Parteiendemokratie im Wandel — Reaktionsstrategien von politischen Parteien

Ohne Zusammenfassung Rezension zu: Peter Mair, Wolfgang C. Müller und Fritz Plasser (Hg.): Parteien auf komplexen W?hlerm?rkten. Reaktionsstrategien politischer Parteien in Westeuropa. Wien: Signum 1999, 403 S., DM 88,-.     

Senior Public Servants,Political Discrimination and Dismissals

In recent years literature on public administration in Australia has often referred to the increasing politicisation of both the federal and state public services. Increasingly, senior members of the bureaucracy are appointed on contract. Such contracts can often be terminated without the need to give reasons. Presumably some dismissals will be motivated by partisan, or party‐political, considerations. Where this is so, what role might there be for anti‐discrimination legislation, particularly that denying discrimination on the grounds of political belief or activity in the workplace?     

Adaptive governance as a reform strategy

This article expands research on adaptive governance in natural resource and climate change policy into other policy areas and the larger context of reform. The purpose is to clarify adaptive governance as a reform strategy, one that builds on experience in a variety of emergent responses to the growing failures of scientific management, the established pattern of governance. Emergent responses in information technology, national security, development aid, and health care policy are reviewed here. In these cases, factoring a large national or international problem into many smaller problems, each more tractable scientifically and politically, opened additional opportunities for advancing common interests on the ground. The opportunities include simplification of research through intensive inquiry, participation in policy decisions by otherwise neglected groups, and selecting what works on the basis of practical experience rather than theory. What works can be improved incrementally in the context at hand, diffused through networks for voluntary adaptation elsewhere, and used to inform higher-level decisions from the bottom up. Adaptive governance is a promising strategy of reform. The open question is whether it will be used well enough to sustain a once-progressive evolution toward fuller realization of human dignity for all.     

FDI and the costs of contract enforcement in developing countries

This article examines the relationship between foreign direct investment and host countries’ contracting institutions, the rule systems which govern commercial transactions between private actors. Given their liability of foreignness and costly exit options, we suggest that multinational corporations have incentives to influence the formal contracting environment in host countries. Further, host governments are more likely to respond to multinationals’ wishes when they are more dependent on foreign capital markets. We draw on the World Bank’s Lex Mundi dataset (Djankov et al. 2003) on micro-level contracting environment for private actors. Our analysis of a cross section of 98 developing countries suggests that FDI is associated with lower contract enforcement costs, particularly when the host country is more indebted.     

What’s So Funny About That?

This paper argues that it is impossible to know why we laugh. There are a number of theories that attempt to explain why we laugh but they all have limitations. It is possible, however, to know what makes us laugh and 45 techniques that inform humor are listed and used to analyze a number of humorous texts. These techniques can also be used to study the humor of different nations to determine which they favor and which they neglect, thus offering insights into national character.