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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In light of the debate on the consequences of competitive contracting out of traditionally public services, this research compares two mechanisms used to allocate funds in development cooperation—direct awarding and competitive contracting out—aiming to identify their potential advantages and disadvantages.
The agency theory is applied within the framework of rational-choice institutionalism to study the institutional arrangements that surround two different money allocation mechanisms, identify the incentives they create for the behavior of individual actors in the field, and examine how these then transfer into measurable differences in managerial quality of development aid projects. In this work, project management quality is seen as an important determinant of the overall project success.
For data-gathering purposes, the German development agency, the Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), is used due to its unique way of work. Whereas the majority of projects receive funds via direct-award mechanism, there is a commercial department, GIZ International Services (GIZ IS) that has to compete for project funds.
The data concerning project management practices on the GIZ and GIZ IS projects was gathered via a web-based, self-administered survey of project team leaders. Principal component analysis was applied to reduce the dimensionality of the independent variable to total of five components of project management. Furthermore, multiple regression analysis identified the differences between the separate components on these two project types. Enriched by qualitative data gathered via interviews, this thesis offers insights into everyday managerial practices in development cooperation and identifies the advantages and disadvantages of the two allocation mechanisms.
The thesis first reiterates the responsibility of donors and implementers for overall aid effectiveness. It shows that the mechanism of competitive contracting out leads to better oversight and control of implementers, fosters deeper cooperation between the implementers and beneficiaries, and has a potential to strengthen ownership of recipient countries. On the other hand, it shows that the evaluation quality does not tremendously benefit from the competitive allocation mechanism and that the quality of the component knowledge management and learning is better when direct-award mechanisms are used. This raises questions about the lacking possibilities of actors in the field to learn about past mistakes and incorporate the finings into the future interventions, which is one of the fundamental issues of aid effectiveness. Finally, the findings show immense deficiencies in regard to oversight and control of individual projects in German development cooperation.
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.
Sowohl in der intersektionalen Ungleichheitsforschung als auch in feministischer Geschlechterforschung bleibt der Fokus bezüglich Themen wie Geschlechterdiskriminierung der Geschlechtergerechtigkeit - trotz der jahrelangen Erkenntnis über die Vielzahl von Geschlechtsidentitäten - zumeist nur auf Lebenssituationen von Männern und Frauen. Dies erweist sich jedoch als höchst problematisch, da Personen mit nicht-binärer Geschlechtsidentität in einem hohen Maß von Diskriminierung und sozialer Ungleichheit betroffen sind. In der Abschlussarbeit wird deswegen mit Hilfe einer intersektionalen Perspektive auf diese Forschungslücke eingegangen. Es wird dabei die Frage gestellt, welche Möglichkeiten und Grenzen das Konzept der Intersektionalität in Bezug auf die Erforschung von Diskriminierungserfahrungen von Personen mit nicht-binärer Geschlechtsidentität bietet und worauf die soziale Ungleichheit dieser Personengruppe basiert. Hierfür wird zunächst nicht nur auf grundlegende geschlechtersoziologische Theorien eingegangen sowie das Konzept der Intersektionalität erläutert, sondern auch ausführlich der Wissenschaftsstand zu nicht-binären Personen nachgezeichnet. Bei der darauffolgenden Analyse der Diskriminierungserfahrungen werden vor allem die sprachliche Benachteiligung, die Invalidierung der Geschlechtsidentität sowie die durch Institutionen und systematische Strukturen hervorgerufene, besonders dramatische soziale Ungleichheit deutlich. Aus einer intersektionalen Perspektive zeigen sich zudem deutliche Unterschiede zwischen nicht-binären Personen, wobei sich vor allem der Einfluss von Rassismus als äußerst auffällig erweist. Die soziale Ungleichheit der nicht-binären Personen lässt sich dabei zu einem großen Teil durch die in der Gesellschaft vorherrschende Heteronormativität und dem Alltagswissen über eine vermeintliche Dualität der Geschlechter erklären. Im Hinblick auf die Fruchtbarkeit einer intersektionalen Perspektive auf Diskriminierungserfahrungen von nicht-binären Personen zeigen sich Grenzen des Konzepts vor allem bei der notwendigen Limitierung der Kategorienanzahl und bei einer Herangehensweise, welche den Begriff der Intersektionalität wörtlich nimmt. Möglichkeiten bei der Verwendung einer Mischung aus antikategorialen und interkategorialen Ansatzes sind hingegen, eine Kritik an Ausschlüssen in der Forschung zu sozialer Ungleichheit, die kritische Sichtbarhaltung der machtvollen Prozesse hinter Kategorisierungen und das Aufzeigen von Unterschieden innerhalb ansonsten als homogen behandelten sozialen Gruppen. Um das Ausmaß an Diskriminierung für nicht-binäre Personen zu reduzieren, werden deswegen abschließend sowohl strukturelle Veränderung als notwendig erachtet als auch ein aufgeklärter, respektvoller und einschließender Umgang mit nicht-binären Personen in der Wissenschaft und im Alltag.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Introduction
