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Clubs of autocrats
(2021)
While scholars have argued that membership in Regional Organizations (ROs) can increase the likelihood of democratization, we see many autocratic regimes surviving in power albeit being members of several ROs. This article argues that this is the case because these regimes are often members in "Clubs of Autocrats" that supply material and ideational resources to strengthen domestic survival politics and shield members from external interference during moments of political turmoil. The argument is supported by survival analysis testing the effect of membership in autocratic ROs on regime survival between 1946 to 2010. It finds that membership in ROs composed of more autocratic member states does in fact raise the likelihood of regime survival by protecting incumbents against democratic challenges such as civil unrest or political dissent. However, autocratic RO membership does not help to prevent regime breakdown due to autocratic challenges like military coups, potentially because these types of threats are less likely to diffuse to other member states. The article thereby adds to our understanding of the limits of democratization and potential reverse effects of international cooperation, and contributes to the literature addressing interdependences of international and domestic politics in autocratic regimes.
The German system of public sector employment (including civil servants and public employees) qualifies as a classical European continental civil service model moulded in traditional forms of a Weberian bureaucracy. Its features include a career-based employment system with entry based on levels of formal qualification. Coordinated by legal frames and centralised collective bargaining, the civil service is, at the same time, decentralised and flexible enough to accommodate regional differences and societal changes. In comparison, the civil service system stands out for its high degrees of professionalism and legal fairness with low levels of corruption or cronyism.
Chinas neuer langer Marsch
(2021)
China und Humboldt
(2022)
Vor 50 Jahren nahmen China und Deutschland diplomatische Beziehungen auf. Das ist der Anlass für diesen Sammelband. Er umfasst chinesische und deutsche Autoren und gibt dem deutschen Publikum profunde Einblicke in die aktuellen Entwicklungen in China und die chinesische Diplomatie auf den verschiedenen Feldern der Weltpolitik. Sie vermitteln chinesische Weltsichten, die hierzulande wahrgenommen und respektiert werden sollten. In einer Zeit, in der auch das Verhältnis zwischen China und Deutschland schwieriger ist, ist es wichtig, offen für das Andere zu sein.
Chile und die DDR
(2019)
Challenges, triggers and initiators of climate policies and implications for policy formulation
(2020)
Christoph Sebastian Widdau leistet mit seinem Buch einen innovativen Beitrag zur Cassirer-Forschung, zu den Leibniz-Studien und zur Begründung der Menschenrechte. Er wirft ein ideengeschichtlich und philosophisch neues Licht auf die 'Natur' im Naturrecht, die kulturelle Bedeutung des Individuums und den Pluralismus politischer Ordnungen. Mit 'Cassirers Leibniz' zeigt Widdau auf, dass Menschenrechte kein beliebiger Zusatz zur Kultur, sondern vielmehr kulturkonstitutiv sind.
Several scholars concerned with global policy-making have recently pointed to a reconfiguration of authority in the area of climate politics. They have shown that various new carbon governance arrangements have emerged, which operate simultaneously at different governmental levels. However, despite the numerous descriptions and mapping exercises of these governance arrangements, we have little systematic knowledge on their workings within national jurisdictions, let alone about their impact on public-administrative systems in developing countries. Therefore, this article opens the black box of the nation-state and explores how and to what extent two different arrangements, that is, Transnational City Networks and Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, generate changes in the distribution of public authority in nation-states and their administrations. Building upon conceptual assumptions that the former is likely to lead to more decentralized, and the latter to more centralized policy-making, we provide insights from case studies in Indonesia, South Africa, Brazil, and India. In a nutshell, our analysis underscores that Transnational City Networks strengthen climate-related actions taken by cities without ultimately decentralizing climate policy-making. On the other hand, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation tends to reinforce the competencies of central governments, but apparently does not generate a recentralization of the forestry sector at large.
The legitimacy and effectiveness of international organizations are often linked directly to issues of representation—not only on their high-level governing boards and in top leadership but also within their staff. This article explores two key questions of bureaucratic representation in the critical cases of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. First, we seek to unpack three essential dimensions of staff representation—nationality, education, and gender—to explain how representation may matter for international organizations. Second, we aim to describe the multiple dimensions of representation in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank over the past twenty years by deploying a novel dataset on staff demographics, focusing on ranks with decision-making authority within the institutions. Our descriptive analysis reveals that the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have made considerable efforts to diversify their bureaucracies. Nonetheless, representation remains uneven; for example, nationals from middle- and low-income countries, women, and staff without economics degrees from prominent US- or UK-based universities are less present in key leadership positions. These results may be well explained by the particular needs of the institutions’ technical mandates and limits in the supply of qualified staff and, as such, need not be seen as suboptimal. Nonetheless, perceived imbalances in representation may continue to pose external legitimation and operational challenges to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in a complex political environment where such multidimensional representation is important to sustaining the buy-in of donor and borrower countries alike. To this end, we recommend that the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank enhance their diversity and inclusion efforts by increasing transparency via reporting disaggregated data on workforce composition and introducing annual requirements to publish progress reports with management feedback to strengthen internal and external accountability.
