Sozialwissenschaften
Refine
Has Fulltext
- no (1030) (remove)
Year of publication
Document Type
- Article (1030) (remove)
Is part of the Bibliography
- yes (1030)
Keywords
- Germany (7)
- international organizations (6)
- European Union (5)
- accountability (4)
- bicameralism (4)
- climate policy (4)
- parliamentary government (4)
- political equality (4)
- visions of democracy (4)
- COVID-19 (3)
Institute
Mixed methods approaches have become increasingly relevant in social sciences research over the last few decades. Nevertheless, we show that these approaches have rarely been explicitly applied in higher education research. This is somewhat surprising because mixed methods and empirical research into higher education seem to be a perfect match for several reasons: (1) the role of the researcher, which is associated with strong intersections between the research subject and the research object; (2) the research process, which relies on concepts and theories that are borrowed from other research fields; and (3) the research object, which exhibits unclear techniques in teaching and learning, making it difficult to grasp causalities between input and results. Mixed methods approaches provide a suitable methodology to research such topics. Beyond this, potential future developments underlining the particular relevance of mixed methods approaches in higher education are discussed.
Even though concerns about adverse distributional implications for the poor are one of the most important political challenges for carbon pricing, the existing literature reveals ambiguous results. For this reason, we assess the expected incidence of moderate carbon price increases for different income groups in 87 mostly low- and middle-income countries. Building on a consistent dataset and method, we find that for countries with per capita incomes of below USD 15,000 per year (at PPP-adjusted 2011 USD) carbon pricing has, on average, progressive distributional effects. We also develop a novel decomposition technique to show that distributional outcomes are primarily determined by differences among income groups in consumption patterns of energy, rather than of food, goods or services. We argue that an inverse U-shape relationship between energy expenditure shares and income explains why carbon pricing tends to be regressive in countries with relatively higher income. Since these countries are likely to have more financial resources and institutional capacities to deal with distributional issues, our findings suggest that mitigating climate change, raising domestic revenue and reducing economic inequality are not mutually exclusive, even in low- and middle-income countries. (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Given the rising popularity of social networking sites (SNSs), the influence of these platforms on the subjective well-being (SWB) of their users is an emerging topic in information systems research. Building on the norm of reciprocity and the social functional approach to positive emotions, we posit that targeted reciprocity-evoking forms of SNS activities are best suited to promote users’ positive emotions. The favourable potential of these activities is likely to be particularly pronounced among adolescents who pay special attention to social acceptance, which can be channelled with the help of reciprocal communication. Therefore, we conducted a quantitative 7-day diary study of 162 adolescent Facebook users attending German schools, looking at the impact of their daily SNS activities on their SWB. Based on a linear mixed model analysis, our results confirm a positive link between targeted reciprocity-evoking activities – such as chatting, giving and receiving feedback – and adolescents’ positive emotions. Our findings provide a reassuring perspective on the implications of the sociotechnical design of SNS communication channels. Specifically, by encouraging targeted activities, providers, users, and other stakeholders can ensure the beneficial impact of this technology on users’ SWB.
Feigning Democracy
(2017)
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation plus the sustainable management of forest and enhancement of carbon stocks (REDD+) is a global climate change mitigation initiative. The United Nations REDD Programme (UN-REDD) is training governments in developing countries, including Nigeria, to implement REDD+. To protect local people, UN-REDD has developed social safeguards including a commitment to strengthen local democracy to prevent an elite capture of REDD+ benefits. This study examines local participation and representation in the UN-REDD international policy board and in the national-level design process for the Nigeria-REDD proposal, to see if practices are congruent with the UN-REDD commitment to local democracy. It is based on research in Nigeria in 2012 and 2013, and finds that local representation in the UN-REDD policy board and in Nigeria-REDD is not substantive. Participation is merely symbolic. For example, elected local government authorities, who ostensibly represent rural people, are neither present in the UN-REDD board nor were they invited to the participatory forums that vetted the Nigeria-REDD. They were excluded because they were politically weak. However, UN-REDD approved the Nigeria-REDD proposal without a strategy to include or strengthen elected local governments. The study concludes with recommendations to help the UN-REDD strengthen elected local government authority in Nigeria in support of democratic local representation.
Gender and framing
(2019)
Framing literature has so far failed to construct gender as an analytical category that shapes the ways in which we perceive, identify and act upon grievances. This article builds on the insights of feminist theory and employs the conceptual vocabulary of the social movement framing perspective in maintaining gender as a main parameter of framing processes. Drawing on ethnographic research on local community struggles against hydropower plants in the Eastern Black Sea Region of Turkey, this article maintains the centrality of gender to framing processes. It analyzes the gendered difference between men’s macro-framings and women’s cultural and socio-ecological framings, which is rooted in their differing relationships with their immediate environment, as well as with the state and its institutions. The article maintains that the framings of women, which represent the immediacy of the environment, are more effective in gaining public support and shaping movement outcomes. In this sense, constructing gender as an important determinant of “frame variation” is essential not only to reveal women’s frames that are largely silenced through and within the mechanisms of social movement organization, but also to stress their centrality in shaping repertoires of contention, public reception and movement outcomes.
Durkheim in Germany
(2017)
Dialogue. Divergence. Veiled Reception. Criticism: Georg Simmel’s
relationship with Emile Durkheim
(2017)
Simmel was the only German sociologist who directly cooperated with Durkheim. After an initial impression of convergence between the sociology of social facts and the sociology of social forms, a break between the two founders of sociology became inevitable. Yet, Durkheim and Simmel went on positioning themselves against one other in the years ahead. Durkheim’s allegation of ‘individual psychologism’ induced Simmel to a veiled reception of Durkheim’s methodological approach that permitted him to refine the sociological epistemology he eventually presented in the Soziologie published in 1908. On this basis, he was able to formulate a final criticism of the sociology of social facts as a social psychology.
Making performance Pay Work
(2019)
Performance pay has been one of the main trends in public sector reform over the last decade and aims to increase employees’ motivation. However, positive results are sparse. In a majority of cases, pay scheme designers neglect that intrinsic motivation may be distorted by the introduction of extrinsic rewards (crowding out). Nevertheless, under certain conditions, performance pay schemes may also enhance intrinsic motivation (crowding-in). The perception of rewards has proven to be an especially crucial factor for the outcome of performance pay. Based on psychological contract theory, this paper analyzes the relationships between intrinsic motivation, public service motivation (PSM), personality characteristics, and the design of the performance- appraisal scheme. The empirical analysis relies on a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach. Model findings reveal that a fair, participatory, and transparent design reduces the controlling perception while fostering the intrinsic motivation of employees. In addition, participants who score high on neuroticism perceive performance pay schemes to be more controlling and have lower values of intrinsic motivation.