(2019)
This book started as a conversation about successful societies and human development. It was originally based on a simple idea— it would be unusual if, in a society that might be reasonably deemed as successful, its citizens were deeply unhappy. This combination— successful societies and happy citizens— raised immediate and obvious problems. How might one define “success” when dealing, for example, with a society as large and as complex as the United States? We ran into equally major problems when trying to understand “happiness.” Yet one constantly hears political analysts talking about the success or failure of various democratic institutions. In ordinary conversations one constantly hears people talking about being happy or unhappy. In the everyday world, conversations about living in a successful society or about being happy do not appear to cause bewilderment or confusion. “Ordinary people” do not appear to find questions like— is your school successful or are you happily married?— meaningless or absurd. Yet, in the social sciences, both “successful societies” and “happy lives” are seen to be troublesome.
As our research into happiness and success unfolded, the conundrums we discussed were threefold: societal conditions, measurements and concepts. What are the key social factors that are indispensable for the social and political stability of any given society? Is it possible to develop precise measures of social success that would give us reliable data? There are a range of economic indicators that might be associated with success, such as labor productivity, economic growth rates, low inflation and a robust GDP. Are there equally reliable political and social measures of a successful society and human happiness? For example, rule of law and the absence of large- scale corruption might be relevant to the assessment of societal happiness. These questions about success led us inexorably to what seems to be a futile notion: happiness. Economic variables such as income or psychological measures of well- being in terms of mental health could be easily analyzed; however, happiness is a dimension that has been elusive to the social sciences.
In our unfolding conversation, there was also another stream of thought, namely that the social sciences appeared to be more open to the study of human unhappiness rather than happiness.
Happiness as the ultimate goal of human endeavour is a thread running through theology and philosophy from the ancient Greeks to modern times. Such a claim raises immediately a host of critical objections and problems relating to the idea of cultural relativism. Can the theme of happiness be continuous and how would we know that? One way to overcome this dilemma is to identify ‘regimes of happiness’ – that is, clusters of ideas, practices and institutions that in one way or another connect to broad ideas of human wellbeing, flourishing and satisfaction or Eudaimonia to use the word that dominates Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (Contreras- Vejar and Turner, 2018). Contemporary discussions of happiness almost invariably start with Aristotle (Nagel, 1972). However, the methodology here is to some extent borrowed from Michel Foucault to understand the ‘genealogy’ of happiness across different social and cultural formations. In the Western world one could identify an Aristotelian regime of happiness based on the idea of a sound polity and flourishing citizens. There is also a Christian regime of happiness around such figures as St. Augustine and within which there have been radical shifts most notably brought about by Luther and the Protestant Reformation. Regimes of happiness can overlap with each other and their borders are obviously fuzzy. Some regimes may last a long time in various forms. For example, Aristotle's treatment of happiness is one of the most cited versions of happiness across the West. The idea of happiness is, however, not confined to the West. For example, the Vietnamese Constitution that was devised by Ho Chi Minh, an admirer of America society, crafted the 1945 Constitution with three key words as its primary values – Independence–freedom–happiness (or niem hanh phuc). The 2013 version of the Constitution in Article 3 says, ‘The state guarantees […] that people enjoy what is abundant and free for a happy life with conditions for all- round development.’
