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The Euro crisis has a strong impact on European Union (EU) politics and the EU polity. Crisis-related issues were debated across Europe and governments and EU institutions introduced several institutional instruments which are meant to make EU economic governance more effective. This paper investigates the scope, timing and divisiveness of political contestation, i.e. politicisation, in the GermanBundestagand the frames on which political parties relied in their debates on crisis-induced institutional innovations in the GermanBundestag. To account for these patterns, the paper relies on institutional theories and theories of party competition. Empirically, it draws on written protocols of debates and parliamentary questions in theBundestag. A case study of Germany and theBundestagdoes not lend itself to broad generalisations. Yet, as argued in the article, it is an unlikely case for politicisation and a politically important case. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

What explains regulators’ preferences concerning the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM)? The paper answers this question by providing an alternative account of the creation of the SSM using an institutionalist perspective. It is argued that the creation of the SSM does not simply reflect the material interests of governments and domestic financial firms, but that regulators’ positions were also significantly affected by the institutional environment in which they operated. Two characteristics of domestic supervisory governance are identified: the institutional responsibilities of banking regulators (microprudential and/or macroprudential) and the fragmentation of supervisory and monetary policies. The empirical analysis demonstrates the relevance of these factors for shaping regulators’ preferences both within and across countries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The ability of federal states to manage the COVID-19 pandemic has created much debate. Federations differ considerably in the way they have been tackling the crisis, however. To shed light on how European federations (Austria, Germany, Switzerland) managed COVID-19, this paper distinguishes two dimensions of federal decision making: centralised/decentralised and unilateral/coordinated decision making. Drawing on official government documents and press reports, it examines decisions on the introduction of containment measures and their subsequent easing during the first wave. While Austria and Switzerland adopted a centralised approach, decentralised decision making prevailed in Germany. However, most decisions were coordinated between the governments at the federal and constituent unit level in Austria and Germany, in contrast to Switzerland where unilateralism prevailed. This difference in approaches can partly be explained by the distribution of powers. Political and economic factors also influenced the choice of crisis management strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the scholarly debate on hegemony and leadership in international relations and elaborates on an analytical framework to assess the nature, scope, functions and causal mechanisms of hegemonic and non-hegemonic leadership in general terms. Based on this framework, it takes issue with the interpretation of Germany's role during the euro area crisis as being a hegemonic one. Discussing the concepts of hegemony, leadership and dominance, it argues that Germany proved dominant during the euro area crisis on selected issues, mainly using its veto power. On other issues, Berlin provided non-hegemonic leadership, more often than not asymmetric co-leadership shared with France. It did not play the role of a hegemon, however, lacking the resources and being unable to shape decisively the economic constitution of the euro area along the lines of its core preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to explain the origins of the rules of parliamentary agenda control, which can be regarded as the single most important institutional determinant of parliamentary power. Based on the premises of distributive bargaining, the paper develops a causal mechanism for the delegation of agenda control to the government majority. Given that only anti-system or anti-establishment parties strictly prefer to participate in plenary proceedings, these ‘anti’-parties potentially obstruct legislation. Such legislative obstruction by ‘anti’-parties causes establishment parties to commit themselves to procedural reform and thus triggers attempts to centralise agenda control. The delegation of parliamentary agenda powers is successful if opposition to procedural reform is confined to anti-system parties. The causal leverage of this mechanism is assessed in a process-tracing of three reform attempts in two most different cases: the initially ineffective, but then successful introduction of a closure procedure in the United Kingdom and the failed attempt to facilitate the closure in Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This research note presents a general approach for measuring the electoral safety of individual MPs across electoral systems that is based on predicted re-election probabilities estimated from multilevel logistic regression models. In contrast to existing measures, this method yields estimates on an intuitive and readily comparable probability scale, captures the higher sensitivity of re-election prospects to electoral change in the range of close races, and can accommodate regional differences in context conditions such as volatility. The paper implements the approach for two archetypical electoral systems - first-past-the-post (FPTP) systems and closed-list proportional representation (PR) - and estimates re-election prospects for the FPTP and PR tiers of the German mixed electoral system in all Bundestag elections since 1957. While the empirical data presented here is mainly illustrative, the concluding section highlights various questions that future research can address with the new measure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do some countries rely more heavily on equities markets, while others depend more on commercial banking? Analyses of the origins of contemporary capitalist institutions usually look back to the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. However, this paper demonstrates that financial