This paper presents empirical evidence on the adoption, implementation and the perceived effectiveness of quality management in teaching and learning in German higher education institutions. Theoretically, the article combines two new institutionalist approaches: institutional isomorphism and institutional entrepreneurship. Empirically, the study refers to qualitative interview data and quantitative survey data. The analysis reveals that isomorphism is a leading driver behind the adoption of quality management in German higher education institutions, whereas institutional entrepreneurship plays an important role in quality management implementation. While isomorphism can be regarded as a conclusive reason behind the absence of a perception of quality management’s effectiveness, institutional entrepreneurship may function as a corrective towards the overall negative impact of isomorphic conformity by institutionalizing quality management in a sustainable manner.
Obwohl Latein eine nicht mehr gesprochene Sprache ist und ihr deswegen kein kommunikativer Nutzen zukommt, ist die Anzahl der Latein als Schulfach wählenden Schüler im Zeitverlauf angestiegen. Mehrere Studien haben zudem gezeigt, dass Lateinkenntnisse weder das logische Denken, noch den Erwerb anderer Sprachen, noch das Gespür für die grammatikalische Struktur der Muttersprache verbessern. Auch wenn sich empirisch keine Vorteile des Erwerbs alter Sprachen nachweisen lassen, können Menschen subjektiv an solche Vorteile glauben und ihr Verhalten an ihrer Konstruktion von Wirklichkeit ausrichten. Auf der Basis einer unter Eltern von Gymnasialschülern durchgeführten Befragung zeigen wir, dass Latein umfassende Transfereffekte zugeschrieben und Personen mit Lateinkenntnissen positiver bewertet werden als Personen mit Kenntnissen moderner Sprachen. Weiterhin zeigt sich, dass die „Illusio“ der Vorteile von Latein zwar in allen Bildungsgruppen wirksam ist, doch besonders von den Hochgebildeten vertreten wird. Sie arbeiten damit an der Konstruktion einer Realität, von der sie selbst die größten Nutznießer sind, indem sie Latein als symbolisches Kapital verwenden.
In spring 2015, Turkey witnessed the unexpected rise of the HDP, founded by the Kurdish Liberation Movement together with the Turkish radical left, against President Erdoğan’s authoritarian rule. In this article, I will employ contemporary literature on left populism to explain the HDP’s rise as an alternative left hegemonic project against the neoliberal authoritarianism that Erdoğan represents. After discussing the historical context from which the HDP emerged and grew, I will evaluate its discourse and strategies based on a conceptualization of left-wing populism. Lastly, I will discuss the challenges that the HDP confronted after the June 2015 elections and the differences between the Turkish and Western European contexts for a left-wing populist strategy.
Almost half of the political life has been experienced under the state of emergency and state of siege policies in the Turkish Republic. In spite of such a striking number and continuity in the deployment of legal emergency powers, there are just a few legal and political studies examining the reasons for such permanency in governing practices. To fill this gap, this paper aims to discuss one of the most important sources of the ‘permanent’ political crisis in the country: the historical evolution of legal emergency power. In order to highlight how these policies have intensified the highly fragile citizenship regime by weakening the separation of power, repressing the use of political rights and increasing the discretionary power of both the executive and judiciary authorities, the paper sheds light on the emergence and production of a specific form of legality based on the idea of emergency and the principle of executive prerogative. In that context, it aims to provide a genealogical explanation of the evolution of the exceptional form of the nation-state, which is based on the way political society, representation, and legitimacy have been instituted and accompanying failure of the ruling classes in building hegemony in the country.
The German Sonderweg thesis has been discarded in most research fields. Yet in regards to the military, things differ: all conflicts before the Second World War are interpreted as prelude to the war of extermination between 1939-1945. This article specifically looks at the Franco-Prussian War 1870-71 and German behaviour vis-a-vis regular combatants, civilians and irregular guerrilla fighters, the so-called francs-tireurs. The author argues that the counter-measures were not exceptional for nineteenth century warfare and also shows how selective reading of the existing secondary literature has distorted our view on the war.
This article contributes to the politics of policy‐making in executive government. It introduces the analytical distinction between generalists and specialists as antagonistic players in executive politics and develops the claim that policy specialists are in a structurally advantaged position to succeed in executive politics and to fend off attempts by generalists to influence policy choices through cross‐cutting reform measures. Contrary to traditional textbook public administration, we explain the views of generalists and specialists not through their training but their positions within an organization. We combine established approaches from public policy and organization theory to substantiate this claim and to define the dilemma that generalists face when developing government‐wide reform policies (‘meta‐policies’) as well as strategies to address this problem. The article suggests that the conceptual distinction between generalists and specialists allows for a more precise analysis of the challenges for policy‐making across government organizations than established approaches.
Global food security governance is fraught with fragmentation, overlap and complexity. While calls for coordination and coherence abound, establishing an inter-organizational order at this level seems to remain difficult. While the emphasis in the literature has so far been on the global level, we know less about dynamics of inter-organizational relations in food security governance at the country level, and empirical studies are lacking. It is this research gap the article seeks to address by posing the following research question: In how far does inter-organizational order develop in the organizational field of food security governance at the country level? Theoretically and conceptually, the article draws on sociological institutionalism, and on work on inter-organizational relations. Empirically, the article conducts an exploratory case study of the organizational field of food security governance in Côte d’Ivoire, building on a qualitative content analysis of organizational documents covering a period from 2003 to 2016 and semi-structured interviews with staff of international organizations from 2016. The article demonstrates that not all of the developments attributed to food security governance at the global level play out in the same way at the country level. Rather, in the case of Côte d’Ivoire there are signs for a certain degree of coherence between IOs in the field of food security governance and even for an – albeit limited – division of labour. However, this only holds for specific dimensions of the inter-organizational order and appears to be subject to continuous contestation and reinterpretation under the surface.
Although the low-wage employment sector has enlarged over the past 20 years in the context of pronounced flexibility in restructured labor markets, gender differences in low-wage employment have declined in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In this article, the authors examine reasons for declining gender inequalities, and most notably concentrate on explanations for the closing gender gap in low-wage employment risks. In addition, they identify differences and similarities among the German-speaking countries. Based on regression techniques and decomposition analyses (1996-2016), the authors find significantly decreasing labor market risks for the female workforce. Detailed analysis reveals that (1) the concrete positioning in the labor market shows greater importance in explaining declining gender differences compared to personal characteristics. (2) The changed composition of the labor markets has prevented the low-wage sector from increasing even more in general and works in favor of the female workforce and their low-wage employment risks in particular.
