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Das westphälische Modell für Staatsinstitutionen, einschließlich nationaler Exekutive, Legislative und Judikative, hat sich aus den Ereignissen europäischer Geschichte heraus entwickelt. Seit dem Ende des Kalten Krieges dient es als grundlegendes Paradigma für Internationale Interventionen zum Wiederaufbau von gescheiterten - oder zum Aufbau von neuen - Staaten. Für die internationale Gemeinschaft fungiert das westphälische Modell als Maß zur Beurteilung ihrer Interventionen, wie zum Beispiel in Somalia, Kambodscha oder den Balkanstaaten. In den meisten Fällen gilt eine durch sie beaufsichtigte oder gar durchgeführte ‚freie und faire’ Wahl als hauptsächliche Massnahme zur Bildung eines ‚westphälischen’ und demokratischen Staates. Die Erfolgsrate solcher internationalen Friedenseinsätze und ‚state-building operations’ ist jedoch enttäuschend. Bei näherer Betrachtung der Misserfolge des letzten Jahrzehnts wird deutlich, daß sich die lokalen Gesellschaftssysteme der betroffenen Bevölkerungen oft beträchtlich von liberaler Demokratie unterscheiden. Dies ist insbesondere der Fall in Gesellschaften deren Ordnung nicht auf Staatsinstiutionen basiert. Ihnen liegen sozio-politische Systeme zugrunde die sich oft mit dem Paradigma des westlichen Staatssystems nur schwer vereinen lassen. Um im Rahmen internationaler Friedenseinsätze erfolgreich Staatstrukturen zu etablieren, ist es daher notwendig lokale Sozialstrukturen und lokale Konzepte politischer Legitimität und Autorität zu addressieren. Erst mit solchem Verständnis ist es möglich einen Staatsapparat in den Augen der Bevölkerung zu legitimieren. Ist Letzteres nicht der Fall, so kann sich eine Regierung zwar in Übereinstimmung mit internationalen Menschenrechten befinden, oder alle wichtigen demokratischen Einrichtungen vorweisen, jedoch dennoch dem Prinzip der Partizipation durch die Bevölkerung widersprechen. Ist dies das Endresultat eines internationalen Friedenseinsatzes, so hat die internationale Gemeinschaft ihre eigenen Werte bestaetigt. Jedoch herrscht kein Vertrauen zwischen der Bevölkerung und Regierung, da letztere nicht kompatibel mit dem Versaendnis der Bürger ist. Der ‚demokratische’ Staat ist nur schwerlich funktionsfähig.Der internationale Einsatz in Osttimor illustriert dieses Problem. Hier wurden die Vereinten Nationen (VN) mit dem Wiederaufbau und der Verwaltung eines Staates betraut (UNTAET ‚Übergangsregierung der Vereinten Nationen in Osttimor’). Zum ersten mal in der Geschichte übernahm die international Gemeinschaft damit die Souveränität über ein territoriales Gebiet...
The Russian invasion of Ukraine illustrates the increasingly judicialized nature of international relations and geopolitics. By viewing aspects of the invasion as illegal – in particular through the identification of war crimes and crimes against humanity – the international response draws attention to the political geographies of international criminal investigation. Human rights groups, academics, journalists, and open-source forensic investigations have joined forces to collect, evaluate and analyze the violent nature of war crimes. While similar shifts in evidence gathering have been observed in the case of the Bosnia-Herzegovina war and the Assad regime's violence against Syrian citizens, the use of evidence-gathering technologies and evidence-securing institutions in the case of Ukraine is distinctive. In this scholarly intervention we seek to illustrate the intimate geopolitics of evidence gathering by zooming in on two different elements that shape evidential procedures in Ukraine: i) the blurring of civilian/military boundaries; and ii) the challenges of access. By evaluating what is new and what is similar to previous war sites, we suggest that these two areas reflect a geopolitics of evidence gathering, highlighting its global-local intimacies. Both these areas are well positioned to foster new research on the (geo)legal nature of war crimes in political geography and beyond.
Das Staatsangehörigkeitsrecht verankert rechtlich Vorstellungen über Zugehörigkeit und bestimmt wer vollumfängliche Rechte in einer Gesellschaft hat und wer nicht. Jahrzehntelang wurde Migration in Deutschland als etwas temporäres betrachtet. Im Staatsangehörigkeitsrecht galt bis zur Reform 1999/2000 weitgehend das „ius sanguinis“, das Abstammungsrecht, das auf einem rassistischen und völkischen Staatsverständnis beruht. Diese Reform bedeutete somit mehr als eine reine Gesetzesänderung. Sie war eine Anerkennung Deutschlands als Einwanderungsland und die Veränderung der Vorstellung deutscher Identität. Als Reaktion entbrannte infolge der Reformpläne eine hitzige, rassistische Debatte in der Öffentlichkeit über ebendiese Fragen, die unter dem polarisierten Schlagwort „Doppelpass“ verhandelt wurde. Es war die lauteste migrationspolitische Debatte dieser Zeit.
