Prof. Dr. Roland Sturm

Prof. Dr. Roland Sturm

Professor, Chairholder

Institute of Political Science
Chair of Political Science

Kochstr. 4
91054 Erlangen

Office hours

Office hours:

CV Prof. Dr. Roland Sturm.

Authored Books

Journal Articles

Book Contributions

Edited Volumes

Conference Contributions

Miscellaneous

Decentralization in the Arab World: Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan from a comparative perspective

Abstract:

Since the early 1990s we have been witnessing the emergence of government-led decentralization strategies in the Arab world, which vary considerably with regard to timing, depth, success, reach and results. Despite these empirical findings, the scholarly literature remains vague when discussing causes and consequences of governments’ decisions to further decentralize the body politic.

This is the point of departure of our research project. It focuses on experiences with strategies of administrative decentralization. Our research is embedded in the generally accepted finding of a persistence of neopatrimonial networks of patronage and clientelism in the region. We assume that policies of decentralization are guided, inspired and instrumentalized by clear-cut identifiable personal networks. They interlock the central, regional and local levels of government. The emergence and the function of decentralization processes are hence more than only the result of modifications within the constitutional architecture. The reason for political change by decentralization is a re-configuration of neopatrimonial networks, which causes a modified territorialization of power whenever the central government transfers competences down to the regions. In our project we ask, to what extent and with which social and political consequences decentralization processes shape governability in the four countries under study, and how these processes produce legitimacy beyond the traditional aim of regime survival through institutional reform. In order to investigate the consequences of decentralization for governability we use as indicator and analytical tool the governance of budgets and financial transfers to the subnational level.

Our country sample comprises Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan. These cases were selected because they vary significantly with regard to forms, functions and consequences of decentralization, but are at the same time structurally very similar (tradition of centralized statehood, similar pathways of state-building and persistence of neopatrimonial networks). Our project will provide a conceptual and empirical contribution to the still fairly underresearched questions of decentralization and its consequences in the Arab world. We aim at the identification of a middle range theoretical approach that allows us to tease out the inner logic of decentralization policies in the Arab world and which locates our research results in the existing literature of comparative research on the workings of statehood.

 

Funded by: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) (German Research Foundation)

Duration: 2017 – 2020 (project start date: 1 August 2017)
Grant:  EUR 450,000
Project team: Prof. Dr. Thomas Demmelhuber, Prof. Dr. Roland Sturm, Erik Vollmann, M.A., Miriam Bohn, M.A., Katharina Griethe

Party Politics in the German Bundesrat. Voting behaviour in the Bundesrat Committees

Abstract:

The ‘partisan capture’ of the Bundesrat has been an important topic of research on the political institutions of the Federal Republic. So far, however, it has remained difficult to determine the actual extent to which federal states (‘Länder’) governments act according to political party instead of territorial interests. A lack of empirical data is the core problem of any analysis of Bundesrat decision-making processes. The protocols of its plenary sessions register the individual positions of the Länder only as an exception. To investigate the party politicization of the Bundesrat, research has had to rely on assumptions following the political party majorities at the federal level, indirect evidence, such as the role of the Mediation Committee (‘Vermittlungsausschuss’), case studies and anecdotal evidence. The project takes a new approach as it focuses on the Bundesrat committees. Based on the official committee protocols, we have developed a dataset, containing over 51,000 decisions since the German Reunification. Using these data, we are able to scrutinize the alleged party politicization on an unprecedentedly broad empirical basis. The data analysis is accompanied by interviews with practitioners and detailed case studies of specific committees, actors and policy fields.

Supported by: German Research Foundation (DFG)

Time frame: 2017 – 2019
Funding amount:  € 242.900

Time frame: 2019 – 2020 (extension)
Funding amout: € 143.850

Project team: Prof. Dr. Roland Sturm, Hon.-Prof. Dr. Markus M. Müller, Patrick Finke, M.A., Antonios Souris, M.A., Richard Zensen, B.A.

