Föderative Gesellschaft im unitarischen Bundesstaat

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Bürger und Demokratie im vereinigten Deutschland

Since the early 1990s, the future development of the political culture of unified Germany was a matter of debate. According to some scholars, a fit between political structure and political culture is a necessary condition of a well performing and stable democracy. At the same time it was doubted, whether such a configuration would develop in Germany in the near future. Generalized support of a democratic regime and of the particular type of democracy institutionalized in the nation under observation are regarded as particularly relevant elements of a democratic political culture. Regarding the distribution and development of these attitudes, there are no indications of an increasing congruence between political structure and political culture in unified Germany. In the Eastern part of the country, the democratic regime in general, but even more the German variant of democracy is facing considerable scepticism. The particularly strong scepticism of the East Germans towards the form of democracy institutionalized in Germany particularly rooted in a distant attitude to democracy as a type of political regime. Other relevant factors are dissatisfaction with the performance of democracy in Germany, a negative view of the responsiveness of political leaders, a persisting support of socialism and a negative perception of the prevailing economic conditions.     

The (im)possibility of development studies

Abstract

Development studies is commonly understood to be committed both to a principle of difference (the Third World is different, hence the need for a separate field of studies) and a principle of similarity (it is the job of development policy to make ‘them’ more like ‘us’). This double commitment has led to important challenges to the intellectual standing of the discipline and/or its object of study, development. This paper begins by reviewing five theorems which pronounce the impossibility of development studies. It then offers a more sympathetic account of the field. While recognizing the urgent need for development studies to be critical and at times oppositional, the paper suggests that an allied commitment to public policy-making can be taken as a sign of maturity. Development, and development studies, should be understood as sets of social practices, or technologies of rule, the organization and effects of which need to be (and in key respects are) contested and subjected to political and scholarly review.     

Warum Mittelmaß? Deutschlands Bildungsausgaben im internationalen Vergleich

Ohne Zusammenfassung Der vorliegende Beitrag ist die überarbeitete und erweiterte Fassung der Antrittsvorlesung des Verfassers an der Ruprecht-Karls-Universit?t Heidelberg am 13. Dezember 2001.     

Gideon Botsch: „Politische Wissenschaft” im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Die „Deutschen Auslandswissenschaften” im Einsatz 1940–1945

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Institutionen, Interessen, Netzwerke Unternehmensverflechtung im internationalen Vergleich

In many countries large companies are connected to one another by corporate networks. This analysis presents the analysis of network structures in six countries: Germany, France, Great Britain, Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United States. Networks form part of an institutional structure of the market whose aim is to reduce transaction costs. Networks enable firms to coordinate their behavior and regulate competition. Corporate networks can be compared with interest organizations (e.g., corporatism). They serve to improve the collective capacity of firms for self-regulation. The more comprehensive the networks and the more effective the mechanisms by which interests are filtered, the less their scope to organize narrow sectional interests. The structure of corporate networks is different in different countries. In Germany and Switzerland, for instance, large firms and banks come together in the networks (Konzerne); in France the large companies, the state and the financial companies. The predominant network configuration is influenced in each country by its specific culture, traditions and experience.     

Umbau des Sozialstaates? Österreich und Deutschland im Vergleich

In comparative analysis of welfare states, there is a consensus that mature welfare state systems have been confronted, for some considerable time, with substantial pressure towards re-structuring and that, as a result, they actually have undertaken several and varied modifications. This articles aims at exploring and analysing these developments in Austria and Germany from a comparative point of view. The analysis concentrates on two vital fields of social policy: old-age insurance and unemployment insurance. Especially in respect of the development of social policy and regarding important characteristics of the two welfare state systems, both countries traditionally show a large degree of resemblance to each other. Many similarities remained to exist during the phase of growing pressures on the welfare state, whereas at the same time it is evident that differences between the two countries increased. The respective actual developments will be interpreted in the light of corresponding theories of comparative welfare state research and classified as gradual and structural changes.     

Soziale Herkunft, politische Sozialisation und Wählen im Lebensverlauf

In this paper the influence of social origin as well as both the political communication and the religious education in the family on the voting behaviour in the life course have been investigated. Furthermore, we investigate the intergenerational transmission of parental party identification and the duration of its impact on the children’s voting patterns. For the empirical analyses, retrospective longitudinal data are employed. The empirical results confirm the significant impact of the social origin, the religious education, and the parental party identification on voting. However, their impact decreases in the later stages of the life cycle. Furthermore, the intergenerational reproduction of parental party identification has decreased significantly over consecutive generations.     