Kurze Zeit vor Beginn dieser Debatte war die rechtsterroristische Gruppe „Nationalsozialistischer Untergrund“ (NSU) abgetaucht, um einem Haftbefehl zu entgehen. Der NSU war ein deutsches, neonazistisches Netzwerk, in dessen Mittelpunkt drei Terrorist*innen standen. Sie verübten über einen Zeitraum von zwölf Jahren eine rassistische Mordserie an neun Personen türkischer, kurdischer und griechischer Herkunft sowie drei Sprengstoffanschläge auf migrantische Orte und ermordeten eine Polizistin. Den ersten ihrer Sprengstoffanschläge begingen sie nur einen Monat nach der Unterzeichnung der Reform. Wenige Monate nach dem Inkrafttreten des Gesetzes begannen sie mit dem Anschlag auf Enver Şimşek ihre rassistische Mordserie.
Diese Arbeit untersucht anhand der Struktur der Historisch-Materialistischen Politikanalyse das Migrationsregime um die Staatsangehörigkeitsreform von 1999/2000 und wie der NSU darin verortet werden kann.
Die Kontextanalyse stellt auf der Grundlage einer Literaturrecherche die relevanten historischen und strukturellen Faktoren der Debatte sowie des NSU dar. Im nächsten Schritt werden mithilfe einer Analyse von Zeitungsartikel aus dieser Zeit die relevanten Akteur*innen identifiziert und in die vier Hegemonieprojekte neoliberal, sozial, linksliberal-alternativ und konservativ gruppiert. Darauffolgend wird der Ablauf der Debatte in vier Phasen darstellt und als Aushandlung der vier Hegemonieprojekte rekonstruiert. Dabei zeigt sich, dass kein Projekt sich vollumfänglich durchsetzen und Hegemonie erreichen konnte, sie jedoch unterschiedlich stark in den Medien repräsentiert wurden.
Im letzten Schritt betrachtet diese Arbeit Verbindungen dieser Migrationsregime-Analyse zum NSU. Sie kommt zu dem Ergebnis, dass der NSU kein Akteur im Migrationsregime um die Staatsangehörigkeitsdebatte von 1998/99 war. Aufgrund der geringen Erkenntnisse über spezifische Meinungen des NSU zum Staatsangehörigkeitsrecht, können keine kausalen Beziehungen hergestellt werden. Dennoch zeigt diese Arbeit Gemeinsamkeiten in den Weltbildern, Annahmen und migrationspolitischen Zielen des NSU, des konservativen Hegemonieprojektes sowie Teilen der Bevölkerung auf. Dadurch wird ein Beitrag dazu geleistet den NSU als Produkt und Teil der deutschen Gesellschaft zu begreifen.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine illustrates the increasingly judicialized nature of international relations and geopolitics. By viewing aspects of the invasion as illegal – in particular through the identification of war crimes and crimes against humanity – the international response draws attention to the political geographies of international criminal investigation. Human rights groups, academics, journalists, and open-source forensic investigations have joined forces to collect, evaluate and analyze the violent nature of war crimes. While similar shifts in evidence gathering have been observed in the case of the Bosnia-Herzegovina war and the Assad regime's violence against Syrian citizens, the use of evidence-gathering technologies and evidence-securing institutions in the case of Ukraine is distinctive. In this scholarly intervention we seek to illustrate the intimate geopolitics of evidence gathering by zooming in on two different elements that shape evidential procedures in Ukraine: i) the blurring of civilian/military boundaries; and ii) the challenges of access. By evaluating what is new and what is similar to previous war sites, we suggest that these two areas reflect a geopolitics of evidence gathering, highlighting its global-local intimacies. Both these areas are well positioned to foster new research on the (geo)legal nature of war crimes in political geography and beyond.
Die Forschungsfrage dieser Arbeit untersucht die Veränderungen in der sicherheits- und verteidigungspolitischen Agenda von Bündnis 90/Die Grünen seit dem Ausbruch des Ukraine-Krieges 2022. Die Analyse zeigt, dass die Grünen ihre Agenda angepasst haben, jedoch ihre politische Kultur beibehalten. Obwohl sie sich neuen sicherheitspolitischen Herausforderungen stellen, bleiben ihre pazifistischen Grundprinzipien erhalten. Es wurde eine Reihe von Veränderungen festgestellt, darunter eine verstärkte Unterstützung für militärische Maßnahmen, jedoch bleibt die Priorität bei nicht-militärischen Ansätzen wie Diplomatie und humanitärer Hilfe. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Grünen eine pragmatischere Betrachtung der Sicherheitspolitik angenommen haben, ohne ihre grundlegenden Werte zu verlieren. Die Erkenntnisse dieser Arbeit bieten eine Grundlage für zukünftige Forschungen zur Entwicklung der sicherheitspolitischen Agenda der Grünen und zur öffentlichen Wahrnehmung dieser Veränderungen.
