2015

Ali Demir, Modernity: From Mohammed to Atatürk - An analysis of the Turkish path into modernity based on the theory of communicative action by Jürgen Habermas

Especially today there seems to be a total antagonism between Islam and modernity. My take on modernity is based on a theory advocated by Jürgen Habermas, according to which individual ideas and interests in the form of universally valid general legal principles immerge into a communication with culturally pre-existing visions of the world. According to Emile Durkheim, not only Christian people but human beings in general establish communication with extraordinary powers within religion. It is a form of communication that humans use for the development of abstract principles. I do not subscribe to the Protestant theory of ethics by Max Weber but share the view that Islam also has the capacity for the development of non-hierarchical interactions. In this context, I explain, with reference to e.g. Al-Fârâbi (872–951 A.D.), the development of the philosophy, the inner-worldly asceticism by e.g. Farîd ad-Dîn Attâr (1150–1230 A.D.) and the mysticism within Islam by e.g. Ibn Arabi (1165–1240 A.D.). I also show that these favorable conditions did not lead to modernity in the Ottoman Empire. The opposite was the case, and within three centuries, the legacy of the Islamic Caliphate degenerated into a state of waging wars. The state took control of the coordination of its citizen’s daily activities. The Ottomans turned to modernity only in the 19th century thanks to the French Revolution. Society began to prefer democracy and the rule of law to the Islamic ethics. The state’s reaction were projects of modernization leading to national independence movements. Paradoxically, the Turks had to face the fact that as a people, they had shrunk from an imperial world power to a minority within borders defined by Western powers. The answer of the Turks was total warfare on the one hand and the total separation of religious ethics from state interests (laicism) on the other hand. From that point on, modernity represented political inclusion and exclusion of Western culture at the same time: inclusion because it promised the paradise on its territory and because by defining itself, it created “the other,” and exclusion because its territory had to be defended against invaders with high fences.

Lineo Devecchi, “Zwischenstadtland Schweiz” – The local governance of suburban development in nine Swiss municipalities

I focus on ongoing suburban development processes in Switzerland. I investigate different forms of local planning governance and provide reasons for different paths of spatial development - that is, rapid urban sprawl versus intensified densification processes. My main contribution lies in the formulation of a descriptive typology which includes observations of a liberal-passive, an interventionist and an active type of local governance that can be distinguished by different sets of adopted policy instruments and policy agendas. In liberal municipalities, the planning and realisation of development projects are mainly pursued by private investors on the basis of general zoning plans. In interventionist and active municipalities, public actors intervene much more in privately planned projects. As compared
to liberal-passive municipalities, such intervention is carried out on behalf of publicly discussed goals and with the benefit of more public (green) spaces, infrastructure for slower moving traffic, and denser new housing areas. A necessary condition for interventionist and active governance is a certain degree of administrative-political professionalization (professional and strategic public planning or full-time mayors).

Christoph Elhardt, The role of trust in European monetary union

The aim of this dissertation is to engage the growing theoretical literature on trust in international relations and to analyze the role of trust within European Monetary Union (EMU). In the two single-authored papers in the first part of the dissertation, it is shown that both the creation and institutional design of EMU depended on a considerable amount of trust among Europe’s governments. The two co-authored papers in the second part investigate to what extent policy makers on the national and European level were able to gain and preserve bond markets’ trust during the Eurozone crisis. The findings suggest that national governments were not able to gain or preserve investors’ trust through their reform efforts and crisis measures. By contrast, markets mainly reacted to signals coming from the European level as they questioned the capacity of the Euro’s periphery to implement the necessary reforms to remain solvent.

