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How does the recognition of collective self-governance rights for indigenous communities affect national unity and state consolidation? In recent decades, many states have recognized such rights, devolving de jure control over land and local governance to indigenous institutions. Prominent perspectives in the state-building literature suggest that these policies are likely to threaten state consolidation by strengthening nonstate authorities at the expense of state authority and subnational identities at the expense of a national identity. Yet few studies have tested whether these policies have the consequences their critics claim. I address this gap, leveraging spatial and temporal variation in the granting of communal land titles to indigenous communities in the Philippines. Using difference-in-differences and panel designs, I find that titling increases both indigenous self-identification and compliance with the state. Results from an original survey experiment suggest that recognizing collective self-governance rights increases identification with the nation.

Keeping schools open was an active strategy in Sweden to meet the threats of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this article we analyze how a collection of welfare state agents with different tasks, resources and interests in interaction formed an assemblage in their responses to the pandemic and how education thereby became part of a strategy to keep the society going. The inquiries concern what this tells us about education as framed and constrained as a part of society. Our observations are based on statements presented by the government and public agencies, mass media and websites. We identified an assemblage of interwoven agents such as institutions, laws, regulations and recommendations, pandemic manuals, statistics and media. All these were brought together by actions and ideas to handle a pandemic when there were no preventive vaccines. The overarching principle was to educate the population to competent actions in dealing with the pandemic. To keep schools open was part of that principle combined with caretaking ambitions. This assemblage looked like a centralistic machine but it was not; risks were pushed back to local authorities and schools. In conclusion, we note that education is vital in the overarching strategy to deal with the pandemic in Sweden in terms of trust in people and governmentality. Im Umgang mit der Corona-Pandemie entschied sich die schwedische Regierung bewusst dafür, Schulen offen zu halten. Im vorliegenden Artikel analysieren wir, wie ausgewählte Entscheider im Wohlfahrtsstaat mit unterschiedlichen Aufgaben, Ressourcen und Interessen interagierten und zu einer gemeinsamen Strategie in Bezug auf die Pandemie gelangten. Bildung wurde dabei zum Element einer Gesamtstrategie mit dem Ziel, die Gesellschaft funktionsfähig zu halten. Wir gehen der Frage nach, was dies über Bildung im Kontext ihrer Rahmung und Beschränkung durch die Gesellschaft aussagt. Unsere Analysen beruhen auf Verlautbarungen der Regierung und öffentlicher Einrichtungen, Beiträgen in Massenmedien und Websites. Wir konnten ein Netz von Handlungsträgern und deren Verflechtungen in Institutionen, Gesetze, Regelungen und Empfehlungen, Handreichungen zu Pandemien, Statistiken und Medien identifizieren. Die Ideen und Aktionen beziehen sich auf die Phase, in der es noch keine Schutzimpfungen gegen die Corona-Pandemie gab. Dem Ganzen übergeordnet war die Leitidee, die Bevölkerung zum kompetenten Umgang mit der Pandemie zu erziehen. Die Offenhaltung des Schulbetriebs war ein wichtiger Pfeiler in der Strategie, verbunden mit dem Gedanken der Fürsorge. Was auf den ersten Blick wie ein zentralistisch organisierter Apparat anmutet, war es bei genauerem Hinsehen nicht: Risiken wurden doch auf die lokale Ebene und die Schulen verlagert. Zusammenfassend stellen wir fest, dass der Bildung in der schwedischen Strategie des Umgangs mit der Corona-Pandemie eine Schlüsselrolle zukommt – bei einer lenkenden Rolle der Regierung und zugleich Vertrauen in die Bevölkerung.

Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) bietet eine Vielfalt von Einsatzmöglichkeiten. Insbesondere mit dem Aufkommen von Smart Contracts gibt es zahlreiche Anwendungsfälle, in denen diese Technologie angewendet werden kann. Da ein Blockchain-Netzwerk ein selbstverwaltetes Ökosystem ist, stellt sich die Frage, welche hoheitliche Aufgaben der Öffentlichkeit überlassen werden können. Zu diesem Zweck werden, auf Basis der vorhandenen wissenschaftlichen Literatur, die verschiedenen Bereiche im öffentlichen Sektor und der Stand der Technik in Bezug auf die Digitalisierung vorgestellt. Diese interdisziplinäre Bachelorarbeit beantwortet die Forschungsfrage anhand von Pilotprojekten und Konzepten auf der Grundlage von DLT und bewertet ihre Umsetzbarkeit im jeweiligen öffentlichen Sektor. Sie kommt zu dem Schluss, dass die Blockchain vielversprechende Möglichkeiten für öffentliche Informationsdienste wie das Grundbuch bietet. Dies ist auf die Tatsache zurückzuführen, dass Themen wie Datenschutz und die Verwaltung und damit die Zugangskontrolle stark vereinfacht betrachtet werden können. In diesem Zusammenhang wurde ein Prototyp umgesetzt, um praktische Erkenntnisse als „Lessons Learned“ in die Arbeit miteinzubeziehen. In den Bereichen E-Voting und Bildung hat die Blockchain ebenfalls disruptives Potenzial. Die Realisierung von Blockchainsystemen in diesen Bereichen ist jedoch in hohem Maße abhängig von der individuellen Gestaltung aufgrund der höheren Anforderungen an die Datensicherheit. Um in der Lage sein zu können, die Vor- und Nachteile der Konzepte zu identifizieren, werden diese verstärkt aus der Perspektive der Spieltheorie betrachtet. Darüber hinaus zeigt das Ergebnis, dass die Blockchain zwar technisch gesehen als eine unterstützende Infrastruktur für die Gesundheitsfürsorge eingesetzt werden kann, jedoch überwiegen die Herausforderungen gegenüber den Vorteilen zum aktuellen Zeitpunkt. Insbesondere verhindern die Anforderungen der hochsensiblen Daten in diesem Bereich die effiziente Nutzung der Technologie. Zusätzlich werden weitere Forschungsfragen identifiziert, die hinsichtlich einer Selbstverwaltung der Öffentlichkeit betrachtet werden müssen. Nichtsdestotrotz bietet DLT eine vielversprechende Grundlage zur Bekämpfung von Problemen des gegenwärtigen Stands der Technik, wie etwa Betrug, Korruption und Vetternwirtschaft. In recent years technicians and scientists began to comprehend the widespread possibilities which Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) offered. Specifically, with the invention of smart contracts there are numerous use-cases this technology can be applied to. Since a blockchain network is a self-governing ecosystem the question rises which sovereign tasks can become in fact self-sovereign. For this purpose, different areas in the public sector and the state of the art in regard to digitalization are presented. Furthermore, existing scientific literature has been thoroughly inspected. The interdisciplinary thesis answers the research question by examining pilot projects and concepts based on DLT and assesses their feasibility in the respective public sector. It concludes that the blockchain offers promising possibilities for public information services like a land registry. This is due to the fact that issues such as data privacy and management and thus access control are greatly simplified. In this regard a prototype was implemented to also incorporate practical findings as lessons learned. In the sectors of e-voting and education the blockchain has disruptive potential. However, the feasibility of blockchain systems in these areas is highly dependent on the individual design, due to the higher requirements for data security. In order to be able to identify the advantages and disadvantages of the designs, this thesis puts a strong emphasis on the application of game theory in blockchain systems. Moreover, the result shows that while technically the blockchain can be used as a support infrastructure for health care, the challenges outweigh the benefits at the time of writing. In particular, the characteristics of highly sensitive data prevent the efficient use of the technology. Additionally, further research questions are identified that need to be addressed towards self-sovereign governance. Nevertheless, DLT offers a promising foundation to battle problems of current state of the art, i.e. fraud, corruption, and nepotism.

US President Donald Trump has announced a "deal of the century" to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The plan is to be revealed at an undetermined date some­time after the Israeli parliamentary elections. While the details remain a well-kept secret, the US Administration’s record to date suggests that the initiative will pri­ori­tise Israeli interests over Palestinian rights, ignore fundamental principles of inter­national law, and steer well away from the idea of two sovereign states. The Palestinian leadership's rejection must therefore be expected. The incoming Israeli government is likely to treat that as a green light to implement those elements of the plan that serve to maintain its permanent control over East Jerusalem and strategic areas of the West Bank. This course also risks breakdown of the already precarious Israeli-Pal­es­tinian cooperation on conflict management. The EU and its member states should take the publication of the US plan as an occasion to spell out the principles of the kind of conflict resolution that they could support, and state the consequences for European policy of Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank. (Autorenreferat)

The European Union is regarded as a union of diverse territories, but this defi nition applies to most European Union member states, too. How best should member states manage diversity to maintain the Union? What are the main triggers for autonomy demands in a Union? This article contends that the progressive expansion of regional identities as a response to European integration acts as the main trigger of demand for regional autonomy. This paper draws upon descriptive evidence from two affl uent and distinctive Spanish regions, Catalonia and the Basque Country, from 1982 to 2007. Explorative regression analysis of survey data suggests that sub-central identity exceeds that of taming regional redistribution in determining support for regional autonomy.

