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Legitimation durch Kommunikation?: Politische Meinungs- und Willensbildung in der Mediendemokratie
... Die bisher beschriebenen Herausforderungen verschärfen sich insofern, als dass Behördenkommunikation einerseits Komponenten einer strategischen Kommunikation und andererseits solche einer demokratischen Kommunikation umfasst (Stücheli-Herlach, 2016). Behördenkommunikation im Sinne strategischer Kommunikation bedeutet: Behördenorganisationen gestalten ihre vielfältigen Informations-und Kommunikationsbeziehungen unter systematischem Einsatz von Verfahren und zur Verfügung stehenden Ressourcen so aus, dass ihr Handeln und ihre Entscheidungen nachvollziehbar wie gerechtfertigt erscheinen, um so das Vertrauen von Anspruchsgruppen in das behördliche Handeln zu festigen (Pfetsch, 1998;Sarcinelli, 2013;Saxer, 2010). Behördenkommunikation stellt insofern ein Mittel zum Zweck für Behörden dar, um ihre (Organisations-)Ziele zu erreichen. ...
Making a difference in a democracy and for democracy. There are ways and means to do so. This book is all about them. It describes the professionalization of political communication in Switzerland (Central Europe) since the turn of the millennium. It defines the basic concepts of strategic management of political communication. It introduces the perspectives of public authorities, political parties, interest groups and the media. It examines practices such as public storytelling and public affairs. And it provides insights into the implementation of campaigns and media work, as well as case studies from a university program. A summary of research and teaching in political communication. And a basis for further steps towards professionalization. With contributions by Urs Bieri | Birgitta Borghoff | Oliver Classen | Philipp Dreesen | Ursina Ghilardi | Andreas Hugi | Alessandro lacono | Cloé Jans | Claude Longchamp | Claudio Looser | Claudia Nägeli | Martina Novak | Stephan Rösli | Peter Stücheli-Herlach | Colette Schneider-Stingelin | Benjamin Tommer | Vinzenz Wyss | Laura Zimmermann
At the level of regime typologies, the uncertain status and inherent weakness of the opposition mark defining features of regimes beyond liberal democracy. However, even the performance and evolution of the latter tend to be shaped by oppositions and the regime’s approach to dealing with them. This article offers a bird’s-eye view of political oppositions in contemporary electoral democracies and competitive autocracies. It focuses on patterns of strategic choices and behavior by both governments and oppositions. That endeavor forms part of a larger joint venture seeking to give center stage to those actors living in the shadows of increasingly unscrupulous power-holders.
Zusammenfassung
Die Untersuchung leistet einen Beitrag zur metaphorologischen Analyse des Neuen Autoritarismus. Ausgangspunkt ist die Annahme, dass Autokratisierungsprozesse unter der Schwelle rationaler Bewegungsmomente durch die Erneuerung politischer Verkörperungsmythen gekennzeichnet sind. Am Beispiel der Türkei wird gezeigt, dass ihr zentraler Mechanismus eine unter Krisenbedingungen vollzogene Aktivierung der häuslichen Ordnungsmetaphorik und ihre Übersetzung in eine foucaultsche Pastoralmacht ist. Schien dieser Mechanismus mit wachsendem Abstand zur kemalistischen Revolution abgenutzt, hat er mit der Bewältigung des gescheiterten Putschversuchs eine transformative Aktualität erfahren. Der Beitrag schließt mit allgemeinen Überlegungen zu den elementaren Operationen, die den Erneuerungsprozess des autoritären Mythos vorantreiben.
Significance
We explore the key differences between the main social media platforms and how they are likely to influence information spreading and the formation of echo chambers. To assess the different dynamics, we perform a comparative analysis on more than 100 million pieces of content concerning controversial topics (e.g., gun control, vaccination, abortion) from Gab, Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter. The analysis focuses on two main dimensions: 1) homophily in the interaction networks and 2) bias in the information diffusion toward like-minded peers. Our results show that the aggregation in homophilic clusters of users dominates online dynamics. However, a direct comparison of news consumption on Facebook and Reddit shows higher segregation on Facebook.
