@phdthesis{Naujoks, author = {Naujoks, Tabea}, title = {The division of labor in couples with children: A dyadic analysis in the German context}, doi = {10.48462/opus4-5538}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-55381}, school = {Hertie School}, pages = {203}, abstract = {This cumulative dissertation examines how couples with children in Germany divide paid and unpaid work and identifies several factors related to a more egalitarian division of labor. In the first paper, I focus on the division of paid work in couples with children, comparing female same-sex and different-sex couples, which constitutes an empirical novelty. Discussing the applicability of division of labor theories to same-sex couples, I further exploit the historically shaped gender culture of East and West Germany. Based on the German Microcensus (2010-2019) and using pooled OLS regressions, I show that female same-sex couples divide paid work more equally than different-sex couples. Comparing East and West Germany, I find a similarly equal division of paid work among same-sex and different-sex couples in the East, while different-sex couples in the West specialize more. The analysis highlights the importance of the cultural context and normative explanations of the division of labor. The second paper turns to childcare, the intersection of the paid working life with the father's contribution to childcare being a key concern of researchers and policymakers. The COVID-19 pandemic and the short-time work scheme provided a "natural experiment" for investigating this nexus. Based on IAB-HOPP data and multinomial logistic regressions, we show that fathers in short-time work take over more care responsibilities than fathers continuously employed with regular working 1 hours. The findings indicate that policies targeting men's working hours can affect the gendered distribution of childcare within couples. The third paper focuses on the methodological problem of analyzing the division of unpaid work in couples often from one partner's perspective only. Therefore, I examine the determinants of 'perception gaps' (defined as the mismatches between partners' responses). Based on pairfam data, I analyze respondents' reports on housework and childcare during the transition to first parenthood and show that a substantial perception gap exists, with 30\% regarding housework and 25\% concerning childcare. Results of the logistic regressions indicate that perception gaps are lowest among couples where the woman is employed or highly educated. These findings clearly underline the importance of a dyadic perspective on the division of labor in couples.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Arend, author = {Arend, Tom}, title = {Voting With Your Wallet? Essays on Accountability and the Economic Vote}, doi = {10.48462/opus4-5611}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-56114}, school = {Hertie School}, pages = {xvi, 197}, abstract = {.}, language = {en} } @techreport{KaiserKleinKaack, type = {Working Paper}, author = {Kaiser, Silke K. and Klein, Nadja and Kaack, Lynn}, title = {From Counting Stations to City-Wide Estimates: Data-Driven Bicycle Volume Extrapolation}, doi = {10.48550/arXiv.2406.18454}, pages = {30}, abstract = {Shifting to cycling in urban areas reduces greenhouse gas emissions and improves public health. Street-level bicycle volume information would aid cities in planning targeted infrastructure improvements to encourage cycling and provide civil society with evidence to advocate for cyclists' needs. Yet, the data currently available to cities and citizens often only comes from sparsely located counting stations. This paper extrapolates bicycle volume beyond these few locations to estimate bicycle volume for the entire city of Berlin. We predict daily and average annual daily street-level bicycle volumes using machine-learning techniques and various public data sources. These include app-based crowdsourced data, infrastructure, bike-sharing, motorized traffic, socioeconomic indicators, weather, and holiday data. Our analysis reveals that the best-performing model is XGBoost, and crowdsourced cycling and infrastructure data are most important for the prediction. We further simulate how collecting short-term counts at predicted locations improves performance. By providing ten days of such sample counts for each predicted location to the model, we are able to halve the error and greatly reduce the variability in performance among predicted locations.}, language = {en} } @techreport{Harter, type = {Working Paper}, author = {Harter, Anina}, title = {Legislative institutions and distributive politics: Evidence from Germany's federal budget committee}, series = {Berlin School of Economics Discussion Papers}, journal = {Berlin School of Economics Discussion Papers}, edition = {No. 75}, doi = {10.48462/opus4-5942}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-59426}, pages = {68}, abstract = {This paper studies how legislative institutions shape distributive policy outcomes. Specifically, I analyze the effect of budget committee membership in the German Bundestag using a novel dataset of 4,629 geocoded federal grants (1999-2023). Employing a within-legislator difference-in-differences design, I estimate that gaining a seat on the budget committee doubles the average per capita grant amount received by a legislator's electoral district. This committee benefit corresponds to approximately 2.6 million EUR over a typical budget committee career. Distributive benefits are driven by internal committee hierarchy rather than mandate type or affiliation with governing parties.}, language = {en} } @article{Schmauk, author = {Schmauk, Sarah}, title = {Pathways to retirement in West Germany: Does divorce matter?}, series = {Advances in Life Course Research}, volume = {60}, journal = {Advances in Life Course Research}, issn = {1569-4909}, doi = {10.1016/j.alcr.2024.100595}, abstract = {The aim of this paper is to explore how divorce is linked to pathways to retirement in West Germany and to understand whether and how patterns are gendered. Using German pension insurance data, I employ sequence and cluster analysis to map and group pathways to retirement of women and men who retired in 2018. Pathways to retirement are defined based on monthly pension insurance histories from age 50 to 65. I find nine distinct pathways to retirement, ranging from unemployment to stable low to high income pathways and to an early retirement pathway through the reduced-earnings-capacity pension, the latter representing 9.3\% of the sample. Based on multinomial logistic regression models, I analyse how marital status, distinguishing between divorced and (re)married, was related to different pathways to retirement. The results show that divorced people were more likely than married people to retire through indirect and unstable pathways to retirement characterised by early exit from the labour market and receipt of reduced-earnings-capacity pensions and/or unemployment benefits. Whereas the relationship between divorce and pathways to retirement seemed to be overall unfavourable for men, the results for women are more ambiguous. Divorced women were also more likely to retire through a stable high-income pathway than married women. Nevertheless, the results suggest that divorce is associated with an early retirement pathway through the reduced-earnings-capacity pension for both women and men.