Empirical Modeling of Policy Diffusion in Federal States: The Dyadic Approach

Policy diffusion is a common phenomenon in federal states: indeed, one of the normative justifications of decentralized policy making is that it permits the development and spread of best practices. Following Berry and Berry (1990), event‐history analysis has been the method of choice for the quantitative investigation of policy diffusion, but Volden (2006) has recently introduced a dyadic variant of this method in which units of analysis are not states but, instead, pairs of states. This article discusses the dyadic approach with a particular focus on the diffusion of policies in Switzerland. The goal is not to introduce a new method, but rather to provide a practical overview for researchers interested in using it. The article shows how the method has migrated from the international relations literature to the policy‐diffusion literature, describes the typical structure of a dyadic dataset in a diffusion context, and discusses several modeling issues. The usefulness of the dyadic approach is illustrated empirically with the example of health‐insurance subsidy policies in Swiss cantons.     

The Australian Welfare State: Has Federalism Made a Difference?

This paper examines the historical development of the Australian welfare state with a view to identifying the role that Australia's federal constitutional arrangements have played in shaping that development. Theoretical paradigms have been unanimous in their prognoses: that federal states are likely to be slow in developing welfare state programmes and typically spend less on them than unitary states. But recently it has been argued that federal institutions may have a “ratchet effect” of slowing down the pace of change, irrespective of its direction. The purpose of this chronological account of significant stages in the development of the Australian welfare state is to use the unfolding of historical events — far too rich in nuance and detail to be captured in quantitative modelling — as a test‐bed for establishing whether, and, if so, to what extent, federalism has impacted on the trajectory of Australian welfare state development.     

Dezentraler und unitarischer Föderalismus. Die Schweiz und Deutschland im Vergleich

In this article it is endeavoured to analyse the different functioning of “decentralised” (Switzerland) and “unitary” (Germany) federalism. This is done by discussing the cultural and political autonomy of member states, the possibilities of member states to control and influence federal decision‐making, the ways to implement federal legislation, and the redistribution of resources. There are, despite of “equi‐functional” structures, considerable similarities in the functioning of both countries. The predominance of a completely different discourse of justification in both countries explains the institutional and procedural differences and thus the different reform projects.     

The Transformation of Australian Electoral Analysis: The Two‐Party Preferred Vote — Origins,Impacts, and Critics

Measuring party support in Australia by constructing a “two‐party preferred” vote has had a profound effect, not only on the way political scientists, journalists, and politicians understand electoral “swing” and predict electoral outcomes, but also on their understanding of the party system, their thinking about electoral fairness, and their views about which party or parties can legitimately claim government. This article traces the origins — the maternity as well as the paternity – of the “two‐party preferred”. It documents its spread from federal to state elections, even as voting systems in some states have switched from exhaustive preferential to optional preferential. It discusses its wide‐ranging impact, and its implications for notions of electoral fairness and the legitimacy of election outcomes. It evaluates various criticisms of the concept — technical, pragmatic, and conceptual. And it notes the implications for marginal seat campaigning of the commonly observed “uniform swing”— implications completely at odds with the idea that marginal seats matter.     

The Bologna Process in German Educational Federalism: State Strategies,Policy Fragmentation and Interest Mediation

The article provides an impact assessment of the current European higher education reform (Bologna process) in the context of German educational federalism. The goal is to come to grips with the puzzling observation that the reforms have had a large impact, even though the joint decision-making trap of German educational federalism has continuously impeded structural changes in previous decades. It suggests that the reason why the Bologna process has been so influential is its openness, ambiguity, and the complete absence of binding commitments. These characteristics of soft governance dovetail with the strategy of the central government and the federal states to protect their political autonomy against potential threats resulting from inter- and transnational political cooperation as well as the national reform of the constitutional principles of federalism at home. However, drawing on empirical examples of policy fragmentation, understood as the co-existence of partly incompatible reform islands, illustrates the costs of soft governance in the national implementation process.     

