Karriereverläufe in der Politikwissenschaft

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

The political business cycle under rational voting behavior

This essay argues that politically motivated business cycles could persist in a democratic society even if the electorate votes in a rational, fully informed manner, provided that government policymakers have the means to systematically generate macroeconomic fluctuations. This cyclic outcome reflects the pReferences of an electorate that is composed of imperfectly altruistic voters belonging to different overlapping generations. Since each generation has a different horizon over which it would like to have elected politicians provide an optimal economic policy plan, an intergenerational conflict of interests situation arises. This conflict is placed into an explicit political context, whereby cycles become generated under the institutional constraint of periodic elections.     

Fiscal Federalism in Transition: Evidence from Ukraine

Effects of fiscal federalism on redistribution and economic growth are analyzed for Ukraine, a country with large regional differences. Since there is virtually no such empirical literature, except a study of the German case, and since there are several potential flaws, the results must be interpreted in a very tentative way. We find that this relatively poor, disorganized country with little democracy has effectively redistributed income from relatively wealthy to relatively poor regions and thus promoted regional economic convergence, and even dampened the recession in both types of regions. We also find that the evidence does not reject the view that relatively poor regions used the transfers in a growth-conducive fashion, and the paper argues that the findings may have implications beyond the case of Ukraine. But the analysis is tricky, uncertain, and merely a small step to an interesting research issue.     

Role of drugs in traffic accidents. A pilot study of traffic accident offenders in Switzerland (Bern region)

Toxicological analyses of blood and/or urine specimens collected between 1980 and 1981 revealed that 34.7% of all traffic accident victims (n = 144) had measurable concentrations of drugs. Analyses of blood samples taken from traffic offenders (n = 250) in 1979, on the other hand, showed 22.4% to have consumed drugs with or without alcohol. This percentage is comparable with values reported in other studies. Our results indicate that the widespread use of drugs represents a hazard for traffic safety in Switzerland. Road safety is additionally jeopardized by the often concomitant consumption of alcohol.     

The Democratic Quality of Institutional Regimes: a Conceptual Framework

Lijphart's spectrum of democracies – recently expanded by Jack Nagel to a sub-majoritarian sphere of pluralitarian systems which use disproportional electoral systems in order to manufacture majority governments from minorities in the electorate – is based on only one dimension: inclusion of preferences. Political scientists in the Lijphartian tradition wrongly assume that inclusion of preferences, which is an input characteristic, automatically leads to responsiveness, which refers to actual policy decisions and hence is an output characteristic. We therefore add 'responsibility' as a second input characteristic and employ it alongside the inclusiveness of institutional regimes. We argue that in representative democracies there exists a trade-off between inclusiveness and responsibility. This trade-off helps us to measure the democratic quality of institutional regimes. The now expanded spectrum of democracies based on these two dimensions shows that majoritarian democracy proper – in which governments represent a majority of individual preferences but not more than necessary – is the best possible combination of the two democratic values.     

K. A. Wittfogel's Marxist studies on China (1926–1939)

Abstract

K. A. Wittfogel is one of the most controversial figures in the field of modern Chinese studies. In the early 1950s he established himself as the leading figure in the academic section of the Cold War. Highlights of his “fight for the Free World” were the publication of “Oriental Despotism” in 1958 and the controversy with Benjamin Schwartz over the “Legend of Maoism” in the opening issue of China Quarterly in 1960. Wittfogel was a renegade, given to apocalyptic battle-cries against real or supposed “communist” studies and theories. He claimed to be the only one in his field who by personal experience knew the communist strategies and tactics and their subversive intentions.     

Das Janusgesicht der Unionsbürgerschaft

Zwar sind die Bürgerschaftsnormen (Art. 17 ff. EGV) überwiegend kritisch aufgenommen worden. Dennoch knüpft sich an den Topos der Unionsbürgerschaft ein hoffnungsgeladener Fortschrittsdiskurs. In einer Union, die den Markt als Integrationsziel überwunden hat, verspricht die Unionsbürgerschaft Werte mit Zukunftsperspektive. Sie überwindet die geistige Absenz, die im Herzen der Integration liegt, und stellt in Gestalt einer Grundrechtsfundierung ein auf das Individuum zugeschnittenes ethisches Fundament zur Verfügung. Dieser Fortschrittsdiskurs findet sich insbesondere in den emphatischen Schlussanträgen der Luxemburger Generalanwälte, die die Unionsbürgerschaft als “Grundrecht persönlicher Freiheit“ und als “Gipfel der Individualrechte“ bezeichnen. Der Europäische Gerichtshof hingegen bleibt einerseits sprachlich subtiler, verbindet die Unionsbürgerschaft aber andererseits mit dem Diskriminierungsverbot und setzt durch die Betonung von Gleichheitsrechten statt von Freiheitsrechten eine transnationale Gleichheit voraus, die der Unionsbürgerschaft vorausliegt und große Sprengkraft beinhaltet. Damit gerät die affektive Dimension von Bürgerschaft in den Blick. Wer sich als Bürger eines Gemeinwesens definiert, nimmt die kollektive Identität politischer Gemeinschaft in seine individuelle Identität auf. Dies ist einerseits erwünscht, weil so das soziale Legitimationsdefizit der Union überwunden werden kann. Andererseits birgt es all jene Gefahren, die aus den Hypertrophien und Katastrophen des letzten Jahrhunderts bekannt sind. Dies wiederum erlaubt einen Blick auf die Natur des Rechts, dem eine emanzipatorische und liberale Integrationskraft zugetraut wird. Eine kulturtheoretisch informierte Analyse hingegen zeigt, dass das Recht unter seiner liberalen Oberfläche eine Tiefenstruktur besitzt, die nach wie vor viel Atavistisches transportiert. Auch die Unionsbürgerschaft teilt diese Ambivalenz. Wer auf sie baut, um Europa vom Bürger her zu integrieren, muss sich dieser gefahrvollen Zweischneidigkeit bewusst sein.