Policy In Austria Research Articles

Is decentralisation always good for climate change mitigation? How federalism has complicated the greening of building policies in Austria

This paper addresses two related puzzles. The first puzzle is that parts of the environmental federalism literature suggest that federal states are ill-equipped to solve nation-wide or global environmental problems such as climate change, but climate policy scholars usually emphasise the opposite. The second puzzle is that Austria (a federal EU Member State) is regularly praised as an environmental policy leader but has missed its Kyoto target by about 19 %. The paper addresses both puzzles by analysing to what degree federalism is responsible for Austria’s poor mitigation performance. Since the nine Austrian provinces are mainly responsible for regulating the building sector that accounts for about 25 % of total energy consumption and 13 % of the greenhouse gas emissions, the analysis focuses on the integration of climate change mitigation in building policies. The empirical core of the paper analyses all major EU, federal and provincial policies that aimed to green the building sector since the signing of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. After showing that these policy outputs cannot explain considerable sectoral emission reductions, we conclude that Austrian federalism did not facilitate but hinder climate change mitigation because it added a vertical dimension to an already complex horizontal integration challenge. However, since federalism can by far not explain Austria’s failure to reach its Kyoto target domestically, we also conclude that it is only one of many independent variables that shape climate change mitigation. Finally, we argue that Austria is neither an environmental policy leader nor a laggard, but an opportunist.

Alcohol Consumption, Alcohol Consumption –Related Harm and Alcohol Control Policy in Austria: Do They Link Up?

The study identifies changes in selected (“unplanned”) socio-demographic and economic factors as well as in (planned) political measures that are most strongly correlated with changes in alcohol consumption and alcohol consumption-related harm between 1961 and 2006 in Austria. During the period of investigation consumption increased until the early 1970s, dropped during the next decade and have leveled off since. Increasing urbanization, female employment and average age of mothers at their child births are associated with the best time series model for the interpretation of consumption changes. The results regarding alcohol control policies and their impact on consumption were paradoxical. Study limitations were noted pointing up the necessity to improve indicators and concepts.

Selectivities at Work: Climate Concerns in the Midst of Corporatist Interests. The Case of Austria

Despite legally binding greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and good pre-conditions for progressive climate action, emissions in Austria are on the rise. This article explores the reasons why climate change policy is so ineffective in Austria. We show that the social partnership has contributed significantly to the standstill in renewable energy production and the rejection of more ambitious reduction targets concerning greenhouse gas emissions, and consider the role of experts and expertise in climate change policies. The ineffectiveness of climate policy in Austria is largely due to corporatist actors who often act like an ex-ante filter or selective mechanism for what is politically acceptable or possible and what is not. Climate change is for the most part successfully kept off the political agenda and (climate sceptical) politicization does not take place. Insights from the literature on corporatism are enhanced by the concepts of strategic and epistemic selectivity to analyse not only access to the state terrain but also the domination of specific knowledge forms, problem perceptions, and narratives over others.

Commentary on Irmgard Eisenbach-Stangl, Deviance or Innovation? Recent Changes of Drug Substitution Treatment Policy in Austria

Commentary on Irmgard Eisenbach-Stangl, Deviance or Innovation? Recent Changes of Drug Substitution Treatment Policy in Austria

Deviance or Innovation? Recent Changes of Drug Substitution Treatment Policy in Austria

This exploratory study investigates major changes in opioid substitution treatment during the last decade in Austria and identifies main interests groups and their interplay. Different levels of visibility of interest groups and variations in latency of interests contribute further to the complexity of the multilevel structure of interests and interest groups regarding substitute therapy issues. Austria's unique low threshold of substitution treatment was developed during the 1990s, and is based on the prescription of slow release morphine and on the high involvement of GPs. Opponents, becoming active during the new millennium, succeeded in tightening up legal regulations but failed to change treatment practice.

Wage Policy in Austria and the Netherlands under EMU: A Change in Performance or the Continuation of the Status-Quo?

This paper analyses how wage policy in Austria and the Netherlands was affected by economic and monetary union (EMU). The paper concludes that EMU and the macroeconomic shifts resulting from it have had little influence on wage-setting in Austria and the Netherlands. While wage restraint outcomes did diverge for both countries after the start of EMU, this paper will argue that different wage institutions lead to this divergence. The EMU’s new macroeconomic order did not significantly change either countries microeconomic wage institutions.

The vulnerability thesis: interest group influence and institutional design

Where politics is dominated by two large parties, as in the United States, politicians should be relatively immune to the influence of small groups. Yet narrow interest groups often win private benefits against majority preferences and at great public expense. Why? The is that the electoral system is largely to blame, making politicians in two-party systems more vulnerable to interest group demands than politicians in multiparty systems. Political scientist Lorelei Moosbrugger ranks democracies on a continuum of political vulnerability and tests the thesis by examining agrochemical policy in Austria, Britain, Germany, Sweden, and the European Union.