New Public Management and Public Sector Reform in Victoria and New Zealand: Policy Transfer,Elite Networks and Legislative Copying*

In the early 1990s, Victoria reformed its state sector along New Public Management (NPM) lines. Drawing on interviews with key policy‐makers of the time, including chief executives, ministers and key officials from both jurisdictions, and using archival material and secondary sources, this article shows that New Zealand developments were a key source for Victoria's reforms — even down to seemingly copying passages of legislation. Policy transfer took place within a supporting framework of an Anglo‐American diffusion of NPM rhetoric and neoliberal ideas. But New Zealand's experiences gave content, form and legitimation to Victoria's reforms, while providing a platform and experience for learning and divergence, and a group of transferable experts. We underline the importance of the Australia‐New Zealand relationship and trans‐Tasman elite networks in understanding the governance of both countries.     

Kompensationsmöglichkeiten föderaler Vollzugsdefizite. Das Beispiel der kantonalen Alkoholpräventionspolitiken

The implementation of public policies in Switzerland is highly federal and decentralized with the main competencies at the sub‐national level of the member states, i.e. the cantons. Comparing alcohol prevention policies in the Swiss cantons, the present article supports the thesis of considerable differences in the cantonal provision of respective outputs. At the same time we can find cooperative implementation strategies compensating the resulting performance deficits. However, this so‐called “secondary harmonization” only is applied by about half of the cantons. We identify three reasons for that fact: First, only those cantons engage in horizontal cooperation that, on the one hand, have an actual interest in improving their policy performance, and, on the other hand, can afford it resource‐wise. Second, today's paradigm of the “lean state” leads to competitive rather than cooperative implementation strategies. Third, the federal administration neither encourages horizontal cooperation, nor do we find a vertical cooperation between the higher and the lower federal level on an equal basis.     

(Un?)Healthy Politics: The Political Determinants of Subnational Health Systems in Brazil

How does political competition shape institutions that govern the expansion of social policy subnationally? Brazilian states have shown a surprising variation in the design of their public health institutions, which regulate the distribution of health resources and citizen access to public health care. While many states have experienced fragmentation, some have remained highly centralized and discretionary, and only a select few have established a coordinated system based on power sharing and rules‐based distribution. Accounts that link public health care expansion to federal government imposition, the presence of the public health care movement, and leftist parties cannot fully explain this variation. Instead, in the three Brazilian states examined here, the nature of subnational political competition triggered different institution‐building strategies. The findings indicate that plural political competition yielded incentives for limiting state‐level discretion and for sharing power with municipal governments, while political concentration reinforced the attraction to centralized and discretionary policymaking.     

Coyotaje and Drugs: Two Different Businesses

This article, based on a qualitative methodology that includes in‐depth interviews with 85 migrant‐smugglers who operate at the border between Mexico and the United States, addresses three research questions: do migrant‐smugglers take part in organised crime? Are criminal groups involved in migrant smuggling? And are migrant‐smugglers engaged in drug trafficking? It concludes that many smugglers have become part of organised crime groups but only after leaving the migrant‐smuggling business; that criminal organisations do not help migrants to cross the border; and that migrant‐smugglers do not carry drugs.     

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.     

Sustainable Fiscal Policy in a Federal State: The Swiss Example

Using a small theoretical model it is first shown that it is reasonable to limit public deficit and debt in relation to GDP in the long‐run. Then we describe fiscal institutions called ‘debt brakes’ which are designed to prevent public deficit and debt from going off course. We present some models which have been applied in some Swiss cantons, especially in the canton St. Gallen, and the respective institution recently introduced at the federal level. Altogether, the models in the different cantons are quite successful. At the federal level we still have to wait before we can evaluate the results. Finally, we describe how the problem of a possible bail out of cantons and local communities is solved in Switzerland. Taking all results together, we come to the conclusion that by choosing appropriate institutions federal countries are rather more able to perform a sustainable fiscal policy than unitary states. In this process, budgetary restrictions and/or fiscal referenda play prominent roles at all levels. On the other hand, a special stability pact between the different governmental levels does not seem to be necessary.     

