Hertie School Research Repository
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Raising European Citizens? European Identity in European Schools
No full textAbstract
Citizens' identification with Europe could consolidate European integration. European Schools, created for children of EU officials, should mirror the EU's vision of citizens of member states united in (national) diversity. Instead, this study reveals that European School students construct an explicitly European in‐group and deviate from EU visions by differentiating themselves from a more national and less mobile lifestyle. The article draws on qualitative content analysis of in‐depth and focus group interviews with teachers and 101 students in European Schools in Germany, Luxembourg and England. This elucidates the relationship between European schooling and this peculiar but ultimately European identity. In a dual mechanism, by ‘doing Europe’, students actively nourish a transnational social network in school; by ‘telling Europe’, students are more passively exposed to European and diverse national narratives. Both the analysis of how their European identity emerges and descriptive underpinnings show the complexity of European identity construction even under most favourable conditions
The CoRisk-Index: A data-mining approach to identify industry-specific risk assessments related to COVID-19 in real-time
No full textWhile the coronavirus spreads, governments are attempting to reduce contagion rates at the expense of negative economic effects. Market expectations plummeted, foreshadowing the risk of a global economic crisis and mass unemployment. Governments provide huge financial aid programmes to mitigate the economic shocks. To achieve higher effectiveness with such policy measures, it is key to identify the industries that are most in need of support. In this study, we introduce a data-mining approach to measure industry-specific risks related to COVID-19. We examine company risk reports filed to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This alternative data set can complement more traditional economic indicators in times of the fast-evolving crisis as it allows for a real-time analysis of risk assessments. Preliminary findings suggest that the companies' awareness towards corona-related business risks is ahead of the overall stock market developments. Our approach allows to distinguish the industries by their risk awareness towards COVID-19. Based on natural language processing, we identify corona-related risk topics and their perceived relevance for different industries. The preliminary findings are summarised as an up-to-date online index. The CoRisk-Index tracks the industry-specific risk assessments related to the crisis, as it spreads through the economy. The tracking tool is updated weekly. It could provide relevant empirical data to inform models on the economic effects of the crisis. Such complementary empirical information could ultimately help policymakers to effectively target financial support in order to mitigate the economic shocks of the crisis
Territorial control in civil wars: Theory and measurement using machine learning
No full textTerritorial control is a central variable for civil war research – yet, we lack sufficiently detailed data to capture subnational dynamics and offer cross-country coverage. This article advances a new measurement strategy for territorial control in asymmetric civil wars. Territorial control is conceptualized as an unobserved latent variable that can be estimated via observed variation in rebel tactics. The strategy builds on a theoretical model of rebel tactics, by which rebels use terrorism less when they control a given area – preferring conventional tactics, which require higher levels of territorial control. The latent variable, territorial control, is estimated via a Hidden Markov Model (HMM). As an observable indicator for rebel tactics, I leverage geo-coded event data and a function of the relative frequency of terrorist attacks and conventional war acts, weighted by time and distance. The model yields estimates of territorial control for asymmetric civil wars at a resolution of 0.25 decimal degree minimum diameter hexagonal grid cells. Validation of estimates for the Colombian and Nigerian civil wars suggests HMMs as a fruitful avenue to estimate spatiotemporal variation in territorial control
Market-based renewables: How flexible hydrogen electrolyzers stabilize wind and solar market values
No full textWind and solar energy are often expected to fall victim to their own success: the higher their share in electricity production, the more their revenue on electricity markets (their “market value”) declines. While in conventional power systems, the market value may converge to zero, this study demonstrates that “green” hydrogen production, through adding electricity demand in low-price hours, can effectively and permanently halt the decline. With an analytical derivation, a Monte Carlo simulation, and a numerical electricity market model, I find that – due to flexible hydrogen production – market values in 2050 likely converge above €19 ± 9 per MWh for solar energy and above €27 ± 8 per MWh for wind energy. This is in the range of the projected levelized costs of renewables and has profound implications. Market-based renewables may hence be within reach
Understanding Public Servants from a Global Perspective
