Es ist eine weitverbreitete Wahrnehmung, dass die Politik vergleichsweise schlecht funktio-niert, das heisst nur unbefriedigende Ergebnisse hervorbringt. Politiker und Parteien haben eine geringe Wertschätzung in der Gesellschaft. Dies gilt sowohl für die Bürger als auch für viele Experten...

Die Bürgerinnen und die Bürger können im Staat nicht alles selbst entscheiden. Sie brauchen Repräsentanten. Charles B. Blankart, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin und Universität Luzern, und Dennis C. Mueller, Universität Wien, stellen in ihrem Kommentar fünf Regierungsmodelle vor und...

Der Aufsatz erläutert zunächst den Begriff der 'strategischen Gruppen', sodann deren Interessenlagen, ehe er auf die transformatorischen und strategischen Potenziale eingeht. Schließlich wird erörtert, in welcher Weise Unternehmer Staatskapazität beeinflussen. Dabei geht es nicht darum zu...

This paper analyzes the design, refinement, and evolution of organizational policymaking processes, that is to say, organizational governance. Governance procedures like other aspects of organization are refined through time to advance formeteur interests. Several mechanisms of evolution are...

In European history, war has played a major role in state-building and the state monopoly on violence. But war is a very specific form of organized political violence, and it is decreasing on a global scale. Other patterns of armed violence now dominate, ones that seem to undermine...

The modern state has monopolized the legitimate use of force. This concept is twofold. First, the state is empowered with enforcement rights; second, the rights of the individuals are (partly) restricted. In a simple model of property rights with appropriation and defense activity, we show that...

Economists have long recognized and measured the effect of education on an individual's own lifetime earnings. More recently, attention has been paid to the effects of education on other personal and social outcomes, such as criminal behavior, health and mortality, and voting and democratic...

The article presents an empirical study of the legitimation of the market economy in the public sphere and examines whether criticism of the market economy has increased as a result of the euro crisis. The research results support the hypothesis of a transformation of the legitimacy basis for...

A rich array of institutional diversity makes the United States an excellent place to study the relationship between political institutions and public policy outcomes. This essay has three main aims. First, it reviews existing empirical evidence on the relationship between institutional rules,...