Anti-Partyism in German Independent Local Lists: Empirical Insights from a Membership Study

In the past few decades, independent local lists in German municipalities have become serious competitors to political parties. However, despite their widespread presence and success, party researchers have largely ignored this phenomenon. Empirical evidence concerning the attitudes of their members towards political parties is rare. Thus far, it remains unclear whether their self-described image as non-parties or anti-parties is restricted to the sphere of local politics or accompanies a general rejection of parties in federal politics. First, the article conceptualises anti-partyism and proposes an analytical distinction between their intensity and related political level. It then analyses the consequences of different patterns of local politics and group characteristics as well as individual determinants to explain the degree of anti-party sentiment. This study improves our understanding of independents and whether they promote party democracy or are a product of political dissatisfaction. Based on a cross-sectional postal survey, multi-level regression models are used to test the hypotheses. The results show that anti-partyism is particularly strong towards party politics at the local level, whereas the general legitimacy of party democracy is not questioned in federal politics.     

From the Gallery to the Parliament: Journalists in the House of Representatives and Senate, 1901–2007

In this article we examine the extent of career cross‐over from journalism to politics in Australia using biographical data on the pre‐parliamentary careers of federal politicians since 1901. We find that while journalists continue to be over‐represented in Australia's national Parliament, there is evidence of a decline in the number making the career switch to politics. We argue that one explanation for this is the growing professionalisation of both vocations, and of journalism especially. Journalism education inculcates in graduates a strong sense of the media's Fourth Estate role, contributing to a professional identity that militates against taking up a political career. We also find that in recent decades, in spite of a small number of celebrated cases of journalists joining the ranks of the ALP, prior careers in journalism have been more prevalent among Coalition MPs. We argue that this reflects an ALP pre‐selection system that has become less accommodating of all pre‐parliamentary occupations other than trade union official and political staffer.     

Recent Education Policy and School Reform in Bavaria: A Critical Overview

This paper gives a critical overview of school reform measures in the German state of Bavaria in the aftermath of the OECD's PISA 2000 and 2003 studies. While the highly selective Bavarian school system has provided the best test results among the German federal states, its overall performance in an international context has been less impressive. In order to improve the Bavarian education system a range of initiatives has been introduced in recent years. While following pedagogically sound ideas in most cases, however, the projects have been hampered by fiscal restraints, ideological reservations against breaking up the traditional three-tier system of secondary education, prevailing bureaucratic restrictions, and a lack of improvements in incentives for teachers' involvement in reform. As a consequence, genuine, fundamental changes in the traditional system have not so far been initiated.     

Strength through Weakness: State Executive Power and Federal Reform in Austria

Due to the absence of a strong constitutional veto player, comparative research uses to classify Austria as country with weak federal structures, occasionally even as a “federation without federalism”. From an institutional perspective, the assessment is definitely correct, in particular with regard to the nearly insignificant status of the second chamber Bundesrat. Apart from constitutional provisions, however, there are informal forces at work in decision‐making processes. Our thesis is that any approach ignoring the fact that the nominal constitution is paralleled by a real one falls short. Instead, we focus on the Conference of State Governors which, though not established by law, is a strong player in Austria's multi‐layered system qualifying the picture of “weak” federalism. The paper gives on overview of origin and function of the conference and its ambivalent role in making up for the shortcomings of the federal structures. Taking recent attempts of reorganizing fiscal equalization between states and federation as an example, the need of reforming the allocation of rights and duties between the different levels and, at the same time, the obstacles blocking the reform is outlined and analyzed.     

Explaining the Politics of Recognition of Ethnic Diversity and Indigenous Peoples' Rights in Oaxaca, Mexico

A 'politics of recognition'– a process of political reform intended to recognise formally cultural diversity and indigenous peoples' rights – has developed in Mexico, both at the federal and at the state levels, since the early 1990s. The case of the state of Oaxaca stands out in this respect – the local constitution and nearly a dozen secondary laws were reformed during the 1990s, resulting in the conformation of the most comprehensive multicultural framework in Mexico. In this article, I attempt to explain the emergence and the particular development of Oaxaca's unique politics of recognition. Following an explanatory framework proposed by Donna Lee Van Cott, I conclude that the recognition agenda emerged in Oaxaca as legitimacy and governability was put under strain. In addition, I conclude that the (by Mexican standards) rapid and broad fashion in which it developed can be explained on the bases of the severity of the threats to governability and of the capacity of indigenous actors to influence the decision‐making process and form alliances with key political actors – i.e. the state governors.     

