Suchergebnisse

'Cognitive locks' are ideational path dependencies in policy making (Blyth, 2001). This article argues that one source of cognitive locks is the presence of single party dominant regimes. Single party dominant regimes exist where a single party has managed to control the process of executive formation for an unusually long period of time. Because of their long tenure in executive office, dominant parties are often in positions to implement strong cognitive locks on their political societies. Not all cognitive locks are the same, however. Rather, how the dominant party behaved, either as a 'distributional coalition' or as an 'encompassing organization' (Olson, 1982) and how it subsequently incorporated 'voice' (Hirschman, 1970) to accommodate multiple interests, strongly influence the scope of the dominant party's cognitive lock. These observations are utilized in two brief case illustrations derived from well-known cases of single party dominance.

This article utilizes insights from work on policy networks and John Kingdon's multiple streams approach to examine the evolution of privatization ideas in Great Britain and Germany. It is argued that differently structured networks affect policy innovation. This study elaborates the different types of networks and their impact on ideas, shows how previously adopted solutions channel subsequent debates by privileging some solutions over others, and suggests that policy ideas are associated with particular political coalitions.

How policy ideas are influenced by networks and political coalitions, both domestically and internationally, and how previously adopted policy influences subsequent debates.

AbstractGermany's economic resilience, even in the face of the extreme pressures of unification, cannot be explained by the neoclassical economic approach. Its social market institutions induce the major actors in the political economy to negotiate over the terms of economic and political adjustment in such a fashion as to diffuse innovative new organizational and institutional practices broadly and thoroughly throughout the economy and polity. The reorganization of the financial sector and the spread of new forms of workplace organization and corporate governance are used to illustrate this dynamic. The paper concludes with implications for how we think about regulation.

This article examines the debate over West German defense policy from several perspectives. It first traces the evolution of the increased internal and external pressures for West German rearmament. It next addresses whether calls for increased defense spending are justified, given current FRG expenditures. Lastly, it analyzes the unique West German economic and political constraints that limit the FRG's ability to assume a greater military role in NATO. While economic constraints are not a decisive barrier to greater military spending, the domestic political climate and the West German view that security encompasses more than military security represent the greatest obstacles to increased defense spending.