Refine
Year of publication
- 2013 (187) (remove)
Document Type
- Article (75)
- Part of a Book (42)
- Working Paper (24)
- Editorship book (17)
- Contribution to a Periodical (9)
- Book (6)
- Master's Thesis (5)
- Conference Proceeding (2)
- Doctoral Thesis (2)
- Studentpaper (2)
- Case Study (1)
- Journal (1)
- Review (1)
Keywords
- China (3)
- Corruption (2)
- Education (2)
- Policy implementation (2)
- Variable renewables (2)
- Zwei-Wege-Modell (2)
- Accountability (1)
- Administrative Networks (1)
- Adolescent (1)
- Agency (1)
On croyait les démons assagis : à la faveur de la crise financière de 2008, les Etats avaient repris le dessus sur les marchés financiers et les politiques économiques savaient répondre et conjurer la dépression. Mais la tempête qui a ébranlé la zone euro entre 2009 et 2012, au départ crise banale dans une petite économie périphérique, la Grèce, a gagné un pays après l’autre et a menacé d’emporter tout l’édifice monétaire européen. Dans ce brillant essai, Jean Pisani-Ferry retrace les étapes de la crise et analyse les solutions adoptées. Si l’Europe a fait preuve d’un remarquable sens de la survie, elle souffre aujourd’hui d’une dangereuse absence de communauté de projets.
This article offers an empirically grounded interpretivist theory of the social legitimacy of the European Court of Human Rights based on domestic judicial and political elite accounts of the legitimacy of the Court in Turkey, Bulgaria, United Kingdom, Ireland and Germany. The central argument of the article is that the social legitimacy of the European Court of Human Rights is based on a constant comparison between the values and goals of domestic institutions and the values and goals of the European Court of Human Rights. More specifically, the social legitimacy of the European Court of Human Rights is grounded in the logic of a fair compromise: What actors think they lose by according legitimacy to the European Court of Human Rights must be balanced by what they perceive to gain in return. Three factors organise how actors in different domestic settings struck a fair compromise in their domestic contexts: a) perception of domestic human rights conditions, b) commitment to cosmopolitan ideals of human rights and international law and c) commitment to domestic institutions.
This paper provides a comprehensive discussion of the market value of variable renewable energy (VRE). The inherent variability of wind speeds and solar radiation affects the price that VRE generators receive on the market (market value). During windy and sunny times the additional electricity supply reduces the prices. Because the drop is larger with more installed capacity, the market value of VRE falls with higher penetration rate. This study aims to develop a better understanding on how the market value with penetration, and how policies and prices affect the market value. Quantitative evidence is derived from a review of published studies, regression analysis of market data, and the calibrated model of the European electricity market EMMA. We find the value of wind power to fall from 110% of the average power price to 50–80% as wind penetration increases from zero to 30% of total electricity consumption. For solar power, similarly low value levels are reached already at 15% penetration. Hence, competitive large-scale renewable deployment will be more difficult to accomplish than as many anticipate.
Energy and climate policies are usually seen as measures to internalize externalities. However, as a side effect, the introduction of these policies redistributes wealth between consumers and producers, and within these groups. While redistribution is seldom the focus of the academic literature in energy economics, it plays a central role in public debates and policy decisions. This paper compares the distributional effects of two major electricity policies: support schemes for renewable energy sources, and CO2 pricing. We find that the redistribution effects of both policies are large, and they work in opposed directions. While renewables support transfers wealth from producers to consumers, carbon pricing does the opposite. More specifically, we show that moderate amounts of wind subsidies can increase consumer surplus, even if consumers bear the subsidy costs. CO2 pricing, in contrast, increases aggregated producer surplus, even without free allocation of emission allowances; however, not all types of producers benefit. These findings are derived from an analytical model of electricity markets, and a calibrated numerical model of Northwestern Europe. Our findings imply that if policy makers want to avoid large redistribution they might prefer a mix of policies, even if CO2 pricing alone is the first-best climate policy in terms of allocative efficiency.
Levelized costs of electricity (LCOE) are a common metric for comparing power generating technologies. However, there is criticism particularly towards evaluating variable renewables like wind and solar PV power based on LCOE because it ignores variability and integration costs. We propose a new metric System LCOE that accounts for integration and generation costs. For this purpose we develop a new mathematical definition of integration costs that directly relates to economic theory. As a result System LCOE allow the economic comparison of generating technologies and deriving optimal quantities in particular for VRE. To demonstrate the new concept we quantify System LCOE from a simple power system model and literature values. We find that at high wind shares integration costs can be in the same range as generation costs of wind power and conventional plants in particular due to a cost component “profile costs” captured by the new definition. Integration costs increase with growing wind shares and might become an economic barrier to deploying VRE at high shares. System LCOE help understanding and resolving the challenge of integrating VRE and can guide research and policy makers in realizing a cost-efficient transformation towards an energy system with potentially high shares of variable renewables.
With the global expansion of renewable energy (RE) technologies, the provision of optimal RE policy packages becomes an important task. We review pivotal aspects regarding the economics of renewables that are relevant to the design of an optimal RE policy, many of which are to date unresolved. We do so from three interrelated perspectives that a meaningful public policy framework for inquiry must take into account. First, we explore different social objectives justifying the deployment of RE technologies, including potential co-benefits of RE deployment, and review modelbased estimates of the economic potential of RE technologies, i.e. their socially optimal deployment level. Second, we address pivotal market failures that arise in the course of implementing the economic potential of RE sources in decentralized markets. Third, we discuss multiple policy instruments curing these market failures. Our framework reveals the requirements for an assessment of the relevant options for real-world decision makers in the field of RE policies. This review makes it clear that there are remaining white areas on the knowledge map concerning consistent and socially optimal RE policies.
Should there be free trade? This question finds different, and often contradicting answers in philosophy and economics. Among economists, there is a remarkable consensus that free markets are desirable. It is this curious consensus that motivates this study.
This dissertations aims to explain, reconstruct and contest the neoclassical vision in mainstream trade theory. It is argued that economic justifications for free trade policies rely on an array of implicit and explicit normative premises,and that economists take positions on topics that are usually dealt with by political philosophers. Taken together, these premises and positions amount to what will be called the neoclassical vision. It is argued that throughout the history of economics, economic doctrines were inescapably normative. Tracing the intellectual and historical origins of this neoclassical vision, it is shown how a specific view of what justice demands in the economy came to be constitutive of today’s economic arguments. I hence attempt to treat economics today as it has historically been: as a branch of political philosophy, and as inextricably normative.
Normative trade theory and the theoretical arguments put forward by international economists will serve as the case study on which basis the neoclassical vision is reconstructed. In turn, the vision will be critically assessed from a liberal egalitarian perspective. Particular attention will be paid to the question of the role of politics in how losers from economic activity are treated.