One further notion behind our discussion of ‘regimes of happiness’ is that in principle we can detect important shifts in regimes that are associated both with specific networks of individual thinkers, and with institutional changes in the location of intellectuals in these networks. In this chapter I am especially interested in the transitions in thinking about happiness from the late eighteenth century and through the nineteenth century.
Editorial
(2019)
Recent years have seen a considerable broadening of the ambitions in urban sustainability policy-making. With its Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 Making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, the 2030 Agenda stresses the critical role of cities in achieving sustainable development. In the context of SDG17 on partnerships, emphasis is also placed on the role of researchers and other scientific actors as change agents in the sustainability transformation. Against this backdrop, this article sheds light on different pathways through which science can contribute to urban sustainability. In particular, we discern four forms of science-policy-society interactions as key vectors: 1. sharing knowledge and providing scientific input to urban sustainability policy-making; 2. implementing transformative research projects; 3. contributing to local capacity building; and 4. self-governing towards sustainability. The pathways of influence are illustrated with empirical examples, and their interlinkages and limitations are discussed. We contend that there are numerous opportunities for actors from the field of sustainability science to engage with political and societal actors to enhance sustainable development at the local level.
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.
Since 1980 Iraq passed through various wars and conflicts including Iraq-Iran war, Saddam Hussein’s the Anfals and Halabja campaigns against the Kurds and the killing campaigns against Shiite in 1986, Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, the Gulf war in 1990, Iraq war in 2003 and the fall of Saddam, the conflicts and chaos in the transmission of power after the death of Saddam, and the war against ISIS . All these wars left severe impacts in most households in Iraq; on women and children in particular.
The consequences of such long wars could be observed in all sectors including economic, social, cultural and religious sectors. The social structure, norms and attitudes are intensely affected. Many women specifically divorced women found them-selves in challenging different difficulties such as social as well as economic situations. Thus the divorced women in Iraqi Kurdistan are the focus of this research.
Considering the fact that there is very few empirical researches on this topic, a constructivist grounded theory methodology (CGT) is viewed as reliable in order to come up with a comprehensive picture about the everyday life of divorced women in Iraqi Kurdistan. Data collected in Sulaimani city in Iraqi Kurdistan. The work of Kathy Charmaz was chosen to be the main methodological context of the research and the main data collection method was individual intensive narrative interviews with divorced women.
Women generally and divorced women specifically in Iraqi Kurdistan are living in a patriarchal society that passing through many changes due to the above mentioned wars among many other factors. This research is trying to study the everyday life of divorced women in such situations and the forms of social insecurity they are experiencing. The social institutions starting from the family as a very significant institution for women to the governmental and non-governmental institutions that are working to support women, and the copying strategies, are in focus in this research. The main research argument is that the family is playing ambivalent roles in divorced women’s life. For instance, on one side families are revealed to be an essential source of security to most respondents, on the other side families posed also many threats and restrictions on those women. This argument supported by what called by Suad joseph "the paradox of support and suppression" . Another important finding is that the stat institution(laws , constitutions ,Offices of combating violence against woman and family) are supporting women somehow and offering them protection from the insecurities but it is clear that the existence of the laws does not stop the violence against women in Iraqi Kurdistan, As explained by Pateman because the laws /the contract is a sexual-social contract that upholds the sex rights of males and grants them more privileges than females. The political instability, Tribal social norms also play a major role in influencing the rule of law.
