This paper explores whether the co-production model is more effective than the government-centric model in the provision of rural child welfare services in rural China. What are the processes and patterns of co-production in service provision? The paper begins by introducing the transition in the logic of service provision in the public sector from New Public Management to New Governance Theory. Then it elucidates the state of rural public service provision in China, especially child-related services. It then introduces a case that employs a co-production model in delivering child welfare services in rural China. By comparing the different intervention effects of the co-production versus the government-centric model, the paper argues that the co-production model is a dynamic way to deliver public services.

Ever since 1988 when Mr. Deng Xiaoping, the chief architect of the reform and opening-up policy, proposed that “science and technology are the primary produc-tive forces”, China emphasized the contribution of science and technology to the development of economy and society. Therefore, science and technology associa-tions (S&T associations,科技社团, kejishetuan) organized by scientists and techni-cians have been encouraged by the government to serve the nation’s development strategy. On the one hand, the integration of science and public affairs calls for the collaboration between the government and S&T associations in order to implement the administrative reform that limits the government and optimizes government functions. On the other hand, in the international innovation-oriented competition, the construction of an innovative country also depends on S&T associations to take over the tasks of gathering science and technology talents and improving science literacy of the entire population.

The resource curse literature’s main lesson is that developing and natural resourcerich countries should save most of their oil windfalls in foreign currency. Moreover, the political cycle literature’s recent contributions predict stronger cycles in these countries. This paper investigates how political cycles might explain low oil windfall savings. Using Venezuela’s case, the paper argues that power concentration during periods of oil price explosiveness leads to increased public investment in prestige projects aimed at increasing the incumbent’s – or his party’s – re-election probabilities. The article backs the argument analyzing the Chavista democratic period of 1999- 2016. It also identifies parallels with Venezuela’s 1970-1988 period.

Shitstorms, Hate Speech oder virale Videos, die zum Klicken, Liken, Teilen bewegen: Die vernetzte Gesellschaft ist von Affekten getrieben und bringt selbst ganz neue Affekte hervor. Die Beiträge des Bandes nehmen die medientechnologischen Entwicklungen unserer Zeit in den Blick und untersuchen sie aus der Perspektive einer kritischen Affekt- und Sozialphilosophie. Sie zeigen: Soziale Medien und digitale Plattformen sind nicht nur Räume des Austauschs, sie erschaffen Affektökonomien – und darin liegt auch ihre Macht. Indem sie neue Formen des sozialen Umgangs stiften und bestimmen, wie wir kommunizieren, verschieben sie auch die politische Topographie. Mit einem Beitrag von Antonio Negri.

As part of their efforts to professionalize crisis and conflict prevention, foreign policy-makers are investing more in foresight, early warning or prediction. Different approaches and their products are suited for different purposes, based on distinct strengths and weaknesses. This policy paper provides an overview of the most common methods used in the context of preventing violent conflict and governance breakdown, and offers guidance on what to look out for when thinking about and planning for the future of crisis prevention.

El trabajo analiza el fenómeno de captura corporativa del Estado usando un enfoque dinámico-relacional de juegos de poder. Esta captura de tipo económico se manifiesta en diversos continentes donde existen “democracias de mercado”, y se acentúa en América Latina a partir del “giro conservador” que se observa desde el 2016. Se explica la captura económica como un proceso de influencia excesiva de las corporaciones sobre la orientación de las políticas públicas. Esta influencia es el resultado de fuertes asimetrías de poder que se están acentuando gracias al uso de instrumentos y redes de influencia sobre el Estado, para lograr ventajas y privilegios que la sociedad civil no logra contener o revertir. El trabajo, luego de hacer un balance de lo escrito, tarea necesaria dada la diversidad de contribuciones, identifica factores históricos e institucionales como la concentración extrema del poder económico en manos de corporaciones privadas y su transformación interna para intentar manejar el contexto; la discrecionalidad del Estado y la tecnocracia y su tendencia a legislar por decreto, la porosidad de las instituciones políticas y su debilidad representativa; y el debilitamiento relativo de la sociedad civil por la pérdida de poder de los sindicatos y su mayor dispersión; todo ello genera situaciones de captura del Estado. Asimismo, identifica los principales instrumentos lícitos, dudosos e ilícitos de influencia como la financiación de partidos, el lobby y la puerta giratoria, y la secuencia en que se usan en red para maximizar la influencia corporativa sobre el Estado.

We evaluate the role played by loan supply shocks in the decline of investment and industrial production during the Great Depression in Germany from 1927 to 1932. We identify loan supply shocks in the context of a time varying parameter vector autoregression with stochastic volatility. Our results indicate that credit constraints were a significant driver of industrial production between 1927 and 1932, supporting the view that a structurally weak banking sector was an important contributor to the German Great Depression. We find further that loan supply shocks were an important driver of investment in the early phase of the depression, between 1927 and 1929, but not between 1930 and 1932. We suggest possible explanations for this puzzle and directions for future research.

Data revisions to national accounts pose a serious challenge to policy decision making. Well-behaved revisions should be unbiased, small and unpredictable. This paper shows that revisions to German national accounts are biased, large and predictable. Moreover, using filtering techniques designed to process data subject to revisions, the real-time forecasting performance of initial releases can be increased by up to 17%. For total real GDP growth, however, the initial release is an optimal forecast. Yet, given the results for disaggregated variables, the averaging-out of biases and inefficiencies at the aggregate GDP level appears to be good luck rather than good forecasting.

