Training in Austria’s and China’s Forestry Administration: A Comparison of Human Capital Development

The article analyzes forestry training for state employees in Austria and China from a comparative perspective, drawing on government publications and expert interviews; fieldwork was conducted between 2015 and 2016. It identifies institutional differences and analyzes how they translate into the management of HCD. The study ties in with research in the field of cadre training in China contributing with a new perspective and delivering new findings, as it inquires on the training in a specific government department, whose primary responsibility is to further educate and train its staff in the context of its policies and reform agendas.     

Parties’ issue strategies on the drawing board: the 2017 Austrian case

Abstract

Parties may rely on different issue agendas when tailoring their electoral campaigns in an attempt to win elections. This paper compares two key party issue strategies to examine which one the victorious Austrian Peoples’ Party (ÖVP) relied on the most during the 2017 Austrian election campaign vis-à-vis its main competitors. These two key party strategies are the ‘riding-the-wave’ model, which posits that parties focus on issues that currently concern voters the most and the recent ‘issue-yield model’, which instead suggests that parties adopt strategic behaviour targeting all those issues with genuine opportunities for electoral expansion. It is found that, compared to the other main parties in the 2017 Austrian election campaign, the ÖVP was the one most clearly relying on the issue-yield approach. These results have important implications for our understanding of electoral campaigns, party’s exploitation of issue strategies, and voter representation beyond the Austrian case.     

Deserving Shelter: Conditional Access to Accommodation for Rejected Asylum Seekers in Austria,the Netherlands,and Sweden

Abstract

Limitations in access to welfare services for noncitizens of a host country are structured through conditional entitlements, which require benefit claimants to meet certain conditions to access welfare services. This article explores the conditions and regulations determining access to state-organized accommodation facilities for non-removed rejected asylum seekers in Austria, the Netherlands, and Sweden and the way in which these conditions are implemented. Based on qualitative interviews with stakeholders and analysis of policy documents, I argue that qualities of deservingness, such as vulnerability and performance, determine noncitizens’ access to state-provided accommodation, which strengthens the logic of migration control.     

How Radical Right-Wing Populism Has Shaped Recent Migration Policy in Austria and Germany

Abstract

At the outset of the 2015 refugee crisis, Germany pursued an accepting asylum policy, potentially to mitigate its declining population. Austria, facing the same demographic challenges, closed itself to refugees. Differences in radical right-wing populism (RRP) in the two countries provide the basis for understanding their asylum policies. After the Second World War, Germany’s collective memory stigmatized far-right parties, while Austria’s did not. The radicalization spiral reproduces these differences today, allowing Austria’s Freedom Party to influence migration policy by pulling voters and mainstream parties to the right, while Germany’s RRP parties were unable to do the same before the crisis.     

Two post-war paths: popular violence in the Bohemian lands and in Austria in the aftermath of World War I

The study explores the phenomenon of popular violence in the first months and years after the end of World War I on the basis of a comparison between the Bohemian lands, forming the central part of the newly established Czechoslovakia, and Austria, as another successor state to the former Habsburg monarchy. Aside from the continuities, new forms of violence increasingly emerged in the first years after the end of the war, and also the “language” of violence was transformed. While in Czechoslovakia, the framework within which people were learning to understand the new world was shaped by the national and republican discourse oriented to the future, in Austria the collective identities and mentalities were being formed along the lines of particular party political blocks. In both cases, the nationalization and politicization of violence respectively contributed to the emergence of new forms of popular violence; but at the same time they could also be used for its de-escalation, necessary for the re-integration of society disrupted by the wartime experience. However, even if both countries went out from the war on different paths, the violence stayed part of their political culture and it could be mobilized again.     

How do municipal amalgamations affect turnout in local elections? Insights from the 2015 municipal reform in the Austrian state of Styria

In this paper, we evaluate the effect of municipal amalgamations on election turnout in local elections. Following recent studies, we argue that municipal mergers can lead to less information about the election being made available to citizens and less influence for individual voters. That is, while citizens in the local context usually rely on their own direct contacts in local offices and among political candidates, the subsequent increase in population size due to a merger reduces opportunities for establishing such contacts and for having decisive influence on political decisions. Consequently, voters are less informed and less engaged, resulting in lower levels of electoral turnout in local elections. We test our argument empirically by using aggregate level data from the municipal level from the 2010 and 2015 local elections in Styria, Austria, which followed the amalgamation of some, but not all, municipalities in January 2015. The empirical results support our argument.     

