Volkserziehung oder Institutionenreform? Ein Kommentar zu Werner Patzelts Bürgerschelte in der PVS 4/1998

Zusammenfassung Der Beitrag greift Patzelts These eines „latenten Verfassungskonflikts“ zwischen Bürgern und Politikern auf. Patzelts Auffassung, derzufolge die Demokratievorstellungen der Bürger falsch und korrekturbedürftig seien, stelle ich drei Thesen entgegen. Erstens sind die Demokratievorstellungen von Politikern und Bürgern nicht einfach falsch oder richtig; vielmehr zeichnen sie sich durch Gegens?tze aus, die sich aus den unterschiedlichen Rollenperspektiven von Politikanbietern und Politikabnehmern ergeben. Zweitens sind diese Gegens?tze nicht durch Erziehung, sondern nur durch Anreizver?nderungen — und das hei?t: durch institutionelle Reformen — zu überbrücken. Gefragt ist ein Anreizsystem, das den Rollentausch zwischen Bürgern und Politikern erm?glicht und damit deren wechselseitige Lernbereitschaft erh?ht. Als meine dritte These lege ich dar, dass die Ausstattung des Souver?ns mit Sachstimmrechten genau diesen Rollentausch erm?glicht und deshalb geeignet ist, das institutionelle Anreizsystem in der geforderten Weise zu rejustieren.

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zu: Werner Patzelt, 1998: Ein latenter Verfassungskonflikt? Die Deutschen und ihr parlamentarisches Regierungssystem, in: Politische Vierteljahresschrift 39 (4), 725–757.     

Verhandeln statt Argumentieren oder Verhandeln durch Argumentieren? Eine empirische Analyse auf der Basis der Sprechakttheorie

In a recent debate in German political science the terms ?bargaining and arguing“ have been construed as semantic opposites in the same dichotomous way as the terms ?strategic action and communicative action“ and ?game theory and discourse theory“. This paper rejects the notion of these dichotomies and presents a new theoretical approach to distinguish bargaining and arguing as modes of communicative resolution of conflicts. On the basis of speech act theory a method for the empirical analysis of bargaining and arguing processes is developed and demonstrated with an example of interest conflict resolution by mediation. Three conclusions can be drawn: First, in empirical processes of communicative conflict resolution, in almost all cases both arguing and bargaining will be present. Second, within the context of an interest conflict, arguing is not an alternative to bargaining, but a means for bargaining. Third, in the example in question a sequential structure could be observed: The resolution of disagreements over facts and values by arguing took place before the resolution of interest conflict by bargaining.     

„Bunte Revolutionen“ – Durchbruch zur Demokratie oder Modus der autoritären Systemreproduktion?

The bulk of the debate on “colour revolutions” interprets them as instances of democratic breakthrough promoting the democratization of postcommunist “laggards”. It contributes to democratization studies delivering neoinstitutionalist interpretations of electoral revolutions, models of the interplay between international and domestic factors, and implications for democracy assistance. There is, however, an alternative interpretation of the “colour revolutions” as instances of authoritarian regime instability and reproduction. It provides insights into the dynamics of post-Soviet (semi-)authoritarian regimes which are related to the ongoing debate on comparative authoritarianism. The different perspectives on “colour revolutions” also offer various prospects for postcommunist area studies.     

Die proportionale Ministerienaufteilung in deutschen Koalitionsregierungen: Akzeptierte Norm oder das Ausnutzen strategischer Vorteile?

In this paper, we corroborate Gamson’s Law for a data set including German coalition governments on the federal and Länder level. We further tackle the question of how to explain this regularity. Here, we conclude that it is not the bargaining power of parties resulting from seat distribution that could be able to explain Gamson’s Law. In fact, we identify Gamson’s Law as a behavioural norm which evolved over time in Germany. We finally confirm the conjecture that on average smaller parties profit and larger parties suffer from deviations from Gamson’s Law. However, there is also a strong party bias which is able to invert this effect for single parties as e. g. the Greens or the Party of Democratic Socialism. Further variables such as the size of the party system or the number of parties which form a coalition government can also explain some deviations from the Gamson’s Law.     

Gerhard oder Helmut? ‚Unpolitische’ Kandidateneigenschaften und ihr Einfluss auf die Wahlentscheidung bei der Bundestagswahl 1998

This article examines to what degree the voting decision in 1998 was affected by personal, ‘nonpolitical’ qualities of the two chancellor candidates, i.e. Gerhard Schroeder and Helmut Kohl: personal integrity, physical attractiveness, and family life. Drawing on the German national post election study 1998, it is demonstrated that the two candidates’ personal qualities had in fact a significant impact on the voting decision. Differentiating between several personal attributes, personal integrity proves to be somewhat more important than truly nonpolitical attributes such as the physical attractiveness or the candidates’ family life. All in all, hypotheses on personalization receive support from the analyses presented in this article.     

