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Jointly with the Global North, the rise of the Global South has come at a high cost to the environment. Driven by its high energy intensity and the use of fossil fuels, the South has contributed a significant portion of global emissions during the last 30 years, and is now contributing some 63% of today's total GHG emissions (including land-use change and forestry). Similar to the Global North, the Global South's emissions are heavily concentrated: India and China alone account for some 60% and the top 10 countries for some 78% of the group's emissions, while some 120 countries account for only 22%. Without highlighting such differences, it makes little sense to use the term 'Global South'. Its members are affected differently, and contribute differently to global climate change. They neither share a common view, nor do they pursue joint interests when it comes to international climate negotiations. Instead, they are organised into more than a dozen subgroups of the global climate regime. There is no single climate strategy for the Global South, and climate action will differ enormously from country to country. Furthermore, just and equitable transitions may be particularly challenging for some countries.
To ensure political survival, autocrats must prevent popular rebellion, and political repression is a means to that end. However, autocrats face threats from both the inside and the outside of the center of power. They must avoid popular rebellion and at the same time share power with strategic actors who enjoy incentive to challenge established power-sharing arrangements whenever repression is ordered. Can autocrats turn repression in a way that allows trading one threat off against the other? This chapter first argues that prior research offers scant insight on that question because it relies on umbrella concepts and questionable measurements of repression. Next, the chapter disaggregates repression into restrictions and violence and reflects on their drawbacks. Citizens adapt to the restriction of political civil liberties, and violence backfires against its originators. Hence, restrictions require enforcement, and violence requires moderation. When interpreted as complements, it becomes clear that restrictions and violence have the potential to compensate for their respective weaknesses. The complementarity between violence and restrictions turns political repression into a valuable addition to the authoritarian toolkit. The chapter concludes with an application of these ideas to the twin problems of authoritarian control and power-sharing.
Does complementarity between restrictions and violence stabilize authoritarian power-sharing in the face of popular rebellion? Scholars widely concur that the central political conflict in authoritarian regimes plays out between people on the inside of the regime. This chapter adds to the debate and studies coup attempts in light of two interconnected hypotheses. First, violence against campaigns destabilizes power-sharing because it exposes a weak leadership. Second, this adverse effect of violence declines as the routine level of restrictions increases, because restrictions act as a sorting mechanism for uncompromising political opposition. Both hypotheses are tested using Bayesian multilevel statistical analysis on a data set of 253 coup attempts in 198 authoritarian regimes between 1949 and 2007. This study design allows separation of repression’s time-dependent effects from its context effects, and it demonstrates the value of Bayesian methods for studying rare political phenomena such as coups d’état. The chapter’s conclusion, however, is straightforward: Once citizens form campaigns, repression can only deteriorate the situation because it opens a frontline right at the center of authoritarian rule.
Campaigns against authoritarian rule trigger the problems of authoritarian control and power-sharing. Hence, autocrats cannot ignore campaigns, but can they repress them? This chapter hypothesizes that restrictions and violence do just that—if those forms of political repression complement each other. Each variant of political repression has drawbacks: Restrictions dampen, but they do not eliminate interdependent behavior; violence imposes high individual costs on dissent, but it frequently backfires against its originators. Complementarity asserts that those drawbacks matter less when both variants of repression work in tandem. Statistical analysis of 50 campaigns distributed across 112 authoritarian regimes between 1977 and 2001 yields mixed support for the argument. Based on a binary probit model with sample selection correction, the analysis adds a preemptive and a reactive aspect to political repression. The results imply that complementarity matters as long as repression preempts campaigns, but not when it reacts to them. Moreover, once citizens knock at the palace gates, restrictions turn futile. Finally, violence reduces the outlook for successful resistance against authoritarian rule, but it also backfires at all times—preemptive and reactive. By implication, political repression thwarts successful resistance today, but it breeds more resistance tomorrow.
Einleitung
(2022)
China und Humboldt
(2022)
Vor 50 Jahren nahmen China und Deutschland diplomatische Beziehungen auf. Das ist der Anlass für diesen Sammelband. Er umfasst chinesische und deutsche Autoren und gibt dem deutschen Publikum profunde Einblicke in die aktuellen Entwicklungen in China und die chinesische Diplomatie auf den verschiedenen Feldern der Weltpolitik. Sie vermitteln chinesische Weltsichten, die hierzulande wahrgenommen und respektiert werden sollten. In einer Zeit, in der auch das Verhältnis zwischen China und Deutschland schwieriger ist, ist es wichtig, offen für das Andere zu sein.
Many international bureaucracies give policy advice to national administrative units. Why is the advice given by some international bureaucracies more influential than the recommendations of others? We argue that targeting advice to member states through national embeddedness and country-tailored research increases the influence of policy advice. Subsequently, we test how these characteristics shape the relative influence of 15 international bureaucracies' advice in four financial policy areas through a global survey of national administrations from more than 80 countries. Our findings support arguments that global blueprints need to be adapted and translated to become meaningful for country-level work. <br /> Points for practitioners <br /> National administrations are advised by an increasing number of international bureaucracies, and they cannot listen to all of this advice. Whereas some international bureaucracies give 'one-size-fits-all' recommendations to rather diverse countries, others cater their recommendations to the national audience. Investigating financial policy recommendations, we find that national embeddedness and country-tailored advice render international bureaucracies more influential.
Expert authority is regarded as the heart of international bureaucracies' power. To measure whether international bureaucracies' expert authority is indeed recognised and deferred to, we draw on novel data from a survey of a key audience: officials in the policy units of national ministries in 121 countries. Respondents were asked to what extent they recognised the expert authority of nine international bureaucracies in various thematic areas of agricultural and financial policy. The results show wide variance. To explain this variation, we test well-established assumptions on the sources of de facto expert authority. Specifically, we look at ministry officials' perceptions of these sources and, thus, focus on a less-studied aspect of the authority relationship. We examine the role of international bureaucracies' perceived impartiality, objectivity, global impact, and the role of knowledge asymmetries. Contrary to common assumptions, we find that de facto expert authority does not rest on impartiality perceptions, and that perceived objectivity plays the smallest role of all factors considered. We find some indications that knowledge asymmetries are associated with more expert authority. Still, and robust to various alternative specifications, the perception that international bureaucracies are effectively addressing global challenges is the most important factor.
Moderne Bürgerreligion
(2011)
This thesis is analyzing multiple coordination challenges which arise with the digital transformation of public administration in federal systems, illustrated by four case studies in Germany. I make various observations within a multi-level system and provide an in-depth analysis. Theoretical explanations from both federalism research and neo-institutionalism are utilized to explain the findings of the empirical driven work. The four articles evince a holistic picture of the German case and elucidate its role as a digital government laggard. Their foci range from macro, over meso to micro level of public administration, differentiating between the governance and the tool dimension of digital government.
The first article shows how multi-level negotiations lead to expensive but eventually satisfying solutions for the involved actors, creating a subtle balance between centralization and decentralization. The second article identifies legal, technical, and organizational barriers for cross-organizational service provision, highlighting the importance of inter-organizational and inter-disciplinary exchange and both a common language and trust. Institutional change and its effects on the micro level, on citizens and the employees in local one-stop shops, mark the focus of the third article, bridging the gap between reforms and the administrative reality on the local level. The fourth article looks at the citizens’ perspective on digital government reforms, their expectations, use and satisfaction. In this vein, this thesis provides a detailed account of the importance of understanding the digital divide and therefore the necessity of reaching out to different recipients of digital government reforms. I draw conclusions from the factors identified as causes for Germany’s shortcomings for other federal systems where feasible and derive reform potential therefrom. This allows to gain a new perspective on digital government and its coordination challenges in federal contexts.
Editorial
(2017)
Conclusion
(2016)
This chapter revisits the role of the new modes of governance in areas of limited statehood. First, it states that there is no linear relationship between degrees of statehood and the overall effectiveness of new modes of sustainability governance. Second, the chapter states that, in most of the cases, national governments are hesitant or even actively hamper the development of new modes of governance. Third, it shows that the absence of the shadow of hierarchy can indeed lead to ineffective new modes of governance. However, the shadow of hierarchy does not necessarily need to be cast by states. Finally, the author reviews the complexities involved in participatory practices, stressing the importance of institutional structures and knowledgeable brokers. The chapter concludes by outlining fields for future research.
