Aktuelle Publikationen

While the multiple barriers women face to attain public office have been vastly documented, the operation of insider/outsider dynamics within political parties’ top decision-making bodies remains largely under-researched. This article provides new theoretical and empirical insights on how interpersonal resources create ingroups and outgroups in parties’ national executive committees—the body that manages the day-to-day functioning of the extra-parliamentary party organization. Our comparative analysis of Spanish political parties in the period 1975–2020 documents that interpersonal resources are unevenly distributed across gender. Most crucially, we show that these resources play out differently for women and men members, with embeddedness in party networks only helping the latter attain positional power and extend their tenure in party office. These heterogeneous effects suggest that top decision-making party bodies do not just reflect existing gender inequalities but reinforce them in significant ways, rendering women member outsiders on the inside.

The wealth of text data generated by social media has enabled new kinds of analysis of emotions with language models. These models are often trained on small and costly datasets of text annotations produced by readers who guess the emotions expressed by others in social media posts. This affects the quality of emotion identification methods due to training data size limitations and noise in the production of labels used in model development. We present LEIA, a model for emotion identification in text that has been trained on a dataset of more than 6 million posts with self-annotated emotion labels for happiness, affection, sadness, anger, and fear. LEIA is based on a word masking method that enhances the learning of emotion words during model pre-training. LEIA achieves macro-F1 values of approximately 73 on three in-domain test datasets, outperforming other supervised and unsupervised methods in a strong benchmark that shows that LEIA generalizes across posts, users, and time periods. We further perform an out-of-domain evaluation on five different datasets of social media and other sources, showing LEIA’s robust performance across media, data collection methods, and annotation schemes. Our results show that LEIA generalizes its classification of anger, happiness, and sadness beyond the domain it was trained on. LEIA can be applied in future research to provide better identification of emotions in text from the perspective of the writer.

Background: Sexual violence is a public health issue among adolescents globally but remains understudied in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Objective: The present study focused on the association of cumulative exposure to different types of sexual violence with mental and physical health problems and prosocial behaviour.

Method: We conducted a survey with a regionally representative sample of both in-school and out-of-school adolescents, aged 13–17 years, living in south-western Nigeria. Self-reported exposure to sexual violence, behavioural problems, physical complaints, and prosocial behaviour were assessed.

Results: About three quarters of the participants reported the experience of sexual violence (74.6%). Multiple regression models revealed that the more types of sexual violence an individual reported, the more mental and physical health problems, and the fewer prosocial behaviours they reported when controlling for other forms of violence exposure. Latent class analysis revealed three severity classes of sexual violence. Symptoms of mental and physical health indicators were significantly higher as exposure increased by group whereas prosocial behaviours were non-significantly fewer in the opposite direction.

Conclusion: This study revealed a consistent and unique relation between sexual violence exposure and negative health outcomes among adolescents. Further research on sexual violence in Sub-Saharan Africa and its associations is needed.

Recently, various Central and Eastern European countries have experienced a regression of democratic quality, often resulting in the emergence of competitive (semi‐)authoritarian regimes with an illiberal governing ideology. This has often been accompanied by a closing political space for civil society groups. Based on a survey of more than 400 Polish, Hungarian, Czech, and Slovenian interest organizations, we explore, in the context of backsliding, the conditions under which organized interests shift their lobbying activities to alternative, i.e., EU or regional levels. Our statistical analyses indicate that it is rather exclusive policy‐making in general than a lack of individual group access to domestic policy networks that motivate organizations to engage in multilevel lobbying. However, it appears that organizational self‐empowerment and inter‐group cooperation are the “name of the game.” Even under the adverse conditions of democratic backsliding, organizations that are accumulating expertise, professionalizing their operations, and cooperating with other organizations not only can sustain access to (illiberal) national governments but also branch out their operations to the European and regional levels.

dc.title:

