Public–Private Partnershipping as a Tool of Government: Exploring its Determinants Across German States

Despite considerable public and scholarly interest in public–private partnerships (PPPs) as a tool of government in Germany, there is no quantitative empirical study exploring the motivations behind policymakers' decisions to (not) use this type of privatisation policy. This article contributes to filling this gap by investigating the extent and determinants of the PPP activities of the 16 German states' governments over the period 2002–09. For that purpose, a PPP Activity Index is constructed which not only includes official PPP project figures but also state governments' programmatic, institutional, and advisory activities regarding PPP. Using this index, we statistically analyse whether fiscal stress, government partisanship, and other factors can help to explain the considerable differences between Länder governments' PPP activities. Among other things, it turns out that partisanship only matters if Socialists are part of a coalition government, and that fiscal transfers have a negative impact on a state's PPP activity level.     

The politics of national‐populism: Ideology and policies of the German Republikaner party

In this article, the Republikaner party's ideology and policies are explored on the basis of programmes and other public statements. There will be an emphasis on economic policies and issues of national and ethnic identity. It will be argued that the Republikaner party is targeting a broader electoral coalition than its main competitors and predecessors on the extreme right. In its attempt to mobilise a broad and heterogeneous protest coalition and to attract voters beyond the narrow confines of traditional right‐wing extremism the party makes contradictory promises to various sectional groups without being able to integrate them into a consistent framework of economic policy. These contradictions are covered up by the party's radical nationalism, extreme xenophobia and populist propaganda.     

Drug access,patents and global health: 'Chaffed and waxed sufficient'

In July 2000 the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights issued a General Comment on the Right to the Highest Attainable Standard of Health. At paragraph 10 the Committee makes the following admission: 'Since the adoption of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 1966 the world health situation has changed dramatically and the notion of health has undergone substantial changes and widened in scope. More determinants are being taken into consideration, such as resource distribution and gender differences. A wider definition of health also takes into account such socially related concerns as violence and armed conflict. Moreover, formerly unknown diseases, such as HIV and AIDS, and others that have become more widespread, such as cancer, as well as the rapid growth of the world population, have created new obstacles for the realisation of the right to health which need to be taken into account when interpreting article 12.'¹ The need to understand why and how 'the notion of health has undergone substantial changes and widened in scope', the forces that are contributing to this redefinition, and the implications for governments, multinational pharmaceutical companies and ordinary people is the subject of this article. In particular global health is assessed according to the extent of global access to life improving-medicines, and the surmountable barriers that prevent this.     

Moving Beyond North–South Theatre

The North–South divide is counterproductive to the generation of norms and policies geared toward ensuring human security in a globalising world. Moreover, developing countries productively abandon Southern solidarity when it is in their perceived interests to do so. This article provides an historical overview of the origins of the geographical labels attached to the two main groups of countries and examines how the various constructed roles on the international stage in the global theatre are played by actors from the two major troupes, North and South. It concludes with some encouraging examples of changed stances within the supposedly ironclad categories.     

The future UN development agenda: contrasting visions,contrasting operations

‘Sustainable development’ – as currently and politically correctly formulated – provides an inappropriate basis on which to frame a future-oriented UN agenda, and risks perpetuating patterns of assistance in which most UN organisations perform poorly and in the shadow of alternative and more able multilateral and bilateral sources. UN operations should take as their point of departure the comprehensive agenda outlined by the two world summits of 2000 and 2005. This agenda recognises the value-based UN as the only universal-membership organisation, which combines the concerns of satisfying human needs while ensuring security, human rights, justice and sound governance. The post-2015 agenda should not look only at development and environment but aspire to what a million global voices canvassed by the UN in ‘the world we want’ campaign are clamouring for.     

‘THE OLD DAYS ARE OVER’:1 IRISH REPUBLICANISM,THE PEACE PROCESS AND THE DISCOURSE OF EQUALITY

This article examines the current role of equality as a key discourse in the language of Sinn Féin. It explores this within the context of the consociational character of the Good Friday Agreement and the discursive nature of Republican ideology. The article argues that mainstream contemporary Republicanism (in the shape of Sinn Féin) is reforging its political agenda and doing so by rearticulating key elements of Republican thought and northern Nationalist political culture. Republicanism has always contained within it radical-universalist and ethnic particularist dimensions. It could be argued that the consociational nature of the Good Friday Agreement has placed a political premium for parties to emphasize their role as ethnic community advocates. The article will suggest that Sinn Féin has been employing the language of equality in order to marry its appeal as a party of communalist leadership with universalized principles. While the rhetoric of Nationalist aspirations remain, this process has ensured that equality has emerged as the meta-discourse for Sinn Féin as it moves away from armed anti-partitionism.     

Razzia: A Turning Point in Modern Strategy

The razzia, a tactic of swift and brutal raids used by the French military against recalcitrant tribes in Algeria in the 1840s, was a necessary step in modern military thought. At first glance the destructive and violent razzias stand in stark contrast to the constructive and non-violent bureaux arabes—an institutional ancestor of Provincial Reconstruction Teams. But both were developed in the same conflict and by the same men. These two innovations, this article argues, were also flipsides of the same coin: what today is called war “among the people.” The razzia consequently appears as a necessary historic precursor for contemporary counterinsurgency doctrine.     

The Concept of Radicalization as a Source of Confusion

The ubiquity of use of the term “radicalization” suggests a consensus about its meaning, but this article shows through a review of a variety of definitions that no such consensus exists. The article then argues that use of the term is problematic not just for these reasons, but because it is used in three different contexts: the security context, the integration context, and the foreign-policy context. It is argued that each of these contexts has a different agenda, impacted in the case of the integration agenda by the rise of European “neo-nationalism,” and so each uses the term “radical” to mean something different. The use of one term to denote at least three different concepts risks serious confusion. The proposed solution is to abandon the attempt to use “radicalization” as an absolute concept.