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Erworben im Rahmen der Schweizer Nationallizenzen (http://www.nationallizenzen.ch), Territorial divisions are commonly believed to dominate the international realm, supposedly leaving no room for ideological distinctions to take shape. However, the formation of over fifty transnational political groups (TPGs) across thirteen international parliaments challenges this assumption, calling into question the previously accepted insignificance of ideology beyond the boundaries of the nation-state. Previously unexplored in comparative perspective, this paper investigates TPGs’ puzzling existence and delineates the conditions for their emergence within international parliaments. The theoretical argument is that homogeneity across the member states of the international parliament along three dimensions – political systems, economic development levels and geographical proximity – fosters the creation of transnational political groups. Results from regression analysis on time series cross-sectional data lend support to the theory. With the rise of international parliamentary institutions and their increased involvement in supranational decision-making over time, it becomes highly important to understand how they organize as well as the implications of their institutional designs.

This chapter delineates democratic projects of the city. These envisage different roles for the state vis-à-vis society, as well as understandings of the potential of the “urban.” Much of the new municipalist movement's potential lies in the productive tensions it generates from interfacing state-centered and societal projects of the “city,” working across binaries like direct and representative democracy, social movements, and political parties. Limits are, however, detected in relation to the extent to which new municipalism might engage with a range of ongoing urban everyday political activisms, where very different means and spaces of acting politically and democratically are apparent.

There is little research studying the effects of political violence on financial markets over decades, especially in an atmosphere where the violence manifested itself in heterogeneous and geographically widespread ways. This article examines the authoritarian edifice of Tsarist Russia in the nineteenth century to examine the way in which capital markets perceived political instability in a country which had paradoxically strong financial institutions but weak political ones. Using a novel database on political violence in Russia in the nineteenth century matched to monthly financial data from Russian equity markets, this article provides strong evidence that Russia's financial markets were negatively affected in the long run by political violence. Consistent with modern views of financial information, the effects of political violence were quickly incorporated into asset prices, but the specific magnitude of such violence was different depending on where the violence occurred and in what manner. Overall, it appeared that political violence was perceived very negatively by investors in Russian equity markets.

The determinants of life satisfaction have been the subject of academic research for decades. Several studies show the impact of, for example, age, income, or health. Controlling for demographic, personal factors, and economic factors we extend the existing literature by examining how trust in political institutions affects people’s life satisfaction. Our results indicate that trust in political institutions significantly increases the level of life satisfaction. Using logistic regressions, we also examine how trust impacts the probability of being satisfied with life and find that the probability of being satisfied with life increases by about 3.9 percentage points for each unit of trust. Moreover, we show that people living in Western Europe are, on average, more satisfied with life and confirm the U-shaped functional form of the dependence of life satisfaction on age described in the literature. Our results are robust with respect to different specifications.

Hierarchical accountability often proves insufficient to control street-level implementation, where complex, informal accountability relations prevail and tasks must be prioritized. However, scholars lack a theoretical model of how accountability relations affect implementation behaviors that are inconsistent with policy. By extending the Accountability Regimes Framework (ARF), this paper explains how multiple competing subjective street-level accountabilities translate into policy divergence. The anti-terrorism “Prevent Duty” policy in the United Kingdom requires university lecturers to report any student they suspect may be undergoing a process of radicalization. We ask: what perceived street-level accountabilities and dilemmas does this politically contested policy imply for lecturers, and how do they affect divergence? An online survey of British lecturers (N = 809), combined with 35 qualitative follow-up interviews, reveals that accountability dilemmas trigger policy divergence. The ARF models how street-level bureaucrats become informal policymakers in the political system when rules clash with their roles as professionals, citizen-agents, or “political animals.”

