From interest groups to parties: The change in the career patterns of the legislative elite in German social policy

Analysing the careers of members of the Bundestag Standing Committee for Labour and Social Affairs, the paper demonstrates that the ties between social politicians and social policy organisations such as trade unions, faith-based social policy organisations, independent charity organisations, works councils and social insurance institutions have become blurred. Since the 1990s social politicians have become more focused on political careers in the party and in parliament than on social policy. The new social politicians are party politicians who have distanced themselves from the interest groups. The qualitative change in parliamentary personnel is explained by changes in electoral politics, parties and interest groups. The author argues that the weakening linkages confirm contemporary research results on change in German neo-corporatism.     

Splitting and making parties: Analysis of party reconfiguration in Taiwan

The development of Taiwanese party politics reached a milestone in the 2000 presidential and 2001 legislative elections. The island's pre-existing three-party system underwent a marked reconfiguration. With the split of the Kuomintang (KMT), two new parties emerged but one existing party nearly collapsed. Party politics in Taiwan have shown a continuous process of proliferation of new parties. This paper analyzes the underlying logic that drives the reconfiguration of the Taiwanese party system. A political-institution perspective is employed to show how social cleavages, mixed electoral incentives, and government formation work in dictating the transformation of the party system. This paper is supported by the National Science Council, Taiwan, under Grant NSC 92-2414-H-001-019, NSC 93-2414-H-001-002, and NSC 94-2414-H-001-012.     

Immigration politics Italian style: the paradoxical behaviour of mainstream and populist parties

This article explores the role of electoral politics in managing immigration as a policy option in Italy. Italy was late in passing its first comprehensive immigration legislation (1990). A small, liberal party waged a campaign against the proposed immigration law. A party known for right-wing posturing did not mobilize against the law. These political postures were not anticipated by conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom suggests that immigration should not be an electoral issue and that consensus solutions should be sought. It is argued that the Italian response supports the view that in a fragmented, multi-party system, minor parties will be more likely to mobilize. Two mass media studies were used as the basis for this article's analysis. The studies provide detailed evidence on party willingness to publicly discuss immigration and the ways the issues are framed. The Italian case illustrates the tendency for mainstream, pro-system parties to politicize the issue and extremist, anti-system parties to depoliticize it. The DC and PCI, as mass parties, behaved traditionally and supported moderately open immigration policies, but in closed forums. The minor parties had a stake in shifting electoral support, so the PSI took an outspoken stand and the PARI publicized its exclusion from the policy-making process and its support for more restrictive policies. It was the constituencies and the leadership structure that facilitated these strategies. The author differs from Betz's party analysis by arguing that party ideology may not be a useful guide for predicting stands on immigration, and that it is difficult to generalize about immigration.     

Lean production and the German model

Traditionally the German employment system has been hailed as the surpreme example of how a symbiosis between equity and efficiency can be established in an economic system. A defining characteristic of the German employment system is how the world of work is embedded in a highly co‐ordinated system of industrial relations institutions inside and outside the enterprise. The argument of this paper is that this model of labour market organisation is coming under severe pressure as a result of a range of developments, not least the emergence of lean production as a credible alternative system of work organisation. Lean production which is based on techniques moulded and fine‐tuned in Japan affronts virtually every aspect of the prevailing model of economic citizenship in Germany. It is argued that important modifications will have to be made to key industrial relations institutions in the country so that enterprises can respond effectively to the lean production challenge.     

The wall in the ballot box: The Berlin election of 1995

The Berlin election of October 1995 produced very different results in the eastern and western halves of the city, and although the end result was a continuation of the Grand Coalition, it was the PDS and Bündnis 90/Die Grünen who stole the limelight once the votes were counted. This article attempts to account for the performance of the parties in each half of the city and considers the political consequences for them. It concludes by considering what the election can tell us about the public mood in Berlin and about political trends in the Federal Republic in general. What emerges is a ‘wall in the ballot box’, a practical manifestation of die Mauer im Kopf which clearly continues to exist five years after the first all‐German election.     