Following this critical analysis, I argue for the need of a normative ‘countervision’that is most convincingly provided by John Rawls’s early work. It will then be outlined how Rawls could respond and overcome the pitfalls of the neoclassical vision – even though Rawls is deeply influenced by conventional economic thought himself. (...)
This study was conceived in the context of a project course on CSR instruments and modelled on a real case. The German Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (BMAS) had tendered a report that would provide an overview of the existing classification tools used to evaluate CSR performance. The report is part of the National Strategy on Corporate Social Responsibility, the CSR action plan of the German government.
The Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs is the lead ministry responsible for implementing the National Strategy for Corporate Social Responsibility. The Action Plan for CSR was decided by the federal cabinet on October 6th, 2010. According to the Action Plan, CSR measures include a company’s contributions to voluntarily participate and include social responsibility into their business plan. The inclusion of a company’s key stakeholders is an integral part of CSR.
The goal was not only to provide an overview of the principle and international agreements but also to classify existing instruments from different stakeholders’ perspectives. For this, students analysed 58 CSR instruments for which they developed a diverse set of evaluation criteria. Moreover, they tested their assumptions about key stakeholders’ interests in a small workshop interviewing representatives of trade unions, chambers of commerce, consumer groups as well NGOs.
The result is a very impressive piece of work as it presents new insight in a largely under-researched field. The report was presented to the working group on evaluation of the federal CSR forum in Berlin on June 6th, 2012 where it received a lot of praise by the participants. I hope it will be used in the professional world.
This paper introduces an indicator framework, which allows for a valid and reliable assessment of the service quality of customer-focused government services. While defining service quality is a difficult task, also operationalising and measuring such an elusive concept can never be done perfectly due to a number of problems. Given the ‘soft’ nature of service quality, most prior research has focused on survey-based methods, which while being essential have serious flaws owed to this method’s inherent lack of reliability. Following suggestions by prior research in the field, this paper develops an assessment framework combining a ‘soft’ indicator based on a SERVQUAL survey with a set of ‘hard’ variables adding the reliability, which previous approaches lack.
The indicator was initially developed, tested and re-adjusted for measuring service quality in Berlin’s 40 Bürgerämter. However, it can be adapted in a way that it is applicable to most customer-based government services. The ‘soft’ part of this indicator was developed on the lines of five dimensions, scoring services according to their tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy.
On the ‘hard’ dimension, we have picked a set of eleven variables, which unequivocally add/subtract from service quality, while having the advantage of being measured in a straightforward manner. While the operationalisation and weighting of these variables is open to academic and professional debate, we are confident to have followed a transparent and clearly comprehensible process. We acknowledge, however, that these variables will have to be adjusted when other services are being measured.
All in all, the developed Service Quality Indicator for Customer-Based Public Services (SQI) should be regarded as a starting point for a comprehensive and easily constructible framework to assess service quality in the good governance arena. We hope that this indicator framework will be perfected to the point that it can contribute to a better overall measurement and therefore improvement of government services.
My EMPM Master thesis focuses on changing governance structures in European research policy and the role the European Commission is playing in this context. In particular, it aims at investigating whether we currently witness the transition of the European Commission’s Directorate ‐ General for Research (and Innovation) into a European research ministry. In order to lay the ground for finding answers to this question, I first introduce the history of Community activities in the area of research and discuss the development of power relations between the different European players in the area. The concept of ”agencification” and its consequences for the work, status and self ‐ perception of the European Commission is looked at in particular depth. In the following analytical chapter I argue that this paradigm shift is indeed taking place and that, among others elements, the new position of research as ”shared competence” after the Lisbon Treaty, the relatively recent creation of two executive research agencies and strong leadership embodied in the person of the Commissioner for Research and Innovation have contributed decisively to the development. The thesis is based on the analysis of both relevant literature and theory as well as on semi ‐ structured interviews that I carried out with relevant stakeholders in Brussels, both from the European institutions and from concerned institutions, organizations, and associations, hence providing a sound mix of theoretical approaches and practical reflections.
Education is widely believed to be a key to the development of individuals and society. However, it is also clear that core global political commitments aiming at universality as included in the Millenium Development Goals and the right to education can only be achieved if policy efforts start addressing systematically disadvantaged parts of society. This is the topic of the present paper on sociodemographic barriers to equity in education in Nepal. So far, many policy efforts to enhance educational opportunities are based on a one dimensional assessments of the most disadvantage population groups. They assume, for instance, that girls are generally more disadvantaged than boys or that people living in rural areas are more disadvantaged than those living in urban areas. In her paper, Ann-Kathrin Scheuermann goes further and explore s which combinations of sociodemographic attributes impede equity in education in Nepal in terms of access to education and attainment. She is able to use unique data, the Nepal Living Standards Survey 2010/11 compiled by the World Bank and the Nepalese Central Bureau of Statistics as well as qualitative participatory assessments in the field. She finds that the most influential attributes established in the literature – wealth, geography and gender – do matter, but that culture specific group characteristics are at least as relevant. Poverty remains a major barrier to equity in education. The effect of geography is two dimensional, impeding equity in both rural and urban areas, but for different reasons. In rural areas disadvantages are related to infrastructural aspects, e.g. distance to the nearest school, whereas in urban areas income generation alternatives impede educational opportunities. Gender differences have decreased with regard to access over time, but girls remain disadvantaged when it comes to higher attainment. When looking at inequity regarding geography, gender and wealth jointly, poor boys (not girls!) in urban are among the most disadvantaged. These finding s have great policy -¬‐ relevance. In order to reach the most marginalized population groups policy analysis must go beyond a one dimensional analysis of attributes but look at them in combination. Moreover, socio -¬‐ cultural barriers related to caste, religion and disability can be highly impeding factors which need to be addressed explicitly when designing policies in Nepal. More generally, policies can be tailored more effectively by identifying the most marginalized population groups in order to improve their educational opportunities and achieve universal political commitments and true equity in education.
