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The paper examines the reinforcing effect of mixed electoral systems on the linkage between electoral districts. The paper analyzes the linkage from the view of ideological constellation using survey data from Germany, New Zealand, and Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the present paper is to analyze the transformations in party finance and party finance legislation in Germany and Italy. Specifically, I will ask what factors are responsible for the differences between the German and the Italian party finance (and party finance legislation). My argument is as follows. Differences between German and Italian party finance reflect differences in the party finance legislation enacted in the two countries, and that these legislative differences are a result of how the German and the Italian Constitutional principles were interpreted and implemented in the two countries. In the first part of the paper I present data concerning the transformation of party finance in Germany and Italy. I show that while in Germany the revenues generated by membership fees and state subventions have increased in both absolute and relative terms, in Italy the opposite has occurred. Meanwhile, the revenues generated by state subventions have increased in absolute as well as in relative terms. Building on this discussion, in the second part of this paper, I provide an explanation for these differences. I argue that the constitutionality of party finance legislation and public subventions to party finance is a necessary consequence of parties’ constitutional relevance. Building on this discussion, I show that the way in which the German Parliament translated the constitutional principles into actual legislative dispositions is very different from the way in which the Italian Parliament did so and that these differences in translation account for the differences between the financial outlook of the German parties and that of the Italian ones. In the third, and final part of the paper, I will draw some conclusions as to the significance of my findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is now a large literature on the international non-response to Rwanda’s genocide. The position of Germany has, however, received virtually no attention. My paper examines the German position, its actions and omissions, in light of the fact that Germany and Rwanda shared colonial ties, and, more recently, a dense network of aid programs following Rwandan independence. Most of the aid programs were government-sponsored. In addition, a number of German NGOs had links to Rwandan local governments, health and education institutions. Further, Germany’s strong commitment to human rights in its foreign policy also suggests that it would not remain passive when a human rights catastrophee unfolded. However, this is exactly what happened. I attempt to offer an explanation for this outcome. After establishing the parameters of German foreign policy in the early 90’s, the paper proceeds to an exploration of German-Rwandan relations in the 80’s and early 90’s, up to the genocide. The next section assesses German media coverage of the genocide in the spring of ‘94. How attentive were the German media, and how did political elites contribute to the coverage? A fourth section turns to parliamentary and executive actions regarding Rwanda in the crucial months of April,May and June of l994. How did Rwanda play on the political agenda? A final section introduces Hasenclever’s moral-sociological framework for the explanation of humanitarian intervention/non-intervention. With its focus on media, political and NGO actors, the framework seems to fit the German case. It generates hypotheses that can be tested in the German Rwanda debate. And if offers an explanation of Germany’s bystander role which seems to contradict the lessons of history that German elites often evoke. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent literature on public policy in the United States argues that public and budgetary policy making is marked by a high amount of stability interspersed with dramatic change (punctuated equilibria). Building on stochastic process methods, I find that budget allocations exhibit ? just as in the American case ? mostly incremental changes punctuated by extreme shifts in allocations. In this paper, I identify why the budget punctuations (i.e. frequency distribution of budget stability and change) varies over time in Germany. In order to explain these punctuations in budget distributions, I examine three models: (1) partisan control of government, (2) partisan distance of the assembly, and (3) information and institutional constraints. The three models are tested using national budgetary data across all government budget functions for Germany from the fiscal years 1963-1989. The paper finds support for the hypothesis that partisan distance of the assembly determines the degree of budget punctuation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can differences in welfare systems in industrialized countries explain the variations in consumer bankruptcy systems? This paper will attempt to address this question by examining the consumer bankruptcy/insolvency systems in Great Britain, the United States, Germany and the Netherlands and the role each plays in their respective welfare systems. This paper will examine institutional and political factors in the hopes of uncovering the nexus between welfare policies and consumer insolvency systems. It has long been suggested that domestic factors have a dramatic effect on policy development (Myles and Pierson, 1999, Giaimo 1999). In particular this paper will examine the effects of economic shocks, such as emergency medical treatment, on individual consumers in the various welfare systems in the countries examined. Two of the countries studied (Germany and the Netherlands) developed consumer insolvency systems only recently, while the other two, the United States and Great Britain, have some of the oldest consumer bankruptcy systems in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether the presence of gender quotas makes political parties likely to ask their female members to run for elective office. Based on an original mail survey of over 1000 local party leaders in Germany, this paper finds that female members in German parties are no less likely than male members to have been asked by their parties to run for elective office. Furthermore, this result is also observed in political parties without gender quotas and in and places where state and local electoral systems are not compatible with the use of quotas, indicating that, in this case, quotas have a contagion effect. They have created a normative expectation that parties nominate female candidates even in instances when there is no official quota in place. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have seldom tested the innovation and normalization paradigm of e-campaigning over time. Particularly outside the U.S., there is a lack of comparative analyses of candidate or party websites that deal with the concept's temporal validity and scope. The paper addresses this research gap through a longitudinal content and structural analysis of German party websites in the 2002 and 2005 National Elections. The results provide empirical evidence of a twofold development in e-campaigning that challenges past assumptions of the innovation and normalization framework. In particular, the paper proposes two theoretical revisions: First, innovation and normalization do not represent mutually exclusive opposites of a scientific controversy but rather a dynamic conceptual continuum which signifies parallel stages in the development of e-campaigning. Second, this continuum is affected by the website dimension (i.e., content or structure) as well as by the status of the political actors (i.e., parliamentary or non-parliamentary parties) being observed. Both intervening variables need to be taken into account in future research in order to accurately describe and explain the implementation of new information technologies in politics. