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.
Das Projekt untersucht Gemeinden in der Schweiz, welche offene Beteiligungsverfahren für Jugendliche anbieten. Wir interessieren uns folglich für Beteiligungsverfahren für jene Personen, welche aus bürgerrechtlichen Gründen noch nicht am direktdemokratischen Prozess teilhaben dürfen. Wir betrachten jedoch nur diejenigen Mitwirkungsverfahren, welche tatsächlich eine Mitbestimmung der Jugendlichen vorsehen, z.B. Jugendparlamente mit eigener Budgetverantwortung. In einem ersten deskriptiven Schritt soll eine Übersicht über die in Schweizer Gemeinden vorhandenen Kinder‐ und Jungendparlamente gewonnen werden. Es soll abgebildet werden, wie sich diese in ihrer Ausgestaltungsform und in Bezug auf ihre politischen Mitsprachemöglichkeiten unterscheiden. In einem zweiten Schritt werden mittels qualitativer Fallstudien vertiefte Erkenntnisse dazu gewonnen, weshalb Gemeinden solche Kinder‐ und Jugendparlamente anbieten und welches die Auswirkungen dieser Partizipationsgremien für die lokale Politik sind.
The research project on the regional cooperation schemes of Uster is funded by the city itself. We analyse the perimeter and outreach of the different inter-communal cooperation schemes where Uster is engaged in. The theoretical question behind the project is, whether a regional city as Uster, that transforms from a regional city to a suburban town, adjusts its political cooperation schemes accordingly or not.
This project tries to answer the question when and how interest groups are successful in influencing policy outputs. As an area of application the special interest policies for the iron and steel sector are anaylized in industrialized and industrializing countries. It is demonstrated that either full interest group competition or coordination is helpful in preventing special interest policies for the iron and steel sector, whereas mixed competitive and coordinated systems are rather prone to show these policies. The resulty rely on an fsQCA and two case studies.
Recent waves of mass demonstrations in the Arab world have attracted renewed scholarly and political attention to the question of the role of grass-root movements in political change. In explaining political transition processes, the democratization literature usually attributes a prominent role to elite actors. Influential scholars like O’Donnell and Schmitter (1986) depict the transition process as a process of negotiation and pact-building between key elite actors. By contrast, mass movements are seen as a rather passive element in the process that can be mobilized and de-mobilized by the elite. The present study challenges the democratization literature’s narrow focus on the political elite and aims at combining it with insights from the social movement literature. The experience of newly democratized countries in East and Southeast Asia provides an interesting empirical basis to study how key stages in the democratization process are related to mass mobilization. Relying on a newly constructed dataset of protest events (1986–2005), the study analyzes similarities and differences between mass mobilization and respective actions and responses by elite actors in three countries in the region, namely Indonesia, South Korea and Thailand. The parameters of comparison with regard to protest mobilization are the intensity of protests, the composition of actor groups participating in the protest activities, their aims and targets, as well as the forms of protests chosen. It is shown that social movement actors are active actors in the course of transition that have their own means and goals in influencing the democratization process. Coalition-building between protest actors, as well as the timing of their actions, have been found to be particularly important factors in shaping the sequence and the outcome of the process as a whole.
