Party Power: Approaches in a Field of Unfilled Classics*

Much current research into the working of liberal democracy tends to emphasise and concentrate on the corporate channel of influence. The linkage to centres of power provided by political parties has not received sufficient attention. There is a need for more research into the operation of parties as linkages between grass root activists and national elite politics. Studying party democracy is to study internal distribution of power, and the article turns to the debate on community power studies for guidelines on how to approach empirical research on intra-party democracy.     

Tierschutzrecht in der Diskussion

Das politische Ringen um rechtlichen Tierschutz findet in der Bundesrepublik seit über 35 Jahren statt. Dabei weist die Debatte einen klaren Dreh- und Angelpunkt auf: Tierschutz im Grundgesetz. Ging es früher um die Forderung, Tierschutz ausdrücklich in der Verfassung zu verankern, ist seit Aufnahme des Staatsziels Tierschutz im Jahre 2002 dessen Stellenwert im Vergleich mit anderen grundgesetzlichen Werten in den Mittelpunkt getreten. Diese Entwicklung wird von einer ethischen Debatte um Tierschutz und Tierrechte begleitet, deren Forderungen jedoch kaum Eingang in die aktuelle Tagespolitik finden. Es sollen zun?chst kurz die Entwicklungen nachgezeichnet werden, die zur Aufnahme des Staatsziels Tierschutz geführt haben (I). Sodann werden die rechtsethischen Hintergründe der Tierschutzdebatte mit besonderem Blick auf Tierrechte skizziert (II). Schlie?lich sollen einige Schwerpunkte der aktuellen rechtspolitischen Diskussion vorgestellt werden (III).     

Norway and Emissions Trading: From Global Front-Runner to EU Follower

A striking convergence has taken place in the design of the Norwegian and EU greenhouse gas emissions trading systems from 1998 to 2004. This article argues that the Norwegian adaptation to the EU did not take place as a consequence of perceived legal obligations under the European Economic Area agreement. Nor did it take place due to Norwegian actors being persuaded about the merits of the EU design. The main explanation has to do with interests. The EU market and politics are of course generally very important for Norway. However, before the US pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol in 2001, the Norwegian outlook in climate politics was global. The US pull-out accelerated the development and hence the attractiveness of the EU trading system and resulted in EU emissions trading as the most probable and possibly only international market for Norway to link up to. Hence, this analysis provides further support to the importance of being sensitive to the global context and institutional interaction when analyzing the relationship between the EU and its neighboring countries.     

Constructing Achievement in the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY): A Corpus-Based Critical Discourse Analysis

The International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) was established by the UN Security Council in 1993 to prosecute persons responsible for war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia during the Balkan wars. As the first international war crimes tribunal since the Nuremburg and Tokyo tribunals set up after WWII, the ICTY has attracted immense interest among legal scholars since its inception, but has failed to garner the same level of attention from researchers in other disciplines, notably linguistics. This represents a significant research gap, as the Tribunal’s public discourse (notably its case law and Annual Reports) can open up interesting avenues of analysis to researchers of law, language, and legal discourse alike. On its official website, the Tribunal claims that it has “irreversibly changed the landscape of international humanitarian law” and lists six specific achievements: “Holding leaders accountable; bringing justice to victims; giving victims a voice; establishing the facts; developing international law and strengthening the rule of the law”. While a number of legal scholars have studied and critiqued the level of ‘achievement’ actually attained by the Tribunal against these metrics and others, of interest to linguists is the ways in which this work might be conveyed discursively. In this paper, we demonstrate how methods from the linguistic field of corpus-based critical discourse analysis can be utilised to explore the discursive construction of such achievements in the language of the ICTY.     

Linking EU climate and energy policies: policy-making,implementation and reform

This contribution examines the EU’s innovative climate and energy package: how this package of binding policies has been initiated, decided, implemented and reformed. The key argument is that linking climate and energy concerns can help to explain how the EU managed to adopt an ambitious package of policies aimed at achieving 2020 goals. The combination of differently valued issues, side payments to overcome distributional obstacles and the creation of synergies contributed to a successfully negotiated outcome. The consequences for implementation and further policy development towards 2030 are explained by challenges in reproducing these joint EU-level gains at national level and by new circumstances. This may weaken the EU’s chances of realizing a low-carbon economy and ‘leadership by example’ in international climate policy.     

Diffusion of treatment interventions: exploration of ‘secondary’ treatment diffusion

Abstract

The present report presents outcome results from a randomized controlled effect study on extended Aggression Replacement Training (ART). In a pre–post design, a 30-hour ART intervention was found to significantly reduce behavioral problems and increase social skills. The control group did not demonstrate comparable changes, but still indicated improvement. Such control-group improvement may be caused by improper treatment and control group implementation (diffusion of treatment) and/or ‘secondary’ diffusion caused by participants in the treatment group affecting control group subjects by demonstrating changed behavior. Both mechanisms were explored, and it is concluded that the improvement observed in the control group was due to such ‘secondary diffusion’. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

The effect of odour reinstatement on children's episodic memory

Children's memory reports are often sparse, which increases the need for efficient interview methods. The present study investigated whether odour reinstatement can aid children's memory and increase the amount of information recalled from an experienced event. Children (N = 106, mean age 10 years, 8 months) experienced a magic show where a vanilla odour was present and were interviewed about their memory of the event either one week, or six months, after the magic show. During the interview, half of the children re-experienced the same vanilla odour. In contrast to studies on adult participants, no odour-reinstatement effect was found with the child participants in the present study. On the other hand, odour reinstatement reduced the children's ratings of how strong their emotions were during the event. Thus, odour reinstatement may affect different forensically relevant factors, and this should be considered in future research.     

The effect of being conflict non-avoidant: linking conflict framing and political participation

Abstract

The news media’s ability to mobilise citizens to participate politically by emphasising elite conflict in politics is not well understood. This article argues that citizens may gain knowledge when exposed to conflict news framing. It further theorises that whether they translate their knowledge into political participation is conditioned by their orientation towards conflict. Individuals who avoid conflict participate less frequently than individuals who do not. The proposed moderated mediation process was tested using a content analysis of news media coverage and a three-wave panel survey (n?=?2,061). Results show that the effect of exposure to conflict news framing on (changes in) political participation is positively mediated by knowledge. This mediation effect is moderated by conflict avoidance, where the effect is more positive among conflict non-avoiders than conflict avoiders. This study shows that understanding the news media’s mobilising effect on political participation requires attention to both news content and individual motivational factors.     

The Effects of Human Interest and Conflict News Frames on the Dynamics of Political Knowledge Gains: Evidence from a Cross‐national Study

A well‐functioning democracy needs the news media to provide information to its citizens. It is therefore essential to understand what kinds of news contents contribute to gains in citizens' political knowledge and for whom this takes place. Extant research is divergent on this matter, especially with respect to ‘softer’ news coverage. This cross‐national study investigates the effects of exposure to human interest and conflict frames in the news on political knowledge. Drawing on panel surveys and media content analyses in three countries, the study shows how these two frames contribute positively to political knowledge gain. This relationship is moderated by political interest so that those who are least interested learn the most from this type of easily accessible news coverage. The results are discussed in the light of research on news media and knowledge acquisition.