With the establishment of the Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP) in 1999, the EU aimed to tackle challenges in the field of security by deploying various military, police, justice and rule of law missions in troubled crisis areas. The Lisbon Treaty put the instrument of CSDP Missions on a new height, putting it under the umbrella of the European External Action Service with the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs & Security Policy / Vice -President of the European Commission as their highest representative. CSDP Missions - while dealing with civilian crisis management in conflict and post- conflict countries - are operating in a highly political environment with demands and direction coming from the EU Member States, the EU institution s, the Host Nations and other international actors. Common values and norms applying to CSDP Missions are underdeveloped and not well communicated. Mandates are often not clearly defined. The work force is mainly seconded by the Member States and highly di verse in respect to culture, professional background and experience and language. Women are strongly underrepresented. Even though leadership is crucial in such a challenging environment, it has never been addressed within the CSDP structures until very recently. This thesis analysis the complexities of CSDP Missions and demands put on leadership in such an environment. Furthermore, it defines best practices and closes with recommendations on how the leadership culture in CSDP Missions can be improved. Results are generated by using literature analysis, interviews with key stakeholders, online questionnaires and the authors own work experience in a CSDP Mission. For CSDP Missions to become even more successful a stronger emphasis on the development of leadership culture seems appropriate. Starting from creating a leadership development strategy, defining standard guidelines and principals for recruitment and promotion of personnel, addressing the problem of gender imbalance, importance should be also put on defining a favored leadership style and common values. Future leaders should be skilled and experienced in working in a highly politicised environment leading and empowering a multi-cultural, diverse work force. With an effective leadership culture CSDP Missions will succeed in being a strong EU actor in civilian crisis management and helping to foster security and maintain peace in the world.
Critics argue that inflation targeting (IT) has met its demise in face of the current financial crisis. As such , p rice - level targeting and nominal gross domestic product (GDP) targeting have been proposed as alternatives, but to date no country has made the switch – why is this so? Existing literature tends to treat the choice of targeting regime as a function of economic theory, empirical precedents, and policy execution constraints. I find this analytical framework insufficient; otherwise, we should observe at least some countries exiting IT regimes in light of the arguments made thus far. In order to explain why governments have yet to make the switch away from IT, I propose that a fourth determinant needs to be added to the framework – politics. Based on this framework, I conclude that IT has yet to meet its demise.
Development aid is underperforming in terms of effectiveness due to donor diversification, proliferation and fragmentation. The re quest for more harmonized and collectively effective actions formulated in the High-Leve l Fora on aid effectiveness have gained sup- port across donor and recipient countries. However, commitment has not been successfully translated into significant changes on the ground. This gap between policy and country level practices needs to be addressed to make development assistance more effective. A first formal partnership of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and Lux-Development (LuxDev) has been established in the sector of technical vocational education and training. To assess this partnership and to identify areas for improvement, the study addresses the following research question: Under which conditions do implementing agencies in international development cooperation enter into, develop and sustain inter-organizational collaboration? The dimensions of the collaboration process are at the center of the analysis. The study develops a theoretical framework that consists of criteria to assess collaboration efforts of the agencies in four selected countries nd identifies weaknesses in the structural, the agency, and the social capital dimension. Structural aspects include common visions, shares power arrangements and commitment of the recipient country. Shared personal opinions, alignment of procedures and information exchange helps reconciling individual and collective interests. The analysis of the social capital dimension shows that mutual interaction, reciprocity and trust-building are crucial to successfully build social relationships which form the basis of any collaboration process. A set of nine recommendations are proposed to address the shortcomings in each of the three dimensions of the collaboration process to improve the partnership of the three agencies. To address the structural blocking factors, the agencies should evaluate their collaboration efforts, create a coordinating body and speak to the recipient country’s government with one voice. To manage the tension between individual and collective interests, regular discussions with everyone involved and knowledge about the tools, procedures and implementing mechanisms of the collaboration partners are crucial. To better meet the criteria of the social capital dimension, the agencies should appoint boundary-spanners and create opportunities to learn about their collaboration partners’ culture.
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) is often portrayed as a policy that will mitigate climate change whilst fostering social and environmental improvements in the most isolated and under-developed regions of the world. Our work sets out to assess this cl aim by evaluating whether REDD is effectively designed as an instrument that is suitable for generating local development in forest regions. After revealing the underlying governance rationale through which REDD is expected to generate positive outcomes on the global and local levels, we develop a framework to assess whether the REDD strategies developed through the FCPF and the UN-REDD Readiness initiatives are putting in place the policy environment that is necessary for REDD to function as a development mechanism. Through the comparative analysis of six national Readiness strategies from the Latin American region, we reveal that policies designed under Readiness systematically pay more attention to the development of baseline emissions scenarios and MRV systems than to the establishment of the policy conditions that must be in place for REDD to generate local development. Our analysis suggests that a number of policy design elements might be resulting in the failure of national REDD strategies to address underlying governance problems. The phased approach to Readiness creates incentives for governments to rush through the institutional reform stages, and REDD’s current design only rewards quantifiable GHG emissions reductions, providing few incentives for countries to invest in social and environmental improvements. Furthermore, the reliance on carbon market finance and the operational structure of the FCPF may also result in overinvestments in MRV systems to the detriment of more complex institutional reforms. We conclude by presenting a set of recommendations for reforming the underlying governance logic of REDD in order to enhance its potential as a local development mechanism.
Corruption has an impact. It is about time that anticorruption starts having an impact, too.
This is the first annual policy report of the European Seventh Framework Research Project ANTICORRP, which has started in 2012 and will continue until 2018. Based on the work of 21 different research centers and universities gathering original data, ANTICORRP offers yearly updates on the latest from corruption research, analyzing both the consequences of corruption and the impact of policies attempting to curb it.
This first report offers a methodology to evaluate corruption risk and quality of government at country, region and sector level by means of corruption indicators that are sensitive to change and policy intervention. The aim of the project is to offer testable, easy to handle policies which reduce corruption risk.
Corruption distorts market competition, bolsters deficits on behalf of discretionary spending, hurts real investment in public health and education, reduces tax collection, detriments the absorption rate of EU funds, and generates vulnerable employment and brain drain. This study estimates that if EU member states would all manage to control corruption at the Danish level, tax collection in Europe would increase by 323 billion Euro per year – double of the EU budget for 2013.
In a comprehensive empirical investigation (N = 71,405) we analyzed the development of legal expertise in a critical 1-year period of academic legal training in which advanced law students start practicing to solve complex cases. We were particularly interested in the functional form of the learning curve and inter-individual differences in learning. Performance increases monotonically with the number of practice exams following a slightly concave learning curve without any considerable kinks. Considering the performance development over time, however, the curve is not monotonic and shows intermediate drops in performance. We provide evidence which suggests that these drops are due to cyclic drops in motivation. There are about equally sized marginal effects of practicing law exams in general and practicing exams in the specific area of law. However, students with high (vs. low) initial performance profit more from practicing exams within a specific area of law whereas students with low initial performance profit more from practicing exams in general. The concave increase in performance with the number of practicing exams is mainly driven by individuals with low initial performance. Those with high initial performance mainly display a linear learning trend. We discuss the practical implications of these findings for academic legal training.
