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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.
The Eye of the Beholder?
(2019)
The European Union’s 2030 climate and energy package introduced fundamental changes compared to its 2020 predecessor. These changes included a stronger focus on the internal market and an increased emphasis on technology-neutral decarbonization while simultaneously de-emphasizing the renewables target. This article investigates whether changes in domestic policy strategies of leading member states in European climate policy preceded the observed changes in EU policy. Disaggregating strategic change into changes in different elements (goals, objectives, instrumental logic), allows us to go beyond analyzing the relative prioritization of different goals, and to analyze how policy requirements for reaching those goals were dynamically redefined over time. To this end, we introduce a new method, which based on insights from social network analysis, enables us to systematically trace those strategic chances. We find that shifts in national strategies of the investigated member states preceded the shift in EU policy. In particular, countries reframed their understanding of supply security, and pushed for the internal electricity market also as a security measure to balance fluctuating renewables. Hence, the increasing focus on markets and market integration in the European 2030 package echoed the increasingly central role of the internal market for electricity supply security in national strategies. These findings also highlight that countries dynamically redefined their goals relative to the different phases of the energy transition.
The article explores whether and to what extent expert recommendations affect decision-making within the Security Council and its North Korea and Iran sanctions regimes. The article first develops a rationalist theoretical argument to show why making many second-stage decisions, such as determining lists of items under export restrictions, subjects Security Council members to repeating coordination situations. Expert recommendations may provide focal point solutions to coordination problems, even when interests diverge and preferences remain stable. Empirically, the article first explores whether expert recommendations affected decision-making on commodity sanctions imposed on North Korea. Council members heavily relied on recommended export trigger lists as focal points, solving a divisive conflict among great powers. Second, the article explores whether expert recommendations affected the designation of sanctions violators in the Iran sanctions regime. Council members designated individuals and entities following expert recommendations as focal points, despite conflicting interests among great powers. The article concludes that expert recommendations are an additional means of influence in Security Council decision-making and seem relevant for second-stage decision-making among great powers in other international organisations.
Major international organizations (IOs) are heavily contested, but they are rarely dissolved. Scholars have focused on their longevity, making institutional arguments about replacement costs and institutional assets as well as IO agency to adapt and resist challenges. This article analyzes the limits of institutional stickiness by focusing on outlier cases. While major IOs are dissolved at considerably lower rates than minor IOs, the article nevertheless identifies twenty-one cases where major IOs have died since 1815. These are tough cases as they do not conform to our institutionalist expectations. To better understand these rare but important events, the article provides case illustrations from the League of Nations and International Refugee Organization, which were dissolved due to their perceived underperformance and a disappearing demand for cooperation. These cases show the limits of the institutional theories of IO stickiness: sometimes member states find high replacement costs justified or consider assets as sunk costs, and IOs may lack agency to strategically respond. This article refines theories of institutional stickiness and contributes to the institutional theory of the life and death of IOs.
Les principales organisations internationales (OI) sont fortement contestées, mais rarement dissoutes. Pour expliquer leur longévité, les chercheurs ont avancé des arguments institutionnels concernant les coûts de remplacement et les actifs de l'institution, mais aussi la capacité des OI à s'adapter et à résister aux défis. Cet article analyse les limites de la persistance des institutions en se concentrant sur des cas particuliers. Tandis que les principales OI sont dissoutes bien moins fréquemment que des OI moins importantes, cet article identifie néanmoins 21 cas de disparition d'OI principales depuis 1815. Ces derniers sont particulièrement difficiles, car ils ne correspondent pas à nos attentes en termes d'institutions. Afin de mieux comprendre ces événements rares, mais non moins importants, l'article propose comme illustrations de cas la Société des Nations et l'Organisation internationale pour les réfugiés, qui ont été dissoutes à cause de leur manque apparent de résultats et de la disparition de la demande de coopération. Ces cas mettent en évidence les limites des théories institutionnelles de persistance des OI : parfois, les États membres considèrent les coûts de remplacement élevés justifiés ou les actifs comme des coûts irrécupérables, et les OI n'ont peut-être pas la capacité de leur répondre de manière stratégique. Le présent article affine les théories de persistance institutionnelle et contribue à la théorie institutionnelle de vie et de mort des OI.
Las organizaciones internacionales (OI) más importantes son muy cuestionadas, pero rara vez se disuelven. Los investigadores se han centrado en la longevidad de las IO, formulando argumentos institucionales sobre los costes de sustitución y los activos institucionales, así como sobre la capacidad de adaptación y resistencia de las organizaciones internacionales. Este artículo analiza los límites de la rigidez institucional centrándose en casos atípicos. Aunque las OI más importantes se disuelven en proporciones considerablemente menores que las OI de menor importancia, el artículo identifica 21 casos en los que OI más importantes desaparecieron desde 1815. Se trata de casos difíciles, ya que no se ajustan a nuestras expectativas institucionalistas. Para comprender mejor estos raros pero importantes acontecimientos, el artículo ofrece ejemplos de casos de la Sociedad de Naciones y de la, Organización Internacional para los Refugiados que se disolvieron debido a su bajo desempeño percibido y a la desaparición de la demanda de cooperación. Estos casos muestran los límites de las teorías institucionales sobre la rigidez de las OI: En ocasiones, los Estados miembros consideran justificados los elevados costes de sustitución o consideran que los activos son costes irrecuperables, y las OI pueden no disponer de capacidad de respuesta estratégica. Este artículo profundiza en las teorías de la rigidez institucional y contribuye a la teoría institucional de la vida y la muerte de las organizaciones internacionales.
This article investigates local perceptions of international peacebuilding in Sierra Leone and Liberia and explains the need for an inclusive framework addressing peace and justice at the same time. These neighbouring countries in West Africa not only share the burden of an intertwined conflict history but have also been described as prototypes for successful peacebuilding. However, both cases show striking differences with regard to the relative importance given to security and justice during the peace process and within the selected peacebuilding approaches. In Liberia, the peacebuilding framework was clearly sequenced, favouring security over justice. In Sierra Leone, it included a comprehensive TJ component, which was implemented alongside security-centred initiatives. In order to compare these two cases and to elaborate on the challenges of establishing both peace and justice in post-conflict settings with a more people-centred focus, we conducted expert interviews with (inter)national peacebuilding actors and opinion surveys, asking how the civilian populations themselves perceive the peace process and the effectiveness of international peacebuilding. The findings provide insights into local experiences with the inclusive peacebuilding framework implemented in Sierra Leone and the drawbacks of delaying justice and accountability in Liberia.
