Hertie School Research Repository
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Examining a Most Likely Case for Strong Campaign Effects: Hitler’s Speeches and the Rise of the Nazi Party, 1927–1933
No full textHitler’s rise to power amidst an unprecedented propaganda campaign initiated scholarly interest in campaign effects. To the surprise of many, empirical studies often found minimal effects. The predominant focus of early work was on U.S. elections, though. Nazi propaganda as the archetypal and, in many ways, most likely case for strong effects has rarely been studied. We collect extensive data about Hitler’s speeches and gauge their impact on voter support at five national elections preceding the dictatorship. We use a semi-parametric difference-in-differences approach to estimate effects in the face of potential confounding due to the deliberate scheduling of events. Our findings suggest that Hitler’s speeches, while rationally targeted, had a negligible impact on the Nazis’ electoral fortunes. Only the 1932 presidential runoff, an election preceded by an extraordinarily short, intense, and one-sided campaign, yielded positive effects. This study questions the importance of charismatic leaders for the success of populist movements
The role of state capacity in development studies
No full textThe role that state capacity plays in development has been the subject of growing cross-disciplinary research. The state capacity concept has faced criticism on numerous fronts, with scholars recently devoting serious efforts to overcome it. This article offers a rich overview of the concepts’ journey in terms of its theoretical roots, its uses by different disciplines, its definitions and measurements, and the empirical evidence around the impact of state capacity on development outcomes. It argues in favor of an optimistic view of the field’s advances by showing: (a) convergence in conceptualizations and (b) high-quality innovations in measurements. The article also contributes to the field by offering a definition of state capacity that consolidates all elements of the dominant strand and further tackles a number of issues that remain weak and should take priority in a future agenda
Estimating Constituency Preferences from Sparse Survey Data Using Auxiliary Geographic Information
No full textMeasures of constituency preferences are of vital importance for the study of political representation and other research areas. Yet, such measures are often difficult to obtain. Previous survey-based estimates frequently lack precision and coverage due to small samples, rely on questionable assumptions or require detailed auxiliary information about the constituencies' population characteristics. We propose an alternative Bayesian hierarchical approach that exploits minimal geographic information readily available from digitalized constituency maps. If at hand, social background data are easily integrated. To validate the method, we use national polls and district-level results from the 2009 German Bundestag election, an empirical case for which detailed structural information is missing
Balancing sub-unit autonomy and collective problem-solving by varying exit and voice. An analytical framework
No full textWe argue that there is a commonality between federal states and the EU: both face a dilemma between sub-unit autonomy and collective problem-solving. We develop the structure of this dilemma, which is pervasive in multilevel systems with a strong element of shared policy-making and most pronounced in the EU. While a substantial part of the federalism literature considers this relationship as precarious and discusses ways to stabilize it, we propose an analytical perspective which focuses on actor dynamics, i.e., on the attempts of sub-units to change the balance between sub-unit autonomy and collective problem-solving by changing their position in two distinct dimensions: exit and voice. Exit measures the degree to which sub-units want to be subject to collective policies, voice measures the influence sub-units seek in collective decisions. We illustrate this framework with examples, mainly from the EU, and conclude that this perspective can shed new light on differentiated integration in the EU and open comparative inquiries
Is there a Compliance Trilemma in International Law? Comment on Jeffrey L. Dunoff’
No full textThis chapter is a comment on Jeffrey L Dunoff’s discussion of the compliance trilemma. It emphasizes that one needs to continue studying fuzzy concepts even if they are difficult to measure. Moreover, it argues that the compliance trilemma is a parsimonious tool for understanding tensions in global governance but not an inescapable structural constraint in an anarchic international system. Its tensions can be mediated or overcome by the clever design of international agreements or institutions
Application of Natural Language Processing to Determine User Satisfaction in Public Services
No full textResearch on user satisfaction has increased substantially in recent years. Studies to date tend to test for significance of pre-defined factors thought to have an influence with no scalable means to verify the validity of the assumptions made. Digital technology has enabled new methods to collect user feedback, for example through online forums where service users post comments. Topic models can help analyze large volumes of such feedback and are proposed as a feasible solution to aggregate user opinions for use in the public sector. Insights can contribute to a more inclusive decision-making process in public services. This novel approach is applied to process reviews of publicly-funded primary care practices in England. Findings from the analysis of over 200,000 reviews indicate that the quality of interactions with staff and bureaucratic exigencies are the key drivers of user satisfaction. Moreover, patient satisfaction is strongly influenced by factors not considered in state-of-the-art patient surveys. These results highlight the potential benefits that text mining and machine learning for the public administration field