We run a large-scale natural field experiment to evaluate alternative strategies to enforce compliance with the law. The experiment varies the text of mailings sent to potential evaders of TV license fees. We find a strong effect of mailings, leading to a substantial increase in compliance. Among different mailings, a threat treatment which makes a high detection risk salient has a significant deterrent effect. Neither appealing to morals nor imparting information about others’ behavior enhances compliance on aggregate. However, the information condition has a weak positive effect in municipalities where evasion is believed to be common.
This study illustrates how entrepreneurship may catalyze prosperity as well as peace in entrenched poverty–conflict zones. We bring to life a conceptualization of transformative entrepreneuring by assessing interrelationships between poverty and conflict indicators from the perspective of rural dwellers in Rwanda's entrepreneurial coffee sector. Our findings suggest that individuals' perceptions of poverty alleviation and conflict reduction are sequentially linked, notably via increased quality of life. This enables us to advance theory on entrepreneuring by unpacking the mechanisms through which entrepreneurial processes may transform the lives of such ‘ordinary’ entrepreneurs in settings where economic and social value creation are desperately needed.
Auf mehreren Ebenen Agieren
(2013)
Global Public Goods. A concept for framing the Post - 2015 Agenda? DIE Discussion Paper 2/2013
(2013)
Control of corruption in a society is an equilibrium between resources and costs which either empowers or constraints elites predatory behavior. While most research and practice focuses on legal constraints, this paper investigates normative constraints, deemed to be more important, especially civil society and the press. Fresh evidence—both historical and statistical—is found to support Tocqueville’s assertions regarding the importance of collective action and the joint action of media and associations in not only creating a democratic society, but controlling corruption as well. However, little is known on how to build normative constraints.
This paper conceptualizes public corruption as part of a broader social order context. It argues that corruption should not be conceived of as a social ‘malady’ to be eradicated, but rather as a default governance regime. People naturally favor their own, be it family, clan, race or ethnic group: treating the rest of the world fairly seems to be a matter of extensive social evolution and sufficient resources. Very few societies have evolved from this natural state of affairs to produce a state which can be expected to treat everyone equally and fairly, and to put public above private interest, when entrusted with the management of common affairs and resources. The paper surveys the approaches to anticorruption of three distinct political regimes, monarchy, medieval republic and modern democracy to conclude that current anticorruption should be conceptualized as solving collective action problems rather than as repression of deviance.
The report, drafted for the European Network of Legal Experts in the non-discrimination field (on the grounds of race or ethnic origin, age, disability, religion or belief and sexual orientation), is part of a study into measures to combat discrimination in the EU Member States and candidate countries, funded by the European Community Programme for Employment and Social Solidarity – PROGRESS. The report provides an overview of Turkey's implementation of the EU anti-discrimination Directives up to 1 January 2013 and precedes and follows earlier reports drafted by the author for the same project.
The cutaneous carotenoid concentration correlates with the overall antioxidant status of a person and can be seen as biomarker for nutrition and lifestyle. 50 high school students were spectroscopically measured for their cutaneous carotenoid concentrations initially in a static phase, followed by an intervention phase with biofeedback of their measured values, living a healthy lifestyle and on healthy food this time. The volunteers showed higher carotenoid concentrations than found in previous studies. A significant correlation of healthy lifestyle habits and a high antioxidant status could be determined. Subjects improved their nutritional habits and significantly increased their carotenoid concentration during intervention. Follow-up five months later showed a consolidation of the increase. The investigations show that a healthy diet and a well-balanced lifestyle correlate with a high cutaneous antioxidant concentration and that spectroscopic biofeedback measurement of cutaneous carotenoids as part of an integrated prevention program is a feasible and effective means to raise the health awareness in adolescents.
This paper examines the reliability of biographical information gathered retrospectively. It draws on data from the German Family Panel (pairfam), which collected information on the partnership status at first birth using two different methods. The first method is based on data on partnership and fertility histories collected retrospectively. The second method uses data gathered through the use of a “landmark question” on the respondents’ partnership status when their first children were born. We find that in almost 20 percent of the cases, the information collected using the first method did not correspond with the information collected using the second method. Partnership dissolution and “turbulence” in the partnership biography are strong predictors for discrepancies in the information gathered through the two different survey methods. We conclude by drawing attention to the limitations of the retrospective collection of partnership histories at a time when divorce and separation rates are increasing.
Political Expertise in Poland in the Field of Foreign Policy and the Emergence of Think Tanks
(2013)
Wunsch und Wirklichkeit
(2013)
Von Wachstum und Wohlstand
(2013)
Experiences from all around the world show that citizens increasingly articulate their discontent with large-scale projects. Still, public debates often leave politics, administrations, corporations and citizens unsatisfied. How can we improve mutual understanding, provide political legitimacy and facilitate economic efficiency? This book pinpoints the opportunities and challenges of participatory modes of governance by offering theoretical accounts and analyses of large-scale projects focusing on infrastructure, communication and public administration.
With contributions by:
Marko Bachl, Henning Banthien, Sarah Bastgen, Daniela Ciaffi, Christopher Gohl, Andreas Hoffelder, Kjetil Holgeid, Mathias König, Wolfgang König, Thamy Pogrebinschi, Martina Richwien, Claudia Ritzi, Andrea Römmele, Fabiano Santos, Emanuela Saporito, Stefan Schaible, Henrik Schober, Gunnar Folke Schuppert, Carmen Sirianni, Arne Spieker, Johannes Staemmler, Mark Thompson, Andrea Versteyl, Paul Webb, Katrin Winkler
Governments are increasingly challenged by citizens who demand for more than just classical representation through elections. Citizen movements call for modes of continuous and issue-oriented participation. This volume addresses the question to what extent new forms of citizen participation enhance democratic legitimacy and where the limits are.
Politische Botschaften werden seit jeher mit einem "Gesicht" verknüpft. Bei anstehenden Wahlen rücken die Kandidaten deshalb vermehrt ins Rampenlicht. [Die Autorin] erörtert am aktuellen Beispiel des Bundestagswahlkampfes mit Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel und dem Spitzenkandidaten der SPD, Peer Steinbrück, das Phänomen der Personalisierung von Wahlkämpfen. In einem ersten Schritt wird der Begriff der Personalisierung mittels dreier Dimensionen definiert. Daran anschließend werden die beiden Spitzenkandidaten der Bundestagswahl 2013 analysiert: Wo liegen ihre Stärken und Schwächen? Welche Themen favorisieren und präsentieren sie? In einem weiteren Schritt werden Angela Merkel und Peer Steinbrück aus der Sicht der Wählerschaft diskutiert. Und schließlich geht es um die Fragen, welche Rolle Kandidaten in den unterschiedlichen Modellen der Wahlentscheidung spielen und wie es um die Gewichtung von Parteiidentifikation, Themen und Personen beim Wahlentscheid bestellt ist.