This paper studies the factors driving changes in judicial independence (JI) as incorporated in constitutions. Two indicators of constitutionally safeguarded JI are constructed. Variations in these indicators are identified based on changes in the constitutions of as many as 100 countries that occurred between 1950 and 2005. Four groups of factors are conjectured to be relevant for explaining these changes. We find only weak evidence for the insurance theory of judicial independence but strong evidence that the characteristics of individual leaders - such as how they acquired or lost power - play an important role in explaining changes in constitutionally safeguarded JI. This paper contributes not only to the literature on JI but also to the theory of endogenous constitutions.

Institutions can contribute to regulating interethnic conflict; however, in many cases they fail to bring about lasting peace. The paper argues that their negligence of intraethnic factors accounts for some of this failure. Ethnic groups are often treated as unitary actors even though most consist of various linguistic, tribal or religious subgroups. This internal heterogeneity is often obscured by overarching collective ethnic identities that are fostered by interethnic conflict. However, when such interethnic conflict is settled, these subgroup differences may come back to the fore. This resurgence can lead to subgroup conflict about the political and economic resources provided through intergroup institutional settlements. Such conflict can in turn undermine the peace-making effect of intergroup arrangements. Different subgroup identity constellations make such destructive effects more or less likely. The paper focuses on self-government provisions in the aftermath of violent interethnic conflict and argues that lasting intergroup arrangements are especially challenging when they involve contested ethnic groups.

Decentralization of decision-making is among the most intriguing recent school reforms, in part because countries went in opposite directions over the past decade and because prior evidence is inconclusive. We suggest that autonomy may be conducive to student achievement in well-developed systems but detrimental in low-performing systems. We construct a panel dataset from the four waves of international PISA tests spanning 2000-2009, comprising over one million students in 42 countries. Relying on panel estimation with country fixed effects, we identify the effect of school autonomy from within-country changes in the average share of schools with autonomy over key elements of school operations. Our results show that autonomy affects student achievement negatively in developing and low-performing countries, but positively in developed and high-performing countries. These results are unaffected by a wide variety of robustness and specification tests, providing confidence in the need for nuanced application of reform ideas.

The article proposes an enabling mechanism for the creation, adjustment and dissolution of governmental units, giving autonomy to each individual as in a direct democracy. The mechanism is designed such that Pareto optimality is possible, in contrast to earlier models which make various assumptions such as majority voting. Individuals are taken seriously acknowledging that they are best equipped to find their own solutions. The emphasis is on the practical approach of how individuals discover and implement their subjective preferences and how this discovery and implementation process can be facilitated and corresponding costs lowered. Governmental units are subjected to some of the same market forces as business firms. This brings the interaction between governmental units closer to a market structure, and serves to eliminate or reduce many of the coercive elements of government. Paper submitted to the special issue "Global Governance—Challenges and Proposals for Reform"

This paper analyses and compares the efficiency of alternative incentive compatible grant schemes under asymmetric information relieving subnational governments of excessive debt burden. They allow intervention into local debt, local tax or complete local fiscal policy. In the first case, separation of types can be induced by forcing recipients to inefficient high borrowing and in the second case by imposing inefficient high tax rates. In the last case, fiscal policy of the recipient region is distorted in the period of the exogenous shock. We show that constraining complete financial autonomy leads to the lowest welfare losses. This is due to the fact that complete regulation of local fiscal policy reduces the incentive of contributing local governments to defect from truthful relevation.

In Germany, support for families includes diverse types of financial and material aid. These different programs are not aligned and coordinated, but rather stand alone alongside each other and are far from being transparent. This article argues that this situation could be remedied by grouping the various family-related support measures within a single family support agency as a parafiscal institution. Here we summarize the basic advantages and disadvantages of parafiscal institutions and evaluate them in the context of family-related support measures. Then we examine the aspect of self-administration, which has taken a prominent role in the debate on parafiscal institutions. The paper concludes by outlining further parameters for the design, financing, and range of services that could be offered by a family parafiscus. However, a detailed discussion of the services offered by a family parafiscus would require systematic evaluation of the overall system. In the medium term, there is substantial evidence that efforts should begin to integrate the family-related support measures provided by the social insurance system with other support measures provided by the federal government in a single family support agency. Zusammenfassung Familienbezogene Leistungen umfassen in Deutschland eine Vielzahl von Sach- und Geldleistungen. Diese Leistungen sind nicht aufeinander abgestimmt, stehen häufig unverbunden nebeneinander und sind wenig transparent. Die Bündelung familienbezogener Maßnahmen bei einer Familienkasse als Parafiskus könnte, so die zentrale Aussage dieses Beitrags, Abhilfe schaffen. Die grundsätzlichen Vor- und Nachteile parafiskalischer Institutionen werden zusammengefasst und es wird diskutiert, wie diese im Kontext familienbezogener Leistungen zu bewerten sind. Daran anschließend wird der Aspekt der Selbstverwaltung beleuchtet, da er in der Debatte um Parafisken einen prominenten Stellenwert einnimmt. Der Beitrag schließt mit der Skizzierung weiterer Ausgestaltungsparameter eines Familienparafiskus, seiner Finanzierung und des Leistungsspektrums. Eine Diskussion um den Leistungskatalog eines Familienparafiskus setzt allerdings eine systematische Evaluierung des Gesamtsystems voraus. Mittelfristig spricht einiges dafür mit einer Integration der familienbezogenen Maßnahmen in der Sozialversicherung und anderer beim Bund angesiedelter familienbezogener Leistungen in eine Familienkasse zu beginnen., Journal of Family Research, Vol 20 No 3 (2008): Forschungsbeiträge aus den Disziplinen

Universities are key players in the successful transition to a knowledge-based economy and society. However, this crucial sector of society needs restructuring if Europe is not to lose out in the global competition in education, research and innovation. To allow a more evidence based process of reforms of higher education, this contribution reviews the trends in performance, funding and governance of European universities. It also brings on board some evidence on support for the reform process. The analysis shows that, while EU universities have improved their quantitative performance on teaching and research, it needs to further improve especially on the quality dimension. The link between governance, funding and performance is not obvious and needs still further data and research. Nevertheless, the preliminary evidence so far seems to suggest that society supports a multitude of university structures, to respond to a heterogeneous set of preferences. This calls for granting universities the space and thrust to develop autonomously their own strategies and structures. Public and private stakeholders should provide the funds for universities to develop their agenda, while holding them accountability for delivering results. Establishing a large, integrated market for higher education and research in Europe, would provide an environment for European universities to develop their comparative advantages, making them stronger players on the world scene.

