The Foreign and European Policy of the German Lander

Although the German federal government is responsible underthe Basic Law for foreign affairs, the Länder may, undercertain circumstances, conclude treaties with the consent ofthe federation. The Länder have also become involved directlyand indirectly in other international activities. European integration,especially through the European Communities (EC), presents theLänder with new challenges. The Länder have soughtmeans to influence the federal government and the EC Commissionand Council of Ministers, in order to protect their sphere ofautonomous decisionmaking, but EC procedures and the realitiesof federal government involvement do not place the Länderin a strong negotiating position.     

Reconsidering The Counter-Mobilization Hypothesis: Health Policy Lobbying In The American States

Despite its widespread use since the concept was introduced by David Truman (1951. The Governmental Process. New York: Alfred A. Knopf), counter-mobilization by organized interests has remained theoretically ambiguous and rarely studied empirically. We more fully develop the concept of short-term counter-mobilization, distinguish it from long-term counter-mobilization, specify the conditions under which we might observe short-term counter-mobilization, and test the resulting hypotheses with data on health care lobby registrations in the American states during the late 1990s. We find little evidence of short-term counter-mobilization among health interest organizations, which leads us to more fully consider several null hypotheses about the limits of strategic behavior on the part of organized interests.An earlier version of this paper was prepared for presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, April 2004. This research was supported by a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Award in Health Policy Research (ID#047727).     

Bureaucratic Power and Public Policies: a Test of the Rational Staff Maximization Hypothesis

This paper tests the staff maximization hypothesis that bureaucratic power is positively related to labour inputs to the production of public sector goods and services. The context of the test is the staffing policies of three groups of British local authorities in three time periods. The relationship between bureaucratic power and changes in authorities' staff is estimated while controlling for the influence of local party politics, central grants and conditions in the environment of the local political system. The results of the statistical analysis refute the staff maximization hypothesis.     

Institutional Choice and Policy Transfer: Reforming British and German Railway Regulation

The notions of "policy learning" and "policy transfer" have become increasingly influential in the public-policy literature. By utilizing a comparative analysis of regulatory change in the railways in Britain and Germany, it is argued that an institutional approach adds to the understanding of "learning" and "transfer" processes, as well as explaining which institutions mattered as Britain and Germany adopted distinctively different regulatory regimes. The institutional approach points to the constraints involved in the selection of regulatory design ideas and, by assessing three institutional factors that structure relationships between the policy domain and its environments, suggests that in the case of railway privatization in Britain and Germany in the 1990s, it was the structure of the political-administrative nexus that centrally shaped why particular policy options were selected while others were neglected.     

Lander Governance in a Global Era: The Case of Hesse

Subnational governments in federal systems are among the institutionsbeing buffeted by economic trends and institutional developmentsassociated with globalization. While the national governments'ability to maintain policy autonomy in a global age is frequentlyexamined, less attention has been devoted to the subnationalleaders' capacity for responding to global circumstances whilestill preserving the traditions and priorities of their jurisdictions.This article explores the responses of a single German Land,Hesse, to international events between 1982 and 1999. The analysisconcentrates first on changes in governmental structure andprocedure that reflect developments in Hesse's global environment,and then on changes in economic and environmental policy, apolicy domain central to Hessian politics throughout the period.Hesse's political leadership has not been able to insulate theLand from global pressures, but by acknowledging their distinctcircumstances, they have shaped institutions and policies inways that have enhanced their ability to derive significantadvantage from trends originating outside their borders.     

In the Service of Power: The Global Political Economy of Citizenship and Human Rights

This article investigates how the idea of universal human rights has been co-opted by the prevailing (neo)liberal consensus in support of processes associated with capitalist globalization. So-called “civil and political” rights form the core of (neo)liberal values upon which free market, laissez-faire economics are based, but the idealism of the dichotomy of first and second generation rights is profoundly ideological. Through an examination of the idea of the international citizen, it is argued that the attempt to introduce a duty to promote the widest possible social good falls far short of an obligation to respond to claims for alternative conceptions of “economic and social” rights; far less alternative models of social affairs. Drawing on empirical evidence from Africa, the article contends that the dominance of (neo)liberal rights is integral to the emerging (neo)liberal constitution of the global order effected in the name of “human rights”, “democratization”, “citizenship”, “good governance” and “civil society”.

