In the policy-making process, Business has various means to influence policy, and because of its resources and its importance for the economy, it has a distinct advantage compared to other interest groups. Nevertheless, Business does not always win policy debates. This project looks at the sources of the structural power of Business and its limits. It analyzes how much policymakers – in particular city mayors – privilege the concerns of Business over other policy goals. And it analyzes important policy instances – such as the establishment of deposit-insurance schemes – in which consumer interests won out over the interests of Business.
Die Topkader der Bundesverwaltung haben einen massgeblichen Einfluss auf die Förderung von Sprachgruppen und der Mehrsprachigkeit in der Bundesverwaltung. Das Forschungsprojekt will diese Personen zu ihrer Sichtweise über die Herausforderungen einer mehrsprachigen Verwaltung befragen, sowie über ihre Haltung zu den Massnahmen bezüglich Förderung der Mehrsprachigkeit in der Bundesverwaltung. Dabei verfolgt das Forschungsprojekt zwei konkrete Ziele: Erstes Ziel ist es, die Einstellungen von Mitgliedern des Topkaders gegenüber dem Sprachmanagement in ihrer Verwaltungseinheit zu eruieren und die Faktoren zu bestimmen, welche diese Einstellungen beeinflussen. Zweites Ziel ist es, zu untersuchen wie die Mitglieder des Topkaders ihre Handlungsspielräume nutzen zur Verbesserung der Sprachkompetenzen von Mitarbeitenden, zur Förderung von Mehrsprachigkeit in Verwaltungseinheiten (Arbeits-, Redaktions- und Verständigungssprachen), sowie zur verstärkten Rekrutierung und Beförderung von Angehörigen der Sprachminderheiten.
Based on a survey among Swiss citizens, the study analyses the attitudes towards public regulations in Switzerland. The results show that public regulations have, although regularly criticized in political debate, in general a high level of acceptance, especially in the fields of health and environment. The Swiss population is quite satisfied with the level of regulation although there is as well scepticism about the administrative burden produced by public interventions.
International trade and its distributional consequences have been portrayed both as causes of greater political stability as well as a disruptive forces fueling widespread discontent and social unrest. At the heart of this controversy is the question of who wins and loses from international trade and how people react to these distributional changes. Especially in the context of developing and emerging countries we know little about individual level effects of trade openness. Adding to that, it is scarcely taken into account how people perceive of these objective distributional consequences. When are individuals satisfied or frustrated with their welfare development and how, if so, do they react to these changes? The project aims to contribute to these pending issues by clearly identifying winners and losers based onnew new trade theory. I argue, based on new trade models, that objective economic consequences are unevenly distributed depending on a combination of individual skill-level and exposure to international competition. These distributive consequences drive wedges within formerly cohesive, same-skilled groups. Building on these distributional effects I specify how individuals subjectively assess their welfare and set out the conditions that induce economic grievances. The mechanism at the heart of the breeding process of grievances is the evaluation of economic welfare based on comparison to similar others. As within-group wage disparity increases, a rising number of individuals are systematically frustrated with the result of their welfare evaluation. Thus, trade can also influence the satisfaction of non-exposed individuals by impacting the income of relevant comparison units. In general, economic grievances induce political discontent, as blame for this adverse economic situation is attributed to the outside. Individuals consequently oppose economic policies, distrust economic institutions and take part in protest activities. The project encompasses a paper testing the individual welfare predictions of new new trade theory and the link to subjective perceptions of well-being with South African panel data. Furthermore, it aims to test the importance of comparison to others with similar abilities and the translation of grievances into political discontent with a survey experiment.
