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This article tests several hypotheses about distributive politics by studying the distribution of federal spending across US states over the period 1978–2002. It improves on previous work by using survey data to measure the share of voters in each state that are Democrats, Republicans and Independents, or liberals, conservatives and moderates. No evidence is found that the allocation of federal spending to the states is distorted by strategic manipulation to win electoral support. States with many swing voters are not advantaged compared to states with more loyal voters, and 'battleground states' are not advantaged compared to other states. Spending appears to have little or no effect on voters' choices, while partisanship and ideology have large effects.

From bureaucracy to the politics and organization for collaborative management -- Development of collaborative enterprises -- Organizing government to meet collaboration challenges -- The processes of reaching agreement -- On power and operations in collaboration -- The politics of it all -- Academic studies of collaborative politics and management -- Stories in collaborative politics -- The process challenges and struggles of joint undertakings -- Assessing and improving collaborative performance -- The future politics of public bureaucracy in a connected era -- Conclusion: administering collaborative affairs in the digital era.

This article examines the state-sponsored rise of local patriotism in the post- 1961 period, interpreting it as part of the effort to strengthen popular support for and the legitimacy of the Soviet regime during the second phase of de- Stalinization. It shifts the analytical focus away from the Secret Speech of 1956, the time of Nikita Khrushchev's full-scale assault on Iosif Stalin and his legacy, to the Twenty-Second Party Congress of 1961, the inauguration of a Utopian and pioneering plan to build communism by 1980. I consider how this famously forward-looking program gave rise to an institutionalized retrospectivism, as Soviet policymakers turned to the past to mobilize popular support for socialist construction. I examine how this process played out in the Russian northwest, where Soviet citizens were encouraged to turn inward, to examine their local history and traditions, and to reread these through a socialist lens.

This article examines the coordination mechanisms, in Germany and Denmark, which develop negotiation positions for the Council in the European Union (EU). The analysis studies these mechanisms through the lens of the 'politics of institutional choice' approach, which previous scholars have applied to examine EU coordination in Eastern and Central Europe. The results demonstrate that the approach travels well to EU member states in Western Europe. More pre-cisely, they show that the power of the individual ministers, as well as the type of government (minority vs. majority), are important factors in explaining differences in the way the two member states handle EU coordination. This strengthens the argument that the traits of the EU coordination mechanisms in EU member states are a function of power relations between do-mestic actors.

Truth commissions have become a widespread and normalized institutions for addressing past human rights violations. One of the central ideas behind the concept of truth commissions is that it is necessary to establish the truth about the past and allow victims to speak publicly about the violations to which they have been exposed. Truth and truth-telling are presumed to contribute to justice in the aftermath of large-scale human rights violations. The aim of this study is to critically analyse the concept of truth commissions by looking at three normative assumptions that underlie their establishment and their work. The three normative assumptions are problematized with the help of three research questions concerning a tenable understanding of justice in the aftermath of large-scale human rights violations, the role of truth for justice, and the impacts of truth-telling, respectively. The main argument of the study presents a challenge to truth commissions' proclaimed aim of contributing to justice. Drawing on Jacques Derrida's and Paul Ricœur's perspectives on justice, I argue that taking political and moral responsibility for the committed atrocities is the most tenable option. From this perspective, using truth commissions as institutions of restorative justice may be counterproductive. This study asserts that their focus on truth and truth-telling leads to a depoliticization of past violence and, hence, insufficient responsibility being taken for the atrocities. The concept of depoliticization is developed with the help of Michel Foucault's analysis of the relationship between truth and power and Hannah Arendt's notion of the political and its relation to truth. I argue that even though the decision to establish a truth commission is a political one, it aims at redirecting the problem of responsibility for human rights violations from the political domain to the quasi-judicial, resulting in the evasion of not only legal but also moral and political responsibility. The philosophical arguments of the study are contextualized through an examination of Morocco's Equity and Reconciliation Commission.

Scholars have been studying whether China's call for "discourse power" in international politics (initially made in 2011) is simply a tactic in the country's now-familiar pursuit of national interests as part of its ascendency. A closer look is required to avoid mistakenly considering it as no more than the Communist Party's propaganda, which would miss the point regarding China's use of the phrase in the context of prevailing normative worldviews regarding fairness and justice. The current Chinese international relations (IR) literature contains a significant number of articles on discourse power ( huayuquan) that discuss how calls for protecting sovereignty and rights in international affairs represent a perceived cultural need on the part of the Chinese government to articulate its own worldview while promoting its national interests. The author argues that without identifying theoretical or conceptual rationales and processes that support China's assertion of a need for discourse power in international affairs, it is possible to overlook the important cultural roots underlying the Chinese government's repeated demands for legitimacy in its dealings with other nation-states. (China/GIGA)

The choice of indigenous versus European languages in education should be a hotly contested issue. Surprisingly, in much of Africa it is not. African states have dramatically increased their use of local languages in education over the last decade. This increase, however, has not proceeded from vocal demands on government by various language groups. Instead, it is the result of two more subtle factors: the changed attitude of a former coloniser and the work of language NGOs on the ground. These two forces have altered governments' perceptions about the utility of African languages in their education strategies. Because this political process works through persuasion, rather than bargaining, it allows choices about language in education to be less contentious than popularly assumed, separating this process from the violent ethnolinguistic conflict that is so often associated with Africa.