Does enhanced descriptive representation lead to substantive representation? Legislators who share descriptive features with disadvantaged groups do not necessarily represent their group interests. Instead, Members of Parliament (MPs) strategically choose when to engage with the policy topic of their corresponding groups. MPs represent their respective group at the beginning of their career because it confers credibility when they have no legislative track record and few opportunities to demonstrate expertise. These group-specific efforts are replaced by other legislative activities at later stages of their careers. The authors apply this theoretical expectation across four disadvantaged groups – women, migrants, low social class and the young – and thereby offer a broad perspective on descriptive representation. Their sample consists of a unique data base that combines biographical information on German MPs with topic-coded parliamentary questions for the period 1998 to 2013. The study demonstrates the diminishing value of representing the disadvantaged across different types of MPs.
Diese Studie zeigt für insgesamt 13 Indikatoren aus den Bereichen Wirtschaftskraft, soziale Lage
sowie Daseinsvorsorge und Infrastruktur, wie sich die regionalen Disparitäten in Deutschland seit
dem Jahr 2000 entwickelt haben. Im Ergebnis lässt sich auf der räumlichen Analyseebene der
Kreisregionen weder ein grundsätzliches Auseinanderdriften der Regionen in Deutschland noch
eine pauschale Abkopplung ländlicher Räume von der gesamtgesellschaftlichen Entwicklung
feststellen. Für 11 der 13 Indikatoren waren die ermittelten Disparitäten im Untersuchungszeitraum relativ konstant oder haben abgenommen, bei zwei Indikatoren haben sie
zugenommen. Unterschiede zwischen der Gesamtheit der ländlichen und der der nichtländlichen Räume sind ebenfalls bei 11 der 13 Indikatoren über den gesamten Beobachtungszeitraum nahezu nicht vorhanden, konstant geblieben oder haben sich zugunsten der ländlichen
Räume entwickelt. Zum Teil dürfte vor allem letzteres auf eine passive Sanierung zurückzuführen
sein, da insbesondere viele ländliche Regionen von einem Bevölkerungsrückgang gekennzeichnet
sind. Am Ende des Beobachtungszeitraums stehen die ländlichen Räume in ihrer Gesamtheit bei
drei der betrachteten 13 Indikatoren besser da als die Gesamtheit der nicht-ländlichen Räume,
bei vier schlechter und bei sechs ist kein nennenswerter Niveauunterschied (mehr) vorhanden.
Über alle Indikatoren hinweg lassen sich keine einheitlichen räumlichen Muster identifizieren.
Inwiefern bestehende regionale Unterschiede und deren Entwicklung im Zeitablauf einen
politischen Handlungsbedarf begründen, ist in erster Linie eine normative und keine
wissenschaftliche Frage, sodass sie von den gesellschaftlich dazu legitimierten
Entscheidungsträgern zu beantworten ist. Die Ergebnisse dieser Studie können dazu beitragen, die Entscheidungsgrundlage für die politisch Verantwortlichen zu verbessern.
In this study, we investigate the development of regional disparities with regard to economic,
social, and infrastructural indicators for Germany. We analyse a total of 13 indicators on the scale
of county regions and review particularly the period from 2000 until the most recent year for
which data are available. As a result, we neither observe that regions in Germany are generally
diverging nor that rural areas are lagging behind the socio-economic development of the whole
society. Eleven out of 13 indicators show rather stable or decreasing disparities and we observe
increasing disparities in terms of two indicators. Territorial inequalities between rural and nonrural areas do almost not exist over the whole period under study, remained virtually stable or
developed in favour of rural regions with regard to again eleven of the 13 indicators. However,
the decreasing disparities could result at least partly from an effect called ‘passive regeneration’.
This means that the convergence is not driven by real improvements, but only by a decline of the
relation group in the denominator, for instance in the course of outmigration which many rural
regions were affected by. At the end of the observation period, rural areas in total outperform
non-rural areas concerning three indicators, they lack behind in respect of four indicators, and
there is no significant difference (anymore) between both spatial types regarding six indicators.
