Dominic Heinz

Turkish-German University | TAU · Political Science and International Relations

This chapter considers the contemporary decline of political trust and the potential existential threat that it poses to democracy. Drawing on comparative analysis from the UK, France and Germany it examines governance-trust configurations and their likely propensity to foster co-production and co-creation between state and civil society. A key fin...

Trust (and its corollary mistrust) lies at the heart of contemporary debates regarding governance and democracy. There is an extensive literature focused on conceptualising trust, and more specifically political trust, and exploring the potential consequences of the perceived decline or erosion in the latter for democracy (Cook 2001; Rothstein and...

This chapter tackles the trust–transparency nexus case studies in Germany, particularly in Hesse and Saxony-Anhalt. It explores the solid foundation of political trust in Germany at all territorial levels of the political system. However, the featured data casts doubt on the enduring features of trust in the national government, the parliament or p...

This chapter expounds on the nexus of trust and transparency. First, trust refers to the contextually and institutionally contingent phenomenon based on the perceived competence, benevolence and honesty of government and other actors within governance networks. Conversely, government transparency is denoted to the citizen's right to know government...

This chapter expounds on the concept of trust–transparency nexus in line with case studies in France, Germany, and the UK. Moreover, competence, benevolence, and integrity are regarded as different dimensions of trust. Transparency plays a large role in building and maintaining trust between civil society actors at the subnational level of governan...

This chapter focuses on Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Bretagne's trust–transparency nexus in France. France is often regarded as a low-trust society due to the political culture of ‘two Frances’. The dyarchic culture stems from the conflict between the church and the state, the centre and periphery, and Paris and the provinces. Thus, the central authori...

This chapter looks into the debates on the concept of trust amidst the age of transparency. Trust refers to the analysis of the relationship between a subject and an object depending on the classifications such as interpersonal, social, and collective. Additionally, characteristic-based trust is reinforced by social similarities like ethnicity or g...

Is transparency a necessary condition to build and restore citizen and civil society trust in governance and democracy? Throughout Europe, there is a growing demand for effective forms of citizen engagement and decentralisation in policy-making to increase trust and engage increasingly diverse populations. This volume addresses the relationship bet...

This chapter highlights the importance of comparative research designs. The practice of comparison allows the identification of the similarities and differences between political phenomena. A single case study could enable the exploration of the context and complexities of a political system, but a statistical modelling approach to comparison could...

This chapter examines case studies from North West England and Wales in the UK through the trust–transparency matrix, which includes the trust–transparency dynamics within and between civil societies at subnational level. Public disaffections and discontent with the established politics helped shape the Brexit agenda. Moreover, the characterisation...

Is transparency a necessary condition to build and restore citizen and civil society trust in governance and democracy? Throughout Europe, there is a growing demand for effective forms of citizen engagement and decentralisation in policy-making to increase trust and engage increasingly diverse populations. This volume addresses the relationship bet...

One of the central themes of Boris Johnson's speech on the morning of 13 December 2019, following his party's landslide election victory, was trust, and specifically the trust placed in his government by voters who had previously never voted for the Conservative Party. Despite Brexit's almost all-encompassing domination of the political agenda in r...

In the previous chapter, trust was defined as much by its linkage with other concepts as by its own inherent properties. This is especially the case with trust and transparency, the core relationship we explore in this book. Rather than straightforward explanations in terms of independent, intermediary and dependent variables, we present trust as a...

Drawing on fieldwork from the UK, France and Germany, this volume addresses the relationship between trust and transparency in the context of multi-level governance.

For a long time German public opinion displayed high rates of trust in Chancellor Angela Merkel and her CDU party, as well as the federal government. In recent years, however, there have been signs of a general decline in trust, though the evidence in Germany is much less conclusive than in the UK or France. This chapter provides data to support th...

The research project that provides the source for this book is first and foremost a comparative one. According to Swanson (1971: 145), ‘thinking without comparison is unthinkable. And, in the absence of comparison, so is all scientific thought and scientific research’. Ragin (1987: 6) contends that comparison allows identification of the similariti...

The fieldwork was completed across our six sub-regional cases from 2016 to 2018, below is an anonymised outline organised via our country case studies.

The health of trust – in its various configurations and conceptualisations – and questions as to whether it is in decline, have been a consistent feature of academic research across a wide range of disciplines since the 1960s. Interest has often centred on assessing the impact of specific events or crises on the state of trust, for example, the 200...

This chapter applies the trust– transparency matrix outlined in Chapter 2 to the case of France. It draws on a nationwide survey conducted in October 2016, as well as 38 interviews carried out in the two regions Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Bretagne from 2017 to 2018. The first section provides an overview of the received literature on trust and transp...

Trust is perhaps one of the most contested and nebulous concepts within contemporary academic research. Grimmelikhuijsen and colleagues (2013: 577) note that ‘across and even within disciplines, a myriad of definitions, concepts, and operationalizations are being used in research’ and therefore providing clarity in terms of what we mean and understa...

Finanzpolitik ist bereits früher definiert worden als „… die institutionellen, prozessualen und inhaltlichen Aspekte des Handelns, das auf verbindliche Regelung von Konflikten über Struktur, Zusammensetzung und Veränderung der Staatsfinanzen gerichtet ist.“ (Schmidt 2004, S. 228). In mehrfacher Hinsicht wird aus dieser (eher breiten und umfassenden...

Wie reagiert Politik auf unbesetzte Schulleitungspositionen? Politikverflechtung erklärt Politik und setzt sie in den Kontext von Kooperation und Wettbewerb. Koordination von Politik be­fasste sich mit der Kooperation von Ländern über Schulleitungen, so dass Wettbewerb mini­miert wird, aber offen bleibt, ob Schulleitungen besetzt werden.

