Global evidence in local debates: the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in Swiss direct-democratic debates on school policy

This article analyses the use of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and other evidence in educational policy discourse in the context of direct-democratic votes in Switzerland. The results of a quantitative content analysis show that PISA is used by all actors to support a wide range of policy measures and ideological positions. Other evidence, however, is only used to support single specific policy positions. These findings demonstrate the ubiquity of PISA. The article discusses these results in view of the question of whether the incorporation of evidence into policy debates contributes to informed discourse.

The direct-democratic challenge to evidence-based policy making: Questioning the governmental PISA narrative in Swiss school policy

The democratic deficit of evidence-based policymaking and the little attention the approach pays to values and norms have repeatedly been criticized. This article argues that direct-democratic campaigns may provide an arena for citizens and stakeholders to debate the belief systems inherent to evidence. The study is based on a narrative analysis of Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) reports, as well as of newspaper coverage and governmental information referring to PISA in Swiss direct-democratic campaigns on a variety of school policy issues. The findings show that PISA reports are discursive instruments rather than ‘objective evidence’. The reports promote a narrative of economic progress through educational evidence that is adopted without scrutiny by governmental coalitions in direct-democratic campaigns to justify school policy reforms. Yet, the dominant PISA narrative is contested in two counter-narratives, one endorsed by numerous citizens, the other by a group of experts. These counter-narratives question how PISA is used by an ‘expertocracy’ to prescribe reforms, as well as the performance ideology inherent to. Overall, these findings suggest that direct-democratic campaigns may make more transparent how evidence is produced and used according to existing belief systems. Evidence, on the other hand, may be a stimulus for democratic discourse by feeding the debate with potential policy problems and solution. Thus, direct-democratic debates may reconcile normative positions of citizens with the desire to base decisions on empirical evidence.

Does a reference to evaluations contribute to discourse quality? The case of Swiss direct-democratic campaigns on school policy: a conceptual framework

This article examines how references to evaluations in school policy debates contribute to discourse quality. The article consists of two parts: First, it presents a descriptive overview of the references to evidence in direct-democratic campaigns. These results are based on a quantitative content analysis of the newspaper coverage and governmental information documents of 103 direct-democratic Swiss school policy votes. In a second step, it discusses these findings in view of the question of whether the incorporation of evaluation results in policy debates contributes to discourse quality. It presents a conceptual framework, including hypotheses and a research design to answer this question.

Rapid drop in the reproduction number during the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) experienced a confined rural outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) with 69 reported cases from July to October 2014. Understanding the transmission dynamics during the outbreak can provide important information for anticipating and controlling future EVD epidemics. I fitted an EVD transmission model to previously published data of this outbreak and estimated the basic reproduction number R 0 = 5.2 (95% CI [4.0-6.7]). The model suggests that the net reproduction number Rt fell below unity 28 days (95% CI [25-34] days) after the onset of symptoms in the index case. This study adds to previous epidemiological descriptions of the 2014 EVD outbreak in DRC, and is consistent with the notion that a rapid implementation of control interventions helped reduce further spread.

The invention of democratic parliamentary practices in the Helvetic Republic

In this book, leading historians of the French, Batavian, Helvetic, Cisalpine, and Neapolitan revolutions bridge the gap between the historiographies of the so-called Sister Republics and explore political culture as a set of discourses or political practices. Parliamentary practices, the comparability of "universal" political concepts, late-eighteenth-century Republicanism, the relationship between press and politics, and the interaction between the Sister Republics and France are all examined from a comparative, transnational perspective.

The Marginal Impact of ENGOs in Different Types of Democratic Systems

Conventional wisdom suggests that environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) play a major role in pushing states towards more ambitious environmental policies. However, demonstrating that this presumption is in fact true is rather difficult, because the same system structures of democracies that may create more opportunities for ENGO activities are also, on their own, conducive to better environmental policies. This leaves open the possibility that the additional (marginal) impact of ENGOs on policy making is smaller than presumed. In trying to disentangle these effects, this paper examines the influence of ENGOs contingent on key structural characteristics of democratic systems. We develop the argument that presidential systems with a plurality electoral rule per se tend to provide more environmental public goods, which induces a smaller marginal impact of ENGOs. Conversely, parliamentary systems with a proportional representation electoral rule are likely to provide fewer environmental public goods, which allows for a larger marginal impact of ENGOs. We find robust empirical support for these hypotheses in analyses that focus on the ratification behavior of 75 democracies vis-à-vis 250 international environmental agreements in 1973–2002.

Democratic Legitimation of Trade Policy Tomorrow: TTIP, Democracy and Market in the Swiss Constitution

Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) are increasingly more concerned with regulatory convergence, rather than trade liberalisation through elimination of tariffs. This appears to result more often in so-called dynamic trade agreements, which still evolve after adoption. Further economic integration in democracies, however, depends on the support of the constituency. This article takes a closer look at the democratic legitimation of global economic integration in a case study on Switzerland. It finds that the current principles and institutions of democracy in Switzerland are unlikely to fully accommodate the new regulatory challenges of dynamic FTAs.