This article addresses, experimentally, the question of how presuppositions are cognitively processed and retrieved in discourse. In the proposed research, we have administered tweets produced by Italian politicians to native speakers so as to assess how easily they could retrieve the presupposed content of two presupposition triggers (definite descriptions and change of state verbs), as opposed to their explicit paraphrase, by answering verification questions. Results showed that content presupposed by change of state verbs was likely to receive more attention than content conveyed by definite descriptions; this could possibly be due to the greater effort involved in mentally representing the event taken for granted by the predicates. Definite descriptions, on the contrary, seem to instruct to a shallower processing modality, which means that their content is processed less attentively or in a ‘good-enough’ way.

The Polish people remain staunchly in favour of the concept of a European Union. Paradoxically though, there has been strong and continued electoral support for Law and Justice (PiS), its ruling party, despite its insistence on precipitating and then continuing multifaceted conflicts with EU institutions. This article examines the internal structural changes in Poland and the attitudes to the EU of Poland’s leaders; the article will argue that those attitudes have deepened pre-existing divisions over integration. By fusing the triple modernization theory of European integration with a two-dimensional concept of party-based Euroscepticism, the article shows how PiS’s ambiguous discourse on European integration, combined with an increasingly instrumental approach to the EU by the Polish electorate—and that electorate’s deepening polarization—have secured steady support for PiS from ostensibly Europhile voters.

Die zu geringe Einbindung und Beteiligung der Bevölkerung an politischen Prozessen wird in der Literatur als eine der Hauptursachen für die Defizite westlicher Demokratien angesehen. Der digitale Wandel ermöglicht eine Vielzahl neuer und innovativer Partizipationsprozesse, die ein grosses Potenzial für Politik und Verwaltung haben, die Bevölkerung niedrigschwellig, aber schnell, effizient und häufiger in politische Entscheidungen und Massnahmen einzubeziehen. Der Beitrag stellt anhand eines Fallbeispiels aus der öffentlichen Verwaltung ein neues Instrument der digitalen Partizipation in Form eines algorithmusbasierten Partizipationstools und dessen Funktionsweise vor. Gleichzeitig wird exemplarisch aufgezeigt, wo Verwaltungen solche Partizipationsinstrumente zielgerichtet einsetzen können und wie sie den E-Partizipationsprozess richtig umsetzen können.

Responsible Territorial Policymaking incorporates the main principles of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) into the policymaking process, making it well-suited for guiding the development of sustainable and resilient territorial policies that prioritise societal needs. As a cornerstone in RRI, public engagement plays a central role in this process, underscoring the importance of involving all societal actors to align outcomes with the needs, expectations, and values of society. In the absence of existing methods to gather sufficiently and effectively the citizens’ review of multiple policies at a territorial level, the RRI Citizen Review Panel is a new public engagement method developed to facilitate citizens’ review and validation of territorial policies. By using RRI as an analytical framework, this paper examines whether the RRI Citizen Review Panel can support Responsible Territorial Policymaking, not only by incorporating citizens’ perspectives into territorial policymaking, but also by making policies more responsible. The paper demonstrates that in the review of territorial policies, citizens are adding elements of RRI to a wide range of policies within different policy areas, contributing to making policies more responsible. Consequently, the RRI Citizen Review Panel emerges as a valuable tool for policymakers, enabling them to gather citizen perspectives and imbue policies with a heightened sense of responsibility.

While a firm can minimize its own political risk, there are idiosyncratic and country-specific risks that are more difficult to control. In particular, home country governments pursue their own foreign policies independently of business, forging international linkages with other countries in pursuit of tangible benefits. But what happens when a government forges connectivity to a country which exhibits volatility or generates geopolitical shocks? This paper examines this question by studying the response of European stock markets to the ongoing (since 2014) Russian invasion of Ukraine. Using a variety of metrics to measure political connectivity, we distinguish between anti-Russian governments and governments which are more favorable to Russia during this period, combining this connectivity data with a new database of sanctions and war-related events. Applying asymmetric GARCH, panel estimations, and event study methods, we find that the uncertainty caused by Russian aggression in Ukraine has harmed financial markets in countries such as Serbia and Hungary, countries which have willingly forged connections with Russia during this time. Consistently, our empirical results show that, by tying a country to another one via political means, politicians also have tied the fortunes of their capital markets to the success or failure of this partner.