Telecentres and transformations: Modernizing Tanzania through the internet

This article argues that a discourse which constructs the Internetas an inclusive development tool that can be deployed in strategiesfor modernizing Africa has become hegemonic among developmentdonors and telecommunications organizations. Based on researchcarried out in and around three Internet cafes in Dar es Salaam,and one Multipurpose Community Telecentre (MCT) in Sengerema,this article takes issue with this discourse and suggests thatthe geographies of inclusion and exclusion created by the Internetare more complex. For Tanzania’s information and communicationtechnologies (ICT) elites, the Internet will shape the populationinto knowledge- and market-seeking, productive citizens, stimulatingnational growth. For Internet cafe users and non-users, theInternet has become a marker of modernity, a way for peopleand places to indicate their relative level of development,and Internet use is currently dominated by leisure, communicationand information relating to global popular culture. However,the article demonstrates that development interventions whichturn the symptoms of poverty into technical problems to be solvedwith technological responses are inherently flawed, since thefailure to deal with the causes of poverty means that the majorityof Tanzanians continue to be excluded from the ‘informationsociety’. An earlier version of this article was presented at the AfricanStudies Association Annual Conference, New Orleans, 11–14November 2004, and to the Postcolonial Seminar at the Universityof Leicester, 8 December 2004. ^1. World Bank, Knowledge for Development: World development report1998/99 (Oxford University Press, NY, 1998). ^2. UNDP, Human Development Report 2001: Making new technologieswork for development (Oxford University Press, New York, NY,2001). ^3. Donors include Department for International Development (DFID),Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Swedish Agencyfor International Development (SIDA) and United States Agencyfor International Development (USAID) (the Leland Initiative);NGOs include the International Institute for Communication andDevelopment; multilateral initiatives include the InternationalTelecommunications Union (ITU), the G8 (Dot Force), United NationsEconomic Commission for Africa (UNECA) (the African InformationSociety Initiative) and United Nations Educational, Scientificand Cultural Organization (UNESCO). ^4. D. Ott and M. Rosser, ‘The electronic republic? The roleof the Internet in promoting democracy in Africa’, Democratization7, 1 (2000), pp. 137–55. ^5. M. Jensen, The African Internet – A Status Report, 2002,<http://www3.sn.apc.org/africa/afstat.htm> Accessed on27 October 2002. ^6. M. Castells, End of Millennium. The Information Age: Economy,society and culture, Vol 3 (Blackwell, Oxford, 1998), p. 161. ^7. UNDP, Human Development Report 2001, p. iv. ^8. Accenture, Markle Foundation, and UNDP, Creating a DevelopmentDynamic: Final report of the digital opportunity initiative,2001, <http://www.opt-init.org/framework.html> Accessedon 30 October 2002, p. 68. ^9. UNDP, Human Development Report 2001; World Bank, Knowledge forDevelopment; World Bank, Can Africa Claim the 21^st Century?(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2000). ^10. R. Cline-Cole and M. Powell, ‘ICTs, "virtual colonisation"and political economy’, Review of African Political Economy31, 99 (2004), pp.5–9; K. Gyekye, ‘Philosophy, cultureand technology in the postcolonial’, in E. Eze (ed.),Postcolonial African Philosophy: A critical reader (Blackwell,Oxford, 1997), pp. 25–44; F. Nyamnjoh, ‘Global andlocal trends in media ownership and control: implications forcultural creativity in Africa’, in W. van Binsbergen andR. van Dijk (eds), Situating Globality: African agency in theappropriation of global culture (Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands,2004), pp. 107–46; Y. Z. Ya’u, ‘The new imperialismand Africa in the global electronic village’, Review ofAfrican Political Economy 31, 99 (2004), pp. 11–29. ^11. R. Meier, ‘Late-blooming societies can be stimulated byinformation technology’, Futures 32 (2000), pp. 163–81;D. Polikanov and I. Abramova, ‘Africa and ICT: a chancefor breakthrough?’, Information, Communication and Society6, 1 (2003), pp. 42–56; M. B. Robins and R. L. Hilliard(eds), Beyond Boundaries: Cyberspace in Africa (Heinemann, NH,2002). ^12. M. Green, ‘The birth of the "salon": poverty, "modernisation"and dealing with witchcraft in southern Tanzania’, paperpresented at the American Anthropological Association AnnualMeeting, Chicago, 18 November 2003; S. F. Moore, ‘Post-socialistmicro-politics: Kilimanjaro, 1993’, Africa 66, 4 (1996),pp. 587–606. ^13. United Republic of Tanzania, National Information and CommunicationsTechnologies Policy (Ministry of Communications and Transport,Dar es Salaam, 2003). ^14. The three urban cafes were located in Dar es Salaam, where atotal of 279 customers completed open-ended questionnaires overthree days in August 2001. One city-centre cafe attracted mostlybusiness, government and office workers, while the other twocafes were located on main roads in the residential suburbsof Mwenge and Magomeni. The fourth location was the Internetcafe at the Sengerema Multipurpose Community Telecentre, wherethe same open-ended questionnaire was put to 265 customers inAugust 2003. Semi-structured interviews with customers and focusgroup discussions with non-customers were held, and 299 townresidents were interviewed to contextualize the questionnaireresponses. ^15. ‘Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank: A regime changes’,The Economist, 