The project “Negotiating Climate Change” investigates the power resources and the choice of bargaining strategies by member states in the current UNFCCC negotiations leading to the Post-Kyoto process. While several studies have described the functioning of negotiations at the UNFCCC, so far there is no systematic analysis of power resources of negotiating member delegations, of their bargaining strategies and of the factors which influence their choice of these bargaining strategies. While power resources are defined as assets which enable an actor to achieve goals, e.g. voting power, economic power, and negotiation skills (i.e. exogenous determinants of success which are difficult or even impossible to change at least in the short run), bargaining strategies cover the different ways of interaction with other players. In this context, we are particularly interested in (A) the determinants of successful negotiation (including specific characteristics and behavioural attributes of the negotiators) and (B) the determinants of the choice of any particular negotiation strategy (and position) by these negotiators. In the face of new scientific developments on the climate issue and increasing public pressure on politicians concerning the environment, knowledge about power resources and the choice of bargaining strategies as well as their effect are of great importance. Further, negotiations about climate change may also lend themselves to a reconsideration of the potential role of developing countries in the negotiation process. As opposed to what we observe in other international negotiations, some economically extremely weak developing states such as Tuvalu are treated as serious negotiation partners. This may be related to their intelligent choice of coalition partners like NGOs, and to the fact that their existence is at stake if emission reduction fails. In order to systematically measure positions and strategies at the beginning of the negotiations and the success of negotiators at the end of the negotiation process, we will conduct interviews with negotiators, UNFCCC officials, and negotiation observers both before and after the Copenhagen COP in December 2009. This will allow us to control for a possible change of negotiation strategies of the most crucial negotiators as well as to gather any missing data from the first round of interviews. Since the UNFCCC negotiations are very well documented, the interview information will also be supplemented with text analysis of negotiation documents. The number of negotiation participants and negotiation issues will allow us to test whether and under which conditions power resources on the one hand, and the use of specific negotiation strategies on the other hand, are more effective in achieving negotiation goals, by using multivariate statistical analyses. A second step of our study will investigate which domestic variables can explain the choice of strategies and negotiation positions using case studies. In particular partisan orientation or domestic interest groups are possible explanatory factors. If evidence from our observation of past climate negotiation rounds is substantiated in the first part of our analysis, particularly interesting countries for our case studies could be Tuvalu, Russia and India. Tuvalu is a very small country, but with strong salience, and it is generally recognized as an unusually relevant player as compared to its size. India is one of the two major emerging economies strongly under pressure to accept targets due to its increasingly large emissions (along with China). Being a poor country in terms of per capita income, they strongly oppose this pressure so that its negotiation strategy will be of high interest. Its position may even influence overall targets for post 2012 emission reductions. Finally, Russia has played a crucial role for the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol, with an important influence from domestic factors. This is expected to continue in the post 2012 negotiation process. Given the strong salience of climate change for many developing countries, we specifically aim at deriving the determinants of successful negotiation strategies for these countries. While they are traditionally looked at as weaker players given that their power resources are limited, climate change negotiations provide evidence for a number of exceptions to this rule. Analysing regularities behind successful bargaining strategies in this context should thus allow us to derive some more general policy advice for developing country negotiators. These potential gains are possible due to a collaboration of economists, political scientists, psychologists, and policy experts on climate change and development in order to cover all aspects of climate change negotiations. Our project team at the Center for Comparative and International Studies (CIS): Stefanie Bailer, Paula Castro, Axel and Katharina Michaelowa, Florian Weiler (for contact addresses of project coordinators, see below). Cooperation with researchers / practicioners outside the CIS is listed below. ******************************************************************** (For related research activities, see also our project --> "International Climate Policy".)
Das Bundesgesetz über Ausländerinnen und Ausländer (AuG) vom 16. Dezember 2005 bringt wesentliche Neuerungen im Bereich der Integration. Neu kann die Erteilung oder Verlängerung einer Aufenthalts- oder Kurzaufenthaltsbewilligung mit der Bedingung verknüpft werden, dass ein Sprach- oder Integrationskurs besucht wird. Ausserdem wird der Grad der Integration bei der Erteilung einer Niederlassungsbewilligung, sowie bei Weg- und Ausweisungen, aber auch bei Einreiseverboten berücksichtigt. Die Verpflichtung zum Kursbesuch kann durch die Kantone in einer Integrationsvereinbarung zwischen ausländischen Personen und der kantonalen Behörde festgehalten werden (Art. 54 AuG). Die Anwendung dieses Instruments ist den Kantonen allerdings freigestellt. Wie zu erwarten haben einige Kantone bisher darauf verzichtet. Aber auch zwischen den Kantonen, welche sich zum Abschluss von Integrationsvereinbarungen entschieden haben, sind beträchtliche Unterschiede zu erwarten. Zwar stellt der Bund den Kantonen Empfehlungen zur Verfügung, welche die Bestimmungen des Gesetzes und der dazugehörenden Verordnung konkretisieren. Dennoch besteht bei der Umsetzung ein grosser Spielraum für die Kantone. Das Ziel dieser Untersuchung besteht darin, einen systematischen Überblick zu schaffen über die Umsetzung des Instruments Integrationsvereinbarungen in den fünf Kantonen BS, BL, SO, ZH, AG. Im Vordergrund steht dabei die Darstellung von Unterschieden und Gemeinsamkeiten, wobei die Empfehlungen des Bundesamtes für Migration als Referenzrahmen dienen. Die Untersuchung ist Bestandteil der Evaluation des Pilotprojekts zur Einführung der Integrationsvereinbarungen in den Kantonen welche vom Institut Sozialplanung und Stadtentwicklung der Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz koordiniert wird.