Europe has been a primary actor in Turkey’s democratization process and for the Kurdish political struggle carried out simultaneously by the PKK and civilian actors since the late 1980s. The European Union and the European Court of Human Rights have had an indispensable role in raising awareness and documenting the plight of the Kurds on the one hand and inducing Turkey to embark on political reform on the other. Since the mid-2000s, however, the dynamics between Europe, the Turkish government and the Kurdish political movement have
drastically changed, diminishing the role, legitimacy and significance of European institutions in Turkey and forcing the Turkish state and the Kurds to develop a “home grown” solution to the conflict. While the “peace process” launched by the government in late 2012 raises
hopes for a peaceful settlement, the mismatch between the parties’
expectations render it extremely fragile.
Despite Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s emphasis to the contrary, the “democratisation package” announced on September 30 was expected to be more than just another bundle of EU-induced reforms. The much-awaited package came nearly a year after the initiation of informal peace talks between the government and Abdullah Öcalan – the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), listed as a terrorist organisation by the EU and the US – and six months after Öcalan made a historic call to his fighters to end the armed struggle. The package was anticipated as the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government’s response to Öcalan’s three-stage road map for peace. Yet, rather than legislative changes for a political settlement on the Kurdish question, Erdoğan announced a generic harmonisation package, a move which has put into question his government’s commitment to the peace process. The fragility of the cease fire between the PKK and the Turkish military and the urgency of radical reforms to prevent a deadlock in the peace process render the AKP’s piecemeal approach to democratisation too costly at this point in time. With the EU’s opening of negotiations on Chapter 22 on regional policy, which pertains to decentralisation in governance and is thus relevant for a political solution to the Kurdish question, there is a real and urgent need for European policy makers to be involved in the peace process in Turkey.
Die neue Frauenfrage
(2013)
Priorität: Geringverdiener
(2013)
Obsessed with the preservation of national unity and homogeneity, the Turkish state has since its inception had little tolerance for Kurdish demands for greater legal recognition and a measure of autonomy. However, its 1987 decision to give its citizens the right to petition the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to enhance its chances for membership to the European Union (EU) obliged the state to confront, at the transnational level, the Kurdish demands for human rights protection and equal treatment. The cases taken to the ECtHR by Kurdish civilians revealed that cloaked in the language of ‘war on terrorism’, the Turkish military had committed egregious violations including the forced displacement of civilians , the destruction of property, the burning of forests, as well as extra-judicial killings, disappearances and torture. Turkey’s EU candidacy increased the existing international pressure on the government to revise its mode of dealing with the insurgency and with Kurdish political and cultural demands more generally. The EU demanded
that Turkey first and foremost execute the ECtHR’s judgments on Kurdish issues, but also grant the Kurds limited linguistic rights in order to fulfil minority rights protection as part of the membership accession criteria. Yet, as argued in this chapter, although there has been some improvement, the problem has not been eradicated nor has there been any substantive change in government policy on the Kurdish question.
Severe economic and financial market crises exacerbate collective action problems and thus trigger challenges to legitimacy in democracies. The article presents a typology of decision-making modes in economic policy-making in normal times and crisis times. It shows that problems of time-inconsistency in combination with high uncertainty over re-distributive implications lead to an “ad-hoc-technocratization” of economic policy-making. The separation of decision-taking from input-based legitimacy-procedures is relevant for scholars of democracy because the redistributive implications of crisis policies are high. The “democratic deficit” of crisis policies is thus not a symptom of “Post-Democracy” but of the specific context arising in an economic crisis.
Aufbruch in die Euro-Union
(2013)
Trotz der offensichtlichen sozialpolitischen Relevanz und großen medialen Aufmerksamkeit des Phänomens Kinderlosigkeit sind das Ausmaß, die Ursachen und die Konsequenzen der Kinderlosigkeit in Deutschland bislang unzureichend untersucht worden, mit der Folge, dass in öffentlichen Debatten eine unkritische Verwendung irreführender, wenn nicht falscher Angaben über Kinderlosigkeit vorherrscht. Das Ziel des Bandes besteht vor diesem Hintergrund darin, das Phänomen der Kinderlosigkeit in Deutschland analytisch differenziert zu durchdringen und belastbare Daten und Ergebnisse über das Ausmaß und die Struktur, die Ursachen und Folgen von Kinderlosigkeit zu präsentieren.
Hintergrund
Je niedriger der soziale Status von Müttern und Vätern, desto höher ist die Verbreitung von Gesundheitsstörungen und Krankheiten bei ihnen selbst und auch bei ihren Kindern. Für Strategien der Gesundheitsförderung ist es entsprechend wichtig, Eltern mit niedrigem Sozialstatus stärker als bisher einzubeziehen.
Ziel
Da Eltern mit den bisherigen freien Angeboten nur sehr schwer erreicht werden können, wird in diesem Beitrag analysiert, auf welchen Wegen Elternbildungsprogramme über die Settings Kindergarten, Schule und Jugend- und Familienhilfe in die Lebenswelt aller Familien verbindlich eingebunden werden können.
Ergebnis
Am Beispiel von drei unterschiedlichen Elternbildungsprogrammen („Lions-Quest“, „STEP“ und „U-Boot“) wird im Rahmen einer formativen Evaluation analysiert, auf welche Weise diese Einbindung gelingen kann. Am Beispiel des STEP-Elterntrainings wird nachgewiesen, dass durch ein in die Settings eingebettetes Angebot mehr Mütter und Väter aus sozial benachteiligten Familien erreicht werden können als mit einem nicht institutionell verankerten Angebot.
Young women, and not young men, acquire the privileged diplomas offered by the educational system, and it is they who obtain the more promising career prospects. In this paper, we seek to identify factors that account for the declining school performance of boys and young men. After reviewing and analysing the international literature on gender and education, we integrate various explanatory approaches into a comprehensive socialisation model. The model focuses on the developmental tasks young men face during adolescence. Our central thesis is that the declining school performance of young men cannot be fully explained by their failure to cope with the developmental task ‘qualification’. Rather, the three other central clusters of developmental tasks – ‘social attachment’, ‘regeneration’, and ‘participation’ – have to be incorporated. The crucial implication is that supporting young men at school will show only limited results. Rather, to improve the school performance of young men, it is also necessary to address their deficits in coping with the other developmental tasks.
