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The paper seeks to conceptually develop the notion of gender mainstreaming through a systematic comparison with the equal rights approach that preceded it. It takes as an example the agricultural policy arena in Germany, comparing the development of pension rights for farmwomen in the early 1990s to the implementation of gender mainstreaming at the turn of the century. Experts charged with implementing gender mainstreaming have argued that the notion is conceptually unclear and leads to confusion in its application. Movement activists, in addition, have charged that gender mainstreaming has become an excuse to cut funding for programs that favor women. The observations of these feminists show that the implementation of gender mainstreaming takes place and gains meaning in political contexts. Gender mainstreaming has become a new, unique site of gender politics. The paper will survey organizational theory to develop propositions about gender politics in the German agricultural ministry and its political environment. In particular it will probe the following questions: -How do the organizational discourses on equal pension rights differ from those on gender mainstreaming? -How do organizational networks charged with implementing equal pension rights differ from those charged with implementing gender mainstreaming? -In these organizational discourses and networks, how are gender hegemonies and gender hierarchies reconstructed? The purpose of the paper is to employ an outsider’s perspective and a political science perspective to assess the significance of gender mainstreaming for feminist movement politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the theoretical literature on political party competition pertains mainly to larger mainstream parties. With some recent exceptions, small party competition has generally been explained as mainstream party failure. Yet such theoretical accounts provide little practical wisdom to small parties in terms of strategic planning. In fact, it sets them up to be acted upon rather than to be political actors. This paper tackles the theoretical gap in the literature on political parties dealing with small parties and suggests that empirical evidence provides opportunity for theory building inductively where the practical informs the theoretical. This paper takes the cases of far right parties in Western Europe and examines instances of their success and failure with the aim of developing testable theoretical propositions. The investigation follows as inductive logic, allowing open-ended interviews in three countries to structure cross-national analysis that follows with general insights that follow. Several indicators are isolated and evaluated statistically including issue co-optation, governing coalition incumbency effects, leadership characteristics, and degree of EU party affiliation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the research that explores the variables influencing whether or not political leaders succumb to the preventive motivation for war in response to shifting relative power places heavy emphasis on material factors, such as the size and composition of military forces and economic resources. The strategic logic of preventive war is typically rooted in calculations of the expected costs of military conflict in the near term compared to the costs of war at some point in the future, after a potential adversary has had the opportunity to pursue a relative power shift in its favor. According to the standard argument, leaders are more likely to launch a preventive war to blunt a rival's growth if they conclude that the current material distribution of power makes war less costly today than it will be at a later date. While material factors are undoubtedly important, contemporary and historic cases alike suggest a political dimension to preventive war that has, and must, play an important role in decision making, yet which has been largely ignored in the strategic literature. To quote Clausewitz, "warfare always should be waged with as much regard to the character of the subsequent peace as immediate military necessity allows." In other words, preventive war is not just about the new material distribution of power left behind, it will also shape in decisive ways the character of the broader political order created in its wake, the political relationships and the behavior of key states affected by the war itself. As a result, great debates and ultimate decisions on preventive war often hinge on predictions, made under conditions of significant uncertainty over what the future holds, about the kind of post-conflict political order likely to follow initiation of preventive war. The paper examines this aspect of preventive war as a contemporary academic and policy problem by reaching back to a critical historic case in the study of preventive war: the rise of German power in the 1930s and the debate over why France and Britain did not launch, and whether they should have launched, a preventive attack before Germany was powerful enough to lash out aggressively in 1939. Missing from the existing analysis of this case is an appreciation for rival British and French beliefs, specifically during the 1936 Rhineland crisis, on the kind of post-conflict European political order a preventive war against Nazi Germany would likely create, and how these rival political views and predictions shaped French acceptance of preventive war and British rejection. This provides an important supplement to the existing explanations for this key case that highlight either the specific distribution of military power at different points in time or domestic political impediments in Britain rooted simply in a paralyzing fear of repeating the horrors of World War I. In turn, the paper's treatment of this case provides a new framework for understanding the political challenges of preventive war that must have relevance to discussions of the preventive war option in such contemporary cases as Iran. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate Responsibility (CR) firms engagement for social and environmental ends beyond the legally mandated minimum is probably the dominant rhetorical frame for the legitimation of contemporary capitalism. In my paper, I ask why CR has become salient at different times and has assumed different qualities across various European countries since 1980. Great Britain and Germany are my in-depth country cases, for it is claimed they represent extremes in the contemporary CR landscape. Britain, it is claimed, is European (if not global) CR leader, while Germany is a laggard among large European countries. My paper describes the institutionalization of CR in both countries in order to understand what factors contributed to these outcomes. Three stand out. First, urban dereliction and social unrest helped to bring CR up to speed in the UK in the 1980s; these pressures were largely absent in Germany. Second, the importance of state officials and policy entrepreneurs for promoting and subsidizing CR cannot be underestimated. Ironically, the British state has been very activist in this regard, while its German counterpart has remained largely inactive. Third, firms perceptions of their regulatory and welfare-state environment have a strong influence on the nature of their CR engagement, with perceived institutional constraints inversely related to engagement. Thus, CR gained momentum as Thatcher freed British businesses from their fetters, while this dynamic has only recently taken hold in Germany. Notwithstanding the insistence of mainstream CR literature that business objectives and societal responsibility imply and necessitate each other, sociological ambivalence a concept which focuses on the ways in which ambivalence comes to be built on to the structure of social statuses and roles is useful for highlighting some of the neglected contours of the CR landscape across Europe. Ambivalences are especially apparent where corporate responsibilities have tended to be institutionalized, legally binding, and constraining, as they have been in Germany. Corporate association officials there have at times pushed for the retrenchment of institutionalized forms of responsibility, such as corporate taxation, co-determination, and the welfare state, at the same time as they proclaim their far-reaching voluntary engagements as corporate citizens. As the substance if not always the form of institutions become ever more market-conforming and market-driven, these demands may become less audible. But firms may find that they have won a pyrrhic victory, as reconciling societal demands for responsibility with capitalism's imperative of profit maximization and its tendency to externalize costs is difficult without the hard backing of of˜beneficial constraints. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses how the US-EU trading relationship is affected by public health concerns, focusing on agricultural and environmental aspects of trade. It focuses on Mad Cow Disease (representing an agricultural issue), on chemical pollutants, and GM foods, examining how different risk perceptions on both sides of the Atlantic affect these problems, and how regional and global trade agreements seek to resolve conflicts between signatory states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the East Bloc crumbled and Germany was reunified in 1990, it promised countries such as Poland that it would act as their advocate in the EU, pushing the EU to admit them. Did Germany keep its word? What mix of motivations drove it? This paper will show that, while Germany saw itself as pursuing European goals, it also was driven by national foreign policy and domestic goals. Expansion strengthens Germany--both by promoting its reconciliation with the East and by strengthening Germany’s central role in the union. Yet Germany has reason to fear low-priced competition from its neighbors. As the EU prepares to take on new members in 2004, the accession negotiations offer a rich field for studying the mix of European and national interests in the new Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Atlantic partnership was severely strained by the Iraq war of March-April 2003, and even more by the diplomatic wrangling that preceded the military conflict. But it is far from clear that policy towards Iraq was the source of these strains. This paper assesses recent changes in international politics and how these changes differentially affected the Atlantic partners. In so doing it provides a structural account of the present crisis, arguing that the transatlantic bargain consolidated in the 1950s rested upon a particular constellation of interests that was deeply undermined by the end of the Cold War as well as by the security implications of globalization. The stability of the Cold War Atlantic partnership rested upon an unusual balance between the interests of its most significant members: the US, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Once West Germany had been firmly enmeshed in the western security and economic systems, the central political problem of the transatlantic relationship was muting Franco-American rivalry. Two factors tended to mitigate Franco-American antipathies. The first was self-restraint on the part of successive US governments, who regarded NATO as the leading security arrangement, and Europe as the most important theatre of operations, of the Cold War conflict with the Soviet Union. The second mitigating factor was the restraining influence exercised by the Federal