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To ensure political survival, autocrats must prevent popular rebellion, and political repression is a means to that end. However, autocrats face threats from both the inside and the outside of the center of power. They must avoid popular rebellion and at the same time share power with strategic actors who enjoy incentive to challenge established power-sharing arrangements whenever repression is ordered. Can autocrats turn repression in a way that allows trading one threat off against the other? This chapter first argues that prior research offers scant insight on that question because it relies on umbrella concepts and questionable measurements of repression. Next, the chapter disaggregates repression into restrictions and violence and reflects on their drawbacks. Citizens adapt to the restriction of political civil liberties, and violence backfires against its originators. Hence, restrictions require enforcement, and violence requires moderation. When interpreted as complements, it becomes clear that restrictions and violence have the potential to compensate for their respective weaknesses. The complementarity between violence and restrictions turns political repression into a valuable addition to the authoritarian toolkit. The chapter concludes with an application of these ideas to the twin problems of authoritarian control and power-sharing.
Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) offers flexible and decarbonised power generation and is one of the few switchable renewable technologies that can generate renewable power on demand. Today (2018), CSP only contributes 5 TWh to European electricity generation but has the potential to become an important generation asset for decarbonising the electricity sector within Europe as well as globally. This chapter examines how factors and key political decisions lead to different futures and the associated CSP use in Europe in the years up to 2050. In a second step, we characterise the scenarios with the associated system costs and the costs of the support policy. We show that the role of CSP in Europe depends crucially on political decisions and the success or failure of policies outside of renewable energies. In particular, the introduction of CSP depends on the general ambitions for decarbonisation, the level of cross-border trade in electricity from renewable sources and is made possible by the existence of a strong grid connection between the southern and northern European Member States and by future growth in electricity demand. The presence of other baseload technologies, particularly nuclear energy in France, diminishes the role and need for CSP. Assuming a favourable technological development, we find a strong role for CSP in Europe in all modelled scenarios: Contribution of 100 TWh to 300 TWh of electricity to a future European electricity system. The current European CSP fleet would have to be increased by a factor of 20 to 60 over the next 30 years. To achieve this, stable financial support for CSP would be required. Depending on framework conditions and assumptions, the amount of support ranges at the EU level from € 0.4 to 2 billion per year, which represents only a small proportion of the total support requirement for the energy system transformation. Cooperation between the Member States could further help reduce these costs.
Das Verhältnis von Gemeinwohl und Gleichheit ist kein spannungsfreies. Soziale Gleichheit ist ein Grundwert liberal-demokratischer Gemeinwesen. Um diese Gleichheit zu bewahren, entwickelten sich im 20. Jahrhundert Konzeptionen von Gemeinwohl, die versuchten, das Gemeinwohl eher prozedural und pluralistisch zu verstehen. Eine zu spezifische, vorher festgelegte Definition des Gemeinwohls sei letzten Endes undemokratisch und ideologisch und somit der sozialen Gleichheit abträglich. In den letzten Jahren haben sich unter dem Oberbegriff des sozialen Egalitarismus jedoch auch die Vorstellungen der sozialen Gleichheit verändert, hin zu einem substanzielleren Verständnis, was die Frage aufwirft, ob prozedurale Gemeinwohlverständnisse ihrer Rolle als Wächter der Gleichheit immer noch gerecht werden können.
Vorwort
(2023)
Region ohne Richtung
(2023)
Welche Auswirkungen wird die aufziehende Großmächtekonkurrenz also auf die regionale Sicherheitsordnung haben? Der Beitrag nähert sich dieser Frage über die regionalen Bedingungsfaktoren, die den Rahmen für jegliche Ingerenz extraregionaler Mächte bilden: Die regionalen Sicherheitskomplexe in Lateinamerika und der Karibik, einschließlich der Regionalorganisationen und Regionalmächte, sowie der Einflusssphären und Anreizsysteme der Großmächte. Am Ende wagt der Beitrag einen Ausblick auf die Entwicklung der lateinamerikanischen Sicherheitspolitik im Angesicht der Geopolitik der Großmächte. Die hier vorgestellte Kernthese wagt ein strukturelles und deshalb wenig alarmistisches Argument: Die Großmächtekonkurrenz wird die bestehende Fragmentierung der regionalen Sicherheitsordnung weiter vertiefen, doch wird die Region gleichzeitig nicht substanziell an Agency gegenüber den Großmächten verlieren. Der Schlüssel hierzu ist die außenpolitische Maxime der „gebundenen Äquidistanz“, die Dependenzen diversifiziert und damit nicht als Widerspruch, sondern als Positivsummenspiel versteht.