No Way to Escape Imbalances in the Eurozone? Three Sources for Germany’s Export Dependency: Industrial Relations, Social Insurance and Fiscal Federalism
No full textOver the last two decades, the German political economy has increasingly relied on export specialisation as a strategy for economic recovery. This export-led development strategy turned out to be a mixed blessing. While, on the one hand, specialisation in high-quality manufactured goods has preserved Germany’s competitive edge vis-à-vis many other industrialised countries, it has, on the other hand, led to an increasing dependency on exports as the engine for growth. There has been no equally strong evolution of a domestic service economy beyond manufacturing-related services. The issue of export dependency becomes increasingly important in light of the financial crisis and global imbalances, vis-à-vis Greece and the Eurozone but also globally. Weak aggregate demand depresses both domestic employment and endangers the still fragile construction of the Eurozone. The paper argues that Germany finds itself in an export-dependency trap due to imbalances between domestic services and export-driven manufacturing. It analyses three sources for the over-reliance on export-oriented manufacturing and weak employment in domestic services: firstly, the industrial relations system, secondly, the social insurance financing of the welfare state and thirdly, fiscal federalism. All three are fundamental pillars of the German political economy and locked into political coalitions that are not easily changed
Winning the battle or losing the war: the impact of European integration on labour market institutions in Germany and Denmark
No full textThe European Union (EU) literature sees increasing market liberalization as a challenge for models of national capitalism. EU liberalization, it is argued, erodes national employment regimes and social protection. However, other scholars highlight the ability of national institutions to reinvent themselves. This contribution assesses these claims by exploring an extreme case of labour market pressure driven by EU liberalization. Focusing on the meat production sector, it shows that low-wage labour migration has affected employment conditions in the meat production sector in Germany and Denmark in different ways: dualization has made Germany a destination country for low-wage work; in contrast, union solidarity in Denmark has kept wages high and Danish meat producers have outsourced work to Germany. The underlying industrial relations systems have shaped actors’ responses to the use of migrant labour
Perceptions of Moral Dilemmas in a Virtual Reality Car Simulation
No full textThe prevalence of artificial intelligent agents carrying out morally salient decisions is growing. The decisions made by such agents as autonomous cars or weapon systems, may have life and death consequences. We argue that the decision-making algorithms of all agents whose decisions have high societal impact should be transparent [6]; to ensure human-agent interaction is fully informed, consensual, and of maximum benefit to the society. Importantly, the literature also indicates we
may perceive and respond to morally salient decisions made by a machine differently to the same decision made by a human [5, 4, 3].
We present here a virtual reality simulation of a self-driving car we developed, in which users experience moral dilemmas. In our two studies, we investigate the perceptions of a morally salient decision; first as moderated by the type of the agent, artificial or natural (human), and then with the implementation of transparency. Specifically, inspired by the Moral Machine research programme [2, 1], we used social value as a moral framework. The agent chooses to hit a pedestrian on either the left or right side of a zebra crossing dependent on dimensions of occupation, body-size and
gender. Participants gave feedback after each scenario.
Contrary to past findings, participants in this current study were distressed at the principle of decision-making based on attributes such as social value. In questionnaire responses and postexperiment conversation the majority reported preferring such decisions to be made at random.
This raises important insights into how we implement moral frameworks. We suggest that the disparity between preferences from the current study and past work is due to the virtual reality methodology we used. Specifically, we note a distinction between emotional vs. rational decisionmaking, which was supported by an extension survey we conducted. Consistent with expectations,
the self-driving car was perceived as significantly less morally culpable and human-like than the
human-driver. The transparency implementation led to a further significant reduction in perceived
human-likeness, and also to reduced perceptions of intentionality. The reduction in moral culpability has disturbing possible connotations, though it may also be helpful for correct attribution of accountability. Promisingly, our transparency implementation significantly improved participants’
understanding of the self-driving cars decision.
We suggest companies implementing moral frameworks do not take crowd-sourced preferences at face value, but explore the methodology used. Additionally, our work supports transparency as a mechanism to calibrate our mental models of autonomous agents