Concepts of retirement and related moral arguments play an important role in debates around pension reform. What retirement is - or should be - varies according to the surrounding welfare culture and an actor's general interests and beliefs. In this paper, we study the meaning that specific...

The current financial crisis has brought Europe to a critical juncture. In this paper, we map the fiscally United States of Europe. We simulate an optimal EU-wide income tax and calculate the implied cross-country transfers. The comparison of the implied transfers with the real transfers shows...

Der Beitrag analysiert die sozialpolitischen Krisenreaktionen in Deutschland auf die Finanzkrise von 2008 im Licht der historischen Entwicklung und der Befunde der international vergleichenden Wohlfahrtsstaatsforschung. Vier aufeinanderfolgende Konjunkturpakete enthielten eine Reihe wichtiger...

Why do citizens support or reject the idea of global authority? The paper addresses this question by examining individual attitudes about UN authority in a comparative perspective. According to the main argument put forward in this paper, we may think of the formation of citizens' support for...

In this paper we examine the Chinese domestic discourse centering on Shanghai's participation in the PISA study and interpretations of the 2009 results. The main focus is to examine why local education authority took part in the PISA project and how actors from the education authority use PISA...

In Reaktion auf zahlreiche wirtschaftliche Missbrauchsfälle und Gewalteskalationen, in die Private Sicherheitsunternehmen (PSU) während des Irak- und Afghanistaneinsatzes verwickelt waren, sind in den Vereinigten Staaten eine Reihe von neuen Regulierungen in Kraft getreten. Im Mittelpunkt...

When representatives of the U.S. government and Congress debated military intervention in the conflict in Bosnia in 1995, they were not just talking about an American troop contribution. The dispute became a focal point for issues such as relations with the U.N. and NATO and the general...

In this working paper, we treat legitimacy and legitimation as interactive, discursive and relational concepts: Legitimacy is socially constructed in the public spheres of (democratic) political regimes, that is, in discursive exchanges of political elites and citizens about the acceptability of...

Based on qualitative research conducted in Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Poland, and the United Kingdom, the article analyses the citizens' perspective on the EU financial crisis as it is communicated in the European public sphere. With reference to this aim, we argue in the following...

Since 1994 worldwide maritime piracy has witnessed an explosion. While data collection has improved, the incidence of piracy has undoubtedly risen as well, particularly in areas of the world marked by failed or weak states' (Somalia, Papua New Guinea, Sierra Leone), though some areas (South-East...