Search results for " International Relations"

“The Olympic Torch Burns, and Great Suspicion Blazes” – China Narratives in the German Media during the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing

2009

This paper focuses on the description of China in leading German daily and weekly newspapers during the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. On the basis of a brief outline of the main China narratives in German media since the 1950s, this paper analyses China-related articles which were published during the period August 8–15, 2008. It argues that reports on China are mostly based on well established German notions of China and centre around the image of a despotic and/or dangerous China. Therefore, they primarily refer back to the source culture and contain little information of value regarding the target culture.

Campaigns, candidate evaluations, and vote choice: Evidence from German federal election campaigns, 1980–2002

2007

Abstract This article examines the effect of German federal election campaigns on citizens' attitudes toward chancellor candidates. Building on previous research, it puts forward three hypotheses tested using survey data gathered during seven German federal election campaigns. The results confirm that campaigns polarize the voters' perception of the chancellor candidates. During campaigns, voters also bring their opinions about candidates into line with their partisan attitudes. Moreover, during three campaigns candidate preferences become increasingly powerful predictors of vote choice. The findings also suggest that election-specific factors condition campaign effects. The paper concludes…

Secular citizens, pious MPs: why German attitudes about genetic testing are much more permissive than German laws

2020

Germany has lifted its total ban on Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD, a form of genetic testing), but the new rules are still much stricter than those in other European countries. Results fro...

Globalization and life satisfaction of the Polish population. Before and during the Covid-19 pandemic

2020

The globalisation divide in the public mind: belief systems on globalisation and their electoral consequences

2019

Many studies describe how globalisation—the global integration of the economic, political, and cultural domains of society—transforms party competition in Western Europe. At the citizen level, however, our knowledge about globalisation attitudes and their electoral consequences remains limited. Using data from a large-scale panel survey of the German public, we show that, first, citizens hold stable rather than fluid attitudes towards the concept of globalisation. Second, these attitudes are rather closely related to positions on specific economic, cultural, and political issues that social scientists understand as facets of globalisation but unrelated to positions on traditional redistribu…

Foreign policy and de-Europeanization under the M5S–League government: exploring the Italian behavior in the UN General Assembly

2021

This article explores the first declaredly populist and Eurosceptical Italian government’s role as a potential driver of de-Europeanization dynamics in Italian foreign policy. After describing the M5S–League government’s discursive de-Europeanization on core substantive EU values, the article focuses on multilateralism, a critical pillar of Italian foreign policy and a substantive norm of the European Union, and investigates the actual foreign policy conduct in the UN General Assembly. By analyzing the voting and sponsoring behavior of the M5S-League government, the article systematically assesses variations in de-Europeanization’s critical dimensions (culture of cooperation, repudiation of…

Balancing Roles of Representation in the European Commission

2008

Representation is one essential dimension of executive governance. This article has a dual ambition: The first is to outline an institutional perspective on representation that may explore and explain the everyday balancing act of representation among government officials. The second ambition is to empirically illuminate dynamics of representation among crucial test-bed inside the European Commission, that of temporary officials. Temporary Commission officials offer a valuable laboratory for exploring the fine balancing act of representation. Based on survey and interview data on temporary Commission officials, this study supports an institutional perspective on representation in two ways. …

Administrative Fusion: Less Than a European ‘Mega‐administration’

2009

Abstract This study explores administrative fusion. It is argued that the differentiated organizational constellation of the European Union contributes to a differentiated fusion of domestic core executive institutions. The European Commission mainly activates the lower echelons of domestic government hierarchies and contributes to a relative weakening of domestic politico‐administrative leadership. On the contrary, the Council of Ministers accompanies primarily a strengthening of domestic government hierarchies — notably the Foreign Office. Based on a rich body of survey data, this article reveals that multi‐level interaction of administrative systems between the European Commission and th…

Sports Cars, Sleaze and Gamma Rays: Rhineland-Palatinate Elects its First Red-Green Government

2012

The 2011 election in Rhineland-Palatinate was a political earthquake: Following a string of political scandals, the SPD lost almost ten percentage points of their support, while the CDU could hardly improve on their disastrous 2006 result. The FDP is no longer represented in the state parliament. The Greens more than tripled their last result, allowing them to enter a coalition with the SPD for the first time. Analyses at the municipal level show that the party improved most in their urban strongholds while still showing a (relatively) weak performance in rural areas. This will make it difficult to sustain the momentum of their victory. Moreover, the SPD is battered and bruised and needs to…

Ambush Marketing in China: Counterbalancing Olympic Sponsorship Efforts

2008

This paper provides an empirical insight into the perception and use of ambush marketing on the People's Republic of China public television network CCTV5 (the official Olympic broadcaster), by examining the commercials used by various corporations during its coverage of the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. A five-point categorization is presented to distinguish between various methods of ambushing. Despite the efforts of the Beijing government to fight ambush marketing ahead of its Olympic Games in 2008, the results demonstrate that concerns about the practice of ambush marketing in China must be taken seriously. An analysis of 40 commercial spots was carried out, based on China's 2002 Olympi…