Coming of voting age. Evidence from a natural experiment on the effects of electoral eligibility
(2024)
In recent years, several jurisdictions have lowered the voting age, with many more discussing it. Sceptics question whether young people are ready to vote, while supporters argue that allowing them to vote would increase their specific engagement with politics. To test the latter argument, we use a series of register-based surveys of over 10,000 German adolescents. Knowing the exact birthdates of our respondents, we estimate the causal effect of eligibility on their information-seeking behaviour in a regression discontinuity design. While eligible and non-eligible respondents do not differ in their fundamental political dispositions, those allowed to vote are more likely to discuss politics with their family and friends and to use a voting advice application. This effect appears to be stronger for voting age 16 than for 18. The right to vote changes behaviour. Therefore, we cannot conclude from the behaviour of ineligible citizens that they are unfit to vote.
Voting advice applications (VAAs) are online tools providing voting advice to their users. This voting advice is based on the match between the answers of the user and the answers of several political parties to a common questionnaire on political attitudes. To visualize this match, VAAs use a wide array of visualisations, most popular of which are the two-dimensional political maps. These maps show the position of both the political parties and the user in the political landscape, allowing the user to understand both their own position and their relation to the political parties. To construct these maps, VAAs require scales that represent the main underlying dimensions of the political space. This makes the correct construction of these scales important if the VAA aims to provide accurate and helpful voting advice. This paper presents three criteria that assess if a VAA achieves this aim. To illustrate their usefulness, these three criteria—unidimensionality, reliability and quality—are used to assess the scales in the cross-national EUVox VAA, a VAA designed for the European Parliament elections of 2014. Using techniques from Mokken scaling analysis and categorical principal component analysis to capture the metrics, I find that most scales show low unidimensionality and reliability. Moreover, even while designers can—and sometimes do—use certain techniques to improve their scales, these improvements are rarely enough to overcome all of the problems regarding unidimensionality, reliability and quality. This leaves certain problems for the designers of VAAs and designers of similar type online surveys.
Im Folgenden werde ich dem Konnex zwischen Blogging und Blogger (als Machtausübung bzw. als Machtinstanz) und den von der Staatsmacht unterstützten Narrativen und Deutungsmodellen anhand jener Weblogs nachgehen, die sich mit dem im Frühjahr 2014 begonnenen Krieg im Donbass befassen. Die Verschiebung des Fokus auf die Nachmaidan-Ukraine ist durch zwei Überlegungen bedingt. [...] Aus dem (eigentlich recht übersichtlichen) Korpus einschlägiger "creative workers' blogs" habe ich zwei Weblogs zur Analyse gewählt, die 2014 entstanden. Wie viele andere dieser Art wurden auch sie in Buchform veröffentlicht, was insofern günstig ist, als die für die Printveröffentlichung unerlässlichen Transformationen des Onlineoriginals die Einmischung des Machtdiskurses, insbesondere in Form der (Selbst-)Zensur, sichtbar machen. Konkret geht es um Olena Stepovas Weblog und Buch "Alles wird die Ukraine sein oder Die Geschichten aus der ATO-Zone" ("Vse budet Ukraina! Ili Istorii iz zony ATO", 2014) sowie um das Weblog Boris Chersonskijs und dessen Buchversion "Das offene Tagebuch" ("Otkrytyj dnevnik", 2015). [...] Durch den Vergleich dieser zwei so unterschiedlichen Blogkonvolute werde ich in zwei nachfolgenden Kapiteln die Darstellungen des Donbass bzw. der Südukraine als eines innerukrainischen 'Orients' und die damit verbundenen identifikatorischen Selbstverortungen der jeweiligen Blogger:innen vergleichend analysieren. Fokussieren werde ich mich einerseits auf die Abweichungen von den Mainstreamnarrativen, die eine mögliche subversive Dimension des Kriegsbloggings abstecken, andererseits auf die normativen Interpretationsmuster, die sich beide Blogger:innen im Zuge des Krieges zu eigen machen und die die anfängliche'Abweichung' eliminieren oder relativieren. Diese Anpassung an die vorgegebenen Deutungsmodelle werde ich dann im letzten Abschnitt als eine ambivalente Haltung untersuchen, die eine Wahrnehmung des Krieges als einer inneren Kolonisierung impliziert und diese mit Verhaltensweisen der Selbstkolonisierung zu neutralisieren versucht. Anschließend werde ich auf die innere Verbindung dieser doppelten Subalternität mit dem veränderten Status des Bloggings in der Ukraine nach 2013/14 eingehen. Es wird hierbei die These aufgestellt, dass die Selbstwahrnehmung des Landes als einer Postkolonie in der Krisensituation tendenziell eine innere Polarisierung hervorruft und dadurch die Blogger entweder zu einer defensiven oder zu einer offensiven Haltung zwingt, die jeden grundsätzlichen Dissens ausschließt.
Les Républicains in Frankreich, die Tories in Großbritannien, die österreichischen Christdemokraten: Parteien, die jahrzehntelang als feste politische Größe in ihren Ländern galten, haben einen rapiden Bedeutungsverlust erlebt, manche sind in Richtung des rechten Randes gerückt. Doch eine gemäßigt konservative Kraft rechts der Mitte ist notwendig für eine stabile und zukunftsoffene Demokratie.