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper points out the importance of party competition as an explanatory factor in comparative welfare state research that is neglected by standard theories. The argument is applied to explaining the differentiation of social rights, and, more specifically, to the case of unemployment compensation in post-war Germany. The party system and the dynamics of competition that it generates determine which voters are most considered in the policy decisions of parties. Together with the structure of the labour market and the existing policies, which condition the interests of voters, this political logic shapes policy changes. Accordingly, the paper shows how centripetal party competition in Germany helps to explain the establishing of a clearly stratified but relatively inclusive system of unemployment benefits in the post-war phase of welfare state expansion. By contrast, during welfare state retrenchment centripetal competition has contributed to an increase in segmentation between benefits. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper expands on the experimental findings of the motivated reasoning literature to numerous election studies in the U.S., Britain, and Germany. Conclusions inform both the information processing and campaign effects literatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that, contrary to assertions that only countries with advanced organizational schemes ?such as Germany- can resist globalization pressures for welfare reform, the Italian case shows an alternative pattern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tests electoral balancing models using data from German state election. The main finding - midterm losses in German state elections only occur under unified government - supports electoral balancing models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a formal model of organizational change in interest groups, combining theories of agenda change and conditional cooperation. The results are illustrated in a case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Welfare institutions are not necessarily designed to offset the inequality generated in the market economy, but instead actively endorse this inequality to a considerable extent. Unequal access and inequality in entitlements are built into the institutions of social protection systems, so that welfare states reflect the extent of publicly sanctioned inequality in society. Major welfare state reforms comprise judgements on that extent. My paper answers the question of what informs such judgements. More specifically, I will identify the political conditions under which social policy reformers are likely to opt for policies that render their social protection institutions more inclusionary, broadly redistributive, and accessible to all citizens, and the political conditions under which they are inclined to tighten eligibility criteria and the scope of coverage, and thus adhere to the Bismarckian principles of social protection as contingent on status and merit. The empirical basis of my argument is a historical analysis of six major reforms of the social insurance system in Germany during the second half of the 20th century. The project compares these decision episodes and the political processes that lead to them. The instrumental actors in these reforms are broad representative organizations, defending the political and functional interests of citizens and producers. Their activities in supporting or opposing a reform in the parliamentary vote or in public opinion approval in the broader society, and not so much the institutional framework in which they take place, and also not the preferences and power resources of civil society actors per se, are the constraints that will render certain social policy initiatives politically feasible and not others. In order to be large enough to bring together the majorities needed for social policy reforms, the decisive representative organizations in these reforms are almost inevitably heterogeneous in their bases of membership and political support. This diversity shapes both the process and the outcome of social policy legislation in that reform coalitions are always arranged alliances, that is, more than the mere political manifestation of preferences and power constellations in society. Social policy is, instead, the terrain on which the leaders of these large parties and social partner organizations build and consolidate their bases of membership and political support. They do this by strategically defending those social policies that cater to the interests of important groups of potential members, voters, and sympathizers. These groups can be the core constituencies of representative organizations, but it turns out that more often than not, it is the marginal supporters, those groups of people who are undecided in their political loyalties, which are in the center of political competition and thus have the greatest chances that their demands will be heard loudly and clearly in social policy debates. This view of representation as building alliances, rather than executing a clear mandate, is very effective in explaining the qualitative features of major social policy reforms shaping different welfare regimes. It also sheds light on some of the phenomena that must seem anomalous from a perspective on representation as the mere translation of conflicting social interests into reform laws – such as lack of policy alternatives and blurred partisan profiles in most of the reform proposals submitted by political parties, frequent quarrels over the copyright of nearly identical reform proposals, strong dissenting factions within the government coalition, offset by coalitions of government and opposition parties, and attempts to win the support of powerful social partner organizations in the face of shaky legislative majorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To what extent have changes in party finance laws transformed party organizations in Germany and Austria? This paper adopts a rational choice - institutional approach in order to answer this question. That is, the ability of party elites to change their party organization is constrained by institutional rules such as party finance laws. Hypotheses regarding fundraising, bureaucratic professionalism, fundraising, and membership relations are developed from this theory. These hypotheses are tested via interviews, survey data and financial reports of political parties from 1980 to 2000 on the national and sub-national level in Germany and Austria. Results indicate that parties in Germany are becoming sophisticated in their fundraising techniques, although their methods are not as advanced as those used by parties in the U.S. Furthermore, parties in both countries are becoming increasingly professional and bureaucratic. However, despite their growing party offices, parties are not increasing membership recruitment or communications with current members. The implications of these findings for party democracy are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although many studies have examined the economic status of immigrants, most studies of immigration have neglected immigrant opinions. When immigration is addressed at all using survey data, studies almost exclusively focus on native attitudes toward immigration and not on attitudes of immigrants themselves. In this paper, we investigate whether immigrants and natives have systematically different attitudes toward social spending and redistribution. We employ surveys from Germany and Great Britain