Republic of Germany on French policy, since realization of the Federal Republic’s dual objectives of security (in the present) and unification (in the future) depended on a careful balancing of political relations with Paris and Washington. The end of the Cold War substantially weakened both these buffers on Franco-American relations. The structural foundations of the Atlantic framework were further undermined by the eventual realization that America’s chief post-Cold War security concerns had more to do with transnational terrorism rather than with traditional interstate rivalry. The result is a system now in flux, but in which a re-emergence of the previous framework is unlikely; that framework has no basis in underlying political realities, and, despite widespread pretensions to the contrary, it holds little genuine appeal for the principal governments on either side of the Atlantic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1999, Germany’s reformed citizenship laws permitted the naturalization of some 350,000 ethnic Turkish/Kurdish long-term immigrants in the country. As new German voters, this group now represents about 1 percent of the electorate. But by 2006, the next time German voters will elect a national government, Germany’s political parties expect this voting bloc to double, which will significantly influence the outcome of national elections. This author proposes that despite a 70 percent rate of support among the ethnic Turkish/Kurdish Germans in favor of the Social Democrats and the Green Party, it will be the Free Democrats who will garner a significant percentage of the Turkish/Kurdish vote by 2006. The author intends to evaluate the transformative political impact of the ethnic Turkish/Kurdish vote on Germany’s political landscape. A primary focus in this paper will be on changes in public discourse regarding issues such as business development, immigration, and multiculturalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With record levels of losses due to investment in complex financial instruments, many of Germany's and Britain's largest banks have been seriously weakened by the recent credit crisis. French banks appear more robust, but have also faced significant losses. While the bank losses in all three countries have taken observers by surprise, the activities of UK banks that resulted in these losses appear to conform more to the features of the Anglo-Saxon version of financial capitalism and the banking operations associated with this. In France and Germany, and in particular the latter, banks that were previously seen as largely domestically, even regionally, focused have revealed major losses, suggesting potentially revealing significant convergence in the German and French financial systems over the past decade towards the British system, potentially undermining distinctive national varieties of financial capitalism. The aims of this paper are five-fold. First, we demonstrate the need to bring changes within banks into CPE analyses of financial systems, financial system change and varieties of capitalism more broadly. Second, we explain change in terms of the 'financialization' of bank operations, with regard to both assets and liabilities, in these three countries. Third, we demonstrate that this 'financialization' renders problematic the categorisation of financial capitalisms built on a distinction between bank-provided and market-provided (equity) capital: we show that bank-provided capital is highly 'marketised' particularly in the UK. Fourth, we suggest that the rise of market-based banking has contributed to an increased reliance on bank loans for the funding of non-financial firms in all three countries - but more so in France and the UK. Fifth, we show that in spite of the 'financialization' of bank operations in the three countries, it is problematic to argue for convergence: British bank financialisation - especially on the liabilities side - has far exceeded the level found in Germany and France. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To what extent do active learning strategies assist students in learning complex concepts? The current paper explores this inquiry utilizing data concerning three simulations in an introductory comparative politics course to reinforce such concepts as cohabitation, coalition government, and federalism. The hypothesis that students gain greater knowledge of such abstract concepts is subsequently tested utilizing pre- and post-simulation surveys, debriefing responses, and in-class exams. The results indicate that simulations play an important role in enhancing student subjective knowledge, but not necessarily their objective knowledge. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the empirical puzzle of different magnitudes in the use of military force employed in response to the terrorist atrocities of 11 September 2001 by Germany and Great Britain despite many similarities in material attributes between the two countries. It argues that while rationalist theories cannot account for this difference strategic culture can provide the most viable explanation for this puzzle. It first outlines a theoretical model based on two constructivist approaches to security: strategic culture and securitisation. It then analyses opinion polls and parliamentary debates in order to show that differences in identity-derived norms on the use of military force contained in strategic culture affect the way actors portray transnational terrorism and appropriate countermeasures in parliamentary debates, which then result in different security policy and practice implemented in reaction to the terrorist atrocities of 11 September 2001. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1999, the Federal Republic of Germany participated in NATO's air campaign Operation Allied Force against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It was the first offensive combat mission in the history of the country. Most of the theoretically-informed literature deals with the consequences of the decision for Germany's foreign policy (continuity or change). Conversely, the motives and driving forces that guided the individual decision-makers involved in the decision have received little attention. This paper takes up this lopsidedness in the literature by applying three of the most prominent decision making-models of Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) to the case, namely the bureaucratic politics model, prospect theory, and analogical reasoning. The discussion suggests that particularly prospect theory has strong explanatory leverage to account for Germany's decision to go to war. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigrants in Germany are poorly integrated into the labor market. Given the low birth rate among Germans and a shortage of skilled labor, Germany has to rely on a successful integration of its immigrants. This demographic challenge has contributed to the formation of a political consensus regarding the need of an active integration policy. Whereas a systematic integration policy has been lacking until the recent past, integration has now become a priority for the German government. The National Integration Plan of 2007 is the expression of this development and includes 400 commitments of the Federal Government, the state (Laender) governments, local authorities and societal actors. The new consensus was possible because of an attitude change of leading top ranking conservative politicians. Until the late 1990s conservative politicians refused to accept Germany as a country of immigration and migration was considered as temporary. However, top ranking conservative politicians now accept that immigration is permanent, advocate an active and comprehensive integration policy, frame ethnic diversity as an opportunity and integration as an economic necessity. The aim of this paper is to describe recent developments in integration policies and to assess whether the new approach to integration of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) - and to a lesser extent of its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) - does in fact represent a paradigm shift from the past. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning from the past to shape a better future usually involves scanning history for instructive patterns or successful policies that can be transferred into the present. In this paper, I discuss a social movement that took a different ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Going back to the beginning of the twentieth century, this paper explores the political and legal relationship between the emerging concept of state sovereignty and accountability in international criminal law. To that end, it looks into the proceedings s ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post-Cold War military reforms in Britain, France and Germany have been characterized by patterns of convergence in the objectives, instruments and institutional forums of defense policy, but by divergence in temporality. These patterns of convergence and divergence cannot be fully explained by cultural approaches. Neither can they be explained solely by a focus on the role of 'international structure', as neo-realism posits, although the post-Cold War distribution of capabilities is driving Britain, France and Germany towards policy convergence. Instead the analysis builds upon the insights of neo-classical realism and its emphasis upon 'state power' by demonstrating the important intervening role played by domestic material power relationships in incentivizing figures within the core executive to respond to systemic power shifts. The paper argues that in Britain and France 'executive autonomy' in defense policy, resulting from the unitary state, weak linkages between defense and social policy subsystems and formal powers of the core executive in defense has allowed policy leaders to focus on the 'national interest' and convergence with 'systemic imperatives'. In Germany the federal system and linkages between social and defense policy circumscribed 'executive autonomy' in defense policy and incentivized an acute concern within the core executive about the domestic political ramifications of convergence with systemic imperatives, leading to the temporal management of reform, producing short-medium term policy stasis. Culture emerges not so much as a cause of action as instrumental and a resource for policy leaders in the domestic political and temporal management of reform. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do the observable preferences and behavior of economic actors correspond to microeconomic models? I address this general question by examining the microfoundations of firms´exchange-rate preferences and lobbying activity between 1960 and 2005 in Germany, one of the most internationally exposed and export-oriented economies. The phenomena to be explained are twofold. First, lobbying activity appears to have declined over time. Archival sources provide evidence of strong preference articulation and exchange-rate lobbying during the 1960s and 1970s. In recent years, by contrast, the intensity of firms’ lobbying activity has gone down, despite greater exchange-rate fluctuations and currency appreciations, which are costly for export-oriented producers. Second, there is substantial variation in the propensity of different corporations to lobby over exchange-rate levels. I argue that the extent of internationalization of firms is key for explaining both of these observations and the political economy of exchange-rate preferences and lobbying more generally. Firms and sectors with a low degree of ‘operational hedging’ or diversification across different currency areas are much more likely to have preferences for a low exchange rate and to lobby over exchange-rate levels than their diversified counterparts. Framed as a debate between Jeffry Frieden and Kathleen McNamara: despite the power of Frieden’s microeconomic model for the period analyzed in this paper, we may be moving towards a world without pronounced or highly differentiated exchange-rate preferences â€" towards a situation in which ‘no preference is the stable equilibrium.’ The possibility that the predictive power of microeconomic models over actors’ preferences in an area as close to the core of economic rationality as exchange rates could decline at the same time as markets and commodity relations become universal should strike us as at least somewhat ironic. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with an example of transatlantic harmonization of policies in a practical perspective. Studying environmental standard-setting for export credit agencies provides an interesting perspective on how conflicting environmental policy positions emerge and are mediated across the Atlantic. In this issue area, the European Union plays a somewhat limited role; therefore, this paper will focus on the most relevant national players in Europe, especially Germany. Differing regulatory cultures that have produced differing means to provide export credits, nevertheless, provide a direct link to the panel?s theme of different institutional structures and policy cultures. It is exactly these differing regulatory cultures that have turned export credit agency policy harmonization into a contentious issue. In setting environmental standards for export credit agencies, Germany and the United States assume counter-intuitive roles. The United States unilaterally implemented high standards in the mid-1990s and sought harmonization of these standards within the OECD to its own level. In 2001, OECD negotiations resulted in non-binding ?Common Approaches? to environmental screening that fell short of U.S. demands ? due largely to Germany?s opposition to these standards. The consequences were high environmental standards for U.S. exporters seeking export credits, and lower standards for their foreign competitors; thus putting U.S. exporters at a disadvantage vis-à-vis their competitors in accessing developing- and transition-country markets. I argue that roles were distributed this way because of diverging domestic institutions and domestic power distributions. Rules proposed by the United States provided for a poor institutional fit in countries which also had lesser incentives than the United States to arrive at a substantial international agreement on the issue. This case underscores that domestic politics and national interest drive international environmental politics. Norms and values matter and certainly help particular negotiating parties that can invoke them on their behalf, but they first need to overcome hard material interests that may leave little room for ?good? policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mainstream thinking on democratization suggests that democracy promotion in post-transition countries includes the elimination of authoritarian legacies and other "defects" of democracy in order to help the respective "recipient" countries along the linear path towards "full-fledged" democracy. Correspondingly, the task of contributing to the "deepening" of democracy was seen as generally unproblematic: partial movements towards "more" democracy in different sectors would be mutually reinforcing and would, at the same time, strengthen existing democratic institutions. The recent and ongoing transformation of democracy in Bolivia clearly deviates from this linear and harmonious script. Here, the "deepening" of democracy in terms of more participation and representation proves a conflict-ridden process that goes hand in hand with an open challenge to the democratic "institutionality" as it had been established in the 1980s. The paper, first, summa-rizes main characteristics of the ongoing transformation of democracy in contemporary Bolivia. Second, the actual reactions and (non-) adjustments of US and German democracy promotion policies to this political change are traced. Third, the paper considers the normative implications of these experiences (with the democratic, but conflict-ridden transformation processes in Bolivia as well as with US and German contributions to and interventions in these processes) for the premises and conceptions of external democracy promotion policies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"In the United States and elsewhere, politics and law are inseparable". This appears like a common place. But the differentiation and/or coupling of politics and law is not always produced and reproduces as it is usually done in the United States, not necessarily. According to the question of the justiciability of foreign policy issues, democratic states show a recognisable variance. Some democratically based legal systems might be ready to abstain from a legal governance of its country's foreign policy because of so-called "political reasons"; others are not. This paper concerns the discursive production and coupling of differences like politics/law and inside/outside in the course of the legal discourse of two democratic states: the United States and Germany. Correspondingly, the legal practices in these two countries vary, as will be shown by a deconstructive approach to legal communication in the centre of law, that is in the courtroom. The analyses focus on the text of two legal decisions that have been produced in the course of the juridical "management" of