Sozialwissenschaften
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Einleitung
(2012)
Einleitung
(2012)
Whilst the Covid-19 pandemic affects all European countries, the ways in which these countries are prepared for the health and subsequent economic crisis varies considerably. Financial solidarity within the European Union (EU) could mitigate some of these inequalities but depends upon the support of the citizens of individual member states for such policies. This paper studies attitudes of the Austrian population - a net-contributor to the European budget - towards financial solidarity using two waves of the Austrian Corona Panel Project collected in May and June 2020. We find that individuals (i) who are less likely to consider the Covid-19 pandemic as a national economic threat, (ii) who believe that Austria benefits from supporting other countries, and (iii) who prefer the crisis to be organized more centrally at EU-level show higher support for European financial solidarity. Using fixed effects models, we further show that perceiving economic threats and preferring central crisis management also explain attitude dynamics within individuals over time. We conclude that cost-benefit perceptions are important determinants for individual support of European financial solidarity during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In 2002 Germany adopted an ambitious national sustainability strategy, covering all three sustainability spheres and circling around 21 key indicators. The strategy stands out because of its relative stability over five consecutive government constellations, its high status and increasingly coercive nature. This article analyses the strategy's role in the policy process, focusing on the use and influence of indicators as a central steering tool. Contrasting rationalist and constructivist perspectives on the role of knowledge in policy, two factors, namely the level of consensus about policy goals and the institutional setting of the indicators, are found to explain differences in use and influence both across indicators and over time. Moreover, the study argues that the indicators have been part of a continuous process of ‘structuring’ in which conceptual and instrumental use together help structure the sustainability challenge in such a way that it becomes more manageable for government policy.
Permanent income (PI) is an enduring concept in the social sciences and is highly relevant to the study of inequality. Nevertheless, there has been insufficient progress in measuring PI. We calculate a novel measure of PI with the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and U.S. Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). Advancing beyond prior approaches, we define PI as the logged average of 20+ years of post-tax and post-transfer ("post-fisc") real equivalized household income. We then assess how well various household- and individual-based measures of economic resources proxy PI. In both datasets, post-fisc household income is the best proxy. One random year of post-fisc household income explains about half of the variation in PI, and 2-5 years explain the vast majority of the variation. One year of post-fisc HH income even predicts PI better than 20+ years of individual labor market earnings or long-term net worth. By contrast, earnings, wealth, occupation, and class are weaker and less cross-nationally reliable proxies for PI. We also present strategies for proxying PI when HH post-fisc income data are unavailable, and show how post-fisc HH income proxies PI over the life cycle. In sum, we develop a novel approach to PI, systematically assess proxies for PI, and inform the measurement of economic resources more generally.
This note presents results from an experiment studying a two person 4 4 pure coordination game. We explore different strategy labels in an attempt to implement the mixed strategy equilibrium that selects all four strategies with equal probability. Such strategy labels must be free from salient properties that might be used by participants to coordinate. Testing 23 different sets of strategy labels, we identify two sets that produce a distribution of subjects' choices which approximate the uniform distribution quite well. Our results are relevant for studies intending to compare the behavior of subjects who play against a random mechanism with that of participants who play against human counterparts.
International public administrations are increasingly perceived as autonomous actors prompting states to adopt policies without resorting to coercion or legal obligations. Starting from these observations, I determine abilities and characteristics of international public administrations that contribute to their autonomy as agents of non-hierarchical policy transfers. To this end, I draw on theoretical considerations and empirical results from policy transfer research. I find that the various abilities that contribute to this autonomy of international public administrations are essentially rooted in two structural characteristics: in as many states as possible their staff should (a) be present and (b) analyze the state, development and reform need of national policies on a regular basis.
Qualität der Fahrerlaubnisprüfung : ein Reformvorschlag für die theoretische Fahrerlaubnisprüfung
(2005)
Organisation und Algorithmus
(2021)
Der vorliegende Beitrag analysiert, wie Organisationen Algorithmen, die wir als digitale Beobachtungsformate verstehen, mit Handlungsfähigkeit ausstatten und damit actionable machen. Das zentrale Argument lautet, dass die soziale Relevanz digitaler Beobachtungsformate sich daraus ergibt, dass und wie sie in organisationale Entscheidungsarchitekturen eingebettet sind. Diesen Zusammenhang illustrieren wir am Beispiel des österreichischen Arbeitsmarktservice (AMS), der 2018 einen Algorithmus einführte, um die Integrationschancen arbeitsuchender Personen zu bewerten. Der AMS steht dabei stellvertretend für aktuelle Bestrebungen vieler Organisationen, algorithmische Systeme einzusetzen, um knappe öffentliche Ressourcen vermeintlich effizienter zu distribuieren. Um zu rekonstruieren, wie dies geschieht, zeigen wir, welche Operationen des Kategorisierens, Vergleichens und Bewertens das algorithmische Modell vollzieht. Darauf aufbauend demonstrieren wir, wie das algorithmische Modell in die organisationale Entscheidungsarchitektur eingebunden ist. Erst durch diese Einbindung – die Möglichkeit, Unterschiede für andere, relativ stabil erzeugte Entscheidungen zu machen – entfaltet das digitale Beobachtungsformat soziale Relevanz. Abschließend argumentieren wir, dass algorithmische Modelle, wie sie am Fall des AMS beobachtet werden können, dazu tendieren, sich in Organisationen zu stabilisieren. Dies begründen wir damit, dass die organisationalen Lernchancen im Umgang mit dem Algorithmus dadurch reduziert sind, dass dieser in einem Bereich zum Einsatz kommt, der durch Technologiedefizit und koproduktive Leistungserstellung geprägt ist.