Contributions in Journals and Edited Volumes

Conference Papers

Final DFG Project Publication

  • Finke, P., M. Müller, A. Souris & R. Sturm: Parteipolitik im Bundesrat. Der Bundesrat und seine Ausschüsse, Baden-Baden: Nomos (expected to be published in 2020).

Information about all former research projects that are available in English can be found here.

Citizenship after the Nation-State

Abstract:
„Citizenship after the Nation-State” (CANS) ist ein länderübergreifendes Projekt, in dessen Rahmen Daten in 15 Regionen aus fünf europäischen Ländern – Deutschland, Österreich, Spanien, Großbritannien und Frankreich – erhoben werden. Über eine systematische, vergleichende Umfrageforschung wird CANS es ermöglichen, darzulegen, inwieweit das klassischerweise auf die nationale Ebene bezogene „citizenship“-Konzept einen Prozess der Denationalisierung bzw. Regionalisierung durchlaufen hat. Dabei werden verschiedene theoretische Erklärungen für einen solchen Regionalisierungsprozess untersucht, anhand von Variablen wie regionaler Identität, dem Einfluss von regionalen Regierungen und regionalen wirtschaftlichen Unterschieden. Für Deutschland wird die Untersuchung in den drei Bundesländern Bayern, Thüringen und Niedersachsen ein besseres Verständnis vom Einfluss eines föderalen Regierungssystems auf die Regionalisierung von „citizenship“ – gemessen über politische Partizipation und soziale Solidarität – ermöglichen. Gerade angesichts der in Deutschland geführten Reformdebatte bezüglich eines Übergangs vom kooperativen hin zu einem kompetitiven Föderalismus ergibt sich zudem die Möglichkeit, zu überprüfen, inwieweit ein von dem kompetitiven Föderalismusmodell vorausgesetztes, stärker regionalisiertes „citizenship“-Verständnis bereits in der öffentlichen Wahrnehmung verankert ist.

Gefördert von: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
Zeitraum: 2008/2010
Fördersumme: 250.000 €
Projektteam: Prof. Dr. Roland Sturm (Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg), Prof. Dr. Dieter Roth (Universität Heidelberg), Dipl.-Pol. Julia Oberhofer (Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg)

The Network of European Competition Agencies. A three country comparison: Germany – UK – Hungary

Abstract:

The European competition policy and anti-trust legislation have changed fundamentally in the last few years. Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2003 strengthened the national administrations and courts and increased responsibilities of businesses. To implement the new regulation, the European Commission has installed a European Competition Network (ECN), consisting of the national competition authorities and the European Commission itself. Its objective is to co-ordinate efficiently the competition policies of EU member states and to create a European competition culture. The project is aimed at researching the workings and the effects of the ECN. Do national authorities really take similar decisions in comparable situations? Can an emerging common European competition culture be identified? To answer these questions, we carry out a comparative survey of German, Hungarian and UK national competition agencies. We also take a look at the European level investigating the policies of the Commission and anti-trust decisions taken so far. The project is sponsored by German Research Foundation.

Sponsored by: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
Research period: 2007/2009
Grant: 114.920 €
Team: Prof. Dr. Roland Sturm (manager), Dipl.-Pol. Ingo Schorlemmer, Dipl.-Pol. Joß Steinke, Kristina Chmelar, Patrik Stör

The Europeanisation of Regionalism in Central and Eastern Europe. A comparative investigation based on the experience of Hungary, Poland and Romania

Research Programme: “Unity in Diversity? Basics and Preconditions for a larger Europe”

