The Bureaucratic Politics of Welfare-State Crisis: Sweden in the 1990s

This article suggests that key bureaucrats play a decisive role in times of welfare crisis. It argues that key bureaucrats, through their advice, define both the type of welfare crisis and the range of possible solutions, which have at least two important consequences: First, it broadens the distribution of welfare cuts, as key bureaucrats—contrary to politicians—have no interests in targeting special voter groups. Second, it enables political compromises, as both the government and the opposition trust the key bureaucrats' expertise. These suggestions are tested empirically in a case study of Sweden in the 1990s. It shows that key bureaucrats did indeed influence both the distribution of the cuts and enabled a compromise between the center-right government and the Social Democratic opposition.     

Peace in South Tyrol and the Limits of Consociationalism

This article discusses the capacity of corporate consociationalism in bringing positive peace, understood as the enhancement of societal harmony, cooperation and integration, by analyzing South Tyrol, considered a model-case to diffuse ethnic tensions. Using data on attitudes of the South Tyrolean population concerning various aspects of the relationships between South Tyrolean linguistic groups, the analysis shows that South Tyrolean consociational mechanisms have brought peaceful coexistence and mutual acceptance among the groups, but some problematic elements remain in the success story of South Tyrol. Thereby the article highlights the limits of corporate consociationalism in fostering positive peace in divided societies.     

THE CONTEMPORARY CRISES OF MARXIST CRIMINOLOGY

Marxist theory gains its critical capacity by presenting itself as in the process of being realized through class conflict. By locating its critical and empirical reality in a ideal, unrepressive, unoppressive, relatively crime free future, it renders itself irresponsible for its own history and immune from empirical criticism. In order to sustain this vision in the absence of historical evidence. the chief promoters of a Marxist perspective in American criminology have found it necessary to invent untestable and irrefutable concepts whose principal function is to maintain a suspension of the relationship between history, social reality, and theory. Because such work is more akin to religious phophesy than criminology. it presently appears to be irreconcilable with all heretofore accepted standards of academic scholarship.     

A problem with empirical studies of party policy shifts: Alternative measures of party shifts are uncorrelated

Many recent cross-national studies analyse the causes and electoral consequences of party policy shifts, using party position measures derived from election manifestos, expert surveys or voter surveys. However few studies validate their findings by analysing multiple measures of party policy shifts. In this article, data on European parties’ position shifts on both European integration and left-right ideology is analysed, showing that this is problematic because, while alternative measures of party policy positions correlate strongly in cross-sectional analyses, alternative measures of parties’ policy shifts are essentially uncorrelated in longitudinal analyses. Suggestions are offered on how to address this problem.