In this thesis, we investigate three different aspects of distributed information systems: security, caching, and self-management. We describe our concept of a security system for distributed and open systems using our query processing system ObjectGlobe as an example. One part of this concept is our OperatorCheck server, which validates the semantics of an operator and analyzes its quality before the operator is actually used in queries. This is done semi-automatically using an oracle-based approach to compare a formal specification of an operator against its implementation. Further security measures are integrated into the query processing engine: secure communication channels are established, authentication and authorization are performed, and overload situations are avoided by admission control. Operators are guarded using Java's security model to prevent unauthorized resource access and leakage of data. The resource consumption of operators is monitored and limited to avoid resource monopolization. We present a semantic caching scheme suitable for caching responses from Web services on the SOAP protocol level. Web services are typically described using WSDL documents. For semantic caching we developed an XML-based declarative language to annotate WSDL documents with information about the caching-relevant semantics of requests and responses. Using this information, our semantic cache answers requests based on the responses of similar previously executed requests. Performance experiments---based on the scenarios of TPC-W and TPC-W Version 2---conducted using our prototype implementation demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed semantic caching scheme. We present a novel autonomic computing concept which is hiding the ever increasing complexity of managing IT infrastructures. For this purpose, we virtualize, pool, and monitor hardware to provide a dynamic computing infrastructure. A fuzzy-logic-based controller supervises all services running on this virtual platform. Higher-level services such as business applications profit from running on this platform. For example, failed services are restarted automatically. A service overload is detected and remedied by either starting additional service instances or by moving the service to a more powerful server. The capabilities and constraints of the services and the hardware environment are specified in a declarative XML language. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit werden drei Aspekte verteilter Informationssysteme untersucht: Sicherheit, Caching und Selbstverwaltung. Wir beschreiben unser Sicherheitssystem für verteilte, erweiterbare Systeme am Beispiel unseres verteilten Anfrageprozessors ObjectGlobe. Unser OperatorCheck-Server, der die Semantik eines Operators überprüft und seine Qualität untersucht, bevor der Operator tatsächlich in Anfragen eingesetzt wird, stellt einen Teil dieses Sicherheitssystems dar. Der OperatorCheck-Server arbeitet dabei halbautomatisch unter Verwendung eines Orakels, um eine formale Spezifikation eines Operators mit seiner Implementierung zu vergleichen. Weitere Sicherheitsmaßnahmen sind in den Anfrageprozessor integriert: Sichere Kommunikationskanäle werden aufgebaut, Authentifizierung und Autorisierung werden durchgeführt und Überlastsituationen werden durch eine Zugangskontrolle verhindert. Operatoren werden durch das Sicherheitssystem von Java überwacht, um unautorisierte Zugriffe auf Ressourcen und Datenlecks zu verhindern. Der Ressourcenverbrauch von Operatoren wird überwacht und beschränkt, um die Monopolisierung von Ressourcen zu vermeiden. Wir stellen einen semantischen Cache für die Antworten von Web-Services vor, der auf der SOAP-Protokollebene arbeitet. Web-Services werden üblicherweise mit Hilfe von WSDL-Dokumenten beschrieben. Wir haben eine XML-basierte deklarative Sprache entworfen, um WSDL-Dokumente mit cachingrelevanten Informationen bezüglich der Semantik von Anfragen und Antworten anzureichern. Unter Verwendung dieser Informationen kann unser semantischer Cache Anfragen basierend auf früheren Ergebnissen ähnlicher Anfragen beantworten. Wir haben Leistungsmessungen basierend auf den Szenarien der TPC-W und TPC-W Version 2 Benchmarks durchgeführt, die die Effektivität des vorgeschlagenen Cachingansatzes belegen. Für die Messungen haben wir unsere prototypische Implementierung des Caches verwendet. Wir stellen ein neuartiges Konzept für Autonomic Computing vor, das die steigende Komplexität des IT-Managements verbirgt. Zu diesem Zweck virtualisieren und überwachen wir die Hardware und fassen sie in einem Pool zusammen, um eine dynamische Infrastruktur zur Verfügung zu stellen. Ein Fuzzy-Logik-basierter Controller überwacht alle Dienste, die auf dieser virtuellen Plattform ausgeführt werden. Höherwertige Dienste, wie zum Beispiel Geschäftsanwendungen, profitieren davon, auf dieser Plattform ausgeführt zu werden. Beispielsweise werden abgestürzte Dienste automatisch neu gestartet. Überlastsituationen von Diensten werden entdeckt und behoben, indem entweder eine weitere Dienstinstanz gestartet wird oder indem der Dienst auf einen leistungsfähigeren Rechner umgezogen wird. Die Fähigkeiten und Anforderungen der Dienste und der Hardwareumgebung werden mit Hilfe einer XML-basierten Sprache spezifiziert.

Recent empirical work shows that judicial dependence can explain high levels of corruption. This paper examines how the dependence of judiciaries influences corruption at different levels of the government in a model where the central government, low-level officials, and the judiciary are corrupt. In the model, the central government sells offices to low-level officials and demands ex-post payments enforced by the judiciary. Because an independent judiciary can rule against the central authority and accept bribes from stealing low-level officials, it reduces corruption at the higher level of government but promotes corruption at the lower level. Therefore, even if highly corrupt, an independent judiciary may reduce total corruption. We provide empirical evidence which is in line with this result.

Discussions on problems in higher education in Europe typically focus on rising enrolment rates, access, governance, underperformance in research and teaching, lack of internationalisation, the lack of private and public funding. Our proposals for reform are based on more autonomy for universities, higher tuition fees, more private funding, introduction of income-contingent loans, better governance, more competition and internationalisation. Taking a subsidiarity perspective, the role of the EU in reforming the higher education sector in Europe is providing mutual policy learning opportunities on higher education reforms across Member States and supporting the building of higher education infrastructure in Member States (through the Structural and FP Funds). But beyond the support to Member States policies, the EU should further develop the European dimension, through furthering the goals of the Bologna reforms, cross recognition of qualifications, funding and promoting intra-EU mobility of students, researchers and teachers. The EU should take more initiatives to facilitate global mobility and cooperation. Finally, consistent with the subsidiarity principle, the EU can develop “flagships” initiatives.