Abstract:
The topic of this research project is the Europeanisation of political, social, and administrative structures in Hungary, Poland and Romania. It starts from the assumption that the Eastern enlargement of the EU has confronted the accession countries with considerable pressures to adapt to demands, formulated especially by the European Commission. The Commission is in this role because it is – generally speaking -the engine of integration and because of its special role in regional policy-making and with regard to EU enlargement policies, which it coordinates. The project assumes that the demands of enlargement lead to a process of „auto-Europeanisation“ in the accession countries, i.e. an adaptation process which anticipates the consequences of integration. The EU incentives for the modernisation of societies in the accession countries clash with geographical-administrative and political-institutional patterns of social interaction which are deeply embedded in the historical traditions of regional administrations and societies, and which for political actors are difficult to overcome. It would be wrong to assume that EU incentives for change on the one hand and political, social and administrative structures in the accession countries on the other can be brought into harmony without conflict. It is much more likely that the process of Europeanisation results in a „misfit“ or „mismatch“ of europeanised and national structures. This also means that the final result of Europeanisation will not follow one model, but will reflect national distortions and will on the regional level create a synthesis representing different regional realities in different ways.

The research project will identify the problems which result from the different expectations and different institutional demands and political cultures on the European level and among the accession countries with regard to the Europeanisation of their regions. One of the most obvious fault lines separates the work of public administrators, which is based on national traditions, and regional policies, where they are influenced by „Europe“ and are embedded in the wider context of economic policy-making. The research project investigates different regional patterns of institutional adaptation to Europeanisation. It asks how long it takes to take up challenges and how new regional realities are legitimised on the regional/ sub-national level.

The theoretical background for this kind of research can be found in the literature on European integration and the explanatory models developed here, especially when research questions focus on either the role of regions and their growing importance or the dynamics of institutional consequences of Europeanisation. Of special importance in this context are theories of the policy process, especially new institutionalism and network analysis.

The research project is very much interested in problem-solving. The compatibility of regional social and administrative developments in Central and Eastern Europe and European policies affecting the regions is one of the crucial preconditions for making the eastern enlargement of the EU a success story and for the future of a „Europe of the Regions“. The research project intends to highlight inefficiences of the process of Europeanisation and difficulties when it comes to legitimise the new realities in Central and Eastern Europe. It identifies specific national conflicts and ways to overcome these conflicts. Based on empirical research in the three countries investigated here strategic conclusions are drawn which will enable other accession countries, too, to cope with the regional challenge of Europeanisation.

Sponsored by: Volkswagen Foundation
Research period: 01.09.2003-31.08.2005
Grant: ca. Euro 248.300,-
Team: Prof. Dr. Roland Sturm (Responsible), Dr. Jürgen Dieringer (Coordination), Zsuzsanna Kicsi (Research assistant, Romania), Monika Olewinska (Research assistant, Poland)
Co-operation partners: Andrássy-Universität Budapest (Hungary), Zentralinstitut für Regionalforschung (University Erlangen-Nürnberg,) Europäisches Zentrum für Föderalismus-Forschung (Tübingen), Prof. Dr. László Csaba, Central European University, (Budapest, Hungary), Prof. Dr. Ovidiu-Coriolan Pecican (University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania), Prof. Dr. Roman Szul (University of Warsaw)

Policy Initiation and Co-ordination in Western Europe: Core Executives in France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands

Abstract:
The principal aim of the project is to describe the traditional core executives and their networks and processes, as well as their responses to the various challenges. Four major states of the European Union will be studied: France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. More especially, the project will focus on the policy ambitions of the core executives which have been triggerd by challenges, as well as on their political and institutional capacity to translate policy ambitions into co-ordinated programmes. Four main sectors will be studied: European Union policymaking, budget-making, immigration and public sector reform (including privatisation). Prof. Roland Sturm and Markus M. Müller are in charge of “budget-making” in Germany. The project will concentrate largely on the initiation, agenda-setting and formulation phases of policymaking in which core executives have been involved, and will look at the implementation and evaluation phase of programmes, only to the extent that there exists clear feedback of implementation and evaluation actors upon the programmes formally adopted.