Never in the recent past have the founding principles of universal rights been so instrumentalized in the service of power, to such an extent that … in the opening years of the twentieth-century, we can speak of a veritable apogee of hegemony and an unprecedented crystallization of the hatreds that it arouses. (Bessis, 2003 Bessis, S. 2003. Western Supremacy: The Triumph of an Idea?, London: Zed.  [Google Scholar])     

Personality and Political Participation: The Mediation Hypothesis

Recent analyses have demonstrated that personality affects political behavior. According to the mediation hypothesis, the effect of personality on political participation is mediated by classical predictors, such as political interest, internal efficacy, political discussion, or the sense that voting is a civic duty. This paper outlines various paths that link personality traits to two participatory activities: voter turnout in European Parliament elections and participation in protest actions. The hypotheses are tested with data from a large, nationally representative, face-to-face survey of the Spanish population conducted before and after the 2009 European Parliament elections using log-linear path models that are well suited to study indirect relationships. The results clearly confirm that the effects of personality traits on voter turnout and protest participation are sizeable but indirect. They are mediated by attitudinal predictors.     

Bill Hayton: The South China Sea:The Struggle for Power In Asia

Journal of Chinese Political Science -     

公共选择理论的“理性人“假设评析

"理性人"假设是公共选择理论的核心.公共选择理论的"理性人"假设,对于我们正确地审视传统政府管理理论的缺陷,构建既能够有效地解决实际问题、促进经济和社会的健康发展,又充满生机和活力的新型政府管理模式,有着重要的理论价值和现实意义.但是,"理性人"假设及以其为核心的公共选择理论也逐渐暴露一些不容忽视的局限性和片面性.因此,我们需要以对政府管理或一般的行政管理过程中的人性的多角度审视来超越"理性人"假设,并形成对以其为依据的政府管理模式的有效限制.     

Legitimacy, Authority and the Transfer of Power in Ghana

The problems of authority and legitimacy experienced by post-colonial states are often explained in terms of a 'colonial legacy'. The validity of this hypothesis is examined, in the case of Ghana, by analysing changes in the kinds of legitimacy claimed by the state from the colonial period through decolonization to independence. It is concluded that, whilst the most enduring legacy of colonialism was the attempt to found legitimacy in particularistic, indigenous systems of law, the decolonization process failed to transfer any one of the new, competing claims to legitimacy which emerged. Nationalism, of its very nature, was precluded from claiming authority on the basis of expertise in being European, and was also led to deny the validity of indigenous cultures. Representative democracy too was contradictory in so far as its results often challenged the nationalists' conception of a non-ethnic national identity. Ultimately neither democracy nor 'being African' was a sufficient basis for the legitimacy of the new state.     

Rethinking the Porter Hypothesis: The Underappreciated Importance of Value Appropriation and Pollution Intensity

The impact of environmental regulation on the competitiveness of firms and industries remains a hot topic. Since the formulation of the Porter hypothesis, scholars from different research areas have tried to confirm or deny it. However, despite a vast literature engaging this debate, it remains unclear whether and under what conditions the hypothesis could be considered valid. We believe that this is due to the need to consider some additional factors. The aim of this review is to propose additional and significant themes, namely value appropriation and pollution intensity, to be considered when examining the impact of environmental regulation on the innovation and profitability of firms. Results show that the validity of the Porter hypothesis cannot be proved in any condition, but at the same time, there are additional factors that have a relevant influence on that construct, which can lead to a validation or rejection of the hypothesis.     

《德意志意识形态》:理论与实践的双重意蕴

《德意志意识形态》是体现马克思哲学变革的重要文本。在这本著作中,马克思确立了以生产逻辑为基础的历史唯物主义构架,这一构架特别体现在三个方面:一是社会存在决定社会意识,这为我们反思意识形态、实现社会历史批判提供了重要的理论基础;二是生产力的发展推动着社会历史的发展,特别是历史向世界历史转变,这为我们认识当代社会的走向,特别是全球化时代的社会走向提供了方法论指导;三是在生产力发展与世界历史格局的基础上,实现共产主义,这为社会发展确立了方向。重读《德意志意识形态》,不仅需要展现马克思哲学变革的内在逻辑,还要展现这一文本的历史意义。     

The Centre Ground Hypothesis and the Shape of Public Opinion

This article takes issue with the widespread assumption that most people hold moderate political opinions on most issues. Tracing the historical conditions and theoretical assumptions that underpin that idea and testing it against polling from Britain, the author shows that—across economic, social and international affairs—the centre ground is not where most people are at.     

Accommodating Islam and the Utility of National Models: The German Case

This article questions the claim that the way German governments have responded to Muslim demands for accommodating Islam fits a German national model. The empirical focus is on Islamic religious instruction in five German Länder. The evidence presented shows that there is not one but several German models. Länder with Christian Democratic dominance were more supportive of confessional religious instruction than Länder where the left was stronger. At the same time Christian Democrats initially were more reluctant to extend the privilege of religious instruction to Muslim groups. In Länder where Article 7 III of the German constitution applied, corporatist hurdles were an obstacle for Muslim groups, but this was less the case in Berlin. Religion–state institutions are important for understanding how European countries have dealt with the growing presence of Islam, but it is equally important to understand the politically contested nature of these institutions.