Krise oder Unterstützung der (repräsentativen) Demokratie in Deutschland? Die Entwicklung der letzten zwei Jahrzehnte 1991-2018

Mehr als 3 Jahrzehnte sind seit Beginn der wirtschaftlichen und politischen Umbrüche in Osteuropa und der Wiedervereinigung Deutschlands vergangen. Doch auch heute noch sind Fragen über die Verfassungswirklichkeiten der "neuen" Demokratien sowie über die Werte, Normen und Einstellungen der Menschen von Relevanz. In Deutschland zeigen sich weiterhin Unterschiede zwischen Ost- und West, zum Beispiel im Anteil sogenannter "unzufriedener DemokratInnen": Während diese die Demokratie stützen, haben sie häufig nur wenig Vertrauen in politische Institutionen wie in das Parlament oder die Regierung (vgl. Klingemann 2014). Der vorliegende Beitrag setzt den Fokus auf die Frage, wie sich allgemeine Bewertungen von PolitikerInnen in Bezug zur Erfüllung wichtiger demokratischer Prinzipien auf die Zufriedenheit mit der Demokratie auswirken. Dazu werden Befragungsdaten aus der Allgemeinen Bevölkerungsstudie (Allbus) genutzt, die zwischen 1988 und 2018 erhoben wurden. Es zeigt sich, dass Bewertungen "der Politiker" in Bezug zu ihrem Eingehen auf die Menschen (Responsivität) sowie in Bezug zur Vertretung des Volkes (Repräsentativität) die Demokratiezufriedenheit maßgeblich mit beeinflussen. Für AnhängerInnen der Partei "Die Linke" und der AfD sind die Bewertungen von Responsivität und Repräsentativität auf die Demokratiezufriedenheit teilweise von noch stärkerer Bedeutung. Mit der Untersuchung von Einstellungen zu politischen Prozessen legt der Beitrag den Schwerpunkt auf einen Teil der politischen Kultur, der bisher in der Forschung weniger Beachtung gefunden hat

Nonlinear response speedup in bimodal visual-olfactory object identification

Multisensory processes are vital in the perception of our environment. In the evaluation of foodstuff, redundant sensory inputs not only assist the identification of edible and nutritious substances, but also help avoiding the ingestion of possibly hazardous substances. While it is known that the non- chemical senses interact already at early processing levels, it remains unclear whether the visual and olfactory senses exhibit comparable interaction effects. To address this question, we tested whether the perception of congruent bimodal visual-olfactory objects is facilitated compared to unimodal stimulation. We measured response times (RT) and accuracy during speeded object identification. The onset of the visual and olfactory constituents in bimodal trials was physically aligned in the first and perceptually aligned in the second experiment. We tested whether the data favored coactivation or parallel processing consistent with race models. A redundant-signals effect was observed for perceptually aligned redundant stimuli only, i.e., bimodal stimuli were identified faster than either of the unimodal components. Analysis of the RT distributions and accuracy data revealed that these observations could be explained by a race model. More specifically, visual and olfactory channels appeared to be operating in a parallel, positively dependent manner. While these results suggest the absence of early sensory interactions, future studies are needed to substantiate this interpretation

No Shortcut To Voting. The Limited Influence of Parties’ Left-Right Positions on Voting Behavior

Spatial theories of voting are loaded with two assumptions that empirically do not necessarily hold. The first one links to its basic idea that citizens vote for the party that would best serve their preferences. What is mostly neglected is the level of information and cognitive capacities that are necessary for this idealized rational voting. To compare parties’ political (or ideological) positions with one another and to one’s own preferences can be very demanding, especially in multiparty settings. The second problematic assumption of spatial voting theory is that it takes political positions for granted as if they were static. This might be due to the spatial model of party competition that explains why, in the long run, parties take equilibria positions that will remain stable over time. Empirically, we can, however, observe that parties’ electoral competition does lead to position dynamics, especially if new parties become competitive players. This is the truer for young party systems where the party competition space and position taking is not that settled, yet. It is hence interesting to ask what happens with voters’ perceptions and preferences after parties have shifted positions, a question that has been overlooked at large by research on voting behavior. My thesis contributes to filling this gap of research, bridging insights from the political competition and the spatial, “rational” voting literature. I argue that voters need a good level of political sophistication to keep updated on party positions and take “rational” voting decisions. Using survey data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) and data on parties’ left-right positions (Franzmann and Kaiser 2006; 2016), based on the Party Manifesto Project (CMP) (Volkens 2013), I investigate parties’ position shifts’ impact on voters’ perceptions of left-right positions, how different kinds of political sophistication, factual knowledge, the differentiation between parties’ left-right positions and the precision of perceptions, determine citizens’ electoral participation, and if the precision of left-right perceptions increases rational reactions to parties’ position’ shifts. Overall, the thesis shows that single parties’ position shifts can increase the precision with which voters perceive party positions, but the stronger multiple parties shift in sum, it is hard for voters to keep updated. Voters’ often limited perceptions of parties’ positions and voters’ party loyalties are key answers to why they often seemingly do not react to parties’ shifts with “rational” voting