In einem Aufsatz in der Zeitschrift „Die Deutsche Schule“ habe ich in Heft 4 des Jahrgangs 1988, also vor 25 Jahren, „Thesen zur strukturellen Entwicklung des Bildungs-
systems in den nächsten fünf bis zehn Jahren“ zur Diskussion gestellt. In diesem Beitrag fasse ich im ersten Teil die Thesen in ihrer Essenz zusammen, sodass die Kernaussagen zu Strukturentwicklungen deutlich werden. Es handelte sich nicht nur um feststellende Thesen, die eine Einschätzung bestehender Trends und eine Prognose künftiger Entwicklungen beabsichtigten, sondern auch um normative Aussagen mit dem
Charakter von Handlungsempfehlungen an die Bildungspolitik, die eine Reaktion auf die zu erwartenden Trends vorschlugen. Im Zentrum stand das Postulat, ein „Zwei-Wege-Modell“ für das Schulsystem zu etablieren, indem neben dem Gymnasium eine Integrierte Sekundarschule aufgebaut wird. Im zweiten Teil konfrontiere ich die Thesen mit der heutigen Realität und stelle die Frage, ob die vor einem Vierteljahrhundert formulierten Trendfortschreibungen und Entwicklungsprognosen richtig waren. Im dritten Teil schreibe ich die Thesen zur strukturellen Entwicklung des Bildungssystems auf der Basis des Jahres 2013 fort.
Im Zusammenhang mit der Diskussion über das Für und Wider des dreigliedrigen Schulsystems in der Bundesrepublik machte der Autor dieses Artikels in den 1970er Jahren den Vorschlag, Haupt-, Real- und Gesamtschulen zu integrierten Sekundarschulen zusammenzufassen, mit eigenen Oberstufen auszustatten und dem Gymnasium gleichzustellen. Dieser Artikel zeichnet die wissenschaftliche und politische Diskussion zu diesem "Zwei-Wege-Modell". Die Analyse zeigt, dass nach anfänglicher vehementer Ablehnung im Zuge der Vereinigung der beiden deutschen Staaten eine schrittweise Annäherung an das Modell erfolgte. Die Gründe werden unter anderem in der Stärkung der international ausgerichteten empirischen Bildungsforschung und dem dadurch entstandenen Druck gesehen, Bildungsgerechtigkeit herzustellen. Hinzu kommen gestiegene Qualifikationsanforderungen sowie demografische Faktoren. Es wird die These vertreten, dass es sich hierbei um unumkehrbare Entwicklungstrends handelt und sich das Zwei-Wege-Modell mittelfristig in allen 16 Ländern durchsetzen wird.
Youth protest, sometimes accompanied by riots, in a number of
European countries over the last few years repeatedly trigger the question whether similar forms of protest can be expected in the near future from young people in Germany as well. While any, often spontaneous eruption of (violent) protest, can never be predicted with certainty, we argue, based on an analysis of the last Shell Youth Studies (cf. Shell Deutschland 2002, 2006, 2010), that it is rather unlikely to happen in Germany, indeed that if anything this likelihood has decreased over recent years. We identify three explanations for the – compared to a range of other European countries – striking acquiescence of the current young generation in Germany: 1. A range of institutions that keep young Germans in the education system until they finally find employment, 2. a strong culture of pragmatic individualism, and 3. a strong distrust of political parties.
Based on three in-depth case studies, the study analyzes how and why Chinese enterprises partner with governments in cooperative ventures which aim to simultaneously achieve poverty alleviation objectives and establish profitable business ventures in rural areas. The analysis draws out specific characteristics of three government-business partnerships in China, which vary in terms of governance structure, resource complementarity and incentives. The findings show that in this state capitalist system, outcomes of government-business partnerships depend on firms having unique resources and capabilities that serve particular policy objectives of the government. By the same token, in order to make partnerships attractive to firms, national and local governments must hold the keys to unique resources needed by enterprises looking to do business in low-income markets. The cases further illustrate that, in order to build and maintain successful government-business partnerships over time, the alignment of incentives plays an important role. In sum, complementary resources and well-aligned interests between firms and governments help to explain why some government-enterprise partnerships are more successful than others.
This paper analyzes the determinants of Chinese government support for methanol automobile fuel development. At the national level, a preference for low carbon alternatives, ongoing bureaucratic restructuring, and profitability concerns of the national oil companies (NOCs) help to explain a lack of support for methanol fuel. At the local level, a short-term and localized view of industry development explains why some governments actively promote methanol fuel through local standardization, subsidies, and management of NOC opposition. The case of methanol fuel illustrates how local governments with strong, embedded interests have filled in the national-level policy vacuum on this issue. These findings contribute to the ongoing debate on the evolving central–local relations in China and hold lessons for alternative fuel adoption efforts underway in many parts of the world.
Why do policies often seem to converge across countries at the same time? This question has been studied extensively in the diffusion literature. However, past research has not examined complex choice environments, especially where there are many alternatives. This article fills this gap in the literature. I show how Fine and Gray’s Competing Risks Event History Analysis can be used to tease apart the causes of policy convergence. I apply the method to an examination of the reasons why, from the mid-1990s to 2007, many countries created independent deposit insurers. I find an interaction between international recommendations and regional peers’ choices, particularly in the European Union. However, convergence appears to slow under the particular conditions of a banking crisis, regardless of how well independence is promoted. Possibly due to electoral incentives, democracies seem to have been more likely to create independent insurers. Ultimately, I demonstrate how competing risks analysis can help enable future research on policy choices, complementing methods previously applied in political economy.
Barriers to increasing energy efficiency: Evidence from small- and medium-sized enterprises in China
(2013)
This paper analyzes financial, informational and organizational barriers to energy efficiency investments for small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in China. Its findings are based on a survey of 480 SMEs in Zhejiang province, and complemented by semi-structured interviews with enterprises contained in the survey sample. Responses reveal that only a minority of SMEs in China actively perform energy saving activities at a significant level. The survey data suggest, further, that informational barriers are the core bottleneck inhibiting energy efficiency improvements in China's SME sector. Financial and organizational barriers also influence a company's energy saving activities, with interview-based evidence stronger than statistical evidence. The interviews point out three additional barriers to energy saving activities: the role of family ownership structures, lax enforcement of government regulations and the absence of government support as well as a lack of skilled labor. More than 40% of enterprises in the sample declared themselves unaware of energy saving equipment or practices in their respective business area, indicating that there are high transaction costs for SMEs to gather, assess, and apply information about energy saving potentials and relevant technologies. One policy implication of the study is that the Chinese government could play a more active role in fostering the dissemination of energy-efficiency related information in the SME sector.
With its recently published 12th Five-Year Plan (FYP, 2011–2015) China's leaders have set ambitious national environmental targets and goals for developing a more sustainable economy and society. Past records, however, show that ambitious goals and regulations too often fail due to shortcomings in local implementation and civil society participation. At the sub-national level, economic, political, and social interests continue to dictate the political agenda and the participation of non-state actors remains limited. This article analyses these implementation and participation gaps and reviews recent innovations and experiments to address these gaps in local environmental politics in China. Although many ongoing experiments and new institutional arrangements can be identified, these projects and initiatives remain limited in scope and geographical spread. Further advances in policy enforcement and in opening up policy design to citizens and other non-state actors at the local level are needed in order to turn the article ambitions of the 12th FYP into reality.
