Government ideology and monetary policy in OECD countries

Public Choice - We examine the extent to which government ideology has influenced monetary policy in OECD countries since the 1970s. In line with important changes in the global economy and...     

Modification of hematoma findings in the breast region

Subcutaneous bruises caused by blunt injury are common findings in medicolegal case work. If the hematoma involves the anterior thoracic wall, bruises are mostly absent in the region of the nipples and the surrounding areola. A similar phenomenon has already been described for hypostatic skin hemorrhages. A possible explanation for both phenomena is the special tissue texture in the nipple–areola complex. Based on four cases from the forensic autopsy material and two cases from clinical forensic examinations, the macromorphological findings and the histological correlates are presented.     

Engineering a critical realignment of the electorate: The case of the socialists in France

For the first time, largely owing to the Socialists' ability to gain and retain the allegiance of the electorate, France has experienced a major electoral realignment without a concomitant change in governmental system. The Socialists' success results from three major factors: their pre‐1981 electoral strategy which involved refashioning their traditional ideology and rhetoric to appeal to a new, emerging portion of the electorate, the wage‐earners; their subsequent ideological flexibility, which included a move toward more pragmatic politics along with an opening to the centre; and the failure of their rivals on the moderate and the extreme right to mount a lasting challenge with their own counter‐ideologies and policy initiatives.     

The Policy of Strategic Demobilisation: The Social Policy of the Christian Democratic–Liberal Coalition, 2009–13

This article addresses two research questions: which course did the CDU, CSU–FDP coalition government choose to follow in social policy from 2009 to 2013? And what relationships exist between social policy in this period and the Bundestag election in 2013? The analysis of primary and secondary data reveals both continuity and discontinuity in social policy in the 17th legislative period of the Bundestag. The decisions and non-decisions on social protection and labour market regulation in this period mirror a wide variety of determinants. These include partisan effects, electoral cycles, co-governing judges and anonymous social policy of market forces. The data also suggest that the CDU/CSU has been relatively successful in its strategy of ‘asymmetric demobilisation’, the strategy of changing its social policy profile to one more similar to that of its social democratic opponent, in order to demobilise the SPD's voters rather than mobilising them. More ambivalent has been the electoral outcome of the FDP's role in social policy. The FDP's first foray into leading a large welfare state ministry, the Federal Ministry of Health, in 2009 to 2013 did not prove to be a winning proposition for the Liberals electorally. Social policy in general and welfare state recalibration in particular thus seem to be an electorally especially risky project for a liberal party such as the FDP.     

Observer Sensitivity and Early Radicalization to Violence Among Young People in Germany

Social Justice Research - Personal sensitivity to injustice from either a victim or an observer perspective shapes political attitudes and actions. Yet, little is known about the link between...     

Learning to Be Postmodern in an All Too Modern World: “Whatever Action” in International Climate Change Imaginaries

Recent contributions in International Relations focus either on a shift from modernity towards postmodernity in approaches to address climate change, or underline the permanencies and continuities of modern thought and power hierarchies. In contrast, we suggest that there is a contradictory simultaneity of both of these framings through which the world is continuously decomposed and recomposed. Today climate change programmes seem to be driven by a key contradiction, which lies at the heart of the Anthropocene: the environment is ours to manipulate and yet is out of reach. Based on this framing, and thinking through Timothy Morton and Bruno Latour’s writings on political ecology, we argue that “whatever action” best captures current policy thinking: multiple initiatives are taken without a telos; rather they are designed to avoid that opportunities for adaptation and climate mitigation are foreclosed.