institutions -- regarded as central to the way capitalist systems are organised -- changed radically in the mid-twentieth century in many countries. This paper argues that government partisanship in formative moments of institutional (re)creation can better account for their modern manifestation than prominent alternative explanations. A new measure of partisanship that is sensitive to these institutional transformations is presented. Case studies on Germany and France offer evidence consistent with this argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores Germany’s centrality to the outcome of the eurozone crisis. It argues that the eurozone crisis has led Germany’s ordo-liberal principles to trump its other longstanding commitment – i.e. to European integration. These two principles are explored in order then to shed light on how they have played out during the crisis. German centrality has created high expectations for it to provide leadership. Exploring hegemony conceptually and in practice, it is argued that international legitimacy and increasing domestic constraints have limited a leadership role. Indeed, it is argued that it is the domestic political situation that explains why ordo-liberalism has trumped pro-Europeanism. Ordo-liberal emphasis on stability culture has provided a valuable strategic resource for securing German objectives within the eurozone while satisfying the requirements of domestic politics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While the role played by ministries in the process of coalition government has been investigated from multiple angles, there is a clear lack of knowledge about which specific ministry features party leaders actually value as they assess different government posts. This paper aims at discovering whether, next to office considerations, the policy influence resting with a ministry does affect its value. A new survey of party leaders in the German states enables us to estimate the relative importance of specific office (e.g. public standing) and policy considerations (e.g. influence via legislation) for ministries’ values as well as to directly investigate differences between parties. The results show that both office and policy considerations matter for ministry evaluation generally, but also that different aspects have different weights. Furthermore, while all parties value the policy influence of a ministry, there is variation as to which type of policy influence (cross-sectional vs. within-jurisdictional) parties emphasise. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As political authority is successively transferred from the national to the EU level, national parliaments are often considered to lose control over the domestic political agenda. Yet recent studies suggest that national parliaments cannot simply be labelled ‘losers’ of European integration. National parliaments have institutionally adapted to the EU in order to better scrutinise and control their governments in EU affairs. While existing research shows how parliaments employ their institutional opportunities to exercise scrutiny in the national arena, this paper suggests that MPs also employ informal strategies to obtain information on EU affairs to control and influence their governments. It argues that MPs primarily act through political parties, which are viewed here as multi-level organisations, and make use of their partisan ties to regional, transnational and supranational party actors to obtain information on EU issues. The article probes this argument by drawing on original data obtained through a survey of German MPs in 2009. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Studies on coalition formation assume that political parties have two major goals: they aim to maximise office and policy payoffs. This paper shows that decision-making in the government formation game is also determined by the voters’ coalition preferences. Since the coalition formation process is not a one-shot game, parties have to take the coalition preferences of the electorate into account when they evaluate the utility of potential coalitions. If parties fail to comply with the coalition preferences of voters, they are likely to be penalised in future elections. The argument is tested by an analysis of government formation in the 16 German states between 1990 and 2009. The results support the argument: the formation of coalitions – at least in the German states – is not only determined by office- and policy-seeking behaviour of political parties, but also by the preferences of voters regarding their preferred outcome of the coalition game. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Constituency campaigns are important phenomena for students of political parties, voting behaviour as well as political communication. These research communities perceive constituency campaigns as parts of centralised high-tech campaigns aiming in strategic ways at the efficient mobilisation of voters. We propose in this paper an alternative understanding of constituency campaigns using the case of the German parliamentary elections in 2005 to empirically test this understanding. We perceive constituency campaigns as phenomena signalling a relative independence of individual candidates from the national party campaign. We label this phenomenon individualised campaigning. We argue that individualised campaigning is driven among others by electoral incentives. We test this hypothesis with regard to the German mixed-member electoral system and on the basis of a survey of all candidates standing for election in 2005. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Defining industrial policies has traditionally been a preserve of EU member states, upon which the Commission has only impacted indirectly, through numerous measures affecting industry, leaving little room for an industrial policy in its own right. However, growing concern about the EU's future position in the international division of labour has led several member states to request from Brussels a more pro-active approach and closer attention to European industrial interests. This paper investigates the recent trend towards 're-inventing' industrial policy in the EU, France and Germany. It examines the model of intergovernmental industrial cooperation established between these two member states, its usefulness and limitations. It argues that, despite recent regression in France towards old-style interventionist policies, and although German governments sometimes favour a protectionist stance, both countries can also generate new, more constructive, euro-compatible intergovernmental initiatives, but that promoting national champions damages the credibility of such initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Covid-19 pandemic triggered polarisation across Europe. While most citizens supported governments' containment measures, others took to the streets and voiced their dissatisfaction. The article focuses on the mobilisation potential related to this heterogenous protest wave. It examines individuals that show sympathy and are willing to engage in anti-containment demonstrations based on 16 waves of a rolling cross-section survey fielded in Germany in 2020/2021. The results show a considerable and stable mobilisation potential: every fifth respondent sympathises with the protesters, and around 60% of those are ready to participate themselves. Political distrust, far-right orientations and an emerging 'freedom divide' structure the potential, as do Covid-19-related economic and health threats. Moreover, the findings indicate a radicalisation process and show how ideology and threat perceptions drive the step from sympathy to willingness to participate, suggesting that ideological polarisation may quickly spill over to the streets given an appropriate supply of protest opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Populist appeals to 'pure people' have been theorised to mobilise previously disengaged citizens. However, this 'corrective consequence' has found weak support in empirical research. This finding is consistent with studies that suggest that novel campaign appeals and new political offerings have a negligible effect on turnout. As a consequence, this research proposes a distinction between the behavioural and attitudinal effects of populism and introduces a softened revision to the corrective argument: Despite a negligible behavioural impact on individuals' turnout propensity, the electoral success of populism is nevertheless associated with an attitudinal change: increased political interest. This proposition is supported by two empirical tests. The first detects this dynamic among 232,208 respondents in 136 national election studies from 16 Western countries (1970–2017). The second analysis, which uses an improved causal identification strategy, uncovers an analogous effect in the GESIS Panel (2014–17, Germany). Hence, the emergence of populist parties can stimulate political interest among citizens, even though it does not necessarily lead to increased turnout. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polarisation is often seen as mainly negative for the functioning of democracies, but one of its saving graces could be that it raises the stakes of politics and encourages participation. This study explores the relationship between affective polarisation and turnout using three longitudinal designs. It makes use of three decades of repeated cross-sectional surveys in Germany, a two-wave panel study in Spain, and an eleven-wave panel study in the Netherlands. It tests whether affective polarisation increases turnout using varying operationalizations and specifications, and studies whether any boost in participation extends beyond the most politically sophisticated citizens. The findings suggest a sizeable independent effect of affective polarisation on turnout even when accounting for reverse causality and for the confounding impact of positive partisanship and ideological polarisation. Importantly, this effect might even be somewhat more pronounced among those who are least sophisticated. The concluding section discusses the normative and theoretical implications of these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By reaching a vote share of 12.6 percent in the 2017 federal election, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) ended Germany's rare status as a Western European polity lacking a significant Populist Radical Right Party (PRRP). Some of this support comes from a group not usually expected to vote for PRRPs: immigrant-origin voters. Recent survey data shows high levels of support for the AfD especially within the group of Russian-Germans – immigrants from the former Soviet Union and its successor states. What motivates these immigrant-origin voters to support an anti-immigrant party? This article argues that support for the AfD – besides immigration-related preferences – can be best explained by their levels of assimilation or incorporation for different domains regarding the mainstream German society. Especially low levels of economic and social integration, and in particular a strong ethnic identity, relate positively to favouring the German radical right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The declining 'subjective social status' of the low-educated working class has been advanced as a prominent explanation for right-wing populism. The working class has certainly been adversely affected by rising income inequality over the past decades, but we do not actually know if their perceived standing in the social hierarchy has declined correspondingly over time. This article examines trends in subjective social status in two 'most likely cases' – Germany and the US – between 1980 and 2018. We find that the subjective social status of the working class has not declined in absolute terms. However, there is evidence for relative status declines for the working class in Germany and substantial within-class heterogeneity in both countries. These findings imply that rising income inequality has a nuanced impact on status perceptions. When assessing the role of subjective social status for political outcomes, longitudinal perspectives that consider both absolute and relative changes seem promising. Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at: https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2022.2038892. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a theory that links issue salience and actor polarisation to the uses of learning heuristics in the policy process. In harking back to research on public policy, behavioural economics, and crisis management, we argue that policy makers use two learning heuristics when they update their policy ideas: policy-oriented learning and power-oriented learning. The article develops theoretical expectations that link issue salience and polarisation of actor constellations to policy-oriented and power-oriented learning. To illustrate the theoretical expectations, the article discusses EU anti-crisis policies dealing with the 2007–2009 global financial and economic crisis and its aftermath, as well as the responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany and the U.S. as pathway cases. Overall, this article contributes to the understanding of learning and the political uses of ideas in the policy process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the tensions Peter Mair identified between responsible and responsive government in relation to the constraints and opportunities of an internationally integrated and instituted economy. Drawing on the example of the short period of democratic stability and its subsequent breakdown in the Weimar Republic, the article argues that in Weimar Germany’s ‘golden twenties’, governments could bridge the gap between responsibility – defined as a commitment to deep international integration – and responsiveness to its citizens mainly through the availability of cheap credits. With the onset of the Great Depression, responsible government became tantamount to increasingly drastic austerity policies. These policies were not only an economic failure, they also made the gap between responsible and responsive government unbridgeable. The article also shows how a similar cycle of good and bad times, with similar consequences with regard to the tensions between responsible and responsive government seem to have occurred in the crisis that has been affecting the Eurozone since 2009. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article compares the institutionalisation of policy advice inside offices which service chief executives in the UK and Germany. It focuses on the institutionalisation of 'policy units' during the early 1970s and late 1990s which reveals different patterns. Whereas British policy units are allowed to interfere in any departmental business and address a variety of issues, German policy units are narrowed to provide administrative support and avoid partisan issues. Applying a new institutionalist perspective and the veto approach, this article argues that institutionalisation processes as strategic interactions of organisational actors are affected by institutional features at the macro-level of parliamentary systems. These features include principles of cabinet decision-making and the electoral system with its effects on parliament and cabinet composition which both set veto positions in the executive and legislative decision arena. Next to these institutional features, the empirical evidence shows how organisational legacies account for the influential role of British policy units as power resource for the PM and the nearly irrelevance of German policy units as power resource for the Chancellor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article first outlines the differences in outcome of pension reform in Germany and Austria. The 2001 German pension reform cut benefits very little, but it started a system changing transformation process by strengthening the second (occupational pensions) and third pillar (private pensions). The 2003 Austrian pension reform, pushed through against major opposition from the labour unions, contains very few elements of policy innovation, but benefits have been cut back much more significantly than in the German case. The paper explains the difference in outcomes (system change in Germany, retrenchment in Austria) by looking at the structure of political institutions. The federal government in Austria is much less constrained by formal veto players than the German government, which had to engage in extensive coalition-building to get the pension bill through the second chamber of parliament. Therefore the influence of informal veto players (mainly unions) was much higher in Germany. The impact on the reform outcome was the positive discrimination of occupational pensions and less severe cuts in the benefit levels. The concluding thesis is that for successful and long-term sustainable welfare state reform, a small number of formal veto players is a valuable resource. A large number of formal veto players is an obstacle to retrenchment reforms, although it might encourage policy innovation, because political actors will look for other policy venues to increase their leverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During COVID-19, various public institutions tried to shape citizens' behaviour to slow the spread of the pandemic. How did their authority affect citizens' support of public measures taken to combat the spread of COVID-19? The article makes two contributions. First, it presents a novel conceptualisation of authority as a source heuristic. Second, it analyses the authority of four types of public institutions (health ministries, universities, public health agencies, the WHO) in two countries (Germany and the UK), drawing on novel data from a survey experiment conducted in May 2020. On average, institutional endorsements seem to have mattered little. However, there is an observable polarisation effect where citizens who ascribe much expertise to public institutions support COVID-19 measures more than the control group. Furthermore, those who ascribe little expertise support them less than the control group. Finally, neither perception of biases nor exposure to institutions in public debates seems consistently to affect their authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While coalitions are conventionally seen as opportunities for parties to realise their policy preferences or to secure their control over political offices, recent studies show that citizens have preferences for coalitions which influence their vote choice. However, these studies do not consider how party and coalition preferences influence each other. This study uses panel data from the German Longitudinal Election Study from the 2009, 2013 and 2017 German elections to determine whether voters punish the party for which they voted for being in a coalition they dislike or, alternatively, whether they become more supportive of that coalition. We find weak evidence for the former but strong evidence for the latter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this research note, candidate survey data from the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES) is