In a critical approach to Mommsen’s classical thesis, which states the dependence of Weber’s sociology on his political position, the article reconstructs the foundation of Weber’s ‘The Profession and Vocation of Politics’ on his sociological analyses of the political domain in the manuscripts for the posthumous publication of Economy and Society. The first two pages of his 1919 lecture particularly show that Weber can fall back on the definitions of State and politics that he had already developed for his political sociology. Yet, to appreciate the full extent of this theoretical contribution, it is necessary to present Weber’s entire ideal-typical analysis of the political. The article then shows that Weber provides an unlabelled definition of ‘modern politics’ that negates ante litteram Carl Schmitt’s foundation of politics on the idea of enmity. In this context, Weber’s sound plea for parliamentarism and against the fascination of civil war comes to the fore that he wanted to deliver to his audience of young revolutionaries in January 1919.
Despite the proliferation and promise of subnational climate initiatives, the institutional architecture of transnational municipal networks (TMNs) is not well understood. With a view to close this research gap, the article empirically assesses the assumption that TMNs are a viable substitute for ambitious international action under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It addresses the aggregate phenomenon in terms of geographical distribution, central players, mitigation ambition and monitoring provisions. Examining thirteen networks, it finds that membership in TMNs is skewed toward Europe and North America while countries from the Global South are underrepresented; that only a minority of networks commit to quantified emission reductions and that these are not more ambitious than Parties to the UNFCCC; and finally that the monitoring provisions are fairly limited. In sum, the article shows that transnational municipal networks are not (yet) the representative, ambitious and transparent player they are thought to be.
Agricultural landscapes safeguard ecosystem services (ES) and biodiversity upon which human well-being depends. However, only a fraction of these services are generally considered in land management decisions, resulting in trade-offs and societally inefficient solutions. The TEEB Study (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) spearheaded the development of assessments of the economic significance of ES and biodiversity. Several national TEEB follow-ups have compiled case studies and derived targeted policy advice. By synthesizing insights from "Natural Capital Germany - TEEB DE" and focusing on rural areas, the objectives of this study were (i) to explore causes of the continued decline of ES and biodiversity, (ii) to introduce case studies exemplifying the economic significance of ES and biodiversity in land use decisions, and (iii) to synthesize key recommendations for policy, planning and management. Our findings indicate that the continued decrease of ES and biodiversity in Germany can be explained by implementation deficits within a well-established nature conservation system. Three case studies on grassland protection, the establishment of riverbank buffer zones and water-sensitive farming illustrate that an economic perspective can convey recognition of the values of ES and biodiversity. We conclude with suggestions for enhanced consideration, improved conservation and sustainable use of ES and biodiversity. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
A comprehensive typology of basic executive formats is presented and linked to a discussion of tradeoffs in the design of executive-legislative relations. The focus is on the tradeoffs between three goals: (1) programmatic parties, (2) identifiable cabinets and (3) issue -specific legislative coalitions. To include semi-presidentialism into the typology in a logically consistent manner, a heretofore neglected executive format has to be defined, which is labelled semi-parliamentarism. Based on a discussion of Australian states, it is argued that semi-parliamentarism has the potential to mitigate the trilemma.
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence regarding the selection procedures for and characteristics of senior officials in supreme audit institutions (SIAs). Design/methodology/approach - This study follows a quantitative approach using original data collected for presidential elections of SIAs in the 16 federal states in Germany. A fractional logit model is calculated to test different theoretical assumptions in relation to structural, political and individual factors. Findings - The descriptive results confirm the findings of prior research that presidential candidates are elected with very high approval rates. The main determinants are the vote share of the ruling coalition and the executive experience of the presidential candidate. Research limitations/implications - This study focuses on 16 federal states in Germany, but an international comparative perspective covering subnational levels would further augment analysis through the variance of selection procedures and electoral outcomes. Social implications - Independence of auditors is a fundamental issue for the control of the executive, but it seems that there are inevitable trade-offs therein, such as between knowledge of the auditing objects or the politicization of the election process and the independence of the auditor. Originality/value - This study provides novel empirical insights into the election and selection procedures for senior SIA officials at the subnational level, and shows that the executive exerts strong, but functionally reasonable, influence on candidate selection.
Predicting Paris: Multi-Method Approaches to Forecast the Outcomes of Global Climate Negotiations
(2016)
We examine the negotiations held under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention of Climate Change in Paris, December 2015. Prior to these negotiations, there was considerable uncertainty about whether an agreement would be reached, particularly given that the world’s leaders failed to do so in the 2009 negotiations held in Copenhagen. Amid this uncertainty, we applied three different methods to predict the outcomes: an expert survey and two negotiation simulation models, namely the Exchange Model and the Predictioneer’s Game. After the event, these predictions were assessed against the coded texts that were agreed in Paris. The evidence suggests that combining experts’ predictions to reach a collective expert prediction makes for significantly more accurate predictions than individual experts’ predictions. The differences in the performance between the two different negotiation simulation models were not statistically significant.
New forms of communication and greater accessibility of Islamic texts on-line allow Muslims to shape their own religiosity, to become less dependent on established sources of authority, and thereby to become more aware of their own cultural diversity as a community. New practices of transnational Islam, and the growth of new concepts of Muslim identities currently emerging in the on-line community, are relatively free from immediate constraints. This article provides the result of a sociological analysis of three Internet sites in Sydney which deliver on-line fatwas. Even if cyberspace has allowed the Muslim world to be de-territorialised and provides a way for people to distance themselves from traditional communities if they wish, this research points out a variety of approaches, including one case which is aiming at re-localising an Australian Muslim system of values. This case highlights ways in which first generation Muslims are re-territorialising Shari'a in a specific western country.
Der vorliegende Beitrag interessiert sich aus differenzierungstheoretischer Perspektive am bundesdeutschen Beispiel für die Funktion askriptiver Personenkategorien im Politiksystem der funktional differenzierten Gesellschaft. Den Ausgangspunkt bildet die Geldabhängigkeit von Organisationen, welche die limitierte Inklusion von Individuen in die lebenslaufrelevanten Funktionssysteme zum Normalfall macht. Der nationale Wohlfahrtsstaat reagiert darauf mit der Regulierung des Arbeitsmarktzugangs durch die askriptiven Personenkategorien nationale Zugehörigkeit und Geschlecht, und erzeugt so eigene Formen limitierter Inklusion. Diese Personenkategorien werden im europäisierten Wohlfahrtsstaat durch die askriptive Personenkategorie des rationalen Akteurs mit individueller Agency, der sein Wollen in die Vertragslogiken des Arbeits marktes und des aktivierenden Sozialstaates stellt, ersetzt und der Arbeitsmarktzugang extensiviert. Bei allen Unterschieden zwischen dem nationalen und dem europäisierten Wohlfahrtsstaat begreift der Beitrag askriptive Personenkategorien als normative Strukturen einer Ebene sekundärer Ordnungsbildung, die sich zwischen Funktionssystem- und Organisationsebene schiebt und auf der Kategorien sozialer Ungleichheit im Wohlfahrtstaatsstaat produziert werden.
