On the Electoral Relevance of Education Policy in the German Länder

Education policy in Germany experienced a boom throughout the 2000s. Numerous reforms were implemented, quite far-reaching shifts of party programmes occurred, and the scope of institutions with an educational mandate widened considerably. At the same time, Landtag elections came to be seen as less dominated by federal politics. Yet we still know little about education policy's electoral relevance. The present article, following a most-likely design, analyses those five Landtag elections that were held since the reform of federalism in 2006 for which the importance of education policy ought to have been highest. It turns out that even though education is one of the very few policies which the Länder can decide upon autonomously, and despite the recent upsurge of regional factors in determining the outcomes of such second-order elections, nearly all Landtag elections are won or lost on other battlefields.     

The Kretschmann Effect: Personalisation and the March 2016 Länder Elections

This paper examines the influences of candidate perceptions on Germany’s spring 2016 Länder election results. It takes a comparative approach, using a modified Michigan model on the data collected simultaneously in three Länder (Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Saxony-Anhalt). It explains why the Green party was successful in Baden-Württemberg but not in the other Länder, the impact of the major candidates, and what distinguishes the influences of the current prime ministers running for these elections. Whereas Winfried Kretschmann’s (Green party, Baden-Württemberg) high impact on the election results was driven mainly by a warmth dimension (sympathy), Malu Dreyer (SPD, Rhineland-Palatinate) was viewed as being competent. Both candidates were assets to their parties and co-responsible for the results. In comparison, in Saxony-Anhalt, none of the candidates were as important to the outcomes of the electoral success.     

Between a rock and many Hard Places: The PDS and government participation in the eastern German Länder1

It is now widely recognised that unification has led to an increased regionalisation of party politics in the Federal Republic. On the one hand a significant number of decision-making competencies within parties remain decentralised. On the other, regional party systems have become ever more differentiated both from each other and from that which exists at the national level. This article assesses to what extent there is any empirical evidence supporting such ideas by comparing four PDS Landesverbände. The article illustrates that ideological differences, personality clashes and different strategic agendas ensure that each the of the four Landesverbände has a different profile and can behave in strikingly different ways – highlighting that parties have much more room to manoeuvre at the Land level than is traditionally believed.     

‘Schloss Neuwahnstein’? Why the Länder continue to strengthen their representations in Brussels

The establishment of representative offices in Brussels marked the start a qualitative new step in the engagement of the German Länder in European Union (EU) policy. Despite a contested birth, more than 20 years' operation in Brussels have seen these offices become full elements of the sponsoring Länder administrations. This article argues that in both functional and operational terms, the Brussels Länder offices have developed over time to approximate the role played by their federal level counterparts, the Länder representations in Berlin. Enhanced investment by the Länder in their EU presence underscores the increasing relevance of EU issues for the exercise of their domestic policy responsibilities. However, the Länder offices in Brussels remain disputed entities, as federal and Länder government views of their mission and appropriate engagement differ sharply. Thus, while direct engagement in Brussels has become the norm for the Länder administrations, tensions over access to the EU sphere continue to mark Bund-Länder relations in Brussels – more that ten years after a legal solution was established. The article concludes by considering the broader implications of this situation.     

The first six länder elections of 1999: Initial electoral consequences and political fallout of the Neue Mitte in action

This article examines the six regional elections that took place in Germany between February and September 1999 (in Hesse, Bremen, Brandenburg, Saarland, Thuringia and Saxony respectively) to illustrate the different contexts conditioning Gerhard Schröder's political problems and the initial performance of his SPD‐Green federal coalition. The conclusion suggests that Schroder may have been temporarily blown off course by the regional electoral losses in 1999, but it is far too soon to write off his chances of winning a second term in office in 2002. In particular, he has every chance of success if he can develop a credible and common language of modernisation which he then effectively ‘connects’ with the overall acceptance of the need for socio‐economic change amongst the German people.     

Small parties in the new bundesländer: Bündnis 90/die grünen in brandenburg

This article considers party system development in the eastern Länder looking at the fate of the small parties that have seen their aggregate share of the vote dwindle at successive state elections to the extent that the eastern states display a three‐party system comprising the CDU, the SPD and the PDS. Bündnis 90/Die Grünen and the FDP are notable casualties, since they are now extra‐parliamentary parties, having previously enjoyed the status of coalition partners. Bundnis 90/Die Grünen in the Land of Brandenburg is singled out for detailed analysis as a representative of this fate. Paradoxically, the fact that Biindnis 90 had been successful in the 1990 Landtag elections contributed to its downfall in 1994. This position of power meant that there was no incentive for key members to meet compromises and merge with the Greens. The resulting split in the party following an exceedingly acrimonious merger process did not help the party's chances at the next Landtag elections.     