Bundesrechnungshof
(2021)
Der Bundesrechnungshof schaut mittlerweile auf eine über 300 jährige Geschichte der Finanzkontrolle zurück (vgl. Engels 2014). Auch wenn Aufgaben und Organisation damaliger Rechenkammern bestenfalls rudimentär mit den Einrichtungen moderner Finanzkontrolle vergleichbar sind, so legten sie doch einst deren Grundstein. Heute ist der Bundesrechnungshof eine oberste Bundesbehörde und prüft laut Artikel 114 Abs. 2 GG die „Rechnung sowie die Wirtschaftlichkeit und Ordnungsmäßigkeit der Haushalts- und Wirtschaftsführung des Bundes.“ Weitere Regelungen für den Bundesrechnungshof finden sich in der Bundeshaushaltsordnung (BHO, hier Teil V Rechnungsprüfung bis Teil VIII Entlastung, §§ 88 bis 114) und im Bundesrechnungshofgesetz (BRHG vom 11.07.1985, mit letzter Änderung vom 05.02.2009).
Briefe aus ... Sansibar
(2017)
Brasilien in den BRICS
(2023)
Bolschewismus von rechts
(2017)
Bleibt alles beim Alten?
(2017)
Birds of a feather?
(2020)
The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank ascribe to impartiality in their mandates. At the same time, scholarship indicates that their decisions are disproportionately influenced by powerful member states. Impartiality is seen as crucial in determining International Organizations' (IOs) effectiveness and legitimacy in the literature. However, we know little about whether key interlocutors in national governments perceive the International Financial Institutions as biased actors who do the bidding for powerful member states or as impartial executors of policy. In order to better understand these perceptions, we surveyed high-level civil servants who are chiefly responsible for four policy areas from more than 100 countries. We found substantial variations in impartiality perceptions. What explains these variations? By developing an argument of selective awareness, we extend rationalist and ideational perspectives on IO impartiality to explain domestic perceptions. Using novel survey data, we test whether staffing underrepresentation, voting underrepresentation, alignment to the major shareholders and overlapping economic policy paradigms are associated with impartiality perceptions. We find substantial evidence that shared economic policy paradigms influence impartiality perceptions. The findings imply that by diversifying their ideational culture, IOs can increase the likelihood that domestic stakeholders view them as impartial.
In a democracy, a constitutional separation of powers between the executive and the assembly may be desirable, but the constitutional concentration of executive power in a single human being is not. The book defends this thesis and explores ‘semi-parliamentary government’ as an alternative to presidential government. Semi-parliamentarism avoids power concentration in one person by shifting the separation of powers into the democratic assembly. The executive becomes fused with only one part of the assembly, even though the other part has at least equal democratic legitimacy and robust veto power on ordinary legislation. The book identifies the Australian Commonwealth and Japan, as well as the Australian states of New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, and Western Australia, as semi-parliamentary systems. Using data from 23 countries and 6 Australian states, it maps how parliamentary and semi-parliamentary systems balance competing visions of democracy; it analyzes patterns of electoral and party systems, cabinet formation, legislative coalition-building, and constitutional reforms; it systematically compares the semi-parliamentary and presidential separation of powers; and it develops new and innovative semi-parliamentary designs, some of which do not require two separate chambers.
Beyond CO2 equivalence
(2022)
In this article we review the physical and chemical properties of methane (CH4) relevant to impacts on climate, ecosystems, and air pollution, and examine the extent to which this is reflected in climate and air pollution governance. Although CH4 is governed under the UNFCCC climate regime, its treatment there is limited to the ways in which it acts as a "CO2 equivalent" climate forcer on a 100-year time frame. The UNFCCC framework neglects the impacts that CH4 has on near-term climate, as well its impacts on human health and ecosystems, which are primarily mediated by methane's role as a precursor to tropospheric ozone. Frameworks for air quality governance generally address tropospheric ozone as a pollutant, but do not regulate CH4 itself. Methane's climate and air quality impacts, together with its alarming rise in atmospheric concentrations in recent years, make it clear that mitigation of CH4 emissions needs to be accelerated globally. We examine challenges and opportunities for further progress on CH4 mitigation within the international governance landscapes for climate change and air pollution.