This study examines how public policies affect parents' preferences for a more egalitarian division of paid and unpaid work. Based on the assumption that individuals develop their preferences within a specific policy context, we examine how changes in three policies affect mothers' and fathers' work-family preferences: the availability of high-quality, affordable childcare; the right to return to a full-time job after having reduced hours to part-time and an increase in the number of 'partner months' in parental leave schemes. Analysing a unique probability sample of parents with young children in Germany from 2015 (N = 1756), we find that fathers would want to work slightly fewer hours if they had the right to return to a full-time position after working part-time, and mothers would want to work slightly more hours if childcare opportunities were improved. Full-time working parents, moreover, are found to prefer fewer hours independent of the policy setting, while non-employed parents would like to work at least some hours. Last but not least, our analyses show that increasing the number of partner months in the parental leave scheme considerably increases fathers' preferences for longer and mothers' preferences for shorter leave. Increasing the number of partner months in parental schemes hence has the greatest potential to increase gender equality.
Grundlagen empirischer Sozialforschung anhand der Umfrageforschung : wer wählt warum die Grünen?
(1995)
The two german electorates
(1996)
Demokratische Einstellungen im Wandel : von der repräsentativen zur plebiszitären Demokratie?
(1997)
Eliten, Führungsgruppen
(1998)
Benefit duration, unemployment duration and job match quality aregression-discontinuity approach
(2013)
We use a sharp discontinuity in the maximum duration of benefit entitlement to identify the effect of extended benefit duration on unemployment duration and post-unemployment outcomes (employment stability and re-employment wages). We address dynamic selection, which may arise even under an initially random assignment to treatment, estimating a bivariate discrete-time hazard model jointly with a wage equation and correlated unobservables. Owing to the non-stationarity of job search behavior, we find heterogeneous effects of extended benefit duration on the re-employment hazard and on job match quality. Our results suggest that the unemployed who find a job close to and after benefit exhaustion experience less stable employment patterns and receive lower re-employment wages compared to their counterparts who receive extended benefits and exit unemployment in the same period. These results are found to be significant for men but not for women.
The article structually estimates an on-the-job search model of job separations. Given each employer pays observably equivalent workers the same but wages are dispersed across employers, an employer's separation flow is the sum of an exogenous outflow unrelated to the wage and a job-to-job flow that decreases with the employer's wage. Using data from the Danish Integrated Database for Labour Market Research, the empirical results imply, as predicted by theory, that search effort declines with the wage. Furthermore, the estimates explain the employment effect, defined as the horizontal difference between the distribution of wages earned and the wage offer distribution
Kultur und Gefahr
(2019)
Indira Gandhi : ein Porträt
(2013)
International organizations in a complex world- borders and Aadded value of a pluralistic research
(2014)
In countries with long-standing agency traditions, the creation of new agencies rarely comes as a large-scale reform but rather as one structural choice of many possible, most notably a ministerial division. In order to make sense of these choices, the article discusses the role of political design-focusing on the role of political motivations, such as ideological turnover, replacement risks and ideological stands toward administrative efficiency-and organizational dynamics-focusing on the role of administrative legacies and existing organizational palettes. The article utilizes data on organizational creations in the Norwegian central state between 1947 and 2019, in order to explore how political design and organizational dynamics help us understand the creation of agencies relative to ministry divisions over time. We find that political motives matter a great deal for the structural choices made by consecutive Norwegian governments, but that structural path dependencies may also be at play.
In this paper, we show how socialist planning can be based on input-output data. We argue that the information required for this can be obtained by a central planning agency and thus dismiss Hayek’s information argument against socialism. We further show how economic planning can be made responsive to consumer demand through a feedback control mechanism. Output targets of products would be adjusted in response to observed consumer demand or based on predictions about future demand. Planners can use machine learning to make more accurate forecasts. The valuation of goods plays an important role in the feedback control mechanism. The values of goods can either be measured by the labour time necessary for their production (labour values) or through shadow prices based on linear programming.
