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Clubs of autocrats
(2021)
While scholars have argued that membership in Regional Organizations (ROs) can increase the likelihood of democratization, we see many autocratic regimes surviving in power albeit being members of several ROs. This article argues that this is the case because these regimes are often members in "Clubs of Autocrats" that supply material and ideational resources to strengthen domestic survival politics and shield members from external interference during moments of political turmoil. The argument is supported by survival analysis testing the effect of membership in autocratic ROs on regime survival between 1946 to 2010. It finds that membership in ROs composed of more autocratic member states does in fact raise the likelihood of regime survival by protecting incumbents against democratic challenges such as civil unrest or political dissent. However, autocratic RO membership does not help to prevent regime breakdown due to autocratic challenges like military coups, potentially because these types of threats are less likely to diffuse to other member states. The article thereby adds to our understanding of the limits of democratization and potential reverse effects of international cooperation, and contributes to the literature addressing interdependences of international and domestic politics in autocratic regimes.
International organizations (IOs) experience significant variation in their decision-making performance, or the extent to which they produce policy output. While some IOs are efficient decision-making machineries, others are plagued by deadlock. How can such variation be explained? Examining this question, the article makes three central contributions. First, we approach performance by looking at IO decision-making in terms of policy output and introduce an original measure of decision-making performance that captures annual growth rates in IO output. Second, we offer a novel theoretical explanation for decision-making performance. This account highlights the role of institutional design, pointing to how majoritarian decision rules, delegation of authority to supranational institutions, and access for transnational actors (TNAs) interact to affect decision-making. Third, we offer the first comparative assessment of the decision-making performance of IOs. While previous literature addresses single IOs, we explore decision-making across a broad spectrum of 30 IOs from 1980 to 2011. Our analysis indicates that IO decision-making performance varies across and within IOs. We find broad support for our theoretical account, showing the combined effect of institutional design features in shaping decision-making performance. Notably, TNA access has a positive effect on decision-making performance when pooling is greater, and delegation has a positive effect when TNA access is higher. We also find that pooling has an independent, positive effect on decision-making performance. All-in-all, these findings suggest that the institutional design of IOs matters for their decision-making performance, primarily in more complex ways than expected in earlier research.
Obwohl seit der Finanzkrise 2008 systemische Finanzrisiken das Objekt zahlreicher wissenschaftlicher Studien waren, hat die Frage, unter welchen Bedingungen und Umständen die Auferlegung eines systemischen Finanzrisikos moralisch unzulässig ist, bisher kaum Beachtung gefunden. Ziel dieses Aufsatzes ist es, eine Reihe von normativen Kriterien für die Einschätzung der moralischen Unzulässigkeit von systemischen Risiken zu entwickeln. Darüber hinaus wird argumentiert, dass staatliche und andere relevante Institutionen zwei zentrale Pflichten hinsichtlich des Umgangs mit systemischen Finanzrisiken haben: eine Schutzpflicht gegenüber allen Bürger*innen und eine Sorgfaltspflicht, um die diesen Institutionen obliegenden Kontroll- und Aufsichtsfunktionen verantwortungsvoll auszuüben.
Aporien des Rechts
(2021)
Almost twenty years after its recognition in international human rights law, the human right to water continues to spark discussions about its scope and meaning. This article revisits the evolution and contestation of the right's first international legal framework, General Comment No. 15 from the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The analysis highlights the contestation of economic and social rights as a universal phenomenon at multiple levels, but argues that these meaning-making practices can support their validation and recognition.
In response to mounting evidence on the dangers of irregular migration from Africa to Europe, the number of information campaigns which aim to raise awareness about the potential risks has rapidly increased. Governments, international organizations and civil society organizations implement a variety of campaigns to counter the spread of misinformation accelerated by smuggling and trafficking networks. The evidence on the effects of such information interventions on potential migrants remains limited and largely anecdotal. More generally, the role of risk perceptions in the decision-making process of potential irregular migrants is rarely explicitly tested, despite the fact that the concept of risk pervades conventional migration models, particularly in the field of economics. We address this gap by assessing the effects of a peer-to-peer information intervention on the perceptions, knowledge and intentions of potential migrants in Dakar, Senegal, using a randomized controlled trial design. The results show that - three months after the intervention - peer-to-peer information events increase potential migrants' subjective information levels, raise risk awareness, and reduce intentions to migrate irregularly. We find no substantial effects on factual migration knowledge. We discuss how the effects may be driven by the trust and identification-enhancing nature of peer-to-peer communication. <br /> (c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Die vorliegende Research Note stellt die erste systematische Dokumentation der Gesetzgebung in den deutschen Landtagen vor. Der Datensatz umfasst insgesamt 16.610 dokumentierte Gesetzgebungsvorgänge zwischen den Jahren 1990 und 2020. Nach einer Beschreibung des Datensatzes werden einige Gesetzgebungsmuster in den deutschen Ländern exemplarisch dargestellt. Die Landesgesetzgebung erweist sich dabei als stark durch den neuen Dualismus zwischen Regierung und Opposition geprägt. Im Initiativverhalten lassen sich zudem die Anreize des thematischen Parteienwettbewerbs ablesen. Wenig Evidenz findet sich für die These, dass innerkoalitionäre Gegensätze die Dauer der Gesetzgebungsverfahren in die Länge ziehen. Der mit dieser Research Note veröffentlichte Datensatz steht der Forschung für die Untersuchung zahlreicher weiterer Fragestellungen zur Verfügung.
Sustainable electricity systems need renewable and dispatchable energy sources. Solar energy is an abundant source of renewable energy globally which is, though, by nature only available during the day, and especially in clear weather conditions. We compare three technology configurations able to provide dispatchable solar power at times without sunshine: Photovoltaics (PV) combined with battery (BESS) or thermal energy storage (TES) and concentrating solar power (CSP) with TES. Modeling different periods without sunshine, we find that PV+BESS is competitive for shorter storage durations while CSP+TES gains economic advantages for longer storage periods (also over PV+TES). The corresponding tipping points lie at 2-3 hours (current cost), and 4-10 hours if expectations on future cost developments are taken into consideration. PV+TES becomes only more competitive than CSP+TES with immense additional cost reductions of PV. Hence, there remain distinct niches for two technologies: PV+BESS for short storage durations and CSP+TES for longer ones.
Despite new challenges like climate change and digitalization, global and regional organizations recently went through turbulent times due to a lack of support from several of their member states. Next to this crisis of multilateralism, the COVID-19 pandemic now seems to question the added value of international organizations for addressing global governance issues more specifically. This article analyses this double challenge that several organizations are facing and compares their ways of managing the crisis by looking at their institutional and political context, their governance structure, and their behaviour during the pandemic until June 2020. More specifically, it will explain the different and fragmented responses of the World Health Organization, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund/World Bank. With the aim of understanding the old and new problems that these international organizations are trying to solve, this article argues that the level of autonomy vis-a-vis the member states is crucial for understanding the politics of crisis management. <br /> Points for practitioners <br /> As intergovernmental bodies, international organizations require authorization by their member states. Since they also need funding for their operations, different degrees of autonomy also matter for reacting to emerging challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The potential for international organizations is limited, though through proactive and bold initiatives, they can seize the opportunity of the crisis and partly overcome institutional and political constraints.