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.
The central aim of the CLEA project is to produce a repository of detailed results – including votes received by each candidate/party, total votes cast, number of eligible voters, and seat figures – at a constituency level for the lower house legislative elections that have been conducted around the world. The goal is to preserve and consolidate these data in one comprehensive and reliable reference resource that is ready for analysis and publicly available at no cost. This public good is expected to be of use to a range of audiences for research, education, policy-making and evaluation. The project is carried out in collaboration with Ken Kollman and Allen Hicken (University of Michigan).
International comparative project to which universities from most European countries participate consisting of a comparative national and regional MP survey in Europe. The Institute of Political Science is responsible for the survey of all MPs at federal and cantonal level in Switzerland. Four themes are studied. First, the definition of constituencies and how MPs define them. Second, how interests of (un)organised groups are defined in the representation process. Third, multi-level environment, how members of regional and national parliaments interact and compete. Fourth how electoral rules affect the role orientations that MPs choose from.
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.
The point of departure of this project is the failure of the major theories of democratization to explain differences in the consolidation of democracy across Latin America. We argue that an important determinant for the successful democratization is the emergence of a party system that is responsive to the citizenry. Because many parties in Latin America and elsewhere use clientelistic appeals to mobilize voters, they fail to represent the programmatic preferences of their electorate, which would be one of democracy’s most central goals according to democratic theory. In this research project, we study under which conditions programmatic linkages replace clientelistic linkages. The project combines comparative historical analysis and quantitative statistical methods to empirically analyze this process. We postulate two routes to programmatic party competition. One is historical and took place during the first wave of democratization in the early 20th century, similar to the formation of ideological cleavages in Western Europe. The other is more recent and depends on the presence of parties that actively seek to overcome clientelistic patterns of mobilization. We study the first route by adopting a “Rokkanian” perspective that focuses on critical junctures and historical legacies that set countries apart (Lipset and Rokkan 1967, Rokkan 1999, Collier and Collier 1991). In some countries in Latin America, such as in Chile and Uruguay, strong ideological cleavages emerged during the early steps towards democracy, and this resulted in an early prevalence of programmatic party competition. In other countries, a different historical sequencing allowed the established political elites to maintain clientelistic modes of mobilization. As a result, party systems may remain unresponsive to the demands of the citizenry for decades. The first step of the project is to develop a cleavage account of party system formation that explains the stark contrasts between ten Latin American countries in terms of party system development. In order to apply the cleavage approach to contexts outside the old democracies, we must, however, adapt it. In particular, we will extend the approach by integrating the deliberate attempts of political elites to prevent socio-structural conflicts from manifesting themselves politically. We then use the insights generated from this historical analysis to derive predictions concerning contemporary patterns of interest representation across the continent. Our hypothesis is that the way conflicts were mobilized early on affects the long-term balance between clientelistic and programmatic mobilization strategies employed by parties. We test these predictions in a quantitative analysis of contemporary linkage practices in our ten Latin American countries. For this analysis, we measure party system responsiveness combining data on the programmatic position of parties with data on the preferences of voters for various points in time between the mid-1990s and the 2000s. In this quantitative analysis of contemporary linkage practices, we also address the second, alternative route to programmatic party competition. This route is open even to those countries that lack the favourable historical circumstances of the forerunners in terms of democratic accountability. In line with recent research pointing to the role of agency in cleavage formation, we do not expect the early historical experience to fully determine contemporary patterns of party competition. Consequently, we study the extent to which clientelistic linkages are successfully being crowded out in a gradual process that started with the most recent wave of democratization in Latin America in the 1980s. Indeed, in a number of countries such as Brazil, new parties of the left have appeared, which explicitly aim at changing the dominant ways of voter mobilization. There is some evidence that in refusing to make clientelistic appeals, parties opting for programmatic linkages can force the other, established parties to adopt more clear-cut programmatic profiles as well. In other countries, recent movements of the left centred on charismatic personalities have succeeded in breaking into party systems where historically rooted parties failed to respond to the preferences of voters. Venezuela is a case in point. We hypothesize that these two forms of left-wing mobilization have diverging consequences for the emergence of responsive party systems, and consequently for the quality of democracy. While programs play the dominant role in the first case, they are amalgamated with charismatic linkages and selective incentives in the latter case. Presumably, this undermines the institutionalization of a party system and the establishment of firm mechanisms of accountability.
In der Raumplanung gewinnen alternative Partizipationsverfahren auf lokaler und regionaler Ebene zunehmend an Bedeutung im Entscheidungsfindungsprozess. Obwohl bei Planungen anhand gesetzlich vorgeschriebenem Einspracherecht und informativem, respektive konsultativem Einbezug der Bevölkerung, ein stark ausgebautes Instrumentarium an direktdemokratischen Mitteln besteht, setzt eine stark wachsende Anzahl Gemeinden ergänzend auf informelle Mitwirkungsverfahren. Die Öffentlichkeit wird dabei in der Regel bereits im Anfangsstadium des Planungsprozesses mit einbezogen. Bewohnerinnen und Bewohnern wird durch die Entwicklung eines Leitbildes, aber oftmals auch bei der Ortsplanung selbst, im Rahmen der übergeordneten Vorgaben (Ziele und Grundsätze der Raumplanung, übergeordnete Richtpläne), die Möglichkeit der direkten Einflussnahme an der Gestaltung ihres unmittelbaren Lebensraumes geboten. Häufig werden für die Organisation und Durchführung der geleiteten Verfahren zur Vermeidung von Interessenskonflikten externe Beratungsfirmen beauftragt. Ziel des Teilprojekts ist es zum einen, eine Übersicht zur gesamtschweizerischen Situation der alternativen Partizipationsverfahren im Bereich der Raumplanung zu erhalten, zum anderen werden Gemeinden ausgewählt und mittels qualitativer Fallstudien vertieft betrachtet. In der qualitativen Untersuchung werden Gründe für die Anwendung dieser neuen alternativen Verfahren in der Raumplanung erörtert und es wird auf deren Verhältnis zu den formellen Partizipationsformen eingegangen.
The project "Democracy Barometer" has developed an instrument to assess the quality of democracy in 75 established democracies and to measure the fine differences that exist between them. It allows for benchmarking between established democracies and, as democracy is seen as an ongoing process, a critical observation of their democratic development over time. In the second phase of the NCCR Democracy the Democracy Barometer focuses on the explanation of different qualities of democracy and the analysis of the political as well as the societal impact of differences in the quality of democracy.
In recent decades, globalization and the consequent international competition between cities have led to a regionalization process and the emergence of so-called metropolitan areas. Political decision making increasingly has shifted to the local and regional level. There are two different ways in which metropolitan areas across Western European countries have adapted their governance schemes to this development: In some metropolitan areas new institutions (metropolitan governments) have been created. They are equipped with representative arenas, significant financial resources and with power to formulate and implement area-wide policies. Others have chosen not to create new institutions, but rather to concentrate on re-harnessing the relationships between the wide variety of state and/or private actors that are relevant to policy making in metropolitan areas. So far, the impact of each model on the democratic quality of policy-making has not been analyzed. The project aims to fill this gap by examining, in a comparative study, metropolitan areas in Switzerland, Germany, France and the United Kingdom. It will do so by focussing on (a) the responsiveness of metropolitan policies, i.e. the ways in which preferences and demands are aggregated into policy decisions; (b) the accountability of metropolitan policy making, i.e. the extent to which responsibility for policy outcomes are attributed to those who actually make the decisions.