New Insights into Coalition Negotiations—The Case of German Government Formation

Research on coalition negotiations after general elections in parliamentary systems usually focuses on the parties’ utility maximization as corporate actors. However, the most recent process of government formation after the German general election in 2017 followed a different type of logic and led to an outcome unlike that of other coalition negotiations. Regarding policy seeking, office seeking, and vote seeking, the outcomes of both the exploratory talks between Christlich Demokratische Union (CDU)/Christlich-Soziale Union (CSU), Freie Demokratische Partei, and the Greens and the negotiations between CDU/CSU and Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands are at least partly irrational from a cost–benefit analysis. This article examines the formation of Germany’s government in 2017–2018 and reveals the paradoxical outcomes of each phase of the negotiations. Empirical data to underpin the argument stem from interviews with negotiators and statements of direct participants in the formation of the coalition. Instead of the parties’ utility maximization, negotiations were largely dominated by intraparty conflicts, in which individual interests and personal trust rather than partisan unitary programs were most relevant to the negotiation process and outcome. Our work answers the question of why the grand coalition was unexpectedly renewed in the end—contrary to what might be predicted based on established theories of coalition building. The observations and conclusions set forth are of general interest not only for future coalition negotiations in Germany but also for other European parliamentary democracies facing increasing party fragmentation. Most importantly, the analysis yields insights into negotiations undertaken in the absence of rationalist behavior.     

Crossing roads,crossing boundaries: empowerment and participation in a child pedestrian safety initiative

Children's journeys between home and school have become increasingly problematic in Western cities as a result of intensifying traffic and safety concerns. Many parents now take their children to school by car and, through driving, exacerbate congestion. In response to this situation, a number of school communities, in partnership with local authorities, have established walking school buses (WSBs). In this paper the WSB phenomenon is critiqued, with particular reference to the initiative adopted by a primary school in Auckland, New Zealand. It is concluded that WSBs offer participants a highly ambivalent form of empowerment and spatial freedom that is contingent upon adult surveillance and disciplinary power.     

Experimental comparison of two multiple-stage contest designs with asymmetric players

We compare experimentally two contest designs. In the between-group design (BGD), cohorts compete with one another in stage 1 and a single cohort is then advance to stage 2. In stage 2, members of this cohort compete for a single prize. In the within-group design (WGD), the order of the competition is reversed. Our findings support the theoretical conclusion that the WGD is superior to BGD in generating more expenditure. They also show that if the cohorts are fixed, small, and interact repeatedly over time, then tacit collusion in the WGD, but not the BGD, leads to suppression of expenditures.     

State Performance‐Based Budgeting in Boom and Bust Years: An Analytical Framework and Survey of the States

The authors examine the track record of applying performance‐based budgeting (PBB) across three time periods within a sample of U.S. state governments: (1) throughout the 1990s, (2) in the early 2000s, and (3) during the Great Recession. State‐level PBB is analyzed according to four elements: (1) the development of performance measures, (2) its applicability to budgeting and management processes, (3) its utility across the business cycle, and (4) its usefulness for budget players. An analytical framework is devised that highlights the “publicness” of American government, draws on the principal–agent model, and considers incentive mechanisms theory. Findings confirm that a good performance measurement system takes time to develop and operate well and that PBB functions more effectively for executive management than legislative purposes. PBB is used more by the states during strong economic times as opposed to during economic downturns. More importantly, PBB is only selectively applied by legislators in most states, whereas top executive policy makers, middle managers, and staff embrace and utilize PBB systems more extensively.     

Towards a Study of Human Rights Practitioners

The expansion of human rights provisions has produced an increasing number of human rights practitioners and delineated human rights as a field of its own. Questions of who is practicing human rights and how they practice it have become important. This paper considers the question of human rights practice and the agency of practitioners, arguing that practice should not be conceived as the application of philosophy, but instead approached from a sociological point of view. Whatever the structuring effect of political institutions, human rights is being defined more expansively by practitioners. The weakness of international institutions and the interpretive scope of human rights discourse produce significant opportunity for practitioners to interpret the meaning of human rights. Our exploratory interviews of a small sample of practitioners reveal widely varying histories, in which they interpret their own work as “human rights” practice in differing ways. Practitioners who in the past thought of themselves differently, now identify as human rights activists. They are also becoming more professional, but concerned about professionalization. Their self-interpretations reflect these concerns and also respond to the necessities of career events. Through the conscious and unconscious aspects of their practice, practitioners exercise considerable agency in adapting human rights discourse to their own concerns while also being critical of it.     

Self-Interest,Symbolic Politics,and Public Attitudes Toward Gun Control

Numerous studies have found that immediate and tangible self-interest has a minimal influence on public attitudes toward many policy issues. We examine public attitudes toward gun control in order to determine whether gun owners exhibit distinctive policy preferences. Our results indicate that self-interest strongly influences public preferences on gun control and that banning handguns evokes stronger self-interest effects than banning assault weapons or imposing a waiting period on purchases of firearms. We conclude by discussing why gun control evokes self-interested calculations among gun owners, the implications of our findings for self-interest theory, and suggestions for further lines of research.