320 Politikwissenschaft
Refine
Year of publication
Document Type
- Article (104)
- Part of a Book (34)
- Other (14)
- Monograph/Edited Volume (12)
- Doctoral Thesis (9)
- Review (4)
- Working Paper (3)
- Postprint (2)
Language
- English (182) (remove)
Is part of the Bibliography
- yes (182)
Keywords
- Germany (8)
- Security Council (5)
- World Bank (5)
- decision-making (5)
- discourse (4)
- governance (4)
- international organisations (4)
- Integration (3)
- bicameralism (3)
- civil war (3)
Institute
- Fachgruppe Politik- & Verwaltungswissenschaft (182) (remove)
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.
When are international organizations (IOs) responsive to the policy problems that motivated their establishment? While it is a conventional assumption that IOs exist to address transnational challenges, the question of whether and when IO policy-making is responsive to shifts in underlying problems has not been systematically explored. This study investigates the responsiveness of IOs from a large-n, comparative approach. Theoretically, we develop three alternative models of IO responsiveness, emphasizing severeness, dependence, and power differentials. Empirically, we focus on the domain of security, examining the responsiveness of eight multi-issue IOs to armed conflict between 1980 and 2015, using a novel and expansive dataset on IO policy decisions. Our findings suggest, first, that IOs are responsive to security problems and, second, that responsiveness is not primarily driven by dependence or power differentials but by problem severity. An in-depth study of the responsiveness of the UN Security Council using more granular data confirms these findings. As the first comparative study of whether and when IO policy adapts to problem severity, the article has implications for debates about IO responsiveness, performance, and legitimacy.
The limitations and possibilities of the state in solving societal problems are perennial issues in the political and policy sciences and increasingly so in studies of environmental politics. With the aim of better understanding the role of the state in addressing environmental degradation through policy making, this article investigates the nexus between the environmental policy outputs and the environmental performance. Drawing on three theoretical perspectives on the state and market nexus in the environmental dilemma, we identify five distinct pathways. We then examine the extent to which these pathways are manifested in the real world. Our empirical investigation covers up to 37 countries for the period 1970–2010. While we see no global pattern of linkages between policy outputs and performance, our exploratory analysis finds evidence of policy effects, which suggest that the state can, under certain circumstances, improve the environment through policy making.
The planetary commons
(2024)
The Anthropocene signifies the start of a no- analogue trajectory of the Earth system that is fundamentally different from the Holocene. This new trajectory is characterized by rising risks of triggering irreversible and unmanageable shifts in Earth system functioning. We urgently need a new global approach to safeguard critical Earth system regulating functions more effectively and comprehensively. The global commons framework is the closest example of an existing approach with the aim of governing biophysical systems on Earth upon which the world collectively depends. Derived during stable Holocene conditions, the global commons framework must now evolve in the light of new Anthropocene dynamics. This requires a fundamental shift from a focus only on governing shared resources beyond national jurisdiction, to one that secures critical functions of the Earth system irrespective of national boundaries. We propose a new framework—the planetary commons—which differs from the global commons framework by including not only globally shared geographic regions but also critical biophysical systems that regulate the resilience and state, and therefore livability, on Earth. The new planetary commons should articulate and create comprehensive stewardship obligations through Earth system governance aimed at restoring and strengthening planetary resilience and justice.
Within the context of United Nations (UN) environmental institutions, it has become apparent that intergovernmental responses alone have been insufficient for dealing with pressing transboundary environmental problems. Diverging economic and political interests, as well as broader changes in power dynamics and norms within global (environmental) governance, have resulted in negotiation and implementation efforts by UN member states becoming stuck in institutional gridlock and inertia. These developments have sparked a renewed debate among scholars and practitioners about an imminent crisis of multilateralism, accompanied by calls for reforming UN environmental institutions. However, with the rise of transnational actors and institutions, states are not the only relevant actors in global environmental governance. In fact, the fragmented architectures of different policy domains are populated by a hybrid mix of state and non-state actors, as well as intergovernmental and transnational institutions. Therefore, coping with the complex challenges posed by severe and ecologically interdependent transboundary environmental problems requires global cooperation and careful management from actors beyond national governments.
