Removing conceptual blinders: Under what conditions does the ‘democratic deficit’ affect institutional design decisions?

This paper pursues two objectives, one theoretical the other empirical. First, by keeping separate two grand strands in the EU studies literature, one on the design and reform of EU institutions and the other on the EU’s ‘democratic deficit’, EU scholars are foreclosing the opportunity to address a hitherto unanswered question: When and under what conditions does the ‘democratic deficit’ – as it is perceived by political elites in the member states – carry institutional design implications? Does the ‘democratic deficit’ really matter to political elites, and if this is the case, how does it matter? Will it inform political elites’ preferences and choices for institutional design and change? By conceptualising the ‘democratic deficit’ as a value of the independent variable, we are guided to ask when and under what conditions it informs decisions for institutional design and reform. This paper will develop a set of propositions linking political elites’ perceptions about a ‘democratic deficit’ and their institutional design preferences. Secondly, to test the plausibility of these propositions, they will be subjected to empirical scrutiny. The paper shows that the creation and empowerment of the European Parliament can be accounted for by applying the propositions elaborated in this paper. Hence, a question that has puzzled students of European integration since the inception of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) – why national governments have successively bestowed the European Parliament (EP) with powers (supervisory, budgetary, and legislative) – can only be answered by exploring the conditions under which the ‘democratic deficit’ – as perceived by political elites – will carry institutional design implications.constitution building; democracy; ideas; legitimacy; non-majoritarian institutions; treaty reform; European Parliament

A Collaborative Lecture in Information Retrieval for Students at Universities in Germany and Switzerland

K3, work in progress, is an acronym for Kollaboration (collaboration), Kommunikation (communication), and Kompetenz (competence). K3 provides a platform in the context of knowledge management to support collaborative knowledge production in learning environments. The underlying hypothesis states that collaborative discourse conciliates information as well as communication competence in learning contexts. The collaborative, communicative paradigm of K3 is implemented by asynchronous communication tools as a means of constructivist learning methodology. In this paper we will describe a K3 course. The lecture was organized and carried out at two places in two different countries (Germany and Switzerland) with students from different universities in the context of Library and Information Science. The paper informs about the management of the lecture and about the problems we had to run the lecture at two places. The circumstances in coordinating the presentations, the exercises, the examinations and evaluation, and the time schedule are presented. The conclusions of the lecturers and the results of a questionnaire for the students are explained in detail

The LIOn's share: How the Liberal International Order Contributes to its Own Legitimacy Crisis. Harvard CES Open Forum Series2019-2020

The liberal international order (LIO) is experiencing a legitimacy crisis in its Western heartland. What causes this crisis? Existing approaches focus on the LIO’s unequal allocation of wealth and values that produces losers and thus breeds dissatisfaction. Yet, why this dissatisfaction translates into a delegitimation of the order rather than a contestation over policies remains unaccounted for. Complementing the cultural and economic backlash hypotheses, this paper advances an institutionalist explanationfor the current crisis of the LIO, which accounts for the growing resistance to the LIO with a political backlash hypothesis. Our argument is that the institutional characteristics of the LIO’s political order trigger self-undermining processes by inciting opposition that cannot be politically accommodated and is thus bound to turn into polity contestation. In particular, we hold that IOs’ predominantly technocratic legitimation rationale on the one hand, and their increasing political authority with distributional effects on the other, create a democracy gap. It implies that avenues to absorb opposition through input channels are largely missing and thus incite the erosion of the LIO’s general acceptance. We illustrate the plausibility of this argument with evidence from the European Union (EU) as well as the international regimes on trade and human rights

Why the European Parliament has a better gender balance than national parliaments

Across Europe there is a wide variation in the percentage of female representatives in national parliaments, with the gender balance typically skewed toward male representatives. But what can the European Parliament tell us about mechanisms for ensuring a better gender balance? Jessica Fortin-Rittberger and Berthold Rittberger write that there is a clear ‘gender gap’ between the European Parliament and national parliaments, with the European Parliament consistently containing a higher percentage of female representatives than national parliaments overall. The exact reasons for this are unclear, however, and may relate to the candidate recruitment procedures employed by political parties

The Hypertext Internet Connection: E-mail, Online Search, Gopher

In this paper we show how to handle and organize the large amount of information accessible through the Internet or other public communication networks in a hypertext environment. The C(K)onstance-Hypertext-System (KHS) uses typed units to indicate the differences and the content and structure of information, comprising text, forms, images pointers to external information. We show how to imbed Internet services, which usual require rather different interaction styles, such as point-to-point communication (e-mail query formulation (online databases) or browsing (Gopher) into the uniform interaction model of the KHS. The integration of Internet services in an open hypertext environment produces value-adding effects which are also discussed. (DIPF/Orig.