Green recovery
(2023)
This chapter reviews how the European Union has fared in enabling a green recovery in the aftermath of the Covid-19 crisis, drawing comparisons to developments after the financial crisis. The chapter focuses on the European Commission and its evolving role in promoting decarbonisation efforts in its Member States, paying particular attention to its role in financing investments in low-carbon assets. It considers both the direct effects of green stimulus policies on decarbonisation in the EU and how these actions have shaped the capacities of the Commission as an actor in the field of climate and energy policy. The analysis reveals a significant expansion of the Commission’s role compared to the period following the financial crisis. EU-level measures have provided incentives for Member States to direct large volumes of financing towards investments in climate-friendly assets. Nevertheless, the ultimate impact will largely be shaped by implementation at the national level.
Reputation and influence
(2022)
International public administrations (IPAs) are collective bodies within international organizations (IOs) made up of international civil servants that support the intergovernmental bodies and member states. Over the last decade, research on these bodies has “gained substantial momentum”. Comparative assessments of IPAs reputation among stakeholders are rare. The literature on the sociological legitimacy of IOs is most advanced in this respect. A comparative agenda on IPAs reputation for expertise or neutrality is still in its infancy. Research has shown that different stakeholders view the same IPA quite differently. Reputation is a crucial concept in political science and IR research and has been widely used to predict states’ future behavior, notably regarding cooperation and conflict. IPAs seem to vary substantially in their reputation for expertise among critical interlocutors. In financial policy, several prominent IPAs are seen as experts, including the European Central Bank and the IMF.
This chapter addresses the role of evaluation of and in public administration. We focus on two analytical key dimensions: a) the provider of the evaluation and b) the subject of the evaluation. Four major types of evaluation are distinguished: (1) external institutional evaluation, (2) internal institutional evaluation, (3) external evaluation of administrative action/results, (4) internal evaluation of administrative action/results. Type 1 and 2 refer to evaluation of administrative structures and processes as the subject of administrative reform. Type 3 and 4 represent different versions of evaluation in public administration, because the subject is administrative action and its outputs. The chapter highlights salient approaches and organizational settings of evaluation and provides insights into the institutionalization of an evaluation function in public administration. Finally, the chapter draws lessons regarding strengths and potentials but also remaining weaknesses and challenges of evaluation of and in public administration.
Comparative methods B
(2020)
This chapter outlines the relevance and value of comparative approaches and methods in studying Public Administration (PA). It discusses the roots and current developments of comparative research in PA and discusses various methodological venues for cross-country comparisons, such as most similar/dissimilar systems designs, the method of concomitant variation and the difference-in-difference method. Besides the description of these approaches, we highlight their conceptual value for theory-driven empirical comparative research. Drawing on selected pieces of comparative research, the chapter furthermore provides examples for the application of comparative methods in practice presenting empirical findings and highlighting strengths and weaknesses. The chapter finally emphasizes that the methodological development in comparative PA research has by far not yet reached its end, and that some future challenges need to be addressed, such as the issues of causality, generalizability, and mixed-methods approaches.
The study of subnational and local government systems and reforms has become an increasingly salient topic in comparative public administration. In many European countries, policy implementation, the execution of public tasks and the delivery of services to citizens are largely carried out by local governments, which, at the same time, have been subjected to multiple reforms and sometimes comprehensive institutional re-organizations. This chapter discusses analytical key concepts and outcomes of the comparative study of local governments and local government reforms. It outlines frameworks and analytical tools to capture the variety of institutional settings and developments at the local level of government. It provides an introduction into crucial comparative dimensions, such as functional, territorial and political profiles of local governments, and analyses current reform approaches and outcomes based on recent empirical findings. Finally, the chapter addresses salient issues to be taken up in future comparative studies about local government.
This chapter analyses managerial reforms at the subnational level of government from a comparative perspective and outlines possible routes for future comparative research. It examines reforms of the external relationships between local governments and private service providers, which were aimed at transforming the organizational macro-setting of local service provision, the task portfolio and functional profile of local governments. The chapter then moves to scrutinizing internal managerial reforms concerned with the modernization of organization and processes and the improvement of management capacities inside local administrations meant to strengthen performance, output- and consumer-orientation in local service delivery. The country sample includes the United Kingdom (England), Sweden, and Germany that represent three distinct types of administrative culture and local government in Europe.