Online censorship has become a common feature in autocracies. Previous work has investigated different online censorship tactics such as website blocking or cyberattacks independently. In reality, however, autocratic governments rely on a repertoire of censorship techniques to control online communication, which they are likely to use depending on the respective political situation on the ground. In this article, we study the interplay of different online censorship techniques empirically. Focusing on new Internet measurement techniques and large existing datasets, we study the relationship between website blocking and cyberattacks (Denial-of-Service). Our results provide evidence that autocrats select tactics from their censorship repertoire depending on the current level of contention. During quiet times, we find some evidence that governments rely on different censorship tactics in parallel. In weeks with protest, however, website blocking is negatively associated with Denial-of-Service attacks against opposition websites. This shows that when the stakes are high, autocrats become more selective in their use of censorship.

Since the Eurozone crisis, intense political debate has resurfaced about deservingness judgements in European solidarity. To contribute to this debate, this article proposes a refined concept of ‘multi-level blame attribution’. It postulates that public support for EU-level welfare policies crucially depends on how citizens attribute responsibility for economic outcomes across different levels of agency. Results from an original public opinion survey conducted in 10 European Union member states demonstrate that attributing blame to individuals decreases citizens’ willingness to show solidarity with needy Europeans, whereas attributing blame to the EU increases support. The role of attributing blame to national governments is dependent on the country context; beliefs that worse economic outcomes are caused by national governments’ policy decisions tend to dampen support for EU targeted welfare policies only in the Nordic welfare states. The article concludes by discussing the implications of multi-level blame attribution for the formation of public attitudes towards European solidarity.

Collective, citizen-led approaches to energy systems are key to reducing humanity's climate impact. Crucial for their success is the engagement of energy prosumers, i.e., citizens that produce energy. This paper investigates how to best activate the identities of prosumers to participate in peer-to-peer energy trading. In collaboration with the OurPower cooperative in Austria, an experimental trial was set up: 8713 households equipped with photovoltaic systems were randomly selected to receive one of three postcards. Postcards appealed to different identities, using as slogan “your climate. your electricity” or “your friends. your electricity” or “your region. your electricity”. The postcards were designed to encourage prosumers to visit the OurPower webpage and register via a link and QR code to trade their energy. For our main dependent variable, the unique webpage visits, we recorded a 3.1 % response rate (N = 271 visitors out of 8713 recipients) and found that while the social identity framings (region and peer-group) did not significantly differ in response rates, they both outperformed the individual climate identity framing. For click-through to express more interest (N = 73 out of 271 visitors), the region framing was more successful than the peer-group framing, but not the climate framing. For length of stay on the website (N = 145 visitors), regional framing (M_r = 73.5 s) held an advantage over the other two (M_climate = 22.9 s; M_friends = 17.5 s). Together, the results demonstrate that putting regional focus into the spotlight could be a promising consideration for future energy-related campaigns and interventions.

Governmental measures against the spread of the Corona virus have been met with varying levels of opposition in many countries worldwide. Existing research has claimed that some of this opposition is linked to esoteric and anthroposophical beliefs. This research note tests this in an observational study using election results from the 2021 parliamentary election in Germany and new data on the distribution of natural healers, homeopathic doctors and Steiner schools. Results show that counter to common expectations, there is no evidence that esoteric beliefs systematically lead to increased support for the established right-wing AFD. Rather, some indicators for esoteric beliefs – in particular, the presence of homeopathic doctors and Waldorf

schools – are related to higher support for the new fringe party dieBasis, a single-issue party campaigning against governmental Corona measures.

