Vulnerability and economic re-orientation: rhetoric and in reality in Hungary’s “Chinese opening”

To what extent do Euroskeptic parties in Eastern and Central Europe have viable alternatives to the European Union and the broad basket of liberal policies promoted by the EU? In recent years, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has used his overwhelming parliamentary majorities to chart a partially new course, and this article inventories one aspect of this new course. The article asks whether Hungary can gain any potential benefits from closer links to China as a partial replacement for resources that might not be available (or that might be lost) from its more conventional European partners to the west. Orbán has often justified both radical constitutional change and economic nationalism as powerful medicines to push back against Hungary’s vulnerability at the hands of its foreign and domestic enemies. In this context, China emerged as both a potential source of new revenue and rhetorical trope that seemed to fit in a broader Fidesz discourse of an “Eastern opening.” This article makes a first attempt to separate rhetoric and reality. It first explores how the ongoing consolidation of illiberalism in Hungary has now also sparked a geopolitical repositioning through the “Eastern opening” during Fidesz’s second term. Second, it seeks to understand the theoretical proposition that new sources of external funding—including FDI and government bond purchases—can help enable a state to execute such a broad geopolitical shift. To do so, it develops empirical material from the fascinating Hungarian efforts to position themselves as a major beneficiary of Chinese engagement with Europe. The article concludes that Orbán’s policies have indeed been broadly consistent with his party’s new rhetoric, but it also concludes that the amount of Chinese investment is, in aggregate, still modest to date. </jats:p

Side Payments Over Solidarity: Financing the Poor Cousins in Germany and the EU. ACES Cases No 2006.2

What happens when governments that have benefited from programs to redistribute money from richer to poorer states are faced with the prospect of being redefined as a “richer state” themselves? In recent years, such a situation has confronted the traditionally poorer states of Western Germany and the traditionally poorer nations of the European Union. Both have had to worry that systems of financial solidarity that benefited them in the past might change to benefit a new set of potential (and arguably needier) recipients. In the German case, reforms of the tax equalization system might channel funds to the new eastern Länder while in the EU case, reforms of the structural funds might channel funds to states in Central and Eastern Europe. It turns out that funding was generous in the East German case but decidedly not in the CEE case. Why? Neither partisanship nor feelings of solidarity towards these “poor cousins” seem to have much explanatory purchase. Rather, the strong institutional positions of the traditionally poorer states in both cases, meant that the key factors shaping the outcomes are the electoral exposure of the respective central governments and the presence or absence of hard budget constraints on that political center. The differences in process and outcomes have important implications for the study of federalism

The Dilemmas of Diffusion: Institutional Transfer & the Remaking of Vocational Training Practices in Eastern Germany, CES Germany & Europe Working Papers, No. 05.10, 1996

Through a case study of the diffusion of the celebrated West Gennan "dual system" of vocational training to the territory of the fonner German Democratic Republic, we develop the argument that local sociopolitical relations matter crucially for the successful transfer and implementation of institutional arrangements. Notwithstanding massive levels of government funding, the presence of complementary supports, and the concerted efforts of Ger­many's social partners, the dual system is experiencing significant difficulties in the new federal states of the East. These difficulties are not due simply to the particular politics of unification (the wholesale transfer of West German institutions whether or not they were appropriate to Eastern Germany) nor even simply to the paucity of dynamic private firms capable of and willing to train new apprentices. The difficulties stem also from the under­ lying weaknesses of the East German sociopolitical infrastructure on which the entire dual system rests. This. hy­ pothesis is elaborated and substantiated through a range of data on training in the East and especially through the use of detailed case studies of Leipzig and Chemrutz

Uncertainty and the dangers of monocultures in regulation, analysis, and practice

Uncertainty is endemic to innovative economies and complex societies, but policymakers underestimate how damaging this is for many of their guiding assumptions. In particular, the discourse of best practice, “global solutions for global problems,” and regulatory harmonization becomes questionable when there is substantial uncertainty about the future. This uncertainty makes it impossible to know what best practice will be and increases the danger that harmonization will result in highly correlated errors and shared analytical blind spots. The transnational harmonization of regulation has well-known advantages, but – especially in technocratic policy areas – also creates vulnerability to unexpected challenges by constraining how we think as well as homogenizing how we act. Faced with uncertainty, policymakers should be wary of monocultures in regulation, analysis, and practice, and instead focus on managing policy diversity to limit its costs. This paper’s theoretical argument is grounded in philosophy, the history of ideas, and even biology. However, we also present empirical examples and consider some implications for political theory

