Aktuelle Publikationen

Asylum recognition rates in advanced democracies differ not only across states but also vary within them, translating into fluctuating individual chances to obtain protection. Existing studies on the determinants of these regional inequities typically rely on aggregate data. Utilizing a German refugee survey and leveraging a quasi-natural experiment arising from state-based allocation rules tied to national dispersal policies, we test two explanations for the perplexing regional differences. Drawing on principal–agent models of administrative decision-making, we test whether asylum decision-makers consciously or unconsciously comply with regional political preferences between 2015 and 2017 in Germany, one of the major European destination countries for refugee migration. We furthermore explore whether such biased decision-making amplifies in times of organizational stress as suggested by the statistical discrimination theory. Using mixed-effects logistic regressions, our analyses confirm a lower approval probability in regions with more immigration-averse residents or governments. We cannot confirm, however, that this association is mediated by high workloads or large knowledge gaps. Our results thus suggest that regional political biases affect the individual chance of asylum-seekers to obtain protection irrespective of temporal administrative conditions.

he reality of street-level discretion can entail discrimination against people based on their identifiable characteristics. However, there has been surprisingly little systematic assessment of empirical evidence about what can be done to tackle the problem. This paper systematically reviews empirical behavioural research studies (N = 53) on the effects of interventions to reduce bureaucratic discrimination. Evidence shows that three types of interventions are reliably effective: outreach to and engagement with clients, anti-bias training, and passive representation. Inclusive practices can also reduce discrimination. These effects are however context-dependent, and causal mechanisms linking interventions with effects remain a ‘black box’.

Trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) relations between developing and developed countries can lead to ratcheting-up of labor standards. Past research, however, has relegated developing countries to a passive role in the global economy while simultaneously largely ignoring variation between developed countries’ degree of protection of labor rights. In this study, we consider FDI by developing countries into Europe and how it can lead to labor upgrading. We argue that the obligations to upgrade implied by Europe’s regulatory environment will pressure developing country firms with strategic asset-seeking FDI to upgrade their practices which can subsequently diffuse in their home countries. We tease out this specific mechanism from others through a comparative research design juxtaposing FDI into high standard social Europe and the relatively low standard United States for a panel of 122 developing countries in the period 2001–2010. Our analysis compares how FDI into each location affects both collective and individual labor rights, finding that FDI into “Social Europe" leads to the improvement of labor standards, particularly trade union rights and substantive rights relating to working conditions, while there is no such upgrading effect for FDI into the United States. These findings are robust to multiple specifications, including an innovative application of the measurement strategy in studies on trading-/investing-up effects. This research helps us to understand two underappreciated facets of this latest phase of globalization: the rise of developing countries as agents of global integration and how regulatory disparities between potential economic partners can affect labor upgrading in those same developing countries. Any weakening of the European social model should consider its external consequences.

This exploratory analysis investigates self-reported work practices that managers consider to be crucial for driving smart city transformation. We build upon the literature on institutional work and highlight different institutional work types. Using interviews, we show that smart city managers use a combination of institutional work that includes (a) creation (e.g., introducing new ideas, technologies, methods, and policies), (b) maintenance (which involves preserving certain aspects of existing institutional arrangements that are deemed valuable), and (c) disruption (such as by challenging entrenched institutional arrangements). The results provide deep insights into how smart city managers express their roles and responsibilities in smart city transformation. We discuss implications for theory and practice and conclude with avenues for future research.

Recent years have seen an increase in governmental interference in digital communication. Most research on this topic has focused on the application level, studying how content is manipulated or removed on websites, blogs or social media. However, in order for governments to obtain and maintain control of digital data flows, they need to secure access to the network infrastructure at the level of Internet service providers. In this paper, we study how the network topology of the Internet varies across different political environments, distinguishing between control at the level of individual Internet users (access) and at a higher level in the hierarchy of network carriers (transit). Using a novel method to estimate the structure of the Internet from network measurements, we show that in autocratic countries, state-owned (rather than privately-owned) providers have a markedly higher degree of control over transit networks. We also show that state-owned Internet providers often provide Internet access abroad, with a clear focus on other autocratic countries. Together, these results suggest that in autocracies, the network infrastructure is organized in a way that is more susceptible to the monitoring and manipulation of Internet data flows by state-owned providers both domestically and abroad.

