Over the past two decades, reliance on short-term contracted staff has increased in government institutions across the Western world. This tendency towards contracted government may be strengthened during periods of economic and financial stress. This article therefore poses the following...

In federal countries, competence for policy matters is often shared between various levels of government. As only overall outcomes are observed, this might blur accountability by decreasing voters' ability to infer information about the performance of their leaders. In this article, we analyse...

Members of parliament in many countries are legally permitted to execute (un)paid jobs in addition to their political mandate. It is often argued that such moonlighting activities are unproblematic for the chain of democratic delegation and accountability as long as outside interests/earnings...

Industrial society is still on a course of conflict with the environment. Natural resources are being over-exploited and the natural ecosystems are over-loaded by non-digestable pollutants. Unchanged, industrial society gives no real chance to nature and provides no future for a sustainable...

Industrial society is on a course of conflict with the natural environment. Natural resources are being overexploited and the natural ecosystems are overloaded by non-digestable pollutants. Unchanged, industrial society gives no real chance to nature and provides no future for a sustainable...