Der Beitrag befasst sich mit der Frage, ob und inwieweit es bei der Insolvenz von Reiseveranstaltern eine Begrenzung der Insolvenzabsicherungspflicht geben sollte – eine Problematik, die sich durch die Insolvenz von Thomas Cook zuletzt deutlich verschärft hat und die im Zuge der „Coronakrise“ erneut virulent geraten könnte. Die Verfasser argumentieren vor dem Hintergrund der Richtlinienwidrigkeit der deutschen lex lata für eine ersatzlose Streichung der Haftungshöchstsumme.
Berufswelt
(2022)
Behemoth und Doppelstaat
(2011)
Wer bildete das Herrschaftszentrum im Deutschland der Jahre 1933 bis 1945? Welche Gruppen stabilisierten das System bis zur Niederlage im Zweiten Weltkrieg? Ernst Fraenkels "Der Doppelstaat" und Franz Neumanns "Behemoth" gelten als wegweisende analytische Zugänge zum Verständnis der nationalsozialistischen Herrschaftspraxis. Beide Bücher sind bereits Anfang der 1940er Jahre erschienen. Es sind Klassiker: also Bücher, mit denen noch heute etwas anzufangen ist. Der kompakte Lehrtext ist insbesondere für den studentischen Haus- und Seminargebrauch verfasst worden. Er ist eine Handreichung für Einsteiger und Studierende aller Semester, die sich erstmals mit den schwierigen Texten beschäftigen
Befreiung oder Gewalt?
(2017)
Seit Jahren steigen Politikverdrossenheit und die Zahl der Menschen an, die sich von der Gesellschaft exkludiert fühlen. Können Basisaktivierung durch Quartiersmanagement und Community Organizing diesen Trends entgegenwirken? Fördert die Ermöglichung der gesellschaftlichen Teilhabe von benachteiligten Bevölkerungsgruppen die Sozialkapitalbildung im Sinne Putnams? Um diese Fragen zu beantworten, wurden die vorhandene Literatur analysiert und zahlreiche Experteninterviews geführt.
Balancing the Moods
(2018)
Quality management (QM) has spread around the world and reached higher education in Europe in the early 1990s (Mendel, 2006, 137; Kernegger and Vettori, 2013, 1). However, researchers were rather more interested in national quality assurance policies (macro-level) and accreditation systems (meso-level) than in intra-organizational perspectives about the day-to-day implementation of quality assurance policies by various actors (micro-level). Undoubtedly, organizational change is a challenging endeavor for all kinds of groups. On the one hand, it provides the opportunity of further development and innovation, but on the other hand, it exposes organizations and actors to the risk of losing established structures and accepted routines.
Like in many other organizations, actors may not necessarily perceive change as a promoter of innovation and development. Instead, they may consider change as a threat to the existing status quo or, as March points out, as an “interplay between rationality and foolishness” (March, 1981, 563). Consequently, change provokes either affective or behavioral actions (Armenakis and Bedeian, 1999, 308–310), such as, for example, resistance. Anderson (2006, 2008) and Lucas (2014) have shown, for example, that academic resistance is an important issue. However, Piderit characterizes resistance as a multidimensional construct (Piderit, 2000, 786–787) subject to a wide variety of issues related to quality and QM. Although QM has been described as a “fashion” (Stensaker, 2007, 101) in the higher education sector that provokes many different reactions, its implementation in higher education institutions (HEIs) is still a rather unexplored field. Thus, the evidence provided by Anderson (2006, 2008) and others (Newton, 2000, 2002; McInnis et al., 1995; Fredman and Doughney, 2012; Lucas, 2014; etc.) needs to be expanded, because they only consider the perspective of academia. In particular, the view of other actors during the implementation of quality assurance policies is a missing piece in this empirical puzzle. Nearly nothing is known about how quality managers deal with reactions to organizational change like resistance and obstruction. Until now, only a few studies have focused on intra-organizational dynamics (see, for example: Csizmadia et al., 2008; Lipnicka, 2016).
