Domestic factors influencing Ukrainian foreign policy

Ukraine is currently undergoing several large‐scale transitions: political, economic and democratic. At the same time Ukraine is gaining in importance internationally. These facts make Ukraine an important country to understand. This article explores the internal factors that affect Ukraine's foreign policy decision making, with the goal of providing an insight into the Ukrainian government. Internal influences are dividing into five broad categories: military capabilities, economic capabilities, political structure, interest groups, and competing élites. It has been found that economic factors, the presidential administration, and competing élites prove to have the most influence on Ukrainian foreign policy.     

Confidence in the Judiciary: Comparing the Independence and Legitimacy of Judicial Systems

This contribution investigates the determinants of judicial confidence. It argues that this is the decisive source of legitimacy for the third branch. Fairness and impartiality, i.e. the independence of the judiciary, are paramount in fostering citizens' confidence in the justice system. Through several multilevel analyses, the study tests whether judicial independence promotes the development of an individual's confidence in the justice system. The results show that judicial independence has a positive impact on the development of individual trust. However, public beliefs about the trustworthiness of judicial institutions do not seem to originate from constitutional rules (de jure independence) but from actual events and real life experiences (de facto independence).     

Under Which Conditions Do Parties Attract Voters’ Reactions to Issues? Party-Varying Issue Voting in German Elections 1987–2009

Are voters’ choices influenced by parties’ position-taking and communication efforts on issues during a campaign? And if so, do voters’ reactions to issues differ across parties? This article outlines a research design for the statistical identification of party-varying issue reactions within the established paradigm of the Spatial Theory of Voting. Using a special feature of conditional logit and probit models – i.e. the estimation of alternative-specific coefficients instead of fixed ‘generic’ issue distance effects – it is possible to detect asymmetrically attached issue saliencies at the level of the voters, and hence at the demand-side of politics. This strategy opens a new way to systematically combine insights obtained by saliency approaches with the Spatial Theory of Voting. An application to the German parliamentary elections from 1987 to 2009 demonstrates that it is predominantly parties taking polar positions – and, more specifically, niche parties taking polar positions – that induce such asymmetric issue voting.     

The springtime of French intelligence

Dominique Prieur (avec Jean‐Marie Pontaut), Agent secrète (Paris: Fayard 1995). Pp.248. Ff110. ISBN 2–213–59277–2.

Paul Paillote (entretiens avec Alain‐Gilles Minella), L'homme des services secrets (Paris: Julliard 1995). Pp.323. Ff129. ISBN 2–260–01341–4.

Claude Silberzahn (avec Jean Guisnel), Au coeur du secret, 1.500 jours aux commandes de la DGSE. 1989–1993 (Paris: Fayard 1995). Pp.330. Ff120. ISBN 22–13–59311–6.     

A 'European' Conception of Legal Consciousness: Rediscovering Eugen Ehrlich

This paper discusses the present ‘legal consciousness’ literature and seeks to identify two different conceptions of legal consciousness. Most of this literature originated in the United States, but there has also been a growing interest in issues of legal consciousness in Europe. The use of the term ‘legal consciousness ’ in these European discussions is, however, remarkably different from its use in the United States literature. It is argued that the most commonly used ‘American ’ conception of legal consciousness reflects important ideas of Roscoe Pound and asks: how do people experience (official) law? By contrast, a European conception of legal consciousness, which was first introduced by the Austrian legal theorist Eugen Ehrlich, focuses on: what do people experience as ‘law ’? After both perspectives are applied in a case‐study of a run‐down neighbourhood in the Netherlands, it is concluded that future studies of legal consciousness may benefit from an integration of the two conceptions.