The present article asks from the perspective of differentiation theory for the function of ascriptive person categories within the political system of the functionally differentiated society. For this purpose it takes the Federal German as a case study. The article starts with the fact of money dependence of organisations and that this leads to the generally limited inclusion of the individuals into the functional systems, which are life course relevant. The national welfare state refers to the limited inclusion and regulates excess to the labour market via the ascriptive person categories national affiliation and gender, and by this it produces own modes of limited inclusion. The Europeanised welfare state expands the excess to the labour market. Simultaneously it replaces the national person categories by the person category of the rational actor with individual agency who puts his or her own willingness into the contract logics of labour marked and activating welfare state. Despite all differences between the national and the Europeanised welfare state the article conceives ascriptive person categories as normative structures of a secondary order formation which is slot between the levels of functional and organisational systems. On this secondary order level categories of social inequality are reproduced.
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.
Die politikwissenschaftliche Literatur unterscheidet zwei Grundtypen von Forschungsdesigns: x- und y-zentriert. Dieser Beitrag argumentiert, dass ein „kontrastives“ Forschungsdesign als dritter Grundtyp abgegrenzt werden sollte. Die drei Designs unterscheiden sich durch die Anzahl der betrachteten Theorien und dadurch, ob mehrere Theorien konkurrierend oder komplementär sind. Die typologische Abgrenzung des kontrastiven Designs verdeutlicht auch die Vor- und Nachteile x- und y-zentrierter Designs. Anhand verschiedener Beispielstudien (experimentell und nicht-experimentell, quantitativ und qualitativ) werden die Charakteristika der drei Designs sowie ihre Kombinationsmöglichkeiten herausgearbeitet. Darüber hinaus wird das kontrastive Design als verbindendes Element zwischen den quantitativen und qualitativen Forschungs-„Kulturen“ hervorgehoben.
The political science literature distinguishes two basic types of research designs: x- and y-centered. The article argues for the distinction of a third basic type: the "contrastive" design. The three designs differ in the number of relevant theories and in whether they see theories as competing or complementary. The typological differentiation of the contrastive research design helps to clarify the pros and cons of x- and y-centered designs. The article uses exemplary studies (experimental and observational, quantitative and qualitative) to illustrate the characteristics of the three designs as well as the possibilities of combining them. The contrastive design also constitutes a common element of the quantitative and qualitative research, "cultures".
Through an analysis of climate policy-making in the European Commission (EU), this article argues that co-ordination in the Commission displays the same characteristics as the co-ordination across ministries in central governments, i.e., the properties of negative co-ordination. The article is based on a survey among Commission officials. Overall, the article reveals that a public administration perspective on the Commission proves invaluable to gain insights on how decisions are made at the European Union level. The article contributes to the emerging literature viewing the Commission as an ordinary bureaucracy - as opposed to a unique supranational organization.
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.
The literature on international regulatory regimes has highlighted how rival standards can create different points of convergence. Scholarly attention has also focused on how the European Union (EU) and the United States (USA) attempt to ‘export’ their environmental standards internationally. Here, we explore the effectiveness of these attempts by means of third states' decisions to ratify the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity, a multilateral environmental agreement regulating genetically modified organisms that is promoted by the EU but opposed by the USA. Our findings confirm that both rivals are able to influence the ratification decision of states, but they also suggest that these effects may have different origins. Countries relying more heavily on US markets for food exports tend to be less likely to ratify the Cartagena Protocol, while countries that have applied for EU membership are more likely to ratify the protocol.
An egalitarian approach to the fair representation of voters specifies three main institutional requirements: proportional representation, legislative majority rule and a parliamentary system of government. This approach faces two challenges: the under-determination of the resulting democratic process and the idea of a trade-off between equal voter representation and government accountability. Linking conceptual with comparative analysis, the article argues that we can distinguish three ideal-typical varieties of the egalitarian vision of democracy, based on the stages at which majorities are formed. These varieties do not put different relative normative weight onto equality and accountability, but have different conceptions of both values and their reconciliation. The view that accountability is necessarily linked to ‘clarity of responsibility’, widespread in the comparative literature, is questioned – as is the idea of a general trade-off between representation and accountability. Depending on the vision of democracy, the two values need not be in conflict.
The sociology of violence still struggles with two critical questions: What motivates people to act violently on behalf of groups and how do they come to identify with the groups for which they act? Methodologically the article addresses these puzzling problems in favor of a relational sociology that argues against both micro- and macro-reductionist accounts, while theoretically it proposes a twofold reorientation: first, it makes a plea for the so called cognitive turn in social theory; second, it proposes following praxeological accounts of social action that focus on the dynamic interpenetration of cognition and socio-cultural practices. The argument is that symbolic boundaries constitute the “missing link” that allows for overcoming the micro-macro gap in violence research: Symbolic boundaries can cause people's participation in collective violence by providing the essential relational resources for violent action and by triggering the cognitive/affective mechanisms necessary for social actors to become drawn into mobilization processes that can cause their engaging in coordinated attacks on sites across the boundary. The article offers a new theoretical argument by drawing on knowledge from violence research, social action theory and cognitive science allowing for a non-reductionist theory of action that explains how and why people engage in collective violence.
Decentralizing for performance? A quantitative assessment of functional reforms in the German Lander
(2016)
In the last 10 years, the governments of most of the German Länder initiated administrative reforms. All of these ventures included the municipalization of substantial sets of tasks. As elsewhere, governments argue that service delivery by communes is more cost-efficient, effective and responsive. Empirical evidence to back these claims is inconsistent at best: a considerable number of case studies cast doubt on unconditionally positive appraisals. Decentralization effects seem to vary depending on the performance dimension and task considered. However, questions of generalizability arise as these findings have not yet been backed by more ‘objective’ archival data. We provide empirical evidence on decentralization effects for two different policy fields based on two studies. Thereby, the article presents alternative avenues for research on decentralization effects and matches the theoretical expectations on decentralization effects with more robust results. The analysis confirms that overly positive assertions concerning decentralization effects are only partially warranted. As previous case studies suggested, effects have to be looked at in a much more differentiated way, including starting conditions and distinguishing between the various relevant performance dimensions and policy fields.
A growing number of local energy conflicts around wind power and power-grid extensions are slowing down the deployment of the German Energiewende. In this paper, a local conflict on wind energy in the state of Baden-Württemberg is analysed in detail. In the little community of Engelsbrand, local opposition against a planned wind park was able to turn around a set of favourable a priori conditions, such as a supporting state government planning process, a local supporter group, a transparent planning process, including a majority vote pro wind energy, and a round table discussion. Distancing itself from the NIMBY-explanation (‘Not In My Back Yard’), the paper applies insights from discourse network analysis and micro-sociology in order to study the local conflict dynamics. Special attention is given to the resource mobilisation strategies of the opponents, including social networks, mass and social media use. The paper ends by drawing some general conclusions for the German Energiewende.