that sample a relatively large number of immigrants compared to typical national election surveys. In addressing this potential “opinion gap,” we control for socioeconomic characteristics, such as income and education as well as immigrants’ ability to assimilate into their new country’s labor market by comparing an immigrant’s skill level with his or her actual occupation in the new country. We also include contextual covariates to account for potential network effects. Our statistical analyses use ordered logistical regressions and are fully interactive (following Franzese 1999), consistent with our theoretical expectation that the models’ independent variables affect natives differently than they do immigrants. Once these controls are included, we observe that immigrants are never more likely than natives to favor increases in social spending or to endorse redistributive measures. In instances where we do find a significant opinion gap between natives and immigrants, the latter tend to support more conservative positions, favoring tax cuts at the expense of social spending. While some of our findings are preliminary in nature, they nevertheless represent a significant contribution to the extant literature, which, to our knowledge, does not include comparative studies on the political attitudes of immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there is considerable agreement that economic conditions affect electoral outcomes, there is less agreement as to exactly how. Scholars have spent a great deal of effort exploring the links between economics and vote choice but have generally ignored the potential that economic perceptions could also affect the likelihood of voter abstention. I explore that possibility in this paper. First, I develop a theory of how economic perceptions affect the likelihood of abstention. I argue that the relevant factors in this relationship are one?s retrospective and prospective judgments of the economy and the ideology of the respondent and government. Hypotheses are generated and tested using national election survey data from the United Kingdom, Germany, and the Netherlands. The results show that economic perceptions have an effect on the likelihood of electoral abstention. This effect is mediated by the ideology of the respondent and party and appears to be weakened in situations of greater coalitional complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why are certain people drawn to anti-immigrant movements? And more generally, why do some individuals feel deeply threatened by immigration, while others do not? For answers I examine household panel data from Germany through the years 1993-2002. In addition to factors traditionally associated with extreme right support, this paper investigates the impact of social capital and parental household characteristics on the likelihood of extremism among young people. Analyses at the micro- and meso-levels paint the following picture: young German adults are more or less likely to express extreme intolerance toward immigrant groups based on factors that lie on a level deeper than their pocketbooks. Regular interaction with other members of society is important, and factors stemming from the parental household experience have lasting effects. Young people with strong social networks, and whose parental households were characterized by similar networks when they were growing up, will be less predisposed to accept the scapegoating of immigrants found in the appeals of extreme xenophobic groups. Interestingly, however, parents? subjective feelings of attachment to the local community or region, regardless of their actual level of social participation, is strongly and positively associated with right extremism among youth, offering support for group identity theories of intolerance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To understand political leadership it is crucial to understand if politicians act as leaders in their respective constituencies and parties. Although little work has been done on this topic from a political science perspective there exists established literature on a comparable topic, the roles of managers as leaders in business. This paper examines whether a theory on business leadership proves to be robust for political leadership. In 2002 W. Bennis and R. Thomas proposed a theory of leadership that attributed to leaders common biographical situations and common attitudes. This study tries to ascertain if those common characteristics could also be found among political leaders in a different cultural context and of a different generation. For this purpose 19 qualitative interviews with young Hessian politicians were conducted. They all executed leadership positions in the youth organizations of their respective parties. Although the major claims of the 2002 theory could not be corroborated the results of this study suggest that management theory can serve, if not as a source for robust hypotheses, than at least as a guideline for the design of studies on leadership behavior of politicians. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis of party identification outside the U.S. has featured disagreements about such basic questions as whether citizens of other democracies form meaningful and stable partisan identities. We use the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (GSOEP), a longitudinal study including twenty-three waves of annual data since 1984, to analyze the dynamics of partisanship in Germany. The panel spans the period of German unification, allowing one to examine the development of partisan identities in the newly democratized east --alongside the evolution of partisanship in the west, where unification was widely seen to have caused a swift breakdown of partisan ties. A handful of scholars have used this dataset to study partisanship (e.g. Zuckerman and Kroh 2006), but these studies have not addressed the problem of measurement error and have not fully exploited the dynamic nature of the data. In this paper, we present a series of analyses of partisan stability using dynamic discrete choice models which allow for state dependence and unobserved heterogeneity. The richness of the data allows us to examine which groups are most likely to change their partisanship over time and to explore the conditions fostering greater partisan stability. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Offensive realists, among other IR theorists who work from a "revisionist" conception of state interests, claim that states should be expected to expand territorially when the benefits outweigh the costs, and, in particular, as they grow more powerful. They encounter a problem analogous to the "chainganging/buckpassing" indeterminacy issue faced by "status quo" neorealists during the 1990s: extremely varied forms of behavior appear to be consistent with the logic of "revisionist" neorealism. In this paper, I address this problem by introducing a variable generally rejected out of hand by offensive realists - the offense-defense balance - to explain variation between limited or automatic and hegemonic or manual expansion. I apply the theoretical approach developed here to explain variation in the form of expansion pursued by Prussia/Germany between 1864 and 1914. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modernization signaled the de-alignment of traditional social cleavages in advanced industrial states. Implicit in this is a homogenization of electorates according to post-material, "new politics" values. Although the impact of traditional social cleavages may have weakened, electorates are not de-aligned; the traditional social cleavages remain important divisions which structure the electorate in significant and meaningful ways. This paper focuses on the impact of religious voting relative to the other traditional social bases of politics in the United States, Germany, and Great Britain, comparing the modern electorates to the electorates of the early 1960s. Using election survey data and focusing on the social bases of conservative parties' support, the results show that while most of the social bases of electoral support have weakened, religious voting remains significant and has increased in the contexts of the United States and United Kingdom. This suggests that despite the decline in religious attendance, the traditional values shared by religious voters make them a tempting social basis of conservative parties’ voter coalitions, and that this may be occurring beyond these contexts. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many countries use U.S. insider trading doctrine as a model, in part as a result of historical and political factors and in part because the United States is seen as a market leader--an early adopter with a well developed, disaggregated, public securities market. Yet, despite these convergent beginnings and a general agreement on the nature of the regulated conduct (i.e., prohibiting securities trading by insiders possessing material nonpublic information), operative insider trading rules in the United States (as a rule originator) have evolved to protect different interests and regulate different specific market activities than insider trading rules in other countries. Using existing insider trading law and regulation in the United States, Germany, and Japan, this paper (a) identifies the common roots and divergent evolution of insider trading doctrine in these nations, (b) articulates ways in which differences in current insider trading doctrine may be meaningful, and (c) isolates possible reasons for the existence and persistence of the observed doctrinal divergence. Divergent political, economic, and societal histories, and differences in legal systems and traditions, are at issue in the analysis. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American studies have pointed to a dramatic increase in negativity on campaign websites. Thus far, however, it is unclear, whether this growth of virtual mudslinging reflects either a national trend due to the competitive and highly personalized voting system, or rather an international process in the ongoing professionalization of political communication. In order to explore this question, this paper compares the use of attacks on German party websites in two state elections, one national election, and one European parliamentary election with recent American evidence. The results show that online negativity has affected German e-campaigns on all levels of the political system, with patterns similar to those found in the United States. This includes the amount and frequency of the attacks as well as their differential usage by incumbents and challengers, their respective sources, and the subject dimensions of the assaults. Only with regard to the thematic context and the targets of the attacks did German and American e-campaigns vary in their style of online negativism. These findings support the notion of a global standardization effect in web campaign practices brought about by the professionalization process in politics. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract:We argue that there is a similar situation between today Russia and Weimar Germany because similar factors lead from a defective electoral democracy to an electoral autocracy. We demonstrate that a structural explation with socio-economic factors is not appropriate to explain democratic breakdown in the "crucial cases" of Weimar Germany and Post-Soviet Russia. We show that 1. a considerable lack of democrats on the elite level as well as on the population level and 2. an ill-defined form of government, that allows the president to rule without the parliament in combination with an nondemocratic actor which gets elected for president are sufficient reasons for a country to experience an authoriarian regression. In the second and third part of the paper we take a look on the question, when an electoral semiautocracy is in danger to get a fascist ideocracy. In the second part we show that there is fertile ground for fascism in Russia today. We demonstrate that as in Weimar Germany we can find in today Russia strong fascist actors and a widespread nationalism among the population. But in the third part we we will show, that all in all, ironically, in current Russia, in distinction to Germany 1. a manipulated party system and a underdeveloped third sector, 2. a strong semiautocratic president make it difficult for the country to become a liberal democracy, but make it also improbable that the Russian regime will transgress into a fascist autocracy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A lot of research on legislative careers has focused on the factors contributing to a member’s election to the Bundestag. However, very little is known about parliamentarians’ careers within the Bundestag. For some members being elected to the Bundestag is not the end, but the beginning of their political career and they strive to achieve leadership positions. This paper will investigate those members of parliament and research what sets them apart from members that do not acquire leadership positions. This study is based on statistical research from all members of the Bundestag from 1994 to present and will look at a series of potential variables that enhance the selection to leadership positions. In its theoretical setting the study wishes to combine knowledge gathered from theories of recruitment and the studies of leadership careers in US institutions, i.e. the US Congress or US State legislatures. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper extends coalition formation models which considers both office and policy motivations of parties. We introduce a method to estimate the grade of both motivations and apply it to data of German state-level coalition formations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In which way is e-campaigning affected by processes of political professionalization? This paper addresses this question through a longitudinal structure and content analysis of German party Web sites in the 2002 and 2005 National Elections. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I use a comparative historical analysis and process-tracing techniques to isolate and analyze the causal mechanisms that produced dramatically different outcomes among early-modern Brandenburg-Prussia and Poland. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does the economy explain the long-term trend of party membership? This paper will examine the long-term relationship between the economic conditions and the party membership trends of British Labour Party and German Social Democratic Party,1950-1994. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how military strategy shapes the prospects for negotiated settlement of inter-state disputes during crises. According to offense-defense theorists, diplomacy is likely to fail when states adopt offensive strategies. An offensive strategy, they argue, creates a strong incentive for preemptive attack and thus make less time available for negotiation. A defensive strategy imposes no such time pressure on diplomatic process. In contrast, I propose a new theory that focuses on whether a military strategy is maneuver or attrition-centered. When a state has what I call a maneuver strategy, I argue, crisis bargaining will bear no fruit for two reasons. First, the cost-effective strategy will imbue its owner with confidence in military victory and thus lead it to ask for large concessions. Second, the deceptiveness of the maneuver strategy hinders an accurate assessment of military capabilities and therefore prevents antagonists from finding a mutually satisfactory bargain. Such obstacles to diplomacy are not present when states have attrition strategies. This paper tests theses theories through a comparative-historical analysis. I first examine how the maneuver-oriented German Schlieffen Plan led to a diplomatic failure during the crisis of July 1914. I then investigate how Russia’s attrition strategy contributed to peaceful settlements with Germany during the 1870s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The major focus of this investigation is to examine how feminist voices did or did not impact ART-debates and related policy outcomes in Germany and in three U.S. states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to their direct intervention into human procreation, advanced fertility treatments, commonly known as assisted reproductive technologies (ART), are associated with complex policy problems that are often wrought with ethical implications. In fact, countries to varying degrees have struggled with defining the role of the state in relation to policy questions such as: is procreation a right? If so, does government have a role in providing the means to realize this procreative right? Does the embryo have personhood? What is the role of the state in providing for the rights of the embryo while enabling the procreative rights of others? Should access to, advancement and applications of ART be under the purview of the state? Germany’s Embryo Protection Law (1990) is considered among the most restrictive policies governing access to and the advancement of ART. Defining ART in terms of its implications on the human embryo, the Embryo Protection Law regulates a range of practices related to ART such as embryo transfers, pre-implantation manipulation or altering of an embryo, and the use of sperm from non-living donors. Furthermore, the law also defines under what circumstances women may access ART. The major focus of this investigation is to determine the intra- and extra-governmental factors contributing to Germany’s Embryo Protection Law by applying Baumgartner and Jones’ (1993) dual mobilization model. According to this model, a rapid change in how the issue is defined on the public agenda (measured through media coverage) accompanied by increased issue attention will lead to policy venue instability. We expect, then, that changes in the tone of media coverage of ART accompanied by increases in related issue density will lead to ART-policy venue change. In addition, the model contends that institutional stability is likely to be accompanied by issue redefinition resulting in corresponding changes in policy outcomes. For our purposes, then, we hypothesize that ART-policy venue change leads to shifts in ART-policy outcomes. Our research is based on an analysis of 465 ART-related articles printed in major German newspaper dailies from1980 to 1997 providing insight into how ART’s definition on the public agenda before and after the adoption of the Embryo Protection Law. The tone and focus of each newspaper article was coded. Additional data were collected from archival sources such as legislative records of floor proceedings and committee transcripts of hearings. Personal interviews were conducted with intra- and extra-governmental actors who were active in either the policy formulation or policy decision-making stages related to the Embryo Protection Law as well. This research contributes to agenda setting theory and to the growing field of assisted reproductive technology policy. While the majority of research on ART policy is limited to the consequences of policy outcomes on technology access and technology development, this study analyzes the factors affecting ART-policy adoption and outcomes. Baumgartner, Frank and Bryan Jones. Agendas and Instability in American Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the influence of federalism on educational performance in the sixteen German Laender. It examines the impact of political, demographic, economic, and school characteristics on achievement scores and graduation rates cross-sectionally and over time (1992-2002). Germany presents a unique opportunity to understand how the established tradition of federalism in the ?old? Laender versus new institutional arrangements in the ?new? Laender affect educational performance. The research offers one of the first comparisons of educational performance between the East and the West. It finds that political factors influence school performance variations overall, but they are particularly powerful in the West. Many scholarly works have dealt with German federalism or German education separately, but there has been no attempt to fully consider how federalism affects educational performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on the Federal Republic of Germany, I offer an analysis of voter behavior in federal contexts. Using data from German federal and Länder elections between 1965-2002, I establish voting patterns in state elections and their relationship to voting in federal elections. The institutional design of the German system by which electoral cycles are unsynchronized both across states and between states and federal levels allows for a particularly interesting comparative analysis. I first demonstrate that unless elections are concurrent, the party holding the chancellery systematically loses seats in state elections, and that the extent to which voters withdraw their support from the party holding the chancellery depends on the timing of the elections with respect to the federal cycle. Following these finding, I then sample particular elections and employ a micro-foundational analysis based on survey data from these elections. I show that voters engage in vertical institutional balancing, using state institutions to counterbalance the federal government. Finally, I use these insights to reinterpret the ongoing debate between the directional and proximity models of voter choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contestation is a central element of democracy. Party competition disciplines political leaders and fosters more responsive government. Higher levels of two-way party competition are hypothesized to lead to more citizen satisfaction, controlling for ideological position and party loyalty. Data from 69 West German regional election studies over 25 years confirm this hypothesis. OLS regression analysis of individual-level data demonstrates a negative relationship between citizen satisfaction and one-party dominance. Time series cross-sectional analysis of regional-level data support this finding. Implications for decentralization and sub-national accountability are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global explosion of mixed-member electoral systems has spurred significant research designed to measure their political effects. This task is complicated by the sheer variety among mixed system institutional rules. Almost all mixed-member systems combine the direct election of legislators in geographically defined districts, the nominal tier, with some form of a list proportional-representation system, the list tier. However, mixed-member systems can vary in number of areas including the type of nominal tier election (single-member districts or single non-transferable vote), the formula to determine the proportional-representation results from the list tier, the proportion of legislators elected in the different elections, and a host of others. One critical distinction between mixed-member systems, however, is whether or not the separate tiers allocate seats independently. In mixed-member proportional systems (MMP), like those in Germany or New Zealand, the total number of legislative seats received by a party is proportional to its list tier results. In mixed-member majoritarian systems (MMM), like those in Ukraine and Russia, however, the list and nominal tiers both allocate seats independently, not trying to maintain