It is noteworthy to refer that analyzing the interviews in this research showed that in spite that divorced women living in insecurities and facing difficulties but most of the respondents try to find a coping strategies to tackle difficult situations and to deal with the violence they face; these strategies are bargaining, sometimes compromising or resisting …etc. Different theories used to explain these coping strategies such as bargaining with patriarchy. Kandiyoti who stated that women living under certain restraints struggle to find way and strategies to enhance their situations. The research finding also revealed that the western liberal feminist view of agency is limited this is agree with Saba Mahmood and what she explained about Muslim women agency. For my respondents, who are divorced women, their agency reveals itself in different ways, in resisting or compromising with or even obeying the power of male relatives, and the normative system in the society. Agency is also explained the behavior of women contacting formal state institutions in cases of violence like the police or Offices of combating violence against woman and family.
Die Wissenschaftsfreiheit ist ein Grundrecht, dessen Sinn und Auslegung im Rahmen von Reformen des Hochschulsystems nicht nur der Justiz, sondern auch der Wissenschaft selbst immer wieder Anlass zur Diskussion geben, so auch im Zuge der Einführung des so genannten Qualitätsmanagements von Studium und Lehre an deutschen Hochschulen. Die vorliegende Dissertationsschrift stellt die Ergebnisse einer empirischen Studie vor, die mit einer soziologischen Betrachtung des Qualitätsmanagements unterschiedlicher Hochschulen zu dieser Diskussion beiträgt.
Auf Grundlage der Prämisse, dass Verlauf und Folgen einer organisationalen Innovation nur verstanden werden können, wenn der alltägliche Umgang der Organisationsmitglieder mit den neuen Strukturen und Prozessen in die Analyse einbezogen wird, geht die Studie von der Frage aus, wie Akteurinnen und Akteure an deutschen Hochschulen die Qualitätsmanagementsysteme ihrer Organisationen nutzen. Die qualitative inhaltsanalytische Auswertung von 26 Leitfaden-Interviews mit Prorektorinnen und -rektoren, Qualitätsmanagement-Personal und Studiendekaninnen und -dekanen an neun Hochschulen ergibt, dass die Strategien der Akteursgruppen an den Hochschulen im Zusammenspiel mit strukturellen Aspekten unterschiedliche Dynamiken entstehen lassen, mit denen Implikationen für die Lehrfreiheit verbunden sind: Während die Autonomie der Lehrenden durch das Qualitätsmanagement an einigen Hochschulen unterstützt wird, sind sowohl Autonomie als auch Verantwortung für Studium und Lehre an anderen Hochschulen Gegenstand andauernder Konflikte, die auch das Qualitätsmanagement einschließen.
Parlamentarier als Beruf
(2019)
Die politische Professionalisierung hat innerhalb der institutionellen Rahmenbedingungen zur Sozialfigur des Berufspolitikers geführt. Diese Entwicklung wird im theoretischen Teil der Arbeit hergeleitet und im empirischen Teil mit umfangreichen Daten belegt. Bemerkenswert ist, dass es dabei nicht zu erheblichen Veränderungen in den Rekrutierungsmustern und Karriereverläufen der Abgeordneten gekommen ist. Vielmehr erweisen sich die von Dietrich Herzog herausgearbeiteten Karrieretypen auch heute noch als gültig und mussten nur moderat angepasst werden. Es zeigt sich damit eine erstaunliche Kontinuität in der politischen Elitenbildung. Die in Deutschland sehr gefestigten institutionellen Rahmenbedingungen, die den Zugang und die Attraktivität politischer Karrieren determinieren, haben offensichtlich auch zu einer Stabilisierung der Karrieretypen geführt.
Kultur und Gefahr
(2019)
Mit der Zeitreihenstudie „Jugend in Brandenburg“ werden seit Anfang der 1990er Jahre Veränderungen ausgewählter Lebensbedingungen und Einstellungen brandenburgischer Jugendlicher in unterschiedlichen zeitlichen Abständen erfasst. Im Zentrum der aktuellen Studie stehen das Freizeitverhalten, Migrationspläne sowie die politischen Einstellungen.
