As the public debate over stem cell research continues, the observable voting behaviour in Switzerland offers a unique opportunity to compare the voting behaviour of politicians with that of voters. By analysing the outcomes of a referendum on a liberal new bill regulating such research, we reveal an about 10 percentage point lower conditional probability of the bill being accepted by politicia...

This review article focuses on a recent book that poses the following question. Is law computable? In examining some of contributions in this edited collection second Is, as result artificial intelligence (AI) and research, legal knowledge regressing? its analysis book, examines several major epistemological problems facing creators reasoning AI programme; it concludes assumptions upon which re...

Article history: Received 1 December 2013 Received in revised form 14 March 2014 Accepted 15 March 2014 Available online 4 May 2014 Research has consistently shown that intelligence is positively correlated with socially liberal beliefs and negatively correlated with religious beliefs. This should lead one to expect that Republicans are less intelligent than Democrats. However, I find that indi...

Lijphart’s claim that power-sharing spurs democratization in divided societies has strongly influenced ‘institutional engineering’ and is widely accepted among scholars despite the fact empirical tests of its merits remain rare. This article revisits democratic effect power-sharing, arguing it two antagonist faces. On positive side, provides guarantees inclusion to political elites, allowing th...

Despite the considerable influence of Esping-Andersen's categorization of three "worlds" of welfare capitalism, researchers have largely neglected investigation of his dimensions of welfare state policy and politics. Building on and extending the foundations provided by Esping-Andersen, we explore the identities and consequences of welfare state regime dimensions. Our principal components analy...

The debate on television’s "public service"obligations can only make full sense if integrated in the broader context of the debate on the best political model for society. In fact, the classic "public service"rationale is based in a normative conception of good and in a suspicious view of the average citizen that is largely tributary of a Platonic or Elitist approach to the political organizati...

One condition for the stability of democratic systems is the development of a political culture that is congruent with the implemented structure. As the presented data shows, in unified Germany this kind of congruence exists only in West Germany. In East Germany a majority of citizens is supporting democracy as well, but have a rather skeptical attitude toward the liberal democracy of Germany. ...