Miriam Hänni, The quality of representation in plural societies: An analysis of the causes and consequences of policy responsiveness towards ethnic minorities

What are the causes and consequences of policy responsiveness towards ethnic minorities? The literature suggests that most democracies are reasonably responsive towards their citizens. However, it overlooks still existing limits of policy responsiveness as it predominantly focuses on responsiveness towards the median and ignores responsiveness towards minorities. I address this gap in literature. I argue that the primacy of the median voter is normatively problematic in plural societies. I then focus on the causes and consequences of policy responsiveness towards ethnic minorities, arguing that it is higher when groups are descriptively represented in parliament by members of their own group. I then focus on the consequences of policy responsiveness for democratic stability. I argue that groups who are dissatisfied with the way the government responds to their preferences are more likely to lose trust in the political system and to engage in protest against the state. These hypotheses are then tested with novel data on “Ethnic Minorities in Democracies” that extends previous datasets in space and time.

Aliya Ali Khawari, The political economy of microfinance

Macroeconomic infrastructures and conditions alone fail to enable the provision of successful microfinance services to low income populations. The main focus of this dissertation is to show that microfinance institutions’ (MFIs) social embeddedness and closely associated factors like social institutions, cultures, norms and the social life of microcredit increasingly shape the demand for microfinance. How and to what extent does the conflict of preferences of various communal groups and actors within the operational spheres of MFIs affect their success? The study analyzes specific aspects of this question at several levels: at the aggregate household level and within the social and political milieus of the communities within which MFIs operate. One of the focal points of the analysis is the role that the familial and social spheres of women MFI clients play in their decision to take out a loan and become an MFI client and in their journey toward some level of financial independence. To this end, it makes use of the bargaining framework theory to analyze how power positions and decision making is negotiated and contested within households and communities targeted by MFIs. The qualitative empirical analysis focuses on uptake of loans provided to women by two South Asian MFIs, one based in India and the other in Pakistan.

Simon Maag, Contents of the politicization of European Integration: Actor positions and selective emphasis  at the level of EU sub-issues

European integration is one of the globalization-related issues that has been become increasingly politicized since the 1990s. Most recently, debates about the management of the Euro zone and European asylum policy have raised the topic to the top of political agendas. Against this background, my thesis addresses two main questions: How do political actors position themselves towards European integration sub-issues in public debates? And which facets of European integration do they emphasize or avoid in these debates? These and other questions are examined in three cross-country comparative papers. The thesis relies on quantitative data based on coded newspaper content. It demonstrates that present-day public debates are dominated by a crude opposition between strictly Eurosceptic niche parties and vaguely pro-European mainstream parties. However, it also shows that mainstream parties actually hold elaborated, competing visions of the future European Union. Thus, there is an unexploited potential for a less disruptive debate should mainstream parties be willing to shape controversies over Europe more actively.

Linda Maduz, Protest during regime change: Comparing three democratizing countries in (South-) East Asia, 1985–2005

Recent waves of mass demonstrations in the Arab world have attracted renewed scholarly and political attention to the question of the role of grass-root movements in political change. Political scientists traditionally looked at mass movements as being passive actors in the political transition process, which can be mobilized and de-mobilized by the political elite. The thesis challenges this view and aims at combining the political science literature with insights from other disciplines. The experience of newly democratized countries in East and Southeast Asia provides an interesting empirical basis to study how key stages in the transition process are related to mass mobilization. Relying on a newly constructed dataset of protest events (1986–2005), the study analyzes similarities and differences between mass mobilization and respective actions and responses by elite actors in three countries, namely Indonesia, Thailand and South Korea. The parameters of comparison with regard to protest mobilization are the composition of actor groups participating in the protest activities, their aims and targets, as well as the forms of protests chosen. It is shown that movement actors are active actors in the course of transition, having their own means and goals in influencing the transition process.

Quynh Nguyen, To trade or not to trade: Examining the social foundations of individual trade policy preferences

Numerous protests and movements around the free trade debate show that popular support for or against international trade can have considerable impact on trade policy decisions. The question of which factors determine individual trade preferences has established itself as a central area of inquiry in the political economy literature. Analyzing the micro-level foundations of trade policy, this dissertation focuses on two closely related questions. The first is whether trade attitudes mirror individuals’ evaluation of trade’s impact on their personal material welfare or their assessment of trade’s effects on their country as a whole. The second question explores the extent to which non-material considerations play a role in individuals’ trade preference formation in contrast to the standard approach of conceptualizing international trade effects exclusively in terms of material gains and losses. Overall, the findings from the individual chapters highlight the importance of a broader understanding of how individuals perceive and process the effects of international trade.