This article rests on the assumption of the “complexity, messiness, power relations, and contested character of the contemporary dualistic system,” which comprises great powers and “superimposed, functionally differentiated global subsystems of world society” (Cohen 2012:5). The article argues that this framework is being shaped by the current transition of global order. In turn, this raises the question how the state-led negotiation of today's order transition can be understood against the backdrop of a post-Westphalian environment. The article challenges the widespread argument pertaining to the “autonomy of transnational actors” by suggesting that the influence of nonstate actors is dependent on a particular institutional context in which the key political questions framing a social order are settled. Whereas research on international institutions and their design simply assumes that this is the case, here it is argued that unless these framing patterns are agreed upon by major powers, the respective order and its elements, that is, institutions and regimes, remain contested or deadlocked. When this happens, the political impact of non-state actors is largely neutralized or strongly weakened and their effective autonomy from great powers is minimized.
How does the selection of a classical language at school affect prospects on the labor market? Even though research on the impact of horizontal educational inequalities on labor market outcomes has become prominent recently, this question has not yet attracted scholarly attention. Based on several differing approaches (Human Capital Theory, Signaling Theory, Homophily Principle), hypotheses are derived about the impact of the language profile at school on labor market prospects at career entry. To test these assumptions, a field experiment was conducted in which applications were submitted in response to job advertisements. Results show that choosing Latin and Ancient Greek has a positive impact on the chances of being invited to a job interview.
This article analyses salient trade-offs in the design of democracy. It grounds this analysis in a distinction between two basic models of democracy: simple and complex majoritarianism. These models differ not only in their electoral and party systems, but also in the style of coalition-building. Simple majoritarianism concentrates executive power in a single majority party; complex majoritarianism envisions the formation of shifting, issue-specific coalitions among multiple parties whose programs differ across multiple conflict dimensions. The latter pattern of coalition formation is very difficult to create and sustain under pure parliamentary government. A separation of powers between executive and legislature can facilitate such a pattern, while also achieving central goals of simple majoritarianism: identifiable cabinet alternatives before the election and stable cabinets afterward. The separation of powers can thus balance simple and complex majoritarianism in ways that are unavailable under parliamentarism. The article also compares the presidential and semi-parliamentary versions of the separation of powers. It argues that the latter has important advantages, e.g., when it comes to resolving inter-branch deadlock, as it avoids the concentration of executive power in a single human being.
Kultur und Gefahr
(2019)
Wertebilung in der Schule
(2019)
Freizeit, Medien und Sport
(2019)
Der vorliegende Beitrag fasst die bisherige Forschung über die Wirkungen von Gebietsreformen zusammen und analysiert diese aus inhaltlicher und methodischer Perspektive. Basierend auf einer Auswertung von ausgewählten nationalen und europäischen Studien werden Wirkungsbefunde in drei zentralen Dimensionen dargestellt: (1) Leistungsfähigkeit, Verwaltungs- und Veranstaltungskraft, (2) Einsparungen, Skalenerträge und Wirtschaftlichkeit und (3) Partizipation und demokratische Kontrolle. Im Ergebnis kann festgestellt werden, dass die Leistungs- und Handlungsfähigkeit kommunaler Verwaltungen durch Gebietsreformen überwiegend positiv beeinflusst wird. Dagegen sind die empirischen Befunde bezüglich Wirtschaftlichkeit, Einsparungen und Skalenerträge sowie zur Partizipation und demokratischen Kontrolle nicht eindeutig.
Im (schulischen) Politikunterricht bestehen Vorbehalte bzw. Berührungsängste gegenüber der politischen Theorie, die sich aus drei Vorurteilen speisen: a) Politische Ideen seien abstrakt und wirklichkeitsfern und deshalb schwer in den Horizont der Schülerinnen und Schüler zu rücken; b) die Erarbeitung politischer Ideen sei notwendig textlastig und überfordere aufgrund der hohen Abstraktheit die (Mehrzahl der) Schülerinnen und Schüler; c) aus diesen Gründen seien Motivation und Aktivierung aufseiten der Schülerschaft bei Themen aus der Politischen Theorie gering. Der Aufsatz zeigt am Beispiel eines didaktischen Arrangements zu John Rawls’ Gerechtigkeitstheorie, wie politische Ideen textfrei unterrichtet werden können: im Dreischritt einer Evokation, Explikation und Reflexion der moralisch-politischen Intuitionen, die in unseren Alltagsurteilen immer schon wirksam sind.
In seinem Roman Ragtime (1975) entwirft E. L. Doctorow ein politisches und soziales Sittengemälde der Vereinigten Staaten zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts. Behandelt werden die politischen Herausforderungen der sozialen Ungleichheit, des Rassismus und des amerikanischen Imperialismus. Das in Ragtime entfaltete Panoptikum führt die von politisch-sozialen Gegensätzen geprägte amerikanische Gesellschaft der Ära Theodore Roosevelts vor und ermöglicht zugleich politische Bezüge und Reflexionen bis hin zur Gegenwart. Das Kapitel beleuchtet die realen Ereignisse, die im Roman verwoben sind und reflektiert die sich daraus ergebenden, bis heute aktuellen gesellschaftlichen Probleme sowie unsere politische Gegenwart. Der Autor vermittelt auf diesem Wege die Möglichkeit, mittels Literatur einer breiten Masse von Rezipienten den Zugang zu politischen Sachverhalten zu ermöglichen sowie eine Sensibilität für politisches Geschehen zu wecken.
Kalter Frieden
(2018)
In dem Beitrag werden das Verwaltungshandeln in der Flüchtlingskrise und mögliche Ursachen der aufgetretenen Vollzugsprobleme untersucht. Im Fokus stehen vor allem die Vollzugsrealität und die Verwaltungsvarianz im Bereich der Erstaufnahme von Flüchtlingen auf der Länderebene sowie die durch das BAMF als auch die Bundes länder mittlerweile begonnenen Reformen im Verwaltungsvollzugssystem. Leitfrage des Aufsatzes ist, ob das bestehende Verwaltungsvollzugssystem nicht nur in den jeweiligen Zuständigkeiten reformbedürftig ist, sondern ob es auch zu einer neuen Zuständigkeitsverteilung im Bundesstaat kommen sollte.
This article analyses the decentralization of the French welfare state focusing on the transfer of the Revenu minimum d’insertion (RMI) welfare benefit to the departments in 2003 and 2004. We map and explain the effects of the reform on the system and performance of the subnational provision of welfare tasks. To evaluate the impact of decentralization on the RMI-related action of the departments, we carry out a qualitative document analysis and use data from two case studies. The RMI decentralization offers an exemplary insight into the incremental implementation of French decentralization. We find many unintended effects in terms of the performance and outcome of the subnational welfare provision. This is traced back to the combining of institutional and policy reforms and the inadequate translation of high political expectations into an inadequate action programme both resulting in excessive demands on the local actors.