Urbane Ordnungen der (Post-)Migration : Staatsrassismus in der (neoliberalen) "Stadt der Vielfalt"
(2023)
In Städten ist die (post)migrantische Gesellschaft verortet. Obwohl Menschen mit (familiären) Migrationsgeschichten große Teile der Stadtbevölkerung stellen – bei Kindern längst in der Mehrheit –, birgt diese Vielfalt keine gleichen Rechte: Gesellschaft und Ökonomie sind von rassistischen Ordnungen geprägt und der Staat ignoriert dies oder trägt dazu bei. Mathias Rodatz zeigt am Beispiel der Stadt Frankfurt am Main, wie aktuelle städtische Vielfaltspolitiken eine andere, gleichberechtigte Stadt versprechen – und unter neoliberalen Umständen doch ins Leere laufen. Er theoretisiert sie als Politiken transnationaler Stadtbürgerschaft, deren Potenzial zu einer tatsächlichen Herausforderung des Staatsrassismus in der Stadt es noch zu realisieren gilt.
This study investigates a historical event that occurred during the Indonesian Revolution as depicted in Indonesian historical films and argues that these films not only attempt to depict the past but also use the past as a means of social commentary, teaching moral insight, and historical reinforcement. The historical films selected are The Long March (Darah dan Do’a) (1950) and Mereka Kembali (1972). Both films deal with the Long March event experienced by the troops of the Siliwangi Division in 1948. These troops were previously assigned to infiltrate Yogyakarta and its surrounding areas. They were instructed to march back to their original base in West Java as a part of the military strategies to confront the Dutch during the Indonesian Revolution, also known as the Indonesian War of Independence. This event became known as the Long March of the Siliwangi Division. This study examines not only the representation of the past or the texts of the films but also the production process, which includes the motivations of the filmmakers and the public reception when the films were screened for the public at the time—in 1950 and 1972, respectively. This approach provides a broader and richer dimension, valuable insights into the behind-the-scenes process of making the selected historical films, and essential information about the public reception of the films. From the production point of view, there are two main reasons for making these historical films: personal reason and social engagement. Further, the military also plays a vital role in these historical film productions. From the historical representation aspect, these two films depict the events of the Long March of the Siliwangi Division as a journey full of various obstacles and difficulties, such as harsh terrain, lack of food, battles against the Dutch, and internal disputes with fellow Indonesians: Darul Islam. From the reception aspect, the audience’s point of view, these films provide several representations that meet their expectations about the Long March of the Siliwangi Division. However, the audience disagrees with some of the other representations. Finally, the study revealed that historical films are potential vehicles for telling, interpreting, entertaining, legitimating and preserving the past. In addition, this study has a vital implication for reopening the tradition of Indonesian film studies and reigniting attention to old films.
The German newspaper in Romania Neuer Weg, whose first issue appeared on March 13, 1949, was addressed to the German-language readership and was at the same time a propaganda tool of the Romanian Communist Party. The overall aim of the whole press of that time was to support the social, political, economic and cultural changes that the first years of the so-called popular democratic construction brought. For this reason, the present work intends to analyse the features of the communist discourse in the press, examining the socialist use of language and highlighting the linguistic peculiarities. The author takes the standpoint of pragma linguistics in the study and evaluation of the linguistic data and starts from the concept of the so-called wooden language.
Ahlhaus, Svenja (2020): Die Grenzen des Demos. Mitgliedschaftspolitik aus postsouveräner Perspektive
(2021)
After a recent spate of terrorist attacks in European and American cities, liberal democracies are reintroducing emergency securitarian measures (ESMs) that curtail rights and/or expand police powers. Political theorists who study ESMs are familiar with how such measures become instruments of discrimination and abuse, but the fundamental conflict ESMs pose for not just civil liberty but also democratic equality still remains insufficiently explored. Such phenomena are usually explained as a function of public panic or fear-mongering in times of crisis, but I show that the tension between security and equality is in fact much deeper and more general. It follows a different logic than the more familiar tension between security and liberty, and it concerns not just the rule of law in protecting liberty but also the role of law in integrating new or previously subjected groups into a democratic community. As liberal-democratic societies become increasingly diverse and multicultural in the present era of mass immigration and global interconnectedness, this tension between security and equality is likely to become more pronounced.
In this article, I question the use of the notion of ‘constituent power’ as a tool for the democratization of the European Union (EU). Rather than seeing the absence of a transnational constituent power as a cause of the EU’s ‘democratic deficit’, I identify it as an opportunity for unfettered democratic participation. Against the reification of power-in-action into a power-constituted-in-law, I argue that the democratization of the EU can only be achieved through the multiplication of ‘constituent moments’. I begin by deconstructing the normative justifications surrounding the concept of constituent power. Here I analyze the structural aporia of constituent power and question the autonomous and emancipatory dimension of this notion. I then test the theoretical hypothesis of this structural aporia of the popular constituent power by comparing it with the historical experiments of a European popular constituent power. Finally, based on these theoretical and empirical observations, I propose to replace the ambivalence of the concept of popular constituent power with a more cautious approach to the bottom-up democratization of European integration: that of a multiplication of transnational constituent moments.