Le nouveau report de GLOCON examine l'impact de l'exploitation minière industrielle au Burkina Faso sur la population locale ; il présente la perspective des résident·e·s de six mines industrielles. Des enquêtes dans les villages riverains montrent que, au contraire qu’aux promesses faites par les sociétés et les autorités étatiques, les conditions de vie ne se sont pas améliorées. Par contre, les répondant·e·s rapportent la perte de leurs moyens de subsistance et des problèmes de santé, ainsi qu’un comportement irrespectueux de la part des sociétés minières. Les résident·e·s affecté·e·s protestent et réclamant la compensation financière, l'emplois, et les opportunités de revenus ainsi que l'investissement dans l’infrastructure locale. Il y existe des versions en anglais et en français.

Das Working-Paper „Katastrophen und Katastrophenvorsorge in Berlin-Neukölln aus Sicht der Bevölkerung“ stellt Ergebnisse einer Studie zur Wahrnehmung von Katastrophen und Katastrophen-vorsorge in Neukölln vor, die im Rahmen des vom Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) finanzierten Projekts „INVOLVE – Verringerung sozialer Vulnerabilität durch freiwilliges Engagement“ (2015-2018) durchgeführt wurde. Es werden die deskriptiven Ergebnisse einer quan-titativen Bevölkerungsbefragung dargestellt. Im Mittelpunkt der Erhebung stand die Wahrneh-mung und Einschätzung von Katastrophen, Katastrophenschutz sowie Vorsorgemaßnahmen ge-genüber den Szenarien Starkregen/Überschwemmungen, Hitzewellen sowie sozioökonomische Krise. Es zeigt sich, dass „klassische Naturkatastrophen“ als Gefahr im Bewusstsein und dem daraus resultierenden Vorsorgeverhalten deutlich weniger präsent sind als sozioökonomische Aspekte und individuelle Sorgen, wie bspw. Existenzsicherungsängste. Das Gefühl sozialer Einbettung in persönlichen Netzwerken und sozialer Kohäsion in der direkten Nachbarschaft und die damit ver-bundenen Ressourcen bei der Katastrophenbewältigung, ebenso wie das Vertrauen in Organisati-onen des Katastrophenschutzes wie das Technische Hilfswerk (THW) und Feuerwehren sind bei den Befragten sehr stark ausgeprägt. Das Vertrauen in die Kompetenzen von Behörden ist dagegen geringer.

How to identify customary international law is an important question of international law. The International Law Commission has in 2018 adopted a set of sixteen conclusions, together with commentaries, on this topic. The paper consists of three parts: First, the reasons are discussed why the Commission came to work on the topic “Identification of customary international law”. Then, some of its conclusions are highlighted. Finally, the outcome of the work of the Commission is placed in a general context, before concluding.

This article explores, whether domestic judges might be held accountable under international criminal law (ICL). To date, international criminal justice has almost entirely focused on prosecuting political or military leaders. The Justice Case tried before the Nuremberg Military Tribunal in 1946 marks the most prominent exception. Prior to it, the judiciary – otherwise considered the epitome of justice – had mutated into a murderous machinery under Nazi rule. Judicial decisions do have far-reaching implications possibly constituting or contributing to international crimes. This holds true in a wide range of cases, for instance on practices of warfare and torture, on the use of certain weapon technologies, or on policies relating to minorities or racial segregation. I argue that domestic judges are accountable when engaging in international crimes. The article delves into technical aspects of criminal law; as well as the notions of judicial independence and immunity. While guaranteeing the rule of law, these two notions challenge the core idea of ICL: its equal application vis-à-vis all perpetrators of international crimes irrespective of official capacity. In order to differentiate due judicial conduct and its abuse in violation of ICL, I suggest a threshold a judicial act needs to exceed for entailing accountability for an international crime.

International courts regularly cite each other, in part as a means of building legitimacy. Such international, cross-court use of precedent (or “judicial dialogue”) among the regional human rights courts and the Human Rights Committee has an additional purpose and effect: the construction of a rights-based global constitutionalism. Judicial dialogue among the human rights courts is purposeful in that the courts see themselves as embedded in, and contributing to, a global human rights legal system. Cross-citation among the human rights courts advances the construction of rights-based global constitutionalism in that it provides a basic degree of coordination among the regional courts. The jurisprudence of the U.N. Human Rights Committee (HRC), as an authoritative interpreter of core international human rights norms, plays the role of a central focal point for the decentralized coordination of jurisprudence. The network of regional courts and the HRC is building an emergent institutional structure for global rights-based constitutionalism.

This paper – which is based on the Thomas Franck Lecture held by the author at Humboldt University Berlin on 13 May 2019 – argues that the most likely development of international to be expected will be the coexistence of two “legal worlds”. On the one hand, an inter-State law brutally regulating political relations between human groups whitewashed by nationalism; on the other hand, a transnational or “a-national” law regulating economic relations between private as well as public interests. Further, the paper argues that there are two obvious victims – of very different nature – of this foreseeable evolution: the human being on the one hand, the certainty and effectiveness of the rule of law itself on the other hand.

This paper focuses on one particular issue which has arisen in the course of the ongoing debate on the reform of investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS), namely that of the appointment of arbitrators. Taking as its starting point that there now exists tentative consensus that the present system for the appointment of arbitrators either causes or exacerbates certain problematic aspects of the current ISDS system, the paper explores one option for reform, namely the introduction of an independent panel for the selection of investment arbitrators. In doing so, it is argued that a shift in the normative basis of the rules governing appointments is required in order to accommodate the principles of party autonomy and the international rule of law. Such reform, while not completely removing the initiative that parties presently enjoy, is the most efficient way to introduce rule of law considerations such as a measure of judicial independence into the current appointments system. This, it is argued, would in turn help to address some of the problematic features of the appointment of arbitrators in ISDS.