This paper analyses the career backgrounds of local government officials in provincial Environmental Protection Bureaus (EPBs) in China and explains the appointment patterns of Chinese EPB bureaucrats. Using biographical information of provincial EPB heads and drawing on fieldwork conducted in Shanxi Province and Inner Mongolia, this paper finds that only one-fourth of the provincial EPB heads were promoted through the bureau ranks within the EPBs, while the remaining three-fourths were appointed from positions outside the environment field. Further, nearly all EPB heads' professional backgrounds and associated networks can be clearly categorized as environmental, business, provincial government, or local government oriented. This paper delineates these four types of Chinese EPB leaders and explains why an awareness of the different professional orientations is critical to understanding environmental regulation and protection in China. These findings have implications for inferring the unique characteristics of a province's EPB leadership, the implementation capacities of provincial EPBs, and the appointment preferences of provincial leaders.
Quo Vadis SPD
(2013)
Analyse der verschiedenen Arten von Stiftungen und ihre Bedeutung für die Kinder- und Jugendhilfe
(2013)
Few would doubt that the conditions of governance have changed-and continue to change-as the early 21st century seems to enter a period of profound uncertainty. Yet, at the same time, the world seems alive with a cacophony of approaches-old and new-on how to improve governance and, ultimately, policy outcomes. This collection-the first in a series of annual editions-seeks to address the implications of the current state of the world in terms of "good governance", i.e. the effective, efficient, and reliable set of legitimate institutions and actors dedicated to dealing with matters of public concern, be it in the field of financial markets (the focus of this edition), health care, security, or migration, and across local, national and international levels. Researchers at The Hertie School of Governance (Berlin, Germany) and other experts examine the current state of governance challenges and innovations from a variety of inter-disciplinary perspectives. This edition features a special set of chapters on the challenges of financial and fiscal governance, the tradeoffs faced by governance actors, and the new arrangements that have emerged or are required to not only address the ongoing crisis but also ensure greater stability into the future. This special section is complemented by chapters introducing basic concepts and models; exploring other global challenges and the reasons behind seemingly lackluster responses to them and highlighting the need for responsible sovereignty; conceptualizing governance innovation and introducing key examples; and assessing existing indicators of governance, while proposing a new framework for collecting, interpreting and applying governance-related information.
The Governance Report 2013
(2013)
his Report is about the state of governance. Few would doubt that the conditions of governance have changed — and continue to change — as the early 21st century seems to enter a period of profound uncertainty. Yet, at the same time, the world seems alive with a cacophony of approaches — old and new — on how to improve governance and, ultimately, policy outcomes. This Report — the first in a series of annual editions produced by the Hertie School of Governance — seeks to address the implications of the current state of the world in terms of "good governance", that is, the effective, efficient, and reliable set of legitimate institutions and actors dedicated to dealing with matters of public concern, be it in the field of financial markets, health care, security, or migration, and across local, national, and international levels. Following an introduction that offers a framework of basic concepts and models, The Governance Report 2013 then goes on to explore a number of global challenges and the reasons behind seemingly lacklustre responses and highlight the need for responsible sovereignty; examine in depth the challenges of financial and fiscal governance with a focus on the trade-offs and ways to address them; analyse key governance innovations and their potential for success; and assess existing indicators of governance, while proposing a new framework for collecting, interpreting, and applying governance-related information. The findings lead to a set of concrete proposals on the way ahead.
Few would doubt that the conditions of governance have changed-and continue to change-as the early 21st century seems to enter a period of profound uncertainty. Yet, at the same time, the world seems alive with a cacophony of approaches-old and new-on how to improve governance and, ultimately, policy outcomes. This collection-the first in a series of annual editions-seeks to address the implications of the current state of the world in terms of "good governance", i.e. the effective, efficient, and reliable set of legitimate institutions and actors dedicated to dealing with matters of public concern, be it in the field of financial markets (the focus of this edition), health care, security, or migration, and across local, national and international levels. Researchers at The Hertie School of Governance (Berlin, Germany) and other experts examine the current state of governance challenges and innovations from a variety of inter-disciplinary perspectives. This edition features a special set of chapters on the challenges of financial and fiscal governance, the tradeoffs faced by governance actors, and the new arrangements that have emerged or are required to not only address the ongoing crisis but also ensure greater stability into the future. This special section is complemented by chapters introducing basic concepts and models; exploring other global challenges and the reasons behind seemingly lackluster responses to them and highlighting the need for responsible sovereignty; conceptualizing governance innovation and introducing key examples; and assessing existing indicators of governance, while proposing a new framework for collecting, interpreting and applying governance-related information
The environment of national agencies has changed considerably in recent years as they increasingly become engaged in European Union networks. This article contributes to a growing body of literature on those networks and their effect on executive politics at the national level by asking whether and how the EU involvement of national agencies affects the agencies' autonomy in policy formulation. We develop an analytical model for explaining the effect of EU involvement on agency autonomy. Analyzing data from a comprehensive survey of federal agencies in Germany, we find that EU involvement has a positive effect on national agencies' policy autonomy. Moreover, we find a somewhat stronger effect of agency involvement in sectoral networks on autonomy than in intergovernmental networks, which is attributed to information asymmetries between ministries and agencies. Yet this effect is weaker than initially expected, which can be explained by a considerable degree of overlap between different types of EU involvement.
Countries in Northwestern Europe, including Belgium, report cohort fertility levels of close to two children per woman; whereas Central European countries, such as Germany, have levels of around 1.6 children. In seeking to explain these differences, some scholars have stressed the role of the social policy context, while others have pointed to variation in fertility-related social norms. But because these influences are interdependent, it is difficult to isolate their effects on fertility trends. This study attempts to disentangle these two factors by drawing on a quasi-natural experiment. After World War I Germany was compelled to cede the Eupen–Malmedy territory to Belgium. The population of this region has retained its German linguistic identity, but has been subject to Belgian social policies. We examine whether the fertility trends in this German-speaking region of Belgium follow the Belgian or the German pattern. Our findings indicate that they generally resemble the Belgian pattern. This suggests that institutional factors are important for understanding the current fertility differences in Western Europe.