The question raised in this paper is whether changes over the last 20 years in the German financial accounting system signal a retreat of the nation state from this policy field. Using a comprehensive perspective on accountancy we consider the steps in the accounting process, i.e. standard setting, enforcement and disclosure, and analyse whether significant privatisation tendencies can be observed in accounting, whether and how the state safeguards its scope for interventions in the public interest and how these changes compare to the ongoing globalisation in accounting. We find that changes in all these areas are first of all driven by the application of European legislation, but also by voluntary harmonisation and an increased involvement of private actors. Altogether, a shift towards a (more) societal governance mode can be witnessed. However, the State increases its interventions at the same time by regulating arenas in which it was previously not active.

This paper studies the politico-economic reasons for the refusal of a proposed compulsory flood insurance scheme in Germany. It provides the rationale for such scheme and outlines the basic features of a market-orientated design. The main reasons for the political down-turn of this proposal were the (mis)perceived costs of a state guarantee, legal objections against a compulsory insurance, distributional conflicts between the federal government and the German states ("Länder") on the implied administrative costs and the well-known "samariter dilemma" of ad-hoc disaster relief. The focus on pure market solutions proved to be an ineffective strategy for policy advice in this field. Während die Rahmenbedingungen für das deutsche Gesundheitssystem vom Gesetzgeber vorgegeben werden, obliegt die Bestimmung einzelner Leistungen bzw. Leistungsinhalte den Entscheidungsträgern der Selbstverwaltung. Dabei variiert die Genauigkeit der Leistungsdefinition zwischen verschiedenen Sektoren und Ausgabenträgern. Während die Leistungen einiger Ausgabenträger nur implizit definiert sind, ist der Leistungsumfang anderer Ausgabenträger bereits explizit als Leistungskatalog formuliert. Dabei orientiert sich die Mehrheit der Ausgabenträger an dem Leistungsumfang der gesetzlichen Krankenversicherung (GKV) und überträgt diesen in den eigenen Bereich. Im Rahmen der GKV, die ca. 88% der Bevölkerung versichert und 56,9% der Gesundheitsausgaben trägt, bestimmen verschiedene Kataloge zusammen mit den Richtlinien des Gemeinsamen Bundesausschusses den Leistungsumfang. Die Leistungen, der Aufbau und der Inhalt der Leistungskataloge, die an der Definition der Kataloge beteiligten Akteure, sowie die Entscheidungskriterien für die Aufnahme neuer Leistungen in die Leistungskataloge der Sozialversicherungen werden in diesem Zusammenhang ausführlich dargestellt und analysiert.

Teichler, Ulrich [Hrsg.]; Tippelt, Rudolf [Hrsg.]: Hochschullandschaft im Wandel. Weinheim u.a. : Beltz 2005, S. 56-60. - (Zeitschrift für Pädagogik, Beiheft; 50), Der Autor analysiert spezifische Merkmale des britischen Hochschulsystems: den Grad der Autonomie der Universitäten gegenüber dem Staat sowie das System der Hochschulfinanzierung. Dabei geht er auf die Bewertung von universitärer Forschung ein und die Bedeutung der Evaluation für die einzelnen Institute hinsichtlich der staatlichen Finanzierung. Außerdem thematisiert er die Einführung von Studiengebühren. (DIPF/av)

It is argued that an independent judiciary is a necessary condition for both individual liberty and economic prosperity. After having surveyed the literature dealing with how to arrange for an independent judiciary, the authors derive some additional policy implications by drawing on two indicators of judicial independence (JI) recently introduced by them. De facto JI has a robust and highly significant impact on economic growth. Individual components of both de jure and de facto JI on economic growth are estimated for their impact on economic growth. Additionally, the effects of other institutional arrangements such as presidential vs. parliamentary systems are inquired into.

Oelkers, Jürgen [Hrsg.]: Zukunftsfragen der Bildung. Weinheim : Beltz 2001, S. 99-118. - (Zeitschrift für Pädagogik, Beiheft; 43), The paper reviews recent evidence concerning the progess and effects of the currently fashionable "school autonomy" and "parental choice" agendas in contemporary education policy in England and Wales, the USA and New Zealand. School autonomy, as used here, refers to school self-management through some or all aspects of funding and decision-making being devolved from regional and district offices to individual schools.... In considering parental choice, the paper is particularly concerned with those policies that claim to enhance opportunities for choice among state schools and those that use public funds to extend choice into the private sector. (DIPF/orig.)