The Patents Court's streamlined litigation procedure--two years on

Legal and practical context. The streamlined procedure is asimplified patent litigation procedure that was introduced overtwo years ago in the English Patents Court and Patents CountyCourt. This article looks at the procedure, the way it has beenapplied since its introduction and the effect it has had onpatent litigation in the UK. Key points. The procedure was designed to deal with simple patentcases quickly and relatively cheaply. It is geared towards aone day trial taking place approximately eight months afterthe commencement of proceedings. Under the procedure there isno automatic disclosure, no experiments and cross-examinationis limited to permitted topics only. Although it was designedwith patents in mind, the procedure is available for all appropriateactions heard in the Patents Court and Patents County Court.It is only suitable, however, for relatively simple actionsin which complex findings of fact are not necessary. Conclusions. Not many actions have come to trial under thisprocedure, but its availability is nonetheless of great significanceto patent litigation in the UK. This is because it providesa new point of departure for directions in certain types ofaction and because its availability has increased access topatent litigation in the UK and has renewed interest in thePatents Court and Patents County Court as forums in which toissue patent proceedings.     

Policy-making and Political Supervision in Shanghai's Financial Industry

This study deals with the political economy of local financial industries in China. It focuses on the changing patterns of political interference and the key role of Communist Party bodies in shaping business incentives. The centralization measures in the financial sector that were implemented under the Zhu Rongji government in 1998 and 1999 turned out to be not very effective in supervising local financial institutions. From 2000 to 2003, a trend towards a reaffirmation of local control in financial business emerged. Local governments began to set up new financial work bodies with comprehensive functions and extensively used local banks as their ‘moneybag’ again. Reducing the risks involved in the current politicized management of local financial business will be inseparable from political, legal and regulatory changes: curbing the Communist Party's role in cadre appointments, strengthening legal corporate governance structures and clarifying the division of labor among national and local supervisory bodies.     

The goals and reality of the water–food–energy security nexus: the case of China and its southern neighbours

The so-called ‘nexus’ approach has recently been promoted as addressing externalities across the water, food and energy sectors, thus helping to achieve ‘water/energy/food security for all’, ‘equitable and sustainable growth’ and a ‘resilient and productive environment’. While these are noble goals, this article argues that the reality on the ground appears to be taking a different direction, at least when it comes to China and its neighbours in South and Southeast Asia. There, a new era of large-scale water infrastructure development is creating several security-related problems, which represent serious challenges to the nexus goals. These challenges include food–energy tensions, human security threats and ecological risks. These challenges can also be linked to rising friction surrounding the management of water, food and energy resources in the region. The article argues that, in order for the nexus goals to be achieved in China and the countries on its southern periphery, there must first be increased awareness of this nexus among policy-making elites.     

Demokratie als öffentliches Gut?

Political Science neglect classical insights on constitutional and economic conditions of the so called “tax state” as a fiscal institutional architecture sui generis. While studies in Political Economy focus on distribution quality of the welfare state or compare budgets from local to international level fiscal research should also consider the capitalist structure of tax paradigm again. Only after such a regeneration the discipline could better reflect old and new democratic challenges of fiscal problems. Recalling former theories of interdependencies between fiscal, constitutional and ideological orders, this article suggests to make sense of conceptualizing democratic regime itself as prime public good. Because if it is fiscal sovereignty that is foremost to produce with democracy’s budget it should be easier to analyze tax state driven regressive effects of democratic integrity.     

Die „Sonntagsfrage“, soziale Erwünschtheit und die AfD: Wie alternative Messmethoden der Politikwissenschaft weiterhelfen können

In Germany, the standard vote intention survey item has come under attack because it failed to correctly measure the vote share of the German party “Alternative für Deutschland” (AfD). We argue that alternative measurement techniques that aim to reduce social desirability bias are better suited for this task. We test three measurement techniques to forecast AfD vote share—a double list experiment, the crosswise-model randomized response technique, and the wisdom of crowds design—and compare their performance to the standard vote intention item. Our results indicate that the wisdom of crowds design is an easily implementable and promising addition to political scientists’ toolbox of survey items.     

Competition and switching in public service markets: Can they reduce inequalities?

Regulatory reforms to public infrastructure services across European Union (EU) countries were aimed at increasing consumer welfare by introducing competition and choice into service markets. However, empirical evaluations have questioned whether these reforms have benefitted all consumers, suggesting that vulnerable groups of service users (especially those with lower levels of formal education), might be locked into poorly performing services. We assess the relationship between the level of competition in electricity and fixed telephony markets in EU countries and evaluate the affordability of these services for different socio‐educational layers. Our findings show that – although in countries where there is a relatively high frequency of switching, inequalities between socio‐educational groups are smaller and eventually disappear – competition as such does not play a part. These results suggest that demand‐side regulation that successfully enables consumer switching has the potential to equalize social welfare, thereby reflecting a possible convergence of regulatory instruments and the central aims of the welfare state in this context.     

Dynamic Success on YouTube: A Longitudinal Analysis of Click Counts and Contents of Political Candidate Clips during the 2009 German National Election

Since the 2008 Obama victory, mass media and academic research have contributed to the widespread notion that modern political campaigns are won in the so-called ‘web 2.0’, more precisely on YouTube. While respective studies were able to identify some major factors for the success of political YouTube videos, some videos ‘failed’ to have the presumed success online. This lack of clarity has not been convincingly explained by cross-sectional designs without taking into account the dynamic aspects of the success of YouTube videos. This study evaluates and validates the impact of presentation, professionalism, topic, age and the typical slope of the website-visits over time on the total amount of page visits. Political YouTube videos were analysed over a five-month period before the 2009 German national election. Most strikingly, one has to ignore some of the YouTube conventions to be successful on the platform during an election campaign, like uploading user-generated content.     

Behavioral Public Administration: Combining Insights from Public Administration and Psychology

Behavioral public administration is the analysis of public administration from the micro‐level perspective of individual behavior and attitudes by drawing on insights from psychology on the behavior of individuals and groups. The authors discuss how scholars in public administration currently draw on theories and methods from psychology and related fields and point to research in public administration that could benefit from further integration. An analysis of public administration topics through a psychological lens can be useful to confirm, add nuance to, or extend classical public administration theories. As such, behavioral public administration complements traditional public administration. Furthermore, it could be a two‐way street for psychologists who want to test the external validity of their theories in a political‐administrative setting. Finally, four principles are proposed to narrow the gap between public administration and psychology.     

EU-Professionalismus als transnationales Feld

The article scrutinizes the emergence and expansion of EU-related professions and forms of occupation from a field-analytical perspective. Starting from the observation that the EU is not just an influential political actor, but also an expanding area of work, expert involvement and job specialization the paper discusses various forms, dimensions and loci of the ongoing “professionalization” of Europe. It is shown that the expansion of EU-related professional activities is not just a phenomenon of Brussels and the “Eurocracy”, but has expanded into the member states and various areas of occupational activity and expertise. The EU professionalization is conceptualized as a transnational field of specialization and professionalization which produces own principles, forms of knowledge and resources which are used and reproduced by experts and specialists. The field perspective allows identifying common principles, but also the variance and transnational dimension of EU affairs.