Points for practitioners
The decentralization of public tasks is associated with high expectations in terms of the effects on the performance of public services and public governance on the subnational levels. For an in-depth measure the range of administrative performance and political systems effects should be taken into account. We propose a five-dimensional scheme allowing for the determination of decentralization effects on the resource input to and the operative output of subnational public services, on the horizontal coordination between subnational task holders and the affected non-public stakeholders, on the vertical intergovernmental coordination, and on the democratic accountability of subnational authorities.
Comparative literature on institutional reforms in multi-level systems proceeds from a global trend towards the decentralization of state functions. However, there is only scarce knowledge about the impact that decentralization has had, in particular, upon the sub-central governments involved. How does it affect regional and local governments? Do these reforms also have unintended outcomes on the sub-central level and how can this be explained? This article aims to develop a conceptual framework to assess the impacts of decentralization on the sub-central level from a comparative and policy-oriented perspective. This framework is intended to outline the major patterns and models of decentralization and the theoretical assumptions regarding de-/re-centralization impacts, as well as pertinent cross-country approaches meant to evaluate and compare institutional reforms. It will also serve as an analytical guideline and a structural basis for all the country-related articles in this Special Issue.
Points for practitioners
Decentralization reforms are approved as having a key role to play in the attainment of ‘good governance’. Yet, there is also the enticement on the part of state governments to offload an ever-increasing amount of responsibilities to, and overtask, local levels of government, which can lead to increasing performance disparities within local sub-state jurisdictions. Against this background, the article provides a conceptual framework to assess reform impacts from a comparative perspective. The analytical framework can be used by practitioners to support their decisions about new decentralization strategies or necessary adjustments regarding ongoing reform measures.
Der Beitrag untersucht das Wechsel- und Zusammenspiel von öffentlichem Verwaltungshandeln und Legitimität. Ausgegangen wird davon, dass in den letzten Jahren sowohl die Input- als auch die Outputdimension staatlicher Legitimationsbeschaffung signifikante Veränderungen durchlaufen haben, die die öffentliche Verwaltung intensiv berühren. Mit Rückgriff auf die anderen Beiträge des Schwerpunktheftes und unter Hinzuziehung weiterer Erkenntnisse wird überblicksartig untersucht, ob sich die Legitimationsproduktion durch Verwaltungshandeln verändert hat und wenn ja, inwiefern. Im Ergebnis ergibt sich ein partieller Wandel hinsichtlich der Legitimationsquellen von Verwaltungshandeln. Sowohl im Input-Bereich (Transparenzgesetze, vorgezogene Bürgerbeteiligung) als auch im Output-Bereich (z.B. Normenkontrollrat) gibt es neue bzw. einen stärkeren Einsatz schon bekannter Instrumente (Expertenkommissionen). Ob dieser Wandel der Instrumente und der potenziellen Quellen von Legitimation allerdings tatsächlich die Legitimität des Verwaltungshandelns verändert, also zu einer Legitimitätssteigerung führt, wird teils skeptisch beurteilt und bedarf daher weiterer empirischer Untersuchung.
The article critically reviews the conceptual ideas of G. Bingham Powell's Elections as Instruments of Democracy and explores ways to develop them further. Powell's conceptual alternative to the Westminster model - the 'proportional' vision of democracy - comes in two variants, one focusing on proportional representation ( PR) and the other on proportional legislative influence. If one focuses on the former, it is possible to distinguish four visions of parliamentary democracy based on the main stage at which majorities are formed. The four stages are: party, alliance, cabinet, and law formation. The corresponding normative visions can be placed on a conceptual continuum between 'simple' and 'complex' majoritarianism. This article discusses the goals and trade-offs associated with them as well as their underlying institutional designs. It also re-emphasises Powell's insight that the congruence between policy makers and the median voter in a unidimensional policy space is a more appropriate normative standard for some visions of democracy than for others.
Developed countries have relied heavily on aid budgets to fulfill their pledges to boost funding for addressing climate change in developing countries. However, little is known about how interaction between aid and other ministries has shaped contributors' diverse approaches to climate finance. This paper investigates intra-governmental dynamics in decision-making on climate finance in seven contributor countries (Australia, Denmark, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, the UK, and the US). While aid agencies retained considerable control over implementation, environment and finance ministries have played an influential and often contrasting role on key policy issues, including distribution between mitigation and adaptation and among geographical regions. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Following decision theory (Boudon, Raymond. 1974. Education, Opportunity, and Social Inequality: Changing Prospects in Western Society. New York: Wiley.), social origin strongly affects educational decisions, especially at transition points in educational attainment. In Japan, the fierce competition in gaining access to the next level of schooling intensifies the impact of educational decisions on students' future careers. In addition to selecting a certain school, families are forced to decide whether or not to invest in shadow education. Thus far, socioeconomic background and parents' educational aspirations, in conjunction with students' academic achievement, have been deemed influential to such decisions in Japan. The agency of the student is rarely even considered. Based on calculations from the 2011 Hyogo High School Students' (HHSS) survey, the theoretical approach presented in this article stresses the importance of acknowledging the existence of a multitude of actors involved in each phase of the decision-making process, including the students themselves, especially when explaining inequalities in modern societies.
The impact of humanitarian context conditions and individual characteristics on aid worker retention
(2015)
High employee turnover rates constitute a major challenge to effective aid provision. This study examines how features of humanitarian work and aid workers' individual characteristics affect retention within one humanitarian organisation, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) Holland. The study extends existing research by providing new theoretical explanations of employment opportunities and constraints and by engaging in the first large-scale quantitative analysis of aid worker retention. Using a database of field staff (N=1,955), a logistic regression is performed of the likelihood of reenlistment after a first mission. The findings demonstrate that only 40 per cent of employees reenlist for a second mission with MSF Holland, and that workplace location and security situation, age, and gender have no significant effect. Individuals are less likely to reenlist if they returned early from the first mission for a personal reason, are in a relationship, are medical doctors, or if they come from highly developed countries. The paper reflects on the findings in the light of policy.
This article expands our current knowledge about ministerial selection in coalition governments and analyses why ministerial candidates succeed in acquiring a cabinet position after general elections. It argues that political parties bargain over potential office-holders during government-formation processes, selecting future cabinet ministers from an emerging bargaining pool'. The article draws upon a new dataset comprising all ministrable candidates discussed by political parties during eight government-formation processes in Germany between 1983 and 2009. The conditional logit regression analysis reveals that temporal dynamics, such as the day she enters the pool, have a significant effect on her success in achieving a cabinet position. Other determinants of ministerial selection discussed in the existing literature, such as party and parliamentary expertise, are less relevant for achieving ministerial office. The article concludes that scholarship on ministerial selection requires a stronger emphasis for its endogenous nature in government-formation as well as the relevance of temporal dynamics in such processes.
