Aktuelle Publikationen

In this study, we construct a multivariate model that assesses the risk of an outbreak of civil war in a country over a period of 5 years into the future. In addition to structural factors of state weakness, which have dominated the literature on civil war onset, this model includes repression of basic human rights to personal integrity an important harbinger of wars to come as an aspect of state behavior. Our aim is not to explore the causal factors of civil war onset, but to build a model that includes indicators that correlate with civil war outbreak and may be used to predict it. Based on two versions of the model logit and neural network out-of-sample risk assessments for three different time periods are generated and compared to the historical record of civil war outbreak during those years. In addition, the model s ability to produce in-sample risk assessments over a 5-year period is tested. Finally, we compute truly predictive civil war risk assessments for all countries for which data are available, for the years 2008 2012. The analyses show that with a relatively simple model and based on publicly available data sources, meaningful civil war risk assessments can be computed. The quality of the predictions exceeds that of prominent studies, in which the risk of interstate war is assessed.

This article provides a comprehensive analysis of stability and punctuations in public spending within and across two different countries - Denmark and the United States. The theoretical starting point is the classic model of budget incrementalism and Jones and Baumgartner's model of disproportionate information processing. First, despite the clear differences in institutional setup, we show that public spending spanning many decades in Denmark and the United States are characterized by a similar distribution of small-, medium-, and large-scale spending changes. What is more intriguing is that we show how this aggregate result obscures (1) substantial variation between categories of public spending and (2) similar tendencies within similar spending categories across the two countries. These findings suggest that we need to unpack the overall budgets for detecting the particular sources of stability and change in government spending. Hence, the article offers important comparative findings that not only challenge the empirical validity of classic budgetary incrementalism but also advocate an increased focus on more disaggregated spending dynamics than employed in previous studies of the model of disproportionate information processing.

This paper proposes an interactive mechanism between both tiers of mixed-member electoral systems to explain high-level linkage in West Germany, that is, the dominance of district races by the candidates of the two largest parties at the national level. The distinctive feature of the model lies in interactive effects in terms of expectation formation. That is, voters under mixed systems are assumed to utilize national-level PR results to form expectations which, in turn, are used to vote strategically in the plurality tier. To sort out the independent effect of these kinds of interactions, this paper develops a computational model and examines its simulation results.

Im Gegensatz zu vielen anderen Bereichen blieben internationale und europäische Einflüsse auf die Ausgestaltung nationaler Hochschulpolitiken lange Zeit begrenzt. Dieses Bild änderte sich jedoch ab den späten 1990er Jahren mit der Etablierung des sogenannten Bologna- Prozesses, mit dem die Schaffung eines gemeinsamen europäischen Hochschulraums angestrebt wird, grundlegend. Bislang wissen wir allerdings nur wenig darüber, ob und inwieweit die beschriebene Entwicklung zu einer Angleichung der nationalen Hochschulpolitiken hin zu einem gemeinsamen Modell geführt hat. Steuern nationale Hochschulpolitiken auf ein gemeinsames Modell zu, oder werden die Reformen durch die länderspezifischen Ausgangssituationen geprägt, ohne eine Tendenz zu einem dominanten hochschulpolitischen Ansatz aufzuweisen? Im vorliegenden Artikel werden die beschriebenen Fragen mit dem Fokus auf mittel- und osteuropäische Länder analysiert, die sich durch unterschiedliche vorkommunistische Muster hochschulpolitischer Steuerung auszeichnen.

Does proportional representation imply incentives for strategic voting? This article investigates whether adherents of themajor German parties voted against their preference in order to increase the chance of amajority coalition between their favourite party and the preelectorally declared junior coalition partner. Focusing exclusively on the PR vote, the authors test whether strategic voting is guided by expectations with regard to the coalition formation stage. To that end they use a two-step estimation procedure to simultaneously predict (in-)complete party preferences and sincere and strategic voting in a andomutility framework. Their results show that voters preferences, rather than mapping directly into party choice, are affected by their expectations on small parties re-entry chances.