This thesis investigates the interactions of three intergovernmental UN treaty secretariats in global environmental governance. These are the secretariats of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. While previous research has acknowledged the increasing autonomy and influence of treaty secretariats in global policy-making, little attention has been paid to their strategic interactions with non-state actors, such as non-governmental organizations, civil society actors, businesses, and transnational institutions and networks, or their coordination with other UN agencies. Through qualitative case-study research, this thesis explores the means and mechanisms of these interactions and investigates their consequences for enhancing the effectiveness and coherence of institutional responses to underlying and interdependent environmental issues.
Following a new institutionalist ontology, the conceptual and theoretical framework of this study draws on global governance research, regime theory, and scholarship on international bureaucracies. From an actor-centered perspective on institutional interplay, the thesis employs concepts such as orchestration and interplay management to assess the interactions of and among treaty secretariats. The research methodology involves structured, focused comparison, and process-tracing techniques to analyze empirical data from diverse sources, including official documents, various secondary materials, semi-structured interviews with secretariat staff and policymakers, and observations at intergovernmental conferences.
The main findings of this research demonstrate that secretariats employ tailored orchestration styles to manage or bypass national governments, thereby raising global ambition levels for addressing transboundary environmental problems. Additionally, they engage in joint interplay management to facilitate information sharing, strategize activities, and mobilize relevant actors, thereby improving coherence across UN environmental institutions. Treaty secretariats play a substantial role in influencing discourses and knowledge exchange with a wide range of actors. However, they face barriers, such as limited resources, mandates, varying leadership priorities, and degrees of politicization within institutional processes, which may hinder their impact. Nevertheless, the secretariats, together with non-state actors, have made progress in advancing norm-building processes, integrated policy-making, capacity building, and implementation efforts within and across framework conventions. Moreover, they utilize innovative means of coordination with actors beyond national governments, such as data-driven governance, to provide policy-relevant information for achieving overarching governance targets.
Importantly, this research highlights the growing interactions between treaty secretariats and non-state actors, which not only shape policy outcomes but also have broader implications for the polity and politics of international institutions. The findings offer opportunities for rethinking collective agency and actor dynamics within UN entities, addressing gaps in institutionalist theory concerning the interaction of actors in inter-institutional spaces. Furthermore, the study addresses emerging challenges and trends in global environmental governance that are pertinent to future policy-making. These include reflections for the debate on reforming international institutions, the role of emerging powers in a changing international world order, and the convergence of public and private authority through new alliance-building and a division of labor between international bureaucracies and non-state actors in global environmental governance.
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.
Conclusion
(2023)
Based on the previous findings in this book, Chapter 18 by Heike Krieger and Andrea Liese discusses the general dynamics of change or metamorphosis in the international legal order. They discern a mixed picture of an international order between metamorphosis—that is, a more fundamental transformation—of international law, norm change, turbulences, and robustness. They explain drivers of change and highlight factors such as national interests during the war on terror, changing long-term foreign policy beliefs, and the rise in populism and autocracy, before discussing the most common strategies the actors involved use. Other relevant factors include changes in the political environment, such as shocks and power shifts or the ambiguous role of fragmentation. Moreover, they identify factors that make legal norms robust, including the vital role of norm defenders and legal and institutional structures as stabilizing elements. Krieger and Liese conclude by cautioning that if the attacks on the international order continue at the current frequency and magnitude, a metamorphosis of international law will likely be unstoppable.
International law is constantly navigating the tension between preserving the status quo and adapting to new exigencies. But when and how do such adaptation processes give way to a more profound transformation, if not a crisis of international law? To address the question of how attacks on the international legal order are changing the value orientation of international law, this book brings together scholars of international law and international relations. By combining theoretical and methodological analyses with individual case studies, this book offers readers conceptualizations and tools to systematically examine value change and explore the drivers and mechanisms of these processes. These case studies scrutinize value change in the foundational norms of the post-1945 order and in norms representing the rise of the international legal order post-1990. They cover diverse issues: the prohibition of torture, the protection of women’s rights, the prohibition of the use of force, the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, sustainability norms, and accountability for core international crimes. The challenges to each norm, the reactions by norm defenders, and the fate of each norm are also studied. Combined, the analyses show that while a few norms have remained surprisingly robust, several are changing, either in substance or in legal or social validity. The book concludes by integrating the conceptual and empirical insights from this interdisciplinary exchange to assess and explain the ambiguous nature of value change in international law beyond the extremes of mere progress or decline.