The point of departure of this article is limited systematic research on the rotating EU Council Presidency after the Lisbon Treaty. In order to assess rotating presidencies the paper proposes a three-tier approach which includes a functional, a behavioural and a contingency dimension. These dimensions are supplemented by the institutional changes of the Lisbon Treaty referring to the rotating presidencies. Next, the paper applies this evaluation framework to the Polish Presidency that took place in the second half of 2011. Finally, it draws conclusions from the Polish case for both the leadership capacity of the rotating Council Presidency in the post-Lisbon European Union and the performance of Poland's EU Council Presidency.
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 organizations in a complex world- borders and Aadded value of a pluralistic research
(2014)
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.
The present article shows, in a case study, how basic problems of interactions in Job Centres are shaped by expectations deriving from the social levels of organization and interaction and can be solved by a specific modification of the person category of the good customer. This client is categorized as a customer with the will to be willing: By wanting what the Job Center staff wants him or her to want and by accommodating to the contingent goals of political discourse and public administration as much as possible she or he enables the interaction to transform organizational and interactional expectations into addressable expectations. In this way he or she constitutes a vital link within the managerial guidance system of a modern labor administration.
Giving less by doing more? Dynamics of social policy expansion and dismantling in 18 OECD countries
(2014)
Protection against social risks is generally popular among voters and should enjoy the benefits of institutional inertia. Yet retrenchment occurs rather frequently in advanced welfare states without this systematically leading to electoral punishment. We solve this paradox by, first, arguing that governments can avoid the blame of retrenchment by pursuing a strategy of expansionary dismantling' where new policies and instruments are used to compensate reform losers and to obfuscate cutbacks. Second, we test our argument with a huge new dataset consisting of changes in unemployment legislation and replacement rates in 18 OECD countries from 1976 to 2000. The statistical tests provide robust support for our argument, suggesting that the introduction of new policies and instruments leads to cutbacks in replacement rates. We also find that left-leaning governments are least likely to engage in expansionary dismantling.
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.
The article analyses a certain type of bicameralism not merely as a form of legislative organisation, but as a form of government-as a hybrid between parliamentarism and presidentialism. A new typology of pure and hybrid forms of government is proposed, which classifies bicameralism in Australia and Japan as chamber-independent government. This type is systematically compared with other forms of government, including hybrids like semi-presidentialism, elected prime-ministerial government in Israel (from 1996 to 2002) and assembly-independent government in Switzerland. The article highlights how chamber-independent government has the potential to combine different visions of democracy without leading to presidentialisation of political parties.
In December 2013, the Court at first instance in Bonn ruled on whether Germany is required to pay compensation to victims of the International Security Assistance Force airstrike ordered by a German colonel in 2009 in Kunduz. Whereas the traditional approach rejects liability of the government for sovereign acts in armed conflicts, the Court held that the rules of German governmental liability (Amtshaftung) do-in principle-apply to illegal sovereign acts in contemporary armed conflicts. However, the Court did not admit the claim on its merits. This judgment can, nonetheless, be placed within the line of questions regarding international relations to be resolved by law and not politics. This article examines the history of German jurisprudence regarding victims' compensation for harm suffered resulting from violations of international humanitarian law. It summarizes and assesses the Kunduz judgment and explains why applying legal liability to the government for sovereign acts in bello is a logical step in the development of the rule of law.
City rankings that aim to measure the environmental sustainability of European cities may contribute to the evaluation and development of environmental policy of European cities. The objective of this study is to identify and evaluate the methodological characteristics of these city rankings. First, a methodology was developed to systematically identify methodological characteristics of city rankings within different steps of the ranking development process. Second, six city rankings (European Energy Award, European Green Capital Award, European Green City Index, European Soot-free City Ranking, RES Champions League, Urban Ecosystem Europe) were examined. Official websites and any methodological documents found on those websites were content analyzed using the developed methodology. Interviews with representatives of the city rankings were conducted to acquire any additional information. Results showed that the city rankings varied greatly with respect to their methodological characteristics and that all city rankings had methodological weaknesses. Developers of city rankings are advised to use the methodology developed in this study to find methodological weaknesses and improve their ranking. In addition, developers ought to be more transparent about the methodological characteristics of their city rankings. End-users of city rankings are advised to use the developed methodology to identify and evaluate the methodological characteristics of city rankings before deciding to act on ranking results. (c) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
The increased emphasis on labour market activation in many European countries has led to new forms of governance in recent decades. Primarily through qualitative data and document analysis, this article compares the restructuring of labour market service delivery in the UK and Germany. The comparison suggests the emergence of complex governance arrangements that seek to balance public regulation and accountability with the creation of room for market competition. As a result, we can observe in both countries a greater use of markets, but also of rules. While in both countries the relationships between different providers of labour market services can best be described as a mixture of cooperation and competition, differences exist in terms of instruments and the comprehensiveness of coordination initiatives. The findings suggest that the distinctions between governance models may be more important in theory than in practice, although the combinations of theoretical forms vary in different circumstances.
Previous studies on the electoral fortunes of extreme right parties (ERPs) have pointed to the importance of variables of party competition for the success - or failure - of ERPs. These studies vary greatly when it comes to describing the political opportunity structure of the extreme right. Apart from their methodological differences, existing studies differ especially with regard to the assumed underlying dimension of party competition. This article tests the impact of three frequently discussed variables in the political opportunity structure of ERPs (mainstream party convergence, position of the established right and party system polarisation) on the vote share of ERPs in Western Europe. In addition to examining previous studies in this field, it focuses on the interplay between the economic and the cultural dimensions as part of the political opportunity structure. The authors show that a decrease in polarisation with regard to economic questions is accompanied by a growing salience of ERPs' core issues, leading in the end to an increase in ERPs' vote share.
Although party competition is widely regarded as an important part of a working democracy, it is rarely analysed in political science literature. This article discusses the basic properties of party competition, especially the patterns of interaction in contemporary party systems. Competition as a phenomenon at the macro level has to be carefully distinguished from contest and cooperation as the forms of interaction at the micro level. The article gives special attention to the creation of issue innovations. Contrary to existing approaches, I argue that not only responsiveness but also innovation are necessary to guarantee a workable democratic competition. Competition takes place on an issue market, where parties can discover voters' demands. Combined with the concept of institutional veto points, the article presents hypotheses on how institutions shape the possibility for programmatic innovations.
This article compares two transnational public-private partnerships against hunger and malnutrition, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition and the International Alliance Against Hunger with regard to their degree of business involvement and their input and output legimacy. We examine the participation of stakeholders, the accountability and transparency of the decision-making process, and the perceived provision of a public good. We identify a link between business involvement and output legitimacy, and we discuss the implications for public and private food governance.