the war in Iraq. The motivation to this paper is two-fold. "Empirically," it takes into consideration that foreign policy debates in the media-typical for democracies -are to a notable extant undertaken as legal communication. Particularly poststructurally inspired studies act on the assumption that all text-including "political text"-is embedded in what is called a larger textual web. But this consideration induces to transcend the scope of analysis from the text of politics (in a strict sense) to one of political text (in a wider sense). And also by maintaining the focus on the centre of political decision-making, studies can focus on how text is located within these larger textual webs. As recent work in Legal Theory, drawing upon Niklas Luhmann, has shown, this intertextual logic also generates interesting insights into the operations of legal systems. It is this location of text within a larger textual web of law that this paper is interested in. Further, it is exactly this transcended understanding of law that motivates me to tie in with a slightly dislocated normative theory of the Democratic Peace by exploring a legal dimension of this research program. However, the observable variance between democratic politics of law motivates an emphasis on contingency. Drawing on Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, I argue that any establishment of an inherent relation between democracy and a certain set of norms proposed by theories of the Democratic Peace is challenged by a radical democratic principle of political struggle. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a draft of a chapter that will be included in the forthcoming edited volume entitled, "The Social Construction of Climate Change." The chapters in the volume present a number of potentially fruitful avenues for analyzing the "social construction of climate change." This paper focuses on the early framing of climate change as a political problem at the international level and the associated normative debates that emerged related to how states should respond to the threat. It then evaluates how the international framing of the problem and the normative debates were translated into the domestic political processes of Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The early domestic framing of the problem had profound effects on the political debates in all three countries and played a major role in shaping the degree to which emergent international norms were translated into the domestic policy debates. The paper seeks to explain how and why the political framing of climate change evolved at the international and domestic political levels and explores the consequences of these changes for climate policy in the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates two linked phenomena: Whether conceptions of ?social justice? as currently constructed in the UK, and debated within many other OECD and European countries, are coherent; and whether ?flexible labour markets? are the only possible response to high levels of unemployment within Continental Europe.The debate within the UK on social justice is used to illustrate the tension between a desire to eradicate relative poverty through greater employment, and simultaneously accept rising inequality as a necessary consequence of ?flexible labour markets?. Policy to reduce poverty is explored by examining the Department for Work and Pension?s analysis of its causes and its proposed cure, which centres on getting the jobless into work. This policy objective is examined alongside Treasury policy to make labour markets more flexible. Labelled the ?Transatlantic Consensus? (Atkinson 2002), flexible labour markets are presented as the only way to raise employment amongst the low skilled, given conditions of falling demand for this group in developed economies. There is strong evidence that such policies create a two-tier labour market with ?marginal jobs? and increasing wage dispersion. The consequence is that flexible labour market policy undermines an approach to poverty reduction based primarily upon enhanced labour market participation of the least qualified. The second part of the paper explores the extent to which flexible labour markets are a necessary pre-condition for high rates of employment. The first part of the analysis is to construct a theoretical framework for understanding the employment and unemployment rate. The consensus on flexible labour markets is then interpreted through this framework, allowing a number of comparative, empirical challenges to be made. The conclusion is that broad supply side measures of labour market flexibility have been shown to be neither necessary nor sufficient to address unemployment that is regionally concentrated, skill level concentrated and persistent in otherwise macroeconomic level success stories such as the UK. It is suggested that a much more sophisticated and nuanced understanding of labour demand and job creation is required, which might explain wide country level differences in wage dispersion and unemployment. This does not prescribe rising wage inequality as the only available policy response to the challenges of unemployment within Europe. