Leadership Experiences Within Civil Organizations and Candidacy in Public Elections: Causal Evidence from a Quasi-Experimental Approach

Standing as a candidate in public elections has been characterized as the ultimate act of political participation. We test the hypothesis that acquiring office within civil organizations increases the probability of becoming a candidate in public elections. In order to take self-selection problems into account, we provide quasi-experimental evidence using election discontinuities, in which we compare the likelihood of being nominated for public office between closely ranked winners and losers in Swedish student union (SU) elections. Our original data cover 5,000 SU candidates and register data on their candidacies in public elections (1991–2010). The analysis provides support to the hypothesis: Students elected to SU councils were about 34 percent (6 percentage points) more likely to become a candidate in a public election than SU council candidates who were not elected. The causal impact is fairly stable over time. The analysis makes important contributions to two interrelated bodies of literature: First, it provides political recruitment literature with causal evidence that acquiring leadership experiences at arenas outside of representative democratic institutions facilitate entry into election processes. Second, it provides strong evidence to an increasingly contested issue within political participation research by showing that certain organizational activities increase individuals’ political involvement.     

Injustice in School and Students’ Emotions,Well-Being,and Behavior: A Longitudinal study

School can be regarded as an important factor in the development of children’s values and attitudes. Given this great importance of justice experiences for students’ development, this study aimed at examining the influence of perceived injustice in school on students’ emotions, well-being, and behavior with an experimental longitudinal design. In total, 196 students participated in this study and came to the university with their classes to receive extra teaching once a week for six consecutive weeks. To manipulate justice perceptions, a scenario of arbitrary privilege was chosen to lead students of the experimental group to experience injustice from a beneficiary perspective. We found that students in the experimental group reported higher well-being and a higher appreciation of the opportunity to learn than the control group did. Additionally, they showed an increase in justice-related negative emotions over time; that is, they expressed more of a bad conscience and stronger feelings of anger the more they became aware of their privilege. This study shows that even subtle experiences of injustice in school can have an impact on students’ outcomes. These results are discussed with regard to practical implications.     

Divide et impera: Strategic underpricing in privatizations

In several recent initial public offerings in privatization casesshares seemed to be severely underpriced. In this paper weprovide a political economy explanation for this apparentunderpricing. Using a variant of Grossmann and Helpmann's (1996)model of special interest politics, we demonstrate thatgovernments may raise their election chances by rationinginvestors because the resulting broader distribution of sharesmakes regulation that is favorable to the privatized firm morepopular. Somewhat surprisingly, even revenues from theprivatization can be increased through rationing. The model alsoexplains the common practice of bonus systems designed to preventinvestors from taking profits immediately.     

Das Bundesverfassungsgericht im politischen System der BRD – ein unbekanntes Wesen?

This article argues that the Judicialization hypothesis as a dominant research paradigm in the literature on the Bundesverfassungsgericht leaves out a number of relevant aspects. Rather, the court should be understood as being embedded in an area of competing interests among government, opposition, courts, litigating citizens and public opinion. The article identifies the institutional links between actors and relevant research questions. Finally, it discusses the theoretical, methodological and empirical challenges for further research on the Bundesverfassungsgericht.     

Aufgriffsobliegenheit bei Kündigung besonders bestandgeschützter Arbeitsverhältnisse?

Juristische Blätter - Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit ist es, einen roten Faden durch die verschiedenen Problemkreise einer rechtswidrigen Kündigung eines besonders bestandgeschützten...     

Ausgleichszulage nach ASVG für bulgarische Pensionistin mit gewöhnlichem Aufenthalt in Österreich

Nach Art 10a Abs 3 VO 1408/71/EWG ist die fremdmitgliedstaatliche Pensionsleistung für den Anspruch auf Ausgleichszulage als beitragsunabh?ngige Sonderleistung einer ?sterreichischen Pensionsleistung gleichzustellen. Auch im Geltungsbereich der neuen Sozialrechtskoordinierungs-VO (883/2004/EG) sind gem Art 5 dieser VO Leistungen, die im EU-Ausland bezogen werden, inl?ndischen Leistungen in Bezug auf ihre Rechtswirkungen gleichzuhalten. Es haben daher auch EUBürger mit einer ausl?ndischen Rente einen Anspruch auf Ausgleichszulage gegenüber dem ?sterreichischen Pensionsversicherungstr?ger, sofern sie die übrigen Voraussetzungen erfüllen. Zu diesen Voraussetzungen geh?ren ein gew?hnlicher Aufenthalt in ?sterreich und ein Einkommen unter dem Ausgleichszulagenrichtsatz. Nach den Intentionen des Gesetzgebers soll der Bezug von Ausgleichszulage erst bei nach dem 1. 1. 2011 gestellten Erstantr?gen "aufenthaltssch?dlich" sein (§ 11 Abs 5 letzter Satz und § 51 Abs 1 Z 2 NAG idF BudgetbegleitG 2011). Die – nur gegenüber der Aufenthaltsbeh?rde abgegebene – Patenschaftserkl?rung nach § 2 Abs 1 Z 18 NAG ist nicht geeignet, den Anspruch auf Ausgleichszulage zu schm?lern. Es ist nicht Sinn und Zweck der Verpflichtungserkl?rung, eine Gebietsk?rperschaft oder einen Sozialversicherungstr?ger von gesetzlich gebührenden Ansprüchen zu entlasten.