Wie weit reicht die Zweckbindung der Abwasserabgabe?

Das Aufkommen der Abwasserabgabe ist zweckgebunden für Ma?nahmen zu verwenden, die der Erhaltung oder Verbesserung der Gew?ssergüte dienen. Die Reichweite dieser Zweckbindung zu bestimmen, f?llt schwer. Es stellt sich insbesondere die Frage, ob die generalklauselartige Weite der einfachgesetzlichen Zweckbindung des Aufkommens der Abwasserabgabe auf Grund der strengen finanzverfassungsrechtlichen Anforderungen eine Einschr?nkung erf?hrt, die an Sonderabgaben zu stellen sind. Zu kl?ren sind die Rechtsnatur der Abwasserabgabe sowie die Ma?st?be, die das Finanzverfassungsrecht für die Erhebung von Sonderabgaben setzt.     

States on Steroids: The Intergovernmental Odyssey of American Climate Policy

Climate change has conventionally been framed as an issue that would be addressed by an international regime established through negotiation among nation‐states. The experience of policy development in the decade following the signing of the Kyoto Protocol indicates that climate change also needs to be examined as a challenge of multilevel governance. The increasingly central role of state governments in American climate policy formation squares with recent experience in other Western democracies that share authority across governmental levels. This paper examines the American experience, considering factors that have contributed to a state‐centric policy process and using that body of experience to assess competing strategic choices faced by individual states based on their mix of emission trends and policy adoption rates. In turn, the collective state experience allows for consideration of the varied political feasibility of competing climate policy tools that remain under active review in subnational, national, and international contexts. The paper concludes with a set of scenarios that explore different ways in which a state‐centric system may be integrated with expanding involvement at the national level.     

The survival of interest groups: evidence from Germany

Abstract

Interest groups are important intermediary organisations that function as a transmission belt between societal interests and political decision-makers. However, while some interest groups survive over decades, others only last a few years. This article argues that the survival of interest groups depends on their ability to mobilise resources which is crucially affected by interest group type and the public salience of an interest group’s policy domain. The theoretical expectations are tested based on a novel dataset mapping the survival of 1699 interest groups registered at the German Bundestag between 1974 and 2012. Using event history analysis, it is shown that interest group type and public salience indeed affect whether interest groups survive. Sectional groups last significantly longer than cause groups, and interest group survival increases with the public salience of their policy area. The results have major implications for our understanding of interest groups and political representation in contemporary democracies.     

Conventional Politics for Unconventional Drilling? Lessons from Pennsylvania's Early Move into Fracking Policy Development

The emergence of hydraulic fracturing techniques is generating a dramatic expansion of the development of domestic natural gas resources in the United States and abroad. Fracking also poses a series of environmental protection challenges that cut across traditional medium and program boundaries. Formal constraints on federal government engagement thus far devolve considerable latitude to individual states for policy development. This provides an important test of whether recent scholarly emphasis on highly innovative state environmental and energy policies can be extended to this burgeoning area. Pennsylvania has moved to the epicenter of the fracking revolution, reflecting its vast Marcellus Shale resource and far‐reaching 2012 legislation. This article examines the Pennsylvania case and notes that the state's emerging policy appears designed to maximize resource extraction while downplaying environmental considerations. The case analysis generates questions as to whether this experience constitutes an influential state early mover that is likely to diffuse widely or is instead an aberration in a rapidly diversifying state policy development process.     

‘Ryk,ryker, Rykie’: A first exploration of the journalistic contribution of a journalist extraordinaire

Abstract

This article will, as a first exploration, attempt to put some aspects of the Afrikaans journalist Rykie van Reenen into perspective with the aim of understanding her contribution to South African journalism and the extent of her oeuvre. Van Reenen was referred to as 'undoubtedly the most outstanding Afrikaans journalist of the [twentieth] century' (Giliomee 2003, 564). In the Afrikaans rewritten version of this book, it is qualified with the word 'waarskynlik' – (probably) (Giliomee 2004, 470). Although her journalism, according to sources, contributed in a significant way to the eventual political change from an Afrikaner Nationalist-governed country to a democracy, very little is known about the journalist. This initial recording of van Reenen's oeuvre is part of a more extensive study of this journalist who has set a standard in South African Afrikaans journalism in terms of subject matter and writing style. This article can thus also be regarded as a contribution in a small way to a more complete South African media historiography, which, in general, lacks significant scholarly attention.     

Ideology after the end of ideology. China and the quest for autocratic legitimation

In political science literature on contemporary China, ideology is mostly regarded as a dogmatic straitjacket to market reforms that has been worn out over the years of economic success, an obsolete legacy of the past waiting to be cast off in the course of the country's transition toward capitalism. This article posits, however, that ideology still plays an indispensable role in the quest to legitimize authoritarian rule in contemporary China, and that it does so precisely due to its high degree of adaptability. Based on David Beetham's theoretical model of political legitimacy, three legitimating functions of ideology that demand the constant adaptation of party theory and official language are introduced. Presenting various examples of reformulations of party theory and official language from the beginning of the reform period up to the present, the article demonstrates how the party regime relies on ideology to constantly reproduce its legitimacy, as well as the pitfalls of this reliance. It argues that ideology in contemporary China should be analysed not as a matter of belief but of playing by the rules of the official language game, and it shows how ideology is deployed as a set of practices and incentives for the proper performance of the political elite.