Although scholars hypothesized early on that social belonging is an important predictor for voting behavior, its role for populist voting remains empirically ambiguous and underexplored. This contribution investigates how different aspects of social belonging, that is, quality, quantity, and perception of one's own social relationships, relate to electoral abstention and to populist voting on the left and right. Employing multilevel regression models using data from four waves of the European Social Survey, this study finds that all measures of social belonging foster turnout, but they exert an incoherent influence on populist voting depending on the party's ideological leaning. While social belonging plays a subordinate role for left populist support, strong social belonging reduces the probability to support populist parties on the right. With that, the study analysis offers a nuanced view on how different dimensions of social belonging relate to electoral behavior. By doing so, this study sheds light on what aspects of social belonging encourage, or inhibit, which form of “protest at the ballot box.”
Die Auswirkungen der syrischen Flüchtlingskrise auf den zivilgesellschaftlichen Sektor im Libanon
(2021)
Die vorliegende Dissertation analysiert die Auswirkungen der syrischen Flüchtlingskrise auf den zivilgesellschaftlichen Sektor im Libanon, in Anbetracht einer historisch engverwurzelten Beziehung zwischen dem Libanon und Syrien. Die Dissertation wird von dem Interesse geleitet, die Rolle der lokalen zivilgesellschaftlichen NROs zu erforschen, die sich mit syrischen Flüchtlingen im Libanon befassen, und versuchen, die Leere des schwachen bzw. minimalistischen libaneischen Staatensystems zu füllen.Es wird untersucht, welche Effekte der syrische Konflikt auf die zivilgesellschaftliche Landschaft im Libanon gehabt hat und wie sich der Zufluss von internationaler Gelder auf die Aktivitäten dieser lokalen NROs sowie auf ihrer Beziehungen zu den libanesischen Staatsbehörden auf nationaler und lokaler Ebene ausgewirkt hat.
In this article, we propose to develop a realist interpretation of political progress—that is, an analysis of what it means to achieve better conditions of life in society under political power according to realist standards. Specifically, we are interested in identifying the criteria according to which political realism defines a change in the status quo as a desirable change...
Public opinion towards welfare state reform: The role of political trust and government satisfaction
(2021)
The traditional welfare state, which emerged as a response to industrialization, is not well equipped to address the challenges of today's post-industrial knowledge economies. Experts and policymakers have therefore called for welfare state readjustment towards a ‘social investment’ model (focusing on human skills and capabilities). Under what conditions are citizens willing to accept such future-oriented reforms? We point at the crucial but hitherto neglected role of citizens’ trust in and satisfaction with government. Trust and satisfaction matter because future-oriented reforms generate uncertainties, risks and costs, which trust and government satisfaction can attenuate. We offer micro-level causal evidence using experiments in a representative survey covering eight European countries and confirm these findings with European Social Survey data for 22 countries. We find that trust and government satisfaction increase reform support and moderate the effects of self-interest and ideological standpoints. These findings have crucial implications not least because they help explain why some countries manage – but others fail – to enact important reforms.
Defenders of current restrictions on EU immigrants’ access to welfare rights in host member states often invoke a principle of reciprocity among member states to justify these policies. The argument is that membership of a system of social cooperation triggers duties of reciprocity characteristic of welfare rights. Newly arriving EU immigrants who look for work do not meet the relevant criteria of membership, the argument goes, because they have not yet contributed enough to qualify as members on the grounds of reciprocity. Therefore, current restrictions on their access to welfare rights are justified. In this article, I challenge this argument by showing how restrictions on EU immigrants’ access to welfare rights are inconsistent with duties of international reciprocity. There are different variations of this challenge, but my focus here will be on one that uses a veil of ignorance device to support this claim. What matters from a perspective concerned with international reciprocity, I will argue, is what kind of welfare policy EU member states would choose were they not to know whether those receiving EU migrants were net contributors or net beneficiaries to the relevant scheme of international cooperation made possible by the four freedoms, and freedom of movement in particular. I argue that framing the requirement of reciprocity in this way provides a more comprehensive understanding of what should count as an ‘unreasonable burden’ on the welfare systems of host member states. The paper also examines alternative accounts of ‘unreasonable burdens’. It shows when and how the current institutional structure of the EU could take steps to deal with such burdens by preventing member states from gaming a comprehensive system of welfare rights protections across member states and by recognising the achievements of those member states that best serve them.
Gender and attitudes toward welfare state reform: Are women really social investment promoters?
(2021)
This article contributes to the study of the demand side of welfare politics by investigating gender differences in social investment preferences systematically. Building on the different functions of social investment policies in creating, preserving, or mobilizing skills, we argue that women do not support social investment policies generally more strongly than men. Rather, women demand, in particular, policies to preserve their skills during career interruptions and help to mobilize their skills on the labour market. In a second analytical step, we examine women’s policy priorities if skill preservation and mobilization come at the expense of social compensation. We test our arguments for eight Western European countries with data from the INVEDUC survey. The confirmation of our arguments challenges a core assumption of the literatures on the social investment turn and women’s political realignment. We discuss the implication of our findings in the conclusions.