No full textPublic servants are an important component of any functioning administrative system. However, a comprehensive, comparative analysis of public servants from a global perspective is rare. The purpose of this chapter and section is therefore to analyze the concept of the civil servant from a global perspective. In order to do so, the chapter examines the concept of the civil servant, who they are, how they are trained, what they do, how they are rewarded, and how political and institutional factors shape personnel systems. Special attention is placed upon comparisons between civil service traditions, international conceptualizations of civil servants, the scope of public service work, and the status of women in public service. The chapter concludes with a brief introduction to each of the subsequent chapters in this section
The EU’s new rule of law mechanism-How it works and why the ‘deal’ did not weaken it
No full textAfter Hungary and Poland almost derailed the EU budgetary negotiations over rule of law conditionality, the EU found itself in a weeks-long game of chicken before the drama finally culminated in the European Council conclusions of December 2020. The conclusions were widely criticised for postponing the enforcement of the rule of law mechanism and for upsetting the EU‘s institutional balance. In this Policy Brief, Thu Nguyen explains how the rule of law mechanism works and takes a more balanced approach: The rule of law mechanism was not weakened by the conclusions, nor did the European Council encroach upon the Commission’s prerogatives in a meaningful way
A new policy paradigm for the employment–fertility nexus to respond to the ‘future of work’ challenge
No full textThe economic foundation of the family has shifted gradually in European countries. Female work no longer suppresses fertility. Instead, women’s employment and labour market integration have become a prerequisite for family formation in many countries. Pivotal for this development was the expansion of childcare, which allowed parents to better combine work and family life
The Future Role of Civil Society in a Welfare State: Perspectives from Germany
No full textFrom the welfare states origins in Europe, the idea of human welfare being organized through a civilized, institutionalized and uncorrupt state has caught the imagination of social activists and policy-makers around the world. This is particularly influential where rapid social development is taking place amidst growing social and gender inequality. This book reflects on the growing academic and political interest in global social policy and globalizing welfare, and pays particular attention to developments in Northern European and North-East Asian countries.Providing historical and future-oriented perspectives on welfare issues and policies, Globalizing Welfare assesses the relevance of the Northern European welfare experience for East Asia, and addresses the differing ways that countries in the two regions are responding to similar challenges of increasing inequality, demographic change, and shifting relations between the state, market and non-profit organizations. With topical analysis of policy responses to these shared issues across contexts, the book assesses how these globalized, cross-cutting issues will impact future developments in welfare states.This book is a valuable resource for scholars and students alike of sociology, political science, economics, social policy and public administration, providing up-to-date knowledge of welfare state developments. It will also be of interest to policy-makers concerned with social welfare globally
Policy Neglect: The True Challenge to the Nonprofit Sector
No full textThe relationship between many governments and the nonprofit sector as well as organized civil society more generally has become more complex, laden with often hidden tensions. In some cases, state–nonprofit sector relationships have deteriorated, which has led experts and activists to speak of a “shrinking space” for civil society. However, this diagnosis applies mostly to illiberal and autocratic countries. More widespread is a stagnation in state — nonprofit sector relations that seems indicative of a longstanding policy neglect, which we see as the true challenge to the future of the nonprofit sector. In response, we argue for more proactive policy stances along with a differentiated model for regulatory frameworks on the basis of functional roles
The Two-step Model of Clustered Democratization
No full textDoes democratization diffuse? For over two decades, numerous studies have asserted that democratization diffuses across countries but recent research has challenged this claim. Most recently, work by Brancati and Lucardi has buttressed this null finding by demonstrating that an oft assumed mechanism for the diffusion of democratization—the diffusion of pro-democracy protests—lacks empirical support. We review this contribution in the context of recent research and pose the question: if democratization does not diffuse, then why does democratization cluster in time and space? The answer, we argue, is that democratization occurs in two steps. First, common shocks, economic or political, lead to regime collapse. Then, diffusion does emerge in a second step: new elites are more likely to install a democracy following a regime collapse if neighboring countries have recently democratized. We present evidence from democratic transitions in 125 autocracies between 1875 and 2014