Actively Cultivating Policy Similarity. A Regional Strategy in Education Policy in France and Germany

Regionalization processes across Western Europe have triggered analyses of regional policy divergence. Yet, in a number of cases, regional governments appear to have deliberately strived to achieve policy conformity. Previous research tends to emphasize exogenous explanations of regional policy convergence. In contrast, this paper addresses the issue of regional policy convergence by focusing on endogenous explanatory factors. Its objective is to carry out an investigation of when, how, and with what effect a ‘desire for conformity’ arises, and contends that regional governments may actively cultivate policy similarity as a strategy to develop or secure their policy capacity. Specifically, the paper argues that the adoption of this strategy is contingent upon two requirements that may or may not be met, and that its outcome is the convergence on targeted dimensions of regional policies. The two requirements are: (i) a countrywide public preference for policy uniformity in the policy area of concern, and (ii) the presence of a threat posed to regional policy capacity by various political entrepreneurs, including the central state, who blame regions for providing divergent policies on particular dimensions. This paper is based on the comparison of two case studies where regional governments deliberately pursued policy conformity on targeted dimensions of their education policy: school-building policy in France and curricula policy in Germany. The two case studies also present dissimilar features that make it possible to investigate the effects of institutional setting and policy distribution on the adoption and operation of the active-cultivation-of-policy-similarity strategy.     

中国第二次继受大陆法系与罗马法教学的转型简

清末中国第一次继受大陆法系,实际上继受的是这一法系中的德国法族,中国对于拉丁法族的继受开始于1989年意大利和中国订立法学交流协议后,从此,有70多名学者受教于意大利大学以及拉丁关洲国家的大学,把拉丁法族的精髓带入中国,形成中国德国学派和拉丁学派争鸣的格局,完成了对大陆法系的全面继受。第一次继受是被迫的;第二次继受是自愿的、和平的。由于第二次继受,中国的罗马法教学完成了转型,表现为更多地通过罗马法原始文献学习罗马法,优士丁尼《法学阶梯》开始被作为罗马私法课的教材使用。     

Party cues and incumbent assessments under multilevel governance

Politicians' party membership allows voters to overcome incomplete information issues. In this article, we maintain that such ‘party cues’ in multilevel governance structures also induce voters to incorporate their assessment of incumbents at one level of government into their assessment of incumbents at other levels of government. Moreover, we argue that these assessment ‘spillovers’ increase in magnitude with voters' level of political information. They become particularly prominent for voters with higher levels of political knowledge and interest as well as during election periods (when information is less costly and more readily available). Empirical analyses using survey data from Germany covering the period 1990 to 2018 corroborate our theoretical propositions.     

德国能源立法及其对我国的启示

德国一直注重通过法律手段对能源产业、能源供需制度进行调节和监管。目前,德国已形成了以《能源经济法》为基本法,由煤炭立法、石油立法、可再生能源立法、节约能源立法、核能立法、生态税收立法等专门法为中心内容的能源立法体系,对我国的能源立法具有较大的借鉴意义。     

The Concept of the Supremacy of the Constitution

The article compares and assesses the idea of the supremacy of the constitution found in Germany with the competing British tradition of parliamentary sovereignty. It concludes by examining the need for a supreme constitutional law in the European Union.     

德国防暴警察的武器装备

警用武器和装备显示一个国家警察部队战斗力的强弱。德国边防警察部队作为制暴平乱和防恐打恐的主力部队,其警用武器先进,装备精良,具有强大的威力和效能,在世界各国的警用武器装备方面具有领先地位。然而,德国政府和边防警察部队从不满足现状,随着全球恐怖活动的升级和国内暴(骚)乱规模的扩大,仍在开发和引进更加先进的警用武器装备。目前,德国边防警察部队的警用武器装备,正朝着实用化、系列化、标准化和普及化的方向发展。     

Institutional dynamics and party think tank development: Britain and Germany compared

Official party think tanks have been a fixture in a number of Western European democracies for many decades but not so in the Anglo-American democratic sphere even though think tanks aligned to parties have flourished. This article explores the reasons that party and think tank ties have evolved differently in these two settings through an examination of the party think tank scene in Germany and Britain. It is suggested that the predominant form of democracy operating in each of these settings helps to explain this critical difference. While the adversarial tendencies of the British political system militate against parties taking much of an interest in establishing official party think tanks, the consensual institutional dynamics associated with Germany’s political system has encouraged parties to sponsor their formation, and reinforced the perceived importance of the party think tank vehicle as agents of democratic linkage.     

Budgetary Politics and Veto Players

In this article we examine whether and how the policy‐oriented coalition building and the gridlock model of legislative choice explain changes in the allocation of German budgetary items between 1961 and 1994. The policy‐oriented coalition‐building approach suggests that only policy‐connected budgetary actors can make changes in the budgetary composition, while the location of the status quo is essential for budgetary modifications according to the gridlock model. We also draw the attention to the identification of the set of relevant budgetary veto players and their preferences by distinguishing between models of the government, the political parties of the Bundestag, and the two of them. We test the predictive power of these approaches and conceptions in a competitive manner and control for macroeconomic and other political factors that might influence changes in the budgetary allocation. Our findings show that the gridlock model better explains budgetary changes, and that the government is responsible for decreasing, but the political parties of the Bundestag majority are decisive for increasing the size of budgetary items. We conclude that identifying the relevant veto players and using these more sophisticated approaches on budgetary decision making provide significant insights into the political reasons for changing the allocation of the German budget.     

How the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and their voters veered to the radical right, 2013–2017

Until 2017, Germany was an exception to the success of radical right parties in postwar Europe. We provide new evidence for the transformation of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) to a radical right party drawing upon social media data. Further, we demonstrate that the AfD's electorate now matches the radical right template of other countries and that its trajectory mirrors the ideological shift of the party. Using data from the 2013 to 2017 series of German Longitudinal Elections Study (GLES) tracking polls, we employ multilevel modelling to test our argument on support for the AfD. We find the AfD's support now resembles the image of European radical right voters. Specifically, general right-wing views and negative attitudes towards immigration have become the main motivation to vote for the AfD. This, together with the increased salience of immigration and the AfD's new ideological profile, explains the party's rise.