In the last two decades, Swiss municipalities have been increasingly under strain and subject of various reforms (see for an overview: Ladner (2011b, 2001); Ladner and Steiner (2003); Kübler and Ladner (2003)). The reorganisation of the municipal administrations often inspiried by New Public Managment, the intergovernmental reallocation of tasks and financial resources, the creation of network-like organizations for service provision and, last but not least, municipal mergers are key elements of recent reform activities. In general, the reforms aim at preserving the important role of local governments in the Swiss political system. More precisely, they are often implemented in order to enhance the capacity to act at the local level and to increase the efficiency of policy outputs (Kübler and Ladner, 2003, 151). However, the impact of these “efficiency-driven reforms” on structures and processes of local democracy are hardly analyzed ((Ladner, 2011b, 212). The purpose of the project is to shed light on the democratic effects of the laft wave of local government reforms. In a first step we analyze the effect of municipal mergers on political partizipation.
In Switzerland, a wide range of political measures promoting gender equality at work are in place. However, this has not resulted in sustainable success in terms of equal payment, career development and the gendered division of labour. The aim of this project is to elaborate knowledge about the dynamics and the interplay of diverse equal opportunity policies in Switzerland. The envisaged findings seek to enhance the ability of political and state actors to adequately conceptualise and coordinate future policies. The project will analyse the genesis and governance of Swiss equal opportunity policies on the federal and cantonal level which aim at the equal participation of men and women in employment. Such policies include the anti-discrimination law, equal opportunity programmes of private and public employers, as well as measures to reconcile work and family life (e.g. public child care). Comparative expertise reports for Germany and Austria complement the study, as all three countries – in principle – have similar gender arrangements. Whereas Switzerland has developed stronger anti-discrimination policies, both other countries focus more on reconciliation. The project maps and classifies existing political initiatives and policy approaches since the 1990s. Selected cases will undergo a more detailed analysis. Research methods include surveys and interviews with stakeholders and experts, document analysis and network analysis.
The state chancellery of the canton of Argovia increasingly has the problem to animate people to participate in political processes. Based on this, the study systematically describes the current challenges of government communication in the canton of Argovia and formulates recommandations. The study focusses on the 1) constitutional borders of state communication; 2) political communication in an inter-cantonal and inter-national comparison; 3) opinion making of the people and the role of political communication.
This project aims at embedding urban design into the very processes of its generation, thereby harnessing the capacity to design that is ultimately framed by policy-making, strategic spatial planning and decision-making, and by the work processes in implementation. Several scientific disciplines have contributed to understanding of these local processes. In this project, we draw from four fields of knowledge: •Urban Design and Architecture (Documenting urban events) •Governance of urban transformation (Analysis of municipal policies) •Planning and decision-making (Tracing and mapping of planning strategies) •Studies of Work (Implementation of projects) We argue that city regions are best understood by observing their change over time with a focus on external shocks; thus, urban design activity should be analysed with respect to ‘events’ that generate far from equilibrium, ‘crisis’ situations, nudge everyday practices away from their standard responses, call for an explicit formulation of design strategies, and require their implementation into built environment. This is what we define as ‘urban events’ - they are the starting point of this research project. Our perspective on urban quality implies to attend to the multiple relations (of people, building, systems, processes, institutions) that make, shape and perform the city. The proposed project explores local solutions with regard to urban quality against the background of on ruptures that are induced by major changes in transportation connectivity and that trigger activities to conserve, secure or generate new urban qualities. More precisely, we endeavour to unveil the dynamics that influence the promotion - or hampering - of urban quality in development projects at the municipal level. Ultimately, the goal of the project is to understand the production of urban textures, and tracing the manifold transformations between both urban design and various (decision-making) processes in the field of policy-making, spatial planning and administrative work, and between those sequences respectively. The project is structured: A. Three disciplinary tracks (political science, urban geography and urban sociology): the analysis of three translations/transformations of which we expect that they are coupled in complex ways, taking place synchronically and diachronically, by means of both feed forward and feed back loops; B. An interdisciplinary approach: in four design studios, which are run by invited architects and followed by researcher involved in the track of the project. Studio participants will get retrospective and prospective insight in changes in the urban fabric that then can be linked to transportation connectivity. The aim of the design studio is not to the content of this study, but to generate new research questions, to reorganise research procedures, or to reconsider taken for granted knowledge.
This project investigates changes of lay participation in the context of the professionalization of management structures in the Swiss public school. In most Swiss cantons, professional school boards with operative power were introduced with the project of partial autonomy (Teilautonomisierung) of schools. This raises the question what happens with the local lay commissions that were strategically leading the public school in many cantons up to now. Additionally, school management has changed because parental boards were introduced in many places. The goal of the project is to clarify the relation of professionalization and lay participation concerning both participation forms (local lay commissions and parental boards). First, we will make qualitative case studies in four cantons to investigate changes in lay participation due to the reform of school governance. Second, we will systematically investigate the interaction of school management, school commissions, parental boards, and the local council in all 26 cantons in order to check whether the results from the qualitative case studies are generalisable for Switzerland as such.