The More,the Merrier? Interest Groups and Legislative Change in the Public Hearings of the German Parliamentary Committees

The article examines the impact of organised interests on the passage of legislation in the German Bundestag through an empirical analysis of the position papers presented in the public hearings of its standing committees in 2011. These committees are the most important forums to revise legislative proposals. Drawing on resource dependency theory, we employ GLM regression analyses to study if interest groups act as change agents that bring legislation closer to their own policy preferences. Controlling for institutional and bill characteristics, we discuss two major findings that shed light on the role of interest groups in legislation. First, business groups' opposition to government bills triggers legislative changes because their members control the means of production and make investment decisions. In contrast, fundamental opposition of non-business groups has no impact. Second, bills debated and opposed by a greater number of interest groups undergo more changes pointing to the importance of the density of interest groups and balance of opinions on a proposal.     

Authoritarian Statism and the New Right in Asia’s Conservative Democracies

ABSTRACT

Across Asia there has been a shift to the right in important democratic polities. This article argues that this conservative or authoritarian shift reflects the emergence of a new form of political regime that Nicos Poulantzas characterised as authoritarian statism. This article presents a theoretical framework – with illustrative case studies of Japan and Korea – to understand the emergence of a distinctive brand of Asian authoritarian statism. These new trajectories of political regimes reflect interconnected political and economic crises of conservative capitalist democracies. These crises are the result of the fracturing of modes and mechanisms of political incorporation due to the transnationalisation of capital. It is argued that the inability of current modes of state intervention or political incorporation to manage these economic and political crises or secure political legitimacy for political projects to deepen market reform has led to a “crisis of crisis management” and the further weakening of the Japanese and Korean states.     

Positioning Norm, Principle and Interest in Chinese Foreign Policy —— The Case of the Myanmar Issue

There are different driving forces behind Chinese foreign policy decision-making. Norms, principles, and interests and the subtle combinations of them, I argue in this paper, are the major driving forces on the input side, while the domestic situation of a specific country and international pressure undercut China’s policy deliberations. By contrast, the form of government of a specific country under discussion is not an important variable. In this paper, I use China’s policy toward Myanmar as a case study. The findings prove that the integration of norms, principle and practical interests has formed the powerful impetus that drives China’s policies toward Myanmar. Among these factors, the interests China has identified in general and stability on its “doorstep” in particular play a dominant role, while the norm of human security and the principle of non-interference are embedded in its policy deliberations.     

New roles in the Japan‐US alliance

"There is a much greater need for the security alliance today than at any time during the Cold War era, and at this critical juncture new lifeblood needs to be injected into this alliance if it is to continue to thrive,” writes Yasuhiro Nakasone, former prime minister of Japan, IIPS chairman, and now well into his fifth decade as a member of the Diet. Nakasone analyzes the state of the alliance, describes the changed roles of the allies, and urges new Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto to explain to the Japanese people the alliance's contribution to peace and prosperity in Asia‐Pacific.     

The Qadi,the Big Merchant and Forbidden Interest (ribā)

While the imposition of interest on loans is expressly forbidden by the Quran, over the generations Muslims in fact found it difficult to observe this prohibition and lent to and borrowed from one another. The Muslim big merchants (tujjār), who held large amounts of liquid capital, were prominent among the lenders. The religious prohibition on the one hand, and everyday constraints on the other, caused a certain cognitive dissonance among many ulema, as manifested in the religious (shar‘i) courts. The records of these courts in various regions in the Middle East from the sixteenth to the beginning of the twentieth century include cases in which judges (qadis) exempted borrowers from full or partial repayment of interest on the grounds that a demand for payment of interest violates the precepts of Islam. The present article provides examples of such cases and discusses the possible effects of the courts’ retroactive annulment or amendment of contracts on the development of capitalist economies in Muslim countries during the nineteenth century when Middle Eastern economies began integrating into the global economic system. Inter alia, the discussion of this question sheds new light on the historians' critiques of Max Weber's observation regarding ‘Kadijustiz’ (qadi's justice) and its effect on the development of modern capitalism.     

The 1996 länder elections in Baden‐Württemberg,Rhineland‐Palatinate and Schleswig‐Holstein: The ebbing of the tides of March?

This article analyses the three state elections of March 1996 in Baden‐Württemberg, Rhineland‐Palatinate and Schleswig‐Holstein in the context of both the political history and traditions of each Land in turn as well as the national political context in which they took place. These elections served to strengthen the hand of the Bonn coalition of the CDU–CSU and FDP, eliminating in the process the risk to its slim majority in the Bundestag. The most immediate and fundamental questions arising from these three election results concern the SPD. The main problem for the party is the lack of a credible strategy based on a clear sense of what the SPD stands for today.