In Partnerschaft mit dem Bundesministerium des Innern (BMI) und weiteren Partnern veranstaltete Wegweiser im Juni 2013 erstmals den Zukunftskongress Staat & Verwaltung. Im Vorfeld wurde die Studie Zukunftspanel 2013 zum Zukunftskongress Staat & Verwaltung durchgeführt, eine Weiterentwicklung des jährlichen Monitoring E-Government & Verwaltungsmodernisierung Deutschland, das seit mittlerweile mehr als zehn Jahren als einzige kontinuierliche Befragung den Fortschritt sowie die Trends, Perspektiven und Herausforderungen der Verwaltungsmodernisierung in Deutschland erhebt.
- Das Zukunftspanel analysiert bei nahezu allen Verwaltungen in Bund, Ländern und Kommunen den Status quo, erzielte Erfolge und zukünftige Herausforderungen der Verwaltungsreform und Digitalisierung der Verwaltung
- Es erfasst – im Vorfeld des Zukunftskongresses Staat & Verwaltung 2013 – konkrete Fortschritte bei der Verwaltungsmodernisierung
- Es identifiziert Erfolgsprojekte, die zur Übertragung und Nachahmung anregen sollen
- Es beschleunigt die Diskussion um drängende Modernisierungs- und Sanierungsmaßnahmen in Staat und Verwaltung
Das Zukunftspanel Staat & Verwaltung wird von der Wegweiser GmbH Berlin Research & Strategy in Zusammenarbeit mit der Hertie School of Governance durchgeführt.(Quelle: Wegweiser.de)
Stetig neue Anforderungen an die Leistungsfähigkeit und gleichzeitig steigender Kostendruck sind bereits seit Jahrzehnten die zentralen Herausforderungen öffentlicher Verwaltungen und Auslöser von Veränderungen. Im Hinblick auf Erfolg versprechende Lösungen und Maßnahmen zeichnet sich dabei in den letzten Jahren allerdings eine interessante Schwerpunktverschiebung ab: bei den derzeitigen Reformdiskussionen in Europa stehen vor allem die Verbesserung sowie neue Formen der Zusammenarbeit und Koordination im Vordergrund. Zwei aktuelle Studien bestätigen hierbei einen klaren Handlungsbedarf in Deutschland.
Recent decades have seen a range of public sector reforms, focusing on diverse aspects. Some of these reforms have had a structural dimension and include privatisation, downsizing and outsourcing, while others have focused on aspects such as improving access and transparency, collaboration, and innovation. This contribution explores how public sector executives rate administrative reforms in their country on a number of dimensions. It presents preliminary findings from an academic survey among 3,173 top public sector executives in 10 European countries.
Based on an executive survey this article analyses the extent to which a new managerial logic has replaced traditional administrative values and identity in Austria. We do not find any strong evidence of a new managerial logic but rather modifications, local translations and the emergence of a hybrid identity.
This country report summarizes the findings from the COCOPS survey in Germany and aims to systematically map German experiences with administrative reform and performance management from a top executive perspective. It is based on answers from 566 public sector executives and separately describes the results for central government (both federal and Länder) as well as for the employment and health sector and also includes comparisons with the overall COCPS survey with 4814 answers from 10 European countries. The results of this executive survey confirm both an ongoing relevance of the legalistic Weberian tradition and a more incrementalist approach to public administration in Germany , but also bring a more nuanced image of the administrative reform introduced and implemented in Germany. The results show interesting differences at policy sector level and in particular a significantly higher adoption and institutionalization of performance management as well as a stronger reform intensity in the employment sector along with a significantly more positive assessment of these reforms. The data also indicate that a higher adoption of management instruments goes a long with a more positive assessment of administrative performance and – contrary to the common assumption – does not have a negative impact on factors such as work satisfaction, social capital and organizational commitment. From an international comparative perspective administrative we find evidence for a rather similar reform agenda with most other European countries but also a more hesitant adoption –
especially of performance management – in Germany.
Schwerpunkt Gerechtigkeit
Neben den bewährten Themen Familie, Schule, Freunde und Freizeit ist das Schwerpunktthema der World Vision Kinderstudie 2013 das Thema Gerechtigkeit. Die Kinder wurden befragt, was Gerechtigkeit für sie überhaupt ist und ob und wo sie sich gerecht oder ungerecht behandelt fühlen. Erhoben wurden die Antworten zum einen wieder über eine quantitative Studie, bei der die Kinder von Interviewerinnen und Interviewern einen Fragebogen mit 60 Fragen vorgelegt bekamen, den sie in etwa 30 Minuten beantworteten. Dies ist der erste Teil der Studie. Zum anderen gab es wieder einen qualitativen Teil, in dem 12 Kinder in Tiefeninterviews und mit kindgerechten Methoden zu ihren Lebenswelten befragt wurden. Daraus entstanden 12 Kinderporträts, die den zweiten Teil der Studie füllen.
(Verlagsangabe)
Ein Studium ist nichts Besonderes mehr. Viele Berufe können nur noch mit einem akademischen Abschluss ausgeübt werden. Wird sich dieser Trend fortsetzen – und mit welchen Folgen für den Wert verschiedener Bildungswege? Wissenschaftler und Publizisten, Studenten und Lehrer, Vertreter der Wirtschaft und der Gewerkschaften ergreifen Partei: für oder gegen eine Gesellschaft, in der Akademiker immer wichtiger werden.
The chapter situates governance innovations within the broad innovation literature. It offers a multi-dimensional concept of innovations; reviews causes and conditions for innovation such as innovator characteristics and innovation systems; highlights the interdependent relationship between innovation and isomorphism; and identifies the main characteristics of innovations in the realm of governance. Our engagement with the literature reveals seven propositions and hypotheses that can guide research on governance innovations in the future.
Deutschland ist ein Wohlfahrtsstaat, bei dem traditionell die Familie im Zentrum steht. Viele staatliche Leistungen, wie Kindergeld und Elterngeld, fließen den Familien direkt zu. Dennoch ist der Anteil von Familien, die in relativer Armut leben, im internationalen Vergleich hoch, und der Bildungserfolg von Kindern hängt eng mit der sozialen Lage der Eltern zusammen. Dieses Buch greift die Debatte über ein Betreuungsgeld auf und fragt grundsätzlich: Welche Staatshilfen brauchen Eltern und Kinder wirklich? Wohin soll das Geld fließen?
Heute Generation Praktikum – morgen Generation Altersarmut? Vom Verhalten der jungen Generation hängt es ab, ob die auf eine frühe Eigenvorsorge setzenden Rentenreformen der letzten Jahre Erfolg haben werden oder nicht. Macht die junge Generation den eingeleiteten Systemwechsel mit? Die vom Versorgungswerk MetallRente beauftragte Studie macht deutlich, dass die neuen Anforderungen der Altersvorsorge in deutlichem Widerspruch zur Lebensplanung junger Menschen stehen.