The ontological politics of (in-)equality: a new research approach for post-development

This article aims to add a new line of research to the post-development school of thought. Drawing on the many evident yet rarely noticed parallels between post-development and (post-)anarchism, I develop an understanding of ‘anarchistic post-development’ as a politics based on what French philosopher Jacques Rancière calls ‘the presupposition of equality’. I further connect this with Arturo Escobar and Marisol De la Cadena’s concept of political ontology, suggesting that we can make sense of and analyse both contemporary ‘Development’ projects as well as anarchistic post-developmental ‘alternatives to Development’ through the lens of what I call ‘the ontological politics of (in-)equality’. To substantiate my points, I will draw on the recent case of a Mâori tribe who won a historical legal battle to declare the Whanganui River a living entity.     

Four worlds of morality politics: the impact of institutional venues and party cleavages

The most prominent theory accounting for variation of morality politics across Western Europe is the so-called Two Worlds framework. According to this approach, the presence or absence of a secular?religious cleavage in national party systems strongly affects the degree of conflict intensity and the framing of morality policy issues. This article shows that the explanatory power of the Two Worlds model could be enhanced significantly by introducing a second analytical dimension that captures the institutional venue (party politics vs. parliamentary politics), in which moral conflicts take place. This is useful because there are instances in which a religious cleavage is lacking, but moral conflicts are nonetheless highly intense and party-based (the traditionalist world), and there are cases in which the religious cleavage formally exists, but moral conflicts are nonetheless resolved in the parliamentary arena (the unsecular world).     

A matter of timing: The religious factor and morality policies

The question of whether or not religion accounts for variance in the governance of moral issues, between and within countries over time, has long been debated but never conclusively answered. A novel data set encompassing innovative measurements of state regulation of “life‐and‐death” issues and of the religious stratification of society enables us to answer why previous studies reached contradictory results. The time‐series cross‐sectional analysis of 26 countries over 50 years reveals that dominant religious denominations in society indeed influence state governance approaches regarding the issues of abortion and euthanasia. This denominational effect is shown to be contingent on the religiosity of a country's population, but independent from the formal state–church relationship. Lastly, it is shown that the religious effect has an inverse U‐shaped relationship with time, exposing the timeframe of analysis as decisive for inferences drawn in the study of morality policy.     

State formation as it happens: insights from a repeated cross-sectional study in Afghanistan, 2007–2015

This paper contributes to an empirical understanding of state formation. Based on an original household-level data set, we provide a detailed picture of the process of state formation in Afghanistan over the last decade. State formation happens when state and society engage in reciprocal relations. Central to this relationship is an exchange of services for the acceptance of authority and increased legitimacy. Our data allows us to assess state-society relations across different dimensions. We focus on the provision of services, on the responsiveness of the state, on conflict regulation and on taxation. As a result we find more evidence of state formation than expected, but also see this as a contested process that unfolds unevenly and with different speed across different sectors.     

A theory of democratisation through peace-building

Abstract

This contribution presents a theory of democratisation through peace-building. Peace-building is seen as an interactive process between external peace-builders and domestic elites; whether a post-war state develops into a democracy or not depends to a large extent on the outcome of the bargaining process between domestic elites and peace-builders. It is argued that domestic elites typically face many constraints which make adopting democratic reforms a risky and costly proposition. Also, peace-builders usually have much less leverage over domestic elites than one would expect given their resources and man-power. High adoption costs and low leverage explain the outcome of the interaction between peace-builders and domestic elites often results in a peace which is not democratic. The paper uses an analysis of 19 major peace-building missions for exemplifying the theory.     

Hochschulpolitik in mittel- und osteuropa: Konvergenz zu einem gemeinsamen Modell?

In contrast to many other areas, international and European influences on national higher education policies remained limited for a long time. This picture changed fundamentally in the late 1990s with the establishment of the so-called Bologna Process which has the objective of setting up a common European higher education area. So far, however, we have limited knowledge about the extent to which this development actually led to the convergence of national higher education policies. Are national policies moving towards a common model, or are domestic reforms rather characterized by the specific conditions given at the domestic level? In this article these questions are adressed with regard to Central and Eastern European countries which are characterized by different pre-communist and communist patterns of higher education policy.     

‘Alliance with the Enemy’: Why the CDU and the Greens Formed Their First Coalition in a Large German Federal State

This article seeks to explain the 2013 coalition between the CDU and the Greens in the German federal state of Hesse. It applies traditional office-seeking and policy-seeking coalition formation theories to the case alongside a new explanation underscoring the influence of past behaviour on coalition partnership; namely, the negative impact of a pre-electoral commitment breach on future coalition formation. The results show that pure office-seeking cannot explain the coalition outcome. Instead, as the analysis of textual data extracted from political parties' manifestos shows, there has been a constant process of policy approximation between the CDU and the Greens in Hesse. Additionally, we find evidence suggesting that the SPD's breach on their promise not to rely on support by the Left Party in 2008 shaped the CDU's refusal to coalesce with the SPD in 2013. The findings add to our understanding of the interplay between office-seeking and policy-seeking motivations as well as the personal enmities of key actors in shaping the coalition formation. The study further offers insights into the new German coalition option between the Greens and the CDU, which can serve as a blueprint at the national level.     

Linkages between Parliamentary and Ministerial Careers in Germany, 1949–2008: The Bundestag as Recruitment Pool

Germany is noted within Europe for its weak tobacco control policies and its opposition to European Union tobacco control legislation. In this article, we aim to explain Germany's stance on tobacco control. We review two explanations commonly proposed, namely tobacco industry donations to political parties and the legacy of the Nazis' opposition to smoking, and examine the politics of tobacco control in detail. We suggest that the interplay of numerous factors explains Germany's stance. Aspects of political culture including the Nazi heritage which has resulted in a dearth of public health research and teaching, institutional factors such as the reliance on industry self-regulation facilitated by Germany's system of corporatist policy-making and interest group politics are key. The tobacco industry has also successfully used framing strategies to uphold the social acceptability of smoking and undermine the acceptability of tobacco control in Germany. In addition a phenomenon that we call ‘autarkic epistemic isolation’ explains why so little policy learning from abroad has occurred. We suggest that our multi-factor model has significant explanatory power for Germany's weak stance that has resulted in a long-standing policy equilibrium. Recent events, however, suggest that this equilibrium may now have been punctuated.