The Interaction Effects of Bargaining Power: The Interplay Between Veto Power,Asymmetric Interdependence,Reputation, and Audience Costs

In international relations, different rationalistic theories have developed to explain negotiators’ behavior and the outcomes of negotiations. The compatibility and interaction effects between the different forms of bargaining power, however, remain unexplored. In this article, I seek to fill this gap by connecting four rationalistic concepts of bargaining power: veto power, asymmetric interdependence, reputation, and audience costs. By showing that domestic veto players are only semiveto players in international politics – because they can veto an improvement but not a deterioration of the status quo – threats based on asymmetric interdependence to disrupt a mutually beneficial cooperative relationship can be connected to veto power; the incompatibility of the factors concerned would otherwise make this impossible. The combination of veto power and asymmetric interdependence, however, raises a theoretical question: Will rational actors ever approve a deterioration of the status quo? Theories of reputation and audience costs can help answer this question. According to these approaches, threatening parties suffer ex post costs when they back down from their own threats. This theoretical analysis sheds new light on how different forms of bargaining power interact with each other and also helps to address some of the theoretical inconsistencies of the original individual concepts. Finally, this analysis suggests some of the weaknesses of empirical studies that have neglected these interaction effects.     

FDI Liberalisation,Firm Heterogeneity and Foreign Ownership: German Firm Decisions in Reforming India

The paper investigates the role of firm-level productivity and industry-level R&D for multinational enterprises' (MNEs') choice of undertaking foreign direct investment (FDI), and the share of ownership in foreign affiliates. Two firm-specific datasets on German MNEs with varying equity stakes in Indian affiliates are used to account for the two-step decision process. The paper also analyses how German firm decisions were affected by the liberalisation of FDI regulations in India. Results show remarkable differences between the selection and the ownership share equation, and also between the pre-reform and post-reform periods. The evidence clearly reveals the trade-offs involved in selective FDI approvals and foreign ownership restrictions.     

Trust in Politicians and Satisfaction with Government – A Reciprocal Causation Approach for European Countries

Trust and satisfaction with the government are the most important indicators of a functioning democratic system. Scholars diverge in their opinions of whether satisfaction causes trust or vice versa or whether both variables reinforce each other simultaneously. This study applies an instrumental variable approach to shed light on this discussion. We employ a sample of 7166 individuals in 3 European countries (i.e., Germany, France, and Great Britain) obtained from the European Social Survey to test this reciprocal relationship. By comparing these three countries with fundamentally different political systems, we investigate the contingency of the reciprocal effect with regard to the political context. The results confirm the reciprocal relationship but reveal differences between the three investigated countries.     

Soziale Gerechtigkeit und der Wirkungsgrad der Mitbestimmung

Der Beitrag diskutiert die Frage, warum Betriebsräte in Unternehmen mit ähnlicher rechtlicher, ökonomischer oder organisatorischer Struktur in jeweils unterschiedlichem Ausmaß an den Entscheidungen ihrer Geschäftsleitungen beteiligt sind. Im Anschluss an eine kritische Diskussion der motivationalen Basisannahmen des Mitbestimmungshandelns wird behauptet, dass Gerechtigkeitseinstellungen zur Formierung und zur Legitimation von Interessen gegenüber der Verteilung von Gütern und Lasten im Unternehmen beitragen. Je nachdem, in welcher Konstellation ergebnis- und ordnungsbezogene Gerechtigkeitseinstellungen von einer Belegschaft vertreten werden, ergibt sich eine andere Machtposition des Betriebsrats und somit ein anderer Wirkungsgrad der Mitbestimmung im jeweiligen Unternehmen. Inwiefern die postulierten Zusammenhänge empirisch Bestand haben, wird unter Rückgriff auf Daten aus einer Beschäftigtenbefragung untersucht, die 1999 in 21 Unternehmen der deutschen Metallindustrie durchgeführt wurde.     

Does Coup-Proofing Work? Political–Military Relations in Authoritarian Regimes amid the Arab Uprisings

The popular mass uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) call into question the assumption, widespread prior to the “Arab Spring”, that militaries in these countries were subservient to civilianized and consolidated authoritarian regime incumbents. In most countries militaries have stepped in to suppress uprisings, replace incumbents, or cause civil wars. The analysis of political-military relations explains the immediate outcome of popular mass mobilization in the MENA region and helps re-conceptualize coup-proofing as an important authoritarian survival strategy. Accounting for variation in the degree of officers' loyalty toward incumbents provides an opportunity to test the efficacy of coup-proofing. The article accounts for questions largely ignored in the theoretical literature: which coup-proofing mechanisms work best, and under which circumstances? In a qualitative comparison of Egypt and Syria, the article illustrates that authoritarian regimes have applied fundamentally different coup-proofing strategies. The Syrian regime has engineered integrative strategies to tie officers closer to the incumbent, provoking a greater degree of loyalty during regime crisis than in Egypt where officers were excluded from politics.     

Der Feinstaubschleier lichtet sich – rechtlich

Für den Fall einer überschreitung des Immissionsgrenzwerts für Feinstaubpartikel PM₁₀ befürwortet das BVerwG zu Recht einen Anspruch Betroffener auf planunabh?ngige luftqualit?tsverbessernde Ma?nahmen. Dazu geh?ren auch Beschr?nkungen des Stra?enverkehrs. Nicht überzeugend ist die Verneinung eines Anspruchs auf Aufstellung eines Aktionsplans. Ein solcher Anspruch ist wegen der spezifischen Ermittlungs- und Koordinierungsfunktion des Aktionsplans zur effektiven Durchsetzung des drittschützenden Grenzwerts unerl?sslich und deshalb aus Perspektive des deutschen wie des europ?ischen Rechts geboten.     

A polychromatic turn in corruption research?

Arnold Heidenheimer's last paper features an imaginative attempt to elaborate on his well-known “black-gray-white corruptio” typology by introducing metaphoric elements of color. How might those ideas work in practice? This article develops three specific questions that could guide further research on that question. The first involves an extended historical and etymological inquiry sufficient to bring out the diverse origins and referents of “corruptio” as a term of analysis; the second, exploring ways to extend the concept of corruption--typically applied to the realms of government and politics--to business and to the growing numbers of ways in which businesses and states interact; and third, attempting to draw more precise distinctions among lobbying, illegal political finance, and political corruption. The discussion concludes with a first sketch of a model drawing those three lines of inquiry together.