Long-term environmental policy remains a vexing puzzle of environmental policy. Following its definition, the author reviews the methods suitable for the study of long-term environmental policy and develops a typology of policy instruments to cope with these challenges. The concluding section offers five central research challenges to advance the study of long-term environmental policy.
This book compares local self-government in Europe. It examines local institutional structures, autonomy, and capacities in six selected countries - France, Italy, Sweden, Hungary, Poland, and the United Kingdom - each of which represents a typical model of European local government. Within Europe, an overall trend towards more local government capacities and autonomy can be identified, but there are also some counter tendencies to this trend and major differences regarding local politico-administrative settings, functional responsibilities, and resources. The book demonstrates that a certain degree of local financial autonomy and fiscal discretion is necessary for effective service provision. Furthermore, a robust local organization, viable territorial structures, a professional public service, strong local leadership, and well-functioning tools of democratic participation are key aspects for local governments to effectively fulfill their tasks and ensure political accountability. The book will appeal to students and scholars of Public Administration and Public Management, as well as practitioners and policy-makers at different levels of government, in public enterprises, and in NGOs.
The impact of civilian harm on strategic outcomes in war has been the subject of persistent debate. However, the literature has primarily focused on civilian casualties, thereby overlooking the targeting of civilian infrastructure, which is a recurrent phenomenon during war. This study fills this gap by examining the targeting of healthcare, one of the most indispensable infrastructures during war and peace time. We contend that attacks on medical facilities are distinct from direct violence against civilians. Because they are typically unrelated to military dynamics, the targeting of hospitals is a highly visible form and powerful signal of civilian victimization. To assess its effects, we analyze newly collected data on such attacks by pro-government forces and event data on combat activities in Northwest Syria (2017-2020). Applying a new approach for panel data analysis that combines matching methods with a difference-in-differences estimation, we examine the causal effect of counterinsurgent bombings on subsequent violent events. Distinguishing between regime-initiated and insurgent-initiated combat activities and their associated fatalities, we find that the targeting of hospitals increases insurgent violence. We supplement the quantitative analysis with unique qualitative evidence derived from interviews, which demonstrates that hospital bombings induce rebels to resist more fiercely through two mechanisms: intrinsic motivations and civilian pressure. The results have important implications for the effects of state-led violence and the strength of legal norms that protect noncombatants.
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.
This chapter outlines the organization and allocation of functions at the meso-level of government in Germany (states/Länder administrations). Furthermore, we shed light on the carriers and qualification profiles of the top bureaucrats in meso-level administrations. These high-rank territorial administrators/executives—state appointed heads of administrative districts (Regierungspräsidenten) on the one hand, elected heads of county administrations (Landräte) on the other hand—can be regarded as the German ‘equivalents’ of the prefects in countries with a Napoleonic administrative tradition. Finally, we analyse major reforms that have led to (at times, profound) transformations in territorial administrations, raising the question of to what extent alternative models of territorial bundling and coordination functions are sound and sustainable.
In this article, I give an overview on nativist street protests in Germany from the early nineteenth century to the present from an historical perspective. In a preliminary re-mark, I will reflect on some recent developments in Germany, where nativist protest campaigns against immigration took place in the streets when voters were turning towards the populist radical right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). In the first section, I will outline an older tradition of anti-immigration protest in nineteenth and early twentieth century Germany, which is closely connected to modern antisemitism. In sections two and three, I will retrace how, from the late 1960s onward, the far right in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) discovered concerns about immigra-tion in the German population, addressed them in protest campaigns and developed narratives to integrate such sentiments into a broader right-wing extremist ideology, itself deeply rooted in antisemitism. Studying nativism and the radical right from an actor-oriented perspective, I will focus on traditionalist movements, including the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD) and neo-Nazi groups.
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.
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.
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.
SNS Democracy Council 2023
(2023)
Transboundary problems such as climate change, military conflicts, trade barriers, and refugee flows require increased collaboration across borders. This is to a large extent possible using existing international organizations. In such a case, however, they need to be considerably strengthened – while current trends take us in the opposite direction, according to the researchers in the SNS Democracy Council 2023.
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.
Public opinion polls have become vital and increasingly visible parts of election campaigns. Previous research has frequently demonstrated that polls can influence both citizens' voting intentions and political parties' campaign strategies. However, they are also fraught with uncertainty. Margins of error can reflect (parts of) this uncertainty. This paper investigates how citizens' voting intentions change due to whether polling estimates are presented with or without margins of error.
Using a vignette experiment (N=3224), we examine this question based on a real-world example in which different election polls were shown to nationally representative respondents ahead of the 2021 federal election in Germany. We manipulated the display of the margins of error, the interpretation of polls and the closeness of the electoral race.
The results indicate that margins of error can influence citizens' voting intentions. This effect is dependent on the actual closeness of the race and additional interpretative guidance provided to voters. More concretely, the results consistently show that margins of error increase citizens' inclination to vote for one of the two largest contesting parties if the polling gap between these parties is small, and an interpretation underlines this closeness.
The findings of this study are important for three reasons. First, they help to determine whether margins of error can assist citizens in making more informed (strategic) vote decisions. They shed light on whether depicting opinion-poll uncertainty affects the key features of representative democracy, such as democratic accountability. Second, the results stress the responsibility of the media. The way polls are interpreted and contextualized influences the effect of margins of error on voting behaviour. Third, the findings of this paper underscore the significance of including methodological details when communicating scientific research findings to the broader public.
What shapes peace, and how can peace be successfully built in those countries affected by armed conflict? This paper examines mpeacebuilding in the aftermath of civil wars in order to identify the conditions for post-conflict peace. The field of civil war research is
characterised by case studies, comparative analyses and quantitative research, which relate relatively little to each other. Furthermore, the complex dynamics of peacebuilding have hardly been investigated so far. Thus, the question remains of how best to enhance the prospects
of a stable peace in post-conflict societies. Therefore, it is necessary to capture the dynamics of post-conflict peace. This paper aims at helping to narrow these research gaps by 1) presenting the benefits of set theoretic methods for peace and conflict studies; 2) identifying remote conflict environment factors and proximate peacebuilding factors which have an influence on the peacebuilding process and 3) proposing a
set-theoretic multi-method research approach in order to identify the causal structures and mechanisms underlying the complex realm of post-conflict peacebuilding. By implementing this transparent and systematic comparative approach, it will become possible to discover
the dynamics of post-conflict peace.
Little is known about how far-reaching decisions in UN Security Council sanctions committees are made. Developing a novel committee governance concept and using examples drawn from sanctions imposed on Iraq, Al-Qaida, Congo, Sudan and Iran, this book shows that Council members tend to follow the will of the powerful, whereas sanctions committee members often decide according to the rules. This is surprising since both Council and committees are staffed by the same member states.
