Das Buch besteht aus drei Teilen: (I) Grundlagen der Politischen Ökonomik. (II) Problemfelder: Wie beeinflusst Politik das wirtschaftliche Leistungsprofil? (III) Politikfelder: Was beeinflusst die Wirtschaftspolitik? - Unter anderem werden die Themen dargestellt: Wirtschaftskreislauf, ökonomische Theorieschulen (Keynesianismus, Monetarismus, Angebotstheorie), Arbeitslosigkeit, Inflation, Geldpolitik, Steuerpolitik, Sozialpolitik, Handlungsspielraum nationalstaatlicher Wirtschaftspolitik in Zeiten der Globalisierung.
AbstractThe paper challenges the idea that using governing parties' policy positions is necessarily desirable in quantitative analyses of partisan differences in public policies. Rather, for some research questions parties' affiliation with certain party families is the preferable solution. The paper shows that the use of policy positions instead of party family affiliation shifts the research question from asking whether parties make a difference in public policy to the question whether parties in government do what they promise. This shift can have considerable analytical costs and can potentially blindfold scholars for certain dynamics. Moreover, the use of party family affiliation has less drawbacks than is often claimed even under multidimensional party competition if the simple distinction between left, center and right parties is abandoned and more fine-grained data for various party families are used.
This article applies a modified Multiple‐Streams Approach (MSA) to the German Hartz IV labor market reform, probably the most far‐reaching policy project since unification, which many theoretical approaches have substantial difficulties explaining. Empirically, the article provides the first encompassing explanation of the Hartz IV reform by putting together the empirical pieces of the overall puzzle. Theoretically, the article demonstrates that the extension of the MSA by Herweg, Huß, and Zohlnhöfer (HHZ) is fruitful regarding the adaptation of the MSA for decision making and regarding their hypotheses and operational definitions which allow a rigorous empirical analysis and provide the possibility to prove the MSA wrong. In contrast, HHZ's adaptation to parliamentary systems turn out to be less suitable for the case. Moreover, the point at which the political stream is considered to be ready for coupling needs reconsideration. It is argued that it suffices that some key political actors become interested in a proposal; in contrast, the necessary majorities for an adoption of the proposal need not be forthcoming already because these can still be organized during decision‐coupling.
Die deutsche Wirtschaft hat in den vergangenen knapp zwei Jahrzehnten einen erstaunlichen Wandel vollzogen: von einem "kranken Mann", wie die Presse schrieb, zu einem vorbildlichen Patienten, einem "Beschäftigungswunder" geradezu. Wichtig für die Genesung war eine Reihe politischer Reformen, die in den Jahren von 2002 bis 2008 auf den Weg gebracht wurden. Ihr Auslöser: die Angst vor dem Wähler.