proportionality between seats and votes. Thus, MMM and MMP systems differ primarily in their commitment to proportionality. Does this difference in proportionality matter? To answer this question, we attempt to differentiate MMM and MMP systems by analyzing differences in policy outputs. We take our cue from the political economy literature on the size of government, which has consistently found that the size of governments, as measured by state spending, is positively correlated with the proportionality of the electoral system. If the difference in commitment in proportionality between MMM and MMP matters, then we would expect that MMM electoral systems produce smaller governments than MMP electoral systems. We test this hypothesis by examining government expenditure data from eighteen mixed-member electoral systems between 1985 and 2002 to determine whether there is a significant difference between MMM and MMP systems in terms of the size of government. Our statistical models support our hypothesis: MMM systems produce smaller governments even when controlling for other economic and political factors. The distinction, therefore, between MMM and MMP systems is a significant one that raises questions about whether we can simply lump all mixed-member electoral systems into one category, and ignore significant variations between them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What factors determine left-wing parties’ ideological shifts on economic policies? Can stability and change be explained by national or international economic conditions, by electoral preferences or by the number of parties in the system? Considering parties’ threefold goals â€" policies, votes and office (Mueller and Strøm) - this paper utilizes a mixed-method approach to examine the economic policy positions and strategies of Germany’s left- wing parties, i.e. those of the social democratic SPD, the socialist Left Party and the Greens. Specifically, I focus on the tension between left-wing parties’ traditional policy-orientation and organization, which imply relative ideological inflexibility (Przeworski and Sprague 1986; Kitschelt 1994) and the "third way" reform agenda which prescribes rightward-oriented reform (Giddens 1999). The paper employs a mixed-method approach. The tentative findings point to the importance of national constraints in explaining parties’ positioning and suggest that arguments about left-wing parties' distinctiveness, although still relevant, must be qualified. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the investment allocation of hedge and mutual funds â€" two categories of short-term oriented investors â€" in France and Germany from the mid 1990s to early 2008. Hedge and mutual funds constitute two categories of impatient shareholders with a marked preference for short-term returns on their investments. These investors bring a set of expectations as regards their status and the proper form of corporate governance at odds with the institutional arrangements and practices of the stakeholder orientation of systems of corporate governance in France and Germany. The empirical data presented in this paper for the investment portfolio of short-term institutional investors shows a marked preference for the French market over that of Germany. The argument presented highlights the importance of the firm-level institutional arrangements to account for the diverging ability of French and German firms to attract funds from impatient investors. The implication is that the consequences of increasing capital mobility are strongly mediated by the prevailing national institutional frameworks of advanced capitalist economies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of voluntary associations in the East German city of Leipzig in order to assess the strength of post-communist civil society. Due to structures put in place by the city government to encourage citizen input in policy decision and relatively widespread democratic participation before and after the fall of communism, Leipzig presents an interesting case-study in assessing the vibrancy of civil society, and thus democracy, in a post-communist city that appears to embrace ideals of democratic participation. It focuses on how environmental and citizens' associations contribute to city development policy, such as preserving historic buildings, repairing the infrastructure and creating green spaces. Utilizing data from 35 qualitative interviews with members of these associations, local parliamentarians and city officials, the paper addresses theories about the role that voluntary associations play in strengthening city society. Based on the theoretical literature, it analyzes the extent to which associations are able to develop civic competence among members, create city-wide civic networks that allow cooperation in pursuing political goals, and influence policy decisions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies Sened’s model of coalition formation (1995, 1996) to state-level data of coalition governments in Germany. The key feature of Sened’s model is that parties may vary in their degree of office versus policy motivation. While the original model contains no sequential structure, most coalition formation processes begin with bargaining over policy prior to portfolio allocation. This paper assumes that parties use backward induction to reach an optimal decision. A correspondingly structured statistical model is applied to data of German state-level coalition formations in order to estimate the weighting parameter of both motivations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the political ramifications of capital-funded occupational pension plans in Germany, introduced through the 2002 Riester reforms. How does this process of financialization, set in motion by these plans, affect Germany’s social market economy? What happens to Germany’s stakeholder society when workers become co-owners of financial assets through their pension funds? How is finance conceptualized in a political economy where the stock market has historically been inactive? I answer these questions through a case study of Metallrente, an industry-wide pension fund for the steel industry, jointly administered by the employers’ association Gesamtmetall and industrial union IG Metall. The case study will explore the creation of the pension fund by the social partners after the reforms and their decision to make labor-friendly investments only. Due to the mediating role of the social partners, I argue that Germany can be characterized by a process of mediated financialization, which sets it apart from shareholder societies as the USA. Identifying two varieties of financialization, the paper recognizes how central institutions of the German stakeholder model adjusted in the context of ever-expanding finance capitalism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the United States has declared war on terrorism and restricted the role of criminal courts by detaining some individuals indefinitely without filing criminal charges, Germany has chosen to fight terrorism within its existing criminal justice framework. Despite the fact that the two countries have adopted different strategies to combat terrorism, the German government has repeatedly reiterated its strong commitment to cooperating with the United States. While Germany strongly questioned the efficacy and legitimacy of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, it responded to 9/11 by enacting its own anti-terrorism legislation, strengthening ties between German and American law enforcement agencies, and by deploying troops to Afghanistan. However, these cooperative efforts mask an underlying tension in the transatlantic relationship. The source of that tension is the Bush Administration's decision to employ tactics that violate international treaty obligations as well