Fixers as Shadow “Public Servants”: A Case Study of Israel

Fixers can thrive in any level of political, bureaucratic, or institutional development. Paradoxically the academic research of the phenomenon of fixers is in its infancy. There exists no accepted definition of fixers; the boundaries between fixers and lobbyists remain murky, in terms of comparative administration only limited knowledge about the forces that breed different types of fixers in different political settings is available; and no deductive theory was articulated that might determine when and how fixing might become dysfunctional and corruptive. In an attempt to better understand the phenomenon of fixers more theoretically; this study analyzes fixers in view of three theories of bureaucratic corruption, and in view of the emerging theory of alternative politics. Using Israel as a case in point, the study shows that within certain national and local branches of government fixers not only create a shadow copy of official institutions, but also foster institutional corruption.     

The Supply Side of Second-Order Elections: Comparing German National and European Election Manifestos

The second-order character of past European elections is a well-established hypothesis with respect to voter turnout and voting behaviour. This paper presents a conceptual framework for testing this hypothesis on the supply side of European elections. It includes three groups of indicators allowing for the comparison of national and European election manifestos to determine the latter's second-order nature: (1) resource allocation, measured by the number of actors involved in manifesto adoption and by the manifestos' length; (2) the manifestos' content, comparing issue congruence and framing; and (3) political competition, measured by the ideological distance between manifestos. Building on this, we analyse the manifestos of all relevant German parties in the 2009 European and national elections using Comparative Manifesto Project data as well as original, self-created data on election manifestos. We find major variations between parties which can neither be explained by government participation nor satisfaction with the European Union.     

Rejoinder to Adam Fforde

Abstract

The issue of scholarship regarding Asian socialist countries is by no means a new one. This has faced China scholars for a long time. The difficulties of gaining access to these countries, assessing information from elusive sources, and gathering data are common to all scholars of countries like China, Korea, and Vietnam. Of course, research conditions are less than ideal. Vietnam, Korea and China are to a large extent closed societies, even if we speak their languages. However, as I stated in the beginning of my article, my present purpose is to raise issues that I think should be discussed, and not to do an original piece based on anthropological fieldwork. But more than this, it seems to me that given the limited commentary on socialist states as Vietnam, any new issues that come up should be given wider currency. And this was another major purpose of my article—to bring to readers of the Bulletin new debates which have focused on Vietnam, specifically in French academic circles, among a number of Vietnamese economists and historians. It was in the context of these debates that I focus on selected issues and offer some judgments of my own.     

Twelve-locus Y-STR haplotypes in the Flemish population

POPULATION: One hundred and thirteen unrelated Flemish men from Belgium.     

Literatur

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Einigkeit, zwei kompatible Therapieansätze und etlicher Streit. Antwort auf Christian Welzel

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

The Concept of Law Revised—Directives and Norms in the Perspectives of a New Legal Realism

Legal theory usually distinguishes only two kinds of legal realism: the American and the Scandinavian. Another school of this theoretical perspective is German legal realism, which refers to scholars like Ihering, Weber, and Schelsky. According to German legal realism, the author outlines what legal theory can do to persuade modern jurisprudence to face the social reality of law, conceived as institutionalized normative communication. The latter always occurs with reference to already valid and effectively operative legal norms which are used in an established, normatively binding legal practice in a given regional society.     

New alleles and mutational events at 14 STR loci from different German populations

The molecular origin of DNA mutations and the mutation rates were analyzed at 14 short tandem repeat (STR) loci with samples from trio cases derived from 10 different German population samples. STR loci comprised of D2S1360, D3S1744, D4S2366, D5S2500, D6S474, D7S1517, D8S1132, D10S2325, D12S391, D18S51, D19S246, D20S480, D21S226, and D22S689. In a total of 488 meioses, 16 isolated genetic inconsistencies in 8 different STRs were observed, whereas no mutations were found at the other loci. The data of five mutations suggested the presence of silent or null alleles due to sequence variation in primer binding site. This could be confirmed for four suspected cases by the use of alternative primer sets and by DNA sequence analyses. Furthermore, this study revealed nine new allelic variants at five different loci.     

Supremacy of the Constitution, Separation of Powers, and Judicial Review in Nineteenth-Century German Constitutionalism

Abstract.   Judicial review of statutes presupposes the establishment of a clear hierarchical supremacy of the constitution, which can serve as a standard of review, as well as an independent and assertive judiciary. The conditions for such a hierarchical supremacy of the constitution were only partly fulfilled in nineteenth-century Germany. In addition, the concept of the separation of powers was rejected and the judiciary was in a weak position. Therefore the judicial review of ordinances was slow to develop. The judicial review of statutes began only at the end of the nineteenth century and was restricted to formal review as opposed to a review of the content of statutes.