Multilevel governance of energy transitions depends on the coordination between national, supra- and international administrative actors. Coordination takes place in systems of multilevel administration, which constitute highly dynamic arenas dominated by legally non-binding instruments and reciprocal interactions and relationships. This article seeks to gain insights into the underlying coordination processes by asking which conditions account for the change over time of coordination between administrative actors in multilevel administration systems. First, research on multilevel administration is summarized. Second and starting from historic and discursive institutionalist theory, a conceptual framework is outlined to assess the conditions and modes that account for the dynamics of coordination in general, and the change of coordination instruments in particular. A trend towards persuasive coordination in a process of institutional layering driven by endogenous conditions is expected. Empirically, an in-depth comparative analysis is conducted based on exploratory interviews with 90 experts mainly from the European Commission, the International Energy Agency, and national administrators from Canada and Europe. The results unveil that administrative coordination evolves according to at least three types of layering that go beyond the initial hypothesis: first, through layering of coordination instruments; second, as an increase in formal and non-formal interactions through a growing number of channels and complexity of interactions over time; third, as layering of inter-administrative relationships through a growing importance of personal networks and the creation of new contacts. By analysing the dynamics of multilevel administrative coordination, the article contributes to an important but underdeveloped aspect of the governance of supra- and international energy transitions.
Welfare is the largest expenditure category in all advanced democracies. Consequently, much literature has studied partisan effects on total and policy-specific welfare expenditure. Yet, these results cannot be trusted: The methodological standard is to apply time-series cross-section-regressions to annual observation data. But governments hardly change annually. Thus, the number of observations is artificially inflated, leading to incorrect estimates. While this problem has recently been acknowledged, it has not been convincingly resolved. We propose Mixed-Effects Models as a solution, which allow decomposing variance into different levels and permit complex cross-classification data structures. We argue that Mixed-Effects models combine the strengths of existing methodological approaches while alleviating their weaknesses. Empirically, we study partisan effects on total and on disaggregated expenditure in 23 OECD-countries, 1960-2012, using several measures of party preferences.
The debate on effects of globalization on welfare states is extensive. Often couched in terms of a battle between the compensation and the efficiency thesis, the scholarly literature has provided contradictory arguments and findings. This article contributes to the scholarly debate by exploring in greater detail the micro-level foundations of compensation theory. More specifically, we distinguish between individual policy preferences for compensatory social policies (unemployment insurance) and human capital-focused social investment policies (education) and expect globalization to mainly affect demand for educational investment. A multi-level analysis of ISSP survey data provides empirical support for this hypothesis. This finding provides an important revision and extension of the classical analytical perspective of compensation theory, because it shows that citizens value the social investment function of the welfare state above and beyond simple compensation via social transfers. This might be particularly relevant in today's skill-centered knowledge economies.
We cannot imagine a political system without opposition. Despite this crucial position in politics, political science has largely neglected to study oppositions. Attempting to fill this gap, this article analyses the institutional opportunities of parliamentary oppositions. It offers a parsimonious framework by distinguishing two dimensions of opposition influence: Some institutions enable oppositions to control governments, while others offer opportunities to present alternatives. A comparison of oppositions’ opportunities in 21 democracies shows that countries fall into four groups along these dimensions: In majoritarian democracies, weak control mechanisms are countered by excellent opportunities to publicize alternatives. Consociational democracies are characterized by strong control mechanisms, but provide only weak opportunities to present alternatives. Moreover, in Southern Europe, control mechanisms and opportunities to present alternatives are weak, while both are pronounced in Nordic Europe. The results are summarized in three indices that can easily be applied in future research examining oppositions and their power.
Can right‐wing terrorism increase support for far‐right populist parties and if so, why? Exploiting quasi‐random variation between successful and failed attacks across German municipalities, we find that successful attacks lead to significant increases in the vote share for the right‐wing, populist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party in state elections. Investigating channels, we find that successful attacks lead to differential increases in turnout which are mainly captured by the AfD. Using the German SOEP, a longitudinal panel of individuals, we investigate terror’s impact on individual political attitudes. We first document that people residing in municipalities that experience successful or failed attacks are indistinguishable. We then show that successful terror leads individuals to prefer the AfD, adopt more populist attitudes and report significantly greater political participation at the local level. Terror also leads voters to migrate away from (some) mainstream parties to the AfD. We also find differential media reporting: successful attacks receive more media coverage among local and regional publishers, coverage which makes significantly more use of words related to Islam and terror. Our results hold despite the fact that most attacks are motivated by right‐wing causes and targeted against migrants. Moreover, successful attacks that receive the most media coverage have nearly double the effect on the AfD vote share in state elections and they also increase the AfD vote share in Federal elections, highlighting media salience as a driver of our overall results.
The resurgence of populism and the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic have consolidated an appeal to the language of trust and distrust in the political arena, but any reference to these notions has often turned into an ideological and polarized debate. As a result, the possibility of developing an appropriate picture of the conditions for trust in politics has been undermined. To navigate the different demands for trust raised in the political arena, a notion of political trust must cover two partially unfulfilled tasks. One is to clarify what trust means when referring specifically to the political context. The other is to connect political trust to other notions that populate the debate on trustworthiness in the political arena - those of rational, moral, epistemic, and procedural trust. I will show how the political categories I use to define the scope of a political notion of trust function as normative leverages to develop politics-compatible versions of rational, moral, procedural, and epistemic trust.