Vorwort
(2011)
Wie geht es weiter
(2011)
The framing of EU policies
(2018)
This chapter discusses how framing analysis can contribute to studies of policy making in the European Union (EU). Framing analysis is understood as an analytical perspective that focuses on how policy problems are constructed and categorised. This analytical perspective allows researchers to reconstruct how shifting problem frames empower competing constituencies and create changing patterns of political participation at the supranational level. Studies that assume a longitudinal perspective on EU policy development show how the framing of EU policy is constitutive of the way in which the jurisdictional boundaries and constitutional mandates of the EU evolve over time. Reviewing the growing body of empirical studies on EU policy framing in the context of the diverse theoretical origins of framing analysis, the chapter argues that framing research which takes seriously the notion that policy-making involves both puzzling and powering allows this analytical perspective to contribute a unique perspective on EU policy making.
Two decades after the introduction of the punctuated equilibrium model, information processing theory now offers one of the most comprehensive analytical perspectives on decision making in public administration and policy research. This article applies information processing analysis to the decision making process in the European Union (EU). Towards this end, the article inquires into the organizational foundations of information processing at successive levels of administrative and legislative decision making and shows how this analytical perspective can be used to gain a better understanding of policy dynamics at the supranational level. The article argues that information processing in the EU is likely to produce distinct policy dynamics in key respects. It identifies promising avenues for future research and discusses some of the issues this evolving theoretical framework should address in order to allow for a more comprehensive exploration of this analytical perspective in the context of the EU.
This article explores the various futures of relations between the European Union (EU) and Ukraine. After distilling two major drivers we construct a future compass in order to conceive of four futures of relations between the EU and Ukraine. Our scenarios aim to challenge deep-rooted assumptions on the EU’s neighbourhood with Ukraine: How will the politico-economic challenges in the European countries influence the EU’s approach towards the East? Will more EU engagement in Ukraine contribute to enduring peace? Does peace always come with stability? Which prospects does the idea of Intermarium have? Are the pivotal transformation players in Ukraine indeed oligarchs or rather small- and medium-sized entrepreneurs? After presenting our scenarios, we propose indicators to know in the years to come, along which path future relations do develop. By unearthing surprising developments we hope to provoke innovative thoughts on Eastern Europe in times of post truth societies, confrontation between states and hybrid warfare.
This article explores the practice and political significance of politicians’ journeys to conflict zones. It focuses on the German example, looking at field trips to theatres of international intervention as a way of first-hand knowledge in policymaking. Paying tribute to Lisa Smirl and her work on humanitarian spaces, objects and imaginaries and on liminality in aid worker biographies, two connected arguments are developed. First, through the exploration of the routinized practices of politicians’ field trips the article shows how these journeys not only remain confined to the ‘auxiliary space’ of aid/intervention, but that it is furthermore a staged reality of this auxiliary space that most politicians experience on their journeys. The question is then asked, second, what politicians actually experience on their journeys and how their experiences relate to their policy knowledge about conflict and intervention. It is shown that political field trips enable sensory/affectual, liminoid and liminal experiences, which have functions such as authority accumulation, agenda setting, community building, and civilizing domestic politics, while at the same time reinforcing, in most cases, pre-existing conflict and intervention imaginaries.
Clubs of autocrats
(2021)
While scholars have argued that membership in Regional Organizations (ROs) can increase the likelihood of democratization, we see many autocratic regimes surviving in power albeit being members of several ROs. This article argues that this is the case because these regimes are often members in "Clubs of Autocrats" that supply material and ideational resources to strengthen domestic survival politics and shield members from external interference during moments of political turmoil. The argument is supported by survival analysis testing the effect of membership in autocratic ROs on regime survival between 1946 to 2010. It finds that membership in ROs composed of more autocratic member states does in fact raise the likelihood of regime survival by protecting incumbents against democratic challenges such as civil unrest or political dissent. However, autocratic RO membership does not help to prevent regime breakdown due to autocratic challenges like military coups, potentially because these types of threats are less likely to diffuse to other member states. The article thereby adds to our understanding of the limits of democratization and potential reverse effects of international cooperation, and contributes to the literature addressing interdependences of international and domestic politics in autocratic regimes.
Preferential trade agreements pose a big challenge for the multilateral trading system. Throughout the first decade of the twenty-first century, their number has grown significantly. However, these agreements have a range of disadvantages compared with the multilateral regime, for example, in trade facilitation and in dispute settlement. Whereas it will be difficult to stop the further spreading of this wave of preferential agreements, attempts can be made to reduce the negative effects of trade agreements that do, by definition, discriminate against other countries. In this article, a range of potential remedies are discussed, from a moratorium to the better enforcement of World Trade Organization rules on preferential agreements as well as improved monitoring.
Fragen bleiben [Vorwort]
(1996)
Eine Anmaßung
(1996)
Prinz-von-Homburg-Effekt
(1998)
Global und sozial
(1997)