Offering a fascinating account of Security Council micro-politics and decision-making processes on sanctions, this rigorous comparative and theory-driven analysis treats the Council and its sanctions committees as distinguishable entities that may differ in decision practice despite having the same members. Drawing extensively on primary documents, diplomatic cables, well-informed press coverage, reports by close observers and extensive interviews with committee members, Council diplomats and sanctions experts, it contrasts with the conventional wisdom on decision-making within these bodies, which suggests that the powerful permanent members would not accept rule-based decisions against their interests.
This book will be of interest to policy practitioners and scholars working in the broad field of international organizations and international relations theory as well as those specializing in sanctions, international law, the Security Council and counter-terrorism.
Same but different
(2022)
The peace processes in Liberia and Sierra Leone share similar contexts and have an interrelated history. They are also often portrayed as successful cases of peacebuilding. This conclusion seems valid, as war has not returned, and political power was handed over peacefully; however, both cases differ with regard to the inclusiveness of the peace processes and the role of local leaders. This article aims to add to the critical peacebuilding debate by focusing on local perceptions about the position of local leaders in these two peace processes. We conducted a public opinion survey in five regions in Sierra Leone and Liberia and expert interviews with peacebuilding actors to examine changing perceptions about the roles of local leaders in both countries. This article speaks to the broader peacebuilding debate by highlighting the importance of including local voices in the peace process and by discussing challenges of inclusive peacebuilding.
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.
Review symposium
(2023)
Steffen Ganghof’s Beyond Presidentialism and Parliamentarism: Democratic Design and the Separation of Powers (Oxford University Press, 2021) posits that “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” (Ganghof, 2021). To consider, examine and theorise about this, Ganghof urges engagement with semi-parliamentarism. As explained by Ganghof, legislative power is shared between two democratically legitimate sections of parliament in a semi-parliamentary system, but only one of those sections selects the government and can remove it in a no-confidence vote. Consequently, power is dispersed and not concentrated in the hands of any one person, which, Ganghof argues, can lead to an enhanced form of parliamentary democracy. In this book review symposium, George Tsebelis, Michael Thies, José Antonio Cheibub, Rosalind Dixon and Daniel Bogéa review Steffen Ganghof’s book and engage with the author about aspects of research design, case selection and theoretical argument. This symposium arose from an engaging and constructive discussion of the book at a seminar hosted by Texas A&M University in 2022. We thank Prof José Cheibub (Texas A&M) for organising that seminar and Dr Anna Fruhstorfer (University of Potsdam) for initiating this book review symposium.
Reputation and influence
(2022)
International public administrations (IPAs) are collective bodies within international organizations (IOs) made up of international civil servants that support the intergovernmental bodies and member states. Over the last decade, research on these bodies has “gained substantial momentum”. Comparative assessments of IPAs reputation among stakeholders are rare. The literature on the sociological legitimacy of IOs is most advanced in this respect. A comparative agenda on IPAs reputation for expertise or neutrality is still in its infancy. Research has shown that different stakeholders view the same IPA quite differently. Reputation is a crucial concept in political science and IR research and has been widely used to predict states’ future behavior, notably regarding cooperation and conflict. IPAs seem to vary substantially in their reputation for expertise among critical interlocutors. In financial policy, several prominent IPAs are seen as experts, including the European Central Bank and the IMF.
While school supervision structures in the German Länder were extensively reformed during the last decades, systematic analyses of these reforms are missing. This chapter contributes to this research gap by providing an overview of the implemented reforms of school supervision structures in the German Länder. The effects of these reforms are analysed in order to answer the question of whether a convergence of school supervision systems is a result of these reforms. In a first step, a distinction is made to identify system-changing reforms. Although a decrease of the number or a concentration on one school supervision system is not a result of the analysis, it is argued that there is a convergence of school supervision structures, as a clear trend against school supervision systems with lower school supervisory boards can be observed.
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.
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.
We examine how and under what conditions informal institutional constraints, such as precedent and doctrine, are likely to affect collective choice within international organisations even in the absence of powerful bureaucratic agents. With a particular focus on the United Nations Security Council, we first develop a theoretical account of why such informal constraints might affect collective decisions even of powerful and strategically behaving actors. We show that precedents provide focal points that allow adopting collective decisions in coordination situations despite diverging preferences. Reliance on previous cases creates tacitly evolving doctrine that may develop incrementally. Council decision-making is also likely to be facilitated by an institutional logic of escalation driven by institutional constraints following from the typically staged response to crisis situations. We explore the usefulness of our theoretical argument with evidence from the Council doctrine on terrorism that has evolved since 1985. The key decisions studied include the 1992 sanctions resolution against Libya and the 2001 Council response to the 9/11 attacks. We conclude that, even within intergovernmentally structured international organisations, member states do not operate on a clean slate, but in a highly institutionalised environment that shapes their opportunities for action.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In recent years, governments have increased their efforts to strengthen the citizen-orientation in policy design. They have established temporary arenas as well as permanent units inside the machinery of government to integrate citizens into policy formulation, leading to a “laboratorization” of central government organizations. We argue that the evolution and role of these units herald new dynamics in the importance of organizational reputation for executive politics. These actors deviate from the classic palette of organizational units inside the machinery of government and thus require their own reputation vis-à-vis various audiences within and outside their parent organization. Based on a comparative case study of two of these units inside the German federal bureaucracy, we show how ambiguous expectations of their audiences challenge their organizational reputation. Both units resolve these tensions by balancing their weaker professional and procedural reputation with a stronger performative and moral reputation. We conclude that government units aiming to improve citizen orientation in policy design may benefit from engaging with citizens as their external audience to compensate for a weaker reputation in the eyes of their audiences inside the government organization. Points for practitioners: many governments have introduced novel means to strengthen citizen-centered policy design, which has led to an emergence of novel units inside central government that differ from traditional bureaucratic structures and procedures ; this study analyzes how these new units may build their organizational reputation vis-à-vis internal and external actors in government policymaking. ; we show that such units assert themselves primarily based on their performative and moral reputation.