Recent trends demonstrate that states with sufficient capabilities to be granted regional power status by its peers (primarily other states within their region) can nonetheless renounce regional leadership. This article analyzes the puzzling behavior of these detached or reluctant regional powers. We argue that resorting to an approach grounded in neoclassical realism is helpful to explain why regional powers might not exercise leadership. In this article regional leadership is conceptualized as an auxiliary goal within the grand strategy of a regional power. This goal will be pursued in the absence of certain structural and domestic constraints. Great power competition determines the incentives for regional leadership at the structural level. Capacity to extract and mobilize resources for foreign policy affects the decision to pursue leadership at the domestic level. We apply the analytical framework to analyze Brazil’s detachment from South America after the Cardoso and Lula presidencies.

In the fight against climate change, the European Union has developed a new growth strategy to transform Europe into the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. To support EU member states in their transition towards greener economies, climate change mitigation policies are being implemented at the EU-level. However, such policies can be designed in different ways, and gaining citizens’ support is crucial for the political feasibility of the European green transition. Drawing on data from an original conjoint experiment conducted in Germany (N = 5,796), this article investigates how policy design shapes public support for EU climate change mitigation. To this end, the study theoretically and empirically distinguishes four policy dimensions that address the distributive politics of the European green transition: sectoral scope, social spending, financing structure and cross-country distribution. The results confirm that all four policy dimensions significantly impact public support. Specifically, the study reveals that support is greatest for EU policy packages that target financial support at the renewable energy sector, include social investment policies, are financed by increasing taxes on the rich, and distribute resources across EU member states based on population size. Furthermore, citizens’ sensitivity to the policy design varies slightly by income position, left-right ideology and climate attitudes.

Frontline workers who are confronted with crises need enormous resilience and the ability to deal with stress from crisis‐related increases in demands and risks. Simultaneously, populist governments with an illiberal agenda may undermine the work of street‐level bureaucracies for political reasons. Little is known about how deconstruction of the administrative state by populist government—through lacking government support when it is needed the most—affects frontline work. Thus, this article asks: how does lacking support by a populist government affect frontline workers' self‐efficacy when they face a crisis? Based on unique data from an online survey of 3229 Brazilian frontline workers during the early COVID‐19 pandemic, when the Bolsonaro government denied the existence of the pandemic, we test the relationship between government support, demands, and resources on frontline workers' perceived self‐efficacy. Results show that lacking government support from the federal and local government are negatively associated with frontline workers' self‐efficacy. At the same time, resources and managerial support exhibit positive associations—but they cannot always compensate for a lack of government assistance.

In response to changing climatic conditions, people are increasingly likely to migrate. However, individual-level survey data reveal that people mainly state economic, social, or political reasons as the main drivers for their relocation decision–not environmental motives or climate change specifically. To shed light on this discrepancy, we distinguish between sudden-onset (e.g., floods and storms) and slow-onset (e.g., droughts and salinity) climatic changes and argue that the salience of environmental conditions in individuals’ migration decisions is shaped by the type of climate event experienced. Empirically, we combine individual-level surveys with geographic information on objective climatic changes in Vietnam and Kenya. The empirical evidence suggests that sudden-onset climate events make individuals more likely to link environmental conditions to their migration decision and, hence, to identify themselves as “environmental migrants.” Regression analyses support these results and are consistent with the view that slow-onset events tend to be linked with migration decisions that are more economically motivated.

Most states acknowledge the significance of Indigenous rights to rectify past injustices. Yet, on the domestic level, the realization of these rights depends on national policies. For democratic societies, questions about public opinion toward Indigenous policies are thus of great interest but remain largely unstudied. To what extent does the ethnic majority support policies conducive to Indigenous rights realization? And how different are the Indigenous population’s policy preferences? I use original experimental data from a vignette study to investigate these questions in the case of the Sámi people in Norway and Sweden. I hypothesize that groups’ attitudes are shaped by policies’ potential to alter the social status hierarchy between the majority and Indigenous populations. The results provide a nuanced picture. The ethnic majority shows significantly less support for policies facilitating Sámi linguistic, self-governance, and territorial rights. While the Sámi have, in general, more positive attitudes toward such policies, their support seems to be less pronounced than the majority’s resistance. Moreover, as attitudes are surprisingly similar when compared between Norway and Sweden, a country’s existing policy context does not appear to be crucial in the formation of these preferences.