Altogether, the 13 indicators build no consistent pattern in space. Whether existing disparities
and their developments from the year 2000 on call for political action, remains first and foremost
a normative and no scientific question. Therefore, democratically legitimated decision makers
have to answer this question. Our study results may contribute to this discussion by improving
the basis for decision-making for the people in power.
Over the last decades, Better Regulation has become a major reform topic at the federal and—in some cases—also at the Länder level. Although the debate about improving regulatory quality and reducing unnecessary burdens created by bureaucracy and red tape date back to the 1960s and 1970s, the introduction by law in 2006 of a new independent institutionalised body for regulatory control at the federal level of government has brought a new quality to the discourse and practice of Better Regulation in Germany. This chapter introduces the basic features of the legislative process at the federal level in Germany, addresses the issue of Better Regulation and outlines the role of the National Regulatory Control Council ( Nationaler Normenkontrollrat —NKR) as a ‘watchdog’ for compliance costs, red tape and regulatory impacts.
The organisation of legislative chambers and the consequences of parliamentary procedures have been among the most prominent research questions in legislative studies. Even though democratic elections not only lead to the formation of a government but also result in an opposition, the literature has mostly neglected oppositions and their role in legislative chambers. This paper proposes to fill this gap by looking at the legislative organisation from the perspective of opposition players. The paper focuses on the potential influence of opposition players in the policy-making process and presents data on more than 50 legislative chambers. The paper shows considerable variance of the formal power granted to opposition players. Furthermore, the degree of institutionalisation of opposition rights is connected to electoral systems and not necessarily correlated with other institutional characteristics such as regime type or the size of legislative chambers.
This article reviews the legal and political science literatures on the extensive interpretation of the European fundamental freedoms and on possible ways out. The common market rules were originally laid down in an international treaty, the Treaty of Rome. In functional terms, this treaty became a de facto constitution, implying that its content, including the fundamental freedoms, were constitutionalised. We review how this constitutionalisation constrains legislators at the Member State and European levels. In order to identify possible ways out, we also review several reform options: institutional reforms of the European judicial system; the de-constitutionalisation of the fundamental freedoms; counterbalancing these freedoms with further strengthened social rights; and contestation of over-constitutionalisation within the given primary law framework. We conclude that reform options are available that could gradually free the legislators from the over-constitutionalisation of the common market rules. Such options should become part of the ‘Conference on the Future of Europe’ process and debates about EU reforms in general, as more flexibility is warranted in a heterogeneous EU.
In der Erzählung "Der Bau" von Franz Kafka ist von einer Art Dachs die Rede, der seinen Bau aus Angst vor Feinden immer weiter perfektioniert, bis er schließlich nur noch ein unerklärliches Geräusch wahrnimmt, das ihn paranoid werden lässt. Das kafkaeske Fabeltier weiß nicht einmal, ob diese Feinde überhaupt existieren. Die Erzählung ist unvollendet. Denkbar wäre, dass das Tier vor Angst darüber stirbt, dass sein scheinbar perfekter Bau eine übersehene Sicherheitslücke hat. Diese Parabel auf den vergeblichen Versuch, absolute Sicherheit zu erreichen, passt zu den Diskursen über den Vorsorgestaat: "Sicherheit ist stets ein unerreich-bares Ideal, das Bedürfnis danach nimmt nicht linear, sondern exponentiell zu den unbestreitbar gestiegenen Sicherheitsstandards zu. Bedürfnisse, Erfordernisse, Mög-lichkeiten und Kompetenzen der Prävention heizen sich im Laufe des Zivilisati-onsprozesses gegenseitig auf" (Strasser und van den Brink 2005). Der Hinweis auf "übersehene Sicherheitslücken" ist das Geschäftsmodell ganzer Dienstleistungsbran-chen. In der Garantie der Sicherheit vor inneren und äußeren Feinden sah Hobbes-"der Sicherheitspolitiker unter den Staatsphilosophen" (Mack 2008)-die zentrale Aufgabe des Leviathans. Nur ein starker Staat könne seine Bürger schützen. Auch heute gehören Sicherheit und Vorsorge zu den wichtigsten Erwartungen der Bürger an den Staat. Mit fortschreitender Säkularisierung kann dieser diese Erwartungen nicht mehr ohne eine "Sicherheitslücke" erfüllen. Seit in der amerikanischen Verfas-sung das christliche Weltbild durch das Recht des Einzelnen auf Streben nach Glück ersetzt wurde (Hattenhauer 1980, S. 243), ist die "Abnabelung der modernen Welt M. Mai ()