During the last decade, the microfinance movement has considerably changed the financial landscape around the world. It has inspired new banking concepts that have given hope to the poor households for the betterment of their livelihoods through their own efforts and labour. The project aims to shed light on the effect that the stakeholders actions and interests have on the success (or failure) of microfinance institutions worldwide. Such interests; being as diverse in nature as are the institutes or organisations that present or signify them; there is a significant need to systematically differentiate the different tiers and levels of the complex environment in which they normally operate. In particular, the institutional infrastructure of the country of operation (comprising of the bureaucracy, the law keeping agencies and the politicians), the informal societal structures (comprising of the form of society be it feudal, patriarchal or traditional, in addition local money lenders and or local commercial banks etc.) and also external agencies like the NGOs and the donor aid agencies, both at the local and at the national level need to be taken into account. It is the objective of this Ph.D. project to shed some light on this aspect. The project encompasses an econometric cross-country analysis complemented by two case studies both in South Asia, namely Pakistan and India. The research project is financed by the University priority research program (URPP) “Asia and Europe” (Research Group “Norms and Social Orders”).
Why are some policymakers able to adjust their policies in response to deteriorating economic conditions, while other policymakers delay adjustment as long as possible, a policy path that typically ends with an economic crisis? This project examines this question by focusing on the area of exchange-rate policy, where delayed devaluations frequently end with a currency crisis. The project extends my research on exchange-rate politics and analyses how exchange-rate level preferences interact with institutions to shape monetary and exchange-rate policy outcomes. I am particularly interested in explaining time-inconsistencies in exchange-rate policymaking. The project examines how distributional and electoral concerns can create strong incentives for policymakers to delay adjustment as long as possible. I argue that these incentives are particularly strong when voters are very vulnerable to both exchange and interest rate adjustments. Major currency crashes are particularly likely when voters are highly exposed to exchange rate changes but even more vulnerable to internal adjustment policies, and when electoral incentives prevent timely reform. This project was generously funded by the Fritz-Thyssen Foundation.
Reaching internationally agreed climate targets such as the limitation of global warming to 2 degrees will require substantial mitigation actions not only by industrialized but also by rapidly developing countries. Given their development status, developing countries’ actions have been supported financially by industrialized countries for over 20 years now. This project analyzes the effectiveness of past international support for climate change mitigation in developing countries and aims to draw conclusions for future support programs. In particular, the project compares the effectiveness of public finance (example: Global Environment Facility, GEF) and carbon markets (example: Clean Development Mechanism, CDM). The analysis is carried out in four steps. First, we estimate the effectiveness of the two financing channels in driving deployment of renewable energies, which are seen as key technologies for climate change mitigation. For this purpose, we use a panel data model covering twenty years and more than hundred countries. The main aim of this step is to test whether micro-level effectiveness claims by international institutions correspond to real observable changes in technology adoption. In a second step, we analyze the influence of international climate finance on adoption of national renewable energy policies, using an event history model that controls for other domestic and international drivers of policy adoption. In a third step, we examine micro level data on GEF and CDM mitigation projects to see whether we find a correlation between the mobilization of private investment and the projects’ effectiveness in reducing greenhouse gases. A low or non-significant correlation would challenge international calls to target those programs where most private finance is mobilized. In a fourth step, we analyze the overall financial input into international climate change programs, which is also a major determinant of ultimate effectiveness. The overall financial input will depend on how legal texts on international finance commitments are understood. We particularly focus on the question how the commitment to “new and additional” climate finance is understood and which types of private financial flows are part of international commitments.