Besides the lack of research on the implementation of quality assurance policies in HEIs, quality managers seem to be an interesting subject for further investigations because they are “endogenous” to institutional processes. On the one hand, quality managers are the result of quality assurance policies, and on the other hand, they influence the implementation of quality assurance policies, which affect other actors (like academics, administrative staff, etc.). Here, quality managers, as members of an emerging higher education profession, are involved in various conflict lines between QM, HEI management and departments, which need further research (Seyfried and Pohlenz, 2018, 9).
Therefore, the aim of our paper is twofold: firstly, to answer the question of how quality managers perceive resistance, and secondly, which measures they take in situations of perceived resistance. We offer a new research perspective and argue that resistance is not merely provoked by organizational change; it also provokes counter-reactions by actors who are confronted with resistance. Thus, resistance seems to be rather endogenous.
To theorize our argument, we apply parts of the work of Christine Oliver (1991), which provides theoretical insights into strategic responses to institutional processes, ranging from acquiescence to manipulation (Oliver, 1991, 152). We, therefore, investigate the introduction of QM in teaching and learning, and the emergence of quality managers as higher education professionals as one of the results of quality assurance policies. Consequently, the introduction of QM may be considered as an institutional process provoking reactions and counter-reactions of various organizational units within HEIs. These circumstances are constitutive for how quality managers deal with resistance and other reactions toward organizational change. We use this theoretical framework to analyze the German higher education sector, because this particular case can be considered as a latecomer in New Public Management reforms (Schimank, 2005, 369) and Germany is a country where academic self-governance plays a very important role, and strongly influences academics’ behavior when it comes to organizational change (Wolter, 2004).
Our empirical results are based on a mixed-methods research design and integrate half-structured interviews and a nationwide survey at the central level in German HEIs, which excludes faculty members of QM (decentral level). They reveal that quality managers take different types of action when resistance occurs during the implementation of quality assurance policies. Furthermore, quality managers mainly react with different tactics. These tactics seem to be relevant for convincing academics and for the enhancement of their commitment to improve the quality of teaching and learning, instead of provoking further resistance or avoidance practices.
This article proceeds as follows: the next sections describe the context and explain our main theoretical concepts referring to the work of Oliver (1991) and others. After that, we present our case selection and the methodological framework, including the data sources and the operationalization of selected variables. Finally, we provide our empirical results about quality managers’ perceptions on resistance and we draw conclusions.
Der Beitrag setzt sich würdigend und kritisch mit Michael Zürns Arbeiten zur internationalen Autorität auseinander. Dessen potenziell autoritatives Autoritätskonzept weist mehrere Vorzüge auf: Erstens bietet es eine Erklärung für ein Paradox. Warum sollten souveräne Staaten die Kompetenz Externer anerkennen, ihnen Ratschläge zu geben bzw. Forderungen an sie zu richten, und zudem noch bereit sein, diesen zu folgen? Zweitens konkretisiert es die u.a. bei Hannah Arendt angelegte Idee der fraglosen Anerkennung, indem es Autoritätsadressaten zugesteht, bestimmte Qualitäten der Autorität zu prüfen. Drittens entkoppelt es Legitimität und Autorität, ohne die Legitimationsbedürftigkeit von Autorität zu opfern. Dies anerkennend plädiert der Beitrag aber dafür, die Legitimationsbedürftigkeit internationaler Autorität nicht auf formal institutionalisierte Beziehungen zu reduzieren, sondern diese auch weiterhin auf informellere, d.h. der Praxis entstammende, Anerkennung und Folgebereitschaft innerhalb von Autoritätsbeziehungen zu beziehen. Die überzeugende begründungstheoretische Fundierung von Autorität sollte zudem nicht dazu verführen, Sozialisationsprozesse in Autoritätsbeziehungen zu übersehen, zumal deren Legitimität kritisch hinterfragbar ist.
Aufgrund ihrer Vielfalt fällt es schwer, autoritäre Systeme einheitlich zu definieren. In den Beiträgen werden die Unterschiede dieser auf fast allen Kontinenten vorkommenden Regierungsform untersucht. Dazu werden insbesondere ihre Entstehung und soziale Einflüsse wie Kultur und Militär beleuchtet. Von Kuba, nach Weißrussland, Iran und Somalia kann der Leser somit das Phänomen autoritärer Herrschaft und dessen Einflussgrößen nachvollziehen. Das Fehlen einer einheitlichen Definition stellt sich somit nicht als Mangel, sondern als Zugeständnis an die Realität heraus.
