Competitive party democracy and the Keynesian welfare state: Factors of stability and disorganization

This article addresses the question of what makes democratic political organization and capitalist economic organization mutually compatible on the macro-sociological level, and what has, more specifically, led to the absence of manifest tension between those two organizing principles in the post-World War II era in Western Europe. A hypothetical answer is provided, namely that the organization of mass participation through a competitive party system makes democracy safe for capitalism and that Keynesianism and the welfare state makes capitalism safe for democracy. The question of the extent to which one can expect the continuity of those arrangements under the conditions of political and economic crisis is then explored on a theoretical level. As a skeptical answer to this question, a number of factors are systematically discussed which seem to subvert both party competition as the dominant mode of mass participation and welfare-Keynesianism as the prevalent mode of economic policy.     

Europe Entrapped

The EU in 2013 finds itself at the crossroads of either something considerably better or something much worse than the status quo; in other words, in a crisis. That much is nearly universally understood, both within Europe and widely beyond. So I am certainly not alone in believing that the current crisis, a crisis that is the cumulative outcome of a financial market, sovereign debt and EU integration/democratic deficit crises, is an extremely serious and unprecedented one, frightening due to its complexity and uncertainty. If it cannot soon be resolved (but nobody knows how soon is ‘soon enough’) through a major institutional overhaul of the EU, both the political project of European integration and the global economy will suffer badly—to say nothing about the massive social suffering it has caused already in the countries of the European periphery.     

The Comparison Question Test: Does It Work and If So How?

In a mock crime study of the comparison question test (CQT), 35 subjects decided to participate as guilty and 30 as innocent. Two conditions were varied: Explaining the comparison questions in the pretest interview and re-discussing comparison questions between charts. Higher identification rates (approximately 90% for guilty and innocent participants) were achieved in groups with explanation of comparison questions than in groups without explanation. Re-discussing comparison questions had no effect on identification rates. Ratings of subjective stress due to relevant and comparison questions were also obtained and can be seen as indicators of the significance of the questions. The significance of comparison questions was hardly affected by the different testing conditions. When effects are detectable at all, they contradict theoretical expectations in their direction. Results are discussed in terms of the significance of comparison questions used in polygraph testing.     

Demokratie und Wohlfahrtsstaat: eine europäische Regimeform unter dem Stress der europäischen Integration

Staaten sind nicht nur "vertikale" Organisationen politischer Herrschaft. Vielmehr basiert die staatliche Herrschaftsordnung auf Strukturen der Binnenintegration ("Vergemeinschaftung"), die über alle Konflikte und Besonderheiten hinweg das horizontale Verhältnis der Bürger zueinander bestimmen. Diese Binnenintegration muss nicht "ethnischer", sondern kann sehr wohl republikanischer Natur sein und dann als sozialintegrative Voraussetzung für Demokratie und Wohlfahrtsstaat dienen. Wenn das zutrifft, stellt sich die Frage nach dem möglichen Modus politischer Integration im europäischen Massstab. Gibt es Traditionen, Identitäten und Zielbestimmungen ("finalité"), die zwischen allen Europäern Vertrauen und Solidarität begründen können? Der Verfasser prüft die in Betracht kommenden Antworten auf diese Frage und kommt zu dem skeptischen Ergebnis, dass die sozialmoralischen Grundlagen einer europaweiten Demokratie und eines kontinentalen Wohlfahrtsregimes keineswegs evident sind.