The Inter-Institutional Distribution of Power in EU Codecision

This paper analyzes the a priori influence of the European Parliament (EP) and the Council of Ministers (CM) on legislation of the European Union adopted under its codecision procedure. In contrast to studies which use conventional power indices, both institutions are assumed to act strategically. Predicted bargaining outcomes of the crucial Conciliation stage of codecision are shown to be strongly biased towards the legislative status quo. Making symmetric preference assumptions for members of CM and EP, CM is on an average much more conservative because of its internal qualified majority rule. This makes CM by an order of magnitude more influential than EP, in contrast to a seeming formal parity between the two ‘co-legislators’.     

Accepting the unacceptable: the concept of acceptance in work with the perpetrators of hate crime

We consider the challenge presented to social workers in working with people who are the perpetrators of hate crime. We argue that in order to be able to bring about positive change in this group, as in any other, the work can only take place in the context of a constructive relationship between worker and client, a relationship which is underpinned by the acceptance of the client by the worker. We trace the development of the concept of acceptance from its early formulation in the work of Rogers, through other writers, to its contemporary manifestation, as is to be found in some examples of work with the perpetrators of hate crime and most explicitly in the work of Krafeld. We conclude that in this area of work the concept needs to be understood in terms of an active and dynamic rather than passive approach.     

Figuren der reflektierten Improvisation in der sozialpädagogischen Jugendberatung

The author analyses the meaning of not planed and impossible to plan events in the field of social pedagogical counselling of young people. As a first step he describes how far the social pedagogical counselling always includes elements of improvisation. An analysis of the question how norma improvisation could be qualified as reflective improvisation follows. Finally the authors shows which forms of acting emerge using the reflected improvisation in the social pedagogical counselling.     

Reply to comments on modeling asset returns with alternative stable distributions and some extensions *

This paper examines the sampling properties of a number of serial correlation tests in dynamic linear models which include one or two lags of the dependent variable. Among the tests considered are the Durbin-Watson (DW) bounds test, modified versions of the DW proposed recently by King and Wu and Inder, Durbin's m test, Inder's point optimal test and a Hausman type test. Sampling designs include models with one or two lags of the dependent variable. The m, Hausman, and Inder's tests have the best performance, while Inder's modified DW test appears to be better than the other DW based tests. Results also suggest that tests are less powerful and more sensitive to design parameters in models with higher dynamics, with the DW-based tests being the most sensitive.     

Alternative Regionalism from Below: Democratizing ASEAN's Migration Governance

Most literature on migration governance has addressed the global level, and it has done so primarily from a state‐centric and top‐down perspective, with little regard to the role of civil society organizations in shaping its direction. Moreover, in an institutional sense, except for the EU, the regional level has only received scant attention, which is surprising given the significance of intra‐regional migration flows elsewhere. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is a case in point. Although there are few direct channels of engagement for civil society, the vibrant migrant rights community in Asia has been capitalizing on, and creating, opportunities at multiple levels including the regional. Our argument is that this creative use of channels of engagement in combined form at multiple levels can have democratizing potential.     

Minimal manipulability: anonymity and unanimity

This paper is concerned with the minimal number of profiles at which a unanimous and anonymous social choice function for three alternatives is manipulable. The lower bound is derived and examples of social choice functions attaining the lower bound are given. It is conjectured that these social choice functions are in fact all minimally manipulable social choice functions. Since some of these social choice functions are Pareto optimal, it follows that the lower bound also holds for Pareto optimal and anonymous social choice functions. Some of the minimally manipulable Pareto optimal and anonymous social choice functions can be interpreted as status quo voting.     

A spatial model for the needle losses of pine-trees in the forests of Baden-Württemberg: an application of Bayesian structured additive regression

Summary.  The data that are analysed are from a monitoring survey which was carried out in 1994 in the forests of Baden-Württemberg, a federal state in the south-western region of Germany. The survey is part of a large monitoring scheme that has been carried out since the 1980s at different spatial and temporal resolutions to observe the increase in forest damage. One indicator for tree vitality is tree defoliation, which is mainly caused by intrinsic factors, age and stand conditions, but also by biotic (e.g. insects) and abiotic stresses (e.g. industrial emissions). In the survey, needle loss of pine-trees and many potential covariates are recorded at about 580 grid points of a 4 km × 4 km grid. The aim is to identify a set of predictors for needle loss and to investigate the relationships between the needle loss and the predictors. The response variable needle loss is recorded as a percentage in 5% steps estimated by eye using binoculars and categorized into healthy trees (10% or less), intermediate trees (10–25%) and damaged trees (25% or more). We use a Bayesian cumulative threshold model with non-linear functions of continuous variables and a random effect for spatial heterogeneity. For both the non-linear functions and the spatial random effect we use Bayesian versions of P -splines as priors. Our method is novel in that it deals with several non-standard data requirements: the ordinal response variable (the categorized version of needle loss), non-linear effects of covariates, spatial heterogeneity and prediction with missing covariates. The model is a special case of models with a geoadditive or more generally structured additive predictor. Inference can be based on Markov chain Monte Carlo techniques or mixed model technology.     

From facts to stories or from stories to facts? Analyzing public relations history in public relations textbooks

Leading PR-historiography provides a picture of an evolutionary process of public relations activity in which PR develops from a manipulative to a two-way, dialogue-oriented communication process. We analyzed a number of public relations textbooks to determine how their authors present PR history. Our major findings are: (1) The construct of the progressive development of PR is evenly spread throughout textbooks; (2) The majority of textbooks simply rely on storytelling and not on a theory-driven approach to PR history as we would prefer to see in PR textbooks that are used to teach university students; (3) The PR history presented in the books seems to be influenced by a paradigmatic stance. However, citation context analysis did not enable us to trace back the dissemination of this viewpoint to one paradigmatic author, and so we assume that the so-called obliteration effect prevents this proof.