SNF Grant100017_159341; CHF 348’553.-, main applicant with Denise Traber, Thomas Kurer and Michael Pinggera Under what conditions can welfare states be reformed? More specifically: how can established social policy programmes be adapted to changing demographic, economic and social constraints? These are the key questions in today’s welfare state politics, and they have consequently become the key questions in political science research on the welfare state. In this research project, we made use of the exceptional conjunction of theoretical advances in the relevant literature, methodological innovation in public opinion research and the unfolding of the most ambitious and encompassing pension reform in Switzerland in decades to provide answers to precisely these questions With regard to the literature on welfare state reforms, one of the key insights of research over the past decade has been that welfare politics are multidimensional. This means that individuals are not just “in favor or against social policy”, but they hold specific preferences for different aspects of social policy. One major difficulty – for researchers as well as policy-makers – is, however, that the relative importance that individuals or social groups attribute to these different dimensions is almost impossible to observe reliably in standard survey analysis. Conjoint analysis is an experimental survey method that allows to measure whether changes in the composition of a reform package lead to sizeable shifts in support among the public as a whole, or among specific groups. The Swiss pension reform “Altersvorsorge 2020” was an ambitious attempt at reforming the entire system of old age income protection. It therefore provided the perfect opportunity to combine the insights in welfare state theory regarding multidimensionality with conjoint analysis. We conducted a panel study which accompanied the political reform process.
This project examines disintegration referenda, that is referenda aimed at the partial or full withdrawal of individual member states from international institutions, which present a new but growing challenge to international cooperation. This project aims at improving our understanding how disintegration referendums challenge existing institutions and the remaining member states, and how they respond to such referendums. It focuses both on the actions of foreign governments during the referendum campaign and on how the negotiating processes and outcomes surrounding the negotiation process following a successful disintegration referendum affect regime stability by influencing domestic politics and public opinion in the remaining member states. Its theoretical contribution lies in conceptualizing disintegration referenda as a specific type of sovereignty referendum that confronts international institutions and their remaining members with a trade-off between economic prosperity and regime stability. Empirically, the project focuses on disintegration referenda in Greece, the UK, and Switzerland.
Why do some governments compensate losers for the adverse effects of trade, while others reward winners, often exacerbating distributive conflict and inequality? A standard view in the literature is that trade leads to greater demand and supply of social policy. But this explanation cannot account for the striking policy differences across countries for given levels of trade exposure. I argue that economic geography and electoral institutions condition the effect of trade exposure on compensation. Trade leads to greater compensation when losers are geographically concentrated and politicians have incentives to target specific constituencies. Relative to geographically dispersed trade losers, concentrated losers constitute attractive targets for politicians elected in small electoral districts. This conditional theory contrasts with views positing a generalized relationship between trade and welfare spending.
In der vorliegenden Fallstudie wird am Beispiel der Stadt Aarau untersucht, wie sich die lokale Demokratie nach Gemeindefusionen verändert und welche Bedeutung dabei den Quartieren bzw. Stadtteilen zukommt. Die Studie widmet sich drei Fragenkomplexen. Im ersten Fragenkomplex wird die Rolle intermediärer Organisationen genauer beleuchtet. Die Ergebnisse aus sechs ExpertInnen-Interviews mit VertreterInnen von Aarauer Parteien bzw. Vereinen zeigen, dass Aarauer Quartiere für die politische Arbeit relativ unbedeutend sind. Politische Organisationen sind gesamtstädtisch organisiert und fühlen sich gegenüber der Gesamtstadt bzw. der eigenen Partei verpflichtet. Quartiersinteressen werden meist über Mitglieder an die Parteien herangetragen, die sich auch in Quartiervereinen engagieren. Die beiden Quartiere Zelgli und Gönhard sind in der Wahrnehmung der InterviewpartnerInnen in der Aarauer Politlandschaft überrepräsentiert. Aufgrund der Schwierigkeiten, politisches Personal zu rekrutieren, stösst die Berücksichtigung der verschiedenen Quartiere durch die Parteien an praktische Grenzen. Der neue Stadtteil Rohr wird von den Parteien primär symbolisch berücksichtigt, lediglich eine der interviewten Parteien legt eine fixe Quote für RohrerInnen im Parteivorstand fest. Das Parteiensystem