2 June 2005; T. Kelsall, ‘Shop windowsand smoke-filled rooms: governance and the re-politicizationof Tanzania’, Journal of Modern African Studies 40, 4(2002), pp. 597–620; C. Mercer, ‘Performing partnership:civil society and the illusions of good governance in Tanzania’,Political Geography 22 (2003), pp. 741–63. ^16. United Republic of Tanzania, National Information and CommunicationsTechnologies Policy, p. 1. ^17. Ibid. ^18. Ibid. ^19. Accenture et al., Creating a Development Dynamic. ^20. SIDA, A Country ICT Survey for Tanzania (SIDA, Dar es Salaam,2001). ^21. Ibid. ^22. National Bureau of Statistics, Tanzania Household Budget Survey2000/01 (National Bureau of Statistics, Dar es Salaam, 2002). ^23. World Bank, Tanzania Country Brief, 2004, <http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/AFRICAEXT/TANZANIAEXTN/0,,menuPK:287345~pagePK:141132~piPK:141107~theSitePK:258799,00.html>Accessed on 20 June 2004. ^24. The main donors have been IDRC, ITU, UNESCO and Danida, in collaborationwith other international partners including the British Council,Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), UNDP, World HealthOrganization (WHO) and national governments. ^25. COSTECH, Progress Report to International Development ResearchCentre (IDRC) as from January 2001 to February 2003 (COSTECH,Dar es Salaam, 2003). ^26. NBS, Tanzania Household Budget Survey. ^27. Planning Commission and Regional Commissioner’s OfficeMwanza, Mwanza Region Socio-Economic Profile (Dar es Salaam,1997). ^28. NBS, Tanzania Household Budget Survey. ^29. Tanzania Cotton Board, Prices Paid to Farmers for the Last 12Years, n.d., <http://www.tancotton.co.tz/Producer%20price%202001-02%20season.htm>Accessed 15 May 2004. ^30. Sengerema MCT, Annual Report 2002 (Sengerema, 2002). ^31. COSTECH, Progress Report to IDRC, p. 1. ^32. NBS, Tanzania Household Budget Survey. ^33. COSTECH, Progress Report to IDRC. ^34. In 1999, a major ISP in Dar es Salaam analyzed the materialbeing accessed by its customers and found that 55% of it wascategorized as pornography (personal communication). ^35. See, e.g. <www.clickz.com, http://www.pewinternet.org/> ^36. B. Wellman and C. Haythornthwaite (eds), The Internet in EverydayLife (Blackwell, Oxford, 2002), p. 18. ^37. Ibid. ^38. A. Bahi, ‘Internet use and logics of social adaptationof youth in Abidjan cybercafes’, CODESRIA Bulletin 1–2(2004), pp. 67–71. ^39. W. van Binsbergen, ‘Can ICT belong in Africa, or is ICTowned by the North Atlantic region?’, in W. van Binsbergenand R. van Dijk (eds), Situating Globality: African agency inthe appropriation of global culture (Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands,2004), pp. 107–146. ^40. International Development Research Centre, ‘African Telecentres:A pioneering experience’ (unpublished document), n.d. ^41. D. Miller and D. Slater, The Internet: An ethnographic approach(Berg, Oxford, 2000). ^42. L. Mehta, ‘From darkness to light? Critical reflectionson the World Development Report 1998/99’, Journal of DevelopmentStudies 36, 1 (1999), pp. 151–61. ^43. Van Binsbergen, ‘Can ICT belong in Africa’, pp.111–115. ^44. World Bank, Can Africa Claim the 21^st century?, p. 2. ^45. J. Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine: ‘Development’,depoliticization and bureaucratic power in Lesotho (Universityof Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN, 1994). ^46. B. Weiss, ‘Thug realism: inhabiting fantasy in urban Tanzania’,Cultural Anthropology 17, 1 (2002), p. 100. ^47. C. Piot, Remotely Global: Village modernity in West Africa (Universityof Chicago Press, London, 1999). ^48. A. Perullo, ‘The life that I live: popular music, agency,and urban society in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’ (unpublishedPhD dissertation, Indiana University, Indiana, 2003); Weiss,‘Thug realism’. ^49. N. Ng’wanakilala, Mass Communication and Development ofSocialism in Tanzania (Tanzania Publishing House, Dar es Salaam,1981), p. 63. ^50. Perullo, ‘The life that I live’. ^51. A. Appadurai, ‘Disjuncture and difference in the globalcultural economy’, Public Culture 2, 2 (1990), pp. 1–23;D. Miller, ‘Could the Internet defetishise the commodity?’,Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 21, 3 (2003),pp. 359–72. ^52. J. Ferguson, Expectations of Modernity: Myths and meanings ofurban life on the Zambian copperbelt (University of CaliforniaPress, London, 1999), p. 212. ^53. All unattributed quotations refer to interviews conducted duringfieldwork. ^54. From fieldnotes. ^55. From fieldnotes. ^56. K. Askew, Performing the Nation: Swahili music and culturalpolitics in Tanzania (University of Chicago Press, London, 2002). ^57. Sengerema MCT, Annual Report, p. 6. ^58. Guardian, 6 August 2001. ^59. Ibid., 24 July 2001. ^60. Daily News, 27 June 2001. ^61. Askew, Performing the Nation. ^62. Miller and Slater, The Internet. ^63. See, e.g., A. Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural dimensionsof modernity (University of Minnesota Press, London, 1996);Ferguson, Expectations of Modernity; U. Hannerz, ‘Epilogue:on some reports from a free space’, in B. Meyer and P.Geschiere (eds), Globalization and Identity: Dialectics of flowand closure (Blackwell, Oxford, 1999), pp. 325–30; B.Meyer, ‘Visions of blood, sex and money: fantasy spacesin popular Ghanaian cinema’, Visual Anthropology 16 (2003),pp. 15–41; Weiss, ‘Thug realism’. ^64. W. Arens and I. Karp (eds), Creativity of Power: Cosmology andaction in African societies (Smithsonian Institution Press,London, 1989); I. Kopytoff, ‘Ancestors as elders in Africa’,Africa 41, 2 (1971), pp. 129–42. ^65. My thanks go to Clare Madge for this insight. ^66. Weiss, ‘Thug realism’.     

