EU Referendums in Context: What can we learn from the Swiss Case?

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this recordThe rising number of referendums on EU matters, such as the Brexit and the Catalonian independence votes, highlight the increasing importance of referendums as a problem‐solving mechanism in the EU. We argue that the Swiss case provides essential insights into understanding the dynamics behind referendums, which are often lacking when referendums are called for in the EU. Referendums in EU member states on EU matters differ substantially from the in Swiss context. Nevertheless, proponents of more direct democratic decision‐making regularly cite the Swiss example. Our systematic analysis of why referendums are called, how they unfold and their resulting effects in the EU and Switzerland reveals that the EU polity lacks the crucial conditions that embed direct democracy within the wider political and institutional system. The comparative perspective offers fundamental insights into the pre‐conditions required for direct democracy to function and its limitations in the EU

Space and Time in Comparative Political Research. Pooled Time-series Cross-section Analysis and Multi-level Designs Compared

The combination of cross-section and time dimension is a central issue in current comparative political research. The state-of-the-art procedure in this context is pooled time-series cross-section analysis (PTSCS), which is en vogue in today's relevant literature but not uncontested. An interesting option are multilevel designs, which allow the combination of time and space by considering observations over time nested within country-specific contexts. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the advantages of multilevel designs in comparative political research, which mainly concern the modeling of time-invariant variables, the possible distinction between cross-sectional and time related variance in the data, and the possibility to model heterogeneity instead of just correcting it. Using the example of an analysis of public education expenditure in the 26 Swiss cantons between 1978 and 2003, it can be shown that multilevel analysis - mainly due to its statistical and conceptual advantages - is indeed a promising alternative to PTSCS. Die Kombination von Längs- und Querschnittvergleich ist ein zentrales Thema in der vergleichenden Politikwissenschaft. In aller Regel wird ein gepooltes Zeitreihen-Design angewandt, um verschiedene politische Einheiten über die Zeit und miteinander zu vergleichen. Diese Methode, obwohl sehr in Mode, ist allerdings nicht unumstritten. Eine interessante Alternative stellt die Mehrebenenanalyse dar, welche ebenfalls die Kombination von Zeit und Raum zulässt, indem sie Beobachtungen in der Zeitachse quasi als Eigenschaften verschiedener länderspezifischer Kontexte betrachtet. Das Ziel dieses Beitrags ist es, die Vorteile eines Mehrebenen-Designs für die vergleichende Politikforschung zu illustrieren. Diese ergeben sich v.a. in Bezug auf die Modellierung zeit-invarianter Variablen, die Unterscheidung zwischen querschnitt- und zeitbedingter Varianz sowie die Möglichkeit, Heterogenität zu modellieren statt lediglich zu korrigieren. Als praktisches Anwendungsbeispiel werden die öffentlichen Bildungsausgaben in den 26 Schweizer Kantonen zwischen 1978 und 2003 analysiert. Es zeigt sich, dass die Mehrebenenanalyse sowohl aus statistischen Gründen, aber auch aufgrund ihrer konzeptuellen Vorteile tatsächlich eine viel versprechende Alternative zu gepoolten Zeitreihen-Designs darstellt." (Autorenreferat). Die Untersuchung bezieht sich auf den Zeitraum 1978 bis 2003

Data for: Bad news is bad news - information effects and the socio-political acceptance of new technologies in electricity transmission

CSV-data and the R-File used for the analyses presented in the pape

Data for: Bad news is bad news - information effects and the socio-political acceptance of new technologies in electricity transmission

CSV-data and the R-File used for the analyses presented in the paperTHIS DATASET IS ARCHIVED AT DANS/EASY, BUT NOT ACCESSIBLE HERE. TO VIEW A LIST OF FILES AND ACCESS THE FILES IN THIS DATASET CLICK ON THE DOI-LINK ABOV

Data for: Bad news is bad news - information effects and the socio-political acceptance of new technologies in electricity transmission

The data set was collected in Switzerland in 2016. A trilingual survey on future energy provision in Switzerland collected 8’287 interviews from a repre-sentative sample provided by the Federal Office of Statistics; respondents where invited by postal mail to participate in the online survey. After three invitations, the response rate was at 41.7%. The data set "OHL_LUP" is a subsample of this larger sample. The 1’129 respondents (randomly drawn from the overall sample) received a module on the acceptance of (hybrid) high voltage lines.THIS DATASET IS ARCHIVED AT DANS/EASY, BUT NOT ACCESSIBLE HERE. TO VIEW A LIST OF FILES AND ACCESS THE FILES IN THIS DATASET CLICK ON THE DOI-LINK ABOV