In the fall of 2008, banks around the world were at the brink of failure, and governments, in an attempt to save them, took over huge amounts of risks, jeopardizing their own solvency. Many scholars see bailouts, particularly the one in the United States, as the product of crony capitalism: Politicians grant bailouts as side-payments at the cost of the general public. In this thesis, I argue that this view misunderstands bailouts. It overlooks that voters, too, benefit from banking bailouts. In effect, the interests of voters and banks overlap because both prefer avoiding the crisis to deteriorate. Voters benefit from government interventions because they mitigate the impact on the economy and reduce the losses to investments. The latter is especially important for voters in countries with financialized pension systems because financial turmoil threatens voters’ retirement savings. Thus, this dissertation advances the debate on bailouts by arguing that the current contributions neglect politicians’ electoral incentive to bail out banks and exaggerate the importance of banks’ privileged access to policymaking and their lobbying power. This dissertation also contributes to the debates on business power and the power balance between the legislature and the executive. I argue that recent scholars of business power have mistakenly understood instrumental power to come from deliberate actions and structural power from automatic mechanisms. But structural power does not have to function automatically; business can invoke its structural power intentionally and strategically. And banks’ strategic use of structural power explains why British banks could thwart the government’s preferred crisis intervention, but American banks could not, and why the British government ended up with large losses, while the American government got its money back.
SNF Grant 100018_153140; CHF 279’122.- , co-applicant with Hanspeter Kriesi with Hanspeter Kriesi and Dominik Geering This project dealt with the electoral transformations of political parties in advanced post-industrial democracies and investigates the consequences of electoral change on distributive politics. It linked recent research on the transformation of party systems and party competition with current theory and research on institutional change.
Switzerland is a highly urbanised country. Today, the growing metropolitan areas do not correspond to the political-administrative boundaries anymore. In terms of political institutions, Swiss metropolitan areas are highly fragmented; this poses a challenge for the governance capacity in urban areas. In 2001, a federal agglomeration policy was launched, marking the first time the federal government directly interfered in urban affairs. With this new agglomeration policy, the federal government wants to foster vertical and horizontal cooperation between the different federal levels. Whereas theories of federalism help to understand systems of interlocking politics in multi-level governance, the politics of scale approach draws attention to the relationship and the distribution of power among different federal state levels. Drawing a link between theories of federalism and the politics of scale approach, this paper proposes a theoretical framework to analyse the construction of new levels of governance and of the structures of negotiation between the different levels of governance within the multi-tiered hierarchy. Tackling the question of multilevel governance with an analysis of the politics of scale will allow me to designate new conflict lines and the change in the relationship between the different federal state levels. The paper presents first empirical results based on this theoretical framework.
Context Bosnia and Herzegovina (BH) is a typical example of a “divided society” which has been struggling to become a viable democracy. Its electoral laws, as well as the general institutional framework, follow the “consociational model” of democracy. As a result, its governments are a product of post-electoral coalitions, multiethnic parties are rare (and rather unsuccessful), the once moderate monoethnic parties tend to adopt a more radical political discourse. Such a system, however, ensures an adequate representation of all main ethnic groups at the level of the common state. Yet problems of minority representation arise at the local level. For this reason, in the early 2000s, a number of larger municipalities adopted statutes in which they fixed quotas for a minimal representation of minorities in the respective parliaments. The quota applies, first, to the representatives of the three “constituent peoples” (Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats), and, second, to the group of “Others” (e.g., Jews, Roma, Albanians, or citizens without ethnic identity). More recently, new amendments to the electoral law introduced quotas for minorities belonging to the group of “Others” in municipalities in which such groups represented at least 3% of the local population in 1991. Goals The main goal of this project is to explore, both analytically and empirically, the use of ethnic quotas in the local politics of BH. We will, first, develop a theoretical model which may help to anticipate strategic reactions of political actors to the quota system. Second, we will look at the consequences of electoral laws and party strategies for the representation of ethnic minorities at the municipal level. In particular, we will investigate if and how ethnic minorities get represented. In the third part, we aim at studying how representation of minorities substantially affects their political inclusion and policy outcomes related to ethnic diversity. Fourth, we will gather data at the level of municipalities from the first free post-WWII elections in BH, which were held in 1990 and were crucial for the eventual political developments in the country. In the last part, we will analyse identity representations that are implied by the Constitution and electoral laws. Significance The significance of the project is twofold. First, it will deliver new data and insights into the politics of ethnic quotas in BH, which may have an impact on decision makers both in BH and in other countries of the region. Second, the project will contribute to a wider academic literature on electoral design and minority protection in divided societies.
In financial sector politics responsibilities are fragmented across elected and non-elected policy actors like central banks and supervisory agencies. The thesis analyzes if the media plays an essential part in disentangle the responsibilities and how institutional characteristics of policy actors and the political and media system they are embedded in, influences the attribution of responsibilities. The study contributes to the debate how the media handles non-elected policy actors and furthermore, if the media provides a potential accountability forum that offers an additional source of legitimacy for non-elected policy actors. The project develops a content-analysis instrument, in order to capture the responsibility attribution in the public sphere. In a comparative case study analysis the press coverage in Germany, the United Kingdom and Switzerland is under scrutiny (two newspapers per country, 958 articles, from June 2007 until October 2010). In the second part, the thesis analyzes if and how the elected and non-elected policy actors that are involved in financial market supervision redress a reputational loss by communicating to the public. The communication strategies used in the press releases of the Ministry of Finance, the supervisory agency and the central bank are scrutinized and compared within and across the three countries.