Informelle transgouvernementale Koordinationsnetzwerke der Ministerialbürokratie der EU-Mitgliedstaaten bei einer Regierungskonferenz

We investigate the informal bilateral transgovernmental relations between equivalent ministries of EU member states during the preparation of the Intergovernmental Conference 1996. Starting point of this analysis is the hypothesis of a growing importance of transnational and transgovernmental relations as a cause and a result of European integration. Whereas these proclaimed tendencies have been extensively researched with regard to economic interdependencies and transnational relations of societal actors, networks of the administrative and bureaucratic elites have been rather neglected. Applying diverse concepts of network analysis, we identify the hitherto latent informal network structures of the governments. The overall configuration can be described as a mixture of a centre-periphery structure and cohesive blocks. The gradual center-periphery structure consists of a “triumvirate” of the powerful member states (Germany — France — Great Britain) and smaller states, and is characterized by a clear north-south dimension. The costs of informal coordination are mainly borne by the large member states as well as by “brokers” (Austria, BeNeLux, Finland, Sweden).     

Interministerielle Netzwerke: Formale und informelle Koordinationsstrukturen bei der Vorbereitung der deutschen Verhandlungspositionen zur Regierungskonferenz 1996

How do German ministries manage the preparation of national negotiation positions for EU intergovernmental conference? After a survey of the debate on organizational deficits of the interministerial coordination in Germany, we are consulting decision- and organization-theoretic approaches in IR. Drawing on organizational economics we concretise and supplement these older frameworks. We conceive the management of a governmental organization as a specific aggregation of heterogeneous preferences and information. Applying social network analysis we take into account formal as well as informal aspects of coordination channels. The objective of this article is to make visible the complex structures and processes that constitute foreign policy making, and to provide a preliminary assessment of its efficiency.     

Policy-Specific Alienation and Indifference in the Calculus of Voting: A Simultaneous Model of Party Choice and Abstention

This article aims to combine the spatial models of candidate/party choice and abstention/participation choice in a single decision model and to provide empirical reaction functions. The starting point of this study is the hypothesis of a sequential ordering of candidate choice and participation choice (Riker and Ordeshook, 1973). The proposed model simultaneously considers the choice among n≥ 2 parties and the abstention option. It differentiates between policy-specific effects of alienation and indifference. The models are estimated with nested multiattributive discrete choice models which are theoretically founded on random utility theory.     

The empirical application of the spatial theory of voting in multiparty systems with random utility models

Spatial models of voting predominate in the formalization of political decisions and continue to be a growth industry in political science. But strict empirical applications of this theory have been rare. Only recently, conditional discrete choice models have been proposed to fill the gap between formal and empirical models and to predict the individual voting decision in multi-candidate/multiparty contests on the basis of the spatial model. This article highlights several flexible features of these models that are well known in transportation economics and applied marketing science but not yet discussed in the electoral studies community. Empirical illustrations are provided on the basis of (nested) multinomial logit.     

Domestic and International Politics during an EU Intergovernmental Conference: Bridging the Gap between Negotiation Theory and Practice

This article describes selective results of a large-scale study of within-governmental coordination processes and international negotiations. We examined a European Union intergovernmental conference (IGC), the so-called IGC 1996, which led to the Amsterdam Treaty, from a quantitative negotiation analysis perspective. Our focus of attention has been the embeddedness of international negotiations within formal governmental organizations and within informal communication networks. We have identified the relative impact on negotiation dynamics and on negotiation performance of each of the parties by using various statistical techniques. We argue that such insights can be used for a research-based consulting in which social scientists respond to practitioners'"what-if" questions with evidence-based simulations and scenarios.     

Electoral behaviour in a two-vote system: Incentives for ticket splitting in German Bundestag elections

Abstract. The ballot structure of German Bundestag elections allows two votes: one for a constituency candidate and the second for a party list. About one-fifth of the voters usually split their ticket. Several hypotheses are derived about incentives for ticket splitting and tested with survey data from a 1998 pre-election poll. We argue that an explanation of split tickets in the German system has to take into account both party rankings and coalition preferences. One of the most important incentives is a preference or top ranking of a minor party like the FDP or Greens, if it is combined with a preference for a coalition with either the CDU/CSU or SPD. Contrary to this finding, the hypothesis of threshold insurance voting of CDU/CSU or SPD supporters choosing the party list of their prospective minor coalition partner is rejected for the 1998 election.     

The most severe chronic organ findings in official public health autopsies--a medico-sociologic contribution

At the Vienna Institute, in the year 1986, 79 carcinoma findings were recorded in 1736 cases of natural death. The most common were carcinomas of the respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts. Seventeen unidentified tumors were found to have been the cause of death. Public health autopsies, therefore, contribute to the clarification of tumor disease and thus to cancer statistics. Although diagnosed fatal cancer cases correspond to only 0.33% of all cancer deaths in Vienna, the question arises why a patient with very advanced cancer is not under medical care and why the affliction is revealed only in autopsy, the purpose of which is to elucidate sudden, unexpected deaths. The comparatively few individual cases should nevertheless give cause for reflection and are discussed from a medicosociological view, taking into consideration the statistical and epidemiological data relating to cancer diseases.     

Flexibility provisions in multilateral environmental treaties

In international politics, intergovernmental treaties provide the rules of the game. In this paper, we investigate the rules under which the contents of treaties may be changed, such as rules for adoption and entry into force and rules for dispute resolution. In the first part of the paper, we describe how frequently these rules are used in practice and how they are typically combined, based on 400 treaties and supplementary agreements from the field of international environmental law. Using correspondence analysis, we show that treaty provisions can be represented by a two-dimensional property space. The detected underlying dimensions express varying degrees of institutionalisation and flexibility, respectively. In the second part of the paper, we place amendment rules into the framework of a formal model in the incomplete contracts tradition. It is shown that there exists a trade-off between the risk of too little flexibility, which leads to frequent inefficient breach of the treaty, and the danger that the binding nature of the treaty and hence, the level of commitment by treaty members, is being undermined if the treaty can be amended too easily.