This chapter investigates the trajectory of establishing the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) in the early 1990s as the first private transnational certification organization with an antagonistic stakeholder body. Its main contribution is a micro-analysis of the founding assembly in 1993. By investigating the role of brokers within the negotiation as one institutional scope condition for ‘arguing’ having occurred, the chapter adopts a dramaturgical approach. It contends that the authority of brokers is not necessarily institutionally given, but needs to be gained: brokers have to prove situationally that their knowledge is relevant and that they are speaking impartially in the interest of progress rather than their own. The chapter stresses the importance of procedural knowledge which brokers provide in contrast to policy knowledge.
Introduction
(2016)
The Paris Agreement for Climate Change or the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) rely on new modes of governance for implementation. Indeed, new modes of governance such as market-based instruments, public-private partnerships or multi-stakeholder initiatives have been praised for playing a pivotal role in effective and legitimate sustainability governance. Yet, do they also deliver in areas of limited statehood? States such as Malaysia or the Dominican Republic partly lack the ability to implement and enforce rules; their statehood is limited. This introduction provides the analytical framework of this volume and critically examines the performance of new modes of governance in areas of limited statehood, drawing on the book’s in-depth case studies on issues of climate change, biodiversity, and health.
This chapter takes stock with the research on the authority of international organizations (IOs) and international public administrations (IPAs) in the fields of International Relations (IR) and Public Administration (PA). It combines arguments from conceptual and theoretical debates with empirical findings to explore under which conditions IPAs are likely to enjoy authority. Based on a review of the literature and on conceptual clarifications, we define authority as a social relationship between holders and granters of authority. We distinguish two types of authority, namely, political and expert authority, and two forms of recognition, namely, in practice (de facto) and by formal delegation (de jure). Given that the de facto expert authority of IPAs has received least attention in the literature, while the PA literature reminds us that knowledge lies at the heart of bureaucratic power, we develop propositions on how de facto expert authority could be measured and how the anticipated variation of expert authority among IPAs could be explained. We illustrate our argument with reference to empirical findings in the IR and PA literature. We conclude by highlighting the implications of our discussion for future research on the authority of national and IPAs.
In this paper, we have two goals. First, we argue for a blueprint for hermeneutical injustice that allows us to schematize existing and discover new varieties of hermeneutical injustices. The underlying insight is that Fricker provides both a general concept of hermeneutical injustice and a specific conception thereof. By distinguishing between the general concept and its specific conceptions, we gain a fruitful tool to detect such injustices in our everyday lives. Second, we use this blueprint to provide a further example of hermeneutical injustice that draws our attention to yet another distinction: Some hermeneutical injustices result from a lack or distortion in the collective conceptual resource and some are due to problems in the application of existing concepts. We argue that to combat hermeneutical injustices, we have to make sure not only that individuals have accurate concepts at their disposal but that they have the capabilities to use these concepts adequately.
The recently adopted German Online Access Act triggered the creation of digitalization labs for designing digital services, bringing together federal, state, and local authorities; end-users; and private-sector actors. These labs provide opportunities for boundary spanning due to organizational field and lab features. Our comparative case studies on three digitalization labs show variations in boundary spanning and reveal lab members de-coupling from their parent organizations to a varying extent. We have concluded labs offer boundary spanning that supports safeguarding the legitimacy of innovative policy designs but also raise concerns over public accountability.
Coping, taming or solving
(2017)
One of the truisms of policy analysis is that policy problems are rarely solved. As an ever-increasing number of policy issues are identified as an inherently ill-structured and intractable type of wicked problem, the question of what policy analysis sets out to accomplish has emerged as more central than ever. If solving wicked problems is beyond reach, research on wicked problems needs to provide a clearer understanding of the alternatives. The article identifies and explicates three distinguishable strategies of problem governance: coping, taming and solving. It shows that their intellectual premises and practical implications clearly contrast in core respects. The article argues that none of the identified strategies of problem governance is invariably more suitable for dealing with wicked problems. Rather than advocate for some universally applicable approach to the governance of wicked problems, the article asks under what conditions different ways of governing wicked problems are analytically reasonable and normatively justified. It concludes that a more systematic assessment of alternative approaches of problem governance requires a reorientation of the debate away from the conception of wicked problems as a singular type toward the more focused analysis of different dimensions of problem wickedness.
Politisches Denken
(2022)
Berufswelt
(2022)
Einleitung
(2022)
Young citizens
(2022)
A growing number of expert organizations aim to provide knowledge for global environmental policy-making. Recently, there have also been explicit calls for stakeholder engagement at the global level to make scientific knowledge relevant and usable on the ground. The newly established Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is one of the first international expert organizations to have systematically developed a strategy for stakeholder engagement in its own right. In this article, we analyze the emergence of this strategy. Employing the concept politics of legitimation, we examine how and for what reasons stakeholder engagement was introduced, justified, and finally endorsed, as well as its effects. The article explores the process of institutionalizing stakeholder engagement, as well as reconstructing the contestation of the operative norms (membership, tasks, and accountability) regulating the rules for this engagement. We conclude by discussing the broader importance of the findings for IPBES, as well as for international expert organizations in general.
This paper is concerned with the normative underpinnings of popular sustainability indicators and country rankings. Attempts to quantify national sustainability in the form of composite indicators and rankings have increased rapidly over past decades. However, questions regarding validity and interpretability remain. This article combines theoretical and statistical tools to explore how input variables in five popular sustainability indicators can be related to different theoretical paradigms: weak and strong sustainability. It is shown that differences in theoretical interpretations affect input variable selection, which in turn affects indicator output. This points towards the risk of indicators becoming a sort of ‘circular argumentation construct’. The article argues that sustainability indicators and country rankings must be treated as theoretical just as much as statistical instruments. It is proposed that making underlying normative assumptions explicit, and making input variable selection more clear in a theoretical sense, can enhance indicator validity and usability for policy makers and researchers alike.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss different approaches of performance measurement and benchmarking as reflexive institutions for local governments in England, Germany and Sweden from a comparative perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
These three countries have been selected because they represent typical (most different) cases of European local government systems and reforms. The existing theories on institutional reflexivity point to the potential contribution of benchmarking to public sector innovation and organizational learning. Based on survey findings, in-depth case studies, interviews and document analyses in these three countries, the paper addresses the major research question as to what extent and why benchmarking regimes vary across countries. It derives hypotheses about the impacts of benchmarking on institutional learning and innovation.
Findings
The outcomes suggest that the combination of three key features of benchmarking, namely - obligation, sanctions and benchmarking authority - in conjunction with country-specific administrative context conditions and local actor constellations - influences the impact of benchmarking as a reflexive institution.
Originality/value
It is shown in the paper that compulsory benchmarking on its own does not lead to reflexivity and learning, but that there is a need for autonomy and leeway for local actors to cope with benchmarking results. These findings are relevant because policy makers must decide upon the specific governance mix of benchmarking exercises taking their national and local contexts into account if they want them to promote institutional learning and innovation.
Sub-municipal units (SMUs) in Germany differ in German Länder. In Berlin, Hamburg and München Metropole Districts fulfill a number of quasi-municipal self-government rights and functions. They have their own budget and strong councils, as well as mayors. In all other Länder, most sub-municipal councils were subordinated under the municipal council and directly elected mayor heading the administration. SMUs were introduced as a kind of compensation with different territorial reforms in the 1970s. Although directly elected, sub-municipal councilors are weak, and their advisory role competes with other newly established advisory boards. Here the focus remains on traffic and town planning. Some sub-municipal councils fulfill smaller administrative functions and become more relevant and important in recent decentralization strategies of neighborhood development.
Foreword
(2018)
In recent decades, a wave of administrative reforms has changed local governance in many European countries. However, our knowledge about differences as well as similarities between the countries, driving forces, impacts, perceptions, and evaluation of these reforms is still limited. In the chapter, the authors give an overview about mayors’ perceptions and evaluations of two major reform trajectories: (a) re-organisation of local service delivery and (b) internal administrative/managerial reforms. Furthermore, differences between (groups of) countries as well as similarities among them are shown in these two fields of administrative reform. Finally, the authors tried to identify explanatory factors for specific perceptions of administrative reforms at the local level.
