Publication Type: Proceeding

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In the early 1990’s, the paradigmatic neo-corporatist system in Europe began to unravel. Austria’s Social Partnership system simultaneously faced political challenges to its legitimacy, liberalization of the national economy, and integration into European and global markets. While the macro-level coordination that defined the system has been essentially destroyed by these changes, this paper argues that the institutions of neo-corporatism in Austria continue to fulfil important roles in providing services to constituents and enhancing the effectiveness of government intervention in the economy. At the micro- and meso-levels, the Chambers of Labor and Commerce have adapted to a new set of roles and retain important characteristics that distinguish them from pluralist organizations as both lobbying groups and as quasi-public administrative bodies that enhance the effectiveness of economic intervention by the state.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper investigates the conflict about Islam Austria, Germany and Switzerland and focuses on the influence of different participation models and regulations between the church and the state. These three cases allow us to hold constant the citizenship model and thus to better investigate the influence of state-church relations than Joel Fetzer and Christopher Soper whose study included three cases (GB, F, D) in which both elements varied._x000d_Our data have been collected by means of media content-analysis for the period 1998 – 2007._x000d_The results show that in these three countries Islam has become an important political issue much later than in other countries and that right-wing populist parties play an important role in this conflict. Differences in the structure of these struggles can be explained by contextual factors: The official recognition of Islam in Austria leads to issue-specific opportunity structures and consequently to a higher participation of Muslim actors and a debate that is mainly shaped by pragmatic arguments. On the other hand, due to its civic participation model, in Switzerland state-centred and institutionalised action repertoires and context events are of less importance. Germany is a case in between.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In 1917 and 1918, three European absolutist states – Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Germany - collapsed, one after the other. These empires, or at least two of them, existed for centuries, but fell simultaneously, in the historically momentous span of several months. How can one explain such striking historical simultaneity in the fall of East European empires? I claim that existing internalist narratives of imperial collapse cannot account for synchronicity of these metamorphoses. I outline an alternative, bellicist-externalist, interpretation of breakdown of three empires. I argue that a war of large coalition alliances (particularly a positional war like World War One) is likely to create a situation of a strategic stalemate which may turn the conflict into a full-scale war of attrition in which nations that are denied access to the international markets are likely to experience economic collapse, social unrest, elite crisis, and, if the war protracts, state breakdown. My analysis demonstrates consistence of evidence of economic mobilization among five European nations with the bellicist-externalist explanation. Nations that had free access to outside world (Britain and France) were able to maintain a high level social and political stability and avoided social crisis during the war. Nations that were excluded from world-economy (Austria-Hungary, Germany and Russia) suffered deep economic and political crises. These states collapsed not because of their internal weakness, vulnerability, or “backwardness” but largely because of their specific location in geopolitical configurations of coalition alliances.