Leaving the Space - Opening the Gap? Electoral Effects of Parties' and Voters' Repositioning

Examining the German case in the wider Western European context for the period 1996-2017, the chapter investigates the role of supply and demand factors for vote switching in general and switching to right-wing populist parties in particular. Combining survey data from the CSES with party data from the Manifesto Project, the chapter shows that the growing success of right-wing populist parties, in Germany just as in other Western European countries, was a response to programmatic moves of mainstream center-left and center-right parties to the left. In general, voters’ movements between parties did not follow a symmetric pattern. Changes to parties further left came about as responses to increasing voter-party distances on the socio-economic dimension. In the more recent past, switches to parties further right and, in particular, right-wing populist parties like the German AfD became more frequent, and they were associated with increasing distances on the socio-cultural dimension

Do populist values or civic values drive support for referendums in Europe?

Representative democracy gives voters the right to influence who governs but its influence on policy making is only indirect. Free and fair referendums give voters the right to decide a policy directly. Elected representatives usually oppose referendums as redundant at best and as undermining their authority at worst. Democratic theorists tend to take electing representatives as normal and as normatively superior. The nominal association of popular decision making and populism has strengthened this negative view. Public opinion surveys show substantial support for holding referendums on important issues. Two major theories offer contrasting explanations for popular support for referendums; they reflect populist values or a commitment to the civic value of participation. This innovative paper tests an integrated model of both theories by the empirical analysis of a 17-country European survey. There is substantial support for all three civic hypotheses: referendum endorsement is positively influenced by attitudes towards participation, democratic ideals and whether elected representatives are perceived as responsive. By contrast, there is no support for populist hypotheses that the socioeconomically weak and excluded favour referendums and minimal support for the effect of extreme ideologies. The conclusion shows that most criticisms of referendums also apply to policy making by elected representatives. While referendums have limits on their use, there is a democratic argument for holding such ballots on major issues to see whether or not a majority of voters endorse the choice of their nominal representatives

Pumped quantum systems: immersion fluids of the future?

Quantum optical techniques may yield immersion fluids with high indices of refraction without absorption. We describe one such technique in which a probe field experiences a large index of refraction with amplification rather than absorption, and examine its practicality for an immersion lithography application. Enhanced index can be observed in a three-level system with a tunable, near-resonant, coherent probe and incoherent pump field that inverts population of the probe transition. This observation contradicts the common belief that large indices of refraction are impossible without absorption, however it is well in accord with existing electromagnetic theory and practice. Calculations show that a refractive index >> 2 is possible with practical experimental parameters. A scheme with an incoherent mixture of pumped and unpumped atoms is also examined, and is seen to have a lower refractive index (~2) accompanied by neither gain nor loss.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in J. Vac. Sci. Tech. B, Nov/Dec 2005 (full reference not known yet

Support for insider parties: The role of political trust in a longitudinal-comparative perspective

European democracies have experienced drastic changes in electoral competition. Voter support for insider parties that have traditionally governed has declined while support for radical and populist parties has increased. Simultaneously, citizens’ declining political trust has become a concern, as confidence in political institutions and actors is low across numerous countries. Interestingly, the linkage between political trust and support for insider parties has not been empirically established but deduced from the fact that outsider parties are often supported by dissatisfied citizens. We address this gap adopting both an institutional- and an actor-centered approach by investigating whether trust in parliaments and in parties is associated with the electoral performance of insider parties on the aggregate level. Combining different data sources in a novel way, we apply time-series cross-section models to a dataset containing 30 countries and 137 elections from 1998 to 2018. Our results show that when political trust is low, particularly institutional trust, insider parties receive less electoral support. Hence, we provide empirical evidence that decreasing levels of political trust are the downfall of insider parties, thereby opening a window of opportunity for challenging outsider parties

Aufbau eines gemeinsamen Studiengangmonitorings im Verbund Norddeutscher Universitäten

Der Verbund Norddeutscher Universitäten (VNU) verfolgt u.a. das Ziel der Verbesserung von Studium und Lehre an den Mitgliedsuniversitäten durch universitätsübergreifende Kooperation und Bündelung von Kompetenzen im Bereich der Qualitätssicherung und -entwicklung.In diese projektorientierte Zusammenarbeit reiht sich auch das jüngste Vorhaben ein. An einigen Verbunds-Universitäten wurden bereits Monitoringsysteme entwickelt und erprobt und positive Erfahrungen bezüglich der Einbindung von Studienverlaufsstatistiken in die Prozesse der Studiengang- und Qualitätsentwicklung gemacht. Bislang gab es hierzu jedoch keinen systematischen Austausch und die Vergleichbarkeit der daraus hervorgehenden Kennzahlen und Indikatoren war nicht unmittelbar gegeben, aufgrund der Individualität der entwickelten Verfahren. Vor diesem Hintergrund wurde im Juni 2018 die Arbeitsgruppe Datenmonitoring ins Leben gerufen mit dem Ziel, vor allem den Studienfächern die Möglichkeit zu eröffnen, sich über die Mitgliedsuniversitäten hinweg kennzahlenbasiert miteinander zu vergleichen