Allocation decisions are vulnerable to political influence, but it is unclear in which situations politicians use their discretionary power in a partisan manner. We analyze the allocation of presidential disaster declarations in the United States, exploiting the spatiotemporal randomness of all hurricane strikes from 1965-2018 along with changes in political alignment. We show that decisions are unbiased when disasters are either very strong or weak. Only after medium-intensity hurricanes do areas governed by presidents' co-partisans receive up to twice as many declarations. This hump-shaped political bias explains 8.3 percent of overall relief spending, totaling about USD 400 million per year.

The Positive Energy District (PED) concept is currently evolving based on the strategic energy transition (SET) plan of the European Union member states. As the first PEDs are just now developing all over Europe, little is known about how the PED concept is being implemented, and how the pandemic has pushed the PED agenda forward in certain directions. The chapter reviews experiences from the pandemic crisis to identify valuable lessons on how different governance models work for PED. By describing and comparing recent developments of PEDs in Switzerland, Austria, and Norway, the chapter merges this knowledge to propose new ways to overcome shortcomings in the governance of PEDs based on the experiences from the pandemic crisis. Our research is based on literature and document analysis and qualitative interviews with urban planning experts. The chapter illustrates the importance of integrated and cross-sector approaches in the governance of PEDs, which are becoming a potential new normal way of integrating urban planning with energy innovation, implemented and operated in multi-stakeholder settings.

Die Demokratiefeindlichkeit wird in der Schweiz sichtbarer. Ein Grund dafür ist das veränderte Informationsverhalten. Was kann die Soziale Arbeit beitragen, um die Demokratie zu stärken bzw. Demokratiefeindlichkeit abzuwehren?

Populism is an ideologically fluid political vehicle which increases political risk and forces firms to adapt. As populist parties claim to speak exclusively for the people, any activities that could be perceived as going against populist ideals or leaders are problematic from the corporate point of view. These obligations need not require firms to actively support the populist party or to champion causes dear to the populists, as they may simply expect that firms refrain from challenging the status quo. But these expectations can alter firm operations and planning, particularly intangible activities such as corporate social responsibility, making a firm divert resources away from what it may desire to compete in the economic marketplace and forcing it instead to compete in the social and political marketplace. In this paper, we explore these obligations imposed on firms and term them corporate political responsibility (CPR), a specific type of corporate political activity imposed from the outside. Through our examination, we find that CPR is the dark side of stakeholder capitalism, with the use of state power claiming rights within the marketplace that are not theirs to claim.

A CO2 tax has been levied on fossil heating and process fuels in Switzerland since 2008. The tax has been increased in five steps from an initial rate of CHF 12 to CHF 120 per ton of CO2 equivalents in 2022, which makes it one of the highest CO2 taxes in the world1 . Large greenhouse gas-intensive plants are exempted from the CO2 tax since they are required to participate in the emissionstrading scheme. Medium-sized plants can be exempted from the CO2 tax. In return, however, they must agree to a reduction target path with the environmental authority. The aim of this paper is to evaluate empirically the impact of the CO2 tax versus the target agreements on greenhouse gas emissions mitigations in the industrial and services sector.

