Pares Inter Pares? The Bargaining Success of the Commission,the Council,and the Parliament in European Union Legislative Negotiations

This research note tries to determine how politically successful the Council, the Commission, and the European Parliament are in the area of EU legislative decision‐making. After reviewing the literature, a research design is presented which incorporates information on the policy preferences of the different institutional actors for 70 recent EU legislative decisions that were negotiated under the consultation and the codecision procedure. We use correlation and OLS regression to analyze the distances between what the EU institutional actors want and what they eventually get out of the process. The findings of the analysis are that (1) the preference profiles of the three actors are rather dissimilar, and that (2) the success rates of the Council are higher than the rates of the Commission and Parliament.     

Does Participation in Policymaking Enhance Satisfaction with the Policy Outcome? Evidence from Switzerland

This article investigates the benefit of participation in policymaking. Based on data from interviews with various interest groups, private organisations, and representatives of regions that had been involved in recent policymaking processes in Switzerland, this study analyses the relationship between participation and satisfaction with the policy outcome. The study looks at two different aspects of outcome satisfaction: perceived consensus of a decision and preference attainment. The results show that the level of participation is related to both aspects of outcome satisfaction but that the strength of association is dependent on the type of interest group and the level of conflict among the groups participating in the decision‐making process.     

China’s Decision to Deploy HYSY-981 in the South China Sea: Bureaucratic Politics with Chinese Characteristics

This article sheds light on developing a hybrid analytical construct by combining Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) theory and modifications tailored to the case of China. It employs the bureaucratic politics model to China’s decision making during the China–Vietnam standoff in 2014 and adjusts the traditional model with intervening variable – the party ranking system and Democratic Centralism doctrine. I argue that the bargaining game among different actors who have diverse agendas led to the shift in China’s strategy. It would concurrently advance FPA studies while developing a future avenue for research on foreign policy formulation of China.     

The strong German state and the weak feminist movements

This article examines the causes of the marginalisation of women in political and economic decision‐making processes that are part of the ‘routine’ policy‐making process of the German state. The larger theoretical question is whether there is a ‘gender bias of the German state’ that has made its institutional structures less amenable to women's participation and their political agenda. Given the evidence, the answer is ‘yes’. There are specific exclusionary mechanisms that characterise the German polity, and these are antithetical to women's participation and concerns. These mechanisms act as gatekeepers of both legislation and discursive practices and are constitutive of the German Fraktionstaat and the corporatist system of economic bargaining.     

The Silent Reform of Swiss Federalism: The New Constitutional Articles on Education

This article examines the decision‐making process leading to the new constitutional articles on education in Switzerland. It analyzes how actors from both state levels (Confederation and cantons) could reach consensus in a process that was prone to a “joint‐decision trap”. To that end, we hypothesize which factors may be conducive to a “problem‐solving” style of policy‐making in a compulsory negotiation system. Rich empirical material from various sources supports our theoretical arguments: We show that shared beliefs and a common frame of reference, the procedural separation between constitutional and distributional issues, neutral brokers, and informal structures were all beneficial to the success of the reform project.     

Solving south Africa's Chinese puzzle: Democratic foreign policy making and the ‘two chinas’ question

When President Nelson Mandela abruptly announced on 27 November 1996 that South Africa would no longer recognise the Republic of China but would open official diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China in its stead, he caught the world by surprise. In what was a fittingly bizarre end to a situation that continued to defy all expectations, the post‐apartheid government made its first significant foreign policy decision. The remarkable level of public debate, the inter‐departmental conflicts, the role of interest groups and party politics which accompanied the decision to switch recognition gave the South African government and the public as a whole its first exposure to the vagaries of conducting foreign policy in a democracy.

This article will examine the decision to recognise the People's Republic of China by investigating the historical relationship between the South African state, non‐state actors and their Chinese counterparts, the debate itself and the role of interest groups ‐ both within and outside the formal policy making process ‐ in seeking to influence the decision and analysing the dynamics of the recognition decision. In so doing, it hopes to shed some light on the policy decision making process in the new democratic South Africa.     