The existence of a political executive is a key feature of any political system: from eminently democratic regimes to totalitarian dictatorships, and every shade in between. In recent decades the long-term trend of putting constitutional and democratic constraints on the political executive is reversed. In addition to an autocratic turn in some countries, internationalization, securitization and a growing need for coordination shift the balance between governments and other political institutions. This re-empowerment of the political executive has contributed to its rediscovery in political science. As the 37 chapters in this volume demonstrate, the past two decades have seen an impressive outpouring of research on political executives. Edited and written by 49 of the most distinguished scholars in the field, this Oxford Handbook of Political Executives combines substantive stocktaking with setting new agendas for the next generation of political executive research. The book is organized around five themes. Part I, Theorizing and Researching Political Executives is devoted to the theoretical and methodological approaches in the study of political executives. Part II looks at The Composition and Life Cycle of Political Executives, from the formation to the termination of successive governments. Part III discusses The Dynamics and Developments within the Executive, such as hierarchical relations and internal political processes. Part IV focusses on The Dynamics and Developments between the Executive and the Broader Political Context, including interactions with the bureaucracy and parliament. Part V is devoted to Political Executives Beyond the Democratic Nation State, such as the European Union and autocratic regimes.
Cabinets and Coalition Bargaining: The Democratic Life Cycle in Western Europe provides a comprehensive analysis of coalition politics in Western Europe over the post-1945 period. It champions a dynamic approach using bargaining and transaction cost theory to understand the ‘life cycle ‘ of parliamentary politics. After a review of the literature the theory chapter addresses the roles of bargaining and transaction costs in coalition governance. Eight comparative chapters address the topics of government formation, cabinet membership, coalition agreements, portfolio allocation, conflict management, cabinet termination and duration, and the electoral consequences of coalition politics. The book is based on the most comprehensive data set ever employed in coalition studies, which includes both coalitional and single-party countries and governments. Each chapter provides a comparative overview of its topic and state-of-the art statistical analysis. Conceptually and empirically the study argues for an integrated approach to coalition politics, stressing six clusters of explanatory factors: country-specific and temporal circumstances, ‘structural attributes ‘, actors ‘ preferences, institutions, the bargaining environment, and ‘critical events ‘. While the importance of different causal factors varies between the various phases of the parliamentary life cycle, no facet of coalition politics can be understood without reference to several of these factors. Comparative Politics is a series for students and teachers of political science that deals with contemporary issues in comparative government and politics. The General Editors are David M. Farrell, Jean Monnet Chair in European Politics and Head of School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester and Alfio Mastropaolo, University of Turin. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research.
Coalition Governments in Western Europe is the most comprehensive empirical analysis to date of coalition politics. Based on a large cross-national data collection, covering the entire post-war period from 1945 to 1999, it is the first systematic study of the institutions of governance and conflict resolution in coalition governments. The book is also an unparalleled source of information on cabinet formation, membership, termination, and electoral performance of coalition parties. The volume also analyses the institutional frameworks in which coalition politics takes place in the individual countries and discusses which constraints for government formation, coalition governance, and coalition termination result from them. The information has been collected in standardized form by first rate country experts, and is presented in the form of standard tables.
For over three decades, mature European welfare states have been on their way into an austerity phase marked by greater need and more insecure revenues. A number of reform pressures—including population ageing, unemployment, economic globalization, and increased migration—call into question the economic sustainability and normative underpinning of transfer systems and public services. And while welfare states long seemed resilient to growing challenges, it now seems clear that they are changing. This book examines how political leaders and the public respond to reform pressures at a pivotal moment in a mass democracy: the election campaign. Do campaigns facilitate debate and attention to welfare state challenges? Do political parties present citizens with distinct choices as to how challenges might be met? Do leaders prepare citizens for the idea that some policies may be painful? Do party messages have adaptive consequences for how the public perceives the need for reform? Do citizens adjust their normative support for welfare policies in the process? Overall, the answers to these questions affect how we understand welfare state change and the functioning of representative democracy in an era of mounting challenges. The book builds on an integrated set of data sources collected by the authors. These include information about campaign themes from a large number of countries across three decades, content analysis of party leader speeches from the largest parties in Germany, Norway, and Sweden in the 2000s, as well as experiments and panel survey data from these countries.
