The legal classification of identity-based signatures

Identity-based cryptography has attracted attention in the cryptographic research community in recent years. Despite the importance of cryptographic schemes for applications in business and law, the legal implications of identity-based cryptography have not yet been discussed. We investigate how identity-based signatures fit into the legal framework. We focus on the European Signature Directive, but also take the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Signatures into account. In contrast to previous assumptions, identity-based signature schemes can, in principle, be used even for qualified electronic signatures, which can replace handwritten signatures in the member states of the European Union. We derive requirements to be taken into account in the development of future identity-based signature schemes.     

Ideological Party Cohesion in Macro‐comparative Politics: The Nordic Social Democratic Parties from a Comparative Perspective

‘Party cohesion’ is a central concept in the analysis of agenda‐setting, veto players and coalition‐building as well as in the analysis of policy efficiency and party responsiveness. However, there is no indicator to measure party cohesion in a systematic manner over time and across parties. As a consequence, most established studies treat political parties as unitary actors although from an analytical point of view they should be considered collective actors. In order to overcome this deficiency, in this article a time‐variant and party‐specific index of party cohesion is developed which can be used in macro‐comparative statistical analysis. The concept of ‘ideological cohesion’ is developed along the Left–Right dimension. This index is applied in order to compare the party cohesion of Nordic social democratic parties (SDs) with their counterparts in 17 additional countries. The results show that the myth of the cohesion of Nordic SDs is only true for the golden age of the welfare state. Currently, most of the Nordic SDs actually have a lower party cohesion than their counterparts in many other countries.     

Undesired intimacy: German–Chinese couples in Germany (1900s–1940s)

ABSTRACT

The article deals with the consequences of the increasing presence of Chinese citizens in Germany since the end of the nineteenth century. Their presence also repeatedly led to marriages with German women, which challenged by the media, the public and state authorities in many ways. This articles focuses initially on the symbolic and institutional-administrative treatment of such marriages between the German Empire and National Socialism. It identifies a wealth of exclusion mechanisms in a highly regulative migration regime. The following sections interpret these developments in light of the broader gender-political and transnational contexts.     

Traditionelle,modernisierte und liberalisierte Sozialdemokratie: Eine Typologie sozialdemokratischer Regierungspolitik in Westeuropa

Ausgehend von der Debatte um einen “Dritten Weg“ der Sozialdemokratie gibt der vorliegende Artikel eine empirisch fundierte Antwort auf die Frage, inwiefern sozialdemokratische Regierungen ihre klassischen politischen Ziele und Instrumente angesichts der Veränderungen durch globale und europäische Marktintegration und den sozialen Wandel einer Revision unterzogen haben. Ein qualitativer Vergleich der Fiskal‐, Beschäftigungs‐ und Sozialpolitik von sechs sozialdemokratischen Regierungen in Grossbritannien, Frankreich, Deutschland, Niederlande, Schweden und Dänemark zeigt, dass sich drei Typen sozialdemokratischer Regierungspolitik identifizieren lassen, die mit jeweils unterschiedlichen Leistungsbilanzen einhergehen. Die erklärungskräftigsten Variablen für die unterschiedlichen Politikmuster sind Parteienwettbewerb, Koalitionskonstellationen sowie Sozialstaatsstrukturen.