as domestic law. This decision, which led to the indefinite imprisonment of foreign nationals at Guantanamo Bay and the loosening of the prohibitions against the torture of prisoners, reflects a fundamental disagreement between the United States and its European allies about the rules of the game that govern the fight against terrorism. While there has been widespread debate about the wisdom of U.S. policy, opponents have not been able to identify significant concrete costs of it, beyond a decline in respect for America abroad. This paper provides tangible evidence of the costs of the U.S. terrorism policy. Critically, it shows how the actions of the American government hamstrung Germany's prosecution of two individuals suspected of providing logistical support to the 9/11 terrorists. This paper argues that the U.S. government's refusal to grant the German courts access to key witnesses in both cases undermined the ability of German prosecutors to convict these individuals. While one cannot draw a definitive conclusion about the counter-productiveness of U.S. policy from the outcome of only two cases, these cases illustrate how the American government's decision to operate at the boundaries of the law may have unanticipated consequences. These consequences possess the potential to challenge the future effectiveness of international cooperation. To set the stage for that claim, this paper first briefly reviews the sequence of key events that transpired during the prosecution of these cases. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do the fundamental institutional rules of a political system evolve or change? When can they be altered, and by whom? Basic constitutional rules like federalism belong to the meta-rules that structure the political game in advanced democracies. As such they are hard to change because they usually are subject to large set-up costs, involve multiple constituencies, and are conditioned by the entrenched interests of a variety of powerful key actors. The (failed) reforms of a federal system thus present opportunities to examine whether and how the basic rules of the game can be changed.Theories about constitutional and institutional change can be divided into normative, interest-based, and non-rational explanations. They fit quite neatly into current divisions within the new institutionalism in political science, between historical-institutionalism, rational choice and sociological institutionalism (Hall and Taylor 1996). Historical-institutional explanations emphasize path dependence, stickiness, and "lock-in" effects, whereas rational choice underscores the contested nature of institutional development and the distribution of power and strategic interactions of key actors in society. Sociological explanations highlight the non-rational effects of political discourse and the impact of the recognition heuristic (Immergut 2006).After German unification and the creation of the European Union in the early 1990s, federalism became widely regarded as at least partially responsible for the German "Reformstau" or "reform gridlock". This paper briefly examines the evolution and the repeated efforts to reform the federal system of (West) Germany. The main focus is on the work of the "Federalism Commission" from 2003 to 2004 and the final adoption of its proposals to reform the German federal system in May 2006. Utilizing historical-institutional, rational, and sociological explanations, the paper will assess whether the changes of federalism in Germany represent primarily the (un-)intended consequences of prior normative commitments and path-dependent development of institutions, whether they are the results of deliberate choices and self-interested utility maximization of powerful key actors in German politics and society, or whether they are the non-rational outcomes of political discourse, cognitive framing and recognition heuristics among decision makers, or perhaps a combination of all three. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that Germany's widely regarded dual system of vocational education and training has undergone significant change since the 1970s. While the framework of formal institutions has largely stayed intact, significant processes of change take place beneath the surface. In particular, instead of proceeding directly from school to training to employment, young people increasingly have to complete various educational loops and there are indication that a significant minority completely fails to get access to training and employment. The factors contributing to change are structural changes in the economy (from manufacturing to services) and the erosion of the dual sector model of training, where the crafts sector supplied semi-skilled labour for industrial firms. The paper concludes with an attempt to capture the process conceptually. It is argued that the German case is an example of liberalization through an increased involvement of the state. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do Great Powers fulfill their alliance commitments to their weaker allies? Realists predict that alliances, when they exist, will be a temporary, short-term meeting of self-interests, where two states risk the defection of the other to address common, immediate goals. In the end, they argue, there is always an incentive to defect, and thus we should not see many long-term alignments developing. This line of argument leads us to expect a great deal of defection in the international system. Yet the actual rate of defection is quite low. This paper explores one prominent realist explanation of why Great Powers do not defect more frequently: the theory of entrapment, which argues that powerful states can be ‘dragged’ into wars against their will when they are highly dependent on and committed to other states. This paper tests this argument both theoretically and empirically, and concludes that in the ‘crucial case’ of the Austro-German alliance in July 1914, entrapment does not emerge as a satisfying explanation for Germany’s decision to go to war. The structural conditions of German dependence on and commitment to Austria give way to an explanation based on German fears of Russian power which led it, rather than its ally, to steer the course of July 1914 toward war. Ultimately, other explanations are required to explain the low rate of commitment violation in the international system. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The core argument of the paper is that the differences between Social Democrats and Christian Democrats in regards to programmatic social policy aims have largely faded away in Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Varieties of Capitalism literature would benefit from more coherence and a model of firm preferences will allow the many moving parts of this branch of scholarship to more convincingly hang together. I offer a critical review that calls for a mapping scheme that would orient and redirect a broad swath of the literature. This review will include scholarship that positions the firm as its core unit of analysis to trace and model the vertical and horizontal junctures of strategic interaction. Local, state, national, and supranational institutions and the dense webs that tether them together comprise the vertical junctures. The cross-firm intersections comprise the mainstay of the horizontal junctures. Importing this simple, compact vertical and horizontal mapping scheme braids the panoply of writing on the firm into four strands of patterned activity. I propose a typological model of firm preferences in (1) social and (2) competition policy arenas, which comports rather snuggly with much of the extant writings with in the VOC branch within these two policy spheres. This model hones in on variation in firm level lobbying strategies, recruitment, frame, and changing repertoire of resources