Democracy barometer: a new approach to evaluating the quality of democratic systems

How do we assess the quality of democracy in democratic systems? Like Democratic Audit UK, the Democracy Barometer team are interested in going beyond the headline fact of whether systems are democratic or not, and assessing the subtle differences that affect the quality of democracy from a citizen perspective. Here, Marc Bühlmann, Lea Heyne, Wolfgang Merkel, Lisa Müller, Saskia Ruth and Bernhard Weßels discuss the Democracy Barometer project and how it works

Entwicklung und Perspektiven der Demokratien in Ost und West: Abschlusskolloquium der Abteilung Institutionen und Sozialer Wandel mit einer Einführung von Jürgen Kocka

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Natural Language Processing im akademischen Schreibprozess - mehr Motivation durch Inspiration? Positionspapier basierend auf einer Fallstudie an der Fachhochschule Kiel

Wer den Einsatz KI-gestützter Werkzeuge zur Schreibunterstützung im akademischen Schreibprozess untersucht, betritt Neuland. Die Fülle der Tools und insbesondere deren dynamische Weiterentwicklung erschweren die Transparenz und Übersicht. Forschungsbedarf besteht insbesondere bei der Frage, in welcher Form der Einsatz dieser KI-gestützten Werkzeuge durch NaturalLanguage Processing (NLP) im Allgemeinen und Natural Language Generation (NLG) im Speziellen den akademischen Schreibprozess und das Schreibverhalten der Anwender beeinflussen wird – im Positiven wie im Negativen. Dieser Beitrag analysiert die Ergebnisse einer zweitägigen KI-Schreibwerkstatt, die im Mai 2021 mit 20 Studierenden an der Fachhochschule Kiel erstmalig durchgeführt wurde. Der Fokus war auf den Einsatz von NLG-Tools gerichtet, d.h. auf das KI-gestützte Generieren fiktiver Texte mittels frei zugänglicher Werkzeuge. Es zeigte sich, dass die Studierenden durch den Einsatz dieser innovativen KI-gestützten Schreibwerkzeuge neue Formen der Inspiration und Schreibunterstützung erlebten. Im Rahmen dieser explorativen Studie zeichnet sich ab, dass diese Werkzeuge im Sinne von Schreibassistenten den Arbeitsprozess erleichtern und auch den Studierenden mehr Freude am Schreiben vermitteln könnten. Mit Blick auf das damit einhergehende Potenzial zur Motivationssteigerung im akademischen Schreibprozess setzt die KI-Werkstatt daher Impulse für den möglichen Einsatz von KI-Tools als Teil der wissenschaftlichen Textproduktion – sowohl in der Hochschullehre als auch in der Forschung. Zugleich werden aber auch neue Forschungsfragen aufgeworfen, die sich von didaktischen Zielsetzungen bis hin zu Data Literacy und den technischen, ethischen sowie rechtlichen Aspekten erstrecken. (DIPF/Orig.)Anyone investigating the possible application of AI-based writing tools in academic writing enters uncharted territory. The abundance of tools and the dynamic development of the tool landscape render transparency and overview equally difficult. Considering the cruxial role of text production in academia, there is a particular need for research on the question of how the use of AI-based tools which use the technology of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and, in particular, Natural Language Generation (NLG), will change the academic writing process and influence the writing behaviour of users. These behavioural changes could come in many forms (both positive and negative), especially for students who may find the idea of AI-based assistance appealing when faced with the task of writing texts which adhere to the new and unfamiliar standards of higher education. This paper analyses the results of a case study conducted in May 2021 with 20 students in the form of a two-day AI writing workshop at Kiel University of Applied Sciences. The workshop focused on the use of NLG tools, i.e., on the AI-assisted creation of fictional texts using freely accessible tools. Although the workshop can only be considered an exploratory study, its results suggest that students might derive new forms of inspiration and writing support from their use of AI-assisted writing tools.These tools could facilitate the writing process and bring about more joy in writing, which might have a motivational effect on students in the academic writing process and could reduce or defuse writer’s block. At the same time, new research questions are raised, ranging from didactic objectives to data literacy and the technical, ethical and legal aspects. (DIPF/Orig.