Over the past two decades public accountability has become an icon in political, managerial, and administrative discourse and the object of much scholarly analysis across a broad range of social and administrative sciences. This Handbook provides a state of the art overview of recent scholarship on public accountability. It collects, consolidates, and integrates an upsurge of inquiry currently scattered across many disciplines and subdisciplines. It provides a one-stop shop on the subject, not only for academics who study accountability, but also for practitioners who are designing, adjusting, or struggling with mechanisms for accountable governance. Featuring the best scholars in the field from around the world, The Oxford Handbook of Public Accountability showcases conceptual and normative as well as the empirical approaches in public accountability studies. In addition to giving an overview of scholarly research in a variety of disciplines, it takes stock of a wide range of accountability mechanisms and practices across the public, private and non-profit sectors, making this volume a must-have for both practitioners and scholars, both established and new to the field.
This chapter examines the executive branch of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) with a particular focus on the Federal Chancellor, the ministers who form the Federal Cabinet, including their ministries, and other federal administrative authorities which form the executive bodies of the federal government. There is only a brief discussion of the German parliament (Bundestag), which has a close relationship with the ruling government in Germany’s political system. Germany’s federal government is best viewed as a ‘Chancellor’s Democracy’ whose policies and decision-making are guided by cultivating consensus between the major and minor parties of a governing coalition. Over time, historical developments have diminished the role of certain bodies, such as the Cabinet, and empowered others, such as the Office of the Chancellery, which are not mentioned in the Federal Republic’s Basic Law, the Grundgesetz.
[Die] Überschrift [entspricht dem] Titel eines Buches. [Meine] Aufgabe [ist] nicht, [den] Inhalt dieses Buches zu referieren. Statt dessen [werde ich] Elemente einer soziologischen Theorie der Organisation [darlegen]. Im einzelnen [handelt es sich um] vier Teile: (1) was ist Organisation im Unterschied zu anderen sozialen Systemen, (2) was leistet Organisation; [das ist die] Frage nach der Funktion, [es folgt die] Diskussion (3) [der] Konsequenzen für das Verhältnis von Organisation und Umwelt [und] (4) [der] Konsequenzen für Rationalisierung.
This article examines the dynamics of executive decision-making in Germany and Spain during the global financial and economic crisis between 2008 and 2009. It applies the power-distributional approach and argues that distinct features of the institutional context affect the institutionalisation of decision-making arrangements during crises. In particular, it examines how the principles structuring cabinet and the nexus between the executive and the legislative influence the change or inertia of arrangements for executive decision-making. The comparative analysis reveals that both countries experienced a centralisation of executive decisionmaking, albeit less in Germany than in Spain. These differences are caused by the institutional setting of both countries constraining the Chancellor’s authority in Germany and permitting the dominance of the Spanish Prime Minister (PM) in cabinet. Furthermore, the relationships between the executive and the legislative obstruct a strong centralisation of executive decision-making in Germany, also because party-political actors are aligned to compromises in the executive, and facilitate a centralisation of executive decision-making in Spain, supported by extraordinary law-making procedures which have been applied in order to circumvent parliamentary and thus party-political debates.
Der Beitrag fokussiert auf die verschiedenen Gestaltungsformen der Interessenvertretung und Beeinflussung von Politik jenseits medialer Öffentlichkeit. Im Anschluss an einen Rückblick auf die politikwissenschaftliche Auseinandersetzung mit Lobbying und einen Überblick über die Begrifflichkeiten – Interessenvertretung, -vermittlung, Lobbying, Public Affairs – wird anhand von Fallbeispielen nicht-öffentliches Lobbying exemplifiziert. Abschließend wird auf die Kritik am Lobbyismus sowie auf die Bemühungen für mehr Transparenz und Kontrolle von Lobbying eingegangen.