Many democracies use geographic constituencies to elect some or all of their legislators. Furthermore, many people regard this as desirable in a noncomparative sense, thinking that local constituencies are not necessarily superior to other schemes but are nevertheless attractive when considered on their own merits. Yet, this position of noncomparative constituency localism is now under philosophical pressure as local constituencies have recently attracted severe criticism. This article examines how damaging this recent criticism is, and argues that within limits, noncomparative constituency localism remains philosophically tenable despite the criticisms. The article shows that noncomparative constituency localism is compelling in the first place because geographic constituencies foster partisan voter mobilisation, and practices of constituency service help to sustain deliberation among constituents and within the legislature and promote the realisation of equal opportunity for political influence. The article further argues that it is unwarranted to criticise geographic constituencies for being biased against geographically dispersed voter groups, for causing vote-seat disproportionality, and for being vulnerable to gerrymandering. The article also discusses the criticisms that local constituencies may pose risks of inefficiency and injustice in resource allocation decisions, may lead legislators to neglect the common good, and may limit citizens’ control over the political agenda. Whilst conceding that these objections may be valid, the article argues that they do not outweigh the diverse and normatively weighty considerations speaking in favour of noncomparative constituency localism. Finally, the article’s analysis is defended against several variants of the charge that it exaggerates the benefits of geographic constituencies.
Episodes of liberalization in autocracies: a new approach to quantitatively studying democratization
(2022)
This paper introduces a new approach to the quantitative study of democratization. Building on the comparative case-study and large-N literature, it outlines an episode approach that identifies the discrete beginning of a period of political liberalization, traces its progression, and classifies episodes as successful versus different types of failing outcomes, thus avoiding potentially fallacious assumptions of unit homogeneity. We provide a description and analysis of all 383 liberalization episodes from 1900 to 2019, offering new insights on democratic “waves”. We also demonstrate the value of this approach by showing that while several established covariates are valuable for predicting the ultimate outcomes, none explain the onset of a period of liberalization.
This dissertation analyses the degrees and trajectories of financialisation in the region of South-Eastern Europe. It modifies and applies an eclectic comparative framework for comparing the degrees of financialisation across time and space on different levels. The thesis finds that from the turn of the century until the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, most South-Eastern European countries have increased their degree of financialisation on the different levels, especially on the levels of household, international financialisation and partly the financial sector. Financialisation of non-financial companies is barely existing. After the financial crisis, financialisation is revealed to stagnate in the region. In a second step, the dissertation conducts three case studies on extreme cases: financial sector financialisation in Bulgaria, international financialisation in Serbia and non-financial company and household financialisation in Croatia. Their trajectories are exposed to be mainly driven by deregulation, changed practices by foreign banks, the privatisation of public goods and the liberation of capital controls. The dissertation serves to geographically enlarge the research of financialisation to a peripheral region of the Global North and to add to the discussion on comparative financialisation approaches.
Ursula Reitemeyer zeigt in ihrem Beitrag, inwiefern demokratisches und kommunistisches Denken im Vormärz im Humanitätsanspruch eines weltzugewandten Protestantismus wurzeln, der es zwar aus der Perspektive von Marx zur "wahren Stellung der Aufgabe", jedoch nicht zu praktischen Lösungen gebracht habe. Vor diesem Hintergrund untersucht und diskutiert Reitemeyer die angestrebte kommunistische Neuordnung von Staat und Gesellschaft als Bildungsinitiative, die in der "Tradition des (neu-)humanistischen Verständnisses des Protestantismus" steht.
Carl von Clausewitz’ Denken über den Krieg steht paradigmatisch für ein instrumentelles Verständnis von Gewalt in der Politik. Gewalt ist für Clausewitz ein Mittel, das im Krieg verwendet wird, um politische Zwecke zu erreichen. Seit dem Ende des Ost-West-Konflikts ist jedoch die Ansicht weit verbreitet, dass Clausewitz’ Überlegungen keine Gültigkeit mehr besitzen. Gegenwärtige Formen des Krieges seien zwar gewaltsam, aber nicht mehr politisch, weil sie nicht allein von Staaten oder aus einer eng verstandenen Staatsräson heraus geführt werden. Der Einwand missversteht jedoch Clausewitz’ Begriff der Politik. Dieser soll im vorliegenden Aufsatz systematisch rekonstruiert werden. Dem zu entwickelnden Interpretationsvorschlag zufolge bezeichnet „Politik“ in Clausewitz’ theoretischem System zunächst einmal nur ganz allgemein eine Interaktion von zwei oder mehr Akteuren, die jeweils ihren Willen realisieren wollen, deren Willen sich jedoch nicht vollständig vereinen lassen. Krieg ist für Clausewitz dann solche Politik, die mit gewaltsamen Mitteln betrieben wird. Vor diesem Hintergrund wird argumentiert, dass Clausewitz’ Theorie des Krieges einen fruchtbaren Analyserahmen bietet, mit dem sich die Transformationen der politischen Gewalt von den Kabinettskriegen des 18. Jahrhunderts bis zu den „neuen Kriegen“ unserer Zeit nachvollziehen lassen.