Conservation nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) are often involved in the design and implementation of global forest management initiatives such as the REDD+, which currently is being rolled out by the UNFCCC, the UN-REDD Programme and the World Bank as part of efforts to mitigate climate change. Nigeria joined the UN-REDD in 2010 and submitted its REDD+ readiness proposal in 2011. The proposal has a national component and subnational forestry activities in the Cross River State (CRS) as the pilot site. This chapter examines the involvement of local NGOs in the CRS consultative participatory meetings to validate the Nigeria-REDD proposal. It shows that political representation of local communities in the validation exercise was through customary authorities and NGOs who claim to speak for and are recognised as advocates for the communities. Local government authorities, the substantive political representatives of local communities were left out of the process. The chapter also shows how the CRS Forestry Commission, which organised the validation exercise, used NGOs as pawns to legitimise it, and how these NGOs were powerless to challenge the Forestry Commission. In contrast, local governments, the third tier of government and political authority routinely disrespected by state-level administrators, regularly challenge such higher level government actors in the courts and the national legislature. Thus, local NGOs may speak and work for local social development but compared to the substantive political representatives at the local level (e.g., local government authorities), local NGOs have limited resources to challenge the political shenanigans of the state.
The collaboration during the modeling process is uncomfortable and characterized by various limitations. Faced with the successful transfer of first process modeling languages to the augmented world, non-transparent processes can be visualized in a more comprehensive way. With the aim to rise comfortability, speed, accuracy and manifoldness of real world process augmentations, a framework for the bidirectional interplay of the common process modeling world and the augmented world has been designed as morphologic box. Its demonstration proves the working of drawn AR integrations. Identified dimensions were derived from (1) a designed knowledge construction axiom, (2) a designed meta-model, (3) designed use cases and (4) designed directional interplay modes. Through a workshop-based survey, the so far best AR modeling configuration is identified, which can serve for benchmarks and implementations.
South Africa’s energy sector finds itself in a gridlock situation. The sector is controlled by the state-owned utility Eskom holding the monopoly on the generation and transmission of electricity, which is almost exclusively produced from domestically extracted coal. At the same time, the constitutional mandate enables municipalities to distribute and sell electricity generated by Eskom to local consumers, which constitutes a large part of the cities’ municipal income. This is a strong disincentive for city governments to promote reductions in energy consumption and substantially limits the scope for urban action on energy efficiency and renewable energies. In the present case study, we portray the current development in South Africa’s energy policy and trace how deadlocked legal, financial, and institutional barriers block the transition from a coal-based energy system toward a greener and more sustainable energy economy. We furthermore point to the efforts of major South African cities to introduce low-carbon strategies in their jurisdictions and highlight key challenges for the future development of the country’s energy sector. By engaging with this case study, readers will become familiar with a prime example of the wider phenomenon of national political–economic obstacles to the progress in sustainable urban development.
Germany has a long tradition of federalism extending far back in history (Ziblatt 2004; Broschek 2011). This tradition has always been characterized by a discrepancy between the attitudes of the public to its federalism and the reform ideas of the (political) elites. While the public has a strong desire for an equality of living conditions, solidarity, social cohesion, and cooperation between the orders of government, academic discourse is shaped by calls for wide-ranging federalism reforms, which are oriented toward the American model of "dual federalism." Against this background, this chapter contrasts public attitudes on key aspects of the federal system with long-lasting academic recommendations for reform. Light will be shed on the general perception of the federal system as a whole, the division of powers, and in particular the issue of joint decision-making (Politikverflechtung) between the orders of government-all issues that have been repeatedly interrogated in various surveys. A further aspect of these polls is the question of the extent to which solidarity or competition shall be realized between the federal and Land governments-a question that is highly controversial in politics and academia (especially in the fiscal equalization debate), though public perceptions are quite different.
In a democracy, a constitutional separation of powers between the executive and the assembly may be desirable, but the constitutional concentration of executive power in a single human being is not. The book defends this thesis and explores ‘semi-parliamentary government’ as an alternative to presidential government. Semi-parliamentarism avoids power concentration in one person by shifting the separation of powers into the democratic assembly. The executive becomes fused with only one part of the assembly, even though the other part has at least equal democratic legitimacy and robust veto power on ordinary legislation. The book identifies the Australian Commonwealth and Japan, as well as the Australian states of New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, and Western Australia, as semi-parliamentary systems. Using data from 23 countries and 6 Australian states, it maps how parliamentary and semi-parliamentary systems balance competing visions of democracy; it analyzes patterns of electoral and party systems, cabinet formation, legislative coalition-building, and constitutional reforms; it systematically compares the semi-parliamentary and presidential separation of powers; and it develops new and innovative semi-parliamentary designs, some of which do not require two separate chambers.
The past two decades have witnessed widespread scholarly interest in the role of cities in climate policy-making. This research has considerably improved our understanding of the local level in the global response to climate change. The present article synthesizes the literature on local climate policies with respect to the 1.5 degrees C target. While most studies have focused on pioneering cities and networks, we contend that the broader impacts of local climate actions and their relationship to regional, national, and international policy frameworks have not been studied in enough detail. Against this backdrop, we introduce the concept of upscaling and contend that local climate initiatives must go hand in hand with higher-level policies and be better integrated into the multi-level governance system.
In recent time, phytoliths (silicon deposition between plant cells) have been recognized as an important nutrient source for crops. The work presented here aims at highlighting the potential of phytolith-occluded K pool in ferns. Dicranopteris linearis (D.linearis) is a common fern in the humid subtropical and tropical regions. Burning of the fern D.linearis is, in slash-and-burn regions, a common practice to prepare the soil before planting. We characterised the phytolith-rich ash derived from the fern D.linearis and phytolith-associated potassium (K) (phytK), using X-ray tomographic microscopy in combination with kinetic batch experiments. D.linearis contains up to 3.9g K/kgd.wt, including K subcompartmented in phytoliths. X-ray tomographic microscopy visualized an interembedding structure between organic matter and silica, particularly in leaves. Corelease of K and Si observed in the batch experiments confirmed that the dissolution of ash phytoliths is one of major factors controlling K release. Under heat treatment, a part of the K is made available, while the remainder entrapped into phytoliths (ca. 2.0-3.3%) is unavailable until the phytoliths are dissolved. By enhanced removal of organic phases, or forming more stable silica phases, heat treatment changes dissolution properties of the phytoliths, affecting K release for crops and soils. The maximum releases of soluble K and Si were observed for the phytoliths treated at 500-800 degrees C. For quantitative approaches for the K provision of plants from the soil phytK pool in soils, factors regulating phytolith dissolution rate have to be considered.
This article examines the reorganization of formal coordination structures in the Directorate-General for Fisheries and Maritime Affairs of the European Commission. While rational approaches in organization theory emphasize functional efficiency as an explanation for organizational design and coordination structures, the findings of this study indicate that the reorganization was not driven primarily for reasons of efficiency and to increase the coordination capacity of the organization. The study demonstrates that, even in a highly technical policy area such as fisheries management in the European Union, the (re-)design of formal organizational structures does not follow primarily a technical-instrumental rationale. Instead, the formal coordination structures have also been adapted to live up to changing expectations in the institutional environment, to modern management concepts in marine governance, and to ensure the legitimacy of the organization. However, although the empirical findings of this study substantiate the theoretical assumptions of an institutional perspective, institutional explanations alone are insufficient to comprehensively understand why organizational structures are reorganized and changed.
Comparatice methods B
(2020)
Moving mountains?
(2022)
Introduction
(2021)
Introduction
(2022)
Classical liberal democratic theory has provided crucial ideas for a still dominant and hegemonic discourse that rests on ideological conceptions of freedom, equality, peacefulness, inclusive democratic participation, and tolerance. While this may have held some truth for citizens in Western liberal-capitalist societies, such liberal ideals have never been realized in colonial, postcolonial and settler colonial contexts. Liberal democracies are not simply forms of rule in domestic national contexts but also geo-political actors. As such, they have been the drivers of processes of global oppression, colonizing and occupying countries and people, appropriating indigenous land, annihilating people with eliminatory politics right up to genocides. There can be no doubt that the West – with its civilizational Judeo-Christian idea and divine mission ‘to subdue the world’ – has destroyed other civilizations, countries, trading systems, and traditional ways of life and is responsible for the death of hundreds of millions of human beings in the course of colonizing the world from its Empires of trade through colonialism to settler colonialism and today’s politics of regime change. The book discusses the settler colonial regime that Israel has established in Palestine while still claiming to be a democracy. It discusses the failures of liberal democracy to overcome the structural and racist inequalities in post-Apartheid South Africa, and it presents hopeful outlooks on new ideas and forms of democracy in social movements in the MENA region.