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the motives of states in asking forgiveness from other states or peoples that were materially harmed by them. Asking for forgiveness entails significant political, legal, and moral implications (e.g., an obligation to compensate a harmed party). This alone is an important reason for studying why states ask for forgiveness. But beyond this, studying forgiveness in International Relations is related to the way states remember and construct their history, and to their perceptions of the responsibility they have for an historical wrongdoing. The contribution of the study lies in the fact that understanding the motivations underlying a request for forgiveness could advance our understanding of processes of conflict resolution. In addition, the research is significant in the sense that it introduces important conceptual distinctions in the terminology currently employed in the field. It distinguishes between different types of requests for forgiveness in International Relations. I conceptualize apologies, regrets, and expressions of sorrow as different avenues to ask forgiveness, and I suggest that they have different levels of importance and meaning. The type of the request for forgiveness (dependant variable) is influenced by the extent to which a state perceives a threat to its image from a wrongful act and by the degree of severity it attributes to its wrongdoing (explanatory variables). When an actor that has inflicted great harm and suffering on another actor asks for forgiveness, the type of request is informed by the degree to which the actor internalizes the harm as a moral wrong. The paper examines whether the statement delivered by West Germany's chancellor, Adenauer, in September 1951 regarding the Jewish Holocaust could be considered a type of request for forgiveness. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both the opponents and proponents of nuclear power have long recognized radioactive waste disposal as the industry's "Achilles' heel." Industry proponents have tended pushed for more rapid approval of permanent repositories, in the expectation that this will reduce public fears of nuclear power, while opponents have tended to obstruct them, lest the waste problem consequently appear "solved"--a strategy we call "constructive procrastination." In this paper, we compare the experiences of Germany, where constructive procrastination appears to have worked for the moment, with that of Finland, where the strategy failed. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Morgenthau’s critique of US foreign policy, the realist founder offers his ideas about power politics, but also various legal and moral principles against it. The question is not only about the meaning of power, international law and morality as expres ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historical reconciliation is a tool in the process of coming to terms with the past after a war or despotism. Takes it place between two or more states, its aim is to build (or restore) amicable relationships between former enemies. Ideally, it engages governments, businesses, civil society organizations (CSOs) and individual citizens on all sides. All these actors in society address the legacies of the past from different perspectives and have specific goals in this process. This article examines the CSOs' capacities in historical reconciliation. In particular, it looks at CSOs from aggressor nations in World War II, namely Japan and Germany, that voluntarily participate in 'doing something about the past.' Based on two case studies - Action Reconciliation Service for Peace and Hokkaido Forum - the article discusses the advantages and limitations of CSOs as compared with governments or businesses in contrasting international contexts of Europe and East Asia. It also problematizes the status/image of perpetrator, which these CSOs inevitably inherit despite their well-minded intentions, analyzing its influence upon the exercise of their reconciliation initiatives. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1988, global climate change is on the agenda of international relations. With the establishment of the IPCC (1988), the adoption of the UNFCCC (1992) and the Kyoto Protocol (1997) climate change was politicized. In 2007 it became a global security c ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Has an "associational revolution" taken place in Japan's civil society? Is civil society in Japan "robust?" We try to provide an answer to these interesting questions by drawing on data we have accumulated from a comparative survey of civil society organizations conducted between 1997 and 2007 in ten countries, including Japan, South Korea, the United States, Germany, China, Turkey, Russia, the Philippines, Brazil and Bangladesh. In addition to the data from the ten-country survey, we used about 40,000 items of data from the 2006-07 Japan Interest Group Survey 2 (or JIGS2), which examined neighbourhood associations, social associations and NPOs in Japan. With the exception of NPOs, our analysis suggests that an "associational revolution", defined as a rapid increase in associations, does not seem to be taking place across the nation. We can confirm such a revolution at a prefectural level, however, as is the case in Hyogo. Moreover, we find that associations closely tied to the profit sector still make up the majority of the social associations that exist and are also orientated towards economic development. As we expand our focus to include neighbourhood associations and NPOs, though, we find a Japanese civil society that has a strong grass-roots foundation.In addtion, we also seek for the answer to these quetions such as how influential civil society organizations are in different countries,how they perceive their efficacy.?. Surveys in each of these states ask CSOs to evaluate their own influence, as well as the influence of other political players. Interactions between state and society, or the characteristics of political regimes, history, culture, people’s awareness, and institutional legacies all affect organizations’ self-evaluation regarding influence. I analyze such differences among countries by comparing JIGS (Japan Interest Group Survey) survey data, collected by the JIGS project from over 10,000 organizations in 10 countries. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]