Since voters are often swayed more by the personal image of politicians than by party manifestos, they may cast votes that are in opposition to their policy preferences. This results in the election of representatives who do not correspond exactly to the voters' own views. An alternative voting...

The composite indicator "Quality of work" for comparing European countries is constructed from data of the Third European Survey on Working Conditions. The main findings are as follows: (a) European countries differ with respect to working conditions statistically more signi¯cantly than with...

The outcomes of the 2013 German Bundestag (federal parliament) are analyzed from the viewpoint of direct democracy. For this purpose, the party positions on 36 topical issues are compared with the results of public opinion polls, and the party and coalition indices of popularity (the average...

The outcomes of the 2013 German Bundestag (federal parliament) election are analyzed from the viewpoint of direct democracy. For this purpose, the party positions on 36 topical issues are compared with the results of public opinion polls, and the party and coalition indices of popularity (the...

The advocates of modern western democracy promote the viewpoint that the class division of the society is becoming outdated. We attempt to disprove this statement with an example of 28 German parties who participated in the 2013 federal election. The official party positions on 38 policy issues...

Aufgrund der Daten der Dritten Europäischen Umfrage für Arbeitsbedingungen wurde für den Vergleich europäischer Staaten ein zusammengesetzter Indikator der Arbeitsbedingungen aufgestellt. Die wichtigsten Forschungsergebnisse sind wie folgt: (a) die Ungleichheit zwischen europäischen Staaten...

German structural policy is characterized by a composite indicator with three targets:(1) minimization of unemployment, (2) maximization of GDP, and (3) equalization of regional unemployment rates. The composite indicator with given target weights is maximized subject to budget constraints and...

The composite indicator "Quality of work" for comparing European countries is con- structed from data of the Third European Survey on Working Conditions. The main findings are as follows: (a) European countries differ with respect to working conditions statistically more significantly than with...

The notion of flexicurity promotes the idea of compensation of labour market deregulation (= flexibilization) with advantages in employment and social security. To monitor effects of flexicurity policies in Europe, flexicurity indices are constructed from (a) scores of the strictness of...