}, language = {en} } @techreport{SchmitzBryson, type = {Working Paper}, author = {Schmitz, Chris and Bryson, Joanna}, title = {A Moral Agency Framework for Legitimate Integration of AI in Bureaucracies}, number = {v3}, publisher = {arXiv}, doi = {10.48550/arXiv.2508.08231}, pages = {15}, abstract = {Public-sector bureaucracies seek to reap the benefits of artificial intelligence (AI), but face important concerns about accountability and transparency when using AI systems. In particular, perception or actuality of AI agency might create ethics sinks — constructs that facilitate dissipation of responsibility when AI systems of disputed moral status interface with bureaucratic structures. Here, we reject the notion that ethics sinks are a necessary consequence of introducing AI systems into bureaucracies. Rather, where they appear, they are the product of structural design decisions across both the technology and the institution deploying it. We support this claim via a systematic application of conceptions of moral agency in AI ethics to Weberian bureaucracy. We establish that it is both desirable and feasible to render AI systems as tools for the generation of organizational transparency and legibility, which continue the processes of Weberian rationalization initiated by previous waves of digitalization. We present a three-point Moral Agency Framework for legitimate integration of AI in bureaucratic structures: (a) maintain clear and just human lines of accountability, (b) ensure humans whose work is augmented by AI systems can verify the systems are functioning correctly, and (c) introduce AI only where it doesn't inhibit the capacity of bureaucracies towards either of their twin aims of legitimacy and stewardship. We suggest that AI introduced within this framework can not only improve efficiency and productivity while avoiding ethics sinks, but also improve the transparency and even the legitimacy of a bureaucracy.}, language = {en} } @article{SchmaukKridahl, author = {Schmauk, Sarah and Kridahl, Linda}, title = {Who receives the most? Gendered consequences of divorce on public pension income in West Germany and Sweden}, series = {Ageing and Society}, journal = {Ageing and Society}, doi = {10.1017/S0144686X23000703}, pages = {1 -- 24}, abstract = {Sweden and West Germany have had persistently high divorce rates in recent decades, but these two welfare states were differently equipped to mitigate the economic consequences of divorce for individual security in old age: Sweden followed a gender-equal policy approach to enable women and men to achieve economic autonomy, while West Germany, following the male-breadwinner model, introduced the system of 'divorce-splitting' to account for differences in women's and men's income. Against this background, this study uses large-scale register data from the German Public Pension Fund and the Swedish population registers to examine how divorce is related to the monthly public old-age pension income of women and men. The main comparison groups are divorced and (re)married individuals who entered retirement between 2013 and 2018. We descriptively show annual income histories from ages 20 to 65, and calculate monthly public old-age pension income with respect to lifetime income and pension regulations, such as the supplements/deductions for 'divorce-splitting'. Multiple ordinary least square regression models further examine how family status relates to monthly public old-age pension income by gender. The results reveal that women and men in Sweden experience similar working histories, although women's incomes are lower. This is also reflected in women still having lower pension incomes than men. However, divorced and married women show comparable pension incomes, while divorced men receive approximately 26 per cent less pension income than married men. In West Germany, divorced women have significantly higher pension incomes than married women. The system of 'divorce-splitting' increases women's and decreases men's pension incomes, which seems to equalise their pension incomes. However, both stay below a married man's pension income. The findings indicate economic inequality in public old-age pension income by family status in Sweden and West Germany.}, language = {en} } @article{Simstich, author = {Simstich, Anna}, title = {Policy Design Below the Political Radar: When Policy Bureaucracies Mobilize Expertise to Restrict Business Power}, series = {Governance}, volume = {38}, journal = {Governance}, number = {4}, publisher = {Wiley}, doi = {10.1111/gove.70054}, abstract = {Powerful business interests threaten to capture policy design. From a quiet politics perspective, businesses are especially influential in policy design under conditions of low political salience. From a bureaucratic politics perspective, bureaucratic power based on specialist expertise is also strongest in low-salience contexts and enables them to withstand business influence. Under what conditions does bureaucratic power or business power prevail in policy design under low political salience? This article argues that policy bureaucracies can restrict business power by mobilizing expertise for a different policy design than that advocated by business if they have a strong and competing organizational interest in the policy design. This argument is illustrated in a case study on the design of Extended Producer Responsibility for single-use plastics in Germany as a deviant case of high business influence under quiet politics. This article contributes to understanding business-bureaucracy interaction outside business home turf and below the political radar. It enhances quiet politics by introducing the role of bureaucratic responsiveness based on organizational interests and expertise.}, language = {en} } @article{Koch, author = {Koch, Elias}, title = {Opposition parties seek more conflict with the government when losing electoral support}, series = {West European Politics}, journal = {West European Politics}, publisher = {Informa UK Limited}, doi = {10.1080/01402382.2025.2524944}, pages = {1 -- 19}, abstract = {Opposition parties benefit electorally from engaging in conflict with the government. However, it remains unclear whether they adjust their rhetoric towards the executive in response to changes in their public support. This study argues that opposition parties seek more conflict with the government when losing in election polls. It tests the hypothesis using an original dataset comprising all major German parties' interjections - adversarial interruptions of legislative speech - during debates in the 16 German state parliaments (1998-2019). Based on 664,011 interruptions during 250,555 government speeches, it shows that opposition parties increasingly seek conflict with the government when their polling performance declines. This relationship between opposition parties' rhetoric and their public approval is particularly strong when they are polling below their previous election results. These findings contribute to our understanding of how public opinion in general, and election polls in particular, affect conflict between opposition and government in representative democracies.}, language = {en} } @article{Koranyi, author = {Koranyi, Kinga}, title = {The limits of EU rule of law financial sanctions: how economic and political costs shaped Hungary's selective compliance strategy}, series = {Journal of European Public Policy}, journal = {Journal of European Public Policy}, publisher = {Informa UK Limited}, doi = {10.1080/13501763.2025.2553752}, pages = {1 -- 28}, abstract = {The European Union's unprecedented financial sanctions against Hungary in 2022-2023, namely the freezing of 22 billion euros in cohesion funds and 5.8 billion euros in Recovery and Resilience Facility funds, had limited effectiveness in achieving rule of law reforms in the country. Through elite interviews with Hungarian officials and experts, the article reveals that Hungary's partial compliance can be explained by a rational cost-benefit calculation where the political costs of full compliance outweighed the economic gains. The findings are twofold: First, legal complexities allowed Hungary to minimise economic impacts through selective compliance. Ambiguous conditions and inconsistent communication by EU institutions enabled Hungary to exploit procedural uncertainties. Second, the political costs of reforms in areas fundamental to regime maintenance - LGBTQI, academic, and migration policies - were deemed too high, leading Hungary to sacrifice billions in funding to preserve these policies. Similarly, in less publicised areas for regime maintenance, judicial independence and anti-corruption practices, politically sensitive reforms were withheld. This article highlights the overlooked importance of political costs in compliance calculations and suggests that future EU rule of law enforcement must account for both the technical precision of conditions and the domestic political context of required reforms.