The Europeanisation of the German Bundestag: Institutional change and informal adaptation

At first glance, the Europeanisation of the German Bundestag seems quite straightforward: in reaction to the process of European integration the Bundestag acquired a set of comparatively strong participation and scrutiny rights in EU politics. It therefore seems rather astonishing that German members of parliament make only very little use of these rights. Different explanations have been put forward in the literature, such as the complicated decision-making system of the EU and the government's gate-keeper position within it, institutional flaws of the German scrutiny system as well as the overall consensus on European integration and the low electoral salience of EU issues. The paper contributes to this discussion in two respects: On the one hand, it offers an additional explanation for the infrequent use of formal instruments. The main argument is that the formal instruments of scrutiny in EU affairs are incompatible with both the overall logic of a parliamentary system as well as the challenges of policy-making in the EU multilevel system. On the other hand, the paper argues that the exclusive focus on the use of formal parliamentary scrutiny rights leads us to overlook more informal means of parliamentary influence and therefore to underestimate the involvement of German parliamentarians in EU affairs. Thus, in order to fully assess processes of parliamentary Europeanisation, we need to take forms of informal or strategic Europeanisation into account.     

German Foreign Policy and the Libya Crisis

German foreign policy has come under scrutiny due to its decision to abstain in the vote on UN Security Council Resolution 1973 in March 2011 on the Libyan no fly zone. Germany's decision not to support France, the UK and the USA ensured that no common EU position emerged and NATO's response to the crisis proved difficult. German foreign policy was caught between enlarging its influence and role in crisis management and reserving the right to reject involvement in operations that do not fit with its national interest. Drawing on the work of Robert Gilpin, the article argues that Germany's decision to abstain on United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 can be explained by understanding the cost/benefit calculations of the German government, pressured by the protracted Eurozone crisis.     

Preferring Rome to Brussels: Mapping Interest Group Europeanisation in Italy

ABSTRACT

How much do Italian interest groups undertake their advocacy/lobbying activities at the EU level? How often have groups gained access to different EU level institutions? This paper presents an original conceptualisation for the concept of ‘interest group Europeanisation’, which takes into account both the percentage of EU lobbying and access to EU institutions, and assesses the role of national centrality (i.e. access to national institutional venues and self-perceived influence in national policy-making) in determining whether there is more or less interest group Europeanisation. Original data from a national survey conducted on around 500 Italian interest groups are provided. Groups that are at the core of the national interest system are less likely to undertake a large part of their lobbying activities at the EU level, but more likely to gain EU access.     

The Policy Influence of Sustainability Indicators: Examining Use and Influence of Indicators in German Sustainability Policy Making

In 2002 Germany adopted an ambitious national sustainability strategy, covering all three sustainability spheres and circling around 21 key indicators. The strategy stands out because of its relative stability over five consecutive government constellations, its high status and increasingly coercive nature. This article analyses the strategy's role in the policy process, focusing on the use and influence of indicators as a central steering tool. Contrasting rationalist and constructivist perspectives on the role of knowledge in policy, two factors, namely the level of consensus about policy goals and the institutional setting of the indicators, are found to explain differences in use and influence both across indicators and over time. Moreover, the study argues that the indicators have been part of a continuous process of ‘structuring’ in which conceptual and instrumental use together help structure the sustainability challenge in such a way that it becomes more manageable for government policy.     

Europeanisation and De-Europeanisation Dynamics in Turkey: The Case of Environmental Organisations

Abstract

While Europeanisation of civil society in Turkey has received considerable attention, there has been much less interest in how environmental organisations, as key civil society actors, have been affected by Europeanisation/de-Europeanisation dynamics. Interviews with civil society representatives and European Union (EU) and Turkish policy-makers indicate that the EU impact on environmental organisations has been ambivalent, and that Europeanisation dynamics are intertwined with the adverse consequences of these processes. While Turkey’s EU candidacy has empowered civil society through both EU-isation and Europeanisation, there has also been a remarkable rise of scepticism towards the EU’s civil society strategy and the EU has lost its attractiveness as a normative context in environmental debates.     

Health Policy Prior to the German Federal Election of 2013: The Party Political Marginalisation of a Previously Central Topic in Election Campaigns

The discussion on how to finance the Statutory Health Insurance (SHI) repeatedly appeared prominently in the political discussions of previous election campaigns for the German Bundestag. However, in 2013 this topic remained only marginal. The recent marginalisation of health policy is closely linked to the political processes and results inherent to a health ministry having the FDP at its helm from 2009 to 2013. The effects of several fundamental reforms introduced during this period closely follow the disputed market orientation of the liberal democratic thought and rendered the corresponding results. However, this was hardly perceived in public and the political discussion was distracted from health policy. The most ambitious project of the FDP and of parts of the Christian parties was the introduction of a health premium. Actually the CSU opposed its realisation. Other policies even contrasted the goals of the FDP.     

Intra-Party Dissent as a Constraint in Policy Competition: Mapping and Analysing the Positioning of Political Parties in the German Refugee Debate from August to November 2015

The large influx of refugees into Germany in late 2015 gave rise to a period of intensified party competition over a single issue: refugees. This paper examines German parties’ reactions to this issue suddenly becoming highly important and voter preferences shifting to a more restrictive stance. It does so by analysing the parties’ positions on the issue from August to November 2015 based on statements from more than 1000 quality newspaper articles. The analysis shows that there was no uniform shift in line with the change in public opinion but a pattern of polarisation. Moreover, converging party position changes sparked intra-party criticism that was in turn followed by divergence – a pattern observable for the Green Party as well as for the Christian Democrats. Altogether, these findings suggest that policy motives, which induce intra-party dissent, impede parties opportunistically trying to follow shifts in public opinion in the short term.     

