In der gegenwärtigen Modernisierungsdebatte des öffentlichen Sektors spielt die Verselbständigung von Verwaltungseinheiten eine zentrale Rolle. Die Reduzierung des Staates auf seine Kernaufgaben durch Enthierarchisierung und Dezentralisierung von Kosten- und Leistungsverantwortung sowie die...

Over the last two decades there has been a growing debate on the supposedly negative relation between ethnic diversity, public goods production and social cohesion. Despite the amount of evidence, existing in-depth qualitative reviews conclude that the literature is inconclusive. Advancing upon...

[Introduction] In the controversies over immigration and Islam in the early 21st century, Muslims have widely become associated with religious fundamentalism. Others have argued that religiously fundamentalist attitudes characterize only a small minority of Muslims living in the West, and can be...

Ethnic diversity is typically measured by the well-known Hirschman-Herfindahl Index. This paper discusses the merits of an alternative approach, which is in our view better suited to tease out why and how ethnic diversity matters. The approach consists of two elements. First, all existing...

The central cause for the crisis in Europe is not undisciplined spending by profligate states, but the asymmetric structural symbiosis between states and banks. Under the current European regime states are lenders of last resort for banks and banks are lenders of last resort for states. That...

I argue that legal and constitutional theory should avoid the idea of constituent power. It is unhelpful in seeking to understand the authority of law and the place of written constitutions in such an understanding. In particular, it results in a deep ambivalence about whether authority is...

The paper discusses recent propositions that forms of a European exceptionalism are now emerging. The paper first asks what makes a political entity exceptionalist. For this purpose inspiration is sought in American exceptionalism as a model. The paper then discusses whether Europe displays...

The article challenges the established view according to which the authority of the European Union is inexplicable in terms of collective self-determination. Contrary to this widely held belief, it explains the condition under which it is plausible to impute the current shape of the Union to the...

The idea of justice in the EU legal setting has become a new lens for viewing the European enterprise and is as such largely inspired by the greater debate in political theory on how to imagine a just society. This paper explores the meaning and function of justice-oriented reasoning in the EU...

Political parties are often argued to compete for voters by stressing issues they feel they own - a strategy known as 'selective emphasis'. While usually seen as an electorally rewarding strategy, this article argues that cultivating your themes in the public debate is not guaranteed to be...