The federal republic and the future of Europe: A reassessment

Speculation concerning a dominant or hegemonic role to be played by a unified Germany in a post‐cold war Europe is misplaced. The extent to which the Federal Republic of 1949–89 has been caricatured as an economic giant but a political dwarf has undermined an appreciation of the manner in which successive Bonn governments have used multilateralism in foreign policy to further Germany's political influence in Europe long before national reunification. At the same time, it is unlikely that reunification will bring a dramatic change in German foreign policy. The nature of the Federal Republic's domestic politics, as well as the relationship with the European Community, apply substantial constraints on the ability, or the desire, to bring about a radical reorientation. The principal architect of change in Germany's relationship with its neighbours will be the country's expansive corporate sector. The gap between the restrained nature of Germany's diplomacy and the extrovert dynamism of its industry, furthermore, promises to make the Federal Republic's adjustment to a new international role awkward.     

German expellee organisations in the enlarged EU

This article examines German expellees (Vertriebene) as an interest group in domestic and enlarged European Union contexts. While their background and motivations may be unique, they have similarities to other non-party actors aiming to influence political and/or legal processes. German governments have made rhetorical and financial expressions of support but privileged foreign policy considerations over core expellee demands and sought to contain them as an internal issue. EU enlargement and accession by CEE states to its legal bases has been interpreted as opening new possibilities. A ‘Europeanising’ of ‘justice’ may have unintended implications for relations among European states and peoples.     