Mit dem Modellprojekt fYOUture förderte das Land Nordrhein-Westfalen zwischen Herbst 2017 und Herbst 2022 die Partizipation Jugendlicher in der Stadtgesellschaft von Solingen und strebte neben Demokratieförderung den Austausch zwischen jungen Menschen und Vertreter:innen aus Kommunalpolitik und Verwaltung an. Das Projekt wurde vom Institut für Sozialmanagement am Departement Soziale Arbeit der ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften wissenschaftlich begleitet. Mittels qualitativer, teilstandardisierter, leitfadengestützter Interviews mit Jugendlichen sowie Vertreter:innen aus Verwaltung und Kommunalpolitik wurde die Projekteinführung in einer ersten Phase evaluiert und im entsprechenden Abschlussbericht theoretisch gerahmt (Kehl & Steiner, 2020). Der Bericht konnte aufzeigen, dass das Projekt zur Entstehung einer jugendgerechten kommunalen Infrastruktur beigetragen hat, und formulierte Impulse für die Verstetigung, Förderung und Stärkung der Jugendbeteiligung in Solingen. Unerwartet wurden das Projekt und die wissenschaftliche Projektbegleitung durch die Covid-19-Pandemie in den Jahren 2020 und 2021 behindert. Eine zweite Evaluierung, welche im vorliegenden Bericht beschrieben wird, fand deshalb erst 2021 und 2022 statt. Ziel dieser zweiten Evaluationsphase war es, die Entwicklung des Projekts zu prüfen und weitere Wege hin zur Verstetigung, Förderung und Stärkung von Jugendpartizipa-tion in Solingen darzulegen. Hierfür sollten Wahrnehmung und Akzeptanz sowie Erfolgsfaktoren bislang umgesetzter Angebote aufgegriffen, ebenso wie Handlungsbedarfe identifiziert und (potenzielle) Spannungsfelder zwischen den Ziel- bzw. Anspruchsgruppen untersucht werden. Zwischen November 2021 und Januar 2022 fanden je zwei Fokusgruppengespräche mit Vertreter:innen aus Kommunalpolitik sowie Stadtverwaltung statt. Die Gespräche dienten dem Austausch praktischer Erfahrungswerte – den erlebten Erfolgen und Schwächen im Projektverlauf – und regten zur Diskussion über mögliche

Das Projekt fYOUture – Wenn Demokratie leben lernt ist ein im Herbst 2017 gestartetes Modellvorhaben zur Förderung demokratischer Partizipation und politischer Artikulation junger Menschen in der Stadt Solingen. Finanziert vom Land Nordrhein-Westfalen, verzahnt es die Handlungsfelder Jugendarbeit, Kommunalpolitik und Verwaltung. Zielgruppe sind Jugendliche und junge Erwachsene im Alter von 14 bis 27 Jahren, Mitarbeiter*innen der Verwaltung sowie Kommunalpolitiker*innen. Das Modell-Projekt endete im August 2020, ein Folgeprojekt wurde unterdessen genehmigt. Der vorliegende Bericht fasst die bisherigen Erkenntnisse aus drei Erhebungsphasen zusammen, schafft Bezüge zueinander und bettet sie theoretisch ein. Es werden die Ziele beleuchtet und eingeordnet sowie Impulse dafür formuliert, wie die bestehenden Herausforderungen im Rahmen des Folgeprojekts angegangen werden können, damit die Jugendbeteiligung in Solingen weiterhin gefördert und gestärkt wird.