Activating norm collisions
(2020)
This article puts forward a constructivist-interpretivist approach to interface conflicts that emphasises how international actors articulate and problematise norm collisions in discursive and social interactions. Our approach is decidedly agency-oriented and follows the Special Issue’s interest in how interface conflicts play out at the micro-level. The article advances several theoretical and methodological propositions on how to identify norm collisions and the conditions under which they become the subject of international debate. Our argument on norm collisions, understood as situations in which actors perceive two norms as incompatible with each other, is threefold. First, we claim that agency matters to the analysis of the emergence, dynamics, management, and effects of norm collisions in international politics. Second, we propose to differentiate between dormant (subjectively perceived) and open norm collisions (intersubjectively shared). Third, we contend that the transition from dormant to open – which we term activation – depends on the existence of certain scope conditions concerning norm quality as well as changes in power structures and actor constellations. Empirically, we study norm collisions in the area of international drug control, presenting the field as one that contains several cases of dormant and open norm collisions, including those that constitute interface conflicts. For our in-depth analysis we have chosen the international discourse on coca leaf chewing. With this case, we not only seek to demonstrate the usefulness of our constructivist-interpretivist approach but also aim to explain under which conditions dormant norm collisions evolve into open collisions and even into interface conflicts.
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 study of subnational and local government systems and reforms has become an increasingly salient topic in comparative public administration. In many European countries, policy implementation, the execution of public tasks and the delivery of services to citizens are largely carried out by local governments, which, at the same time, have been subjected to multiple reforms and sometimes comprehensive institutional re-organizations. This chapter discusses analytical key concepts and outcomes of the comparative study of local governments and local government reforms. It outlines frameworks and analytical tools to capture the variety of institutional settings and developments at the local level of government. It provides an introduction into crucial comparative dimensions, such as functional, territorial and political profiles of local governments, and analyses current reform approaches and outcomes based on recent empirical findings. Finally, the chapter addresses salient issues to be taken up in future comparative studies about local government.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Administrative reforms refer to conscious decisions about institution building and institutional change that are taken at the end of political processes and can be conceived as the attempt by politico-administrative actors to change the institutional order (polity) within which they make and implement decisions. In this paper we proceed from the assumption that the role of politics, the constellation of political actors and arenas vary according to the scope and objectives of administrative reforms. Depending on whether they refer to changes between organizational units/levels/sectors ('external institutional policy') or to an internal reorganization ('internal institutional policy'), different actor strategies, patterns of conflict and power constellations can be expected. As external administrative reforms are aimed at changing functional and/or territorial jurisdictions and thus always involve external actors, larger resistance, heavier political conflicts and generally more politicization are likely to occur than in the case of internal administrative reforms. Yet, for internal reforms, too, actor coalitions which support or block institutional changes, promotors, leaders, and moderators have revealed to shape processes and outcomes. Against this background, this chapter examines the influence of politics on various types of administrative reforms making a distinction between external and internal institutional policies. We analyse the role of politico-administrative actors, their strategies and influence on the formulation, trajectories and outcomes of administrative reforms. Our major focus will be on reforms in the multi-level system on the one hand and on (Post-) NPM reforms on the other as two major international trends. Drawing on reform experiences in different European countries, the chapter will reveal to what extent actors' interests and influences have triggered and shaped administrative reforms and which difference these have made for the reform outcome.
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.
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.
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.
The reorganization of governments is crucial for parties to express their policy preferences once they reach office. Yet these activities are not confined to the direct aftermath of general elections or to wide-ranging structural reforms. Instead, governments reorganize and adjust their machinery of government all the time. This paper aims to assess these structural choices with a particular focus at the core of the state, comparing four Western European democracies (Germany, France, the Netherlands, and United Kingdom) from 1980 to 2013. Our empirical analysis shows that stronger shifts in cabinets' ideological profiles in the short- and long-term as well as the units' proximity to political executives yield significant effects. In contrast, Conservative governments, commonly regarded as key promoters of reorganizing governments, are not significant for the likelihood of structural change. We discuss the effects of this politics of government reorganization for different research debates assessing the inner workings of governments.