Swiss corporatism in comparative perspective

Compared with the trajectories of corporatism in other Western European countries, Swiss social partnership is remarkably stable. How can this be explained? In this article Swiss corporatism is hypothesised to share many of the important facilitating and sustaining circumstances, institutions and traditions of European corporatism. On the other hand, it is different with regard to the major challenges facing corporatist interest intermediation. These challenges are still missing, to a large extent, in Switzerland.     

Has-Been,Wannabe, or Leader: Europe’s Role in the World After the 2003 European Security Strategy

In December 2003, the European Union presented its “security strategy”, endorsed by all member states, to provide guidance for Europe’s common foreign security and defense policy. In substance, this document is not an expression of a growing strategic rift between Europe and the United States. One of the purposes it serves, however, is defining Europe’s own, separate “identity”. It reflects the increasing awareness that Europeans need to employ their power more effectively in the service of international peace and security, as much as politically possible. Disagreements on key issues remain in Europe, however, and the practical implications of the security strategy still need to be worked out.     

Government,Parliament and Law-making in Poland

This paper examines the process of law-making in Poland during the 1997–2001 and 2001–2005 legislative terms. The analysis focuses on the initiation, amendment and finalisation stages of the legislative process within both the government and parliament and considers the boundary, content, temporal and information rules that shape this process. Within government, the preparation of, and decision-making on bills to be submitted to parliament are characterised by a dominance of ministerial law-making strategies, with a very limited coordinating capacity for the core executive (that is, the cabinet, the prime minister and the institutions that serve them). Within parliament, the government possesses weak agenda control and few formal means of defending its legislation against rival bills and amendments. There is some evidence to suggest that this decentralised legislative setting is one of the key drivers behind legislative growth and instability.     

Conservation and modern information technologies: The global register of migratory species (GROMS)

Abstract

The present paper reviews the state of knowledge of migratory species protected under the Bonn Convention (Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals) and presents first results from the “Global Register of Migratory Species” (GROMS). GROMS summarises our knowledge on migratory species within one relational database in combination with a geographical information system (GIS). GROMS will reveal information deficiencies, support the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, and contribute to the Clearinghouse Mechanism under the Convention on Biological Diversity. At present, GROMS contains 412 species distribution maps in GIS format. As an initial example of the potential of GIS‐analysis, GIS‐maps of birds and mammals were intersected with administrative borders, and the number of species was calculated for each province. The resulting map shows a high diversity in temperate regions, which is in contrast to maps that usually show most “biodiversity hotspots” to be in the tropics. Consequences for conservation policies are discussed and future prospects for GIS analysis are outlined.     

Choosing the path of austerity: how parties and policy coalitions influence welfare state retrenchment in periods of fiscal consolidation

What are the conditions under which some austerity programmes rely on substantial cuts to social spending? More specifically, do the partisan complexion and the type of government condition the extent to which austerity policies imply welfare state retrenchment? This article demonstrates that large budget consolidations tend to be associated with welfare state retrenchment. The findings support a partisan and a politico-institutionalist argument: (i) in periods of fiscal consolidation, welfare state retrenchment tends to be more pronounced under left-wing governments; (ii) since welfare state retrenchment is electorally and politically risky, it also tends to be more pronounced when pursued by a broad pro-reform coalition government. Therefore, the article shows that during budget consolidations implemented by left-wing broad coalition governments, welfare state retrenchment is greatest. Using long-run multipliers from autoregressive distributed lag models on 17 OECD countries during the 1982–2009 period, substantial support is found for these expectations.     

Democracy for the youth? The impact of mock elections on voting age attitudes

Should 16-year-olds be entitled to participate in elections? We theorize that mock elections for adolescents, who are not eligible to vote, affect the short-term support among the general public for lowering the voting age. To test our theoretical expectation, we utilize variation among municipalities in the organization of mock elections during the Danish local elections in 2009. Difference-in-difference estimates with data from the subsequent local elections in 2013 demonstrate that citizens in municipalities with mock elections for adolescents were more supportive of lowering the voting age and that their support was strongly rooted in ideological differences.     

Suicide by hypothermia with intentional partial undressing

Most cases of fatal hypothermia are accidental, often in connection with alcoholisation, homelessness, age-related confusedness and others. The phenomenon of paradoxical undressing may be observed. A paradoxical feeling of warmth in the advanced condition of hypothermia leads to the behaviour of undressing, partly or completely. Suicides with intentional hypothermia are rare. Fatal hypothermia often appears as a concomitant mechanism, e. g. in drug poisoning. The case report describes the fatality of a young woman dying from suicidal hypothermia. She was found partly undressed. This was part of her scheduled plan and not a consequence of paradoxical undressing.