Multi-level legitimacy: conceptualizing legitimacy relationships between the EU and national democracies

This paper deals with the ways in which the interconnectedness of multiple political levels in increaingly internationalized structures of governance impacts on these levels' democratic legitimation. Focusing on the European Union (EU), it argues that in the EU's multi-level system, the legitimacy of the European level of governance is systematically influenced by the legitimacy of the EU Member States. Insights into such legitimacy relationships - and different logics of their construction - can be used to identify a number of distinct legitimation strategies for EU institutions, and to sketch some options of institutional design that might help to implement them. It is unclear, however, to what extent any kind of institutional design can actually affect the citizens' empirical legitimacy evaluations of the EU, since these are often characterized by a lack of information about the EU's institutional structure. --

Institutions and properties of the transaction: influences on land rental contract design in Poland

The article analyses influences on the design of land rental contracts in Poland. Attention is paid to the effect of both the properties of the transaction as identified in Transaction Cost Economics (asset-specificity, uncertainty, frequency) and the features of the institutional environment (legal as well as customary rules) as studied by the Economics of Property Rights. The conclusion is that institutional influences have a very strong effect and should not be disregarded in the explanation of contract choice.institutions, transaction costs, contract choice, Poland, land market, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Land Economics/Use,

Analysing Agricultural Land Markets as Organisations: an Empirical Study in Poland

Analysing markets as organisations governed by a network of relational contracts that establish rules for market participants increases our understanding of exchange processes. On the basis of three land market case studies in Poland, it is shown that market rules are shaped by the identity as well as constellation of actors and are designed to serve the common objectives of the members of the organisation “market” by decreasing transaction costs and protecting group interests

Mapping legitimacy discourses in democratic nation states: Great Britain, Switzerland, and the Unites States compared

This working paper first outlines the contours of a discourse analytical approach to the study of legitimation processes and then presents findings from a quantitative analysis of legitimacy-related communication in selected print media of the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and the United States in 2004. Our data suggest considerable differences between the three countries with regard to levels of (de)legitimation, privileged legitimation resources, and legitimation styles. The micro dynamics of legitimation processes in 2004 were characterised by nationally specific legitimation attention cycles. References to internationalisation and deparliamentarisation - two trends that are often held responsible for a severe legitimacy crisis of the nation state and representative democracy - play no more than a marginal role in legitimacy discourses. We conclude that evidence for a pervasive and full-fledged erosion of the nation state's legitimacy - or a uniform shift from input to output legitimation - is scant. -- Das Arbeitspapier skizziert die Grundzüge eines diskursanalytischen Ansatzes für die Untersuchung von Legitimationsprozessen und präsentiert Ergebnisse einer quantitativen Analyse der legitimationsrelevanten Kommunikation, die im Jahr 2004 in ausgewählten Printmedien aus Großbritannien, der Schweiz und den USA veröffentlicht wurde. Es zeigen sich deutliche Unterschiede zwischen den drei Ländern hinsichtlich des Ausmaßes von legitimierenden bzw. delegitimierenden Stellungnahmen, hinsichtlich der jeweils eingesetzten Legitimationsressourcen und der vorherrschenden Legitimationsstile. Die Mikrodynamik von Legitimationsprozessen ist durch national spezifische - Legitimations-Aufmerksamkeits-Zyklen - gekennzeichnet. Bezugnahmen auf Internationalisierung und Deparlamentarisierung - zwei Entwicklungen, die häufig als Ursachen für eine ernstliche Legitimationskrise des Nationalstaats bzw. der repräsentativen Demokratie angesehen werden - spielen in den untersuchten Legitimationsdiskursen nur eine untergeordnete Rolle. Für eine weitreichende Erosion nationalstaatlicher Legitimität - oder auch nur für eine systematische Verschiebung von input- hin zu output-orientierten Legitimationsargumenten - finden sich keine Anzeichen.