Mit dem Modellprojekt fYOUture förderte das Land Nordrhein-Westfalen zwischen Herbst 2017 und Herbst 2022 die Partizipation Jugendlicher in der Stadtgesellschaft von Solingen und strebte neben Demokratieförderung den Austausch zwischen jungen Menschen und Vertreter:innen aus Kommunalpolitik und Verwaltung an. Es verzahnte die Handlungsfelder Jugendarbeit, Kommunalpolitik und Verwaltung. Angesprochen wurden Jugendliche und junge Erwachsene im Alter von 14 bis 27 Jahren, Mitarbeiter:innen der Verwaltung sowie Kommunalpolitiker:innen. Die beiden zentralen Projektziele waren 1.) Beiträge zur Entstehung einer jugendgerechten kommunalen Infrastruktur und 2.) die Förderung der Mitgestaltung kommunalpolitischer Prozesse durch junge Menschen aus unterschiedlichen sozialen Zusammenhängen. Das Projekt wurde von der ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften in zwei Evaluationsphasen (2017 bis 2020 sowie 2021 bis 2022) wissenschaftlich begleitet. Mittels qualitativer, teilstandardisierter, leitfadengestützter Interviews mit Jugendlichen sowie Vertreter:innen aus Verwaltung und Kommunalpolitik zu drei Befragungszeitpunkten wurde die Projekteinführung in der ersten Phase evaluiert und im entsprechenden Abschlussbericht theoretisch gerahmt (Kehl & Steiner, 2020). In der zweiten Evaluationsphase fanden je zwei Fokusgruppengespräche mit Vertreter:innen aus Kommunalpolitik sowie Stadtverwaltung statt. Es wurden Wahrnehmung und Akzeptanz sowie Erfolgsfaktoren bislang umgesetzter Angebote aufgegriffen, ebenso wie Stolpersteine und Konfliktfelder zwischen den Ziel- bzw. Anspruchsgruppen thematisiert und anschließend synthetisierend ausgewertet. Ergänzend wurden Statements von Jugendlichen zu ihren ‚Take Aways’ und Ratschlägen in Bezug auf gelingende Jugendpartizipation eingeholt (Kehl & Weber, 2023). Beide Evaluationsberichte konnten für die jeweilige Phase aufzeigen, dass es durch fYOUture gelungen ist, die Jugendpartizipation in Solingen auf struktureller wie kultureller Eb

Der Beitrag untersucht anhand einer Längsschnittstudie unter Polizeiauszubildenden in der Schweiz sowie einer bevölkerungsrepräsentativen Befragung, inwieweit im Bereich verschiedener politischer Einstellungen Unterschiede zwischen Polizistinnen und Polizisten und der Gesamtbevölkerung festzustellen sind. Zudem wird betrachtet, inwieweit sich diese Einstellungen über die Zeit der Ausbildung verändern. Berücksichtigt werden Demokratiezufriedenheit, Fremdenfeindlichkeit, Homophobie und Verschwörungsmentalität. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Demokratiezufriedenheit unter Polizei-Auszubildenden signifikant höher liegt als in der Bevölkerung. Bei den anderen betrachteten Einstellungen fallen die Unterschiede geringer aus, wobei fremdenfeindliche und homophobe Einstellungen ebenfalls signifikant geringer verbreitet sind. Hinsichtlich der Demokratiezufriedenheit ergibt sich keine signifikante Veränderung über die betrachteten 1,5 Jahre der Ausbildung; Verschwörungsmentalitäten nehmen signifikant ab. Demgegenüber sind jedoch Anstiege fremdenfeindlicher und homophober Einstellungen zu verzeichnen.

Aus Anlass einer kürzlich vorgestellten internationalen Studie, die politisch links eingestellten Personen eine höhere Intoleranz attestierte, die sich aber nicht auf die Schweiz bezog, wird anhand einer schweizweiten Repräsentativbefragung unter Erwachsenen der Beziehung zwischen der Links-Rechts-Positionierung und verschiedenen Toleranz-massen nachgegangen. Dabei wird Toleranz differenziert betrachtet, einerseits als Duldung von verschiedenen Bevölkerungsgruppen und andererseits als Duldung verschiedener Meinungen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen erstens, dass eine «(eher) linke» politische Orientierung mit einer stärkeren Befürwortung verschiedener Bevölkerungsgruppen einer geht und insofern als toleranzsteigernd einzustufen ist. Zweitens zeigt sich, dass mit Blick auf bestimmte Meinungen tatsächlich eine höhere Toleranz auf Seiten politisch «(eher) rechts» eingestellter Befragter festzustellen ist: Diese sind signifikant häufiger der Ansicht, dass Kinder gezüchtigt und Straftaten entkriminalisiert werden sollten. Auf Basis dieser Befunde und zusätzlich präsentierter Auswertungen zur Demokratiezufriedenheit und zum Institutionenvertrauen wird letztlich gefolgert, dass politisch «links» eingestellte Personen teilweise intoleranter sind, und zwar Gruppen und Positionen gegenüber, die die demokratische, rechtsstaatliche Ordnung in Frage stellen.