Gefördert von: ESRC Whitehall Programme
Zeitraum: 1995/1998
Projektteam: Prof. Dr. Vincent Wright (co-manager, Nuffield College, Oxford University), Prof. Jack E. S. Hayward (co-manager, Director of the Social Studies Faculty Centre, Oxford University), Prof. Dr. Roland Sturm (Erlangen), Markus Müller (Erlangen)

 

Dr. Tim Griebel

The Cultural Political Economy of Austerity in the United Kingdom. A Critical Realist Corpus-Assisted Multimodal Discourse Analysis

 

Advisor: Prof. Dr. Roland Sturm

Austerity is a hotly debated topic within the social sciences. It cannot be reduced to spending cuts, but has to be understood as a complex social phenomenon with consequences for mental health and well-being, social equality, politics and everyday life. Some observers, therefore, speak of an “age of austerity”. Although the relevance of austerity is without doubt, the meanings that are attached to it diverge dramatically. Whereas supports argue that austerity is a rational recipe for indebted societies to achieve fiscal sustainability and economic growth, critics see in austerity a dangerous neoliberal idea that threatens human growth. As social reality is always mediated, media play a central role within the struggle between different evaluations and constructions of austerity. Not only language, but also images play an important role within this genre. But despite radical social constructivists assertions, an analysis of austerity cannot be reduced to the form of texts and images alone. On the contrary, we have to think about the role of material conditions as well because they to a large extent help us to understand the forces behind semiotic forms. The philosophical underlabourer of Critical Realism in general and of the Cultural Political Economy (CPE) approach in particular try to decode this relationship between semiotic forms and material forces that is also prominently discussed these days under the heading of “new materialism”. By incorporating the material social psychology of Erich Fromm as well as the work on multimodality, CPE shall be developed further so that an elaborated corpus assisted critical realist discourse analysis enables a deeper understanding of austerity in the United Kingdom in the period between 2010 and 2016.

Please visit my personal website for more information about this project. 

 

Dr. Thorsten Winkelmann

Protests in Infrastructure Policy

 

Advisor: Prof. Dr. Roland Sturm

 

 

Patrick Michael Dino Finke, M.A.

The working method of the Bundesrsat committees

Advisor: Prof. Dr. Roland Sturm

Up until now, the Bundesrat committees are a German constitutional body that has been largely neglected by both media and science. This is surprising since the committees play an integral part in the proceedings within the Bundesrat. The main task of the committees hereby consists of preparing decisions for the Bundesrat plenary which due to its workload usually only plays a notarial role.

The goal of this thesis therefore is to shed light on the working methods in the Bundesrat committees. To do so, the voting patterns of the Länder governments within selected committees is analyzed in a first step. By doing so, it is determined whether the voting behavior can be characterized by party conflict or by other motives. The following part of the thesis deals with the Länder representatives that are present in the committee sessions. Unlike the plenary where Länder ministers are usually present in the sessions, civil servants from either the Länder ministries or the country´s representation in Berlin dominate the committees. Moreover, it is common for those civil servants to remain responsible for the committees for many years. By conducting interviews, further insights into the work of this group of people are gained.

 

Dipl.-Pol. Florian Fößelflorian-foessel

Why was the Third Way of Social Democracy politically unsuccessful? A British-German comparison

Advisor: Prof. Dr. Roland Sturm

The research project is about the Third Way of Social Democracy in Germany (Neue Mitte) and the UK (New Labour). The term Third Way refers to a political strategy aimed at recalibrating the programmatic objectives, policy instruments and traditional core values of Social Democracy. It was created in direct response to both the socio-economic challenges imposed by globalisation and the political rise of the New Right. On the policy level, the concept of the Third Way tries to reconcile right-wing economic and left-wing social policies by advocating a varying synthesis of Keynesianism and Neoliberalism. Despite overwhelming political and electoral success at the outset of the Third Way, it meanwhile has entirely vanished as central topic of Social Democracy’s programmatic and strategic agenda. This provokes the research questions: Why was the Third Way given up? And why today both the Labour Party and the SPD reject the strategy of the Third Way?

