Political Efficacy und Wahlbeteiligung in Ost- und Westdeutschland

Es wird die Frage untersucht, ob in Ostdeutschland die Beteiligung an den Bundestagswahlen unter anderem deswegen geringer ist als in Westdeutschland, weil ostdeutsche Wähler weniger davon überzeugt sind, mittels der Beteiligung an politischen Wahlen persönlich die Politik beeinflussen zu können. Die empirischen Analysen erfolgen mit Querschnittdaten des ALLBUS 1998. Sie zeigen, dass sich die Einflusserwartungen in Ost und Westdeutschland nur zufällig voneinander unterscheiden. Daher können die Einflusserwartungen nicht das entscheidende Kriterium für die unterschiedlichen Wahlbeteiligungen sein. Von Bedeutung für die Stärke der Einflusserwartungen sind persönliche Überzeugungen über eigene politische Kompetenzen und Reaktivität des politischen Systems, deren Einflüsse bei den Ostdeutschen grösser sind als bei den Westdeutschen.

Selection and influence effects in defending a victim of bullying: The moderating effects of school context

In this paper we examined whether defenders of victims of school bullying befriended similar peers, and whether the similarity is due to selection or influence processes or both. We examined whether these processes result in different degrees of similarity between peers depending on teachers’ self-efficacy and the school climate. We analyzed longitudinal data of 478 Swiss school students employing actor-based stochastic models. Our analyses showed that similarity in defending behavior among friends was due to selection rather than influence. The extent to which adolescents selected peers showing similar defending behavior was related to contextual factors. In fact, lower self-efficacy of teachers and positive school climate were associated with increased selection effects in terms of defending behavior.

The Life and Times of Bills

Time is one of the scarcest resources in modern parliaments. In parliamentary systems of government the control of time in the chamber is a significant power resource enjoyed – to varying degrees – by parliamentary majorities and the governments they support. Minorities may not be able to muster enough votes to stop bills, but they may have – varying degrees of – delaying powers enabling them to extract concessions from majorities attempting to get on with their overall legislative programme. This paper provides a comparative analysis of the dynamics of the legislative process in 17 West European parliaments from the formal initiation of bills to their promulgation. The ‘biographies’ of a sample of bills are examined using techniques of event-history analysis (a) charting the dynamics of the legislative process both across the life-times of individual bills and different political systems and (b) examining whether, and to what extent, parliamentary rules and some general regime attributes influence the dynamics of this process, speeding up or delaying the passage of legislation. Using a veto-points framework and transaction cost politics as a theoretical framework, the quantitative analyses suggest a number of counter-intuitive findings (e.g., the efficiency of powerful committees) and cast doubt on some of the claims made by Tsebelis in his veto-player model.

The Swiss Schools have been Governed by Local Lay Authorities

After the introduction of the liberal-democratic constitutions in the Swiss cantons in the first half of the 1830ies the grid of existing schools has been systemized and broadly expanded. The school systems have ever since been characterized by one key element: a special local authority type called „Schulkommission“ or „Schulpflege“. They take the form of committees consisting of laymen that are appointed by democratic elections like all the other executive bodies on the different federal levels in Switzerland. When it comes to their obligations and activities these community level school committees conform very much to the school boards in the American and Canadian school systems. They are accountable for the selection and supervision of the teachers. They approve decisions about the school careers of pupils and about curricular matters like the choice of school books. Normally their members are elected by the local voters for four year terms of office (reelection remains possible) and with regard to pedagogics they normally are non-professionals. The board members are responsible for classes and teachers assigned to them and they have to go to see them periodically. These visitations and the board meetings each month together with the teachers enable the board members to attain a deep insight into what happens in their schools over the course of their term of office. But they are confronted as laymen with a professional teaching staff and with educational experts in the public administration. Nevertheless this form of executive power by non-professionals is constitutive for the state governance in the Swiss as well as in other national political environments. It corresponds to the principles of subsidiarity and militia and therefore allows for a strong accentuation of liberty and the right of self-determination, two axioms at the very base of democratic federalist ideology. This governance architecture with this strong accent on local anchorage features substantial advantages for the legitimacy and acceptability of political and administrative decisions. And this is relevant especially in the educational area because the rearing of the offspring is a project of hope and, besides, quite costly. In the public opinion such supervision bodies staffed by laymen seem to have certain credibility advances in comparison with the professional administration. They are given credit to be capable of impeding the waste of common financial resources and of warranting the protection and the fostering of the community’s children at once. Especially because of their non-professional character they are trusted to be reliably immune against organizational blindness and they seem to be able to defend the interests of the local community against the standardization and centralization aspirations originating from the administrational expertocracy. In the paper these common rationales will be underpinned by results of a comprehensive historical analysis of the Session protocols of three Bernese school commissions from 1835 to 2005.