used to analyse positional shifts of German Bundestag parties between 2013 and 2017. Two developments make Germany a particularly interesting case: (1) the liberal but also controversial policies of the Merkel cabinet during the European refugee crisis and (2) the change of leadership within the right-wing populist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). Applying scaling techniques to locate candidates of both elections in the same two-dimensional policy space, the analysis demonstrates that in 2017 the AfD took a distinct radical right position in the party system of Germany. Moreover, the study finds that almost all parties moved to the right on the cultural left-right dimension in 2017, whereas for the economic left-right dimension this has not been the case. Contrary to the mantra of an ideological delineation against right-wing populism, there has been a robust socio-political conservative shift in the German party system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adoption of Directive 2015/412 marks a turning point in policy-making in the European Union since for the first time the legal competence for a regulatory area has been passed from the EU to the member states. The member states can now request their territory to be excluded from authorisation for genetically modified organisms (GMOs) for commercial cultivation. In the first step of the analysis, the article shows that higher levels of public support for GMOs decrease the likelihood of member states filing an opt-out request, while controlling for other potential explanatory factors. In the second step, it concentrates on the controversy between the federal and the state level in Germany regarding the transposition of the new directive. It is found that the directive offers some degree of strategic opportunity for pro-GMO political parties to pursue a regulatory approach that would otherwise be impeded by negative public opinion. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although committee assignments have been researched in various parliaments, findings are inconclusive. This article contributes to the debate by analysing the allocations to specialised committees in the Bundestag, a legislature that establishes strong committees despite having strong parliamentary party groups. Studying assignments in this legislature can, therefore, help us to solve the present disjunction between ‘European’ and ‘American’ experiences regarding committee research. The study uses the congressional theories of legislative organisation as heuristic devices but explicitly highlights the strong involvement of parliamentary party groups. The hypotheses are tested with a multiple membership multilevel model across several legislative periods (1990‒2013) and backed up with evidence from 51 interviews with German legislators. The results show that next to constituency demands and the influence of regional factions, there is strong evidence for a reassignment pattern and that a legislator’s occupational background and connections to interest groups matter in the assignment process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In times of increasing globalisation scholars put considerable efforts into understanding the consequences of immigration to the welfare state. One important factor in this respect is public support for the welfare state and redistribution. This article presents results from a unique survey experiment and a panel study in three European countries (Norway, Germany and the Netherlands) in order to examine whether and how individuals change their preference for redistribution when faced with immigration. Theoretically, citizens with high incomes should be especially likely to withdraw their support for redistribution because they fear the increased fiscal burden, whereas other types of citizens might ask for more compensation for the increased labour market risks caused by immigration. The empirical evidence reveals that only respondents with high incomes and those who face low labour market competition withdraw support for redistribution when faced with immigration. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In mixed-member electoral systems, voters usually have two votes: a nominal and a list vote. According to some studies, voters are increasingly using them to cast a split-ticket vote. However, very little is known about whether the type of mixed-member system, and in particular whether the allocation of seats across tiers is linked or not, creates different sets of incentives for this behaviour. This article provides new insights into the topic by analysing survey data from seven countries and 18 elections since 1990. It is found that the proportion of split-ticket votes is greater in mixed-member proportional than in mixed-member majoritarian systems. The results suggest that voters understand the operation of the electoral system and its consequences for the distribution of seats among parties, and adapt their behaviour accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Banking union challenges the institutional mechanisms that alternative banks use to retain their status, goals, identity and carry out their operations. Yet the impact of banking union on them varies considerably and systematically: those alternative banks that held most closely to the traditional model fared best in the recent financial crises and have been impacted the least by banking union. In contrast, those banks that strayed from the traditional model and sought rapid expansion into new geographic or financial product markets fared much worse under the adverse conditions of recent years and, consequently, ended up under the full weight of banking union provisions. But even where alternative banks hewed to their traditional model and remain a significant part of national financial systems, we find that the crises and subsequent strengthening of the EU’s financial role have reduced the scope for national control over all banks, not just those directly supervised by the ECB. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Why do political parties prioritise some policy issues over others? While the issue ownership theory suggests that parties emphasise policy issues on which they have an advantage in order to increase the salience of these issues among voters, the riding the wave theory argues instead that parties respond to voters by highlighting policy issues that are salient in the minds of citizens. This study sheds new light on the selective issue emphasis of political parties by analysing issue attention throughout the entire electoral cycle. On the basis of a quantitative text analysis of more than 40,000 press releases published by German parties from 2000 until 2010, this article provides empirical support for the riding the wave theory. It shows that political parties take their cues from voters by responding to the issue priorities of their electorate. The results have important implications for political representation and the role that parties play in democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the 2013 federal election in Germany, comparing it with Germany's 2009 election. The formation of a coalition government between the German political parties the Christian Democrats and the Liberal Party, including the re-election of Angela Merkel as the German chancellor, is discussed. The 2013 electoral campaign, including in regard to the German political party the Social Democrats' nomination of Peer Steinbrück as their chancellor candidate, is also discussed.

Cross-sectional research designs show that proportional representation (PR) tends to produce more equitable outcomes in terms of gender representation. While existing research provides valuable insights into the covariates of gender representation, such cross-sectional designs fail to provide a definitive test of the influence of electoral rules both over time and in the case of mixed systems. Addressing this gap, this article proposes a longitudinal research design using the case of Germany, because half the Bundestag’s seats are allotted through majoritarian first-past-the-post methods, while the other half are allotted through proportional methods. The main findings point towards heavy interaction between the two electoral tiers that becomes visible in party quotas, double nominations and increased competitiveness of female candidates. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The German Stability Culture is frequently pointed to in the literature as the source of the country’s low inflation policies and, at the European Union level, the design of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). In Germany, the term was regularly wielded by central bankers and Christian Democrat (CDU–CSU) politicians to legitimise the move to EMU in the face of a large majority of public opinion opposed – and subsequent EU-level policy developments – particularly in the context of the eurozone debt crisis that erupted in 2009. An ordered probit analysis is used to demonstrate the depth of the German Stability Culture, showing support for low inflation cuts across all party and ideological lines. Despite this ubiquity, the term has been wielded with regularity only by the centre-right Christian Democrats and is strongly associated with this party. A strategic constructivist analysis is employed to explain this uneven but persistent usage in German domestic politics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Immigrants and their descendants are becoming increasingly visible in Germany’s political life. What determines immigrant political incorporation into parliamentary positions over time and in specific contexts? The article focuses on the regional parliaments of Germany’s 16 states. A comparative analysis enables us to specify whether, how and under what conditions factors thought to impact levels of immigrant representation are indeed influential and how they interact with local and situational conditions. The article first outlines immigrant representation in Germany’s states over time. It then discusses several possible explanations for the striking variation between states. Rather than one key factor, it is found that interactions between demographic, institutional, cultural and political conditions account for different levels of immigrant representation in Germany’s state parliaments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article considers recent attempts to reform German federalism, the failed 2004 reform, and the reforms agreed in 2006 and 2009. It compares partisan, ideological and territorial factors which contribute to an understanding of reform, finding that all three have a role in explaining actors’ views of reform proposals. Two other claims are developed: that in some aspects of the reforms, a division between ‘generalist’ and ‘subject specialist’ politicians became apparent; and that a decisive change between 2004 and 2006 was the formation of a grand coalition at a federal level, which paved the way for agreement upon reform proposals. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

What determines party positions on issues of economic governance? Most previous research has pointed either to the presumed material interests of the parties' clienteles, or to the political institutions that shape electoral competition. Both approaches do well in explaining cross-national variation, but neither can adequately account for changes over time. This article documents German Social Democrats' policy preferences and the underlying discourse on organised capitalism from 1880 onward to highlight the crucial role of historical context. The interests reflected in party positions cannot simply be read off the material environment. Instead, as suggested by constructivist work on preference formation, they depend on theories regarding the causal effect of alterative policy measures. Following Peter Hall, we treat the evolution of such theories as a ‘process structured in space and time’, by illustrating how ‘context factors’ affect the relative salience of the multiple considerations pertaining to organised capital. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The EU's civilian and military crisis management operations have grown in number, complexity, and geographical outreach. In the absence of EU-level capabilities, the success of EU external crisis management is highly dependent on the timely delivery of national financial, human, and material resources. This has posed challenges to national administrations, not least for a big member state such as Germany. The article provides a theoretical tool to measure processes of administrative Europeanisation and applies it to the case of Germany. It assesses German administrative change, clarifies the depth and origin of adaptation and concludes on the general institutional impact of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) during the first 10 years of its existence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The measurement of populism – particularly over time and space – has received only scarce attention. In this research note two different ways to measure populism are compared: a classical content analysis and a computer-based content analysis. An analysis of political parties in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy demonstrates that both methods can be used to measure populism across countries and over time. Recommendations are presented on how to combine these methods in future comparative research on populism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A nation's endowment with human capital is an important source of economic prosperity, yet education systems as well as the amount of public spending differ both between and within industrialised countries. Traditional approaches in comparative political economy explain education spending from a perspective in which leftist parties favour human capital formation. In contrast, recent approaches claim that – with regard to public financing of higher education in stratified education systems – the basic assumptions of partisan theory rather lead to the opposite hypothesis. In such systems, a pattern of reverse redistribution emerges, under which electoral incentives let right-wing parties favour increases in higher education budgets. This article tests both claims within the decentralised German education system. Its encompassing empirical strategy provides clear support for the latter hypothesis in the 16 German states between 1992 and 2003. The results imply that the partisan composition of government and preferences for redistribution continue to matter. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the German mixed electoral system the PR tier is generally perceived as fully compensating for any disproportionality in the vote-seat translation generated by the plurality tier. However, as this article shows, the PR tier can itself increase disproportionality. In a mixed electoral system, small parties enter (hopeless) district races with the hope of boosting their PR vote share. But with a high number of district parties, parties may win districts at levels way below the usual 50 per cent vote share threshold. Looking at all 16 Bundestag elections from 1953 to 2009, the article identifies the effective number of district parties as a very strong predictor for the disproportional translation of votes into seats in the plurality tier of Germany's mixed electoral system. The article points to consequences for the internal composition of parliamentary parties, for parties' nomination strategies and for the occurrence of so-called overhang mandates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With its decision on the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, the German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) has handed over another landmark ruling on European integration. The ruling made Germany's ratification of the Treaty conditional upon the passage of a new law giving the Bundestag greater oversight of European affairs. This and the consequences of stronger parliamentary oversight for the German government and the way it conducts negotiations at European level have been the focus of most early comments on the decision. No less important, however, are the ruling's potential repercussions on European judicial politics. Coming after a series of highly controversial judgments by the European Court of Justice, the FCC's Lisbon decision is clearly meant as a warning to Brussels and, above all, Luxembourg. The decision could undermine the Court of Justice's authority and encourage non-compliance on the part of national courts, thus bringing about a constitutional crisis at European level. Alternatively, the decision may compel the Court of Justice to reconsider some of the most controversial aspects of its activist jurisprudence and to exert more restraint in the foreseeable future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theoretical literature on party mergers is thin. This article draws upon organisational behaviour research to create an analytical framework that is suitable for explaining the processes inherent in party mergers. The authors operationalise this framework by examining two cases of party merger: in Germany, between the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and the Electoral Alternative for Labour and Social Justice (WASG) in 2006/07, and in the Netherlands, between four small parties to form Groenlinks (Green Left) in 1989-91. They conclude that the two cases demonstrate definable steps and processes that are inherent to mergers, and they welcome further applications of this framework in other settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses changes in party-manifesto references to democracy in post-war Britain, the French Fifth Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany in order to explore changes in political parties' statements about democracy. It finds that in recent decades parties in all three countries have generally become more supportive of and more vocal in their calls for citizen participation in political decision-making, with a related increase in expressed support for direct democracy and other opportunities for participation. It also finds that left-wing parties have tended to be more enthusiastic than right-wing parties. The article suggests that changes are most likely parties' responses to wider shifts in societal values, and it concludes with a discussion of the significance of democracy-speak for both parties and citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers an examination of the 2009 German Federal Election. It explores the issues that grew out of the 2005 Federal Election and shaped the results of the 2009 election. It discusses changes that occurred among the Social Democrats as well as within the Grand Coalition. It explores the role the Christian Democrats played in the 2009 election and discusses the influence that smaller parties, such as the Liberals, Greens and Leftist Party, had on the election as well. It also examines the key policy issues that voters were concerned with including economics, energy policy and Germany's involvement in Afghanistan.