In order to explain the reasons for the rejection of the Third Way, the modernisation processes of New Labour and the Neue Mitte are compared and analysed in the context of a strategy-based party change. Therefore, the theoretical framework sets out internal, external and policy-related factors that determine success and failure of intentional party change. The guiding hypotheses is: The programmatic, political and strategic rejection of the Third Way is in both cases the result of a complex interaction between lack of internal legitimacy, conceptual policy-failures and the loss of electoral competitiveness. The empirical part of the research project is based on guided expert interviews with political actors and academics from Germany and the UK who were directly involved or have profound expertise in the conceptual planning and political implementation of the Third Way.

 

Dipl.-Pol. Felix M. Franckefelix_francke

Netzneutralität als Nebenbedingung politischer Kommunikation in digitalen Demokratien Europas

Advisor: Prof. Dr. Roland Sturm

Dipl.-Pol. Manuel Kronschnabelmanuel-kronschnabel

From D’Hondt to Hare/Niemeyer – a study of the electoral system reform’s impact on the local party system and on current local politics in Bavaria

Advisor: Prof. Dr. Roland Sturm

In 2010 the Bavarian Parliament changed the electoral system of local government level and replaced the method for the allocation of parliamentary seats, the D’Hondt formula, with a new allocation method, the Hare/Niemeyer formula. At the Bavarian local government elections of 2014 the Hare/Niemeyer method was used for the first time. Since 2016 the majority fraction in the Bavarian Parliament has shown efforts to withdraw this change of the local electoral system for the reason, that local party systems have fragmented increasingly, which may cause the local parliaments to malfunction. However, empirical studies, which verify these assumptions, don’t exist for the local government level in Bavaria.

This dissertation will research these both questions: How fragmented are the local parliaments in Bavaria in fact? How is the structure of local politics and of local decision-making processes in Bavaria and (last) what malfunctions as a consequence of fragmentation are thinkable?

A structural analysis of the local party systems should answer the first research question about the fragmentation. This analysis will show the development of the most important characteristics of party systems since the local election in 2002 until the latest election in 2014. In this analysis there will be a focus on the impact of the electoral system reform with the change of the seats allocation method. The second research question should be answered by an empirical survey, asking mayors and members of local parliaments in Bavaria how they evaluate current local politics and fragmentation.

 

Daniel Lemmer, M.A.daniel-lemmer

Spanish Party System Change from 1977 to 2017: Position Issues and Competition

Advisor: Prof. Dr. Roland Sturm

The aim of this dissertation is to analyze the changes in the Spanish party system from 1977 until 2017 by developing a method to extract issue positions from electoral programs and to analyze the changes these undergo across time depending on the degree of political competition. The method is deductive and departs from the assumption that the primary function of political parties is not to form government, but to represent particular issues. This assumption is combined with assumptions about the expected behavior of parties gleaned from the party system change literature. Although the period under investigation ranges from 1977 to 2017, especially the later period also permits the analysis of the impact of the emergence of new parties on party behavior.

 

Constantin Schlachetzki, M.A.

Operationalizing Effectiveness and Efficiency of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Homeland Security – Government and Private Sector Measures for Enhanced Security of Select Critical Infrastructure Sectors in Germany and the United States

Advisor: Prof. Dr. Roland Sturm

Critical infrastructure is of paramount importance for the economic competitiveness, national security, and societal quality of life in industrialized countries. As a consequence, threats from cyber warfare to physical attacks abound. This dissertation aims at operationalizing the effectiveness and efficiency of protective measures and processes for hardening critical infrastructure.

Case studies and attack scenarios from two critical infrastructure sectors – maritime supply chains and chemical manufacturing – in Germany and the United States form the basis of this analysis. Microeconomic theoretical models are employed to develop a toolbox of quantitative and qualitative indicators for measuring how effectively German and U.S. protective programs secure the critical infrastructure of the homeland. A particular focus for this task rests on the minimization of potential security-relevant market failures such as interdependencies and security externalities.

The efficiency of critical infrastructure protection is subsequently evaluated based on cost-benefit-analyses. These provide indications for cost-neutral or benefit-generating homeland security investments. Quantitative benefits are calculated based on the minimization of potential human losses and economic cost of a number of attack scenarios on critical infrastructure – both from the physical security and the cyber security threat spectrum.

Martina Schlögel, M.A.martina-schloegel

Strategists in Robes. An analysis of factors that may influence judges of the German Federal Constitutional Court in light of studies examining possibly comparable influences on justices of the United States Supreme Court

Advisor: Prof. Dr. Roland Sturm

Within its jurisdiction the German Federal Constitutional Court has the power to affect fundamental questions of political and social life. While the academic world has devoted much attention to studying the subsequent effects of the court’s decisions, there has been little effort to analyze the prior influences to which the judges are exposed, and the impacts such influences may have on their decisions.

The judges of the Federal Constitutional Court have tremendous power and strive for the nimbus of impartiality and objectivity. In the case of the U.S. Supreme Court, however, intense social science research has identified many factors that have been noticeably influential on the judges’ decisions.

This dissertation is discussing those factors of influence, makes a choice of possibly relevant factors for the Federal Constitutional Court, identifies further internal and external factors, which could be relevant for the specific context of the Federal Constitutional Court, and analyzes them empirically.

 

Antonios Souris, M.A.Bild Antonios Souris

The German Bundesrat and the European Union – participation between territorial interests, party competition and administrative coordination

Advisor: Prof. Dr. Roland Sturm

Since the Single European Act and the Treaty of Maastricht, the German federal states (Länder) have contended successfully for extensive participation rights in European Union (EU) affairs, aiming at compensating them for their loss of competences due to European integration. Basic Law Article 23 provides for the involvement of the Länder. According to Basic Law Article 23(4), the Bundesrat shall participate in the decision-making process of the federation insofar as it would have been competent to do so in a comparable domestic matter or as the subject falls within the competence of the Länder. Yet, their objectives in EU affairs that have to pass the ‘bottleneck’ Bundesrat remain largely in the dark because the voting results – and hence individual positions of the Länder – are not documented in the plenary sessions. The dissertation project overcomes this empirical deficit by shifting the attention from the plenary sessions to the committees. Drawing on a new dataset that has been conducted within the scope of research project “Party Politics in the German Bundesrat. Voting behaviour in the Bundesrat Committees”, funded by the German Research Foundation, the Bundesrat’s decision-making in EU affairs will be revealed. Unlike in the plenary sessions, the committees register the individual votes of the Länder. Moreover, as the committees carry the main burden of substantive work in the Bundesrat, the complexity of its decision-making becomes more apparent in their procedures than in plenary decisions, which are of rather notarial character. This approach allows for a sophisticated analysis on the relative importance of sectoral, party political and federal interests of the Länder governments in EU affairs. It is the goal to trace decision-making both within the committees and from the committees to the plenary sessions and thus to explain the positioning of the Bundesrat in German policy towards Europe.

 

Victor Strogiesvictor-strogies

Engagement in „Lokalparteien“

Advisor: Prof. Dr. Roland Sturm

 

Tobias Thomala, M.A.tobias-thomala

Why did the Liberal Party of Canada loose its dominant position in the Canadian society and politics? (1980-2011)

Advisor: Prof. Dr. Roland Sturm

The Liberal Party of Canada is not only the sole Canadian party in the House of Commons (2018) that is existing since the founding of the Confederation (1867) but also was seen as the “natural party of government” (c.f. R. Kenneth Carty). However a series of defeats on the federal level weakened the Liberal Party since 2006. In 2011 the Liberal Party did not win enough votes to form the Official Opposition and played only a marginalized role. The Liberal Party shared this fate with other parties like the Italian Christian democracy, the Irish Fianna Fáil, the Swedish SAP and the Japanese LDP in the past. Notwithstanding the Liberal Party of Canada was reelected in the federal election of 2015 with its leader Justin Trudeau being the 23rd prime minister of Canada, it is interesting to analyze the reasons for its former loss of influence. The loss of dominance of a political party in the national party system is an interesting and relevant research object in comparative politics leading to the research question of my ongoing doctoral thesis: Why did the Liberal Party of Canada loose its dominant position? In my thesis I will try to figure out the reasons for the loss of dominance, to weight them with regard to their significance and so far as it is possible to create a general explanatory model for the loss of party dominance. I will use a mixed methods design consisting of expert interviews and statistical secondary analysis. Because I assume the explanation to be multifactorial, the causes will be subdivided in long-term structural and short-term situative causes.

Questions for the analysis on a structural level are for instance the influence of the Canadian electoral system or the influence of value change in Canada. Situative influencing factors to be analyzed are for instance the candidates and leaders of the Liberal Party and political scandals. One problem of the analysis is the classification of the factors. Interacting factors have to be considered as do the difficulty that (structural) factors can have an external dimension (e.g. the electoral system) and an internal dimension (e.g. factors associated with the party organization of the Liberal Party of Canada). These circumstances have to be taken into account to allow for a comprehensive evaluation of the reasons and the conjunction of circumstances having led to the loss of dominance of the Liberal Party of Canada. The evaluation should be safeguarded by a statistical secondary analysis.

With the help of and thanks to a research stay in Canada subsidised by the Stiftung für Kanada-Studien I was able to conduct expert interviews with for instance journalists, politicians and academics and to collect other data which were not available in Germany (for instance with regard to regionalism in Canada).

 

Erik Vollmann, M.A.

One to reform them all: Managing Governance, Elites, and Impressions through Regionalization in Morocco? (working title)

Advisor: Prof. Dr. Roland Sturm

Regionalization is presented as one of the most important reform projects of Morocco, dominating the official discourse and permeating many sectors of state politics as well as the international perception of the country. However, the real implementation or even legal outline of Moroccan decentralization or its ‘evolution’ towards regionalization might not keep track with expectations and official presentation. How does the reform process then contribute to regime persistence as principal target of (authoritarian) regimes? What is its real impact on governance, regional elite composition, and legitimation strategies?

 

Christian T. Wust

From Model Germany to the System of Corporate Governance

Advisor: Prof. Dr. Roland Sturm

The “System of Corporate Governance” is the transformation of the traditional “Modell Deutschland”. Both scenarios are representing a definition of the national economic collaboration and more specific the relationship von State and Economy. The traditional “Modell Deutschland” has several pillars. Those are the Power of banks, the strengths of the trade unions, Corporate co-determination, as well as specific qualities like long-term decision horizon from Company leaderships.

The traditional model – respectively its single pillars – face(s) drastic challenges behind the internationalized and globalized Economy. The State needs to act on those and while maintaining proven successful mechanisms/regulations as a whole or individual pieces thereof, he also needs to be inclusive for new conditions of the „Modell“. Within the Economy, the big corporations are the crucial stakeholders as they pursue Internationalization very strongly and vice versa are affected by it at similar levels.

As a consequence the guidelines for “Corporate Governance” has been conducted by political and economic Institutions.Behind this change, the “Modell” transformed to a system with existing and newly added factors – the “System of Corporate Governance”.The discipline of Political Sciences needs to define the term as Corporate Constitution and in broader sense as Constitution for the Economy, a system which defines the rules of relationship between the State and the Economy.

 

Dr. Samuel Beuttler-Bohn
Identifikation der Bürger mit ihren Metropolregionen durch Metropolitan Governance? Die Ballungsräume Stuttgart und Rhein-Neckar im Vergleich

Prof. Dr. Klaus Brummer
Konfliktbearbeitung durch internationale Organisationen. Handlungsmöglichkeiten und Handlungshemmnisse dargestellt am Beispiel des Europarates

Dr. Knut Diekmann
Die nationalistische Bewegung in Wales

Prof. Dr. Jürgen Dieringer
Staatlichkeit im Wandel? Die Regulierung der Sektoren Verkehr, Telekommunikation und Energie im ungarischen Transformationsprozeß

Dr. Johannes Fritz
Netzpolitische Entscheidungsprozesse in Deutschland und im Vereinigten Königreich

Dr. Benjamin Gubitz
Das Ende des Landesbankensektors und der Einfluss von Politik, Management und Sparkassen

Dr. Tim Griebel
Macht und Liebe in der deutsch-amerikanischen Sicherheitsbeziehung zwischen 9/11 und dem Irakkrieg

Dr. Axel Heise
Föderale Finanzbeziehungen in Deutschland, der Schweiz und den USA im Vergleich. Strukturen, Prozesse und Outputerfolge auf gesamt- und einzelstaatlicher Ebene

Dr. Frank König
Die Gestaltung der Vergangenheit: Zeithistorische Orte und Geschichtspolitik nach der deutschen Einheit

Prof. Dr. Markus M. Müller
The New Regulatory State in Germany. The Theory of Regulation and the Evolution of Regulatory Regimes in the German Political Economy

Dr. Michael Münter
Verfassungsreform im Einheitsstaat: Die Politik der Dezentralisierung in Großbritannien

Dr. Alexander Niedermeier
Europa: Anarchie oder Sicherheitsgemeinschaft? Nationales Interesse, außen- und sicherheitspolitischer Dualismus und die europäische Integration aus Sicht eines interpretativ erweiterten Realismus

Dr. Julia Oberhofer
Regionalismus als Herausforderung – Gesamtstaatliche Parteien in Südtirol und Venetien

Dr. Edmund Ortwein
Das Bundeskartellamt

Dr. Wolfram Ridder
Regionen, Mitgliedsstaaten und informelle Politik in der Europäischen Union.Beziehungs- und Handlungsmuster subnationaler Interessenvertretung im Ordentlichen Gesetzgebungsverfahren der EU

Dr. Robert Seliger
Konvergenz oder Divergenz? Sonderabfallpolitik in Deutschland, Kanada und den USA 1970 – 1996

Dr. Alexander Gordon Shields
Public Attitudes towards European Integration in Germany and Britain 1973-1995

Dr. Joß Steinke
“Leaving the Cowboy Hat a Home”?. Die Neuausrichtung der europäischen Wettbewerbspolitik als Politiktransfer aus den USA

Dr. Barbara Sterl
Europäisierung der Kommunen. EU-induzierte Auswirkungen auf lokaler Ebene und kommunale Reaktionen hierauf

Dr. Anne-Sophie Tombeil
“Unterschiedliche Entwicklungsprofile in Südeuropa”. Eine vergleichende Analyse sozio-ökonomischer Aufholprozesse rückständiger Regionen in Italien und Spanien

Dr. Michael Walther
Verkehrspolitik in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland – Verselbständigung und Politische Bildung

Dr. Georg Weinmann
Europa lernen? Der integrationspolitische Wandel der britischen Labour Party und Gewerkschaften. Eine lerntheoretisch angeleitete Analyse

Dr. Stephanie Weiss

Die gesellschaftliche Dimension von institutioneller Regionalisierung am Beispiel der Tschechischen Republik

Dr. Matthias Whittome
Informationsökonomische Optimierung der Wohlfahrt in Gemeinwesen: eine kritische Analyse unter Einbeziehung zweier Fälle aus Japan

Dr.  Thorsten Winkelmann
Public Private Parternership: Auf der Suche nach Substanz. Eine Effizienzanalyse alternativer Beschaffungsformen auf kommunaler Ebene
(Promotionspreis der Staedtler Stiftung)

Dr. Petra Zimmermann-Steinhart
Europas erfolgreiche Regionen. Möglichkeiten und Grenzen ihrer Handlungsmöglichkeiten im innovativen Wettbewerb