Over the last few decades, a network of misogynist blogs, websites, wikis, and forums has developed, where users share their bigoted, sexist, and toxic views of society in general and masculinity and femininity in particular. This chapter outlines conceptual framework of hegemonic and hybrid masculinity. It provides a brief overview of the historical development of the manosphere and its various configurations and present our analysis of the masculinities performed by the five groups of the manosphere. The concept of hegemonic masculinity was articulated by Connell and colleagues in the 1980s as “the pattern of practice that allowed men’s dominance over women to continue.” Prior to the advent of the manosphere, an online iteration of male supremacist mobilizations, both Men’s Rights Activists and Pick-up artists developed as offline movements in the 1970s. MRAs perceive their respective societies as inherently stacked against men. This chapter analyses the masculinities of the manosphere and how they “repudiat[e] and reif[y]” hegemonic masculinity and male supremacism.
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.
The past few years have witnessed a growing interest among scholars and policy-makers in the interplay of international bureaucracies with civil society organizations, non-profit entities, and the private sector. Authors concerned with global environmental politics have made considerable progress in capturing this phenomenon. Nevertheless, we still lack in-depth empirical knowledge on the precise nature of such institutional interlinkages across governance levels and scales. Building upon the concept oforchestration, this article focuses on the relationship between specific types of international bureaucracies and actors other than the nation-state. In particular, we investigate how the secretariats of the three Rio Conventions reach out to non-state actors in order to exert influence on the outcome of international environmental negotiations. Our analysis demonstrates that the three intergovernmental treaty secretariats utilize various styles of orchestration in their relation to non-state actors and seek to push the global responses to the respective transboundary environmental problems forward. This article points to a recent trend towards a direct collaboration between these secretariats and non-state actors which gives rise to the idea that new alliances between these actors are emerging in global environmental governance.
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
Better land stewardship is needed to achieve the Paris Agreement's temperature goal, particularly in the tropics, where greenhouse gas emissions from the destruction of ecosystems are largest, and where the potential for additional land carbon storage is greatest. As countries enhance their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement, confusion persists about the potential contribution of better land stewardship to meeting the Agreement's goal to hold global warming below 2 degrees C. We assess cost-effective tropical country-level potential of natural climate solutions (NCS)-protection, improved management and restoration of ecosystems-to deliver climate mitigation linked with sustainable development goals (SDGs). We identify groups of countries with distinctive NCS portfolios, and we explore factors (governance, financial capacity) influencing the feasibility of unlocking national NCS potential. Cost-effective tropical NCS offers globally significant climate mitigation in the coming decades (6.56 Pg CO(2)e yr(-1) at less than 100 US$ per Mg CO(2)e). In half of the tropical countries, cost-effective NCS could mitigate over half of national emissions. In more than a quarter of tropical countries, cost-effective NCS potential is greater than national emissions. We identify countries where, with international financing and political will, NCS can cost-effectively deliver the majority of enhanced NDCs while transforming national economies and contributing to SDGs. This article is part of the theme issue 'Climate change and ecosystems: threats, opportunities and solutions'.
Moving mountains?
(2022)
Mind the gap?
(2020)
Many authors have argued that International Public Administration can influence policy-making through their expert authority. The article compares de jure and de facto expert authority of IPAs to evaluate their conformity. It comparatively assesses the two kinds of authority for five important IPAs (BIS, FAO, IMF, OECD and World Bank) active in agriculture or financial policy. It shows that, on average, de jure and de facto authority seem to conform. At the same time, it demonstrates that gaps between de jure and de facto authority exist at the level of the IPAs, the policy areas and the IPAs’ addressees
The chapter explores aspects of ‘memory games’ in postcommunist Poland vis-à-vis the country’s authoritarian communist past. In particular, it is interested in the populist moments of lustration and de-communization, and also after October 2015 when the right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS) won the parliamentary and presidential elections in Poland. The main argument is that even though legitimate considerations of lustration and de-communization play a role, a number of policies dealing with transitional justice are related to populist mobilization by the PiS. Against this background, the chapter discusses how far the transitional justice has been accompanied by the process of reframing the political memory about the guilt, suffering, and righteousness during communism. Populist legitimation aims at reconfiguring the public discourse on the transitional justice in a way that it is used to justify controversial public policies in tune with the interest of the groups currently in power, which present themselves as the true voice of the people. The core of the article deals with three main aspects of Polish memory games: (1) the meandering of lustration (mainly with regard to the position of the PiS/Law and Justice and PO/Civic Platform – the largest Polish political parties since 2005), (2) the lustration as the function of power, and (3) the role of the Institute of National Remembrance as a case of institutionalized memory games.
Mediating power?
(2022)
The selection of the executive heads of international organisations represents a key decision in the politics of international organisations. However, we know little about what dynamics influence this selection. The article focuses on the nationality of selected executive heads. It argues that institutional design impacts the factors that influence leadership selection by shaping the costs and benefits of attaining the position for member states’ nationals. The argument is tested with novel data on the nationality of individuals in charge of 69 international organisation bureaucracies between 1970 and 2017. Two findings stand out: first, powerful countries are more able to secure positions in international organisations in which executive heads are voted in by majority voting. Second, less consistent evidence implies that powerful countries secure more positions when bureaucracies are authoritative. The findings have implications for debates on international cooperation by illustrating how power and institutions interact in the selection of international organisation executive heads.
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.
World Bank evaluations show that recipient performance varies substantially between different projects. Extant research has focused on country-level variables when explaining these variations. This article goes beyond country-level explanations and highlights the role of World Bank staff. We extend established arguments in the literature on compliance with the demands of International Organizations (IOs) and hypothesize that IO staff can shape recipient performance in three ways. First, recipient performance may be influenced by the quality of IO staff monitoring and supervision. Second, the leniency and stringency with which IO staff apply the aid agreement could improve recipient performance. Third, recipient performance may depend on whether IO staff can identify and mobilize supportive interlocutors through their networks in the recipient country. We test these arguments by linking a novel database on the tenure of World Bank task team leaders to projects evaluated between 1986 and 2020. The findings are consistent with the expectation that World Bank staff play an important role, but only in investment projects. There is substantial evidence that World Bank staff supervisory ability and country experience are linked to recipient performance in those projects. Less consistent evidence indicates that leniency could matter. These findings imply that World Bank staff play an important role in facilitating implementation of investment projects.
This chapter analyses managerial reforms at the subnational level of government from a comparative perspective and outlines possible routes for future comparative research. It examines reforms of the external relationships between local governments and private service providers, which were aimed at transforming the organizational macro-setting of local service provision, the task portfolio and functional profile of local governments. The chapter then moves to scrutinizing internal managerial reforms concerned with the modernization of organization and processes and the improvement of management capacities inside local administrations meant to strengthen performance, output- and consumer-orientation in local service delivery. The country sample includes the United Kingdom (England), Sweden, and Germany that represent three distinct types of administrative culture and local government in Europe.
