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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)