Treaties and Intergovernmental Relations in Australia: Political Implications of the Toonen Case

This article explores the political implications of the Toonen case for studies of Australian federalism. The case involved a finding by the United Nations Human Rights Committee that Tasmania's anti-gay laws breached Australia's human rights obligations, and the subsequent passing of the Human Rights (Sexual Conduct) Act 1994 (Cth) designed to override sections of Tasmania's criminal law.
The Commonwealth's use of the external affairs power to ratify international treaties is outlined, and some questions regarding Commonwealth and state responsibilities and areas of concern flowing from treaty ratification are examined. The Privacy Act is discussed, and the character of intergovernmental relations and cooperation in this instance analysed.
The case raises the question of whether the Commonwealth's capacity to use and expand its powers is subject to effective checks and balances, or is limiting or eroding the powers of the states to the extent that the division and sharing of powers no longer represents that of a federal system. The article concludes that Australian federalism is dynamic and flexible, and reaffirms that a differentiation between the process and outcome of intergovernmental relations will enhance our understanding of its machinations.     

Federal-level Government Participation and State-level Electoral Performance: A Party-based Analysis of Land Elections in Germany, 1949–2017

To what extent does the federal political arena contaminate the regional one in Germany? Does a party’s position as government or opposition on the federal level have a systematic impact on its performance in Land elections? Land elections are often characterised as second order elections, but existing empirical studies that use real election data suffer from important methodological problems. Unlike previous approaches using survey data or comparing vote shares in regional and federal elections, we analyse contamination in two ways. First, we test whether a party’s role at the federal level has a systematic impact on gaining or losing office at the Land level. Second, we examine the vote difference of parties relative to their result in the previous election in the Land. Drawing on a complete dataset of all Land elections from 1949 to 2017, we find confirmation for two phenomena well known in comparative electoral studies. First, the anti-incumbency effect: government parties tend to lose votes. In the German context, as in many other multilevel systems, this is exacerbated by the second effect: contamination. Gaining power or votes on the Land level is very difficult when a party is in government on the federal level.     

An Exercise in Police Co‐operation? The Origins of the Conference of Australian Police Commissioners

Research on police co‐operation has focused on international co‐operation and the challenges encountered on the path to a common Europe. Much less attention has been paid to historical challenges of police co‐operation within the boundaries of nation‐states with multiple police agencies. In this article we examine the origins of an institutional approach to the problems of policing within a federation. In Australia police commissioners of the various jurisdictions have been convening in a national forum for more than a century. This practice has its origins in late‐nineteenth century developments in criminal identification technologies such as Bertillonage and fingerprinting. The inaugural meeting of state police commissioners occurred in 1903 and after 1921 it became an annual event. In sum, we argue that the historical evidence from Australia suggests that the emergence of police co‐operation within national boundaries is likely to replicate the patterns observed in the development of international police co‐operation across the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.     

Bright Lights,Big Cities? Metropolisation,Intergovernmental Relations,and the New Federal Urban Policy in Switzerland

Disparities between increasing urban economic power and cities' limited political autonomy have put pressure on intergovernmental relations in many countries. Some authors have claimed that this process leads to a strengthening of the position of cities with respect to higher state levels such as regions or the nation state. The aim of this article is to test this hypothesis for the case of Switzerland. In the first part, we show that, due to the existing intergovernmental framework, the current dynamics of urbanisation (which we describe as “metropolization”) have produced specific problems for governance in Swiss urban areas: spillovers in the distribution of costs and benefits, new political cleavages between core cities and surrounding communes, as well as increasing autonomy conflicts between cities and cantons. In the second part, we argue that initiatives taken in order to tackle these issues of urban governance have contributed to transforming Swiss federalism. “Politikverflechtung” is increasing in urban areas. In particular, the new federal urban policy has introduced a new vertical dimension of co‐operation between cities, cantons and the Confederation. Although Swiss cities have gained new influence in the process, we conclude that cantons still hold the key position. Therefore, like other federalist countries, Switzerland has not experienced a considerable strengthening of urban governments with respect to higher levels. Nevertheless, current developments in this area can be seen as a move away from the hierarchical pattern of co‐operative federalism towards a more heterarchical pattern of multi‐level governance in Swiss intergovernmental relations.