throughout European integration since 1986 (Single European Act). This mapping scheme and preference model also has purchase on questions of agenda setting, malleable veto points, and the configurations of corporatism and pluralism at the EU level. The paper will include discussion of a down-stream enterprise - likely my dissertation - that would chart the intersection of national and EU social and competitive policy spheres through the lens of business interest intermediation since 1986. Some regression analysis will hopefully be presented, but my primary desire is feedback on the precision of my critical literature review and tweaking of the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electoral Systems and MP’s Behavior- A Dual Comparison In trying to account for the behavior of parliament members, many scholars argue that different electoral systems produce various incentives for parliamentarians, hence affect their behavior in different directions (Carey and Shugart, 1995). While in party centered electoral systems, such as PR closed lists, where voters cannot differentiate between MP and hence the reputation of personal MP is less important, the tendency to cross-vote the party will be small, in candidate centered electoral systems, such as PR open list and STV, the tendency to deviate from party lines will increase. In other word, in party centered electoral systems, party discipline mainly explains MP’s behavior as apposed to candidate centered electoral systems. Comparing Germany and New-Zealand might shed light on the diverse incentives different electoral systems produce and their effects on legislature’s behavior. Specifically this study allows for dual comparison based on the most similar system approach (Przewoski and Teune, 1970). The first comparison will be held among the counties, which share a Mixed Member electoral system, while the second comparison will be carried out within each country, since the electoral system combine both party centered elections and candidate centered elections. However, the scope of this research is two folded. The second goal is to cope with Krehbiel methodological criticism, concerning MP behavior research that “the data cannot discriminate between a party hypothesis and a preferences hypothesis” (Krehbiel, 1993). Thus, using Roll-Call votes as a measurement for MP’s behavior, and “old” Roll-Call votes, as a measurement for MP’s preferences, might not enable me, at least in Krehbiel’s view, to test my hypothesis. But, using candidate preference survey to measure the MP’s preferences might help achieve this differentiation. If a MP, in light of his/her answers in the survey (the surveys is conducted prior to him being elected) has preference A regarding issue X, while his party has preference B regarding the same issue than examining the roll-call votes on this issue might give us indications as to whether the MP’s behavior was influenced by his party’s discipline or not: if the MP voted with his/her party (voted B), then clearly, he defied his/her own preferences and responded to his party discipline (all other factors being controlled for). This paper, thus, will test the implications of different electoral systems on legislators’ behavior using a comparison between New-Zealand and Germany, while taking advantage of the unique opportunity mixed electoral systems supply for the comparison, while in addition, I will try to address Krehbiel’s criticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The terror attacks of September 11, the detection of local terrorist cells and arrests of terror suspects in several Western European countries as well as the widespread support violent attacks on American targets enjoy among the Muslim populations of Europe, has reopened the question how to best ensure a cohesive culturally diverse society, and whether policies aimed at the preservation of distinct cultural identities for immigrants have been counterproductive, and, indeed, are a threat to the internal safety of states In this paper we explore how the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 and their aftermath have led law and policymakers in France and Germany --two of three Western European countries with the largest Muslim minorities--to effect a fundamental reorientation of their integration policies. This reorientation, we argue, is characterized by a return to an assimilationist approach to integration supplanting cautious attempts at legal/political multiculturalism that had supported the adjustment of key policies (e.g., education, health care) and laws (e.g., dress codes, family law) to reflect the needs of a growing religious minority, which will potentially have an adverse affect on state-minority relations. Neo-assimilationism differs from earlier standard assimilationist (or, integrationist, for Germany) models. The main feature of neo-assimilationism, that gives the state again a central role in the creation of a cultural identity, is the desire to mainstream Muslims, not to turn them into Frenchmen but to integrate them into French/German societies and encourage them to embrace European ideals to avoid a culture clash that, directly and indirectly, might provide a fertile breeding ground for terrorism. The strategy to achieve this goal is new: where earlier attempts focused on the assimilationist power of schools or the law, neo-assimilationism intends to formally institutionalize a moderate Islam, and to tie Muslims and their leaders as closely to the French/German state as possible. Examples of neo-assimilationist policies that have been implemented in France and Germany include granting Muslim communities official state recognition under one umbrella group, thus making them eligible for some state funding for specific projects, creating and funding Muslim schools with teachers selected and paid by and answerable to government officials (the first Muslim lycée opened a few weeks ago), training German and French imams and religious instructors locally thus making the import of potentially radical foreign imams unnecessary, and, most importantly, the creation and election of an official French Muslim Council to represent all Muslims in France and to interact with the French government. In other words, the goal of neo-assimilationism is to create a homegrown French or German Islam where Islam is under close state supervision, and Muslims consider themselves French/German first and Muslims second. While clearly this is not illegitimate goal, it is very questionable how much support a secularization of Islam under the perceived tutelage of the state will enjoy, given the persistence Muslim communities have shown in the last decades to obtain the political and legal accommodation of their cultural traditions and their recognition as an autonomous community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explores the relationship between the German legislature and the two levels of judicial institutions it must consider when formulating national legislation. Previous work has focused on the interplay between the parliament and the court, suggesting that the legislature can strategically alter its behavior in response to anticipated court rulings, and that the court’s reputation in turn affects its ability to attain desired legislative outcomes. Past research, however, has largely neglected an increasingly important player in the legislative-judicial game: the supranational, European-level court. This paper examines the extent to which the European Court of Justice impacts Bundestag decisions, and how the Bundestag weighs the sometimes-differing demands placed upon it by both the supranational and national judicial systems. This research conceptualizes a model of legislative/court/supranational-court relations, and illustrates the model with a detailed case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]