Mit diesem UTB-Band haben die beiden einschlägig ausgewiesenen Verfasser eine inzwischen zum Standardwerk avancierte Einführung in das politische System der Bundesrepublik vorgelegt. Das Buch zeichnet sich durch eine auf die heutigen Studienbedürfnisse abgestimmte Problemorientierung und Faktendichte aus. Neben dem notwendigen Orientierungswissen werden insbesondere Kenntnisse über die dynamische Seite des Regierens vermittelt: politische Führung und Regierungsstile, politische Rationalität und Regierungssteuerung, Akteure und ihre Kommunikationsstrategien, Machtstabilisierung und Machtverlust. Die Innensicht der Politik und die Verbindungen zwischen Sach- und Machtfragen spielen in der Darstellung eine elementare Rolle. Für die dritte Auflage wurde das Buch grundlegend aktualisiert und um die Analyse des Politikmanagements der Berliner Großen Koalition erweitert.
Drawing on a national survey among American adults, this study focuses on the trade dispute between the US and China and explores the relationship between social media use and opinion polarization about China’s trade practices. The results reveal that the time spent on social media is indirectly associated with opinion polarization on China’s trade practices through news consumption on social media. Furthermore, the mediating effect of social media news consumption is found to be particularly stronger among those who frequently encounter like-minded information related to the US government’s action during the trade dispute. Implications are discussed for the interaction between foreign policy and public opinion in the contemporary media environment.
Mit dem Erfolg bei den Abgeordnetenhauswahlen in Berlin ist die Piratenpartei in Politik und Öffentlichkeit angekommen. Sind die Piraten nur ein Übergangsphänomen, das von der Schlafmützigkeit des Establishments profitiert, oder gibt es ein Potenzial für nachhaltige Verschiebungen im politischen Koordinatensystem? Bildet ein »digitaler Wertekanon« im Spannungsfeld von Offenheit, Dezentralität und Beteiligung die Basis für eine neue politische Arena? Oder sind Themen wie Urheberrecht, Datenschutz und Netzneutralität lediglich Modeerscheinungen? Werden mit Stilmitteln wie »radikale Transparenz« und »liquid democracy« neue Zugänge für Kooperation und Beteiligung in politischen Organisationen entwickelt? Diesen und weiteren Fragen widmet sich der Band und nimmt damit eine erste Bestandsaufnahme und kulturelle Deutung eines neuen politischen Phänomens vor.
Mit dem Erfolg bei den Abgeordnetenhauswahlen in Berlin ist die Piratenpartei in Politik und Öffentlichkeit angekommen. Sind die Piraten nur ein Übergangsphänomen, das von der Schlafmützigkeit des Establishments profitiert, oder gibt es ein Potenzial für nachhaltige Verschiebungen im politischen Koordinatensystem? Bildet ein »digitaler Wertekanon« im Spannungsfeld von Offenheit, Dezentralität und Beteiligung die Basis für eine neue politische Arena? Oder sind Themen wie Urheberrecht, Datenschutz und Netzneutralität lediglich Modeerscheinungen? Werden mit Stilmitteln wie »radikale Transparenz« und »liquid democracy« neue Zugänge für Kooperation und Beteiligung in politischen Organisationen entwickelt? Diesen und weiteren Fragen widmet sich der Band und nimmt damit eine erste Bestandsaufnahme und kulturelle Deutung eines neuen politischen Phänomens vor.
This book examines user and community co-production of public services and outcomes, currently one of the most discussed topics in the field of public management and policy. It considers co-production in a wide range of public services, with particular emphasis on health, social care and community safety, illustrated through international case studies in many of the chapters. This book draws on both quantitative and qualitative empirical research studies on co-production, and on the Governance International database of more than 70 international co-production case studies, most of which have been republished by the OECD. Academically rigorous and systematically evidence-based, the book incorporates many insights which have arisen from the extensive range of research projects and executive training programmes in co-production undertaken by the author. Written in a style which is easy and enjoyable to read, the book gives readers, both academics and practitioners, the opportunity to develop a creative understanding of the essence and implications of co-production.
