Yet another coup d'État in Germany? Schröder's vote of confidence and parliamentary government in Germany

According to some political commentators Gerhard Schröder's decision in May 2005 to use a ‘false’ vote of confidence in order to have the Bundestag dissolved was nothing less than a coup d'état. From this vantage point an incumbent chancellor had put party interests above crucial aspects of the Basic Law. The debate ensuing Schröder's decision is, thus, to be understood as a variation of a controversy about the legitimate power of parties in the political system, i.e. about the essence of the parliamentary form of government in Germany. In order to bring these issues to the fore the article first describes the chronology of events triggered by Gerhard Schröder's (and Franz Müntefering's) announcements on 22 May 2005. It then examines the five motions for a vote of confidence that have been brought to the floor of the Bundestag since 1949. Finally, it discusses the question of whether the Bundestag should receive the constitutional right to dissolve itself. Overall the analysis supports the view that the vote of confidence has been totally subsumed under the logic of parliamentary government in Germany.     

Custodial Sovereignty: Reconciling Sovereignty and Global Environmental Challenges amongst the Vestiges of Colonialism

Netherlands International Law Review -     

The Mobilizing Effect of Parties' Moral Rhetoric

How does parties' use of moral rhetoric affect voter behavior? Prior comparative party research has studied party positions without much attention to how parties explain and justify their positions. Drawing insights from political and moral psychology, I argue that moral rhetoric mobilizes copartisan voters by activating positive emotions about their partisan preference. I expect this to hold among copartisans who are exposed to party rhetoric. To test my argument, I measure moral rhetoric by text-analyzing party manifestos from six English-speaking democracies and measure mobilization using copartisan turnout in survey data. The results support my argument. Furthermore, I find evidence in support of the theoretical mechanism using survey experiments and panel survey data from Britain. The article shows that moral rhetoric is a party campaign frame that has important consequences for voter behavior.     

Increase in the length of incarceration and the subsequent labor market outcomes: Evidence from men released from Illinois state prisons

The sharp rise in U.S. incarceration rates has heightened long‐standing concerns among scholars and policymakers that lengthy incarceration permanently harms the future labor market outcomes of prisoners. If true, then lengthy prison sentences will not only punish criminals for crimes committed, but will also make it far more difficult for ex‐prisoners to reenter society as productive citizens. To investigate this claim I examine how increase in duration of incarceration affects subsequent earnings and employment. Comparing long‐serving prisoners with short‐serving ones in the Illinois state prison system, I find that the length of incarceration is positively associated with earnings and employment, even though these effects attenuate over time. The positive effects are stronger for individuals convicted of economically motivated and less violent crimes (such as property‐ and drug‐related offenses) than for those convicted of violent crimes (such as person‐related offenses). The effect is also stronger for prison entrants with self‐reported drug addiction problems. The deterrent effect of lengthy incarceration and rehabilitation during incarceration are possible reasons for this positive effect. However, because this paper analyzes men who served less than four years in Illinois prison and excludes the population of men who served their terms exclusively in jail, readers should be cautious about generalizing findings of this paper. © 2011 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.