}, language = {en} } @article{Minetto, author = {Minetto, Francesca}, title = {Does the EU ever import its policies? The overlooked role of international institutions}, series = {Journal of European Public Policy}, journal = {Journal of European Public Policy}, publisher = {Informa UK Limited}, doi = {10.1080/13501763.2025.2570885}, pages = {1 -- 35}, abstract = {Prevailing narratives commonly depict the EU as a key actor shaping international norms and a net exporter of policies. However, we know little about how the involvement of the EU in the international arena affects its own policy development. Does the EU ever import policies from international institutions? This study examines the prevalence of policy import within the EU's legal framework, scrutinising the conditions and mechanisms that can facilitate such imports. I analyse the contributory role of compliance with international norms, the existence of successful models, the expectation of competence expansion, and crises in shaping the likelihood of policy import. I test this on a novel dataset comprising 1,194 legislative files introduced post-Lisbon in the European Union between 2008 and 2022. The key descriptive finding is that more than 20 per cent of the legislative files in this period incorporate models and policies from international institutions. This paper systematically analyses the relevance of international commitments across diverse policy areas in EU policy-making, offering valuable insights into this under-explored dimension. It illustrates that international models and commitments have tangible ramifications on EU legislative decision-making, leading to policy change and innovation.}, language = {en} } @techreport{BeanKearnsRomanouetal., type = {Working Paper}, author = {Bean, Andrew M. and Kearns, Ryan Othniel and Romanou, Angelika and Hafner, Franziska Sofia and Mayne, Harry and Batzner, Jan and Foroutan, Negar and Schmitz, Chris and Korgul, Karolina and Batra, Hunar and Deb, Oishi and Beharry, Emma and Emde, Cornelius and Foster, Thomas and Gausen, Anna and Grandury, Mar{\´i}a and Han, Simeng and Hofmann, Valentin and Ibrahim, Lujain and Kim, Hazel and Kirk, Hannah Rose and Lin, Fangru and Liu, Gabrielle Kaili-May and Luettgau, Lennart and Magomere, Jabez and Rystr{\o}m, Jonathan and Sotnikova, Anna and Yang, Yushi and Zhao, Yilun and Bibi, Adel and Bosselut, Antoine and Clark, Ronald and Cohan, Arman and Foerster, Jakob and Gal, Yarin and Hale, Scott A. and Raji, Inioluwa Deborah and Summerfield, Christopher and Torr, Philip H. S. and Ududec, Cozmin and Rocher, Luc and Mahdi, Adam}, title = {Measuring what Matters: Construct Validity in Large Language Model Benchmarks}, publisher = {arXiv}, doi = {10.48550/arXiv.2511.04703}, pages = {29}, abstract = {Evaluating large language models (LLMs) is crucial for both assessing their capabilities and identifying safety or robustness issues prior to deployment. Reliably measuring abstract and complex phenomena such as 'safety' and 'robustness' requires strong construct validity, that is, having measures that represent what matters to the phenomenon. With a team of 29 expert reviewers, we conduct a systematic review of 445 LLM benchmarks from leading conferences in natural language processing and machine learning. Across the reviewed articles, we find patterns related to the measured phenomena, tasks, and scoring metrics which undermine the validity of the resulting claims. To address these shortcomings, we provide eight key recommendations and detailed actionable guidance to researchers and practitioners in developing LLM benchmarks.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Tiedemann, author = {Tiedemann, Silvana}, title = {Essays in empirical energy economics: Real-time electricity pricing, energy saving rewards, and auctions in the energy transition}, school = {Hertie School}, pages = {264}, abstract = {The transition to a sustainable energy system requires a balance between climate protection, economic efficiency, and energy security. This dissertation contributes to understanding how to achieve these policy goals by evaluating the effect of real-time pricing on demand-side flexibility, financial incentives for energy savings, and auction-based steering of the national capacity mix. The two articles in the first part examine the challenges of estimating the response of electricity demand to real-time pricing. Despite theoretical expectations that dynamic pricing allows for flexible electricity consumption, empirical analyses show that consumers respond little to short-term fluctuations. However, they may systematically adjust consumption, providing a form of demand flexibility that is not captured by some econometric models. Moreover, time dynamics can bias results if not properly addressed. This work therefore advances our understanding of how to isolate different types of responses and how to interpret empirical findings. The article in the second part examines financial incentives for energy savings, focusing on gas saving rewards implemented during the European energy crisis of 2022/23. Analyzing micro-level consumption data, this research employs a matched control group design and the presently developed Double/Debiased Machine Learning estimator to show that direct financial incentives significantly reduce gas consumption. The two articles in the third part evaluate auctions to manage the national capacity mix. An evaluation of Germany's coal phase-out auctions shows that the mechanism was designed to balance competing policy objectives, resulting in relatively low compensation costs but increasing the carbon intensity of the remaining coal fleet. The study of renewable energy auctions estimates bidders' true costs and mark-ups, revealing significant heterogeneity in bidding strategies based on firm size and market experience. Overall, this dissertation provides empirical evidence for designing effective policies to advance the energy transition, drawing on econometric and causal methods. The findings underscore the need for tailored incentive structures and market mechanisms that are consistent with policy objectives, consumer behavior, and market dynamics.}, language = {en} } @article{RomanelloWalawenderHsuetal., author = {Romanello, Marina and Walawender, Maria and Hsu, Shih-Che and Moskeland, Annalyse and Palmeiro-Silva, Yasna and Scamman, Daniel and Smallcombe, James W and Abdullah, Sabah and Ades, Melanie and Al-Maruf, Abdullah and Ameli, Nadia and Angelova, Denitsa and Ayeb-Karlsson, Sonja and Ballester, Joan and Basaga{\~n}a, Xavier and Bechara, Hannah and Beggs, Paul J and Cai, Wenjia and Campbell-Lendrum, Diarmid and Charnley, Gina E C and Courtenay, Orin and Cross, Troy J and Dalin, Carole and Dasandi, Niheer and Dasgupta, Shouro and Davies, Michael and Eckelman, Matthew and Freyberg, Chris and Garcia Corral, Paulina and Gasparyan, Olga and Giguere, Joseph and Gordon-Strachan, Georgiana and Gumy, Sophie and Gunther, Samuel H and Hamilton, Ian and Hang, Yun and H{\"a}nninen, Risto and Hartinger, Stella and He, Kehan and Heidecke, Julian and Hess, Jeremy J and Jankin, Slava and Jay, Ollie and Pantera, Dafni Kalatzi and Kelman, Ilan and Kennard, Harry and Kiesewetter, Gregor and Kinney, Patrick and Kniveton, Dominic and Koubi, Vally and Kouznetsov, Rostislav and Lampard, Pete and Lee, Jason K W and Lemke, Bruno and Li, Bo and Linke, Andrew and Liu, Yang and Liu, Zhao and Lowe, Rachel and Ma, Siqi and Mabhaudhi, Tafadzwanashe and Maia, Carla and Markandya, Anil and Martin, Greta and Martinez-Urtaza, Jaime and Maslin, Mark and McAllister, Lucy and McMichael, Celia and Mi, Zhifu and Milner, James and Minor, Kelton and Minx, Jan and Mohajeri, Nahid and Momen, Natalie C and Moradi-Lakeh, Maziar and Morrisey, Karyn and Munzert, Simon and Murray, Kris A and Obradovich, Nick and Orgen, Papa and Otto, Matthias and Owfi, Fereidoon and Pearman, Olivia L and Pega, Frank and Pershing, Andrew J and Pinho-Gomes, Ana-Catarina and Ponmattam, Jamie and Rabbaniha, Mahnaz and Repke, Tim and Roa, Jorge and Robinson, Elizabeth and Rockl{\"o}v, Joacim and Rojas-Rueda, David and Ruiz-Cabrejos, Jorge and Rusticucci, Matilde and Salas, Renee N and San Jos{\´e} Plana, Adri{\`a} and Semenza, Jan C and Sherman, Jodi D and Shumake-Guillemot, Joy and Singh, Pratik and Sj{\"o}din, Henrik and Smith, Matthew R and Sofiev, Mikhail and Sorensen, Cecilia and Springmann, Marco and Stowell, Jennifer D and Tabatabaei, Meisam and Tartarini, Federico and Taylor, Jonathon and Tonne, Cathryn and Treskova, Marina and Trinanes, Joaquin A and Uppstu, Andreas and Valdes-Ortega, Nicolas and Wagner, Fabian and Watts, Nick and Whitcombe, Hannah and Wood, Richard and Yang, Pu and Zhang, Ying and Zhang, Shaohui and Zhang, Chi and Zhang, Shihui and Zhu, Qiao and Gong, Peng and Montgomery, Hugh and Costello, Anthony}, title = {The 2025 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: climate change action offers a lifeline}, series = {The Lancet}, volume = {406}, journal = {The Lancet}, number = {10521}, publisher = {Elsevier BV}, doi = {10.1016/S0140-6736(25)01919-1}, pages = {2804 -- 2857}, language = {en} } @incollection{WallaceRehMinetto, author = {Wallace, Helen and Reh, Christine and Minetto, Francesca}, title = {An Institutional Anatomy and Five Policy Modes}, series = {Policy-Making in the European Union}, booktitle = {Policy-Making in the European Union}, editor = {Wallace, Helen and Pollack, Mark A. and Young, Alasdair R.