Contesting citizenship
(2022)
Democracy and citizenship are conceptually and empirically contested. Against the backdrop of recent and current profound transformations in and of democratic societies, this volume presents and discusses acute contestations, within and beyond national borders and boundaries. Democracy’s crucial relationships, between state and citizenry as well as amongst citizens, are rearranged and re-ordered in various spheres and arenas, impacting on core democratic principles such as accountability, legitimacy, participation and trust. This volume addresses these refigurations by bringing together empirical analyses and conceptual considerations regarding the access to and exclusion from citizenship rights in the face of migration regulation and institutional transformation, and the role of violence in maintaining or undermining social order. With its critical reflection on the consequences and repercussions of such processes for citizens’ everyday lives and for the meaning of citizenship altogether, this book transgresses disciplinary boundaries and puts into dialogue the perspectives of political theory and sociology.
Democracy and citizenship are conceptually and empirically contested. Against the backdrop of recent and current profound transformations in and of democratic societies, this volume presents and discusses acute contestations, within and beyond national borders and boundaries. Democracy's crucial relationships, between state and citizenry as well as amongst citizens, are rearranged and re-ordered in various spheres and arenas, impacting on core democratic principles such as accountability, legitimacy, participation and trust. This volume addresses these refigurations by bringing together empirical analyses and conceptual considerations regarding the access to and exclusion from citizenship rights in the face of migration regulation and institutional transformation, and the role of violence in maintaining or undermining social order. With its critical reflection on the consequences and repercussions of such processes for citizens' everyday lives and for the meaning of citizenship altogether, this book transgresses disciplinary boundaries and puts into dialogue the perspectives of political theory and sociology
Die vorliegende Studie zeigt, dass Daten in der Krise eine herausragende Bedeutung für die wissenschaftliche Politikberatung, administrative Entscheidungsvorbereitung und politische Entscheidungsfindung haben. In der Krise gab es jedoch gravierende Kommunikationsprobleme und Unsicherheiten in der wechselseitigen Erwartungshaltung von wissenschaftlichen Datengebern und politisch-administrativen Datennutzern. Die Wissensakkumulation und Entscheidungsabwägung wurde außerdem durch eine unsichere und volatile Datenlage zum Pandemiegeschehen, verbunden mit einer dynamischen Lageentwicklung, erschwert. Nach wie vor sind das Bewusstsein und wechselseitige Verständnis für die spezifischen Rollenprofile der am wissenschaftlichen Politikberatungsprozess beteiligten Akteure sowie insbesondere deren Abgrenzung als unzureichend einzuschätzen.
Die Studie hat darüber hinaus vielfältige Defizite hinsichtlich der Verfügbarkeit, Qualität, Zugänglichkeit, Teilbarkeit und Nutzbarkeit von Daten identifiziert, die Datenproduzenten und -verwender vor erhebliche Herausforderungen stellen und einen umfangreichen Reformbedarf aufzeigen, da zum einen wichtige Datenbestände für eine krisenbezogene Politikberatung fehlen. Zum anderen sind die Tiefenschärfe und Differenziertheit des verfügbaren Datenbestandes teilweise unzureichend. Dies gilt z.B. für sozialstrukturelle Daten zur Schwere der Pandemiebetroffenheit verschiedener Gruppen oder für kleinräumige Daten über Belastungs- und Kapazitätsparameter, etwa zur Personalabdeckung auf Intensivstationen, in Gesundheitsämtern und Pflegeeinrichtungen. Datendefizite sind ferner im Hinblick auf eine ganzheitliche Pandemiebeurteilung festzustellen, zum Beispiel bezüglich der Gesundheitseffekte im weiteren Sinne, die aufgrund der ergriffenen Maßnahmen entstanden sind (Verschiebung oder Wegfall von Operationen, Behandlungen und Prävention, aber auch häusliche Gewalt und psychische Belastungen). Mangels systematischer Begleitstudien und evaluativer Untersuchungen, u.a. auch zu lokalen Pilotprojekten und Experimenten, bestehen außerdem Datendefizite im Hinblick auf die Wirkungen von Eindämmungsmaßnahmen oder deren Aufhebung auf der gebietskörperschaftlichen Ebene.
Insgesamt belegt die Studie, dass es zur Optimierung der datenbasierten Politikberatung und politischen Entscheidungsfindung in und außerhalb von Krisen nicht nur darum gehen kann, ein „Mehr“ an Daten zu produzieren sowie deren Qualität, Verknüpfung und Teilung zu verbessern. Vielmehr müssen auch die Anreizstrukturen und Interessenlagen in Politik, Verwaltung und Wissenschaft sowie die Kompetenzen, Handlungsorientierungen und kognitiv-kulturellen Prägungen der verschiedenen Akteure in den Blick genommen werden. Es müssten also Anreize gesetzt und Strukturen geschaffen werden, um das Interesse, den Willen und das Können (will and skill) zur Datennutzung auf Seiten politisch-administrativer Entscheider und zur Dateneinspeisung auf Seiten von Wissenschaftlern zu stärken. Neben adressatengerechter Informationsaufbereitung geht es dabei auch um die Gestaltung eines normativen und institutionellen Rahmens, innerhalb dessen die Nutzung von Daten für Entscheidungen effektiver, qualifizierter, aber auch transparenter, nachvollziehbarer und damit demokratisch legitimer erfolgen kann.
Vor dem Hintergrund dieser empirischen Befunde werden acht Cluster von Optimierungsmaßnahmen vorgeschlagen:
(1) Etablierung von Datenstrecken und Datenteams,
(2) Schaffung regionaler Datenkompetenzzentren,
(3) Stärkung von Data Literacy und Beschleunigung des Kulturwandels in der öffentlichen Verwaltung,
(4) Datenstandardisierung, Interoperabilität und Registermodernisierung,
(5) Ausbau von Public Data Pools und Open Data Nutzung,
(6) Effektivere Verbindung von Datenschutz und Datennutzung,
(7) Entwicklung eines hochfrequenten, repräsentativen Datensatzes,
(8) Förderung der europäischen Daten-Zusammenarbeit.
Angesichts neuer globaler Herausforderungen gehört eine starke kommunale Ebene zu den Grundvoraussetzungen gesellschaftlicher Problemlösungsfähigkeit. Die Stärkung kommunaler Selbstverwaltung ist daher ein wichtiges institutionen- und verwaltungspolitisches Zukunftsthema, zu welchem die vorliegende Studie einen Beitrag leisten möchte.
The Gezi uprising can be considered a crucial turning in Turkish politics. As a response to countrywide democratic protests, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government revived the security state, escalated authoritarian tendencies, and started to organize a nationalist, Islamist, and conservative backlash. This essay argues that the Gezi Park protests revealed both the fragility of the AKP's hegemony and the limits of the dominant political group habitus, which were promoted by the party to consolidate political polarization in favor of the party's hegemony. Moreover, it is argued that the Gezi uprising transformed the culture of political protests in the country and paved the way for the emergence of affirmative resistance, radical imagination, and a new politics of desire and dignity against authoritarian and neoliberal policies.
Die aktuelle Politik der Europäischen Union hat im Umgang mit flüchtenden Menschen das Mittelmeer in ein Massengrab verwandelt. Dass auch im Jahr 2021 täglich Menschen an den EU-Außengrenzen sterben hängt dabei mit dem Ausbau von Sicherheitsmechanismen zum Zweck eines verstärkten Grenzschutzes zusammen. Durch Sicherheitsmechanismen wie bspw. den Ausbau von Frontex und die elektronische Erfassung von Ein- und Ausreisedaten schottet sich die EU dabei immer weiter ab während gleichzeitig die Thematik der Flucht und Migration eine zunehmende ‚Versicherheitlichung‘ erfährt.
Die vorliegende Arbeit geht davon aus, dass die Grundzüge der Versicherheitlichung von Flucht und Migration bereits im liberalen Staatsverständnis der EU angelegt sind. Mithilfe einer foucaultschen Diskursanalyse hinterfragt die Arbeit daher die historisch entstandenen und im Liberalismus inbegriffenen Vorannahmen über nicht-europäische Menschen und deren Fortentwicklung in die heutigen Politiken der EU. Dabei geht die Arbeit einerseits der Frage nach, wie sich die zunehmende Versicherheitlichung der Migration und der damit verbundene Umgang mit Nicht-Europäer*innen an den EU-Außengrenzen erklären lässt. Vertieft wird gefragt, inwieweit sich die konstruierten Wissensmuster über das europäische ‚wir‘ und die nicht-europäischen ‚Anderen‘ aus dem Liberalismus in der heutigen EU-Politik wiederfinden.
