The 10 most recently published documents
Prozess der Strategieentwicklung an der Deutschen Universität für Verwaltungswissenschaften Speyer
(2025)
Die Deutsche Universität für Verwaltungswissenschaften Speyer (DUV) ist ein interföderales und ressortübergreifendes „Zentrum der Verwaltungswissenschaften“ des Bundes und der Länder. Zu ihren Kernaufgaben gehört, ihre Studierenden so auszubilden, dass sie über die erforderlichen Fach- und Führungskompetenzen verfügen, um in der Bundes- oder Landes-verwaltung Aufgaben im höheren Dienst oder in vergleichbaren Positionen übernehmen und ausfüllen zu können. Um diesen Aufgaben zukünftig noch besser gerecht werden zu können, hat die DUV einen Prozess der Strategieentwicklung eingeleitet, der ab dem Wintersemester 2024/25 zu einer vollständigen Umstellung ihres Studienprogramms führen und vom Bund und allen Ländern mitgetragen wird.
Farm animal welfare is becoming a subject of politicization strategies. The conflicting policy preferences are pronounced in the United States, with its large and highly intensified live-stock sector. The lack of federal farm animal welfare regulations shifted politicization strate-gies of animal welfare advocates to the state level. By 2019 12 states had already passed legislation to protect animals in food production. This comparative study reveals that policy changes were initiated by new actor constellations entering the agricultural subsystem and were particularly successful when the institutional opportunity of public ballots existed. The role of political parties seems to be limited however.
The literature has described trade unions’ positions towards both precarious workers and migrant workers as ambivalent. By studying an extreme case, the meat-processing industries in the United Kingdom and in Germany, we show how trade unions were decisive in both countries in bringing exploitative working conditions on the political agenda and in advancing policy change. However, the strategies through which trade unions contributed to this dif-fered remarkably, highlighting different causal pathways in both countries. The British case can clearly be seen as an example of successful union revitalisation by relying on innovative strategies. In contrast, the German story exhibits a strong reliance on a more traditional ap-proach to improving workers’ rights, which was only successful after employers were willing to improve working conditions in the sector as well. Our analysis shows that policy change can happen despite unfavourable conditions and weak actors, especially if these actors make strategic use of situational conditions.
Sustainable agriculture implies trade-offs with farm animal welfare. Proposals to increase agricultural productivity and ecological sustainability alike, are often linked to intensification, which may restrict animal welfare. Despite the growing importance of farm animal welfare for the alignment of agricultural and environmental policy, determinants of decision-making at the EU level remain unexplored. This article contributes to closing this research gap, broadening our understanding of why policymakers vote for the enactment of animal welfare policies. Applying the Social Identities in the Policy Process (SIPP) perspective we highlight the role of group membership for individual decision-making. By means of a quantitative analysis of voting behaviour in the European Parliament on two animal welfare policies, we show that different identities are salient. The strongest predictor is political group membership. In case of defections from the group line, the salience of national, sectoral and also demographic identities adds to the understanding of decision-making.
Jenny Rademann stellte am 13.05.2025 auf dem 18. Deutschen Kinder- und Jugendhilfetag in Leipzig den aktuellen Forschungsstand im Projekt "Umsetzungsbegleitung KJSG" vor. Im Rahmen der Veranstaltung „Inklusive Kinder- und Jugendhilfe umsetzen“ des BMBFSFJ fasste sie Voraussetzungen und wichtige Schritte für eine gute Umsetzung der Inklusiven Lösung zusammen. Diese hat das Projektteam auf Basis einer Vielzahl von Erhebungen mit Kommunen in ganz Deutschland erarbeitet.
Shifting governance cooperatively – coordination by public discourses in the German water-food nexus
(2021)
In face of the interdependencies between policy areas in the management of common pool resources, studying nexus challenges is insightful for the exploration of new governance stra-tegies. This includes the co-occurrence of and the interaction between different governance modes. We put forward the argument that a promising approach to explore these dynamics over time is the method of discourse network analysis. By conducting a discourse network analysis of German agricultural and water policy in a region with intensive livestock farming and large surpluses of manure that exert pressure on water and soil resources, we analyse the development of discourses within and across policy areas. We show that the analysis of public discourses contributes to the understanding of coordination between actors.
The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) highlights the role of arguments and emotions inclu-ded in stories to influence the policy process. Most applications refer to highly politicized issues. How are narratives used in less politicized debates? This paper applies the NPF to two debates within the European Parliament (EP) which generally gain less public media attention than national debates. By conducting a discourse network analysis of two policy debates on agri-food technologies in the EP, we show that both debates do not rely as much on emo-tions as compared to public debates, but are to a greater degree based on argumentative and scientifically grounded reasoning. The use of the NPF characters of victims, villains, and heroes are fairly limited. Instead, the recently introduced character of the beneficiary is used frequently to highlight the advantages and benefits of the preferred policies.