What determines a government's position inside the Council of the European Union? This article takes up recent arguments according to which Council decision-making is driven not only by 'objective' national interests but also by the ideological preferences of the member states' representatives. On the basis of a study of Germany, Austria and Sweden and their positions with regard to the Services Directive, it seeks to advance the debate by specifying the conditions under which ideological preferences are more likely to dominate. Applying a principal-agent model it is argued that the relative impact of ideological preferences crucially depends on the relationship between the ministers sitting in the Council and the governing parties at the national level: the less a minister is exposed to parliamentary and intra-governmental control, the more a country's position is susceptible to the ideological preferences of the minister. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constitutional courts are often considered to be 'veto players' or 'third chambers of parliament'. However, no attention has been paid to the composition of European constitutional courts and how they make decisions. Do European judges exhibit political preferences as their US counterparts do? If so, it is important to know who selects the judges as the selection determines the outcome. This article analyses the composition of the German Bundesverfassungsgericht and the French Conseil constitutionnel. It tests the correlation between the party affiliation of the pivotal judge and oppositional success empirically for all abstract reviews filed between 1974 and 2002. In both countries the likelihood of an oppositional victory or defeat varies with the ideological position of the pivotal judge. This leads to the conclusion that European judges decide on the basis of their political preferences like their US counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the beginning of the migration crisis in the 1990s, Italy and Germany have been considered to be the two showpieces of different migration control systems in Europe, where an 'inefficient' South is contrasted with an 'effective' North in terms of immigration control and humanitarian protection. Italy is often considered to have a lax immigration regime with weak border controls and few guarantees for asylum seekers and refugees, whereas Germany, in contrast, is shown as having an ideal asylum machinery with lower irregular immigration and no need for regularisation processes. This article challenges such a bipolar vision of the European immigration and shows that the 'North-South axis' dividing European control systems is not based on empirical evidence but on a myth which fails to take into account the logic of controls and the socio-economic contexts in which they are enforced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The salience of foreign affairs to general publics is an important but often neglected parameter for the role of public opinion in foreign and security policy. This article explores the determinants of foreign affairs' public salience and probes into the respective patterns in Germany, Britain and France. Building on the theory of news values, the article proposes to distinguish between issue-specific and country-specific influences on the public salience of foreign and security policy. The data suggest that broad international crises on the scale of 9/11 or the Iraq war go along with distinct cross-national peaks in the salience of foreign affairs to general publics. At the same time, the effects of constant issue logics are refracted by country-specific factors: most notably, the latter account for the much higher overall salience of foreign affairs to the British public than to the German and French publics since late 2002. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite growing interest in direct democratic institutions, the empirical evidence on the relationship between institutional design and the actual use of popular rights remains rather sparse. The authors use a novel data set on institutional openness and test its link to the number of popular initiatives in the German Lander for the period of 1997-2005. Their empirical analysis reveals a strong and robust negative effect of higher institutional requirements on the number of popular initiatives in the 16 German Lander; whereas other factors appear to be of minor importance. They thus come to the conclusion that the comparatively high institutional hurdles in the Lander impose costs of initiation, thereby limiting the number of popular initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]