}, edition = {9}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, isbn = {9780198912408}, publisher = {Hertie School}, pages = {81 -- 118}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Cova, author = {Cova, Joshua}, title = {The new political economy of wage formation: Party-political preferences, growth models and EU preferences}, doi = {10.48462/opus4-4705}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-47056}, school = {Hertie School}, pages = {203}, abstract = {Wage formation in Europe has undergone considerable changes over the past decades. In particular, the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and the Eurozone crisis have significantly accelerated and enhanced liberalization reforms in wage bargaining and industrial relations in several European countries. Moreover, decreasing collective bargaining coverage, lower union membership rates, weaker social actors and increasing low-wage employment have allowed the state to play an increasingly important role in the regulation and the stipulation of wage minima. The growing importance of governments in the political economy of wage formation is nowhere clearer to observe than in the politicization of statutory minimum wages: minimum wages have not only progressively become the 'going rate' for low-wage employment in a variety of countries displaying different political-economic characteristics, but have also featured prominently in electoral debates. Using state-of-the-art quantitative research methods, I examine this remarkable transition in Chapters 2-3 and provide empirical evidence contextualizing the transformation of Europe's low-wage policy space. As it is also important to acknowledge the important role played by the EU institutions in structuring member states' wage-setting systems, I examine in Chapter 4 the growing relevance of the new European economic governance in determining member states' labour markets and wage bargaining mechanisms. This dissertation is composed of three single-authored chapters and is structured as follows: Chapter 1, serve as this thesis' introduction. Here, I present the rationale for focusing on minimum wages and wage formation, I describe the main debates in the academic literature and lay out how the papers I have worked on contribute to the topics I address. This is followed by the presentation of the three chapters, which examine the topic of change in the political economy of wage formation and in particular of minimum wages over the last decades in Europe. Chapter 2 offers a first assessment of the political, economic and institutional determinants of minimum wage growth in Europe. By using quantitative text analysis and statistical methods, I show that the electoral salience of minimum wages has increased. Chapter 3 builds upon the increased politicization of minimum wages, which I find empirical evidence for in Chapter 2, by contextualizing the role of minimum wages in different European political economies. By building on new research in the field of European comparative political economy, which has focused on the drivers of aggregate demand, I examine the existence of long-term equilibria between minimum wage growth, taken as proxy for government-determined wage-led growth, and household consumption and exports. As the EU institutions have been found to be important actors in driving change in wage-setting mechanisms, I devote my final paper (Chapter 4) to an assessment of the wage bargaining preferences of the European Commission within the framework of the new European economic governance. In particular, I focus on the drivers of country-specific recommendations (CSRs) in wage bargaining. In this paper, I find that recommendations in the field of wage bargaining are mostly decoupled from time-varying economic indicators and are instead tied to country-specific institutional factors. Finally, I conclude by summarizing my results on change in the European low-wage policy space, my contributions to evolving and still far from resolved debates in the literature of the political economy of advanced European capitalist democracies' wage formation and point to possible future avenues of research.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Jerg, author = {Jerg, Lukas}, title = {New forms of economic risk and political attitudes: Analyzing the influence of technological change and financialization in housing on political attitudes. Examining the effect of personality on the prevalence and persistence of atypical employment.}, doi = {10.48462/opus4-5392}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-53927}, school = {Hertie School}, pages = {167}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Sieker, author = {Sieker, Felix}, title = {Disruption or continuation? The role of platforms in transforming work}, doi = {10.48462/opus4-4076}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-40766}, school = {Hertie School}, pages = {126}, abstract = {One central manifestation of the digital transformation that has caused profound structural changes to all parts of economic and social life are platform companies. The dissemination of platforms is associated with the restructuring of entire markets, the reorganisation of companies and the restructuring of employment relationships. This dissertation asks to what extent platform companies as a new organisational form and their impact on employment represent a disruption or a continuation of liberalization trends that have been in place for a longer time. Two arguments are advanced in this context. First, it is argued that platform companies are worth to be discussed as a distinct topic, as they differ in important regards from previous organisational forms and have profound effects on the political economy of industrialized countries. Platform companies occupy a central position in the economy and control large parts of the critical infrastructure of the internet. Although platform companies share some similarities with previous firm models such as the vertically integrated firm and the nexus of contracts model, they depart in other regards. In particular, network effects and the control of information converted into data points are key features that give them unprecedented power. Second, the effect of platform companies on employment is moderated by institutions. However, not all institutions are equally important. Whereas the employment contract, for instance, has proven to be a very resilient institution preventing the dissemination of independent contractors as preferred employment model of platform companies, the influence of unions has been limited. Moreover, the largest effect of platform companies on employment may be more of an indirect than a direct nature. Platform companies had only limited success in disseminating their preferred employment model of independent contracting, but rather reinforced existing subcontracting trends. All chapters in this dissertation contribute to these arguments from different perspectives. Moving from a macro-perspective to a micro-perspective, Chapter Two represents a review chapter on key features of platforms and their impact on the political economy of industrialized countries. Chapter Three analyses mechanisms that explain responses in ten major European countries to regulate platform work. Finally, Chapter Four represents a case study on the effect of Amazon logistics on employment in the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Drauth, author = {Drauth, Carlo