Majorities for minorities
(2022)
Does the process of making a constitution affect the expansiveness of rights protections in the constitution? In particular, is more participation in constitution-making processes better for minority rights protections? While the process of constitution making and its impact on various outcomes have received significant attention, little is known about the impact public participation or deliberation in this process has on the scope and content of minority rights. Using a wide variety of data to empirically assess the relationship between constitution-making processes and the protection of rights for minorities, we find a positive relationship between participatory drafting processes and the inclusion of minority protections in constitutions under some conditions. The article's findings have important implications for understanding political representation and lend support to core arguments about the role of the public in constitutional design.
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.
This article responds to critical reflections on my Beyond Presidentialism and Parliamentarism by Sarah Birch, Kevin J. Elliott, Claudia Landwehr and James L. Wilson. It discusses how different types of representative democracy, especially different forms of government (presidential, parliamentary or hybrid), can be justified. It clarifies, among other things, the distinction between procedural and process equality, the strengths of semi-parliamentary government, the potential instability of constitutional designs, and the difference that theories can make in actual processes of constitutional reform.
Worldwide, governments have introduced novel information and communication technologies (ICTs) for policy formulation and service delivery, radically changing the working environment of government employees. Following the debate on work stress and particularly on technostress, we argue that the use of ICTs triggers “digital overload” that decreases government employees’ job satisfaction via inhibiting their job autonomy. Contrary to prior research, we consider job autonomy as a consequence rather than a determinant of digital overload, because ICT-use accelerates work routines and interruptions and eventually diminishes employees’ freedom to decide how to work. Based on novel survey data from government employees in Germany, Italy, and Norway, our structural equation modeling (SEM) confirms a significant negative effect of digital overload on job autonomy. More importantly, job autonomy partially mediates the negative relationship between digital overload and job satisfaction, pointing to the importance of studying the micro-foundations of ICT-use in the public sector.
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.
Introduction
(2022)
Several global governance initiatives launched in recent years have explicitly sought to integrate concern for gender equality and gendered harms into efforts to counter terrorism and violent extremism (CT/CVE). As a result, commitments to gender-sensitivity and gender equality in international and regional CT/CVE initiatives, in national action plans, and at the level of civil society programming, have become a common aspect of the multilevel governance of terrorism and violent extremism. In light of these developments, aspects of our own research have turned in the past years to explore how concerns about gender are being incorporated in the governance of (counter-)terrorism and violent extremism, and how this development has affected (gendered) practices and power relations in counterterrorism policymaking and implementation. We were inspired by the growing literature on gender and CT/CVE, and critical scholarship on terrorism and political violence, to bring together a collection of new research addressing these questions.
There is a growing recognition that international organizations (IOs) formulate and adopt policy in a wide range of areas. IOs have emerged as key venues for states seeking joint solutions to contemporary challenges such as climate change or COVID-19, and to establish frameworks to bolster trade, development, security, and more. In this capacity, IOs produce both extraordinary and routine policy output with a multitude of purposes, ranging from policies of historic significance like admitting new members to the more mundane tasks of administering IO staff. This article introduces the Intergovernmental Policy Output Dataset (IPOD), which covers close to 37,000 individual policy acts of 13 multi-issue IOs in the 1980–2015 period. The dataset fills a gap in the growing body of literature on the comparative study of IOs, providing researchers with a fine-grained perspective on the structure of IO policy output and data for comparisons across time, policy areas, and organizations. This article describes the construction and coverage of the dataset and identifies key temporal and cross-sectional patterns revealed by the data. In a concise illustration of the dataset’s utility, we apply models of punctuated equilibria in a comparative study of the relationship between institutional features and broad policy agenda dynamics. Overall, the Intergovernmental Policy Output Dataset offers a unique resource for researchers to analyze IO policy output in a granular manner and to explore questions of responsiveness, performance, and legitimacy of IOs.
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.
This article analyses the institutional design variants of local crisis governance responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and their entanglement with other locally impactful crises from a cross-country comparative perspective (France, Germany, Poland, Sweden, and the UK/England). The pandemic offers an excellent empirical lens for scrutinizing the phenomenon of polycrises governance because it occurred while European countries were struggling with the impacts of several prior, ongoing, or newly arrived crises. Our major focus is on institutional design variants of crisis governance (dependent variable) and the influence of different administrative cultures on it (independent variable). Furthermore, we analyze the entanglement and interaction of institutional responses to other (previous or parallel) crises (polycrisis dynamics). Our findings reveal a huge variance of institutional designs, largely evoked by country-specific administrative cultures and profiles. The degree of de-/centralization and the intensity of coordination or decoupling across levels of government differs significantly by country. Simultaneously, all countries were affected by interrelated and entangled crises, resulting in various patterns of polycrisis dynamics. While policy failures and “fatal remedies” from previous crises have partially impaired the resilience and crisis preparedness of local governments, we have also found some learning effects from previous crises.
The digitization has permeated almost all aspects of an individual’s life. In the work context as well as in the private sphere, one readily encounters and relies on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), such as Social Networking Sites (SNS), smartphones and so forth. By communicating with as well as obtaining information via such technologies, ICTs engage one’s mind as interaction happens. This interaction of ICTs and the human mind form the focal topic of this thesis. Within this thesis, the human mind is represented on behalf of a facilitated model comprising a perceptual, a cognitive and a motor subsystem. ICTs represent an external stimulus, which triggers the human mind's perceptual subsystem, the cognitive subsystem and eventually leads to a motoric response via the motor subsystem. The external stimulus causing this event chain is within this thesis an ICT. The digital environment and related ICTs are high attention environments offering large and easily accessible amounts of information. Not surprisingly, issues may arise, when the human mind deals with ICTs. Thus, the interplay between ICTs and the human mind entails downsides. This thesis investigates these downsides and in addition the ICT-based factors that cause these downsides. More specifically, the thesis investigates these two aspects as research questions in the context of SNSs as well as other ICTs (such as smartphones, e-learning etc.). Addressing the research questions, 8 articles are submitted within this thesis which address the topic with different methodologies, including quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods as well as systematic literature reviews. Article 1 investigates factors that lead to SNS fatigue and discontinuance intentions in a mixed-methods design. Article 2 explores if certain factors encountered on a newsfeed hamper sensemaking. Article 3 proposes a study design to explore the link between disorderly perceptions of a SNSs newsfeed and gender stereotype activations. Article 4 considers the interplay between users and algorithms via the newsfeed interface and the implications for relevance perceptions. Article 5 explores information acquisition, hampering factors and verification strategies of social media users. Article 6 systematically reviews addiction scales of various ICTs. Article 7 investigates click behavior in e-learning contexts and how this is linked to cultural and personality traits. Finally, article 8 offers a comprehensive overview of the antecedents and consequences of children’s smartphone usage. Within the specific context of SNSs, the thesis suggests that the cognitive tolls imposed on users’ minds cause adverse effects, such as impaired sensemaking, fatigue, stereotype activation as well as intentions to discontinue the service. Other ICTs lead to addiction, and i.e., smartphones evidence to cause cognitive impairments in children. Factors on the ICT side that promote these adverse effects are linked to specific features, such as the newsfeed for SNSs and entail overload or perceptions of disorder. The thesis adds theoretically to the understanding of downsides that arise from the interplay between human minds and ICTs. Especially, the context of SNSs is spotlighted and insights add to the growing body of literature on experiences and perceptions. For instance, one study’s result suggests that considering information organization is as important as merely decreasing overload perceptions from the users in countering adverse effects of SNS usage. Practically, the thesis emphasizes the importance of mindful interaction with ICTs. Future research is welcome to build on the exploratory investigations and may draw an even more holistic picture to enhance the interaction between ICTs and the human mind.