Einleitung: Berufsbildungs‐ und Hochschulpolitik in der Schweiz, Österreich und Deutschland

Politikwissenschaftliche Bildungsforschung hat bislang vier Schwerpunkte: Vergleichende Policy‐Analyse, Prozesse der Internationalisierung und Europäisierung, Arbeiten der vergleichenden politischen Ökonomie sowie Studien zu den Effekten von Bildungsinstitutionen und ‐politiken. Auf der Grundlage einer dichten Analyse der gegenwärtigen Transformation und Reform von Bildungs‐ und Ausbildungssystemen in der Schweiz, Österreich und Deutschland ergänzen die Artikel‐ und Forumsbeiträge dieses Sonderheftes diese Perspektiven um drei spezifische Punkte, die in der zukünftigen Forschung zum Wandel von Bildungssystemen vertieft werden sollten: erstens die Untersuchung der Wechselwirkungen zwischen Bildungspolitik und der föderalen Entscheidungsarena, zweitens die Analyse des Einflusses von Machtverteilung und der Dynamik politischer Koalitionen auf Reformen und drittens die Unterscheidung zwischen Reformpolitik und Prozessen des institutionellen Wandels.     

The difference that empire makes: institutions and politics of citizenship in Germany and Austria

Austria has had much higher naturalization rates than Germany. Two arguments are made based on institutional regime theory and left political power. First, the imperial experiences of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that colonized 11 different nations explains Austria's relative openness, and the monocultural experience of the German Reich that tried to impose German language and culture on partitioned Poland casts light on Austria's open and Germany's rather closed approach to ethnic integration. This first argument covers initial state formation focusing on ethnicity, the Austrian colonization versus German occupation, different ethnicities and languages in the military and bureaucracy, and comparisons involving the partition of Poland and religion in Bavaria. The second argument is a political analysis of legislation concerning how institutionalized regime types and left/green party power influenced the naturalization policies that were enacted into law from 1946 to 2005. The post-World War II analysis shows the positive effects of left/green party power on naturalization, but the institutional regime hypothesis is still necessary to fully explain these differences. In the end, regime differences, and in the later period, left/green party power demonstrate why these two very similar countries have such different naturalization policies.     

Designing preference voting

Electoral systems in which voters can cast preference votes for individual candidates within a party list are increasingly popular. To the best of our knowledge, there is no research on whether and how the scale used to evaluate candidates can affect electoral behavior and results. In this paper, we analyze data from an original voting experiment leveraging real-life political preferences and embedded in a nationally representative online survey in Austria. We show that the scale used by voters to evaluate candidates makes differences. For example, the possibility to give up to two points advantages male candidates because male voters are more likely to give ‘zero points’ to female candidates. Yet this pattern does not exist in the system in which voters can give positive and negative points because male voters seem reluctant to actively withdraw points from female candidates. We thus encourage constitution makers to think carefully about the design of preference voting.     

Strength through Weakness: State Executive Power and Federal Reform in Austria

Due to the absence of a strong constitutional veto player, comparative research uses to classify Austria as country with weak federal structures, occasionally even as a “federation without federalism”. From an institutional perspective, the assessment is definitely correct, in particular with regard to the nearly insignificant status of the second chamber Bundesrat. Apart from constitutional provisions, however, there are informal forces at work in decision‐making processes. Our thesis is that any approach ignoring the fact that the nominal constitution is paralleled by a real one falls short. Instead, we focus on the Conference of State Governors which, though not established by law, is a strong player in Austria's multi‐layered system qualifying the picture of “weak” federalism. The paper gives on overview of origin and function of the conference and its ambivalent role in making up for the shortcomings of the federal structures. Taking recent attempts of reorganizing fiscal equalization between states and federation as an example, the need of reforming the allocation of rights and duties between the different levels and, at the same time, the obstacles blocking the reform is outlined and analyzed.