The Kinnock reform has changed the European Commission. This article discusses the link between reform effects and policy output. A survey of more than 100 heads of unit (HoU) of policy-making Directorates-General serves as the empirical basis. It is concluded that the recent reform of the Commission does indeed comprehensively redefine the role of the HoU. Their resource base to focus on policy drafting has been hugely reduced. Negative consequences for the organization’s potential to deliver policy draft of high quality are therefore very likely.

This contribution examines the role of religion as source of social trust. Going beyond the scope of the existing literature, I jointly evaluate the effect of individual religiosity and regional religious context by means of multilevel analysis. The results suggest that there is a double positive effect of Protestantism: Not only do Protestants tend to be more trusting, but a Protestant context also increases one's trust regardless of individual religious beliefs. Furthermore, while church attendance is a powerful predictor for social trust, a context effect for regional levels of devoutness could not be detected. Lastly, religious diversity is not shown to decrease social trust.

This article analyses French European policy-making in the context of divided government, arguing that in the area of European policy-making cohabitation increases the number of veto players, as compared with unified government. The increase of veto players, in turn, reduces France's acceptance-sets at the European table and thereby introduces a status quo bias. In order to test this theory, use is made of a comparative case study design. Process-tracing and counterfactual analyses reveal that veto player theory can, indeed, be applied to the interactions of a split-executive government.

In der Tradition von Alexis de Tocqueville wird zivilgesellschaftlichen Vereinigungen eine essentielle Bedeutung in der zwischenmenschlichen Vertrauensbildung zugeschrieben. Ziel des vorliegenden Beitrages ist es, den Zusammenhang zwischen Vereinsengagement und generalisiertem Vertrauen differenzierter zu betrachten und empirisch für die Schweiz zu untersuchen. Dabei werden sowohl das Engagement in verschiedenen Organisationstypen (brückenbildende vs. abgrenzende und isolierte vs. verbundene) als auch die vereinstypusunabhängige Integration miteinander verglichen. Empirische Analysen auf Basis aktueller Daten des Schweizer Freiwilligen-Monitors 2007 kommen dabei zu dem Schluss, dass entgegen weitverbreiteter Meinung die Vertrauensentwicklung in der Schweiz weniger vom Engagement in spezifischen Vereinen abhängt, sondern vielmehr dem Ausmass der persönlichen Integrationsbereitschaft geschuldet ist. Von entscheidender Bedeutung für die Vertrauensentwicklung ist also nicht die Qualität der hier untersuchten einzelnen Vereinigungen, sondern die Quantität des persönlichen Engagements.

This article examines the larger political picture of Zimbabwe focusing on last year s developments at the domestic, regional and international level. It finds that Zimbabwe is on a downward spiral of domestic stalemate, regional appeasement, and international half-heartedness, and that there is a need for a coherent strategic effort to replace this trias with domestic change, regional active engagement and international steady commitment. Otherwise both Zimbabwe and the region risk long-term instability with devastating national and regional consequences. In the end, the article outlines and assesses various scenarios for the future development of Zimbabwe, of which the most likely is a kind of status quo conservation.

Global virtual teams are faced with the challenge of developing trust in a technology-mediated context to overcome anxiety and uncertainty in their interactions. Research shows that adjustment is a function of an individual s ability to manage his or her anxiety and uncertainty in an unknown context (Gudykunst, 1995). We propose that the type of cross-cultural training (CCT) received can infl uence cognitive adjustment in global virtual teams. Building on phenomenology and sense-making theory, we argue that training needs to develop global virtual team members capabilities in dealing with the unknown rather than providing ready-made concepts of cultures. Managerial implications of our theoretical discussion of cognitive adjustment and how CCT infl uences it are discussed, as are directions for future research

dc.title: