Back to Basics: The Great Recession and the Narrowing of IMF Policy Advice

This article contributes to the literature on the dynamics of change and continuity in the International Monetary Fund's (IMF's) policy paradigm. The IMF embarked on a process of “streamlining conditionality” during the 2000s, but many observers have argued that the IMF's policy paradigm from the 1990s remains intact. This article examines whether the scope of the IMF's policy advice to borrowers during the Great Recession narrowed in comparison to its advice to borrowers during the heyday of the Washington consensus in the 1980s and 1990s. The article uses qualitative content analysis to establish the frequency of a series of policy dialogue indicators in four sample sets of countries requesting IMF stand‐by arrangements over three decades. The evidence suggests that contemporary IMF policy advice to borrowers continues to stress the importance of fiscal consolidation, with reduced emphasis on promoting the structural economic reforms associated with the Washington consensus era.     

The Linkage between Security,Governance and Development: the European Union in Africa

The international community currently favours an approach to development that stresses a triangular linkage between security, good governance and economic development. This approach clearly informs the European Union's agenda in Africa, which has progressively integrated governance and security elements. This paper will show that this agenda is at least as much determined by the bureaucratic and national affiliations of the concerned EU actors as it is by African realities and international trends. African security indeed triggers a competition between the different European institutions, eager to be the driving force for a policy that can offer some additional resources and autonomy. The consistency and the credibility of the EU security policy in Africa will therefore depend on the responses provided to these institutional rivalries.     

Can Charitable Donations Compensate for a Reduction in Government Funding? The Role of Information

Are private donors willing to replace cuts in government funding? The authors conducted a survey experiment (n = 2,458) to examine how information about government funding affected decisions to donate money to a large charitable organization in the Netherlands. Providing information about actual budget cuts increased the number of donors. Most new donors were recruited among respondents who had processed the information correctly, underlining the importance of effective communication. The magnitude of the information effect was stronger for citizens with lower levels of empathic concern, who are less likely to donate but can be converted into donors. The authors conclude that policy information shapes not only attitudes but also civic engagement outside the political sphere.     

Portugal

European Journal of Political Research -     

Roman and Catholic and American: The transformation of Catholicism in the United States

This paper serves as a preliminary study for an analysis of the public role which the American Catholic Bishops assumed in the 1980s. The analysis is part of a broader, forthcoming study,Public Religions in the Modern World, which includes also studies of Catholicism in Spain, Poland, and Brazil, and a study of Protestant Fundamentalism.     

Erhöhung der Darlegungslast für FFH-Verträglichkeitsprüfung und Abweichungsentscheidung durch das BVerwG

Die Anforderungen an die Zulassung von Infrastrukturvorhaben sind in den letzten Jahren erheblich gestiegen. Ben?tigte der Planfeststeller vor 20 Jahren noch 20 Seiten für einen Planfeststellungsbeschluss, k?nnen es heute schon mal 500 Seiten für eine Ortsumgehung sein. Dementsprechend ist es nicht verwunderlich, wenn das hier zu besprechende Urteil des Bundesverwaltungsgerichts (BVerwG) die Form einer kleinen Monographie einschlie?lich des Inhaltsverzeichnisses annimmt. Die Ursachen sind sichtbar und weithin bekannt. Auf der tats?chlichen Seite liegen sie in der Versch?rfung der Nutzungskonflikte durch die zunehmende Verdichtung der Infrastrukturnetze sowie Siedlungs- und Gewerbefl?chen, dem zunehmenden Umweltbewusstsein der Bev?lkerung und dem Aufbau eines europ?ischen Schutzgebietsnetzes. Auf der rechtlichen Seite wirkt sich die immer tiefer greifende Europ?isierung des deutschen Rechts auf das Fachplanungsrecht aus. Diese Entwicklung in den letzten Jahren hat gezeigt, dass sich das Fachplanungsrecht zwar gegen die verfahrensrechtlichen Anforderungen des Gemeinschaftsrechts durch Regelungen zur Verfahrensbeschleunigung weitgehend zur Wehr setzen kann; die materiellrechtlichen Anforderungen greifen aber und verl?ngern auf ihre Weise die Verfahren. Das von der Abw?gung bestimmte Fachplanungsrecht wird schleichend durch zwingende gemeinschaftsrechtliche Vorgaben ver?ndert. Eine dieser Normen – die auch im Mittelpunkt der Entscheidung des BVerwG steht – ist die Fauna-Flora-Habitat-Richtlinie (FFH-RL).     

Dworkin on external skepticism and moral permissions

This article discusses Ronald Dworkin’s first objection against what he calls external moral skepticism, the view that denies truth-value to moral judgments. According to that objection, an external skeptic denies that substantive moral judgments can be true. But, at the same time, the objection goes, what follows from the skeptical view is that all actions are morally permissible, which is in itself a substantive moral judgment. We call this ‘the self-defeating argument.’ We argue that the objection’s success depends on how we interpret the idea of moral permission, an issue Dworkin does not clearly resolve. Against his objection, we advance two different arguments. First, once we learn what role the idea of moral permission plays in morality, we can see that any plausible view of some agent’s moral permission must acknowledge its complex character, and that the existence of a moral permission must have some impact on the balance of moral reasons for other agents. On this understanding, it is false that it follows solely from external skepticism that everything is permissible. Second, we argue that even if permissions have a simple character, not a complex one, they are plausible only when framed within a moral constellation of rights and obligations. So understood, it is, again, false that it follows from external skepticism that everything is permissible.