Gefahr oder Risiko
(2019)
Von Gefahren ist täglich die Rede. Doch die Kulturwissenschaften und Sozialwissenschaften beschäftigen sich hauptsächlich mit Form und Logik des Risikos. Das will dieser Band ändern, indem er eine kultur- und medienhistorische Genealogie der Gefahr und ihrer Vorstellungsräume im Verhältnis zum Risiko liefert.Die Entstehung des Risikos und die Geschichte seiner kalkulativen Minimierung im frühneuzeitlichen Versicherungswesen sind gut erforscht. Aber wie steht es um die scheinbar existenzielle „Gefahr“? Sie gerät erst viel später, mit einem verhältnismäßig winzigen Kapitel in Clausewitzʼ posthumen Riesenwerk Vom Kriege (1832–1834), in den Fokus. Clausewitz erkennt, dass die Gefahr immer auch ein Wahrnehmungsproblem ist, ein ästhetisches Konstrukt, das angewiesen ist auf ein Bewusstsein für die technische Vermittlung der Eindrücke.
1989 in Deutschland
(2019)
Kaum ein Ereignis in der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts war so bedeutsam wie die Friedliche Revolution von 1989, mit der die Bevölkerung der DDR sich vom SED - Regime befreite.
Dieses Buch nimmt die Leserinnen und Leser mit zu den zentralen Schauplätzen der Protestbewegung in Deutschland – in Leipzig, Berlin, Dresden, Chemnitz, Plauen, Rostock, Potsdam, Stendal und an vielen anderen Orten. Informative Texte zu den Hintergründen der Ereignisse und umfangreiches Bildmaterial machen das Buch zu einem anschaulichen Zeitreiseführer in die jüngere deutsche Geschichte.
Wertebilung in der Schule
(2019)
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.
This study assesses and explains international bureaucracies’ performance and role as policy advisors and as expert authorities from the perspective of domestic stakeholders. International bureaucracies are the secretariats of international organizations that carry out their work including generating knowledge, providing policy advice and implementing policy programs and projects. Scholars increasingly regard them as governance actors that are able to influence global and domestic policy making. In order to explain this influence, research has mainly focused on international bureaucracies’ formal features and/or staff characteristics. The way in which they are actually perceived by their domestic stakeholders, in particular by national bureaucrats, has not been systematically studied. Yet, this is equally important, given that they represent international bureaucracies’ addressees and are actors that (potentially) make use of international bureaucracies’ policy advice, which can be seen as an indicator for international bureaucracies’ influence. Accordingly, I argue that domestic stakeholders’ assessments can likewise contribute to explaining international bureaucracies’ influence.
The overarching research questions the study addresses are what are national stakeholders’ perspectives on international bureaucracies and under which conditions do they consider international bureaucracies’ policy advice? In answering these questions, I focus on three specific organizational features that the literature has considered important for international bureaucracies’ independent influence, namely international bureaucracies’ performance and their role as policy advisors and as expert authorities. These three features are studied separately in three independent articles, which are presented in Part II of this article-based dissertation.
To answer the research questions, I draw on novel data from a global survey among ministry officials of 121 countries. The survey captures ministry officials’ assessments of international bureaucracies’ features and their behavior with respect to international bureaucracies’ policy advice. The overall sample comprises the bureaucracies of nine global and nine regional international organizations in eight thematic areas in the policy fields of agriculture and finance.
The overall finding of this study is that international bureaucracies’ performance and their role as policy advisors and expert authorities as perceived by ministry officials are highly context-specific and relational. These features vary not only across international bureaucracies but much more intra-organizationally across the different thematic areas that an international bureaucracy addresses, i.e. across different thematic contexts. As far as to the relational nature of international bureaucracies’ features, the study generally finds strong variation across the assessments by ministry officials from different countries and across thematic areas. Hence, the findings highlight that it is likewise important to study international bureaucracies via the perspective of their stakeholders and to take account of the different thematic areas and contexts in which international bureaucracies operate.