A decade into the proclaimed "global war on terror," states are still struggling with the phenomenon's locus and definition under the effective laws. Remarkably, preventive detention of suspected terrorists fluctuates between various legal regimes: In Europe, criminal law is predominantly used but special security orders are occasionally issued as well; Israel applies in part the law of international armed conflicts; and in the United States, detention under a new war premise has been claimed.
This Article analyzes the response of the U.S. Supreme Court, the Israeli Supreme Court, and the European Court of Human Rights to legislative and executive policies asserting the power of preventive detention in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. The comparison exposes significant differences with regard to the application of international law, and most prominently concerning the underlying question of whether the struggle against terrorism should be considered a "war," or, perhaps more traditionally, a fight against crime.
Despite the substantial discrepancies in these three jurisdictions, this Article argues that the similarities are actually more striking. Whereas no court has accepted any attempt to fight terrorism outside the bounds of law, the judges have not hesitated to stretch and blur the pertinent frameworks by extensive interpretation. Ultimately, it is questionable whether on account of the individual's rights the resulting flexibilities and uncertainties are justifiable.
"I don't know what you mean by 'glory'," Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!" "But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument" Alice objected. "When I use a word," Humpty Dumptysaid, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master that's all."
Torture is an extreme act of collective violence that is secretly executed in the name of a state. In order to explain the reasons why people torture others, individualist approaches concentrate on individuals' motives or interests. Contrary to that, the article argues that torture should be understood as a social relation. Thus, it takes the social relations of the group of torturers as a starting point. Firstly, following Georg Simmel's analysis of the secret society the paper argues that the group of torturers can adequately be conceptualized as a secret society; secondly, against this background the article reconstructs the conditions which structure torturers' agency; finally, this article offers an outline of the processes and dynamics that allows for explaining the phenomenon of torture. The thesis of the article argues that a relational sociology helps better explain and understand the social phenomenon of torture.
The conclusion to the special section has three objectives: First, it argues that a focus on "practice" implicitly connects all the articles in the special section and thereby reinforces the core points of the analytical framework introduced by Fuchs and Glaab. Second, the paper summarizes the main messages of the articles by identifying three red threads that are dominant in all four contributions. These are the strong focus of all authors on ideational forces, an emphasis on the role of academics and the description of complexities of local-global interdependencies. Third, some common blind spots are identified that merit future research.
In this paper, we provide a comprehensive multivariate cointegration analysis of three parts of the steam coal value chain - export, transport and import prices. The analysis is based on a rich dataset of international coal prices: in particular, we combine data on steam coal prices with freight rates, covering the period December 2001 until August 2009 at weekly frequency. We then test whether the demand and supply side components of steam coal trade are consistently integrated with one another. In addition, export and import prices as well as freight rates for individual trading routes, across regions and globally are combined. We find evidence of significant yet incomplete integration. We also find heterogeneous short-term dynamics of individual markets. Furthermore, we examine whether logistics enter coal price dynamics through transportation costs, which are mainly determined by oil prices. Our results suggest that this is generally not the case.
In a longitudinal sample of Icelandic children (7.9-12-15 years; n=109) the developmental relations between of control beliefs (locus of control) and school achievement were examined on the background of child rearing practices, socialization conditions, and social class from childhood to adolescence. Results show that supportive and restrictive socialization conditions in social classes affect school achievement as well as the development of control beliefs. Supportive child rearing practices in upper class families encourage the development of internal control beliefs in adolescence, and are coincident with higher school achievement. On the other hand, restrictive child rearing practices appear independent of social class and generally hinder the development of internal control beliefs and positive school achievement. Results of a path model suggest a lagged relationship between school achievement and control beliefs. School achievement in childhood (ages 7 and 9) predicts internal control beliefs in adolescence.
Whereas the US President signed the Kyoto Protocol, the failure of the US Congress to ratify it seriously hampered subsequent international climate cooperation. This recent US trend, of signing environmental treaties but failing to ratify them, could thwart attempts to come to a future climate agreement. Two complementary explanations of this trend are proposed. First, the political system of the US has distinct institutional features that make it difficult for presidents to predict whether the Senate will give its advice and consent to multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) and whether Congress will pass the required enabling legislation. Second, elected for a fixed term, US presidents might benefit politically from supporting MEAs even when knowing that legislative support is not forthcoming. Four policy implications are explored, concerning the scope for unilateral presidential action, the potential for bipartisan congressional support, the effectiveness of a treaty without the US, and the prospects for a deep, new climate treaty.
Policy relevance
Why does the failure of US ratification of multilateral environmental treaties occur? This article analyses the domestic political mechanisms involved in cases of failed US ratification. US non-participation in global environmental institutions often has serious ramifications. For example, it sharply limited Kyoto's effectiveness and seriously hampered international climate negotiations for years. Although at COP 17 in Durban the parties agreed to negotiate a new agreement by 2015, a new global climate treaty may well trigger a situation resembling the one President Clinton faced in 1997 when he signed Kyoto but never obtained support for it in the Senate. US failure to ratify could thwart future climate agreements.
Over the last three decades, the German political economy can be characterized by both institutional continuity and change. Understanding the dynamics of institutional change therefore requires an examination of the interplay of changes in formal institutional rules and how organizations respond to these changes by strategic attempts to promote or hinder further change in institutions. The macro-level political story of institutional change shows a number of paradoxes resulting in unexpected and often incomplete forms of market liberalization shaped by continued support for some core features of Germany's social market economy. The resulting erosion of Germany's co-ordinated model of economic organization through networks and business associations has gone hand-in-hand with the attempts to preserve these institutions for core workers and sectors of the economy in the face of changing environments. The result is a more varied institutional landscape characterized by international diffusion of liberal policies and the politics of their variable re-embedding within a long-term path of institutional continuity.
This article calls for a holistic perspective on parliamentary change through the analytical lens of parliamentary agenda powers. In addition to agenda control, the concept of agenda powers not only refers to the ability of parliamentary actors to directly influence parliamentary output through legislation (efficiency), but also to exert indirect influence through controlling the government (effectiveness) and through affecting public opinion (legitimacy). The concept of agenda powers comprises the formal institutional rules underlying the distribution of the parliamentary agenda, the factual application of these rules and the organisational powers enabling actors to make use of their time. The distribution of agenda powers can be explained by the sequencing of legitimacy, effectiveness, and efficiency reforms. Consequently, the concept of parliamentary agenda powers allows for a comparative long-term analysis of parliamentary change. Furthermore, the concept of parliamentary agenda powers enables us to operationalise normative scenarios of a de-parliamentarisation and the alleged transitions towards post- or neo-parliamentarian democracy.