hat sich durch die Fusion lediglich aus Rohrer Sicht verändert: die zuvor in Rohr präsenten Parteilosen wurden von VertreterInnen der national etablierten Parteien verdrängt. Die Existenz des gerade für Parteilose attraktiven lokalen Vereins Pro Aarau verhinderte aber eine komplette Delokalisierung des Rohrer Parteiensystems. Der zweite Fragenkomplex zur Einwohnerratsgrösse widmet sich der Frage nach den Konsequenzen unterschiedlicher Sitzzahlen für die Interessenrepräsentation in Aarau. Eine Simulation verschiedener Einwohnerratsgrössen auf der Grundlage der Wahlergebnisse der Gesamterneuerungswahlen vom 24. November 2013 zeigt, dass sich die Parteistärken kaum verändern würden. Bezüglich der Quartierrepräsentation bestätigt die Analyse die Dominanz der beiden Quartiere Zelgli und Gönhard. Diese würde bei einer Vergrösserung des Einwohnerrates sogar zunehmen. Die Parteienvielfalt ist in diesen beiden Quartieren besonders gross, d.h. in allen Szenarien ab 40 Sitzen erreichen in beiden Quartieren fünf verschiedene Parteien mindestens ein Einwohnerratsmandat. Das Telli ist deutlich untervertreten und die Unterrepräsentation nimmt mit zunehmender Einwohnerratsgrösse sogar noch zu. Die Vertretung der Altstadt würde sich hingegen bei einer Vergrösserung verbessern. Auch in einem 80 Sitze umfassenden Einwohnerrat sind jedoch nicht alle Quartiere vertreten. Im dritten Fragenkomplex werden die Auswirkungen einer Einführung von Wahlkreisen diskutiert. Die Stadt Aarau bildet aktuell einen Einheitswahlkreis, in dem 50 Mandate zu vergeben sind. Im Vergleich zu einer Unterteilung in mehrere Wahlkreise ermöglicht dies eine angemessene Vertretung der Parteien, d.h. auch kleine Parteien haben reelle Chancen auf einen Sitzgewinn. Ungleich fällt die Quartiervertretung aus. Eine Unterteilung des Stadtgebietes in mehrere Wahlkreise könnte dem entgegenwirken und zu einer fairen Vertretung der Quartiere beitragen, allerdings zulasten der Vielfalt politischer Strömungen. Eine Unterteilung der Stadt in mehrere Wahlkreise würde gemäss Interviewaussagen zudem die bestehenden Rekrutierungsprobleme verschärfen und die Wahlkampfkosten vervielfachen. Gerade auch im Hinblick auf neue Fusionen stellt sich die Frage, wen oder was der Einwohnerrat repräsentieren soll.
According to the church law (Kirchengesetz; KiG) the canton of Zurich contributes since 2010 to the costs of the cantonal church corporate bodies for their activities in the fields of education, social issues and culture for society as a whole (§ 19 Abs. 2 KiG). For the time period 2014-2019 the financial support for the evangelical-reformed state church of the canton of Zurich and the roman-catholic corporate body of the canton of Zurich is based on activity programs with global budgets. This study aims at providing the systematic scientific basis in regard of the next funding period (2020-2025). For the churches the findings serve as guidelines for the elaboration of the next activity programs. Furthermore they support the cantonal government and parliament in the evaluation of the programs. The study proceeds as follows: After clarifying definition issues, the researchers develop an instrument to gather data on the church activities. This instrument enables to group the activities according to the defined categories. The identification of activities with cultic content or activities with benefits for a society as a whole allows the researchers to evaluate financial effort of the churches in the fields of education, social issues and culture for society as a whole and to compare these efforts with societal activities of third parties.
This research project (starting March 2015) seeks to better understand how the new realities of the global economy are impacting multilateral development outcomes in Africa. How has the fact that a number of developing countries have stronger economies and more borrowing options affected the ability of the World Bank and the regional MDBs to promote development and reduce world poverty through lending and advisory services? If a country has a fiscal surplus, one can imagine that an MDB’s leverage to enforce loan conditionality involving politically difficult policy changes is greatly reduced. As well, a country able to fund major infrastructure projects through well-priced sovereign bond issues or new bilateral financing sources such as China would be able to ignore MDBs’ strict environmental and social requirements and bypass the meticulous project appraisal process. The study proposes to analyze these issues using a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods, considering the cases of the World Bank, African Development Bank (AfDB), and PTA Bank, as well as key bilateral donors active in Africa such as China. The analysis will focus on two questions: 1. How has the economic rise of many middle-income developing countries in recent years changed the ability of MDBs to effectively utilize policy conditionality on budget support lending operations to promote reform? 2. How are changing economic circumstances and increasing bilateral and private financing alternatives reshaping the types of MDB investment loans taken by developing countries, and with what environmental and social impacts?