Analysing agricultural land markets as organisations: an empirical study in Poland

"In this paper agricultural land markets are regarded as organisations, which allows to take the effect of the social embeddedness of exchange into account. The markets-as-organisations approach suggests that markets are governed by an internal 'constitution' containing rules on dissemination of information, control procedures and sanctioning mechanisms that provide advantages to members. The design of the market constitution is believed to be strongly influenced by the constellation of actors and their characteristics. In order to investigate the validity of this assumption the study chooses a comparative approach that analyses the content of land market rules in settings with different actor constellations and tries to find out why they have been established in this way. Both qualitative and quantitative data collected in three village case studies and a survey in two structurally different regions of Poland is used. The results underline that the internal constitution of the organisation 'land market' is designed to serve members' interests by decreasing transaction costs and protecting community welfare and also support the expectation that the rules differ according to actor constellations." (author's abstract)Die Verfasserin interpretiert Märkte für landwirtschaftlich nutzbare Flächen als Organisationen, was die Berücksichtigung der sozialen Einbettung von Tausch ermöglicht. Dieser Ansatz geht davon aus, dass Märkte von einer internen "Verfassung" geregelt werden, deren Regeln betreffend die Verbreitung von Information, Kontrollverfahren und Sanktionsmechanismen Mitglieder bevorteilen. Es wird davon ausgegangen, dass das Design der Marktverfassung stark durch die Konstellation und die Charakteristika der Akteure beeinflusst ist. Zur Untersuchung der Gültigkeit dieser Annahme wird hier ein komparativer Ansatz gewählt, der den Inhalt von Bodenmarktregeln in unterschiedlichen Akteurkonstellationen analysiert und fragt, warum diese Regeln so zustande gekommen sind. Dabei werden quantitative und qualitative Daten aus Fallstudien zu drei Dörfern und eine Befragung in zwei strukturell unterschiedlichen Regionen Polens zugrunde gelegt. Die Ergebnisse bestätigen, dass die interne Konstitution der Organisation "Bodenmarkt" so gestaltet ist, dass sie den Interessen der Mitglieder nützt, indem Transaktionskosten gesenkt werden und der Wohlstand der Gemeinde geschützt wird. Sie stützen auch die Vermutung, dass sich die Regeln bei unterschiedlichen Akteurkonstellationen ändern. (ICEÜbers

Youth protest in Germany? An analysis based on the results of the Shell Youth Studies

Die Autoren ziehen einen Vergleich zwischen den Forschungsergebnissen der Shell-Jugendstudien von 2002, 2006 und 2010. Demnach bleibt die heutige junge Generation in Deutschland zuversichtlich und lässt sich weder durch die Wirtschaftskrise noch durch die unsicher gewordenen Berufsverläufe und Perspektiven von ihrer optimistischen Grundhaltung abbringen. Mit den Herausforderungen in Alltag, Beruf und Gesellschaft gehen Jugendliche auch weiterhin pragmatisch um. Prägend für diese Generation sind insbesondere eine starke Leistungsorientierung und ein ausgeprägter Sinn für soziale Beziehungen. Gegenüber der Studie von 2006 erhöhte sich die Zahl der optimistischen Jugendlichen von 50 auf 60 Prozent. Der Bildungserfolg hängt außerdem in keinem anderen Land so stark von der sozialen Herkunft ab, wie in der Bundesrepublik. Junge Frauen haben bessere Chancen auf gute Bildungsabschlüsse als männliche Jugendliche. Die Jugendlichen - besonders die jüngeren - sind politischer geworden und ein soziales Engagement ist vor allem bei Kindern von gebildeten oder wohlhabenden Familien verbreitet. Die Ergebnisse belegen insbesondere (1) eine hohe Unsicherheit, aber eine Inklusion im Bildungssystem, (2) eine ausgeprägte Kultur des pragmatischen Individualismus und (3) ein hohes Misstrauen in politische Parteien. (ICI2

Implementation of the National Action Plan Health Literacy in Germany—Lessons Learned