Auf Basis der Werke Michel Foucaults führt die Arbeit in die Entwicklung liberaler Staatlichkeit seit dem 17. Jahrhundert ein. Ergänzt werden diese Darstellungen um eine postkoloniale Perspektive, die eine Darstellung des liberalen Denkens über das europäische ‚Außen‘ vermittelt. Gemeinsam legen diese beiden Perspektiven die Strukturen liberalen Denkens offen, die im späteren Verlauf der Analyse in aktuellen EU-Dokumenten wiedererkannt werden. Als Analysedokumente dienen dabei sechs von der EU veröffentlichte Agenden, Verordnungen und Strategien, die die thematische Schnittstelle zwischen Sicherheit und Migration umfassen.
Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass sich ein ‚Othering‘ - die historisch entstandene Gruppenbildung des homogen begriffenen europäischen ‚Wirs‘ gegenüber den nicht-europäischen ‚Anderen‘ - in der heutigen Politik der EU an deren Außengrenzen reproduziert. Das im 17. Jahrhundert entstandene Sicherheitsdenken des liberalen Staates wird über die Reproduktion bestimmter Wissensmuster in Form von ‚Stories‘ auf die heutigen EU-Außengrenzen übertragen. Nach ‚innen‘ handelt die EU dabei nach einem Grundsatz der ‚gemeinsamen Stärke‘ der europäischen Staaten bzw. der EU-Mitgliedstaaten, während nach ‚außen‘ eine zweckrationale Kooperation mit Drittstaaten verfolgt wird. Statt um die Wahrung von Menschenleben geht es damals wie heute v.a. um den Vorteil Europas bzw. der EU. Von diesen Ergebnissen ausgehend wird die Zunahme der Versicherheitlichung von Flucht und Migration an den EU-Außengrenzen durch die Reproduktion des geschichtlich entstandenen Sicherheitsdenkens erklärt.
Der rechtliche, moralisch-ethische und auch politische Gehalt des Theaterstücks „Gott“ wirft aus politikdidaktischer Perspektive u. a. die Frage auf, inwiefern sich das Textbuch zu dem Theaterstück Gott von Ferdinand von Schirach als Unterrichtsmedium zur Rechtserziehung im Politikunterricht eignet. Diese Frage stellt sich v. a. vor dem Hintergrund, dass der Politikdidaktiker Ingo Juchler im Rahmen des von ihm begründeten narrativen Ansatzes der politischen Bildung den Einsatz von Narrationen in der fächerübergreifenden politischen Bildung explizit vorschlägt. Darüber hinaus lässt sich die Narration auch thematisch dem Politikunterricht zuordnen. Denn, dass Recht „Teil der Politischen Bildung ist und im Unterricht eine Rolle spielen sollte“ (Goll 2017: 592), gilt in der fachdidaktischen Literatur zum rechtlichen Lernen gemeinhin als unstrittig. Die Arbeit ist gedanklich in zwei Teile gegliedert: Im ersten Teil wird zunächst eine wissenschaftlich bzw. fachdidaktisch fundierte Grundlage geschaffen. In einem ersten Schritt werden deshalb der narrative Ansatz der politischen Bildung und in diesem Zusammenhang insbesondere die Vorzüge des Einsatzes von Narrationen im Politikunterricht vorgestellt. Anschließend werden Recht und Rechtserziehung in den Kontext von Schule und Politikunterricht eingeordnet. Aus beiden Abschnitten werden folglich Kriterien abgeleitet, anhand derer im Allgemeinen die Eignung einer Narration für den Politikunterricht (Abschnitt 2) und im Besonderen die Eignung einer Narration als Unterrichtsmedium zur Rechtserziehung im Politikunterricht (Abschnitt 3) bestimmt werden kann. Diese Kriterien werden in einem Kriterienkatalog (Abschnitt 4) gebündelt, mit dessen Hilfe im zweiten Teil das Textbuch zu dem Theaterstück „Gott“ hinsichtlich seiner Eignung als Unterrichtsmedium zur Rechtserziehung im Politikunterricht überprüft wird. Abschließend werden die Untersuchungsergebnisse pointiert dargelegt und das Vorgehen reflektiert.
Die Masterarbeit beschäftigt sich auf der theoretischen Grundlage der Entwicklung der Mensch-Tier-Beziehung sowie der Entstehung der Human-Animal Studies (HAS) mit der Frage, welche Möglichkeiten es gibt, um das Bewusstsein der Menschen für einen moralischen und sensiblen Umgang mit Tieren zu sensibilisieren. Konkret geht die vorliegende Arbeit der Frage nach, wie die Mensch-Tier-Beziehung und die Rechte der Tiere Bestandteil des Politikunterrichts werden können. Um das gewaltige Repertoire an Möglichkeiten, das sich mit dieser Überlegung öffnet, einzugrenzen, wurde die Mensch-Tier-Beziehung schwerpunktmäßig anhand der (konventionellen) Nutztierhaltung untersucht.
Das Ergebnis der Arbeit zeigt, dass die Thematik der Mensch-Tier-Beziehung im Allgemeinen sowie die entwickelte Unterrichtskonzeption im Konkreten für den Unterricht der Politischen Bildung geeignet sind. Darüber hinaus konnte die Erkenntnis gewonnen werden, dass die Thematik vielfältige Anknüpfungspunkte sowohl für den Politikunterricht als auch für weitere Unterrichtsfächer bietet.
In den vergangenen Jahren hat sich die Politikdidaktik zunehmend mit dem Einsatz von Narrationen im Politikunterricht beschäftigt, denn neben Sachtexten bietet auch die Belletristik die Möglichkeit, sich mit politischen Themen auseinanderzusetzen. Insbesondere die Literatur von Ferdinand von Schirach hat in den letzten Jahren zunehmend Anklang in der Gesellschaft gefunden. Von Schirachs Texte greifen gesellschaftskritische Themen auf, beleuchten diese aus verschiedenen Perspektiven und fordern zur Meinungsbildung heraus. Aus diesem Grund weisen von Schirachs Narrationen ein hohes Potential für die Politische Bildung auf. Politische Bildung schließt auch die Rechterziehung ein. Der Fall Collini von Ferdinand von Schirach setzt sich sowohl mit rechtlichen, als auch mit politischen Themen im Sinne der Rechtserziehung auseinander. In der vorliegenden Masterarbeit wird der Frage nachgegangen, inwieweit der Roman Der Fall Collini von Ferdinand von Schirach als Narration eine Chance für politisch-rechtliches Lernen im Politikunterricht darstellt. Um die Forschungsfrage zu beantworten, werden die Lernchancen und -grenzen des Romans hinsichtlich seiner Thematik und seines Genres, sowie durch den Roman geförderten Kompetenzen herausgearbeitet und die durch ihn möglichen fächerübergreifenden Bezüge verdeutlicht. Durch die Auseinandersetzung mit von Schirachs Werk beschäftigen sich die Schülerinnen und Schüler mit politisch-rechtlichen Themen, wie dem Spannungsverhältnis von Recht und Gerechtigkeit, dem Ablauf von Strafgerichtsverfahren, dem theoretischen Anspruch des Rechtsstaates und dessen realen Schwächen. Zudem fördert die Auseinandersetzung mit dem Roman Der Fall Collini die vier fachbezogenen Kompetenzen der Politischen Bildung, sowie Multiperspektivität und exemplarisches Lernen. Des Weiteren verknüpft der Roman historische, politisch-rechtliche und moralisch-ethische Aspekte miteinander, wodurch fächerübergreifende Bezüge mit den Fächern Geschichte, Deutsch und L-E-R hergestellt werden können. Darüber hinaus spricht der Justizroman als Narration seine Leserinnen und Leser auch emotional an und fördert somit eine ganzheitliche und nachhaltige Wissensvermittlung im Sinne der Rechtserziehung. Es hat sich gezeigt, dass Der Fall Collini von Ferdinand von Schirach sich für die unterrichtliche Beschäftigung innerhalb der Politischen Bildung besonders eignet.