Taste Quality Decoding Parallels Taste Sensations

SummaryIn most species, the sense of taste is key in the distinction of potentially nutritious and harmful food constituents and thereby in the acceptance (or rejection) of food. Taste quality is encoded by specialized receptors on the tongue, which detect chemicals corresponding to each of the basic tastes (sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and savory [1]), before taste quality information is transmitted via segregated neuronal fibers [2], distributed coding across neuronal fibers [3], or dynamic firing patterns [4] to the gustatory cortex in the insula. In rodents, both hardwired coding by labeled lines [2] and flexible, learning-dependent representations [5] and broadly tuned neurons [6] seem to coexist. It is currently unknown how, when, and where taste quality representations are established in the cortex and whether these representations are used for perceptual decisions. Here, we show that neuronal response patterns allow to decode which of four tastants (salty, sweet, sour, and bitter) participants tasted in a given trial by using time-resolved multivariate pattern analyses of large-scale electrophysiological brain responses. The onset of this prediction coincided with the earliest taste-evoked responses originating from the insula and opercular cortices, indicating that quality is among the first attributes of a taste represented in the central gustatory system. These response patterns correlated with perceptual decisions of taste quality: tastes that participants discriminated less accurately also evoked less discriminated brain response patterns. The results therefore provide the first evidence for a link between taste-related decision-making and the predictive value of these brain response patterns

Lernprozesse im Kontext von UN-Weltgipfeln: Die Vergesellschaftung internationalen Regierens

In diesem Beitrag wird eine Forschungsperspektive entwickelt, die Weltgipfel der Vereinten Nationen als organisierte Handlungszusammenhänge betrachtet in denen sich Lernprozesse auf supranationaler Ebene vollziehen. Damit wird ein neuer analytischer Blickwinkel auf die Einbeziehung nichtstaatlicher Akteure vorgeschlagen, der die Dynamik internationalen Regierens zum Ausgangspunkt nimmt. Die Gipfeltreffen der Vereinten Nationen sind weit mehr als Foren für zwischenstaatliches Verhandeln, denn zivilgesellschaftliche und privatwirtschaftliche Akteure haben in der Willensbildung und Entscheidungsfindung über globale Probleme deutlich an Gewicht gewonnen. Lernprozesse bewegen sich in diesem Kontext zwischen den strukturellen Voraussetzungen internationaler Willensbildung und Handlung, was zu einem besonderen Interesse für die Art und Weise führt, wie Regeln der internationalen Willensbildung interpretiert, angewendet, reinterpretiert und reformuliert oder gar ignoriert werden. Mit Theorien des Organisationslernens können so die förderlichen und hinderlichen Bedingungen untersucht werden, unter denen die Einbindung nichtstaatlicher Akteure zu komplexeren Verständnissen von globalen Problemen und sachgerechteren Lösungen beiträgt und eine breitere Akzeptanz der getroffenen Entscheidungen in Reichweite rückt. -- This paper proposes an approach to studying world summits of the United Nations as spaces for organizational learning at the supranational level. Such summits offer the opportunity to examine the dynamics of global governance with a wide variety of actors beyond the traditional nation-state representatives in international affairs because numerous stakeholders from business and civil society participate in the international negotiations and deliberations about global issues. Summits function through rules and routines, so learning processes in UN summits can be observed by tracking how their rules of procedure are interpreted, applied, reinterpreted and reformulated, or even ignored, during the process of international negotiations and deliberations. Taking an organizational learning perspective sheds light on factors enabling or impeding the ability of multiple collective actors to develop effective and legitimate ways of addressing global issues.

DNA-stable isotope probing (DNA-SIP) identifies marine sponge-associated bacteria actively utilizing dissolved organic matter (DOM)

Sponges possess exceptionally diverse associated microbial communities and play a major role in (re)cycling of dissolved organic matter (DOM) in marine ecosystems. Linking sponge‐associated community structure with DOM utilization is essential to understand host–microbe interactions in the uptake, processing, and exchange of resources. We coupled, for the first time, DNA‐stable isotope probing (DNA‐SIP) with 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing in a sponge holobiont to identify which symbiotic bacterial taxa are metabolically active in DOM uptake. Parallel incubation experiments with the sponge Plakortis angulospiculatus were amended with equimolar quantities of unlabelled ((12)C) and labelled ((13)C) DOM. Seven bacterial amplicon sequence variants (ASVs), belonging to the phyla PAUC34f, Proteobacteria, Poribacteria, Nitrospirae, and Chloroflexi, were identified as the first active consumers of DOM. Our results support the predictions that PAUC34f, Poribacteria, and Chloroflexi are capable of organic matter degradation through heterotrophic carbon metabolism, while Nitrospirae may have a potential mixotrophic metabolism. We present a new analytical application of DNA‐SIP to detect substrate incorporation into a marine holobiont with a complex associated bacterial community and provide new experimental evidence that links the identity of diverse sponge‐associated bacteria to the consumption of DOM