Governing Morality Issues through Procedural Policies

Abstract: Morality issues such as the death penalty, drug consumption, gambling, and same‐sex‐marriage often constitute intractable policy controversies. Classical “morality politics” scholars predict two types of governmental responses to such public problems: either a substantive policy design if there is a broad consensus among electoral constituencies or a non‐decision if there is a fundamental clash of values. We argue that the adoption of a procedural policy design represents a third option. Providing empirical evidence on the plausibility of this hypothesis, we compare the Swiss regulation of four morality issues in the medical field: reproductive medicine and embryo‐related research; abortion; euthanasia; and organ transplant. In fact, “moral values” frames are not always dominant, as the multi‐dimensionality of each morality issue allows for concurrent policy frames promoted by various policy actors.     

新思想库与奥巴马政府的亚洲政策决策——以新美国安全研究中心为例

在美国对外政策决策体系中,思想库在政策理念创新、人才储备、打造政策辩论平台以及教育和引导公众等方面具有非凡的作用。新近兴起的新美国安全研究中心对奥巴马政府的对外政策影响巨大。该中心的亚洲政策研究强调务实的态度,注重美国对亚洲事务的重新"参与",倡导强化和升级美国在亚洲的联盟关系,推动美国积极介入地区多边制度,其政策建议通过"旋转门制度"等对当前美国的亚洲政策决策产生了深刻影响。     

Corporate Movements in Democratic Brazil: Informal Business Networks,Civil Activism,and Political Influence

Relations between business, state, and civil society in Latin America are conventionally discussed in antagonistic or hierarchical terms. This article challenges this position, developing a qualitative case study tracing the activities of an informal network of Brazilian businesspersons that, over the last three decades, promoted an agenda of sustainability, transparency, and civil society participation. Drawing from concepts in social movement theory, it is argued that a dynamic movement‐like behaviour combining civil activism, organisational entrepreneurship, and fluid political alignment, allowed the group to establish lasting collaborative alliances with core actors in Brazilian democratic politics, and access relevant elite and policy‐making circles.     

Kazakhstani public opinion of the United States and Russia: testing variables of (un)favourability

ABSTRACT

Though Central Asia is often studied through the prism of its relationships with external powers, research on local public perceptions of these different actors has largely been overlooked. The literature on Kazakhstanis’ perceptions of their neighbours, for instance, is scarce, and mostly focused on analysis of official discourse on Kazakhstan’s multi-vector policy, with little exploration of how this is received, appropriated or refuted by the population. On the basis of Gallup data spanning the last decade, and several other surveys, we test most of the main hypotheses usually advanced to explain attitudes to the US and Russia – age, ethnicity and access to information – and draw five main conclusions: (1) Kazakhstanis are not defined by an exclusive pro-US/pro-Russian dichotomy; (2) they nevertheless largely choose Russia over the US if forced to pick; (3) age does not have a significant effect on foreign policy attitudes; (4) ethnicity does affect some of the attitudes under consideration, but its effects are not large enough to produce markedly different opinions among ethnic Kazakhs and ethnic Russians in aggregate; and (5) consumption of media from Russia and access to non-governmental and Western sources of information do not seem to have significant effects on the attitudes under consideration.     

Between Market‐Preserving Federalism and Intergovernmental Coordination: The Case of Australia

This article investigates Australia's economic success since the 1990s. As this was set in motion by fundamental political reforms, it asks to what extent Australian‐type federalism has been an important factor in the reform process. By using two approaches ‐ the market‐preserving federalism approach of Weingast, which stresses the virtues of ‘limited government’, decentralisation and competition together with the intergovernmental coordination approach of Scharpf which argues for a ‘problem‐solving’ orientation of territorial actors ‐, the structure of Australian federalism, changes in the working of the federal system in the 1990s, and effects on policy‐making are scrutinised. The article demonstrates that a particular combination of a rather centralised federal structure and a particular type of intergovernmental coordination, i.e. collaboration, supplemented by the strong influence of new public management ideas, has been conducive to political reforms in Australia. This suggests that a decentralised and competitive version of federalism, as defended by Weingast, is not a necessary condition for embarking on a successful reform path in federal countries. In future research, both approaches or analytical dimensions should be used in order to better understand the relationship of intergovernmental relations and policy reforms.     