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.
Immune to COVID?
(2021)
Extreme-right terrorism is a threat that is often underestimated by the public at large. As this paper argues, this is partly due to a concept of terrorism utilized by policymakers, intelligence agents, and police investigators that is based on experience of international terrorism perpetrated by leftists or jihadists as opposed to domestic extreme-right violence. This was one reason why investigators failed to identify the crimes committed by the National Socialist Underground (NSU) in Germany (2000–2011) as extreme-right terrorism, for example. While scholarly debate focused on the Red Army Faction and Al Qaeda, terrorist tendencies among those perpetrating racist and extreme-right violence tended to be disregarded. Influential researchers in the field of “extremism” denied that terrorist acts were committed by right-wingers. By mapping the specifics regarding the strategic use of violence, target selection, addressing of different audiences etc., this paper proposes a more accurate definition of extreme-right terrorism. In comparing it to other forms of terrorism, extreme-right terrorism is distinguished by its specific framework of ideologies and practices, with the underlying idea of an essential inequality that is compensated for through the affirmation of violence. It can be differentiated from other forms of extreme-right violence based on its use of strategic, premeditated and planned attacks against targets of a symbolic nature.
This chapter operationalizes the three fundamental concepts of this study. It outlines what counts as authoritarian rule, it explains how to recognize dissent in non-democratic contexts, and it debates how to quantify repression in the shadow of the politicized discourse on human rights. First, the chapter opts to classify every political regime as authoritarian that fails to elect its executive or legislature in free and competitive elections. Second, the chapter proposes to see dissent through the lens of campaigns, i.e., series of connected contentious events that involve large-scale collective action and formulate far-reaching political demands. Finally, after some elaboration on the problems involved in measuring political repression reliably and validly, the chapter turns to rescaled versions of the Human Rights Protection Scores 2.04 and the V-Dem 6.2 political civil liberties index as indicators for violence and restrictions. This choice of indicators of repression is, finally, defended against three central objections: the separability of violence from restrictions, the so-called information paradox, and, finally, differences in the timing of violence and restrictions.
Werner Krause and Christina Gahn argue that we need to pay more attention to how the media communicates the results of opinion polls to the public. Reporting methodological details, such as margins of error, can alter citizens’ vote choices on election day. This has important implications for elections around the world
Harmful side effects
(2022)
Governments have increasingly adopted laws restricting the activities of international non-governmental organizations INGOs within their borders. Such laws are often intended to curb the ability of critical INGOs to discover and communicate government failures and abuses to domestic and international audiences. They can also have the unintended effect of reducing the presence and activities of INGOs working on health issues, and depriving local health workers and organizations of access to resources, knowledge and other forms of support. This study assesses whether legislative restrictions on INGOs are associated with fewer health INGOs in a wide range of countries and with the ability of those countries to mitigate disability-adjusted life years lost because of twenty-one disease categories between 1993 and 2017. The findings indicate that restrictive legislation hampered efforts by civil society to lighten the global burden of disease and had adverse side effects on the health of citizens worldwide.
Greening global governance
(2022)
The last decades have seen a remarkable expansion in the number of International Organizations (IOs) that have mainstreamed environmental issues into their policy scope—in many cases due to the pressure of civil society. We hypothesize that International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs), whose headquarters are in proximity to the headquarters of IOs, are more likely to affect IOs' expansion into the environmental domain. We test this explanation by utilizing a novel dataset on the strength of environmental global civil society in proximity to the headquarters of 76 IOs between 1950 and 2017. Three findings stand out. First, the more environmental INGOs have their secretariat in proximity to the headquarter of an IO, the more likely the IO mainstreams environmental policy. Second, proximate INGOs’ contribution increases when they can rely on domestically focused NGOs in member states. Third, a pathway case reveals that proximate INGOs played an essential role in inside lobbying, outside lobbying and information provision during the campaign to mainstream environmental issues at the World Bank. However, their efforts relied to a substantial extent on the work of local NGOs on the ground.
Green recovery
(2023)
This chapter reviews how the European Union has fared in enabling a green recovery in the aftermath of the Covid-19 crisis, drawing comparisons to developments after the financial crisis. The chapter focuses on the European Commission and its evolving role in promoting decarbonisation efforts in its Member States, paying particular attention to its role in financing investments in low-carbon assets. It considers both the direct effects of green stimulus policies on decarbonisation in the EU and how these actions have shaped the capacities of the Commission as an actor in the field of climate and energy policy. The analysis reveals a significant expansion of the Commission’s role compared to the period following the financial crisis. EU-level measures have provided incentives for Member States to direct large volumes of financing towards investments in climate-friendly assets. Nevertheless, the ultimate impact will largely be shaped by implementation at the national level.
Enacted in 2009, the National Policy on Climate Change (PNMC) is a milestone in the institutionalisation of climate action in Brazil. It sets greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction targets and a set of principles and directives that are intended to lay the foundations for a cross-sectoral and multilevel climate policy in the country. However, after more than a decade since its establishment, the PNMC has experienced several obstacles related to its governance, such as coordination, planning and implementation issues. All of these issues pose threats to the effectiveness of GHG mitigation actions in the country.
By looking at the intragovernmental and intergovernmental relationships that have taken place during the lifetime of the PNMC and its sectoral plans on agriculture (the Sectoral Plan for Mitigation and Adaptation to Climate Change for the Consolidation of a Low-Carbon Economy in Agriculture [ABC Plan]), transport and urban mobility (the Sectoral Plan for Transportation and Urban Mobility for Mitigation and Adaption of Climate Change [PSTM]), this exploratory qualitative research investigates the Brazilian climate change governance guided by the following relevant questions: how are climate policy arrangements organised and coordinated among governmental actors to mitigate GHG emissions in Brazil? What might be the reasons behind how such arrangements are established? What are the predominant governance gaps of the different GHG mitigation actions examined? Why do these governance gaps occur?
