municipal autonomy have influenced their policy. It analyses the adaptation strategies of German local authorities and assesses the effectiveness of their actions up to now. Their implementation is then evaluated in five selected issues, e.g. adjustment organization and staff, challenges for local finances, local politics and citizen’s participation. This analysis is reflecting the scientific debate in Germany since the beginning of 2020, based on the available analyses of political science, law, economics, sociology and geography until end of March 2021. KW - Germany KW - municipalities KW - COVID-19 pandemic KW - resilience KW - coordination KW - administration KW - local and urban governance KW - local politics KW - local finance KW - local community Y1 - 2022 SN - 978-3-030-91111-9 SN - 978-3-030-91112-6 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91112-6_6 SP - 131 EP - 154 PB - Springer CY - Cham ER -