Over the past decades, the traditional profile of the German administrative system has significantly been reshaped and remoulded through reforms and transformations. Manifold modernization efforts have been undertaken to adjust administrative structures and procedures to increasing challenges and pressures. In this chapter, the attempt is made to outline major institutional reform paths in Germany from Weberian bureaucracy to most recent reforms towards a digital transformation of public administration. We will show to what extent the German administrative system has moved away from the classical Weberian bureaucracy to a hybrid system where elements of the ‘old’ model and new reform paradigms such as the NPM and digital government are hybridized, labelled the Neo Weberian State. The question will be addressed as to what extent this shift has taken shape and which hurdles and path-dependencies can be identified to explain partial persistence and continuity over time.
Conclusion
(2023)
Based on the previous findings in this book, Chapter 18 by Heike Krieger and Andrea Liese discusses the general dynamics of change or metamorphosis in the international legal order. They discern a mixed picture of an international order between metamorphosis—that is, a more fundamental transformation—of international law, norm change, turbulences, and robustness. They explain drivers of change and highlight factors such as national interests during the war on terror, changing long-term foreign policy beliefs, and the rise in populism and autocracy, before discussing the most common strategies the actors involved use. Other relevant factors include changes in the political environment, such as shocks and power shifts or the ambiguous role of fragmentation. Moreover, they identify factors that make legal norms robust, including the vital role of norm defenders and legal and institutional structures as stabilizing elements. Krieger and Liese conclude by cautioning that if the attacks on the international order continue at the current frequency and magnitude, a metamorphosis of international law will likely be unstoppable.
Introduction
(2023)
Can a metamorphosis of international law be identified while it is still underway? In Chapter 1, the Introduction, Krieger and Liese set the stage for the interdisciplinary assessment of the effects of the current crisis of the international legal order. They offer fundamental common values as a reference point and yardstick to systematically evaluate and analyse normative changes in international law. After explaining the benefits of interdisciplinary exchange and clarifying the basic concepts from the respective disciplinary perspectives, they develop the book’s conceptual framework for assessing and explaining value change in the international legal order. The Introduction also elaborates on the book’s research design and case selection and summarizes the aims and key contributions of each conceptual and empirical chapter.
The chapter explores aspects of ‘memory games’ in postcommunist Poland vis-à-vis the country’s authoritarian communist past. In particular, it is interested in the populist moments of lustration and de-communization, and also after October 2015 when the right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS) won the parliamentary and presidential elections in Poland. The main argument is that even though legitimate considerations of lustration and de-communization play a role, a number of policies dealing with transitional justice are related to populist mobilization by the PiS. Against this background, the chapter discusses how far the transitional justice has been accompanied by the process of reframing the political memory about the guilt, suffering, and righteousness during communism. Populist legitimation aims at reconfiguring the public discourse on the transitional justice in a way that it is used to justify controversial public policies in tune with the interest of the groups currently in power, which present themselves as the true voice of the people. The core of the article deals with three main aspects of Polish memory games: (1) the meandering of lustration (mainly with regard to the position of the PiS/Law and Justice and PO/Civic Platform – the largest Polish political parties since 2005), (2) the lustration as the function of power, and (3) the role of the Institute of National Remembrance as a case of institutionalized memory games.
Mundus vult decipi
(2021)
Die Menschen glauben, was sie glauben wollen. Betonung auf wollen. (…) Nein, der Glaube der Menschen hängt nicht von Fakten ab, nicht von Beweisen. Schlimmer noch – und das ist fast so etwas wie der zweite Teil der Erleuchtung, eine Steigerung: Man kann ihnen Fakten liefern, man kann sie widerlegen, es hilft nichts. Im Gegenteil, wer etwas glauben will, findet einen Weg! Er wird sich durch den winzigen Spalt quetschen, den die Wahrheit im lässt. Wird die Dinge so lange so drehen und wenden, bis sie wieder in seinen Glauben hineinpassen, und seine ganze Klugheit wird ihn nicht etwa daran hindern, sondern ihm noch dabei behilflich sein.
Eugen Ruge, Metropol
Toren sind, die alles loben und lieben, was im Nebel verdrehter Worte dunkel daherkommt; Toren, die für wahr halten, was ihnen eingefärbt durch wohltönende Phrasen, reizvoll die Ohren kitzelt.
Lukrez, Über die Natur der Dinge