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In his widely acclaimed study "Making Democracy Work" Robert Putnam has revived the classical argument that social capital, as measured by trust in others and activity in voluntary associations, can build the basis for more democratic processes. Inspired by this assumption and driven by a critique of Putnam s empirical work, this study attempts to rigorously test whether an active and trusting citizenry is conducive to good governance. Conducting several regression analyses, this study finds evidence that higher levels of social capital help to facilitate good governance. In an additional step, the research question is extended from merely asking whether civil society matters for better governance to which aspects of governance it could influence. Disaggregating the dependent variable into its single indicators reveals the impact of social capital to be especially pronounced for the control of corruption and the effectiveness of governments.

In der Diplomarbeit wird der Frage nachgegangen, ob charismatische Führung in komplexer und dynamischer Umwelt zum Führungserfolg beiträgt. Dafür werden zunächst charismatische Führungstheorien vorgestellt. Die Effekte charismatischer Führung auf die Geführten werden herausgefiltert und kategorisiert. Des weiteren wird beschrieben, was unter Führungserfolg zu verstehen ist und wie er sich messen bzw. anhand welcher Indikatoren er sich abbilden lässt. Die identifizierten Erfolgsindikatoren werden den Effekten charismatischer Führung gegenüber gestellt, um einen Zusammenhang zwischen den beiden Konstruktionen feststellen zu können. Das Ergebnis der Arbeit besteht darin, einen strukturierten Überblick zum Zusammenhang zwischen charismatischer Führung und Führungserfolg zu geben. Im Schlussteil werden Gestaltungsempfehlungen gegeben.

In the European Union there is the problem of insufficient implementation of community law, particularly in the sphere of environmental policy. Implementation problems of European policy are the subject of the present research in political science which identifies mainly three factors in order to explain the effectiveness of implementation: the degree of compatability between European and national policy, effective veto points within the political system of the member state as well as an infringement procedure opened by the European Commission. From this perspective implementation problems emerge, if there is a low degree of compatability and effective veto points exist. In contrast, opening an infringement procedure facilitates the removal of implementation problems. This paper analyses the legal implementation, i. e. the transformation of directives of the European Union into national law. By referring to the IPPC-Directive, the processes of policy formulation in Germany and Ireland are examined in a comparative analysis. The comparison does not confirm the importance which is ascribed to the degree of compatability as an explanatory variable. It is rather the resources of those actors who support the European policy that are crucial to the effectiveness of legal implementation. Effective veto points and infringement procedures constitute such resources but are not capable of explaining the implementation problems entirely.

For some years there has been an intensifying debate in European integration theory on the conception of a transnational public sphere. Generally the existence (or possible development) of such a public sphere is denied. Only a minority of scientists assume that relevant public political communication exists in Europe today. On the other hand, there is broad consensus on the importance of such a public sphere for the exercise of legitimate power by stable, transparent and democratic institutions in the European Union. Only by public discourse will political decisions become accountable, and only by public discourse will collective identities nourish and cultural conflicts be avoided. The speech of the German minister of foreign affairs, Joschka Fischer, at the Humboldt University Berlin on 12 May 2000, marked the beginning of an intense debate on the future of the European Union. In the ensuing discussion politicians from all member states took part. In the mass media the concept of a European constitution was also passionately discussed. Can this debate be regarded as a case of a European public sphere? The paper attempts to answer this question. In the first part the literature on the European public sphere will be reviewed. Three different theory strands of the conception of a European public sphere, which understand the concept of a European public sphere in different ways, are established as ideal types. The liberal mirror model takes on the supervision of European politics by a European public sphere as a conditio sine qua non of a supranational democracy. This is rejected by the pessimist school that considers a European demos as (still) missing. The post-habermasian Berlin school assumes that there already is a sufficient number of communication processes on the European level, which can be characterized as a public sphere. Finally, I will point out some overarching problems of these theories and the literature in general: a meddling of the political and the academic discussion, an orientation towards unrealistic ideal type requirements of public spheres, and a deficit of empirical research. In a second part I will present my own approach. I will promote the argument that important prerequisites for democratic communication in Europe are missing to date. Hence a lack in the development of a European public sphere, I argue. I will suggest the term politics deficit for the lack of transparent political processes that prevent the development of public communication in Europe. The exceptional discussion about a European constitution, started by Fischer's Berlin speech, will be examined as an example of how a European discourse can be produced over substantial political questions, leading to concrete decisions and the strengthening a process of construction of a supranational collective identity. The third part of the paper first shortly sketches the history of the debate, defines the period of investigation and the material examined. Chosen copies of six newspapers from France, Britain and Germany are analysed in a course of roughly seven months. Subsequently, I will advance the computer-assisted content analysis as empirical method and illustrate its theoretical background. Then the research design, the categorical system and the data sources are presented. The data analysis and the documentation of the results of the statistic evaluation are arranged according to the three leading hypotheses and their sub-hypotheses. After the presentation of the general characteristics of the data, I will analyze the hypothesis of the resonance level , the hypothesis of adjustment and the hypothesis of symbolism . As result of the analysis, 19 recapitulatory theses are formulated. Finally I will examine the hypotheses and answer the research question. The investigation leads to the conclusion that the public debate over a constitution for the European Union represents the preliminary stage of a European public sphere. The resonance level of communication is classified and described under all examined publics as European. Besides, only the common perception of a supranational level is missing, but the mutual influences of the publics among themselves point to the fact that it is notably more than an event-dependent communication process between national publics. Thirdly, I find similar attempts in all publics to manufacture a European identity with a common history, a common future and common values. The conclusion offers implications on the possible aftermaths and policy consequences of these results for the further development of the European Union.

Diese Arbeit analysiert die Höhe der Subventionszahlungen, die Staaten nach dem 11. September 2001 an Fluggesellschaften vorgenommen haben. Erhebliche Unterschiede in der Höhe von Subventionen sind zu erkennen. Diese Magisterarbeit will diese Varianz erklären.
Theoretische Annahmen aus der rational choice bzw. der aus der Politischen Ökonomie Literatur liegen der Argumentation zugrunde. Staaten nützen die Schwächung des internationalen Anti-Subventionsregimes, das durch den externen Schock (Anschläge vom 11. September 2001) hervorgerufen wird, aus, um nationale Unternehmen im internationalen Wettbewerb besser zu stellen. Die Airline-Industrie wird von Nationalstaaten als zentraler Bereich der nationalen Souveränität betrachtet, ist daher von besonderer Wichtigkeit. Es soll gezeigt werden, dass Staaten nicht nach gleichen internationalen Maßstäben entschädigen (wie von der EU-Kommission gefordert), sondern jeweils abhängig davon, in welcher finanziellen Situation sich die Airlines bereits vor den Anschlägen befanden.
Anhand von Fallbeispielen werden die in der Arbeit gemachten theoretischen Annahmen untersucht. In die Analyse fließen Fallbeispiele der wichtigsten Fluggesellschaften Europas und Nordamerikas ein.
Als Ergebnis kann gezeigt werden, dass die Höhe der staatlichen Unterstützung nicht primär davon abhängig ist, wie hoch der Schaden für die jeweilige Airline durch die Anschläge ist wie durch die Schließung des Luftraumes über den USA. Vielmehr unterstützen Staaten nationale Anbieter umso mehr, je höher bereits im Jahr vor den Anschlägen ein finanzielles Minus bei den Fluggesellschaften erzielt wird, je mehr also die Airlines in ihrem Überleben bedroht sind. Die Anschläge des 11. September 2001 dienen den Staaten als Vorwand für Zahlungen, die sonst nicht möglich wären.