Women in the 1946 and 1993 Japanese house of Representatives elections: The role of the election system

Japan ranks near the bottom among the world’s democracies in electing women to public office. This is typically attributed to its male-dominated culture. While we do not dismiss this cultural argument, we focus on the House of Representatives to present evidence that the Japanese election system has been a significant barrier to women. Japan was a world leader in electing women under the 1946 election system but, when the system changed in 1947, a steady decline began in elected women. The new election system recently adopted will only marginally increase the election of women to the House of Representatives.     

The PDS in the new German party system

The success of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) cannot be explained solely with a rising tide of GDR nostalgia and/or with the efficiency of PDS members as service providers and advocates at the grass‐roots level. We stress the importance of the PDS as the main political representative of a specific socio‐economic and cultural milie in the former GDR. Furthermore, the article traces the evolution of the PDS from a populist voice of protest of the losers of unification to the beginnings of a new political party. As such it defines its identity more as a radical left‐wing party with strong social libertarian characteristics than a traditional socialist party. The party programme and the electorate of the PDS display remarkable similarities to the fundamentalist wing of the West German Greens in the 1980s, although differences as to the origins of the left‐libertarian ideas remain important. While the PDS seems to have strengthened the significance of the new politics agenda in post‐unification Germany, it is still too early to conclude whether this agenda is firmly rooted in the party or whether it is simply a vehicle to electoral success.     

The Partnership between the Czech and German Greens

The paper (1) reviews the value differences between west and east Germany after unification and their development to date, and (2) explains the fact that between 1990 and 1995 east and west Germany do not approach each other in terms of values. (1) Of the four values considered, equality is more strongly endorsed in west Germany, whilst achievement is more strongly endorsed in the east. Co‐determination finds more support in west Germany. Acceptancy of institutions differs in its two domains in opposite directions: Religiosity is more strongly supported in west Germany, morality in east Germany. Across all four values, differences between both parts of the country mostly remain constant or even grow between 1990 and 1995. (2) As the former German Democratic Republic relied heavily on ‘work’ as an integrative ideology, east Germans should still be able to create a feeling of togetherness today based on the work product they established under the GDR. On the other hand, as this work is no longer linked to an unjust and ineffective political and economic system, it retrospectively gains in value on the one hand. Yet, as it is inevitably poorly assessed in the economic reconstruction of east Germany, it continually loses its value on the other hand. As unification has set off these contradicting developments, east Germans attribute them to west Germany; hence their growing distance from west German values.     

Change and continuity in post-unification German foreign policy

Ten years after unification, Germany still maintains its post-Second World War foreign policy course based on transatlantic multilateralism and European integration despite changes in Germany's international and domestic contexts. This study argues that neither realist nor institutionalist explanations can explain the post-unification pattern of German foreign policy. Instead, continuity and change in this policy can be understood best through a role-theoretical approach based on the civilian power idealtype. Two causal pathways are developed which account for continuity in foreign policy orientation (goals) and strategies while explaining change in the choice of foreign policy instruments. First, the apparent success of Germany's traditional foreign policy role concept during and after unification helped to reify a broad foreign policy consensus around the goals and strategies of an ideal-type civilian power. Second, major foreign policy crises, such as the Yugoslavian wars, stirred the long held hierarchy between the core values of reticence vis-à-vis the use of force (never again German militarism) and the special German responsibility to prevent genocide (never again Auschwitz). The interaction between domestic and foreign expectations provides a promising source for explaining change and continuity in Germany's foreign policy role concept and behaviour.     

2002年世界经济评析

20 0 2年全球经济走势呈高开低走、跌宕起伏、小幅回升。各主要地区和国家的发展很不平衡。随着经济复苏 ,国际贸易由降转升 ,但国外直接投资继续下降。 2 0 0 3年增长速度会快一些 ,但国际政治、经济及金融层面的不确定因素构成了持续性复苏和持久性增长的挑战。     

The strong German state and the weak feminist movements

This article examines the causes of the marginalisation of women in political and economic decision‐making processes that are part of the ‘routine’ policy‐making process of the German state. The larger theoretical question is whether there is a ‘gender bias of the German state’ that has made its institutional structures less amenable to women's participation and their political agenda. Given the evidence, the answer is ‘yes’. There are specific exclusionary mechanisms that characterise the German polity, and these are antithetical to women's participation and concerns. These mechanisms act as gatekeepers of both legislation and discursive practices and are constitutive of the German Fraktionstaat and the corporatist system of economic bargaining.