Sicherheitspolitik im strategischen Dreieck „Berlin — Paris — Washington“

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Föderalismus und Wohlfahrtsstaat im historischen Kontext: Der Fall Kanada

Federalism and the welfare state in Canada have always been mutually reinforcing. The pattern of welfare state development, however, has never followed a single narrow historical path since the critical juncture of confederation in 1867. It has instead been shaped by two conflicting approaches: a pan-Canadian approach and a province-based approach to the welfare state. An institutional configuration in accordance with the interstate model of federalism has enabled Ottawa and the provinces to initiate, restructure and recalibrate social policies, predominantly by voluntary negotiations but also by unilateral federal and provincial action. Efforts to reform the welfare state have been at the public policy level and also aimed at the institutional framework in which public policies are embedded. The interplay of such institutional features as policy pre-emption by the provinces and evolution of the federal spending power alongside a dual tax structure on the revenue side has promoted a dynamic which can hardly be captured by a narrow conception of path dependency.     

Fragen an die politökonomische Sozialforschung im Prozess der Osterweiterung der EU

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Schwimmende Politeia? Demokratische Mikroinseln im Südpazifik und in der Karibik

Microislands are not a hot spot of comparative government studies. Without good reasons. Surely, from a political perspective Microislands are not of great importance. But such an argument should not prevent researchers from taking a closer look at Microislands. Because they are perfectly designed to broaden our knowledge of the circumstances under which democracies occur and survive. In this paper three assumptions, taken from the rare literature on Microislands, are tested: territorial space, homogeneity and insularity. It can be shown that the geographical as well as the geopolitical position of Caribbean and south pacific microislands posses a high explanatory power for the question why those states are stable democracies.     

Föderalismus und wohlfahrtsstaatliche Entwicklung. Österreich und die Schweiz im Vergleich

Starting from the stylised fact that federal institutions are held to be inimical to welfare state expansion, this paper examines the ways in which federalism has shaped the dynamics of welfare state development in Switzerland and Austria. A comparison of these different federal polities reveals that the welfare breaking effect attached to federalism crucially depends on the extent of vertical power separation. In both countries economic competition among constituent units did not fuel a race to the bottom in social standards. In Switzerland, the most important reason connected to federalism for why federal social policy was delayed and downsized was policy-preemption by the cantons and their considerable influence on the federal policymaking process. In contrast, the Austrian Länder neither had major social policy competencies nor an effective veto power which allowed them to block the centralisation of public policy. Instead, federalism is subordinate to the partisan arena at the central state level which itself is dominated by political parties quite favourable to welfare state expansion.     

Kandidatenorientierungen im Wahlkampf. Eine Analyse zu den Bundestagswahlkämpfen 1980–1998

This article analyses effects of German federal election campaigns on citizens’ orientations towards chancellor candidates. Three hypotheses are formulated; they refer to polarization, party politicization, and priming of candidate attitudes; additionally, it is argued that campaign context moderates the effects. The hypotheses are tested empirically using survey data conducted in the election campaigns 1980 to 1998. Empirically, campaign communication polarizes the perceptions of the chancellor candidates; additionally, the perceptions are brought into line with party preferences. Thirdly, priming effects are less common, but in some cases substantial candidate priming can be proved. Hence, election campaigns influence candidate orientations in Germany, and the effect varies according to the political context.     

Diplomaten zwischen Sozialisation und Kalkulation: Bestimmungsfaktoren des Berufserfolgs im Auswärtigen Dienst

This article examines the determining factors of career success in the German Foreign Service. Based on the socialization and the rational choice approach, we design two models from which empirical relevance is evaluated through data from four career entry cohorts (attaché training courses 1970–1973). The statistical analysis of a systematic survey shows that facets of career calculation such as networking or conformity more strongly influence the professional achievements of a diplomat than that of group-specific features such as family background or party membership. Even though we cannot strictly separate the models from each other, it becomes evident that the rationalist explanation predicts career success better than the factors attributed from the socialization model.