Sozialstaatliche Kürzungspolitik in Deutschland: Nur eine Mär? Eine quantitative Gesetzgebungsanalyse 1974–2014

Quantitative analyses on welfare state dynamics have to cope with the “dependent variable problem”, as studies on social spending reach different conclusions than analyses of replacement rate data. This article suggests a way around this problem by presenting results from a fine-grained analysis of welfare state legislation in Germany between 1974 and 2014. We show that the German welfare state has seen both cuts and expansions occur in all decades. Moreover, we show by means of a regression analysis that partisan politics play a role. Supporting the “Nixon-in-China”-thesis, social democratic governments are associated with a higher probability of cutbacks—especially in times of budgetary pressure—whereas expansions are more likely under Christian democratic governments.     

Alltag oder Vergangenheit? Einstellungen zur herrschenden politischen Ordnung in den Neuen Bundesländern, Polen, Tschechien und Ungarn

“What determines attitudes towards the current regime in Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and the former GDR (Neue Bundesländer)?” — is the main concern of this paper. If people’s attitudes are based on belief systems formed under socialism (hypothesis of socialisation), the transformation will be a long-lasting process, and one is not yet justified to speak about consolidated democratic political systems. On the other hand, if attitudes are more likely to stem from people’s situation of life (hypothesis of situation of life), it is the performance of the political system that can bring about consolidation. The empirical analysis is based on the Central European Database for Social Policy. The results raise some doubts, whether the regimes surveyed are already resistant to crises.     

Die personalisierte Verhältniswahl unter den Bedingungen des gesamtdeutschen Parteiensystems. Eine Analyse der Entstehungsursachen von Überhangmandaten seit der Wiedervereinigung

Germany’s mixed-member proportional system, internationally known as the ‘German model’, has been recently criticized, since the 1994 Bundestag elections saw the genesis of several surplus mandates giving the CDU-FDP-government a safer majority in parliament. Due to this institutional effect, a lot of political scientists and lawyers have argued that the electoral system is no longer in conformity with the constitutional principle of electoral equality. From the perspective of empirical political analysis, two important aspects have not been taken into account in this debate. First, the complex relationship between different factors causing surplus mandates have not been analysed in a systematic-comparative manner. Second, the literature does not explain why so many surplus mandates have appeared in all national elections since 1990 whereas almost none were produced in Bundestag elections before the reunification. This study analyses the genesis of surplus mandates having appeared in the three German Bundestag elections since reunification (1990–1998). In contrast to monocausal explanations it confirms the hypothesis that in the present political context almost all surplus mandates result from complex relationships between generally known explanatory variables. Furthermore, the empirical analysis shows that the genesis of surplus mandates is not only caused by particularities of electoral districting in certain Bundesländer, but also by politico-structural differences between East and West Germany.     

Wirtschaftspolitischer Handlungsspielraum im Zeitalter der Globalisierung. Eine empirische Untersuchung am Beispiel von Währungskrisen

This article assesses the popular view that currency crises represent a prime example of the constraints that globalization imposes on governments’ policy autonomy. We show that governments in fact have the possibility to respond to speculative pressure in different ways. Whether or not policymakers succumb to this pressure is not solely determined by economic factors but also a question of political considerations. Political preferences, institutions, and events significantly affect policy responses to currency crises. Our results suggest that national governments retain substantial short-run policy autonomy even in highly internationalized policy areas such as monetary and exchange rate policy.     

Dynamiken von Gesetzgebungsinitiativen der Bundes- und Landesparteien im deutschen Föderalismus. Eine Analyse für den Bereich der Rechte Minderjähriger, 1990 bis 2014

The article explores how parties influence legal change in federal systems. Analysing 310 initiatives to change German legislation concerning minors’ rights (which fall into federal and land jurisdiction) for the period from 1990 to 2014, the study opens up empirically a new legislative domain which has been largely ignored by political science so far. It investigates the initiating parties, issues, positions, timing, and cross-level government constellation and corroborates that parties in Germany coordinate their legislative initiatives across lands and levels. At the same time, the data indicate that German land parties are not mere agents of the federal parties and do not utilize the länder level for law-making against federal majorities. The many federal and länder initiatives instead give room for discourse and provide incentives for (re)adjusting party positions which in the long run fosters legal changes.