The epistemics of populism and the politics of uncertainty

This paper discusses epistemic aspects of populism – especially its link with radical uncertainty and the tribal construction of facts – that have so far received relatively little attention. We argue that populism is less a backward-looking phenomenon feeding off existing grievances than a narrative-based reaction to an increasingly unsettled future. Many economic factors isolated as causes of populism – especially rapid technological innovation, deregulation, and the globalisation of networks – entail a high degree of indeterminacy in social systems; and the corresponding uncertainty facing voters is a catalyst for many of the pathologies of populism isolated in the literature. In particular, uncertainty undermines the credibility of experts, while the disorientation and anxiety it induces increase reliance on simple narratives to structure expectations. The paper explores the role of narrative entrepreneurs, the relationship between narratives and power, and the dynamics of narrative coups designed to create alternative facts and perform a new reality

Germany and the Eurocrisis: The timing of politics and the politics of timing. ACES Cases No. 2014.3

This paper speculates on the future of the euro. It uses Germany as a prism for the discussion about what might be done next to bolster the Euro. Researching the future—always a challenging task—is made harder when multiple state actors contend for prominence on the basis of shifting coalitions at home, all while interacting at an international level. That said, almost everyone accepts that German choices will play the central role in the path ultimately chosen. This paper thus foregrounds Germany’s role in shaping the way ahead, and it does so through an explicitly political framework focused primarily on the electoral implausibility of an alternative German policy course

Why do doctored images distort memory?

Doctored images can cause people to believe in and remember experiences that never occurred, yet the underlying mechanism(s) responsible are not well understood. How does compelling false evidence distort autobiographical memory? Subjects were filmed observing and copying a Research Assistant performing simple actions, then they returned 2 days later for a memory test. Before taking the test, subjects viewed video-clips of simple actions, including actions that they neither observed nor performed earlier. We varied the format of the video-clips between-subjects to tap into the source-monitoring mechanisms responsible for the ‘doctored-evidence effect.’ The distribution of belief and memory distortions across conditions suggests that at least two mechanisms are involved: doctored images create an illusion of familiarity, and also enhance the perceived credibility of false suggestions. These findings offer insight into how external evidence influences source-monitoring

Success in slow motion: The Europeanization of Romanian child protection policy

Abstract This paper analyzes the influence of the European Union (EU) through a qualitative case study of child protection policy in Romania. This is a particularly tough case for the growing &quot;Europeanization&quot; literature. Prior research has called attention to several factors that promote Europeanization, including the presence of a pro-reform domestic coalition, the clarity and consistency of the EU&apos;s own legislative targets, a state&apos;s own prior involvement in the setting of European standards, a strong consensus among EU member states backing the European position, and strong non-European support for EU initiatives. According to these propositions, Romanian child protection seemed to provide a worst case scenario for Europeanization, as initially none of these conditions held. And yet the paper shows that substantial Europeanization occurred anyway. We argue that the EU experienced a very slow start with Romania but that it cultivated an opposition that responded to EU initiatives when that opposition took power. Moreover, the EU found three &quot;workarounds&quot; to the obstacles just noted: it asserted legislative targets it did not possess itself, invented new policy tools, and drew protection for its most controversial policy from another international organization, the ECHR. Our central theoretical claim is that external pressure requires internal accommodation in order to have lasting effects. The claim has important implications for the diffusion and conditionality debates

A mega-analysis of memory reports from eight peer-reviewed false memory implantation studies

Understanding that suggestive practices can promote false beliefs and false memories forchildhood events is important in many settings (e.g., psychotherapeutic, medical, legal). The generalizability of findings from memory implantation studies has been questioned due to variability in estimates across studies. Such variability is partly due to false memories having been operationalized differently across studies and to differences in memory induction techniques. We explored ways of defining false memory based on memory science and developed a reliable coding system that we applied to reports from eight published implantation studies (N=423). Independent raters coded transcripts using seven criteria: accepting the suggestion, elaboration beyond the suggestion, imagery, coherence, emotion, memory statements, and not rejecting the suggestion. Using this scheme, 30.4% of cases were classified as false memories and another 23% were classified as having accepted the event to some degree. When the suggestion included self-relevant information, an imagination procedure, and was not accompanied by a photo depicting the event, the memory formation rate was 46.1%. Our research demonstrates a useful procedure for systematically combining data that are not amenable to meta-analysis, and provides the most valid estimate of false memory formation and associated moderating factors within the implantation literature to date

False claims about false memory research

Pezdek and Lam [Pezdek, K. & Lam, S. (2007). What research paradigms have cognitive psychologists used to study “False memory,” and what are the implications of these choices? Consciousness and Cognition] claim that the majority of research into false memories has been misguided. Specifically, they charge that false memory scientists have been (1) misusing the term “false memory,” (2) relying on the wrong methodologies to study false memories, and (3) misapplying false memory research to real world situations. We review each of these claims and highlight the problems with them. We conclude that several types of false memory research have advanced our knowledge of autobiographical and recovered memories, and that future research will continue to make significant contributions to how we understand memory and memory errors