Hertie School Research Repository
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Determining the effect of strategic voting on election results
No full textSpeculations about whether strategic voting made a difference to the outcome of an election regularly whip up the passions of pundits, party strategists, electoral reformers and scholars alike. Yet, research on strategic voting's political effect has been hampered by the scarcity of data on district level party preferences. We propose the use of Bayesian small area estimation to predict district level preferences from just a handful of survey responses per district and comparing these predictions against election results to estimate how many voters switched sides in each district. We apply the approach to estimate how many seats changed hands as a result of strategic voting at the 1997 and 2001 UK general elections. Despite similar rates of strategic voting in both elections, the number of seats that were affected was markedly greater in 1997. Interestingly, the Liberal Democrats turn out to win the most seats because of strategic voting. We also estimate how many votes went in the ‘wrong’ direction—away from otherwise viable candidates. We validate our results by using journalistic sources and compare them with previous published estimates
What is the Added Value of the Concept of the “Essence” of EU Fundamental Rights?
No full textThis Article introduces our Special Issue by posing a central question: What is the added value of the increasing prominence of the concept of the “essence” of fundamental rights in EU law? It will address this larger question in four steps: First, by examining the function of the concept in EU law and the methods for its derivation; second, by summarizing how its application diverges across EU—and international—law; third, by outlining some enduring difficulties with the essence concept; and finally, by reflecting on its future role in EU law, including its impact on other sites of legal authority—such as domestic fundamental rights, the political institutions of the EU, and international human rights law. As the other articles of this issue demonstrate, while there is not yet a coherent approach to deriving and understanding the essence of rights across the fundamental rights the EU must protects, the essence concept plays an increasingly significant role in demarcating the boundaries between the EU’s legal and political orders and between overlapping sites of legal authority. Recent developments—such as the rule of law “crises”—are likely to further amplify the importance of “essence” to EU law practice and scholarship
Gewerkschaften 2030. Rekrutierungsdefizite, Repräsentationslücken und neue Strategien der Mitgliederpolitik
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Two Dimensions of the Internationalization of Firms
No full textThe paper argues that there are two dimensions of internationalization: one which refers to the production activities of firms abroad and one which focuses on the corporate governance dimension of firms. While the first one is well known in the literature on internationalization, the financial dimension has not yet been addressed empirically. At the same time there are indicators that financial internationalization is gaining importance. Using a sample of the 100 largest German companies it shows that both dimensions, the real and the financial dimension, do not co‐vary and therefore cannot be combined into one index
Improving Robot Transparency: An Investigation With Mobile Augmented Reality
No full textAutonomous robots can be difficult to understand by their developers, let alone by end users. Yet, as they become increasingly integral parts of our societies, the need for afford- able easy to use tools to provide transparency grows. The rise of the smartphone and the improvements in mobile computing performance have gradually allowed Augmented Reality (AR) to become more mobile and affordable. In this paper we review relevant robot systems architecture and propose a new software tool to provide robot transparency through the use of AR technology. Our new tool, ABOD3-AR provides real-time graphical visualisation and debugging of a robot’s goals and priorities as a means for both designers and end users to gain a better mental model of the internal state and decision making processes taking place within a robot. We also report on our on-going research programme and planned studies to further understand the effects of transparency to naive users and experts
Globalization and the future of central collective bargaining: the example of the German metal industry
No full textThe paper deals with the relationship of the German model of capitalism and the role of centralized collective bargaining within it. It is assumed that the system of central wage bargaining - leading to a relatively egalitarian wage structure and the absence of a non-union wage sector - is one of the major pillars of the national institutional framework of the German economy. Pressures towards the decentralization of collective bargaining will therefore not onlyy affect the distribution of wages and the patterns of social equality, but also have a profound impact on the functioning of the German model of capitalism.
The first part of Paper links the system of collective bargaining and industrial relations with the wider macro-economic and political features of German capitalism. It defines three major challengers to the institutional framework of the German economy: structural challenges since the early 1970s, the impact of unification since 1989 and the impact of European integration and globalization since the mid-1980s. It concludes that not globalization as such but a complexity of different pressures might lead to drastic institutional changes.
The second part of the paper analyses collective bargaining development in the metal industry in the early 1990s. It looks at the conduct of the bargaining rounds, the institutional set-up and the position of the collective bargaining actors respectively. It will be argued that collective bargaining in the German metal industry has become extremely pressurized in the early 1990s. We argue that pressure on collective bargaining stems from two sides: first, from thhe membership problem of trade unions and employers' associations and, second, from the narrowing scope of flexibility within the give system of wage determination. We will define three ways of achieving wage differentiation within and outside centralized bargaining structures and look at their changing role during that period. Finally, the paper presents two scenarios of collective bargaining in the future and discusses their implications for the German ecnomic model
The Past Decade and Future of AI’s Impact on Society
No full textArtificial intelligence (AI) is a technical term referring to artifacts used to detect contexts or to effect actions in response to detected contexts. Our capacity to build such artifacts has been increasing, and with it the impact they have on our society. This article first documents the social and economic changes brought about by our use of AI, particularly but not exclusively focusing on the decade since the 2007 advent of smartphones, which contribute substantially to “big data” and therefore the efficacy of machine learning. It then projects from this political, economic, and personal challenges confronting humanity in the near future, including policy recommendations. Overall, AI is not as unusual a technology as expected, but this very lack of expected form may have exposed us to a significantly increased urgency concerning familiar challenges. In particular, the identity and autonomy of both individuals and nations is challenged by the increased accessibility of knowledge
We Don’t Need No Institution - What the Eurozone requires is not a treasury but a common fiscal policy
Get PDFDoes the Eurozone need a “treasury”? The answer is no: The Eurozone needs a common fiscal policy to complement the ECB’s monetary policy. But it does not need a new institution to take fiscal policy decisions or to execute such decisions. The EU institutional framework is well-equipped to perform these functions. Hence, the focus of political energy should be on getting the right policies and instruments in place, not on building new shiny institutions