Manuel}, title = {What drives a systematic human rights management? : a multi-method study of large German companies}, doi = {10.48462/opus4-2306}, school = {Hertie School}, pages = {V, IV, 228}, abstract = {Under which conditions do multinational enterprises systematically manage human rights risks with a view to preventing human rights abuses across their operations? Using a multi-method research design combining qualitative comparative analysis (QCA)and process tracing case studies (PT-CS), this study of the 30 largest German companies finds that it is neither institutional forces nor stakeholder pressures alone, but their combined effect that leads to a systematic human rights management at the firm-level: That is, stakeholders (e.g. NGOs) as more proximate actors act on and transmit existing institutional pressures (e.g. social expectations) to firms, while institutions provide stakeholders with the legitimacy necessary to successfully influence corporate behaviour. This conjunctional effect implies that a systematic approach to human rights is more likely to be found among firms with consumer proximity. Why? It is a firm's position in the value chain that determines the concrete configuration of institutional and stakeholder pressures for a company: Downstream the value chain in the B2C business, where institutional and stakeholder pressures are generally high due to greater public exposure, most companies systematically address human rights issues: These B2C firms are exposed to an institutional environment, where firms are not only socialised into newly-emerging CSR-topics like human rights through institutional learning in CSR initiatives like the UNGC, but also constantly monitored by civil society actors like NGOs whether they walk the talk (i.e. 1st path to a systematic human rights management). (...)}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Engelbrecht, author = {Engelbrecht, Sandra}, title = {From pressure for change to actual change: How class actors' responses to labour migration shape the trajectories of continuity and change in employment relations institutions}, doi = {10.48462/opus4-4004}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-40048}, school = {Hertie School}, pages = {432}, abstract = {This dissertation uncovers how pressure for change in the European Union (EU) open market is translated into actual change by explaining how employers' use of migrant labour, and trade unions' responses thereto, drive institutional developments in three areas central to the governance of work: collective bargaining, job security regulations, and workplace representation. Based on process-tracing case studies of the German manufacturing sector, the German, Norwegian, and Swedish construction and hotel and restaurant sectors, I trace how sectoral differences in the interactions between employers and trade unions trigger distinct causal processes that contribute either to institutional continuity or liberalization. The findings reveal that liberalization in Germany does not follow a single trajectory: while employers' and trade unions' responses to migrant labour in the manufacturing sector contribute to dualization, the responses in the construction and hotel and restaurant sectors instead contribute to deregulatory liberalization. I find that the class actors' responses in the Swedish construction and hotel and restaurant sectors, in turn, contribute to a third variety of liberalization - socially embedded flexibilization, whereas the actors' responses in the Norwegian construction sector trigger a process of institutional resilience creation, endeavouring to contribute to institutional continuity under high pressure for change. In capturing how individual employers through their use of migrant labour are pursuing non-politically controlled change strategies, this dissertation offers us the insight that employers' logic of action based on compliance with employment relations rules and practices is explicitly contested by the logic of action stimulated by the increased marketization generated through European integration. Aside from addressing the micro-level drivers of change resulting from the accumulated actions of individual employers, this dissertation also highlights the role of different labour supplies in enabling change processes to take place. It is argued that unless trade unions, as counterpart to employers, and nation states in their enforcement and legislative capacities create conditions that disable employers from noncompliance with existing institutions in their use of migrant labour, employers will follow the logic of action encouraged in the EU open market and use their access to migrant labour in ways that result in liberalization of the employment relations.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Bobzien, author = {Bobzien, Licia}, title = {The role of perceived economic inequality in the formation of political preferences}, doi = {10.48462/opus4-4177}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-41778}, school = {Hertie School}, pages = {143}, abstract = {Economic inequality, i.e. income and wealth inequality, varies across time and space. Preferences for and concerns about economic inequality in particular and political preferences in general are remarkably independent of such variation in economic inequality. Empirically, the mechanisms linking economic inequality and political preferences are difficult to study since economic inequality as a macro-level phenomenon can influence individual political preferences in many ways. A typical assumption in theoretically and empirically studying the effects of economic inequality on the formation of political preferences is that individuals have full information about economic inequality. This assumption, while analytically helpful, is conceptually and empirically contested. I study the formation of political preferences under incomplete, potentially biased, information about inequality by considering perceived economic inequality as linking mechanism between economic inequality and political preferences. Chapter 2 studies the relevance of inequality perceptions for the formation of preferences for redistribution and finds that inequality perceptions are strong predictors for preferences for redistribution. I further find that inequality perceptions are independent of actual levels of income inequality but dependent on individual socio-economic and ideological positions. Chapter 3 builds upon this argument but looks at perceptions of tax inequality rather than income inequality and its effects on preferences for taxation. It shows that individuals perceive tax rates for different income groups differently depending on their own income position. Preferred tax rates for different income groups, however, are rather similar across individual income positions. Chapters 2 and 3 indicate that there is heterogeneity in perceived inequalities and that these perceptions are relevant to the formation of political preferences. While these chapters use individual level observational data to study potential mechanisms correlationally, I apply a quasi-experimental design to test whether perceived inequality—modelled as experience of inequality—causally influences political preferences in chapter 4: Studying populist voting in Germany, I find that experiencing regional inequality can affect populist voting. This dissertation presents empirical evidence that considering perceived inequalities can help us to better understand why individual political preferences do not necessarily reflect levels and changes in economic inequality.