Explaining Reforms of Parliamentary Minority Rights: A Theoretical Framework with Case Study Application

How can we explain institutional reforms that redistribute institutional power between the parliamentary majority and minority? This paper proposes an informal theoretical model to explain such reforms in European parliaments based on congressional literature and inductive explanations from case studies. The article argues that political parties as the relevant actors pursue institutional reforms based on their substantive goals, their current and expected future government status, transaction and audience costs of reforms, second-order institutions that regulate the relative influence of actors in changing parliamentary rules, and the institutional status quo. Hypotheses derived from this model are tested with a qualitative case study of all standing order reforms in the Austrian parliament from 1945 to 2014. The empirical analysis finds support for various hypotheses and their underlying causal mechanisms. As Austria constitutes a least-likely case, the evidence provides strong support for the theoretical model.     

The distribution of individual cabinet positions in coalition governments: A sequential approach

Multiparty government in parliamentary democracies entails bargaining over the payoffs of government participation, in particular the allocation of cabinet positions. While most of the literature deals with the numerical distribution of cabinet seats among government parties, this article explores the distribution of individual portfolios. It argues that coalition negotiations are sequential choice processes that begin with the allocation of those portfolios most important to the bargaining parties. This induces conditionality in the bargaining process as choices of individual cabinet positions are not independent of each other. Linking this sequential logic with party preferences for individual cabinet positions, the authors of the article study the allocation of individual portfolios for 146 coalition governments in Western and Central Eastern Europe. The results suggest that a sequential logic in the bargaining process results in better predictions than assuming mutual independence in the distribution of individual portfolios.     

CT‐Guided,Minimally Invasive,Postmortem Needle Biopsy Using the B‐Rob II Needle‐Positioning Robot

CT‐guided, minimally invasive needle biopsy techniques can be used to retrieve tissue or body fluid samples for histologic tissue diagnoses in forensic investigations. The purpose of this study was an evaluation of CT‐guided needle‐positioning robot B‐Rob II. To operate under CT guidance, we adopted the B‐Rob II robotic needle placement system and its workflow. The accuracy and speed of the procedure were tested on a gelatin phantom in a series of 21 biopsies. We achieved an average needle placement accuracy of 1.8 mm (±1.1 mm) using robotic assistance. The procedure required an average of 2 min 21 s. The needle placement accuracy for minimally invasive needle biopsies using the B‐Rob II biopsy robot is sufficiently accurate and fast for forensic postmortem examinations of focal organ changes. Further tests will be performed to test the feasibility of the robot for performing biopsies of focal organ changes in human bodies.     

Parliamentary control of CSDP: the case of the EU's fight against piracy off the Somali coast

Parliamentary involvement remains a key tool for the democratic control of executive policies. This article explores the web of parliamentary involvement in decision-making on European Union (EU) military operations, using insights gained in an in-depth case study on the EU's anti-piracy mission Atalanta. We find that parliaments at all levels became involved only after key political decisions had already been made. At the member state level, we find highly uneven involvement with only some parliaments being very well informed and closely monitoring, if not influencing government policy. The European Parliament became active only after the launch of the mission but then scrutinised it intensely, profiting (in contrast to national parliaments) from its access to top military officials and key decision-makers. Finally, transnational parliamentary assemblies as well as more informal networks provided opportunities to transmit information across the boundaries of individual parliaments and party-groups thus potentially enhancing the ability of parliamentarians to scrutinise government policies.     

German–American Intelligence Relations, 1945–1956: New Evidence on the Origins of the BND

Under the 1998 Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) released a certain amount of documents relating to a German–American intelligence co-operation that began almost immediately after the German surrender of May 1945; it lasted until 1956 when the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) was founded, today's German foreign and military intelligence service. The Americans assembled, supervised, and largely financed what is often referred to as the “Gehlen organisation,” named after its leader, former Wehrmacht general, Reinhard Gehlen, who was chief of the BND until his retirement in 1968. Whilst the existence of this co-operation had been known since the 1940s, largely due to Soviet subversion and propaganda, very little reliable information and virtually no original source material was available before the release of this, somewhat redacted, material in 2002 and 2007. This article provides a sketch of how former Wehrmacht officers, and even a number with an ominous SS past, who might well have been war criminals, came to work, first for United States military intelligence and, from 1949, for the CIA. It looks at some of their operations during those turbulent post-war years, which include the Berlin airlift and German rearmament in response to the Korean War. The potential of those newly declassified documents, unfortunately, cannot be corroborated from other sources as long as German and Russian archives remain closed. Despite its manifold limitations, this material provides an exciting window into transatlantic intelligence history.