Democracy Beyond Secrecy: Assessing the Promises and Pitfalls of Collective Voting

This paper assesses collective voting as a specific mode of democratic decision‐making and compares it to secret voting. Under collective voting, voters gather in one place and decide by the show of hands. We theorise two potential advantages and two disadvantages of collective voting so defined. We then draw on original survey data from one of the largest polities practising collective voting, the citizen assembly of the Swiss canton of Glarus. We find that both the promises and pitfalls of non‐secret voting are exaggerated. Non‐secret voting’s suspected pitfalls – social pressure and abstention – do not generally materialise in our sample, although for women they do appear to be relevant to some extent. However, the promises of collective voting – enabling cue‐taking and discursive bridging and bonding – are equally realised to a limited extent only.     

Der Einfluss von Mandatstyp und Wahlkreiseigenschaften auf die inhaltlichen Positionen in Parlamentsreden: Eine Untersuchung anhand der parlamentarischen Debatten im Deutschen Bundestag von 1998 bis 2002

Giving speeches in parliament is a key element of elected representatives for signalling their policy agenda and their ideological positions to their party and their electorate. Taking a specific programmatic position might increase the chances of an MP to get re‐nominated and to win again a seat in the legislature. In this paper, we build on approaches of responsive behaviour of political actors and on principal agent theories and ask which variables can explain the programmatic positions adopted by MPs in their speeches. To answer our research question, we collected all speeches related to economic policy issues given by members of the German Bundestag in the time period between 1998 and 2002. We estimated their individual policy positions with computerised methods of content analysis. We combine this data with information on the characteristics of MPs, their position in party, parliament and government and, in addition, with the socioeconomic structure and former election results within the MPs’ constituency. The results show that German MPs take the characteristics and the economic problem pressure of their constituencies into account when speaking in parliament, so that there is empirical evidence for responsive and vote‐seeking behaviour of German MPs. In addition, political and institutional factors like the membership in committees or in (former) cabinets and the way how an MP was elected – directly or by party list – play a role for the degree of MP's programmatic deviation from the party line.     

From Corporatism to Partisan Politics: Social Policy Making under Strain in Switzerland

The literature on neo‐corporatist agreements in social and labor market policy in the 1990s points to a decline of concertation in European countries with a long‐standing tradition of corporatist negotiation. This article identifies a similar trend in Switzerland and argues that three destabilizing factors account for it: 1) retrenchment pressure and ideological polarization prevent compromises; 2) the emergence of new social demands and interests challenges the homogeneity and legitimacy of peak organizations and thus their bargaining power; 3) increasing media coverage tends to open up the traditionally confidential and selective sphere of corporatist negotiation and weakens the social partners’ ability to reach agreements. The impact of these factors on neo‐corporatist bargaining is tested in Switzerland, a case where corporatist negotiations used to be particularly decisive in social policy making. Empirical evidence comes from a cross‐time comparison of two major social policies: Unemployment insurance and pension reforms in the 1970s and in the 1990s. In the last decade, the main locus of decision‐making shifted from the sphere of interest groups to partisan politics. In parliament, the political parties were able to draft bills enjoying wide acceptance thanks to compensations offered to groups particularly vulnerable to new social risks.     

End of an Era? The Landtagswahl in Bavaria,September 2008

The biotechnology and venture capital sectors have flourished in Germany during the 1990s, a surprising development that finds its roots in the policies of the federal government. Years before the private sector became engaged, the federal government had identified biotechnology and venture capital as important for job creation and Germany's world‐wide status as a technological leader. Its success in leading a renaissance in these sectors sits uneasily with dominant understandings of the German state as ‘semi‐sovereign’ (Katzenstein) or ‘enabling’ (Streeck) ‐ as institutionally incapable of defining policy against or without the active participation of societal actors. This article uses a history of the biotechnology and venture capital sectors since the 1970s to re‐examine the relationship between the central state and lower governments as well as organised interests in Germany. The evidence demonstrates the federal government's autonomy in formulating policy priorities as well as its ability to enhance the capabilities of lower level governments and private sector actors to achieve the objectives it defined.     