}, language = {en} } @incollection{CostelloWriedt, author = {Costello, Cathryn and Wriedt, Vera}, title = {Regional Human Rights Courts}, series = {Elgar Concise Encyclopedia of Migration and Asylum Law}, booktitle = {Elgar Concise Encyclopedia of Migration and Asylum Law}, editor = {Chetail, Vincent}, publisher = {Edward Elgar Publishing}, doi = {10.4337/9781802204155.00085}, publisher = {Hertie School}, pages = {461 -- 467}, language = {en} } @article{WagnerMolinaAlonsoPerezetal., author = {Wagner, Lena and Molina, Stefania and Alonso-Perez, Enrique and Kreyenfeld, Michaela}, title = {What difference does it make? Parental relationship quality and child wellbeing in step- and nuclear families}, series = {Genus}, volume = {81}, journal = {Genus}, number = {1}, publisher = {Springer Science and Business Media LLC}, doi = {10.1186/s41118-025-00269-w}, abstract = {This study adopts a dyadic perspective to explore how parental partnership quality relates to the wellbeing of children living with both biological parents versus those with a biological parent and a stepparent. We apply multivariable linear regression and a mediation analysis on dyadic data from the German Panel Analysis of Intimate Relationships and Family Dynamics (pairfam) to understand the relationship between family structure, step- and biological parents' partnership quality, and children's self-reported wellbeing, operationalised over the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ-scores). We differentiate two separate dimensions of parental partnership quality, namely the frequency of conflict and esteem between the (step-) parents. The results show that children living with a stepparent exhibit higher total difficulties scores as compared to children living with both their biological parents. However, parental conflict occurs less and esteem more frequently in stepfamilies than in nuclear families. Mediation analysis indicates that frequency of esteem between parents partially mediates the impact of family structure on SDQ-scores. Our analysis suggests that the negative effect of living with stepparents on children's social and behavioural problems is slightly mitigated by increased parental esteem in these unions.}, language = {en} } @techreport{BollKreyenfeldMolinaetal., type = {Working Paper}, author = {Boll, Christina and Kreyenfeld, Michaela and Molina, Stefania and Wagner, Lena}, title = {FReDA Module: Causes and Consequences of Economic Abuse in Intimate Partnerships}, publisher = {SocArXiv}, doi = {10.31235/osf.io/uatqp_v1}, pages = {13}, abstract = {This document describes a newly developed module on economic abuse in intimate partnerships that will be integrated into Wave 6 of the FReDA (Family Research and Demographic Analysis) panel study. The module aims to capture key dimensions of economic abuse within intimate relationships and to expand the analytical potential of the FReDA data in this field. It comprises three conceptual batteries: economic control (Wirtschaftliche Kontrolle / Ressourcennutzungsverhinderung), economic sabotage (Wirtschaftliche Sabotage / Ressourcenaneignungsverhinderung), and economic exploitation (Wirtschaftliche Ausbeutung / Ressourcenmissbrauch). Together, these batteries provide a comprehensive and systematic measurement of economic abuse, enabling detailed empirical analyses of its prevalence, forms, and consequences.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Frank, author = {Frank, Emily}, title = {Bureaucracy as Borders: Refugees' Experiences of Citizenship at Government Offices}, doi = {10.48462/opus4-5610}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-56104}, school = {Hertie School}, pages = {204}, abstract = {.}, language = {en} } @incollection{HasselWeil, author = {Hassel, Anke and Weil, Kilian}, title = {Gelingt der {\"U}bergang von fossilen zu gr{\"u}nen Arbeitspl{\"a}tzen?}, series = {Was wird aus der Arbeit?}, booktitle = {Was wird aus der Arbeit?}, editor = {Hassel, Anke and Schroeder, Wolfgang}, publisher = {Campus Verlag}, address = {Frankfurt}, isbn = {9783593520377}, publisher = {Hertie School}, pages = {211 -- 216}, abstract = {Die gr{\"u}ne Transformation hat unmittelbare Auswirkungen auf den Arbeitsmarkt. 1 Die angestrebte Entwicklung von fossilen hin zu gr{\"u}nen Arbeitspl{\"a}tzen stellt Unternehmen und Besch{\"a}ftigte in Deutschland vor große Herausforderungen. Lange beruhte der wirtschaftliche Erfolg Deutschlands nicht nur auf Exporten von energie-und fossilintensiven G{\"u}tern und zugleich auch der Energiemix haupts{\"a}chlich auf fossilen Brennstoffen. F{\"u}r eine deutliche Reduzierung von Emissionen m{\"u}ssen bestimmte Industrien ab-und andere umgebaut werden. Im Bereich der erneuerbaren Energien entstehen neue Arbeitspl{\"a}tze. Insgesamt geht es also um einen tiefgreifenden Strukturwandel von zuvor emissionsintensiven sogenannten braunen zu emissionsschwachen gr{\"u}nen Arbeitspl{\"a}tzen. F{\"u}r die OECD-L{\"a}nder wird erwartet, dass die Dekarbonisierung der Wirtschaft zu einem Nettogewinn an Arbeitspl{\"a}tzen f{\"u}hrt (Chateau und Mavroeidi 2020). Die Europ{\"a}ische Kommission rechnet mit einem Wachstum von {\"u}ber 1 Million neuer Arbeitspl{\"a}tze bis 2030, wobei die europ{\"a}ische gr{\"u}ne Technologie zu einem Vorreiter f{\"u}r wachsende Exportm{\"a}rkte werden soll (EC 2021). Aggregierte Trends geben jedoch keinen Aufschluss {\"u}ber das Ausmaß der Anpassungen, die f{\"u}r einzelne Arbeitnehmer: innen und Unternehmen erforderlich sind, und verdecken eine erhebliche Heterogenit{\"a}t zwischen Regionen und Sektoren. Konkret heißt dies, dass der Bedarf nach zus{\"a}tzlichen Arbeitskr{\"a}ften in erneuerbaren Energien, zB in der Wind-oder Solarenergie oder bei W{\"a}rmepumpen, regional anders verteilt sind als die Arbeitspl{\"a}tze, die im Kohlebergbau oder der Automobilindustrie…}, language = {de} } @incollection{HasselLeeWeil, author = {Hassel, Anke and Lee, Pit Jasper and Weil, Kilian}, title = {Gewerkschaftsmodelle im internationalen Vergleich}, series = {Handbuch Gewerkschaften in Deutschland}, booktitle = {Handbuch Gewerkschaften in Deutschland}, editor = {Schroeder, Wolfgang and Greef, Samuel}, publisher = {Springer VS}, address = {Wiesbaden}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-658-48294-7_22}, publisher = {Hertie School}, abstract = {Dieser Beitrag vergleicht Gewerkschaftsmodelle moderner Industriegesellschaften international. Historische Entstehungspfade, institutionelle Rahmenbedingungen und politische Verflechtungen ergeben vier grundlegende Modelle: sozialpartnerschaftlich, korporatistisch, politisch und liberal. Trotz gemeinsamer Trends wie r{\"u}ckl{\"a}ufiger Mitgliederzahlen sind weiterhin nationale Faktoren wie die Zentralisierung von Tarifsystemen, staatliche Unterst{\"u}tzung, Organisationsmacht und Handlungsstrategien pr{\"a}gend. Insbesondere staatliche Interventionen k{\"o}nnen neue Handlungsfelder er{\"o}ffnen, aber auch strukturelle Anpassungszw{\"a}nge verst{\"a}rken.}, language = {de} } @phdthesis{Ante, author = {Ante, Christine}, title = {The Europeanisation of Vocational Education and Training}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-23398}, school = {Hertie School}, pages = {VII, 322}, abstract = {In recent times, the "lost generation" is discussed widely in public debates. The "lost generation" is the young generation in Southern Europe: In Spain and in Greece, more than half of all young people are unemployed. In Croatia, Italy, Cyprus and Portugal, it is more than one third. With such difficulties in finding entry positions in the labour market, the young generation is faced with an insecure future. Without a job, it is difficult to be independent or to start a family: thus, both the personal and the economic independence suffer. Unemployment in the beginning of a career is likely to hamper career perspectives also in the middle and long run, and hereby leads to diffi-culties in saving for retirement. In this generation, unemployment hits everybody: university graduates who are perceived to be overqualified - or those who left school early in order to take a well-paid job in booming industries such as the construction sector in Spain. No matter the indi-vidual reason: a generation is deprived of their hopes. [...]}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{PhillipsWilliams, author = {Phillips Williams, Zoe}, title = {Risky Business or Risky Politics: What Explains Investor-State Disputes?}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-23690}, school = {Hertie School}, abstract = {Although not a clear cut question of treaty compliance, this project takes as its theoretical point of departure two potentially opposing explanations for state compliance with international agreements, and asks whether investor-state disputes are better explained by shifting state preferences toward FDI (or a particular investment), or the lack of state capacity to maintain an investment-friendly environment. The project is structured around three sub-research questions: 1) which domestic institutions are taking the measures that are subsequently challenged by investors? What is the content of these measures? Against investors in which industries are these measures being taken? 