Agents, Trustees, and International Courts: Nomination and Appointment of Judicial Candidates in the WTO Appellate Body

Scholars have increasingly theorized, and debated, the decision by states to create and delegate authority to international courts, as well as the subsequent autonomy and behavior of those courts, with principal–agent and trusteeship models disagreeing on the nature and extent of states’ influence on international judges. This article formulates and tests a set of principal–agent hypotheses about the ways in which, and the conditions under which, member states are able use their powers of judicial nomination and appointment to influence the endogenous preferences of international judges. The empirical analysis surveys the record of all judicial appointments to the Appellate Body (AB) of the World Trade Organization over a 15-year period. We present a view of an AB appointment process that, far from representing a pure search for expertise, is deeply politicized and offers member-state principals opportunities to influence AB members ex ante and possibly ex post. We further demonstrate that the AB nomination process has become progressively more politicized over time as member states, responding to earlier and controversial AB decisions, became far more concerned about judicial activism and more interested in the substantive opinions of AB candidates, systematically championing candidates whose views on key issues most closely approached their own, and opposing candidates perceived to be activist or biased against their substantive preferences. Although specific to the WTO, our theory and findings have implications for the judicial politics of a large variety of global and regional international courts and tribunals.

Cigarette smoking and Ecuadorian adolescents: A cross-sectional survey and policy review

This study investigates the relationship between cigarette smoking and adolescents in Ecuador, South America. Using the Social Learning Theory as a basis, the cross-sectional survey focuses attention on such social influences as the smoking habits of family members and peers as well as, the role of cigarette advertisements. Actual use prevalence, access to cigarettes and knowledge and attitudes about smoking are also obtained.^ The survey was conducted in both urban and rural areas, with 50 schools in 40 different communities participating. Two thousand four hundred and fifty-seven adolescents aged 9 to 15 years completed a self-administered questionnaire. This part of the study was conducted in collaboration with the international health organization Amigos de las Americas (AMIGOS). Staff assigned to the AMIGOS Ecuador projects worked with local health and education officials to implement the cross-sectional survey in the field.^ The key informant survey and subsequent policy review were designed to illuminate the social, cultural and institutional environment for anti-smoking activities and interventions in Ecuador. Key individuals involved with this issue on both national and local levels were interviewed. A review of past legislative efforts and present anti-smoking laws was also conducted.^ The current smoking prevalence among the study population was 8.6 percent. Findings from the cross-sectional survey revealed significant positive associations between the smoking habits of siblings and peers and the smoking behavior of the adolescents surveyed. Significant age and gender differences were also found in association with several different variables.^ The policy review found an unfavorable environment for anti-smoking efforts. Several factors contribute to this including, most importantly, lack of funding and lack of public support. The present anti-smoking law is often vague and lacks important provisions, such as a prohibition on selling tobacco products to minors.^ Together, the two surveys provide comprehensive information for the purpose of designing smoking prevention interventions. Using the results from the two surveys, recommendations for intervention are proposed. ^

Folklore, fad, and fashion: The concept of misconduct in science redefined

This study is an analytical investigation of the nature and implications of the current conceptions of scientific misconduct, arguing that the question of what constitutes misconduct in science is significantly more complex than what conventionally has been believed. Complicating the definitions of misconduct are the differences between professional science and non-scientific professions, in their respective norms of what constitutes valid knowledge, and what counts as appropriate and inappropriate practice. While institutionalized science claims that there is clear differentiation between its standards of validity and those of the non-scientific professions, this paper argues that, when it comes to misconduct, the perceived boundaries between the scientific and non-scientific professions are breached; the practice standards that science currently employs in self-policing misconduct have come to resemble the minimal juridical standards of practice that other professions employ. This study attempts, despite erosion of these traditional boundaries, to move from legalistic standards of scientific practice to intramural standards of practice, and in so doing, to hold scientific practice to a higher standard than ordinary public conduct. The result is a clearer understanding of scientific misconduct to aid those individual scientists who are required to make onerous determinations about the appropriateness of specific practices by their peers. ^