Schaeffer D, Gille S, Hurrelmann K. Implementation of the National Action Plan Health Literacy in Germany—Lessons Learned. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2020;17(12): 4403.The promotion of health literacy (HL) has become an important task in public health. In response, in many countries, strategies and action plans to strengthen HL have been developed. Systematic discussion of implementation strategies of action plans on HL is scarce. This paper presents the implementation strategy and the methodical process of its realization of the National Action Plan HL in Germany which was published in 2018. The implementation strategy was based on considerations of implementation science and research. A process consisting of a continuum of various overlapping methodical and strategic steps of diffusion, dissemination and implementation based on collaboration and co-production was chosen. According to this, the Action Plan was widely diffused via various channels, disseminated through numerous publications and presentations, and implemented in several settings by holding workshops with stakeholders from politics, science and practice, as well as by cooperating with the Alliance for Health Literacy. This three-part collaborative and co-productive implementation strategy has helped to place HL and the National Action Plan on the health policy agenda in Germany. Experience demonstrates that implementation should be also considered, systematically planned, and addressed when developing strategies to strengthen HL

Health inequalities and welfare state regimes: a research note

Aim: Comparative research on health and health inequalities has recently begun implementing a welfare regime perspective. The aim of the study was to review the existing evidence for identifying the determinants of health and health inequalities in highly developed welfare states and to develop a theoretical model for future research approaches. Subject: A welfare state regime typology is applied to comparatively analyse (1) the relationship between the level of economic prosperity in a society and its respective level of overall population health and (2) the nature of the corresponding relationship between economic inequalities and health inequalities in different groups of countries. Results: Although the Social Democratic welfare states have a relatively equal distribution of material wealth as well as the highest levels of population health, they are not characterised by the smallest levels of health inequality. Rather, with respect to health equality, conservative countries seem to perform better than social democracies. We propose a comprehensive theoretical model that takes into account different factors on the structural (macro), organisational (meso) and individual (micro) level in order to contribute to a better understanding of this important challenge for public health policy and practice. Conclusion: Future research will require an appropriate theoretical model with the potential to explain health and health inequalities in different types of welfare states. On the basis of this model, future research should test the hypothesis that in highly developed countries not only economic, but also social, cultural and lifestyle factors are important in determining health outcomes in different segments of the population

Generation of Simulation Views for Domain Specic Modeling Languages based on the Eclipse Modeling Framework

The generation of tools for domain specific modeling languages (DSMLs) is a key issue in model-driven development. Various tools already support the generation of domain-specific visual editors from models, but tool generation for visual behavior modeling languages is not yet supported in a satisfactory way. In this paper we propose a generic approach to specify DSML environments visually by models and transformation rules based on the Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF). Editing rules define the behavior of generated visual editors, whereas simulation rules describe a model's operational semantics. From a DSML definition (model and transformation rules), an Eclipse plug-in is generated, implementing a visual DSML environment including an editor and (possibly multiple) simulators for different simulation views on the model. We present the basic components of Tiger2, our EMF-based generation environment, and demonstrate the environment generation process for a small DSML modeling the behavior of ants in an ant hill

Jugendliche als produktive Realitätsverarbeiter: zur Neuausgabe des Buches "Lebensphase Jugend"

"Eine Stärke der Jugendforschung in Deutschland ist ihre theoretische und methodische Vielfalt. Unter den verschiedenen Ansätzen, die vertreten werden, hat auch der sozialisationstheoretische seit den 1980er Jahren seinen festen Platz. Nach 25 Jahren erscheint das Lehrbuch 'Lebensphase Jugend', das sich ausdrücklich dieser Konzeption verpflichtet fühlt, im Sommer 2012 in 11., vollständig überarbeiteter Auflage (vgl. Hurrelmann/ Quenzel 2012). Da gleichzeitig das Buch 'Einführung in die Sozialisationstheorie' in Neuausgabe publiziert wird (vgl. Hurrelmann 2012), konnte eine enge Abstimmung der beiden Veröffentlichungen vorgenommen werden. In diesem Beitrag soll die Neuausrichtung des Buches 'Lebensphase Jugend' vorgestellt, theoretisch eingeordnet und inhaltlich erläutert werden." (Autorenreferat