German parties and internet campaigning in the 2002 federal election

This article examines German national parties' use of the Internet in the 2002 federal election. Its main goals are to determine what the parties were doing in their online campaigns and how far their use of the Internet can be understood in terms of two party-specific variables – organisational size and primary goal. These questions are of significance given the relatively limited study of parties' use of the net in Germany in the comparative literature on this topic. Also, research on parties' use of the Web across countries has suggested that while context does produce differences in approach, partyspecific factors also play a major role in determining online strategy. The article attempts to investigate these questions systematically by examining nine German parties' use of the Internet (specifically websites, e-mail, and intra-nets) using questionnaire data from national party personnel and content analysis of web pages. Our findings show that while the divide between major and minor parties can be seen quite clearly in the German context in terms of website quality and visibility, evidence to support the impact of party outlook in shaping parties' online strategy can also be found. In addition, the study reveals that major parties are now beginning to take the Internet very seriously as a communication tool, particularly in terms of election campaigning.     

Church–state separation Swedish-style

The ‘events approach’ claims for a new explanation of cabinet termination and cabinet survival in parliamentary democracies. The failure of the universal laws set by the culturalist approach and the party system approach raised the question whether one should search for random or probabilistic events of cabinet termination and survival. It is argued that the events approach fails both for the epistemological weakness of its premises and for the poverty of its empirical conclusions. A reappraisal of theoretical enterprise is advanced and a new research perspective is sketched, which requires a more careful treatment of the non‐uniform institutional features of parliamentary democracies.     

How much insecurity in East Asia?

Paul Dibb Towards a New Balance of Power in Asia, New York: Oxford University Press; London: International Institute for Strategic Studies (Adelphi Paper No. 295), 1995: 93pp., maps, tables. £13.99. ISBN 0–19–828069–6; ISSN 0567–932X.     

Criminal Law, the Victim and Community: The Shades of ‘We’ and the Conceptual Involvement of Community in Contemporary Criminal Law Theory

The article addresses the argument, put forward by Lernestedt, that the proprietor of the ‘criminal-law conflict’ is the community (or the community and the offender) and discusses his proposed theoretical model of criminal law trial. I raise questions regarding the legitimacy of such a model, focusing on four counts. Firstly, I assert that his assumptions about the state the individual and the old/new versions of criminal law theory are society-dependent. Secondly, I address some problems with the concept of community and particularly with the proposed conception of community, which seems to mostly exclude the offender. Thirdly, I question the need for (or added value of) such a proposed conceptual involvement of the community as an actor in the criminal law process and theory. Lastly, some potential problems with the idea of the victim as a mere “representative of us” are mentioned, including the possibly undesirable demands and limitations on the victim’s agency and issues of respect for the victim’s individuality.