Disagreement among philosophers over the proper justification for political institutions is far from a new phenomenon. Thus, it should not come as a surprise that there is substantial room for dissent on this matter within democratic theory. As is well known, instrumentalism and proceduralism represent the two primary viewpoints that democrats can adopt to vindicate democratic legitimacy. While the former notoriously derives the value of democracy from its outcomes, the latter claims that a democratic decision-making process is inherently valuable. This article has two aims. First, it introduces three variables with which we can thoroughly categorise the aforementioned approaches. Second, it argues that the more promising version of proceduralism is extrinsic, rather than intrinsic, and that extrinsically procedural accounts can appeal to other values in the justification of democracy without translating into instrumentalism. This article is organised as follows. I present what I consider to be the ‘implicit view’ in the justification of democracy. Then, I analyse each of the three variables in a different section. Finally, I raise an objection against procedural views grounded in relational equality, which cannot account for the idea that democracy is a necessary condition for political legitimacy.
Militarization, factionalism and political transitions: an inquiry into the causes of state collapse
(2020)
Why do some fragile states collapse while others do not? This article presents results from a comparative analysis of the causes of state collapse. Using a dataset of 15 cases of state collapse between 1960 and 2007, we conduct both synchronic and diachronic comparisons with two different control groups of fragile states using crisp-set QCA. The results support our hypothesis that state collapse has multiple causes. The militarization of political groups, when combined with other conditions, plays a major part in the process. Other causal factors are political transition, extreme poverty, declining government resources or external aid, factionalist politics, repression and pre-colonial polities. This challenges structuralist explanations focusing on regime types and the resource curse, among other things, and opens up avenues for further research.
Quo vadis Papua: case study of special autonomy policies and socio-political movements in Papua
(2021)
This research discusses socio-political movements in Papua as a result of the implementation of special autonomy policies (Otsus) by the government for almost two decades. Theoretically, indigenous Papuans should support it but in empirical reality, Otsus has been considered "fail" by the indigenous Papuan people because there are still many problems that have not been resolved by Otsus. This negative response indicates public dissatisfaction towards the development planning process in Papua. This dissertation aims to examine these issues; why these policies and development plans failed and are protested, why protests against them are prolonged, how do protests develop into social movements, and whether indigenous Papuan movements can be classified as social movements. The study uses qualitative approach, through case study methods. Data are collected through interviews, observations and documentation studies. The research finds that the presence of Otsus in Papua in addition to being a source of new conflict, also triggers conflicts in the form of protests and resistance movements against the government of Indonesia, both physical and political. This research discovers that, indeed the Otsus management has succeeded in changing the face of Papua because of the many physical projects but the development of human aspects and supporting instruments has not been touched at all. Thus, only a small percentage of indigenous Papuans feel the benefits of Otsus, while most of them are still struggling. This paper finds that protests against Otus are due to the growing resentments from the community so long as their demands are not met. This study suggests that the presence of the state in Papua through the Otsus policy must be re-evaluated. The state must ensure that in the Otsus era, the indigenous Papuans should not be marginalized, so that aspirations for the welfare of all indigenous Papuans through Otsus can be realized.
In this publication, researchers from the social and economic sciences and medicine as well as practitioners from the media and politics reflect on the influence of scientific expertise in times of crisis. Differences and similarities between the Covid-19 pandemic, the financial and economic crisis, the refugee crisis and the climate crisis are elaborated. The interviews were conducted in November/December 2021.
In der Publikation reflektieren Forschenden aus den Sozial- und Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Medizin sowie Praktiker aus Medien und Politik den Einfluss wissenschaftlicher Expertise in Krisenzeiten. Dabei werden Unterschiede und Gemeinsamkeiten zwischen der Covid-19-Pandemie, der Finanz- und Wirtschaftskrise, der Flüchtlingskrise und der Klimakrise herausgearbeitet. Die Gespräche wurden im November/Dezember 2021 geführt.
Dieser Beitrag reflektiert und ergänzt die aktuelle Diskussion über die Empfehlungen des Wissenschaftsrats zur Weiterentwicklung der Friedens- und Konfliktforschung. Wir richten dabei den Blick auf die vom Wissenschaftsrat attestierten Schwachstellen im Bereich empirisch-analytischer Methoden und erläutern ihre Auswirkungen auf Interdisziplinarität, Internationalität und Politikberatung der deutschen Friedens- und Konfliktforschung. Wir argumentieren, unter Verweis auf den Bericht des Wissenschaftsrats, dass eine breitere Methodenausbildung und -kenntnis von großer Bedeutung für interdisziplinäre und internationale Zusammenarbeit, aber auch für die Politikberatung ist. Zukünftige Initiativen innerhalb der Friedens- und Konfliktforschung sollten die Methodenvielfalt des Forschungsbereichs angemessen berücksichtigen und einen besonderen Fokus auf die Ausbildung im Bereich empirisch-analytischer Methoden legen, um das Forschungsfeld in diesem Bereich zu stärken. Unser Beitrag entspringt einer Diskussion innerhalb des Arbeitskreises „Empirische Methoden der Friedens- und Konfliktforschung“ der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Friedens- und Konfliktforschung.