This volume examines the experience of Kazakhstan’s transition over the past 30 years, explaining the political and economic performance of the country since the collapse of the USSR, through the country’s institutions, policy choices, and external environment. In an exploration of more than 1,000 years of institutional development, the chapters analyse and assess the development of political arrangements and governance, and economic institutions, from pre-Russian colonization through to the Soviet experiment, and then take a magnifying glass to developments in a post-Soviet, independent Kazakhstan. Using a broad range of sources and data across disciplines, this book is the first to explicitly survey Kazakhstan’s transition as a function of its history, its people, and its institutions. Breaking new ground in institutional economics, it provides readers with a comprehensive examination of the history and development of Kazakhstan, and points to where it may be heading in the 21st century. The subject matter is accessible to a broad academic audience: to scholars in political science, economics, and the history of Central Asia and Russia, as well as to those with an interest in general transition economics.

While we know a great deal about parliamentary political groups in the national context, their transnational counterparts remain largely unexplored. Yet, more than forty transnational political groups have formed worldwide within eleven international parliamentary institutions. This phenomenon is puzzling since a territorial cleavage rather than a functional one presumably determines the logic of cooperation in the international realm. In the first attempt to analyze transnational political groups systematically, this paper proposes a theory explaining their emergence. By drawing on the legislative studies and institutionalism literatures, three theoretical conjectures are put forward concentrating on the characteristics of the parliament’s member states, emulation from other international parliaments, and the characteristics of the international parliament itself as plausible explanations. The theory is empirically tested with a new original dataset covering more than sixty international parliaments since their creation to present. The results from a logistic regression analysis lend support to the theory and delineate the conditions under which transnational political groups emerge in international parliaments. With the rise of international parliaments and their increased involvement in supranational decision-making over time, it becomes highly important to understand how they organize and the implications thereof.

Key messages: Ukraine must first win the war. But if it can successfully expel Russia from all of its territories, it needs to accelerate its post-Maidan, pre-war tempo of reforms. Ukraine must build what it has long been lacking: the rule of law. In order to do this, it must build the rule of law from scratch, reforming its judiciary, unabashedly protecting property rights, and continuing its highly successful decentralization reforms. During the transition from war economy to market economy, simplification of nearly every facet of interaction with the government should be undertaken – and kept in place. This will encourage not just hanging on to foreign charity, but also encourage investments needed for growth. These steps will help Ukraine move towards Europe and continue its march towards Euro-integration even if (and especially if) accession to the European Union is a longerterm goal Ukraine’s survival after the war is dependent on making policy reversals incredibly difficult to implement. This requires substantial political will.

The transition from communism to capitalism with the fall of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991 was accomplished via a multi-faceted approach involving the change of legal norms, institutional orderings and functions (Hartwell, 2013), and, of course, personalities in power. Of these, the most basic and fundamental was the reorientation in the authorising framework for the newly independent Russian Federation, away from one guarding communist tenets and towards one which facilitated a market economy. In particular, the shift in the Russian Constitution and in the institutions charged with enforcing its provisions (including the executive, legislative, and judicial branches) created a sea change in economic relations within Russia, legalising natural rights which, for decades, had been officially illegal under the Soviet legal framework. However, the Constitution also had a goal to set the rules of the federal system, defining the rights and responsibilities of republics, territories, and regions (federal entities) against the prerogatives of the federal government. This construction of a new series of political institutions, with new relationships among each other, created a parallel structure for the development of the market economy, one which was meant to support such an evolution but one also with the potential to intrude and/or retard this development. Indeed, while the Constitution outlined a broad set of principles related to the market economy and what was ‘allowed’ within the borders of the Russian Federation, in many ways it offered an idealised version of economic outcomes. As in every other country, the Constitution represented a starting point for discussion in defining the actual parameters of the role of the state in the economy, a point which would then be hashed out in the political arena and could shift over time due to changing political currents. In the case of Russia, and for most of its post-communist experience, this struggle between the econo