Elke Loeffler is Senior Lecturer at the University of Strathclyde, Scotland, and Director of the non-profit organisation Governance International.
Die erste Pandemie, die die Bundesrepublik Deutschland erlebte, stellte die Demokratie vor eine Bewährungsprobe. Es standen keine Erfahrungen, Routinen und nicht einmal klare Normen bereit, die die politischen Eliten und Institutionen leiten konnten. Wie gut kam die Demokratie durch die Krise? Die Bilanz ist gemischt. Die Exekutiven funktionierten gut. Beherzt nahmen sie die Herausforderung an. Allerdings wurden unter dem impliziten Ausnahmezustand Grundrechte außer Kraft gesetzt. Dafür wurden die Infektions- und Mortalitätsraten vergleichsweise niedrig gehalten. Dies alles unter Bezug auf das einfache Gesetz zum Infektionsschutz. Normentheoretisch ist das eine papierdünne Legitimation. Das Parlament stritt nicht um die besten Lösungen, eine kontroverse Debatte blieb aus. Es fügte sich den Wünschen der Exekutive. Souverän ist, wer über den Ausnahmezustand verfügt. Faktisch war das die Exekutive. Der Souverän dritter Ordnung übertrumpfte das Parlament. Opposition fand nicht statt. Der Demos folgte. Ob aus rationaler Einsicht in das Vernünftige oder einem unkritischen Untertanengeist, der sich in der großen Krise unter die Obhut einer starken Führung begibt? In der Covid-Krise könnte an einem Skript für zukünftige Krisenpolitik geschrieben worden sein. Ist dies der Fall, würden grundlegende Prinzipien der Demokratie geschleift.
There has been speculation about the possibility of anthropogenic global warming since at least the late nineteenth century (Arrhenius 1896, 1908). At times the prospect of such a warming has been welcomed, for it has been thought that it would increase agricultural productivity and delay the onset of the next Ice Age (Callendar 1938). Other times, and more recently, the prospect of global warming has been the stuff of “doomsday narratives,” as various writers have focused on the possibility of widespread drought, flood, famine, and economic and political dislocations that might result from a “greenhouse warming”-induced climate change (Flavin 1989). Although high-level meetings have been convened to discuss the greenhouse effect since at least 1963 (see Conservation Foundation 1963), the emergence of a rough, international consensus about the likelihood and extent of anthropogenic global warming began with a National Academy Report in 1983 (National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council 1983) and meetings in Villach, Austria, and Bellagio, Italy, in 1985 (World Climate Program 1985) and in Toronto, Canada, in 1988 (Conference Statement 1988). The most recent influential statement of the consensus holds that although there are uncertainties, a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide from its preindustrial baseline is likely to lead to a 2.5 °C increase in the earth’s mean surface temperature by the middle of the twenty-first century (IPCC 1990). (Interestingly, this estimate is within the range predicted by Arrhenius 1896.) This increase is expected to have a profound impact on climate and therefore on plants, animals, and human activities of all kinds. Moreover, there is no reason to suppose that without policy interventions, atmospheric carbon dioxide will stabilize at twice preindustrial levels. According to the IPCC (1990), we would need immediate 60 percent reductions in net emissions in order to stabilize at a carbon dioxide doubling by the end of the twenty-first century. Since these reductions are very unlikely to occur, we may well see increases of 4 °C by the end of the twenty-first century.
Political parties and party competition have been important factors in the expansion and retrenchment of the fiscal welfare state, but researchers have argued that regulatory welfare is not part of political debate among parties. We explore this claim theoretically, and then empirically examine it in the case of employment protection legislation (EPL) in twenty-one established democracies since 1985. EPL is a mature and potentially salient instrument of the regulatory welfare state that has experienced substantial retrenchment. We test three prominent mechanisms of how electoral competition conditions partisan effects: the composition of Left parties’ electorates, the strength of pro-EPL parties, and the emphasis put on social justice by pro-EPL parties. We find that the partisan politics of EPL is conditioned by electoral competition under only very specific circumstances, namely when blame sharing becomes possible in coalitions between EPL supporters.