Reports, blogs and briefs

Eva Thomann, James Maxia, and Jörn Ege present and summarize the content of their paper "How Street-Level Dilemmas and Politics Shape Divergence: The Accountability Regimes Framework" in a blog-post. 

Link to the blog: https://psjblog.net/2024/03/06/how-street-level-dilemmas-and-politics-shape-divergence-the-accountability-regimes-framework/

Authors:

• Eva Thomann
• James Maxia
• Jörn Ege

You can read the original article in Policy Studies Journal at

Thomann, Eva, James Maxia and Jörn Ege. 2023. “How street-level dilemmas and politics shape divergence: The accountability regimes framework.” Policy Studies Journal 51 (4): 793–816. https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12504.

This chapter does a systematic content analysis of parliamentary debates on the future of Europe held in the Italian Chamber of Deputies from 2015 to 2022. It is part of a report written for the Horizon 2020 project “EU Differentiation, Dominance, Democracy”. The findings of the chapter show that Italian parties had strongly policy-oriented (rather than polity-oriented) and incomprehensive positions on how to reform the EU. While pro-EU parties did not explain the impact of their proposals on the member states, anti-EU parties did not explain the impact of their proposals on the EU.

Author: 

Tiziano Zgaga: postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Konstanz

Click here to read the chapter and access the full report

With the new ‘traffic light’ government in Germany, one could have expected a game changer in Germany’s approach to fiscal integration. Instead, the coalition agreement is a compromise between maintaining the old fiscal regulatory framework and showing some moderate opening towards new European spending powers.

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Authors:

•  Tiziano Zgaga: postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Konstanz

EU Citizenship guarantees the same rights to all mobile EU citizens who move to another member state. And yet, as a recent study by Christian Adam, Xavier Fernández-i-Marín, Oliver James, Anita Manatschal, Carolin Rapp and Eva Thomann indicates, some EU citizens are more likely than others to face discrimination when interacting with their host country’s public administration. Remarkably, they find that patterns of discrimination displayed by public administrators are very similar to patterns of discriminatory behaviour displayed by the general public.

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Authors:

• Christian Adam: Professor of Comparative Politics at Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen (Germany)
•  Xavier Fernández-i-Marín: Lecturer at the LMU Munich (Germany)
• Oliver James: Professor of Political Science at the University of Exeter (UK)
•  Anita Manatschal: Assistant Professor of Migration Policy Analysis at the University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland)
• Carolin Rapp: Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Copenhagen (Denmark)
•  Eva Thomann: Professor of Public Administration at the University of Konstanz (Germany)

James Maxia, Eva Thomann and Jörn Ege find that there is a considerable implementation gap at UK universities of the ‘Prevent Duty’ introduced under the 2015 Counter-Terrorism and Security Act wherein university lecturers are legally required to identify and report any student they suspect may be undergoing a process of radicalisation. The results of a nationally representative survey suggest the Prevent Duty faces a severe acceptance problem at the frontline. Many lecturers find it difficult to reconcile the role that the Prevent Duty should play in their daily work with what they conceive to be their core professional values and tasks.

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Authors:

• Dr. Eva Thomann: Professor at the Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Konstanz (Germany)
• Dr. Jörn Ege: research associate Competence Center for Public Management, University of Bern (Switzerland)
• James Maxia: BSc Politics and International Relations, University of Exeter (UK)

It is often argued that national referendums on EU matters can be a cure for the democratic deficit of the EU and its policies. But what can we learn from a country like Switzerland about how and when direct democracy works? Eva Thomann, Isabelle Stadelmann-Steffen , and Eva G. Heidbreder  conclude that referendums in the EU usually lack the necessary institutional and administrative links between direct and representative decision-making to have legitimacy-enhancing effects.

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Authors:

• Eva Thomann: Senior Lecturer at the University of Exeter (UK).
• Isabelle Stadelmann-Steffen: Associate professor for Comparative Politics at the Institute for Political Science, University of Bern (Switzerland)
• Eva G. Heidbreder: Professor of Political Science at the University of Magdeburg (Germany)

It is often argued that national referendums on European Union (EU) matters can be a cure for the democratic deficit of the EU and its policies. But what can we learn from a country like Switzerland about how and when direct democracy works? In this blog post, Eva Thomann, Isabelle Stadelmann-Steffen, and Eva G. Heidbreder conclude that referendums in the EU usually lack the necessary institutional and administrative links between direct and representative decision-making to have legitimacy-enhancing effects.

