Welfare State and Political Culture in Unified Germany

This paper addresses the assertion that preferences for a comprehensive welfare state hamper and delay the emergence of a liberal-democratic culture in East Germany. Two questions are explored: first, has the impact of welfare-state values on support of the German democratic regime declined in East Germany since re-unification and adapted to the lower levels observed in West Germany? Second, are attitudes towards different welfare-state programmes equally important for citizens’ approval of the German democratic regime? Empirical analyses on the basis of representative public opinion surveys conducted between 1991 and 2012 confirm that the effect of welfare-state values in East Germany has converged to the smaller effect size observed in West Germany. Furthermore, attitudes to welfare-state programmes aimed at reducing income inequalities turn out to be a significant determinant of regime support in both parts of Germany. It is the higher demand for inequality-reducing governmental activities which still restrains the approval of the liberal-democratic regime among citizens in East Germany.     

Public interest politics,corporate governance and company regulation in Germany and Britain

This article introduces a systematic framework for evaluating the impact of public interest issues on companies through regulation and mandatory corporate governance requirements that change the nature of the firm. It finds that public interest issues that apply to the firm are becoming more important in both Britain and Germany, despite their disparate historical patterns of dealing with the company. European integration and national politics are both expanding the range of issues companies must deal with, even under the competitive pressures of globalisation, while national institutions and politics continue to dominate the manner in which most firms confront public interest issues.     

Political Culture and the Legacy of Socialism in Unified Germany

Almost a quarter of a century after German unification, studies continue to uncover pervasive attachments to socialism in the former East. While these attachments have been a recurrent feature in analyses of political culture, surprisingly little is known about their sources. This article systematically explores the socio-political foundations of socialist values, by subjecting two theoretical perspectives to empirical testing. Political socialisation perspectives attribute these values to generationally based political identities that were forged in the pre-1989 era. Political economy perspectives, by contrast, stress how they have been reinforced by negative post-1989 evaluations of politics and materialism. Logistic regression analyses of ALLBUS data from 1991 to 2010 test nine hypotheses at the individual level, with the results confirming the following. First, there is evidence of an age-based structure to the foundations of socialist values: younger easterners are less likely to value socialism, but the evidence of this has emerged only recently. Second, equally important drivers of these values are support for parties on the left of the political spectrum and ideological self-placement. Third, economic factors have been selective and inconsistent predictors of socialist values. Overall, the research underscores the stability of socialist values in the German context, but argues that these values remain compatible with a political culture that is supportive of the democratic framework of unified Germany.     

Institutional dynamics and party think tank development: Britain and Germany compared

Official party think tanks have been a fixture in a number of Western European democracies for many decades but not so in the Anglo-American democratic sphere even though think tanks aligned to parties have flourished. This article explores the reasons that party and think tank ties have evolved differently in these two settings through an examination of the party think tank scene in Germany and Britain. It is suggested that the predominant form of democracy operating in each of these settings helps to explain this critical difference. While the adversarial tendencies of the British political system militate against parties taking much of an interest in establishing official party think tanks, the consensual institutional dynamics associated with Germany’s political system has encouraged parties to sponsor their formation, and reinforced the perceived importance of the party think tank vehicle as agents of democratic linkage.     

The Role of the Internet in Political Campaigns in Germany

The Internet has become an important infrastructure for political campaigns around the world, and various online tools have become pervasive campaigning devices. Still, most research on the role of the Internet and online tools in political campaigns focuses on US presidential campaigns. Due to the specific institutional context in the US, this research might not provide realistic observations about the role of the Internet in future campaigns in other countries. Researchers will have to enrich the debate through systematic studies of the role of the Internet and various online services in campaigns in political, legal and cultural contexts different from those prevailing in the US. This special issue aims to add to the discussion by presenting a number of empirical studies focusing on the role of the Internet and various online services during the campaign for the German federal election of 2009 and its aftermath.     

Political Indigestion: Germany Confronts Genetically Modified Foods

Why has German policy toward agricultural biotechnology been notably unsupportive, compared to other countries with large biotechnology industries, despite its economic significance and the senior governing party's initial support across both the SPD–Green and Grand Coalition governments? I argue that German policy is the result of the interlocking dynamics in the economic and political arenas. In both realms, the GMO issue led to ‘business conflict’ by dividing economic sectors into pro-GMO and anti-GMO blocs. This enhanced the anti-GMO movement's ‘opportunity structures’ in both the economic and the political arena. It also affected the relative strength of contending political coalitions on both sides of the GMO issue, which in turn affected policy outcomes. Finally, I argue that the partisan composition of Germany's coalition governments also contributed to the outcome.     