Signals for 2 degrees C
(2019)
The targets of the Paris Agreement make it necessary to redirect finance flows towards sustainable, low-carbon infrastructures and technologies. Currently, the potential of institutional investors to help finance this transition is widely discussed. Thus, this paper takes a closer look at influence factors for green investment decisions of large European insurance companies. With a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, the importance of policy, market and civil society signals is evaluated. In summary, respondents favor measures that promote green investment, such as feed-in tariffs or adjustments of capital charges for green assets, over ones that make carbon-intensive investments less attractive, such as the phase-out of fossil fuel subsidies or a carbon price. While investors currently see a low impact of the carbon price, they rank a substantial reform as an important signal for the future. Respondents also emphasize that policy signals have to be coherent and credible to coordinate expectations.
Arend Lijphart uses an average of five standardized variables – the executive-parties dimension (EPD) – to describe patterns of democracy and explain differences in democracies’ performance. The article suggests ways to improve the descriptive part of the project. It argues that the EPD maps different approaches to achieving accountability and representation, rather than differences in consensus. This re-conceptualization leads to a more coherent and valid measurement. It is also argued that more systematic adjustments are needed for differences in constitutional structures (presidentialism and bicameralism). The article presents data on a revised EPD and its components for 36 democracies in the period from 1981 to 2010. As to the explanatory part of the project, we contend that the EPD often hinders adequate causal analysis rather than facilitating it. We show this by re-analysing democracies’ performance with respect to turnout and capital punishment.
Die Erzählungen der Energiewende: Erzählungen beherrschen die Interpretation des politischen Geschehens mehr als formal und methodisch strenge Argumentationsketten. Dies gilt insbesondere für Demokratien. In Demokratien gilt es zu überzeugen und auch zu überreden, um Macht zu erhalten, Macht zu sichern oder Akzeptanz für bestimmte politische Vorhaben zu generieren. Diese simple Feststellung lässt zwei Schlüsse für eine transformativ ausgerichtete Politikwissenschaft zu. Erstens können transformative Narrative produziert werden, die das Auftreten von ökologisch, sozial, ökonomisch und kulturell nachhaltigem wahrscheinlicher machen, Zweitens können die Narrative von nachhaltiger wie nicht-nachhaltiger Transformation analysiert werden. Beiden Aufgaben widmet sich die Dissertationsschrift. Dabei werden für den transformativen Teil ethnografisch erhobene Daten zu fünf transformativen Narrativen verdichtet, die Vorwärts- und Vorbildcharakter haben. In den fünf Aufsätzen wurde auf Diversität zwischen den beschriebenen Protagonisten geachtet, sodass eine breite Leser*innenschaft angesprochen wird. Im analytischen Part wird in einem Aufsatz über diese Vorgehen reflektiert und die Form beschrieben durch die transformative Narrative Wirksamkeit entfalten. Dabei gilt immer, dass die Wissenschaft keine Narrative selbst setzt, sondern mittels nachvollziehbarer Methoden Daten zum Sprechen bringt. Dies ist unter review-Bedingungen gelungen. Neben eines Einsatz von Narrativen in Fragen der Gestaltung der neu entstandenen und weiter entstehenden Energielandschaften behandelt diese Dissertationsschrift a, diskursstrangorientierte als auch institutionsorientierte Erzählungen über die Energiewende. Dabei wurden diskursstrangorientiert die unterschiedlichen Erzählungen der und über energieintensive Unternehmen bezüglich der EEG-Umlage untersucht und kategorisiert und die Metaphern der Energiewende im Magazin DER SPIEGEL erhoben und analysiert. Institutionsorientiert wurde die Energiewendeerzählung der Partei `Alternative für Deutschland´, die Bildsprache des Wirtschaftsministeriums an Hand eines Beispiels sowie die Nachhaltigkeitserzählungen der Zukunftsinstitut GmbH. Schließlich wird nach messbaren Folgen des Nachhaltigkeitsnarrativs in drei Regionen des Rhein-Maas-Gebiets gefragt, was die Arbeit abrunden soll.
In this introductory chapter, the editors describe the main theoretical basis of analysis of this book and the methodological approach. The core of this book consists of 14 country-specific chapters, which allow a European comparison and show the increasing variance in migration policy approaches within and between European countries. The degree of local autonomy, the level of centralisation and the traditional forms of migration policy are factors that especially influence the possibilities for local authorities to formulate their own integration policies.
This chapter focuses on the relationship between public opinion on migration and its media coverage. Different explanatory models, including individual characteristics, cultural factors and the impact of media and politics, have been proposed to explain public attitudes towards migrants. Understanding the local context is important, as the shares of migrants living in each region and city vary considerably. Providing correct statistical information, stressing the diversity of current migration patterns in Europe and taking part in media and public discussions are ways in which to impact public attitudes at the local level.
The chapter begins with a brief historical overview of Germany’s transition in the twentieth and twenty-first century from a transit and emigration country to one of immigration. The next part of this chapter looks at the challenges and problems facing German immigration policy within a multi-level federal system. Finally, the chapter gives an analysis of some of the trends in German migration policy since the refugee crisis in 2015, such as changes in the party system and in the concepts underlying migration policies to better manage, control and limit immigration to Germany.
As expected, the traditions of national-state migration policies continue to play a very important role, path-dependence in this policy field remains high. The distribution of competences in migration policy and the integration of migrants in the nation states continues to be very different. When implementing integration strategies at grassroots level, the respective policies should be tailored to the profile of both the local migrant community and the native population. Besides better migration management in local administration and the interaction of top-down and bottom-up efforts to integrate migrants is of importance.
This book presents an overview of European migration policy and the various institutional arrangements within and between various actors, such as local councils, local media, local economies, and local civil society initiatives. Both the role of local authorities in this policy field and their cooperation with civil society initiatives or networks are under-explored topics for research. In response, this book provides a range of detailed case studies focusing on the six main groups of national and administrative traditions in Europe: Germanic, Scandinavian, Napoleonic, Southeastern European, Central-Eastern European and Anglo-Saxon.
In this volume, Egeberg and Trondal put forward an ‘organizational approach to public governance’ (p. 1) that, in their view, complements existing explanations for organizational change and behaviour in governance processes (‘Understanding’) and produces relevant advice for practitioners, specifically anyone involved in reorganizing public administration (‘Design’). Following the authors’ introduction of the theoretical reasoning behind their approach (chapter 1), they present supporting findings that are based on new material (chapters 2 and 9), but mainly draw on six previously published research articles (chapters 3–8). Egeberg and Trondal conclude with possible ‘design implications’ of said findings (chapter 9). Their ‘organizational approach’ focuses on the impact of selected organizational characteristics on decision‐making in and on behalf of government organizations in policy‐making generally (‘public governance’) and administrative politics more specifically (‘meta‐governance’). The authors concentrate on three sets of ‘classical’ organizational characteristics: structure (mainly vertical and horizontal specialization), demography (personnel composition), and locus (geographical location). The conceptual part of the volume convincingly summarizes ‘formal organization matters’—arguments from the literature for each of the individual organizational factors. Their main, already well‐established argument is that the way an organization is formally set up makes some (reform) decisions more likely than others—a line of reasoning that the authors present as neglected in governance literature.
In the following five empirical chapters, the authors show that aspects of horizontal and vertical specialization—mainly operationalized by Gulicks’ principles of horizontal specialization and the idea of primary versus secondary affiliation of staff—affect organizational behaviour. Readers learn that whether government levels are organized according to a territorial or non‐territorial principle impacts the power relationship between levels: non‐territorial organization at the supranational level tends to empower the centre against lower levels of government. There are two chapters on the decision‐making behaviour of commissioners and officials in the European Commission, both showing that organizational affiliation trumps demographic background factors such as nationality, even with temporary staff.
Chapter 5 addresses coordination dynamics in the European multi‐level system and finds that coordination at the territorially organized national level thwarts non‐territorially organized coordination at the supranational level, resulting in the phenomenon of ‘direct’ national administration bypassing their national executives. Further, the authors show that vertical specialization—while controlling for other factors such as issue salience—has an effect on officials’ behaviour at the national level: agency officials in Norway report significantly less sensitivity towards political signals from the political executive than their colleagues in ministries. Chapter 7 discusses the relevance of geographical location for the relationship between subordinated organizations and their political executive. The authors find that the site of Norwegian agencies does not significantly affect their autonomy, influence, or inter‐institutional coordination with the superior ministry.