Member states use implementation to preserve core state powers, such as fiscal policy, vis-à-vis the European Union (EU), by choosing whether to adopt stricter or looser rules than the EU requires. However, these choices and their reasons when the EU extends its fiscal competences are understudied. We theorise how the interplay of uploading and downloading factors might lead member states to customise EU fiscal policy according to their preferences, if their capacity allows it. Using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis, we study the customisation of six rules of the Fiscal Compact in France, Germany and Italy in 2012 (N = 18). Member states exercised ‘opposition through the back door’ when uploading outcomes did not reflect their preferences and did not provide a credible deterrent. More often, however, member states as ‘customisers’ acted as especially ambitious problem-solvers or signalled compliance, when uploading outcomes reflected their preferences or provided a credible enforcement threat.

Local public administrations are typically the first responders during disruptive crisis events. Building on literature on fast-response organizations, this study theorizes on their ability to transition effectively from routine bureaucracy to crisis mode. Empirically, we study early responses to COVID-19 in Germany with agency-level survey data. The findings suggest that an effective switch between practices cannot be explained by crisis severity alone. Instead, organizational, technical, and individual preparedness of local administrations matter. These results provide insights into the conditions that enable administrations to respond effectively to crisis events, offering a comprehensive understanding of crisis management capabilities at the local level.

Getting a grip on issues of administrative delegation is key to the performance of public organizations. The oversight game models delegation as a conflict of interest between an inspector and an inspectee to act in the interests of the former. This study tests alternative solutions to overcome ‘shirking’ in the oversight game. Specifically, we test the effect of external incentives, as implied by the game-theoretical solution, against the role of intrinsic factors, namely, public service motivation and job-related risk aversion. Evidence from a laboratory (N = 208) and survey experiment (N = 794) show that both the game-theoretical approach, which inspired new public management, and public service motivation, as its antithesis, fail to explain subjects’ behaviour. Instead, job-related risk aversion makes oversight more and ‘shirking’ less likely. This finding hints towards a more differentiated view of public employees’ risk attitudes to improve administrative delegation.

NextGenerationEU, the recovery programme adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic, did not provide the EU with fiscal sovereignty. Fiscal sovereignty remains under the control of the member states which are, however, constrained by the Stability and Growth Pact. Comparative federalism shows that central fiscal sovereignty requires granting the power to tax to the centre but without impairing the fiscal sovereignty of the units. The co-existence of two distinct, yet connected, fiscal sovereignties (EU and member states) would mean departing from the regulatory model of fiscal integration created with the Maastricht Treaty, and would thus require treaty change. Future research should perform a more thorough comparison between the EU and fiscally centralized and decentralized federations. Qualitative comparative analysis could complement process tracing and systematic content analysis to identify combinations of conditions that make the co-existence of fiscal sovereignties possible in consolidated federal polities – and still impossible in the EU.

This study investigates how configurations of bureaucratic autonomy, policy complexity and political contestation allow international public administrations (IPAs) to influence policymaking within international organizations. A fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis of 17 policy decisions in four organizations (FAO, WHO, ILO, UNESCO) shows that all IPAs studied can be influential in favorable contexts. When policies are both contested and complex, even IPAs lacking autonomy can influence policy. If either complexity or contestation is absent, however, it is the variant of autonomy of will that helps the IPA exploit procedural strategies of influence. Low autonomy of will, among other factors, explains why IPAs cannot exert influence. Conversely, the variant of autonomy of action appears largely irrelevant. The study provides new insights into the role of bureaucracy beyond the state, exemplifying how research of bureaucratic influence can yield more systematic results in various empirical settings.

Knowledge of what voters prefer is central to several theories of democratic representation and accountability. Despite this, we know little in a comparative sense of how well politicians know citizens’ policy preferences. We present results from a study of 866 politicians in four countries. Politicians were asked to estimate the percentage of public support for various policy proposals. Comparing more than 10,000 estimations with actual levels of public support, we conclude that politicians are quite inaccurate estimators of people’s preferences. They make large errors and even regularly misperceive what a majority of the voters wants. Politicians are hardly better at estimating public preferences than ordinary citizens. They misperceive not only the preferences of the general public but also the preferences of their own partisan electorate. Politicians are not the experts of public opinion we expect them to be.