Aktuelle Publikationen

Ist die prozentuale Häufigkeit der Thematisierung eines Politikfeldes im Wahlprogramm ein valider Indikator für die Häufigkeit der parlamentarischen Handlungen einer Partei in diesem Politikfeld? Dies wurde für vier Legislaturperioden (zwischen 1949 und 1990) sowohl für die Regierung(sfraktionen) als auch für die Oppositionsfraktionen am Beispiel des Themas Wohlfahrtsstaat untersucht. Es zeigt sich, dass Wahlprogramme verlässliche Indikatoren für das zukünftige wohlfahrtsstaatliche Handeln der Parteien im Bundestag darstellen. Mit Ausnahme der Regierungsfraktionen während der Großen Koalition haben die Parteien deutlich mehr wohlfahrtsrelevante parlamentarische Handlungen getätigt, als sie nach den Anteilen in ihren Wahlprogrammen versprachen. Die Ergebnisse können insgesamt die These einer geringen Relevanz der Wahlprogramme für das parlamentarische Handeln im politischen System der Bundesrepublik ebenso wenig stützen wie den Vorwurf, Parteien versprechen viel, halten aber wenig.

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The process of European integration and policy‐making is sometimes rather puzzling. On the one hand, it is well documented that with respect to the implementation of European legislation member states tend to do less than they are supposed to do. On the other hand, it is striking that with respect to the implementation of the Council Directive 91/440 on the development of the Community's railways many member states went far beyond the minimum required by the European legislation. We argue that these differing evaluations of implementation success can be traced to different implementation approaches, which may be termed the ‘compliance approach’ and the ‘support‐building approach’. While the first is directed at prescribing domestic reforms from above’, the latter aims at triggering European integration within the existing political context at the national level. Here, successful implementation refers to the extent to which European legislation triggers domestic changes by stimulating and strengthening support for European reform ideas at the national level. In this respect, European legislation can influence the domestic arenas in basically three ways: by providing legitimisation for political leadership, concepts for the solution of national problems, and strategic constraints for domestic actors opposing domestic reforms.

Federalism belongs to those institutions that usually attract more admirers than critics. This study investigates whether decentralized decision making in the asylum domain undermines the principle of equality in the handling of individual cases. The externalities that power delegation creates are examined, and a principal/agent framework is developed to show how state discretion in the implementation of a unifying federal measure arises. The model distinguishes between positive and negative discrimination in the acceptance of asylum applications. The empirical analysis of approximately 180,000 cases demonstrates that the probability of negative discrimination is partly a function of the organizational principles that characterize the asylum policies of the 26 Swiss states (cantons).

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dc.contributor.author: Petzoldt, Ruth

Notwithstanding an ever-growing body of literature on administrative reforms, the studies either focus on single countries or emphasize common tendencies in all countries; hence providing little systematic insight for the evaluation and explanation of administrative change from a comparative perspective. In the light of this deficit, it is the aim of this article to develop an analytical concept for explaining cross-national variances in patterns of administrative development. For this purpose, the concept of national administrative reform capacity is developed, arguing that the potential for reforming different administrative systems is basically dependent on the general institutional context in which these systems are embedded. On this basis, two ideal type constellations of administrative reform capacity and corresponding patterns of administrative development are identified and illustrated by a systematic comparison of administrative reform capacities and administrative changes in Germany and Britain.

Effektive Implementation europäischer Politik ist ein wichtiger Indikator für die Steuerungskapazität der EU. Speziell in der europäischen Umweltpolitik, dem Paradebeispiel für ineffektive Implementation, ist es in diesem Zusammenhang zu einer grundlegenden Umorientierung in der Instrumentenwahl gekommen. An die Stelle interventionistischer Konzepte treten verstärkt flexible und kontextorientierte Steuerungsansätze. Empirische Studien belegen jedoch, daß neue Instrumente bisher keineswegs zu besseren Implementationsergebnissen führten als traditionelle Konzepte. Der ausbleibende Erfolg neuer umweltpolitischer Steuerungskonzepte kann vor dem Hintergrund mehrerer Faktoren erklärt werden, die sich sowohl auf die theoretische Ambiguität der Implementationsforschung beziehen als auch auf die defizitäre Anwendung dieser Theorie. Wir argumentieren, daß diese Defizite zumindest teilweise vermieden werden können, wenn die Implementationsaussichten unterschiedlicher Steuerungsinstrumente aus einer institutionalistischen Perspektive interpretiert werden. Es wird gezeigt, daß die Implementationseffektivität europäischer Policies weniger durch die Wahl des Steuerungsmodus per se beeinflußt wird, sondern durch das Ausmaß der von diesen Policies ausgehenden Anpassungszwänge auf nationale administrative Strukturen und Prozesse.

Organizational change is discussed in the context of a conceptual model resting on philosophical, sociological, and anthropological foundations. Distinguishing between an open and a closed form of organization, the authors focus on two theses. The first is that organizations as societal systems are marked by the simultaneous existence of two forms of organization that are mutually exclusive in part, with the resulting combinations or mixes of the two forms having the character of a compromise. The second thesis is that these combinations or mixes of open and closed organizational elements tend to be in flux, giving organizational change a partly cyclical structure. The authors goal is to draw on these two theses to develop the theory of organizational change and elaborate the implications that this interpretation has for organizational change in daily practice.

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dc.contributor.author: Bräuninger, Thomas; König, Thomas; Volkens, Andrea

While much has been written about the European Union (EU), most of the scholarly work is concerned with the developments at the European level. It is only recently, that we observe increasing attempts to address this research deficit. Notwithstanding a growing number of studies explicitly concerned with the Europeanization of domestic institutions, we still lack consistent and systematic concepts to account for the varying patterns of institutional adjustment across countries and policy sectors. In order to arrive at a more general understanding of the domestic impact of European policy-making, this paper provides a more comprehensive explanatory framework. We distinguish three types of European policy-making, namely positive integration, negative integration, and what might be called "framing" integration, which are characterized by distinctive mechanisms of Europeanization, and hence require distinctive approaches in order to explain their domestic impact. We argue that it is the specific mechanism, rather than the nominal category of the policy area that is the most important factor to be taken into account when investigating the domestic impact of varying European policies.