Bianca Oehl, Public demand and climate change policy-making

Developed countries have implemented policies varying widely in range and ambition over time and across countries in order to limit climate change. Can this variation in policy-making be explained by differences in the typically taken for granted – but empirically often neglected – influence of public demand for climate protection? Public demand is addressed from different angles in this thesis. First, the influence of the business cycle on public demand for climate protection is examined for 27 countries between 2004 and 2013. The results indicate that neither consumer confidence indicators nor unemployment rates could explain rises in demand for climate protection. I then focus on the convergence of newspaper content and examine reporting on climate change in six countries between 1995 and 2010. The findings confirm that convergence is moderated by the media system types. The third part proposes to take published opinion and media salience as proxies for public demand. Finally, the fourth part examines if and under which conditions they impact climate policy making in six countries between 1995 and 2010. The results show that both influence the sheer number of policies adopted but only the salience matters for the scope of climate change legislation.

Tamaki Ohmura, Careers, candidacy strategy and gender: Individual legislative behaviour in the German Bundestag

What drives an MP’s legislative behavior in a party-dominated system? I investigate this question from three different perspectives. First, from a career-oriented perspective, I analyze the pre-parliamentary career path of MPs and their subsequent success within parliament as well as the activity levels according to MPs’ career stage. Second, the thesis analyzes the effects of the mixed-member proportional electoral system on legislative decision-making, in the tradition of rational-choice institutionalism. Third, my thesis considers personal characteristics, specifically gender, in an MP’s choice to actively engage in and influence legislation on women’s issues. Female MPs are shown to not only be more proactive but are also more willing to cross party lines to further legislation improving women’s position in society. This thesis illustrates the insights that are to be gained by studying MPs at the individual level, even when they are active in a highly regulated institutional and party group dominated setting such as the German Bundestag.  

Michael Räber, Knowing democracy – A pragmatist account of the epistemic dimension in democratic politics

This thesis provides a pragmatist-inspired interpretation of the notion “democracy tracks the truth,” a metaphor that goes to the heart of what epistemic democrats hold, namely that democratic deliberation and decision-making procedures tend to get it right. In particular, this thesis argues that by establishing a partial equality in epistemic authority and by including many diverse (disagreeing or dissenting) viewpoints into deliberative environments, such environments tend to give rise to a higher epistemic quality of individual and collective judgments. What seems like a contradiction in terms turns out to be one key element for a proper interpretation of the idea that democracy via deliberation has “truth-tracking” capability. As ramified as the now rich debate under the header “epistemic democracy” has become, what is still lacking in the debate is a clearly stated and thoroughly developed conceptual elucidation of the epistemic underpinnings that are at stake here. And these underpinnings have extensive consequences for how we can reasonably talk about the epistemic dimension of democratic deliberation. The aim of this thesis is to fill this lacuna in the literature.

Nadim Schumann, Human capital, labor markets and remittances in francophone sub-Saharan Africa: An analysis of education and its impact in Senegal

The thesis sets out to analyze a number of education-related questions in Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa using data from Senegal. While the region has seen some progress in the recent past, there is much scope for quantitative and qualitative improvements. A distinct feature are high grade retention rates that can be costly  to households and governments. I analyze the effect of retention on student achievement and do not find a positive relationship between the two. Investigating further the relevance of human capital, I look at the flow of remittances into Senegal which make up an important share of the country’s GDP, analyzing the effect of emittances on employment types depending on the education level of recipients. More highly educated men are more likely to be self-employed when they receive remittances. However, this is apparently not the case for women. Finally, I examine the possibility of a virtuous circle where remittances increase child schooling and more schooling could then lead individuals to have better labor market choices. The results, however, suggest that remittances do not lead to an increase in child education.