The study contributes to current research on international bureaucracies in various ways. First, it directly surveys one important type of domestic stakeholders, namely national ministry officials, as to how they evaluate certain aspects of international bureaucracies instead of deriving them from their structural features, policy documents or assessments by their staff. Furthermore, the study empirically tests a range of theoretical hypotheses derived from the literature on international bureaucracies’ influence, as well as related literature. Second, the study advances methods of assessing international bureaucracies through a large-N, cross-national expert survey among ministry officials. A survey of this type of stakeholder and of this scope is – to my knowledge – unprecedented. Yet, as argued above, their perspectives are equally important for assessing and explaining international bureaucracies’ influence. Third, the study adapts common theories of international bureaucracies’ policy influence and expert authority to the assessments by ministry officials. In so doing, it tests hypotheses that are rooted in both rationalist and constructivist accounts and combines perspectives on international bureaucracies from both International Relations and Public Administration. Empirically supporting and challenging these hypotheses further complements the theoretical understanding of the determinants of international bureaucracies’ influence among national bureaucracies from both rationalist and constructivist perspectives.
Overall, this study advances our understanding of international bureaucracies by systematically taking into account ministry officials’ perspectives in order to determine under which conditions international bureaucracies are perceived to perform well and are able to have an effect as policy advisors and expert authorities among national bureaucracies. Thereby, the study helps to specify to what extent international bureaucracies – as global governance actors – are able to permeate domestic governance via ministry officials and, thus, contribute to the question of why some international bureaucracies play a greater role and are ultimately able to have more influence than others.
Das kommunale System des Landes Brandenburg wurde seit der Deutschen Wiedervereinigung durch eine Vielzahl von territorialen und funktionalen Verwaltungsreformen verändert.
Das hier vorliegende Arbeitsheft des kommunalwissenschaftlichen Instituts der Universität Potsdam stellt diese zurückliegenden Reformen sowie den momentanen Verwaltungsaufbau und die Bevölkerungsstruktur des Landes Brandenburg dar (Stand: 1.Juli 2018). Die demographische Entwicklung war und ist dabei ein wichtiger Reformfaktor. Zudem werden verfassungsrechtliche Grundlagen für kommunale Reformen im Land Brandenburg erörtert.
Anschließend werden die möglichen Auswirkungen des Gesetzes zur Weiterentwicklung der gemeindlichen Ebene vom 15.10.2018 für zukünftige Reformen des Brandenburgischen Kommunalsystems anhand einer Fallstudie aus der Modellregion Oderlandregion diskutiert. Dieses Gesetz stellt einen Wendepunkt in der bisherigen Reformstrategie des Landes Brandenburg dar, da Reformen erstmals auf freiwilliger Basis durchgeführt werden sollen.
Durch eine Netzwerkanalyse wird in der Fallstudie insbesondere auf Akteurskonstellationen im Reformprozess eingegangen. Dabei zeigt sich, dass die Hauptverwaltungsbeamten reformwilliger Gemeinden großen Einfluss auf Entscheidungsprozesse nehmen.
Ministerial administrations are pivotal in the process of defining problems and developing policy solutions due to their technocratic expertise, particularly when this process is applied to climate policy. This innovative book explores how and why policies are changed or continued by employing in-depth studies from a diverse range of EU countries.
Climate Policy in Denmark, Germany, Estonia and Poland works to narrow the research gap surrounding administrative institutions within the field of climate policy change by integrating ideas, discourses and institutions to provide a better understanding of both climate policy and policy change. Differences in approach to democratization and Europeanization between Western and Central Eastern European countries provide rich empirical material for the study of policy formulation. This timely book demonstrates how the substance and formation of policies are shaped by their political and administrative institutional contexts.
Analytical and accessible, this discerning book will be of value to scholars and students of climate policy, public policy and public administration alike. Providing lessons on institutional reform in climate and energy policy, this explorative book will also be of interest to practitioners and policy-makers.