The 1968 Movement Revisited: Education and the Distinction in Values,Political Interest and Political Participation in West Germany

The aim of this paper is to take a look at the 1968 generation in West Germany about 40 years after the 1968 events. Whether there was a 1968 generation in the narrow sense of the word will be explored. While comparing the 1968 generation with earlier and later cohorts, political interest, political activity and (postmaterialist) values will be analysed. Education will be theorised as a main mechanism that distinguishes the 1968 generation from earlier generations. Quantitative analyses will be performed employing a temporal perspective and including age, period and cohort effects – so that socialisation as well as individual change over the life cycle and macro influences can be taken into account. The results show a strong influence of education on political interest, political activity and postmaterialism. Therefore, what is called the ‘1968 generation’ only applies to the more highly educated people of this generation.     

Political Order in Occupied Societies 1 : Realist Lessons from Germany and Japan

Abstract

The American occupations of Germany and Japan have many lessons to offer the United States today as it contemplates creating new political orders in Afghanistan and Iraq. The lessons that are to be drawn are not, however, the ones that are usually drawn by the current administration and others. First and foremost, a systematic comparison with the German and Japanese experiences clearly shows that the preconditions for democratization are not present in the contemporary cases, suggesting that the United States needs to recalibrate its objectives. Instead of seeking democratization, the United States should try first to create stability, even as it creates at least the institutional forms on which a more pluralistic political system can eventually be erected. The U.S. experience with state building in the Philippines and South Korea may be more relevant today than the German and Japanese cases. Other lessons that can be drawn from the German and Japanese as well as other past U.S. experiences with occupying countries include: the importance of finding a common threat that can unite enough indigenous elites that order can be established; integrating the new states into regional systems; and perhaps most importantly, using the instruments of transitional justice (trials, purges, censorship, etc.) in a fashion calculated to rehabilitate and incorporate supporters of the old regimes while delivering a modicum of justice.     

Natural Disasters and Political Participation: Evidence from the 2002 and 2013 Floods in Germany

How do natural disasters affect electoral participation? The existing social science literature offers contradictory predictions. A considerable body of research in sociology and psychology suggests that traumatic events can inspire pro-social behaviour, which might increase turnout. Yet, political science has long held that even minor changes to participation costs of low benefit activities can lead to considerable drops in civic engagement. Consequently, natural disasters should reduce electoral participation. We show how these distinct views can be jointly analysed within the Riker–Ordeshook model of voting. This paper then reports results on the impact of the 2002 and 2013 floods in Germany on turnout in federal and state elections in Saxony and Bavaria, conducted few weeks after the floods. Analysing community level turnout data, and drawing on a difference-in-differences framework, we find that flood exposure has a consistent negative effect on turnout. This indicates that the increase in the costs of voting outweighed any increase in political engagement in our case and stands in contrast to findings from developing contexts, where flood management was convincingly linked to electoral participation.     

The Prisoner Dilemma: Britain,Germany, and the Repatriation of Indian Prisoners of War

Abstract

Between October 1914 and December 1915, nearly 135,000 Indian riflemen—known as sepoys—fought in the trenches of France and Belgium at the battles of Ypres, Festubert, Givenchy, Neuve Chapelle, Second Ypres and Loos, suffering some 34,252 casualties. At a prisoner of war camp outside Berlin, Indian revolutionaries and emissaries from the Ottoman Empire attempted to convert the allegiances of the sepoys in their custody with a combination of pan-Islamic and nationalist appeals. Although this campaign ultimately failed, it profoundly shaped British repatriation policy at the end of the war when, cautioned Secretary of State for India Austen Chamberlain, the British could not allow men who had been exposed to ‘strongly hostile influences’ to return home unmonitored. The 1918 armistice and British repatriation policy therefore presented a host of new challenges to Britain’s colonial subjects from South Asia as they navigated the post-war imperial landscape and secured what was most important to them—safe transportation home.     

Social Capital and Political Support: A Reassessment of the Putnam Thesis in East and West Germany

A sizeable scholarly literature has generally uncovered weak, statistically trivial connections between social capital and political support, in spite of its logical appeal. Much of this research, however, has adopted an overly restrictive research design. It has overwhelmingly focused on the impact of social trust on political trust, from which broad inferences about the utility of the social capital perspective have been made. Rarely, however, has the impact of social capital been systematically assessed on indicators of political support which are more diffuse in character. Using data drawn from the German General Social Survey (ALLBUS), the present study analyses the impact of different measures of social capital on political support in the Federal Republic of Germany. The results strongly support the conclusion that social capital influences diffuse support.