Formale und informale Institutionen in defekten Demokratien

The last quarter of the 20^th century saw the worldwide advance of democracy. However, almost three decades after the beginning of the third wave of democratization, the empirical evidence increasingly suggests that this wave could become less a triumph of political liberalism and much more a success story for a “defective” form of democracy. The mainstream of theoretical and empirical ‘consolidology’ speaks of democracies and autocracies. This crude dichotomy does not allow for more differentiated judgments and conceptualizations of the structural and functional elements of this regime-type that has developed in the grey area between consolidated, liberal democracy and open autocracy. Thus far, a theoretical concept enabling the new regime-type to be systematically differentiated from democracies based on the rule of law, the reasons for its emergence to be clearly set out, and the specific dynamics of its development to be explained, has thus far been lacking. To overcome this shortcomings this article presents a multidimensional concept of democracy that allows, to distinguish between liberal democracies based on the rule of law and defective, or illiberal, democracies. From developing a three-dimensional typology for classifying three subtypes of defective democracies (exclusive democracy, tutelary democracy, illiberal democracy), the paper is focused on the illiberal democracy, more specifically on the questions what are the defining characteristics of illiberal democracies, and what are the reasons for their emergence. We will examine the specific interdependence of formal institutions and informal institutional arrangements, which we consider to be one of the central features of illiberal democracies and, finally, we will outline possible scenarios for the future development of illiberal democracies.     

Representation and Austerity Politics: Attitudes of Greek Voters and Elites Compared

Drawing on surveys of voters and MPs in Greece, this article analyses elite–mass interaction on key policy (austerity, European integration, immigration) and ideological issues after the 2012 elections. We find that while for the government parties, New Democracy and PASOK, the level of congruence is quite high, MPs from opposition parties (SYRIZA, Golden Dawn) place themselves in more exposed positions in comparison with their voters. The observed substantial variation in the intensity and direction of congruence, across parties and issue preferences in Greece, reinforces the view that the dimensionality of political contestation is not reducible to a single ideological dimension.     

Wie lässt sich Demokratie am besten messen? Zum Forumsbeitrag von Thomas Müller und Susanne Pickel

Ohne Zusammenfassung * Die vier Autor(inn)en arbeiten in einem gemeinsamen Forschungsprojekt des NCCR Democracy (vom Schweizerischen Nationalfonds finanziertes National Centre of Competence in Research: Challenges to Democracy in the 21^st Century) und des WZB an einem „Demokratiebarometer“ für die 30 OECD-Staaten, das die Ignoranz der 0-Varianz bei Polity und Freedom House aufkl?ren will.

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Kriminalpolitische Initiative: Mehr Sicherheit durch weniger Haft! Vorschläge Nr 6 – Juni 2011

Die AutorInnen haben als Kriminalpolitische Initiative (KI) seit 2004 in fünf Publikationen konkrete kriminalpolitische Reformvorschl?ge pr?sentiert. Eine Reihe dieser Vorschl?ge wurde vollst?ndig oder zumindest teilweise umgesetzt. Die KI sieht weiterhin Bedarf an der Weiterentwicklung der Strafrechtspflege entsprechend dem Grundsatz: „Mehr Sicherheit durch weniger Haft.“ Deshalb definieren die AutorInnen im Folgenden entsprechend der Systematik des neuen Bundeshaushaltsrechts drei Wirkungszeiele und schlagen neun Ma?nahmen vor, deren Umsetzung ihnen besonders dringlich und wichtig erscheint.     

Attitudes Towards Severity of Punishment: A Conjoint Analytic Approach

Past research suggests that attitudes towards severity of punishment are affected by crime‐specific factors. The impact of such factors has usually been investigated by between‐subjects designs. The studies reported in this paper, however, are based on within‐subjects designs, using conjoint analysis for data collection and analysis. Study 1 employs a rape scenario for investigating the impact of the victim–offender relationship and of two victim characteristics – provocative behavior and intoxication. Study 2 uses a theft and an assault scenario for analyzing the influence of several offender and crime characteristics on sanctioning: offender's age, readiness to confess, previous convictions, and severity of the offense. Results from both studies are reported and discussed in terms of utility values. These values represent the importance placed on the case characteristics focused upon. In addition to the general evaluation of case characteristics, inter‐individual differences are analyzed by means of hierarchical cluster analysis. Advantages of the conjoint analytic approach over conventional research methods on sanctioning behavior are discussed.     

Changing Patterns of Party Competition in Austria: From Multipolar to Bipolar System

The Austrian party system has entered a new phase since the controversial ÖVP-FPÖ coalition came into office in February 2000. The party system literature offers two contradicting expectations about party system mechanics in multi-party systems without relevant extremist parties: competition structured by party alliances and strictly competitive relations between government and opposition parties (as suggested by <citeref rid="b30">Sartori 1976</citeref>) versus competition structured by individual parties and some mix of competition and co-operation and perhaps even power-sharing in extra-governmental arenas between government and opposition parties (as suggested by <citeref rid="b3">Dahl 1966</citeref>). Our empirical analysis of party system competitiveness in the electoral, parliamentary and other arenas (in particular, the corporatist arena) between 2000 and 2003 shows that the relations between the government and opposition parties were strictly competitive (i.e. of a zero-sum character) in the electoral arena. Likewise, there was no trading between government and opposition in the parliamentary arena. Finally, the government substantially increased its impact on the official sites (i.e. arenas controlled by the government) and used fire and hire methods more than any of its predecessors to build up its positions in public sector institutions. The opposition parties, in turn, perceived the government parties as a bloc and were united in their goal of undermining the government parties' majority. Yet, while relations between the government and opposition parties remained highly competitive throughout the entire period, relations between the parties on each side of the government-opposition divide became more fluid, partly for tactical considerations and partly for reasons of genuine preferences. In sum, the post-2000 Austrian party system is a weak version of a two-bloc system.