Autoritarismus Global
(2012)
Autoritarismus global: Entgegen vieler Erwartungen der Politikwissenschaft und des gehobenen Feuilletons aus den frühen 1990er Jahren scheint sich der autoritäre Regimetyp durchzusetzen. Antworten, die politische Regime auf alte und neue Herausforderungen geben, sind immer weniger demokratischer und immer mehr autoritärer Natur. Wir analysieren diesen WeltTrend: von Lateinamerika und Ostasien über Russland und den Nahen Osten bis in die Mitte Europas.
Gibt es einen Zusammenhang zwischen dem sozialen Entwicklungsstand einer Autokratie und ihrem Legitimationsanspruch? Dieser Frage geht der Beitrag am Beispiel der Säuglingssterblichkeit nach. Unter Berücksichtigung von 321 Autokratien aus 120 Ländern im Zeitraum von 1960 bis 2010 zeigen sich Unterschiede in der sozialen Entwicklung zwischen sechs Autokratietypen mit verschiedenen Legitimationsstrategien: elektorale Autokratien, kommunistische Ideokratien, Monarchien, Einparteiautokratien, Militärautokratien und personalistische Autokratien. Insbesondere, dass kommunistische Ideokratien im Vergleich besser abschneiden als (nicht-ideokratische) Einparteiautokratien, spricht dafür, dass sich die Art der Legitimationsstrategie auf die soziale Entwicklung auswirkt. Allerdings sollte der Einfluss von Legitimationsstrategien auf die soziale Entwicklung nicht überschätzt werden, vor allem da sich die Ergebnisse im Rahmen eines Wachstumskurvenmodells als vorläufig erweisen.
The article analyses the type of bicameralism we find in Australia as a distinct executive-legislative system – a hybrid between parliamentary and presidential government – which we call ‘semi-parliamentary government’. We argue that this hybrid presents an important and underappreciated alternative to pure parliamentary government as well as presidential forms of the power-separation, and that it can achieve a certain balance between competing models or visions of democracy. We specify theoretically how the semi-parliamentary separation of powers contributes to the balancing of democratic visions and propose a conceptual framework for comparing democratic visions. We use this framework to locate the Australian Commonwealth, all Australian states and 22 advanced democratic nation-states on a two-dimensional empirical map of democratic patterns for the period from 1995 to 2015.
AUKUS und die strukturellen Veränderungen der sicherheitspolitischen Lage im indo-pazifischen Raum
(2022)
The Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) allows developed countries to meet part of their obligational emission reductions by carrying out emission reduction projects in developing countries. China imposed a price floor to the CDM carbon credits produced in China through its price review policy. Scholars have not agreed on the purpose of China’s price review policy. With a theoretical model and a coherent empirical study, the present study shows that the price floor imposed by China’s price review is more likely to protect those domestic project owners against price discrimination, rather than to distort the CDM market. Nevertheless, China’s price review has its own flaws. Although a regression study shows month of approval, types of projects and location of project can explain 55% of price floor designation, the operation of price review remains quite random and unpredictable in individual cases. This would bring extra bureaucratically uncertainty on its way to curb market uncertainty. Its function can be fulfilled by alternative policy tools with better economic efficiency and legal legitimacy, such as mandatory price disclosure and trading forum, which doesn’t have such drawback, but still be able to alleviate possible price discrimination in individual cases.
Many international organisations (IOs) are currently challenged, yet are they also in decline? Despite much debate on the crisis of liberal international order, con-testation, loss of legitimacy, gridlock, pathologies and exiting member states, there is little research on IO decline. This article seeks to clarify this concept and argues that decline can be considered in absolute and relative terms. Absolute decline involves a decrease in the number of IOs and their authority, member-ship and output, whereas relative decline concerns a decrease in the centrality of IOs in international relations. Reviewing a wide range of indicators, this article argues that, whereas there is limited decline in absolute terms since 1945, there may well be important decline in relative terms. Relative decline is more difficult to measure, but to probe its significance this article presents data from speeches during the United Nations General Assembly General Debate. It shows that IOs were most often mentioned in 1996 and that there has been a decline since. These findings indicate that, whereas IOs might survive as institutions, they are decreasingly central to international relations.
Aporien des Rechts
(2021)
Antisemitismus
(2023)
Ist Antisemitismus ein Rassismus, der sich gegen Jüdinnen und Juden richtet? Nein, er ist ein eigenständiges Phänomen, zu dessen Besonderheiten gehört, dass er häufig mit einem System der Weltverschwörung verknüpft wird. Doch es gibt rassistischen Antisemitismus. Auch die Shoah basierte auf einer rassistischen Einteilung von Menschen.