Varieties of Joint Decision Making: The Second Federal Reform

Germany recently experienced another federal reform, shortly after a previous modification to the German federal system. Has the second federal reform brought substantial change instead of the gradual change that literature on joint decision making would lead us to expect? This article analyses the reform in three stages: agenda setting, negotiation, and ratification; and suggests that at best the new restrictions upon public debt brought about by the second federal reform can be seen as a substantial change, but only if actors comply with them. Furthermore, this note argues that varieties of joint decision making can be identified in German constitutional policy, as they can in German public policy and EU policies. Patterns of joint decision making vary, depending on agenda setting and negotiations, so that the article argues for a differentiated view of joint decision making, the joint decision trap and exits from the joint decision trap.     

The role of parliament in South Africacs foreign policy development process: lessons from the United States' Congress

For most democracies across the world, legislative engagement in foreign policy development has traditionally been limited to ratification of international agreements and oversight of the executive. While the Parliament of South Africa tends to adhere to this traditional approach, deferring to the executive on matters of foreign policy, this paper argues that a collaborative approach between the legislative and executive branches as articulated in the South African constitution must rather form the basis of South Africa's foreign policy development process. Moreover, by comparing the parliament of South Africa, a legislature with limited policy influence, to the United States’ Congress, a policy making legislature, it becomes clear from Congress that political will in employing constitutional power is the most important factor in ensuring legislative engagement in foreign policy decision making.     

Firm supporter and severe critic – Germany’s two-pronged approach to EU enlargement in the Western Balkans

Abstract

Germany has demonstrated an active commitment towards the accession perspective of the Western Balkans, which found its most vocal expression in the initiation of a Western Balkans summit in August 2014 and the ensuing “Berlin process”. However, German support reflexively goes hand in hand with a reference to rigid accession conditionality. This not only fosters stabilization and transformation in the Western Balkan states, but also – at the domestic level – counters widespread enlargement scepticism among decision makers and the German public. The far-reaching participation rights of the Federal Parliament, acquired by the 2009 amendments to the Act on EU Cooperation, involves the Bundestag inter alia in the opening of accession negotiations, thus also increasing domestic constraints for Germany’s position in the Council. Federal elections due in late 2017 and a political environment shaped by a discussion about migration, including from and through the Western Balkans, make enlargement policy a particularly hard-to-sell issue.     

Coproduction of participation policies in Turkey: The making of city councils

This paper uses the case of the city councils to study the introduction of new possibilities for citizen participation in Turkish policy-making. In Turkish political science literature, city councils are simply described either as a result of the coercive influence of international organizations, or a ‘civil society’ initiative included in the agenda by the political power. The paper demonstrates that these participatory mechanisms have been coproduced by a complex network of domestic state and non-state actors, yet are not fully controlled by any of the actors engaged in their making.     

Changing South Korean Water Policy after Political and Economic Liberalisation

This study explores the way in which South Korean water policy has been dynamically (re-)constructed by continuing political contestations among diverse social forces acting in and through the state in the face of political and economic liberalisation. The path-dependency of the state-driven water resource policy under the former authoritarian regime did not disappear even after the democratisation. It was difficult to transform the old authoritarian and hierarchical water governance to the newly democratic and environmentally friendly one because the Ministry of Construction, as a main actor in driving water policy under the authoritarian regimes, did not give up its interest in a dam-based policy orientation, although it did partially accept institutional tools for democratic policy making, such as public hearings and the participation of civil society in the process of establishing the water policy plan. It also showed democratic and environment-friendly gestures using the rhetoric of environmentalism and localisation. Overall, this article emphasises the importance of the path-dependency of the past authoritarian regimes under democratised society to better understand the current democratic regime’s policy orientation.