Theoretically grounded in the literature on multilevel governance and coordination of public policies, this study employs a novel analytical framework that aims to identify and discuss the occurrence of four types of governance gaps (i.e. politics, institutions and processes, resources and information) in the three GHG mitigation actions (cases) examined (i.e. the PNMC, ABC Plan and PSTM). The research results are twofold. First, they reveal that Brazil has struggled to organise and coordinate governmental actors from different policy constituencies and different levels of government in the implementation of the GHG mitigation actions examined. Moreover, climate policymaking has mostly been influenced by the Ministry of Environment (MMA) overlooking the multilevel and cross-sectoral approaches required for a country’s climate policy to mitigate and adapt to climate change, especially if it is considered an economy-wide Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), as the Brazilian one is.
Second, the study identifies a greater manifestation of gaps in politics (e.g. lack of political will in supporting climate action), institutions and processes (e.g. failures in the design of institutions and policy instruments, coordination and monitoring flaws, and difficulties in building climate federalism) in all cases studied. It also identifies that there have been important advances in the production of data and information for decision-making and, to a lesser extent, in the allocation of technical and financial resources in the cases studied; however, it is necessary to highlight the limitation of these improvements due to turf wars, a low willingness to share information among federal government players, a reduced volume of financial resources and an unequal distribution of capacities among the federal ministries and among the three levels of government.
A relevant finding is that these gaps tend to be explained by a combination of general and sectoral set aspects. Regarding the general aspects, which are common to all cases examined, the following can be mentioned: i) unbalanced policy capabilities existing among the different levels of government, ii) a limited (bureaucratic) practice to produce a positive coordination mode within cross-sectoral policies, iii) the socioeconomic inequalities that affect the way different governments and economic sectors perceive the climate issue (selective perception) and iv) the reduced dialogue between national and subnational governments on the climate agenda (poor climate federalism). The following sectoral aspects can be mentioned: i) the presence of path dependencies that make the adoption of transformative actions harder and ii) the absence of perceived co-benefits that the climate agenda can bring to each economic sector (e.g. reputational gains, climate protection and access to climate financial markets).
By addressing the theoretical and practical implications of the results, this research provides key insights to tackle the governance gaps identified and to help Brazil pave the way to achieving its NDCs and net-zero targets. At the theoretical level, this research and the current country’s GHG emissions profile suggest that the Brazilian climate policy is embedded in a cross-sectoral and multilevel arena, which requires the effective involvement of different levels of political and bureaucratic powers and the consideration of the country’s socioeconomic differences. Thus, the research argues that future improvements of the Brazilian climate policy and its governance setting must frame climate policy as an economic development agenda, the ramifications of which go beyond the environmental sector. An initial consequence of this new perspective may be a shift in the political and technical leadership from the MMA to the institutions of the centre of government (Executive Office of the President of Brazil) and those in charge of the country’s economic policy (Ministry of Economy). This change could provide greater capacity for coordination, integration and enforcement as well as for addressing certain expected gaps (e.g. financial and technical resources). It could also lead to greater political prioritisation of the agenda at the highest levels of government. Moreover, this shift of the institutional locus could contribute to greater harmonisation between domestic development priorities and international climate politics. Finally, the research also suggests that this approach would reduce bureaucratic elitism currently in place due to climate policy being managed by Brazilian governmental institutions, which is still a theme of a few ministries and a reason for the occurrence of turf wars.
Governance abhors a vacuum
(2023)
International organisations have become increasingly contested resulting in worries about their decline and termination. While international organisation termination is indeed a regular event in international relations, this article shows that other institutions carry the legacy of terminated international organisations. We develop the novel concept of international organisation afterlife and suggest indicators to systematically assess it. Our analysis of 26 major terminated international organisations reveals legal-institutional and asset continuity in 21 cases. To further illustrate this point, the article zooms in on the afterlife of the International Institute of Agriculture in the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Refugee Organization in the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and the Western European Union in the European Union. In these three cases, international organisation afterlife inspired and structured the design of their successor institutions. While specific international organisations might be terminated, international cooperation therefore often lives on in other institutions.
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.
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.
The COVID-19 virus has hit Germany as unexpectedly as other European countries. For a few weeks, Germans thought that COVID-19 was an issue for Asian states and not for their country. Although Germany continues to be affected by the coronavirus, the situation is nowhere as dire as it was in Britain, Italy or Spain. The race to lift restrictions in Germany began in May, and by early June, the country may be back to normal. Germany, with its enormous financial resources and a well-equipped medical sector, appears to be better placed than other economies to weather the storm.
Germany as a leading power
(2020)
This study evaluates the challenges, institutional impacts and responses of German local authorities to the COVID-19 pandemic from a political science point of view. The main research question is how they have contributed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and to what extent the strengths and weaknesses of the German model of municipal autonomy have influenced their policy. It analyses the adaptation strategies of German local authorities and assesses the effectiveness of their actions up to now. Their implementation is then evaluated in five selected issues, e.g. adjustment organization and staff, challenges for local finances, local politics and citizen’s participation. This analysis is reflecting the scientific debate in Germany since the beginning of 2020, based on the available analyses of political science, law, economics, sociology and geography until end of March 2021.
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.
The United Nations (UN) policy agenda on Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) promotes a “holistic” approach to counterterrorism, which includes elements traditionally found in security and development programs. Advocates of the agenda increasingly emphasize the importance of gender mainstreaming for counterterrorism goals. In this article, I scrutinize the merging of the goals of gender equality, security, and development into a global agenda for counterterrorism. A critical feminist discourse-analytical reading of gender representations in P/CVE shows how problematic imageries of women as victims, economic entrepreneurs, and peacemakers from both the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the Women, Peace and Security agenda are reproduced in core UN documents advocating for a “holistic” P/CVE approach. By highlighting the tensions that are produced by efforts to merge the different gender discourses across the UN’s security and development institutions, the article underlines the relevance of considering the particular position of P/CVE at the security–development nexus for further gender-sensitive analysis and policies of counterterrorism.
