El futuro de la industria de agua en el mundo

En el presente artículo se expone una visión personal, adquirida en buena medida desde la responsabilidad de dirigir la DVGW (la asociación alemana de compañías de distribución de agua y gas, que agrupa a varios miles de socios) sobre el futuro de la industria del agua en el mundo en general y en Europa en particular, a la luz de la Directiva Marco del Agua. La idea que preside el artículo es que cada país debe establecer los mecanismos necesarios para, a partir de sus peculiaridades y del conocimiento de la problemática de la industria del agua, garantizar en el tiempo la sostenibilidad de tan trascendental actividad

Embedded and defective democracies

In the literature on democratization the mainstream of theoretical and empirical consolidology uses the dichotomy autocracy versus democracy. Democracy is generally conceived of as 'electoral democracy'. This simple dichotomy does not allow a distinction between consolidated liberal democracies and their diminished sub-types. However, over half of all the new electoral democracies represent specific variants of diminished sub-types of democracy, which can be called defective democracies. Starting from the root concept of embedded democracies, which consists of five interdependent partial regimes (electoral regime, political rights, civil rights, horizontal accountability, effective power to govern), the article distinguishes between four diminished sub-types of defective democracy: exclusive democracy, illiberal democracy, delegative democracy and tutelary democracy. It can be shown that defective democracies are by no means necessarily transitional regimes. They tend to form stable links to their economic and societal environment and are often seen by considerable parts of the elites and the population as an adequate institutional solution to the specific problems of governing 'effectively'. As long as this equilibrium between problems, context and power lasts, defective democracies will survive for protracted periods of time

Past, Present and Future of Democracy - Policy Review

The EU’s framework programmes for research and innovation have devoted significant investments towards the study of democracy. This review presents findings from framework programme projects and in general takes stock of European research on the subject matter. It provides a mapping of results, evidence and recommendations, and assesses the needs and pertinent foci for future European research. It aims to build on areas of research where there is already a good deal of knowledge. At the same time, it focuses on those areas where there are gaps in our knowledge about the workings of and present threats to democracy

Who is the sovereign?

Fundamental rights are being restricted to combat the pandemic. Can we question these measures' appropriateness

Freedom and equality in democracies: is there a trade-off?

In political philosophy, economic theory and public discourse, there is a seemingly endless debate on what the essence of equality and freedom is and what relation between the two is essential to a good political order. Views range from the conviction that too much socio-economic equality jeopardises freedom to the position that a certain level of equality is necessary for the proper realisation of freedom. Building on these conflicting normative claims, we look at data from more than 50 established and emerging democracies for a period of more than 20 years to investigate whether there is indeed a trade-off between freedom and equality or whether they are mutually reinforcing. In the process, we distinguish between two types of equality – political and socio-economic. Our findings suggest that there is a positive relationship between freedom and both types of equality – even if we control for the level of economic development

Autocracies at critical junctures: a model for the study of dictatorial regimes

"How can authoritarianism in an age of democratization survive? What are the critical junctures when a dictatorship becomes less stable and potentially fails? In a project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), three pillars of stability of autocratic rule are identified: legitimacy, co-optation, and repression. Referring to historical institutionalism's key concept of critical juncture, the hypothesis is based on the observation that these junctures become regime threatening when a serious crisis in one pillar occurs and the two other pillars can no longer sufficiently compensate this instability." (author's abstract)"Wie lässt sich die Stabilität diktatorischer Regime erklären, wie der Moment entscheidender Instabilität oder des Falls einer Diktatur? Das ist die Ausgangsfrage eines WZB-Projekts über critical junctures, der Phase, in der sich die Zukunft autokratischer Herrschaft entscheidet. Entwickelt wird hier ein Drei-Säulen-Modell als Grundlage für differenzierte Einzelanalysen. Dabei werden die tragenden Säulen jeder Diktatur (Legitimität, Kooptation, Repression) und die Wechselwirkungen analysiert." (Autorenreferat

Illiberalism, populism and democracy in East and West

The emergence and persistence of right-wing populist parties (RWPs) in almost all advanced democracies in Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and across the Atlantic is a result of a new cleavage that revolves around the question of how open borders should be for goods, services, capital, migrants, refugees, human rights, and the transfer of political power to supranational institutions: Cosmopolitans opt for opening the nation states’ borders, while communitarians prefer more closed and controlled borders in a broader sense. An economic and cultural-discursive representation gap on the communitarian side allowed RWPs to enter the political stage along this cleavage. The composition of their electorate, their thematic focus and their discourse support our hypothesis. We demonstrate that whether RWPs pose a danger for democracy crucially depends on whether they are in government or opposition and whether the context is that of well-established or less consolidated democracies. We also discuss whether polarization is deemed harmful to democracy. RWPs can indeed have a positive impact on a re-intensified political participation. However, if the illiberalism of RWPs dominates policies, politics, and the political discourse in less consolidated democracies, such as in Hungary and Poland, liberal democracy is in danger