Die Stadtwerkebetriebe, zumindest diejenigen die im Strom- und Gassektor tätig sind, sind meist nicht mehr im Stadtwerke Eigenbetrieb organisiert, sondern von den Kommunen in den vergangenen zwei Jahrzehnten in die Privatrechtsform der GmbH ausgegliedert worden. Hinzu kommt, dass diese kommunalen Unternehmen in einem Energiebinnenmarkt agieren, der durch die EU-Marktliberalisierung entstanden ist. Die unternehmerische Verselbstständigung der Stadtwerke GmbH von politischer Steuerung wird durch das Credo des Neuen Steuerungsmodells bestärkt, das gerade in der unternehmerischen Unabhängigkeit die Voraussetzungen für wirtschaftlichen Erfolg sieht. Diese Rahmenbedingungen zwingen die Unternehmen der kommunalen Wirtschaft, sich ausschließlich nach unternehmerischen und marktinduzierten Systemen zu richten. Dass die Logik des unternehmerischen Handelns keinen Platz lässt für eine politische Steuerung der Unternehmen, wird zum Legitimationsproblem für die kommunale Wirtschaft. Denn eine ausschließliche Orientierung an den Überschüssen der kommunalen Unternehmen legitimiert nicht den öffentlichen Zweck, weder politisch noch organisationsrechtlich. Die Gemeinwohlorientierung ist konstitutiver Bestandteil der kommunalen wirtschaftlichen Betätigung. Hier wird die These hervorgebracht, dass Bürgerbeteiligung in dieser Situation von den Stadtwerken zugelassen wird, um dieses Legitimationsdefizit abzuschwächen. Zwei Fälle werden qualitativ analysiert und verglichen: erstens die Stadtwerke Wolfhagen GmbH, die anhand von Bürgerbeteiligung Akzeptanz für einen Windpark generieren wollen. Zweitens die Stadtwerke Potsdam GmbH, die aus einer - hier als PR-Krise beschriebenen - Situation heraus, Legitimation mit verschiedenen Instrumenten der Bürgerbeteiligung wiederherzustellen versuchen.
The Government will create a motivated, merit-based, performance-driven, and professional civil service that is resistant to temptations of corruption and which provides efficient, effective and transparent public services that do not force customers to pay bribes.
— (GoIRA, 2006, p. 106)
We were in a black hole! We had an empty glass and had nothing from our side to fill it with! Thus, we accepted anything anybody offered; that is how our glass was filled; that is how we reformed our civil service.
— (Former Advisor to IARCSC, personal communication, August 2015)
How and under what conditions were the post-Taleban Civil Service Reforms of Afghanistan initiated? What were the main components of the reforms? What were their objectives and to which extent were they achieved? Who were the leading domestic and foreign actors involved in the process? Finally, what specific factors influenced the success and failure Afghanistan’s Civil Service Reforms since 2002? Guided by such fundamental questions, this research studies the wicked process of reforming the Afghan civil service in an environment where a variety of contextual, programmatic, and external factors affected the design and implementation of reforms that were entirely funded and technically assisted by the international community.
Focusing on the core components of reforms—recruitment, remuneration, and appraisal of civil servants—the qualitative study provides a detailed picture of the pre-reform civil service and its major human resources developments in the past. Following discussions on the content and purposes of the main reform programs, it will then analyze the extent of changes in policies and practices by examining the outputs and effects of these reforms.
Moreover, the study defines the specific factors that led the reforms toward a situation where most of the intended objectives remain unachieved. Doing so, it explores and explains how an overwhelming influence of international actors with conflicting interests, large-scale corruption, political interference, networks of patronage, institutionalized nepotism, culturally accepted cronyism and widespread ethnic favoritism created a very complex environment and prevented the reforms from transforming Afghanistan’s patrimonial civil service into a professional civil service, which is driven by performance and merit.