The last empirical chapter focuses on the effect of formal organization on meta‐governance, that is, administrative politics. Based on a qualitative case study of a reorganization process in Norway in 2003 involving the synchronized relocation of several agencies after many failed attempts, the authors conclude that administrative reforms can be politically steered and controlled through the organization of the reform process. They argue that amongst other factors the strategic exclusion of opposing actors from the reform process as well as the deliberate increase in situations demanding quick decisions (‘action rationality’, p. 119) by political leaders helps explain the reform's unexpected success. The last chapter is dedicated to the synthesis of the results and to design implications. Supported by new data from a 2016 survey among Norwegian public officials, the authors conclude that organizational position is the most important influencer of decision‐making behaviour, with educational background and previous job experience also playing a large role (p. 135). Consequently, their suggestions for practitioners involved in meta‐governance processes concentrate on aspects of the deliberate crafting of organizational specialization to shape organizational positions, and spend less time discussing location and employee demographics. The authors illustrate and contextualize their recommendations with the help of three empirical examples: organizing good governance by balancing political control and independence in the case of agencification, organizing for coping with boundary‐spanning challenges such as climate change through inter‐organizational structural arrangements, and designing permanent organizational structures for innovative reforms in the public sector (pp. 137 ff.).
This volume is an excellent compilation of theoretically informed applications of the all too often undefined ‘organization matters’ argument. It juxtaposes—particularly in the theory chapter and in the last chapter on design implications—organizational arguments against other explanations of organizational change like historical institutionalism or the garbage can model of decision‐making. However, two major aspects of the book's approach are less convincing. First, supplementary explanations such as the garbage can model that are discussed in the reflections on meta‐governance are neither argumentatively nor empirically applied to public governance; why should, for example, the ‘solutions in search of a problem’ idea only be applicable to decisions on reform policy, but not to decisions in all other policy areas? Similarly, it would have been nice to read more on the authors’ idea on the interaction between organizational factors and between them and other explanations in the empirical cases on public governance—this would have allowed the reader to get a better idea about how much formal organization matters. The view on bureaucrats’ demographic background is slightly confusing: it is presented as a competing approach (p. 7), but also as one of the main organizational factors (p. 12).
Second, as the authors themselves state, the concept of governance is about ‘steering through collective action’ (p. 3) and focuses on interactive processes, and explicitly includes non‐governmental actors in the policy‐making equation. Against this background it seems unfortunate that most of the work presented in the book takes an exclusively governmental perspective and the justification for it remains rather superficial. It would be preferable and even necessary to see the organizational arguments—at least theoretically or through discussing appropriate literature—applied to interactive governance processes involving other actors and/or to non‐bureaucratic organizations.
Regarding its methodology, the specifics of the proposed approach deserve to be addressed more systematically and critically in the book. Except for chapters 2, 3 and 5 (literature‐based studies) as well as chapter 8 (single case study), the empirical studies follow a quantitative logic and are informed by data on self‐reported behaviour through large‐N panel surveys with public officials. In terms of analysis, descriptive statistics or basic inferential statistics (linear regression) are employed. Certainly, the authors are aware of the limitations of their data sources, such as the results being possibly affected by social desirability, and they discuss and justify them in the chapters individually (e.g., on pp. 47, 89). Still, their approach could be strengthened with a more cautious account on the extent to which their choice of data and methods is able to uncover the ‘causal impact of organizational factors in public governance processes’ (p. 131, emphasis added) and with some suggestions for widening their methodological toolbox in the future. On this note, the survey method presented as new on p. 135 is not a particularly convincing choice. The authors do not lay out a research agenda; a surprising omission. This is, however, somewhat made up for by the concluding chapter's stimulating discussion of the possible real‐world implications of their findings and perspective, skilfully using organization theory as a ‘craft’ (p. 29).
Der Diskurs über Sprachbildung beziehungsweise sprachsensiblen Fachunterricht im Bereich der Politischen Bildung ist bislang noch verhalten. Beiträge zu diesem Thema orientieren sich zumeist an der praktischen Umsetzung herangetragener bildungspolitischer Forderungen und übernehmen in der Regel Konzepte für den Fachunterricht im Allgemeinen mit dem Versuch diese für die Politische Bildung zu adaptieren. Eine Theorieentwicklung aus politikdidaktischer Perspektive findet derzeit kaum statt. Der vorliegende Beitrag stellt den bisherigen Diskurs mit Blick auf die Politikdidaktik vor, um im Anschluss Impulse für eine Konzeptionalisierung sprachsensiblen Unterrichts aus Perspektive der Politischen Bildung zu geben.
Eine relevante und höchst aktuelle Überschneidung fachübergreifender und fachspezifischer sprachlicher Phänomene hat Elisabeth Wehling mit ihrem 2016 erschienenen Buch „Politisches Framing“ einer breiten Öffentlichkeit, die weit über fachwissenschaftliche Kreise hinaus geht, dargelegt. Wehling erläutert darin an zahlreichen Beispielen, dass in politischen Debatten und für ihre Wirkung nicht zuerst die vorgetragenen Fakten entscheidend sind, sondern gedankliche Deutungsrahmen — in den Kognitionswissenschaften Frames genannt — die den Fakten eine Bedeutung verleihen. Informationen werden demnach in Relation zu Erfahrungen und Vorwissen als relevant oder irrelevant eingeordnet sowie durch Frames bewertet und interpretiert. Dadurch beeinflussen Frames — häufig unbewusst — Denken und Handeln. (Wehling, S. 17 ff.) Eine Auseinandersetzung mit den von Wehling dargelegten Erkenntnissen im Rahmen des Politikunterrichts ermöglicht die Entwicklung und Förderung von sprachlicher und fachlicher Kompetenz. Dieser Beitrag fasst die von Wehling dargelegten Erkenntnisse zusammen und erläutert das didaktische Potenzial des Themas Politisches Framing anhand kompetenzbezogener Aufgaben für den Politikunterricht.
Die tagespolitische Auseinandersetzung stellt sich als eine Für- und Gegenrede zu politischen Problemen, Herausforderungen oder Handlungsinitiativen dar: Verschiedene Akteure äußern sich kritisch oder befürwortend zu vollzogenen oder geplanten politischen Maßnahmen wie auch – ebenso kritisch oder befürwortend – zu getätigten Äußerungen anderer politischer und medialer Akteure. Insgesamt werden dabei eine Vielzahl von Argumenten mit unterschiedlicher Reichweite und Intensität ausgetauscht, aufgegriffen und verworfen. Der Beitrag argumentiert, dass solche sprachlich verfassten Auseinandersetzungen Legitimationsdiskurse sind, in denen Legitimität anhand normativer Werte verhandelt wird. Dort genutzte Wertkategorien bleiben jedoch deutungsoffen und oft implizit. Um politisches Lernen zu fördern, erweist sich eine gemeinsame Bearbeitung solcher Legitimationsdiskurse als gewinnbringend. Zentral dafür ist, dass Legitimationsargumente in Lehr-Lernarrangements explizit und verhandelbar werden.
Henrik Ibsen behandelt in seinem Schauspiel Ein Volksfeind (1882) einen Umweltskandal, was das Stück zeitlos aktuell macht. Heutige Inszenierungen können umstandslos an die hier vorgestellten Umweltprobleme und den Umgang damit in der nach dem Mehrheitsprinzip verfahrenden Demokratie anknüpfen. In dem Beitrag wird zunächst der Begriffsgeschichte von „Volksfeind“ nachgegangen, vom Römischen Reich über die Französische Revolution, die totalitären Diktaturen des 20. Jahrhunderts bis zur heutigen Bundesrepublik und den USA. Im Weiteren werden die im Stück thematisierten Verhältnisse von Mehrheit und Minderheit sowie Macht und Recht im politisch-gesellschaftlichen Gefüge vor dem Hintergrund demokratietheoretischer Überlegungen von Alexis die Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill und Emma Goldman untersucht. Schließlich werden die im Volksfeind aufgeworfenen Fragen nach der Möglichkeit von Bildung und politischer Mündigkeit vor dem Hintergrund heutiger postfaktischer Tendenzen, von Politik mit „alternativen Fakten“, Bullshit und Lügen diskutiert.