2) Under what economic and political conditions are investor-state arbitration cases most likely to occur?3) Are these changes in policy toward investment the outcome of a shift in preferences on the part of state actors toward investment, or are they instead the result of a lack of institutional capacity to respect IIAs? This project adopts a mixed-methods approach to the research question, with empirical chapters based on the qualitative coding of an original dataset of investor-state disputes; a regression analysis, and three case studies of specific disputes in Canada, El Salvador, and Hungary. Therefore, this project paints a general picture of investor-state disputes not as the result of a failure of bureaucratic capacity, but as incidences in which (private) transnational actor preferences truly conflict with those of domestic actors, and in which the state chooses its obligation to the latter rather than the former. If we accept that investor-state arbitration has the potential to impose significant costs on states, it is important when either justifying or criticising the regime to have an understanding of for which policy measures, and at whose behest, states are incurring these costs. These findings in turn have relevance for those who wish to improve investor-state relations and avoid investor-state disputes, as well as attempts to reform the investment arbitration system.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{GarciaCorral, author = {Garc{\´i}a-Corral, Paulina}, title = {Framing attributions: A methodological and conceptual contribution to the study of explanations in political discourse}, doi = {10.48462/opus4-6124}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-61241}, school = {Hertie School}, pages = {iv, 137}, abstract = {As humans, we think of the social world in causal terms, seeking to answer questions that help us make sense of what happens around us, predict future outcomes, and address current issues. The way we communicate displays our causal reasoning, as it is through language that we share how we think the world works, and also attempt to control how others perceive who is responsible of social issues and how to fix them. Therefore, analyzing the use of causal expressions in the public sphere is crucial to better understand political discourse and its downstream effects on political opinion, attitudes, and behavior. In this dissertation, I develop a framework to identify and extract expressions of causal attributions from political text, drawing on techniques from computational linguistics. To do this, I design a coding scheme and create a corpus annotated for causal language in the political domain. I test the corpus on a broad range of pre-trained language models on the task of identifying and parsing expressions of causality: from smaller transformer-based models such as Bert, to modern Large Language Models, like GPT-4. Additionally, I introduce an evaluation strategy tailored to test if a model's causal extraction is done through linguistic parsing or by leveraging causal patterns learned during pre-training. After interpreting experimental results, I develop a framework to parse expressions of causal attributions in text, adapted for political methodology. With this novel measurement tool, I empirically examine the constructions of causality used in the coverage of two international conflicts. I demonstrate the method's capabilities and ease of use for political science research. With insights from the case study, I conceptualize "non attribution", and posit it as a unique framing practice, complementary to responsibility framing. With it, I argue that the omission of causal attributions is a distinct frame, and not a neutral absence in news coverage. With this dissertation, I extend the current scholarship on causal language modeling, and show how new text-as-data methods can be used to scale and examine discourse to identify novel concepts, and extend previous work in political communication.}, language = {en} } @article{Finnerty, author = {Finnerty, Joseph}, title = {How Should the European Court of Human Rights Remedy Violations of Article 18 ECHR? The Case for Remedial Realignment}, series = {European Convention on Human Rights Law Review}, volume = {5}, journal = {European Convention on Human Rights Law Review}, number = {3}, publisher = {Brill | Nijhoff}, doi = {10.1163/26663236-bja10100}, pages = {380 -- 399}, abstract = {This article assesses whether the European Court of Human Right's (Court) remedial reasoning in Article 18 European Convention on Human Rights (Convention) judgments coheres with the Court's merits-based reasoning finding a violation of this particular provision. Article 18 violations have come to highlight structural problems in state parties, most notably complicity from domestic judiciaries and/or state prosecutors in state efforts to restrict Convention rights for anti-democratic ulterior purposes. The article finds that this substantive feature of Article 18 violations does not generally extend to the Court's approach to formulating remedies and that the Article 18 violation judgments evidence the same remedial oversight generally present in the Court's broader case law. The article argues, however, that the Court's remedial approach in Article 18 violation judgments should be highly prescriptive and specific in respect of both individual and general measures on account of the reality that Article 18 serves both individual and constitutional justice and engages the positive dimension of subsidiarity.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Lohse, author = {Lohse, Anna Prisca}, title = {Higher Education in an Age of Disruption: Comparing European Internationalisation Policies}, publisher = {Palgrave Macmillan}, address = {Cham}, isbn = {9783031579110}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-031-57912-7}, school = {Hertie School}, pages = {XXIV, 338}, abstract = {This book investigates European higher education internationalisation policies during a period marked by extreme upheaval due to Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic. Situating her analysis at the intersection of higher education research and policy studies, the author combines historical and sociological institutionalism to investigate how this time of disruption impacted higher education policies in England, France and Germany. Based on extensive qualitative data derived from expert interviews and document analysis, the study offers timely insights into dynamics of institutional change and stability in higher education governance, as well as implications for the future of cross-border education and internationalisation. The book will appeal to academics and students interested in education policy and the internationalisation of higher education.}, language = {en} } @article{KaiserRodriguesAzevedoetal., author = {Kaiser, Silke K. and Rodrigues, Filipe and Azevedo, Carlos Lima and Kaack, Lynn H.}, title = {Spatio-temporal graph neural network for urban spaces: Interpolating citywide traffic volume}, series = {Expert Systems with Applications}, volume = {316}, journal = {Expert Systems with Applications}, publisher = {Elsevier BV}, doi = {10.1016/j.eswa.2026.131823}, abstract = {Graph Neural Networks have shown strong performance in traffic volume forecasting, particularly on highways and major arterial networks. Applying these models to urban street networks, however, presents unique challenges: urban networks are structurally more diverse, traffic volumes are highly overdispersed with many zeros, spatial dependencies are complex, and sensor coverage is often very sparse. To address these challenges, we introduce the Graph Neural Network for Urban Interpolation (GNNUI), a model designed specifically for citywide traffic volume interpolation. GNNUI employs a designated masking strategy to learn interpolation, integrates node features to capture the different functional roles across the street network, and uses a loss function tailored to zero-inflated traffic distributions. We evaluate GNNUI on two newly constructed, large-scale urban traffic volume benchmarks, covering different transportation modes: Strava cycling data from Berlin and New York City taxi data. Across multiple evaluation metrics, GNNUI outperforms both the state-of-the-art graph-based interpolation model IGNNK and the widely used machine-learning baseline XGBoost, reducing MAE by at least 13\% on Strava data and 7\% on Taxi data while better capturing the empirical traffic distribution, and improving the identification of zero-traffic streets. Additionally, the model remains robust under the realistic case of extremely scarce ground truth sensor data. When sensor coverage is reduced from 90\% to 1\%, the MAE increases by approximately 48\% on Strava and 76\% on the taxi data, despite the near-complete removal of sensor information. We also examine how graph connectivity choices influence model performance, and find that a simple and computationally efficient binary adjacency matrix outperforms distance or similarity based ones.