Twitter is nowadays a powerful means of political propaganda. Its effectiveness can be easily appreciated in the large amounts of messages exchanged by politicians every day. This wealth of data, together with the interactive nature of the social medium, provides an ideal basis for the analysis of a striking feature of political messages, i.e., their implicitness, often achieved using presuppositions, among other strategies. The present work proposes a comparative analysis of British and Italian politicians' use of Twitter by focusing on implicit communication (notably, presuppositions) and the pragmatic functions of tweets. Based on a sample of about 400 tweets, our analysis shows that some of these functions tend to associate either with presuppositional or non-presuppositional communicative devices. Moreover, a critical methodological discussion is offered in order to address the main challenges of quantitative corpus-based pragmatics.

Der Zustand der heimischen Wirtschaft wird durch die Brille parteipolitischer Überzeugungen unterschiedlich wahrgenommen. Regiert eine Partei, der die Bürger nahestehen, wird der Zustand der heimischen Wirtschaft (z.B. BIP-Wachstum, Arbeitslosigkeit, Inflation) von diesen Bürgern als besser wahrgenommen, als er tatsächlich ist. Anhand neuer Daten für Inflationserwartungen in den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika zeigen unsere Ergebnisse, dass nach dem Präsidentschaftswechsel von Donald Trump zu Joe Biden, Bürger in US-Staaten mit republikanischen Mehrheiten eine höhere Inflationsrate erwarten als Bürger in US-Staaten mit demokratischen Mehrheiten.

The process of authoritarian regionalism, where illiberal or similarly restrictive governments undertake a process of economic integration amongst each other, has emerged in the past two decades as a rival to existing liberal multilateral organisations. Emblematic of this approach is the Eurasian Economic Union (EaEU), a grouping of post-Soviet states which has borrowed heavily from the experience of the EU but has set itself up as an alternative form of regionalism. Using the concept of institutional resilience, this article shows how the EaEU has been buffeted by three major shocks that have reduced its attractiveness as a viable development alternative to the West. Crises of economic integration, regional security, and, above all, of domestic stability have exposed the reality that the EaEU may be highly susceptible to shocks and, as a result, is less attractive as an alternative developmental model.

Inclusive growth and climate change resilience have been enthusiastically debated issues at the global and local levels even before the COVID-19 pandemic. It has been argued that they have increasingly threatened to destabilise the economy while interfering with the fiscal goals of stability, full employment, sustainable growth and development for shared prosperity and welfare. Governments, institutions and the private sector now acknowledge the importance and urgency for coordinated action toward inclusive and sustainable outcomes and government actions. However, tweaking existing policies by adding discretionary programs within the “one size fits it all” paradigm could not address these issues effectively. It has been argued that pro-equity policies can reduce inequality and pro-green policies can strengthen climate change resilience and thus achieve sustainable outcomes under an integrated fiscal policy. This study reviews the existing literature in this field by employing a structured qualitative methodology to scope, contextualise and map the literature in this field. The paper focuses on inclusive and sustainable fiscal policy, which, through coordination and integration, achieves economic stability, inclusive growth, and sustainable development outcomes concurrently, i.e. the challenge of internalising economic activity’s social costs to render a net social surplus and neutralise environmental impact. This study evaluates the extent of the existing programs and policies by adopting a mixed-method qualitative analysis methodology that incorporates a scoping review and document analysis. It performs a structured analysis to uncover the effective policy variables, drivers and impediments. The document analysis method complements the scoping review to extract the thematic meaning, article design and metadata of the analysed documents in the context of the declared sustainability goals. Data repositories include pertinent literature and topical reports from privat