Einführung
(2020)
Politik und Sprache
(2020)
Sprache spielt im Hinblick auf politisches Handeln eine sehr bedeutsame Rolle. Die Auseinandersetzung mit dem Verhältnis von Politik und Sprache erscheint umso notwendiger, als dieses Verhältnis in der gegenwärtigen politischen Bildung ein Schattendasein fristet. Der schulischen politischen Bildung kommt die Aufgabe zu, Schülerinnen und Schüler zu einem Umgang mit der politischen Sprache zu befähigen, der ihnen eine reflektierte Auseinandersetzung mit den in der Debatte stehenden politischen Gegenständen ermöglicht – auch und gerade vor dem Hintergrund der Zunahme populistischer Darstellungen, „alternativer Fakten“ und Lügen in der Politik. Mit der vorliegenden Publikation liegt ein erster Aufschlag vor, der das Spektrum des Verhältnisses von Politik und Sprache im Kontext der Handlungsfelder politischer Bildung umreißt.
Die Fragmentierung europäischer Parteiensysteme und damit verbundene Schwierigkeiten bei der Koalitionsbildung haben zu einer Neuauflage altbekannter Debatten über unterschiedliche Wahlsysteme geführt. Einige Autoren sehen dabei bestimmte Wahlsysteme als optimalen Kompromiss zwischen den Prinzipien der Mehrheits- und der Verhältniswahl an. Wir argumentieren, dass diese Optimalitätsargumente eine konzeptionelle Schlagseite zugunsten „majoritärer“ Demokratiekonzeptionen haben. Eine anspruchsvolle „proportionale“ Demokratiekonzeption umfasst die Ziele mechanischer Proportionalität, multidimensionaler Repräsentation und wechselnder Gesetzgebungsmehrheiten. Diese Ziele lassen sich allerdings im parlamentarischen Regierungssystem nicht mit den Zielen der Mehrheitswahl vereinbaren. Der Grund ist, dass die relevanten Hürden des Wahlsystems gleichzeitig für die parlamentarische Repräsentation und die Teilnahme am Misstrauensvotum gelten. Erstere ist entscheidend für die proportionale, letztere für die majoritäre Konzeption der Demokratie. Sind wir bereit diese beiden Hürden zu entkoppeln – und somit das Regierungssystem zu verändern – ergibt sich eine Vielfalt neuer Reformoptionen. Wir illustrieren diese Punkte mit Daten für 29 demokratische Systeme im Zeitraum von 1995 bis 2015.
The seven deadly sins of quality management: trade-offs and implications for further research
(2019)
Quality management in higher education is generally discussed with reference to commendable outcomes such as success, best practice, improvement or control. This paper, though, focuses on the problems of organising quality management. It follows the narrative of the seven deadly sins, with each ‘sin’ illustrating an inherent trade-off or paradox in the implementation of internal quality management in teaching and learning in higher education institutions. Identifying the trade-offs behind these sins is essential for a better understanding of quality management as an organisational problem.
The Eye of the Beholder?
(2019)
Urteilskompetenz
(2020)
Heterogenität
(2020)
Each year, donor countries spend billions of Euros on development cooperation. Not surprisingly, a large strand of research has emerged which examines the impact of development cooperation. A sub-discipline within this strand of the literature deals with the question of whether the impact or effectiveness of development cooperation depends on the quality of the recipient country's policy and institutional environment. Over hundreds of studies have assessed this question at the macro level. In so doing, most of these studies test whether a potential effect of aid on the growth of a recipient country’s gross domestic product (GDP) is conditional on the country's policy and institutional environment. However, even after decades of research and hundreds of studies, no conclusive result has been found. One of the main reasons for the inconclusive state of the literature is that most macro-level studies have to deal with a high risk of endogeneity, treat aid as nothing but a pure income transfer, and rely on low-quality GDP data. To solve these three methodical issues, some authors have started to change the analytical focus from the macro to the micro level. Thus, these authors assess the determinants for the performance of individual development projects instead of the determinants for an effect of aid on GDP. Yet, even though the number of studies focusing on the micro level has increased steadily over the last few years, the state of the literature on the determinants for the performance of development projects still contains multiple highly relevant research gaps. The present thesis seeks to address three of these research gaps. The first research gap addressed by this thesis is related to the specific type of development cooperation. So far, nearly all existing studies focus on projects by Multilateral Development Banks. Research on the determinants for the performance of bilateral development projects is still rare. Thus, even though donors pledge to implement effective development projects, there are hardly any micro-level studies on bilateral projects. So far, only three studies use a sample which includes bilateral projects. Yet, none of the three studies assess the determinants for the performance of bilateral technical development projects. The first paper in the present thesis (GIZ paper) seeks to address this research gap by assessing the determinants for the performance of projects by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), a bilateral state-owned aid agency active in the area of technical cooperation. The results of the paper indicate that some but not all of the existing theoretical arguments can be extended to bilateral technical projects as well.. For example, the level of market interventions in the recipient county only affects the performance of financial development projects, while the recipient country’s government capacity affects both technical and financial development projects. The paper also indicates that effects of determinants may vary among project sectors. The paper also highlights a dilemma of technical development cooperation. The countries with low government capacity are usually the ones most in need of technical cooperation projects. But, at the same time, they are also the countries in which these projects have the poorest performance The second research gap addressed by this thesis is related to one specific factor in the policy and institutional environment of recipient countries, namely corruption. This determinant is often cited as essential for project performance but has gained surprisingly little coverage in empirical studies. The few existing studies on the effect of corruption on project performance are inconclusive. Some find a statistically significant correlation, while others do not. Furthermore, so far, all existing studies use corruption perception indices as a measurement for corruption, despite the fact that these indices have well-known deficits when it comes to this research topic. One of these deficits is that such indices do not distinguish between different forms of corruption, even though it is likely that the effect of corruption will vary depending on the type of development project and form of corruption. The second paper in this thesis (Corruption paper) seeks to address this inconclusive state of the research while focusing on one specific form of corruption, namely bribery between private firms and public officials. The paper finds a small but statistically significant correlation between the corruption level and the performance of World Bank projects. The systematic effect of corruption on project performance confirms the need to consider the risk of corruption in the design and during the implementation of projects. Nonetheless, the relatively small effect of corruption and the low pseudo R-squareds advise not to overestimate the relevance of corruption for project performance. At least for the project level, the paper finds no indication that corruption is a primary obstacle to aid effectiveness. The third research gap addressed by this thesis is related to one specific sample, namely recipient countries of the International Development Association (IDA). The question of whether the policy and institutional environment affects project performance is of particular relevance for these countries, given that the World Bank's ratings on a country's policy and institutional environment decide how much IDA resources it receives. One core justification of such an allocation system is that it helps to steer more resources to places where they are most effective. However, so far, there is no conclusive empirical evidence for this statement. The only study specifically focusing on this topic, a study by the Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank from 2010, has essential methodological limitations. The third paper of this thesis (CPR paper) seeks to address this research gap by testing whether a more refined analysis confirms the assumption of previous studies that the policy and institutional environment of IDA-recipient countries, measured by the Country Policy and Institutional Assessment ratings, has an effect on the performance of World Bank projects. Overall, neither the main regression models nor any of the robustness tests indicate a substantial correlation between the policy and institutional environment and project performance. Only for Investments Loans is the coefficient large enough to assume some effect. The overall results not only contradict the results of previous studies, but also raise strong doubts around one of the core justifications for the allocation system of the IDA. All three papers rely on a statistical large-N analysis of the performance ratings of individual development projects. These ratings are usually assigned based on the final evaluation of a project and indicate the merit or worth of an activity. The merit or worth of an activity itself is measured by criteria like relevance, effectiveness, and efficiency. In the case of the two papers on World Bank projects, the needed data stem from different databases of the World Bank. The relevant data for the GIZ paper are gathered from internal evaluation reports of the GIZ. Logistic regressions are applied as the main analytical tool. Overall, the three papers show that the policy and institutional environment of recipient countries matters for project performance, but only to a small degree and under certain circumstances. This result highlights that many researchers and practitioners tend to overestimate the role that the policy and institutional environment of recipient countries plays in project performance. Furthermore, the thesis shows that authors of future studies should consider possible interactions between project- and country-level determinants whenever possible, both in their theoretical arguments and statistical models. Otherwise, the debate on the determinants for project performance is at risk of degenerating into a statistics tournament without any connection to reality.