Face-to-face interactions between public officials and citizens are a key venue of state service delivery, but they are rarely studied empirically. To address this gap, we present a novel conceptual taxonomy of spoken administrative language. We combine theoretical insights from communication studies and an analysis of 64 exploratory expert interviews with frontline officials. In these interviews, we asked what officials perceive as those aspects of spoken administrative language that affect citizen (dis-)satisfaction with the encounter. The ensuing taxonomy consists of an informational component with two dimensions: comprehensibility (is the language comprehensible?) and reification (is the regulative context explained?); and a relational component with two dimensions: emotionality (does language convey personal commitment to client concerns?) and complaisance (does language impart support and helpfulness?). With its theoretical and empirical insights, the paper contributes a novel conceptualization of administrative language enabling measurement of spoken communication in public service encounters.

The relationship between the state and traditional governance institutions (TGI) in contemporary politics has recently received increased scholarly attention. Traditional leaders play important roles in elections, public goods provision or conflict resolution in Sub-Saharan Africa. We analyse under what conditions cooperation or conflict emerge between the state and TGI. We contribute to the understanding of state-traditional relations by studying how governments interact simultaneously with varying TGI of different ethnic groups. We compare state-TGI relations for eight traditional polities in Kenya, Namibia, Tanzania, and Uganda, based on extensive fieldwork and interviews with state and traditional authorities, experts and constituents. We study three factors shaping state relations with different TGI: (1) the significance of TGI – both social and organisational – in each country and ethnic group; (2) the institutional similarity of TGI and state; and (3) the integration of TGI – both legal and political. Our analysis shows TGI with social significance and functional organisations challenge the state more frequently. Constitutional ambiguity fosters conflict between TGI and state. For our cases, relations are less conflictive in countries with more democratic governments. The same governments and TGI often simultaneously engage in cooperative and conflictive relations, highlighting that governments rarely pursue uniform policies with all TGI.

The paper asks for the contribution of growth models for the explanation of public sector employment relations in Germany. The paper is subdivided into three parts. The first elaborates on long-term developments as well as forms of employment. The second part analyzes wage setting systems, that is, bilateral collective bargaining for employees and unilateral decision-making for civil servants. The third part compares the empirical outcomes of both sub-systems with the assumptions of growth models and distinguished explicitly various concepts of the state as corporate actor.

In this article, we analyze how European Union Politics has evolved over the last 25 years. Our analysis demonstrates that the goals the editorial team has pursued over this quarter century have only partly been reached. While the journal has helped to consolidate EU studies as a field of research in its own rights, several problems of representation persist in the journal and the social sciences in general. We identify besides the well-known gender gap that especially authors from the (European) South and East continue to be underrepresented in submitted and published articles. While less represented and successful at the submission stage, our results show that female scholars are more likely than male author teams to publish high-impact articles. Our findings indicate that studies of political behavior, broadly conceived, and articles using quantitative methods are well-represented. The article concludes with some remarks on how the journal might help to further professionalize the study of the EU in the coming years.

The paper deals with the European Company (SE), the first supranational company form. The focal question is its impact on the development of transnational employment relations. We show that only a minority of SEs has set up SE Works Councils and we discuss the reasons for this non-compliance. Board-level employee representation (BLER), the other form of voice, is even less common. We compare both concepts and reveal that the SE’s contribution to the development of transnational employment relations remains limited. By placing the SE in a broader perspective, we conclude that it fits the general pattern of limited progress towards ‘Europeanization’.

This paper studies the determinants of support for future generations, using novel survey data for the case of Germany. I find significant, but not overwhelming support for prioritizing the needs of future generations vs. the acute needs of present-day citizens. Moreover, individual-level and contextual factors matter too. High-income and highly educated citizens are on average more supportive of the needs of future generations, the elderly and women less so. Left-wing supporters are equally more supportive of future generations, especially supporters of the Greens and those subscribing to ‘green-alternative-liberal’ values. Supporters of the right-wing populist AfD are most strongly opposed. General political trust boosts support for future generations, and economically thriving local economies are associated with higher levels of support for future generations as well.