Klick here to read the full blog post

Authors:

• Eva Thomann: Senior Lecturer, University of Exeter (UK)
• Isabelle Stadelmann-Steffen: Associate professor for Comparative Politics at the Institute for Political Science, University of Bern (Switzerland)
• Eva G. Heidbreder: Professor of Political Science at the University of Magdeburg (Germany)

In his blog post, Dimiter Toshkov outline why, absent counterevidence, he finds it justified to reject applied Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) paper submission that do not use the parsimonious solution. Eva Thomann agrees with some but not all of your points.

Klick here to read Eva Thomanns full guest commetary

Author:

• Eva Thomann

The European Union (EU) is an unprecedented instance of a regulatory state above the nation state. Its underlying idea is to provide joint solutions to shared regulatory problems. For example, the EU issues emission reduction targets for new cars in order to address the problem of man-made environmental pollution. However, and as the above picture illustrates, it is not always an easy task to ensure that the actors responsible for a given problem – for example, car producers – comply with such rules. Member states have a crucial and double role here. On the one hand, they often have to transpose rules from EU Directives into national legislation. Beyond this, however, they also have to put these rules on paper into action, and enforce them to ensure that target groups actually comply. Germany, for instance, has not rigorously enforced EU emission reduction targets vis-à-vis the Volkswagen Company. To put it bluntly, EU law can be perfectly transposed and still fail due to poor implementation performance in practice.

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Authors:

•  Eva Thomann: postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Political Science at University of Heidelberg (Germany)
• Fritz Sager: professor of Political Science at the KPM Centre for Public Management at the University of Bern (Switzerland)

EU implementation research very much emphasizes member states’ legal compliance with EU law. However, as has been stated elsewhere before, implementation is more than the mere transposition of EU directives into national law. Rather, policies change while being put into practice. As policymaking continues, policy outcomes vary widely between member states and may not correspond with the original policy objectives. This has become apparent again as the asylum or austerity crises challenge the EU’s problem-solving capacity.  In our JEPP special issue “Moving beyond legal compliance: Innovative approaches to EU multilevel implementation”, we take a closer look at the implementation stage in the EU. Rather than focusing on conformance with EU policies, we  “zoom in” on implementation performance and ask how domestic actors problem-solve when interpreting EU law.

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Authors:

• Eva Thomann: Postdoctoral visiting fellow at the European University Institute, Florence (Italy)
• Fritz Sager: Professor of Political Science at the KPM Centre for Public Management at the University of Bern (Switzerland)

Die Zeit, während der Asylsuchende auf ihren Asylbescheid warten, verursacht hohe Kosten für die Sozialwerke. Diese Kosten könnten mit einer schnellen Integration der Asylsuchenden in den Arbeitsmarkt gesenkt werden. Allerdings steht die negative Wahrnehmung von Asylsuchenden dem im Weg, vor allem in den Kantonen, in denen eine starke Linke fehlt. 

Klick here to read the full Blog post

Authors:

• Fritz Sager: Professor of Political Science at the CPM Center for Public Management at the University of Bern (Switzerland)
• Eva Thomann: Postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Political Science at the University of Heidelberg (Germany)

Notice:
This paper is the abridged version of Sager, Fritz und Eva Thomann (2016). “A Multiple Streams Approach to Member State Implementation: Politics, Problem Construction and Policy Paths in Swiss Asylum Policy.” Journal of Public Policy

IMF judgements on whether government austerity programmes can be successfully implemented are carefully followed by international financial markets. Markus Hinterleitner, Fritz Sager and Eva Thomann analyse the way the organisation has judged the credibility of austerity programmes in 14 European countries. They find that the IMF considers implementation credibility in its evaluations of austerity programs, and uses these to push its own agenda.

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Authors:

• Markus Hinterleitner: PhD researcher at the KPM Center for Public Management at the University of Bern (Switzerland)
• Fritz Sager: Professor of political science at the KPM Center for Public Management at the University of Bern (Switzerland)
• Eva Thomann: postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Political Science at Heidelberg University (Germany)