Germany was described in the past as a ‘unitary federal state’ (Hesse, Der unitarische Bundesstaat. Karlsruhe: C. F. Müller, 1962) or even as a ‘unitary state in disguise’ (Abromeit, Der verkappte Einheitsstaat. Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 1992) underlining central politics in Germany. But what role does then decentralisation play in German politics?...

The search for a robust balance of power is a continuous challenge for multilevel political system. Institutions like parliaments or courts can protect the existing order. However, necessary adjustments to economic, social, or international challenges or policies determined to improve ineffective structures or to prevent disintegration require cons...

Die Schulpolitik wurde von der Föderalismusreform I lediglich an zwei Stellen berührt: Die schon jahrzehntelang brachliegende Gemeinschaftsaufgabe Bildungsplanung nach Art. 91b GG (alt) wurde durch die neue Gemeinschaftsaufgabe „Feststellung der Leistungsfähigkeit des Bildungswesens im internationalen Bereich“ (Art. 91b (2) GG neu) ersetzt. Dies fü...

This article considers the impact of the 2009 federalism reform on budget policy in national and Land governments. It assesses whether the reform led to a centralisation of budget policy, through the work of the new ‘Stability Council’ and imposition of a ‘debt brake’, which would affect both levels. The fiscal and economic crisis of 2008–09 coinci...

En 2008, l’Allemagne a réagi à la crise budgétaire par une politique budgétaire incitative. Alors que cette politique s’est traduite dans un premier temps par une hausse record du déficit public annuel, elle s’est achevée par des budgets équilibrés devenant ainsi un nouveau paradigme pour la politique budgétaire. Ce changement a apporté tout à la f...

For a long time, “ideological battles” and the joint decision trap characterized the coordination of school policy. Nevertheless international school benchmarks managed to become established as a new mode of coordination in school policy. However, rather than the ‘PISA-shock’ of 2001, it was the Konstanz Decision of 1997 by the KMK that set the pre...

For a long time, "ideological battles" and the joint decision trap characterized the coordination of school policy. Nevertheless international school benchmarks managed to become established as a new mode of coordination in school policy. However, rather than the 'PISA-shock' of 2001, it was the Konstanz Decision of 1997 by the KMK that set the pre...

Die Haushaltspolitik von Bund und Ländern erfuhr durch die Ratifikation der Föderalismusreform II einen deutlichen Impuls, weil in Zukunft Haushalte nicht mehr dem »deficit spending«, sondern dem »balanced budget« folgen. Das beinhaltete nicht nur einen Politikwechsel in der Koordination der Haushaltspolitik, weil der ehemalige Finanzplanungsrat in...

The digital revolution has placed public broadcasting funding in Germany under pressure, because it has led to a multiplication of technological devices for radio and television. Radio and television can not only be consumed through particular devices, but also through literally any device like mobile phones, tablet computers and many more. The fun...

Statistics and Reviewers 2013

Rundfunkpolitik hat im deutschen politischen System eine Sonderstellung, die vor allem durch die Rundfunkkommission und die Kommission zur Ermittlung des Finanzbedarfs (KEF) zum Ausdruck kommt. Diese besondere institutionelle Struktur sorgt für eine Staats- und Marktferne der Inhalte und der Finanzierung des Rundfunks. Obwohl die Besonderheiten der...

Multi-Level Party Politics in Western Europe is a study of territorial dynamics within party systems and party organizations in Western European multi-layered systems. It argues that processes of state restructuring and party crisis have forced parties to adapt their competitive strategies and internal structures. With the logic of territorial part...

The paper focuses on a neglected group of territorial politics: the dominant non-territorially defined political parties, mainly catch-all parties of Christian Democratic or Social Democratic origin. In contrast to regionalist parties, they do not have incentives for territorial reforms, yet they are engaged in them. Despite a state of mutual negle...

Germany recently experienced another federal reform, shortly after a previous modification to the German federal system. Has the second federal reform brought substantial change instead of the gradual change that literature on joint decision making would lead us to expect? This article analyses the reform in three stages: agenda setting, negotiatio...

Studies of constitutional reforms so far have equated formal ratification with a successful reform. The paper goes beyond this narrow focus by adding substantive success as a second dimension based on two indicators: degree of agenda fulfilment and degree to which the reform contributes to solve the constitutional problem. Analysing territorial ref...

G.F. Schuppert contends the state is the central point of reference in social and political science as well as in legal and economic studies. In devoting the central issue of this book to the state, the author makes it not only a work of central interest for the mentioned disciplines but also opens up the subject for a broad audience.

Depuis l’apres-guerre, la societe allemande a accueilli de nombreux migrants. Le cadre legal de l’immigration a change et, malgre un deficit linguistique, les immigres accomplissent aujourd’hui leur integration politique au sein des differents parlements. Meme si le pourcentage d’elus issus de l’immigration reste moindre que celui des immigres dans...

Does the German two vote system produce two types of MPs? Although the German electoral system allows rewarding and punishing party and MPs separately, German general elections are still considered as party elections. Parties determine the candidate’s placement on lists and in which electoral district candidates are running. Successful candidates a...

[Introduction]. The dissolution of the Soviet Union (SU) marked the end of the way the international political system had been organized since 1945. New states emerged and the foreign policies of the European states and Russia had to be readjusted.1 Since one of the hitherto existing two superpowers collapsed, the remaining superpower was by defaul...