Josef Steindl’s Life and Work in Austria

Josef Steindl’s impact on economic policy in Austria concentrated on three areas: Keynesian thinking, educational policy and technology policy. After returning to Vienna in 1950 Steindl advanced Keynesian and Kaleckian thinking in Austria and thus influenced a whole generation of economists. He pushed for an educational policy in Austria and emphasised the role of engineers, technicians and skilled workers in long-term economic growth. Closely related to this was his plea for a technology policy. As an industrial latecomer, Austria was able to import technologies for a long time; but once the country had caught up, it needed to stimulate innovation with a conscious technology policy. JEL Codes: E12, I20, O33

Report of the South East Europe Drug Policy Network Meeting - The International Drug Control Structures, the UN Drug Control Conventions and Drug Policy in Austria

The international drug control structures, the UN drug control conventions and drug policy in Austria. On Friday 9th and Saturday 10th March 2012, the South East Europe Drug Policy Network (SEE Network) held its annual meeting in Vienna, Austria. The programme of the meeting focused on the international drug control structures and the UN drug control conventions, the Austrian drug policy with special reference to young people who use drugs, and the work plan of the SEE Network for the coming year. On Friday 9th, the participants met with the Austrian Federal Drug Coordinator to discuss the Austrian drug policy, and visited the Association Dialog, an NGO providing services to people who use drugs, people dependent on drugs, their relatives and families in Vienna. Special attention was given to the provision of drug dependence treatment among young people. The same day, the SEE Network met with representatives from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) working on South East Europe and the Civil Society Unit, followed by a visit of the Vienna International Centre where several UN bodies (including the UNODC) have established their headquarters. On Saturday 10th, Martin Jelsma, the Drugs and Democracy Programme Coordinator of the Transnational Institute made a presentation on the UN drug control conventions. The last session of this meeting consisted in a discussion about the future activities of the SEE Network.

Decomposing Budget Balances for Austria

Brandner, Diebalek and Kohler-Toglhofer assess fiscal policy in Austria over the period 1976-2004 by decomposing the observed budget balance into: a core balance, estimated by means of an unobserved components model; the effect of automatic fiscal stabilizers (as calculated by the European Commission); the impact of discretionary policy responses to the business cycle, econometrically estimated; and a residual.

Fathers in Childcare in Austria

This article focuses on structural components that influence fathers in Austria in their decision to take paternal leave and stay at home when the child is below the age of three. First, it can be shown that the value structure in Austrian society does not motivate fathers to take leave. Second, we look at the employment and income structure as well as at the availability of childcare facilities. In particular, differences in earnings do not encourage fathers to stay at home. Family policies in Austria offer different models of parental leave where the earnings replacement rate is low and parental leave periods can be long. The outcome that, in view of the measures introduced, a rather low rate of fathers take the childcare benefit and stay at home is discussed. As a consequence, all the factors examined in this article likely perpetuate the inequality of men and women in the field of caring for children and maintain the existing structure.

Contradictions in adult education structures and policies in Austria

This article analyses the structural influences on the professional development of adult educators and their relation to education policy using Austria as a fairly average example of the diversity in European adult education. The position of adult education is first analysed in the course of the development of a lifelong learning strategy, showing a set of basic contradictions that are institutionally embedded in educational practices and policies. The consequences of these constellations for professional development in adult education are then examined, and a policy analysis undertaken based on institutional theory and using literature, documents and secondary data. This analysis shows that the contradictions in the institutional structures and policies inhibit both the development of a lifelong learning strategy as well as the professional development of adult educators. The competence development and quality assurance approaches adopted in Europe contribute only very modestly to the development of adult education in Austria.

Facing the crisis: new challenges for competition policy Selected papers from the 2010 annual meeting of the Austrian economic association

The financial crisis that struck the world economy in 2008 affected not only the financial sector in many countries around the world, but also the real sector. One important aspect of the financial crisis was that it has lead to unprecedented levels of monetary and fiscal support, resulting in hundreds of billions of Dollars and Euros to rescue some of the biggest financial institutions of the world, and to support economic activity. This large size government intervention is surprising from the perspective of a quarter century of economic policy preceding the crisis, where deregulation was the main policy objective in most OECD-countries. Industries that had been considered natural monopolies in the past, thus requiring either direct or indirect government ownership and/or strict regulation, were privatized and deregulated. The underlying argument was that free and unfettered markets were best-equipped to ensure an efficient allocation of resources and to achieve sustainable economic growth and higher living standards for the vast majority of people. Privatization and deregulation were subsequently not confined to natural monopolies like telecommunication, railways, etc. but also changed the structure of the financial sector. In addition, in many countries including Austria, there was a substantial shift in the pension system from the government to private funds thereby feeding enormous amounts of money into the financial system. Given the apparent tension between the policy objective of privatization and deregulation on one hand, and the size of government intervention over the last 2 years on the other hand, it was a natural decision, to deal at least with some aspects of the crisis at the Annual Meeting of the Austrian Economic Association in May 2010. In particular, we decided to focus on the consequences of the crisis for competition policy in Austria and in the EU. Before the financial crisis, competition policy could be seen to some extent to have replaced state ownership in Europe and regulation in the USA. After many years of policy geared towards privatization and