Recruitment procedures shape the gender composition of party lists in European Parliament elections

Different countries select their Members of the European Parliament in different manners, with Britain opting for a party list system based on regional (in the case of England) and national constituencies (in the cases of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland). The European Parliament has better gender representation than most legislatures, however as Jessica Fortin-Rittberger, Berthold Rittberger, and Sarah Dingler argue, the recruitment procedures used by parties shape the gender composition of the lists that prospective MEPs appear on

Explaining post-communist founding elections results through initial state capacity

While a consensus is emerging about the importance of state building and state capacity for democratization in both post-communist and developing countries, comparatively few explicit attempts have been made to provide empirical support for the relationship between the two concepts. Even more problematic is to find an explicit causal mechanism linking high state capacity with democracy. State capacity can be understood as the capability of the state to penetrate society, regulate social relations, extract resources, and appropriate or use resources in determined ways. In other words, strong states have high capabilities to complete these tasks, while weak states struggle to compete with private actors over extraction and appropriation of resources. But what makes strong states more likely to be democratic and, in turn, weak states less likely to be democratic? This article explores whether or not state capacity correlates with the outcomes of founding elections, that is, the first open elections in post-communist countries. In other words, do voters in states with higher initial capacity also tend to “throw the communist rascals out” in the founding elections? (author's abstract

Building application dependent hypertexts

The Konstanz Hypertext System offers a domain-specific developmental environment for the construction of large hypertexts. Through its flexibility, the structuring means employed in the Konstanz Hypertext System offers an instrument which permits one to respond directly to the demands relevant to specific applications in the construction of hypertexts. Especially the integration of information obtained from external resources is emphasized. After a discussion of the information sources which can be connected to the KHS a short introduction to the hypertext model of the KHS is provided. The role of structuring means in the integration of external information is pointed out. The scope of possible applications and the flexibility of the system are demonstrated by the following three comprehensive examples: resource discovery of online databases, management of electronic mail and the compilation of an issue of an electronic journal. (DIPF/Orig.

Shifting Europe's Boundaries: mass media, public opinion and the enlargement of the EU

This article demonstrates that public attitudes towards EU enlargement are strongly affected by exposure to the mass media. It reveals `priming' effects by showing that media exposure affects the standards by which individuals evaluate the accession of potential candidate countries. To gain a more refined understanding about media effects on enlargement attitudes, we analytically separate three different factors that underlie EU enlargement support for a given candidate country: its economic performance, its state of democracy and its perceived cultural `match' with the EU. Employing an experimental design, we probe the media-induced effects of these factors on EU enlargement attitudes

Ontologiebasierter Forschungsführer für die Bildungsforschung

Dieser Beitrag beschreibt das Vorhaben, Semantic Web-Technologien für den Aufbau eines ontologiebasierten Forschungsführers einzusetzen. Heterogene, verteilte Datenquellen des Informationszentrums Bildung sollen auf diese Weise semantisch integriert, angereichert und über entsprechende Recherchemöglichkeiten zugänglich gemacht werden. Die einzelnen Schritte zur Umsetzung des geplanten Projekts werden vorgestellt, wobei insbesondere auf zu erwartende Mehrwerte gegenüber der aktuellen Datenquellennutzung eingegangen wird. (DIPF/Autor).This paper elaborates on the objective to use semantic web technologies for the implementation of an ontology based research guide. It aims at a semantic integration and enrichment of heterogeneous, distributed data sources of the Information Center for Education, thus making them accessible through appropriate retrieval functionalities. The individual steps of the planned project are presented with a particular focus on the added value that can be expected in comparison with the current use of the data sources. (DIPF/Author)