Gender at the crossroads
(2021)
Since the early 2000s, the United Nations (UN) global counterterrorism architecture has seen significant changes towards increased multilateralism, a focus on prevention, and inter-institutional coordination across the UN’s three pillars of work. Throughout this reform process, gender aspects have increasingly become presented as a “cross-cutting” theme. In this article, I investigate the role of gender in the UN’s counterterrorism reform process at the humanitarian-development-peace nexus, or “triple nexus”, from a feminist institutionalist perspective. I conduct a feminist discourse analysis of the counterterrorism discourses of three UN entities, which represent the different UN pillars of peace and security (DPO), development (UNDP), and humanitarianism and human rights (OHCHR). The article examines the role of gender in the inter-institutional reform process by focusing on the changes, overlaps and differences in the discursive production of gender in the entities’ counterterrorism agendas over time and in two recent UN counterterrorism conferences. I find that gendered dynamics of nested newness and institutional layering have played an essential role both as a justification for the involvement of individual entities in counterterrorism and as a vehicle for inter-institutional cooperation and struggle for discursive power.
Gender at the crossroads
(2023)
Since the early 2000s, the United Nations (UN) global counterterrorism architecture has seen significant changes towards increased multilateralism, a focus on prevention, and inter-institutional coordination across the UN’s three pillars of work. Throughout this reform process, gender aspects have increasingly become presented as a “cross-cutting” theme. In this article, I investigate the role of gender in the UN’s counterterrorism reform process at the humanitarian-development-peace nexus, or “triple nexus”, from a feminist institutionalist perspective. I conduct a feminist discourse analysis of the counterterrorism discourses of three UN entities, which represent the different UN pillars of peace and security (DPO), development (UNDP), and humanitarianism and human rights (OHCHR). The article examines the role of gender in the inter-institutional reform process by focusing on the changes, overlaps and differences in the discursive production of gender in the entities’ counterterrorism agendas over time and in two recent UN counterterrorism conferences. I find that gendered dynamics of nested newness and institutional layering have played an essential role both as a justification for the involvement of individual entities in counterterrorism and as a vehicle for inter-institutional cooperation and struggle for discursive power.
This book brings together a variety of innovative perspectives on the inclusion of gender in the governance of (counter-)terrorism and violent extremism.
Several global governance initiatives launched in recent years have explicitly sought to integrate concern for gender equality and gendered harms into efforts to counter terrorism and violent extremism (CT/CVE). As a result, commitments to gender-sensitivity and gender equality in international and regional CT/CVE initiatives, in national action plans and at the level of civil society programming, ´have become a common aspect of the multilevel governance of terrorism and violent extremism. In light of these developments, there is a need for more systematic analysis of how concerns about gender are being incorporated in the governance of (counter-)terrorism and violent extremism and how it has affected (gendered) practices and power relations in counterterrorism policy-making and implementation.
Ranging from the processes of global and regional integration of gender into the governance of terrorism, via the impact of the shift on government responses to the return of foreign fighters, to state and civil society-led CVE programming and academic discussions, the essays engage with the origins and dynamics behind recent shifts which bring gender to the forefront of the governance of terrorism. This book will be of great value to researchers and scholars interested in gender, governance and terrorism.
The chapters in this book were originally published in Critical Studies on Terrorism.
Over the past decades, the traditional profile of the German administrative system has significantly been reshaped and remoulded through reforms and transformations. Manifold modernization efforts have been undertaken to adjust administrative structures and procedures to increasing challenges and pressures. In this chapter, the attempt is made to outline major institutional reform paths in Germany from Weberian bureaucracy to most recent reforms towards a digital transformation of public administration. We will show to what extent the German administrative system has moved away from the classical Weberian bureaucracy to a hybrid system where elements of the ‘old’ model and new reform paradigms such as the NPM and digital government are hybridized, labelled the Neo Weberian State. The question will be addressed as to what extent this shift has taken shape and which hurdles and path-dependencies can be identified to explain partial persistence and continuity over time.
From victims to activists
(2022)
From laggards to leaders
(2021)
The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change embraces the participation of non-state actors in a separate governance track – the ‘Non-state actor zone for global action’ (nazca) – that runs alongside the formal track of unfccc negotiations and the implementation of the Paris Agreement by State Parties through ‘nationally determined contributions’. unfccc Secretariat is entrusted with orchestrating non-state global and transnational initiatives, partnerships and networks. The involvement of non-state actors in the implementation of the Paris Agreement helps to address an action gap by countries that are unable or unwilling to implement ambitious ndcs.
However, the increased prominence of initiatives driven by non-state actors also increases their direct and indirect influence on processes and rules which raises a number of questions with regards to the legitimacy of action and the democratic deficit of the global climate regime. Balancing legitimacy with effectiveness requires non-state initiatives to ensure transparent and inclusive governance, and accountability towards progress against their goals and pledges.
Despite its encouragement towards private initiatives, the Paris Agreement creates surprisingly little regulatory space for non-state actors to gain hold. Neither are there measures that would link ndcs to nazca initiatives, nor are functional requirements such as transparency or reporting extended to non-state initiatives. While the Paris Agreement marks an important step towards harnessing private sector ability and ambition for climate action, more remains to be done to create a truly enabling framework for private action to strive and complement public efforts to address climate change.
International institutions are an essential driving force of contemporary policies to combat gender-based violence but remain toothless if political actors do not implement them in domestic policies. How can scholars conceptualise the transposition of international gender-based violence norms into domestic policies? I argue that discourse network analysis provides a powerful conceptual and methodological extension of critical frame analysis to understand how frames shape the meaning of gender-based violence norms in multi-level institutional contexts. Frames’ normative and cognitive network structure invites combining discourse network and frame analysis techniques that locate frames’ power in their ability to connect different institutional spheres temporally and spatially. I outline a multi-level research agenda that traces the framing processes of international norms and their domestic implementation through gender-based violence policies in the Council of Europe’s Istanbul Convention. This agenda includes avenues to study how complex transnational policy frameworks like the Istanbul Convention play out in domestic policy implementation.
Foreword
(2018)
During COVID-19, various public institutions tried to shape citizens’ behaviour to slow the spread of the pandemic. How did their authority affect citizens’ support of public measures taken to combat the spread of COVID-19? The article makes two contributions. First, it presents a novel conceptualisation of authority as a source heuristic. Second, it analyses the authority of four types of public institutions (health ministries, universities, public health agencies, the WHO) in two countries (Germany and the UK), drawing on novel data from a survey experiment conducted in May 2020. On average, institutional endorsements seem to have mattered little. However, there is an observable polarisation effect where citizens who ascribe much expertise to public institutions support COVID-19 measures more than the control group. Furthermore, those who ascribe little expertise support them less than the control group. Finally, neither perception of biases nor exposure to institutions in public debates seems consistently to affect their authority.