The Bologna Process in German Educational Federalism: State Strategies,Policy Fragmentation and Interest Mediation

The article provides an impact assessment of the current European higher education reform (Bologna process) in the context of German educational federalism. The goal is to come to grips with the puzzling observation that the reforms have had a large impact, even though the joint decision-making trap of German educational federalism has continuously impeded structural changes in previous decades. It suggests that the reason why the Bologna process has been so influential is its openness, ambiguity, and the complete absence of binding commitments. These characteristics of soft governance dovetail with the strategy of the central government and the federal states to protect their political autonomy against potential threats resulting from inter- and transnational political cooperation as well as the national reform of the constitutional principles of federalism at home. However, drawing on empirical examples of policy fragmentation, understood as the co-existence of partly incompatible reform islands, illustrates the costs of soft governance in the national implementation process.     

(Ine)quality of life: Lithuanian labor migration to Sweden during the economic crisis and its aftermath, 2008–2013

ABSTRACT

This article connects micro and macro scales of inequality to Lithuanians’ decisions to depart to Sweden during the economic crisis with austerity measures and its aftermath (2008–2013). This period revealed unequal opportunities regarding the quality of life that were largely created by the gradual re-commodification of labor as well as unaddressed income and social inequalities which had existed since the 1990s. Nevertheless, macro inequalities did not directly lead to the exit decision. Rather, this was bound to the individual’s perception of the leaving opportunity and (possible) quality of life for oneself and one’s family across time and space.     

Malaysia: the making of a grand design

Anthony Stockwell is Professor of Imperial and Commonwealth History at Royal Holloway, University of London. He was President of the Royal Asiatic Society in 2002–2003 and is currently a Vice-President. His publications include British Policy and Malay Politics during the Malayan Union Experiment (1979) and, as editor, British Documents on End of Empire: Malaya, 1942–1957 (three parts, 1995). He has been joint editor of the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History since 1990. This is a version of a lecture delivered to the Royal Society for Asian Affairs on 26 February 2003.     

Policy learning from crisis in financial regulation and supervision: comparative analysis of Estonia,Latvia, and Sweden

ABSTRACT

The goal of the article is to explore comparatively whether the crisis of 2008–10 has led to policy learning in financial regulation and supervision by civil servants in Estonia, Latvia, and Sweden. The article discusses how various factors can influence policy learning, including the acknowledgment of failure, blame shifting, analytical tractability of the policy problems, and the influence of external actors. We show that although the experience of the crisis varied significantly between the three countries, the policy lessons learnt are broadly similar in all three countries, due to the external influence of the European Union.     

Public health in Burma: Anatomy of a crisis

Burma has been ruled by a military government since 1962. A steady deterioration in public health standards has accompanied such rule, with a particularly marked decline following the crushing of the pro-democracy movement in that country in 1988. This article draws attention to a number of aspects of this decline and the growing precariousness of the overall public health system. As it will be suggested, primary responsibility for this state of decay should be borne by the military regime. Through several policies and practices, the military has severely compromised the functioning of the public health system and perverted it in ways that fulfill its narrow political interests, rather than those of the nation as a whole. The article concludes by emphasizing the urgent need for a reinstatement of democratic norms and institutions in Burma, so that the nation's public health needs may be meaningfully addressed and a looming humanitarian disaster averted.     

Fieldwork in a conflicted society: A contemporary researcher's ethical dilemma

Abstract

Ethnographers in Kenya have, in the past, grappled with methodological concerns in fieldwork. This is evidenced in the rich literature on methods of data collection, data analysis and dissemination. The discourses have been based on the assumptions that fieldworkers in oral literature are guided by a code of ethics in their fieldwork. This article argues that a number of folklore researchers operate in an ethical void and are unprepared in mitigating various ethical dilemmas that they encounter before, during and after fieldwork. Relying heavily on the personal experiences of the writer, this article discusses dilemmas a fieldworker faces when conducting research in a violence-prone environment, and the ethical considerations thereof.     

Two elections and a political regime in crisis: Turkish politics at the crossroads

Turkey had its fourth National Assembly elections on 7 June 2015 in the twenty-first century and this time they resulted in a hung parliament. The efforts at establishing a coalition government failed and the country moved to a snap, ‘repeat’ election on 1 November 2015. This paper focuses on how the voters registered their party preferences almost 5 months apart in the same legislative general elections and why. Using the same sample and interviewing those who lived at the same addresses as those in the ISSP Citizenship survey conducted February to April 2015 and again in October 2015, a panel data-set was constructed. A theoretical framework for voting behaviour that uses party identification, political ideology, ethnic, religious, social class identities and perceptions of the performance of the economy of the respondents to understand what factors help to influence the party preferences of the same respondents 5 months apart. A multivariate (binary logistic regression) analysis of the pre-June and October 2015 data sets revealed that economic voting had been the predominant factor in the June elections, but security concerns also interacted with popular economic evaluations in the November 2015 elections to reinstall the AKP to power.     

Soldiers and civilians: the dilemma of Turkish democracy

This historical analysis of Mahatma Gandhi's views on the Jewish–Arab conflict in Palestine at the time of the British Mandate distinguishes four phases. The initial involvement is Gandhi's intervention in support of the Caliph's temporal rule in Palestine. The second deals with a secret offer of mediation addressed to the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem. The third is his highly controversial letter to ‘The Jews‘. In the last phase, Gandhi chose to remain silent, but is alleged to have stated that the Jews had a good case and a prior claim, a statement that seems at variance with previous attitudes. The question is raised as to how far Gandhi's views were consistent. They are explained by the evolving political context in India, as well as in Palestine, the two being intertwined in an ever tightening knot. Gandhi's commitments are revisited and clarified in the light of new research.