}, language = {en} } @incollection{GohdesKohSchumann, author = {Gohdes, Anita R. and Koh, Allison W. and Schumann, Maurice P.}, title = {4 Digital Authoritarianism}, series = {De Gruyter Handbook of Political Control}, booktitle = {De Gruyter Handbook of Political Control}, editor = {Earl, Jennifer and Braithwaite, Jessica Maves}, publisher = {De Gruyter}, doi = {10.1515/9783111298559-005}, publisher = {Hertie School}, pages = {75 -- 89}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Wilkins, author = {Wilkins, Katherine}, title = {The New 'NORMal'? How innovative actors are reshaping the global approach to controlling corruption}, doi = {10.48462/opus4-6166}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-61661}, school = {Hertie School}, pages = {166}, abstract = {This dissertation explores the evolving global anti-corruption regime and examines the interplay between norms and strategic interests in shaping responses to corruption. While traditional narratives portray anti-corruption policy as a normative undertaking, in this dissertation I argue that states' responses to corruption are meaningfully shaped by the pursuit of geopolitical interests. At the theoretical level, this dissertation contributes to the rationalism-constructivism debate in international relations theory. Drawing on March and Olsen's dual logics analytical framework, this dissertation introduces a model of bounded decision-making in which norms serve as boundary conditions for responses, but interests shape their scope and intensity. In this model, states attempt to balance norms and interests by prioritizing interest-driven actions while still seeking to maintain normative legitimacy within the international system. Examining the recent decade of anti-corruption rulemaking and a key case of enforcement, this dissertation offers evidence that states may introduce or enforce anti-corruption rules as an instrument of geopolitical strategy. These findings have broad implications for international cooperation on corruption. Additionally, this dissertation contributes to the theoretical understanding of norm development within the analytical framework of network governance theory, which posits that complex global challenges can be effectively addressed through decentralized approaches to governance. This research further examines the role of non-state actors in anti- corruption governance, offering new evidence of how non-state actors navigate norm development, and examining these processes in the context of broader governance trends, especially the shifting relationships between state and non-state actors. These findings support the arguments of network governance theory on the role of non-state actors in global governance, demonstrating how they are shaping norms, including normative constraints on state decision-making. The empirical findings of this dissertation highlight the complexity of anti-corruption governance in a competitive global environment. By emphasizing the role of geopolitical interests in shaping responses to corruption, this research counters the prevailing narrative of anti-corruption as an exclusively normative field. These findings have significant implications for policymakers and anti-corruption advocates, calling for a nuanced understanding of state interests and the influence of non-state actors for advancing global anti-corruption efforts in an increasingly competitive international environment.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{LeNoan, author = {Le Noan, Anne-Cl{\´e}mence}, title = {Changing the way social inequality in education is treated in France and Germany: Schule macht stark (2019) and Les contrats locaux d'accompagnement (2020) as contrasting examples of layering}, doi = {10.48462/opus4-6167}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-61674}, school = {Hertie School}, pages = {316}, abstract = {France and Germany are among the OECD countries where social origin most strongly affects educational achievement. While the structural causes of this phenomenon have been widely studied, the institutionalization of its policy treatment and the room for manoeuvre available to policymakers to bring change in these two contrasting education systems remain underexplored. This dissertation addresses this gap through a comparative analysis of two recent policies targeting schools in disadvantaged areas: Schule macht stark in Germany and les contrats locaux d'accompagnement in France. Drawing on process-tracing, the analysis of documents and 50 interviews, and grounded in neo-institutionalist theory, this research shows that these policies exemplify layering: strong veto players constrained policymakers to implement change through the addition of experimental initiatives rather than through reform of existing policies. These shifts affected policy orientations—toward greater efficiency in France and greater equity in Germany—policy instruments—via the strengthening of New Public Management—and governance levels—with the involvement of the federal tier in Germany. In France, changes were rapid but short-lived, marked by the political instrumentalization of experimentation. In Germany, they were slower but more enduring, supported by academic expertise. In both cases, broader initiatives—Conseil national de la refondation and the Startchancen-Programm—have continued these trajectories, illustrating the relevance of the layering approach.}, language = {en} } @article{Robinson, author = {Robinson, Nicholas}, title = {Open to open-source AI? Navigating AI model choice in public sector agencies}, series = {Government Information Quarterly}, volume = {43}, journal = {Government Information Quarterly}, number = {2}, publisher = {Elsevier BV}, doi = {10.1016/j.giq.2026.102133}, abstract = {Public sector Agencies are increasingly adopting artificial intelligence (AI) tools. High quality open-source AI (OSAI) options are available, but much of their current attention is on proprietary options such as Copilot and ChatGPT. There are parallels with take-up of open-source software (OSS). While OSS has a foothold in niche functions of Agencies' technology suites, it has not seen widespread adoption despite backing from technical and political spheres and its potential to reduce costs and spur increased competition and innovation. Grounded in theoretical frameworks and evidence used to investigate OSS uptake, the study draws on interviews with 31 decision-makers on AI adoption in Australian, Canadian and German public sector Agencies to analyse key factors in the feasibility of open-source technologies in general and OSAI in particular, compared to their proprietary counterparts. In comparison to determinants of OSS adoption, technological characteristics like fit, control and the availability of hardware infrastructure are more influential in whether OSAI is adopted. Furthermore, organisational considerations like digital sovereignty and data protection were more prominent in the AI decisions. Conversely, AI models are more homogenous and easier to switch between than traditional software products, meaning that perceptions of usability, fears of vendor lock-in and availability of support were not as strong an influence as with OSS. Although AI is a fast-evolving technology, the choice to adopt OSAI or proprietary AI involves making commitments today — like investment in hardware and building internal sovereign capabilities — that will echo into the future.}, language = {en} }