What impact does Virtual Reality (VR) have on political decision-making? By means of a 2 (format: VR vs. text) x 2 (argumentation: pro vs. con) between-subject factorial experiment, we assessed participants’ voting outcomes on a fictitious initiative. Participants (N=175) first cast their vote with the traditional Swiss voting booklet. Next, participants were randomly assigned to either a VR or text stimulus (Swiss voting booklet) containing the same pro- or con-arguments. Finally, they could adjust their previously cast vote, if they wished. The presentation mode has an effect on participants’ voting outcomes. For both, the pro and con VR scenarios, participants show an increase of YES votes, in favor of the presented initiative. These findings are reflected in the retrospective think aloud interviews conducted after the experiment. With this research, we hope to further shed light on how VR could be leveraged for the benefit of society in the political decisionmaking domain.

Viele Stimmberechtigte verstehen Abstimmungsvorlagen nicht. In der Literatur bestehen Hinweise darauf, dass Transparenz in der Bevölkerung zu mehr Verständnis für staatliche Tätigkeit führt. Die vorliegende Studie untersucht mithilfe eines Umfrageexperiments, ob dies auch für den Kontext von Sachabstimmungen gilt. Zudem wird analysiert, ob das Verständnis von Abstimmungsvorlagen deren Befürwortung beeinflusst. Es konnte kein signifikanter Effekt der Transparenz auf das Verständnis gefunden werden. Hatten die Proband/-innen das Gefühl, die Vorlage verstanden zu haben, nahmen sie diese eher an oder waren eher bereit, Geld für die Inhalte der Vorlage zu bezahlen. Ob sie das Gelesene tatsächlich verstanden haben, hatte hingegen keinen Einfluss auf die Befürwortung.

Horizontaler und vertikaler Föderalismus – ein Grundelement des Schweizer Staatssystems. Die heterogene Konstellation des föderalen Systems liegt der hohen kantonalen Autonomie zu Grunde und prägt den Schweizer Föderalismus mit einer grossen Diversität und einem schwachen Zentralstaat. Die Zusammenarbeit zwischen und unter den Staatsebenen ist eine grundsätzliche Voraussetzung, damit das System leistungsfähig und wirkungsvoll funktioniert. Doch jene Zusammenarbeit und Vielfalt schien durch die Covid-19-Pandemie erschüttert. Vor diesem Hintergrund untersucht die vorliegende Bachelorarbeit das föderale Zusammenspiel von Bund und Kantonen während der Covid-19-Pandemie. Dabei werden erste Erfahrungen aus der Bewältigung der Krise gewonnen. Aus diesem Grund wird folgender Frage nachgegangen: «Welche Lehren lassen sich im Zusammenhang mit den getroffenen Massnahmen zur Eindämmung der ersten und zweiten Covid-19-Welle hinsichtlich des horizontalen und vertikalen Föderalismus ziehen?». Zur Beantwortung dieser Fragestellung wird der theoretische Hintergrund der föderalen Strukturen des Schweizer Systems aufgearbeitet. Des Weiteren wird der Föderalismus anwendungsbezogen auf die Covid-19-Krise analysiert. Dabei erfolgt die Untersuchung mittels einer Literaturrecherche. Darüber hinaus werden drei qualitative Experteninterviews durchgeführt, um die vorhandenen Erkenntnisse zu ergänzen sowie weiteres, spezifisches Fachwissen zu erschliessen. Durch die Analyse des horizontalen und vertikalen Föderalismus während der Covid-Krise konnten folgende Erkenntnisse gewonnen und die Forschungsfrage wie folgt beantwortet werden: Der Föderalismus hat in der Krisenbewältigung zu Herausforderungen geführt, dennoch ist er nicht gescheitert. Gleichwohl war er um einiges zentralistischer strukturiert, als dies im Schweizer System üblich ist. Nichtsdestotrotz haben die grundlegenden Prinzipien des Föderalismus funktioniert. So konnte unter anderem die Subsidiarität und die kantonale Vielfalt zu e