Islamophobia in Austria: The Recent Emergence of Anti-Muslim Sentiments in the Country

This paper examines the characteristics of Islamophobia in contemporary Austria. The country represents a particularly interesting case study of the dissemination of anti-Muslim sentiments as it has had a strong tradition of populist, right-wing politics, which was closely associated with the name of Jörg Haider until his death in 2008. However, publicly voiced prejudices against Muslims have remained comparatively rare. For some time, Austria's policy towards its Muslim population was even regarded as a model to be adopted by other countries. Even though this situation has started to change in the last three or four years, Islamophobia in Austria still seems to be more modest than, for example, in The Netherlands, where populist politics and anti-Muslim diatribes are closely connected. A further thesis to be confirmed in this research links anti-Muslim rhetoric in Austria with entrenched Judeophobic prejudices in the society at large. In this sense, some kinds of Islamophobia may serve as a cover for anti-Semitism. This view is very much in accordance with Austria's collective memory, which for a long time has demonstrated an amiable attitude towards Muslims, whereas Jews have always been seen as the utmost enemy. At a time when anti-Semitism has become socially disrespected, Islamophobia, a widely held attitude throughout Europe, is being used to appeal to Judeophobic sentiments.

Familienpolitik in Österreich zwischen Beharrung und Veränderung

This paper deals with the development of the Austrian parental leave legislation since the 1950s. Parental leave policies lie at the intersection of employment, gender, and family policies and are thus central in shaping gender and social relationships in a society. They constitute some of the most controversially debated family policies in Austria ever since the amendment of family law and abortion legislation in the 1970s. This paper outlines the development of Austrian parental leave policies and sketches the party positions accompanying their development.

Macroeconometric Evaluation of Active Labour Market Policies in Austria

This paper contributes to the literature on macroeconometric evaluation of active labour market policies (ALMP) by considering the regional effects on both the matching process and the job-seeker rate. We use an unique new data set on all Austrian job-seekers between 2001 to 2007 and apply GMM and Quasi-ML estimators to take into account both the simultaneity of ALMP and spatial interrelations between employment office districts. The results indicate that job schemes in the non-profit sector, wage subsidies, and apprenticeships cause particularly favourable effects on the regional matching function and the job-seeker rate.

Work–family reconciliation policies without equal opportunities? The case of Austria

This paper explores the main public work–family policies in Austria (parental leave in connection with the Childcare Benefit, parents’ entitlement to part-time work, the extension of the childcare infrastructure) from the perspective of social justice using the normative concepts of gender equality, recognition, and choice. The main results show that for the most part, these policies offer affirmative recognition of maternal care and limited employment of mothers but offer little support for transformative recognition, particularly in terms of increasing the social status of working mothers and fathers as carers. Austrian work–family policies also do little to redistribute incomes and career opportunities from men to women and childcare from women to men; instead, they grant only limited freedom to choose between parental duties and employment, and the (financial) support they do offer is strongly concentrated on early childhood. All in all, the construction of the parental leave system (together with the Childcare Benefit), the entitlement to work part time, shortfalls in public childcare structures, and the lack of awareness of gendered (cultural and material) structures on the labour market and within families do not actively encourage gender equality. Some aspects of these policies even stabilise and deepen gendered structures on the labour market and in families.

Governance Modes and Interests: Higher Education and Innovation Policy in Austria

ABSTRACTGovernance has become one of the central concepts in political science, but what is absent is the question: Which modes of governance produce which policy output? This paper develops a classification scheme for modes of governance in all dimensions of public policy and then applies it empirically in four Austrian case studies concerning higher education and innovation. We extend the scholarly discussion on governance to the factor interests and argue that this analytical factor needs to be taken into account in future research in order to understand the modes of governance in policy processes.

Citizenship in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland: Courts, Legislatures, and Administrators

A common claim has been that liberalization of citizenship policy depends on making policy behind closed doors. I challenge one variant of this line of argument, which regards courts as the primary “countermajoritarian” champion of the expansion of immigrant rights, through a comparison of citizenship policy in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. In all three countries subnational authorities play a significant role in the administration of naturalization policy. Courts have played more of a “nationalizing” rather than a “countermajoritarian” role. I also show how differences in federal structures affected recent efforts to reform citizenship policy in these countries.

Organic policy in Austria: greening and greenwashing

Within the EU Austria is in the vanguard of the development of organic farming, with more than 10% of farms and land under organic management. Austria therefore provides an excellent example of what happens when organic production becomes an accepted mainstream mode of farming. This raises key questions about how agricultural policy actors and market actors react to this growth. Does the increasing share of organic production substantially change the future direction of agricultural and policy development? Or is the growth of the organic sector mainly instrumental, allowing policy and market actors to communicate a positive image while at the same time ramifying conventional approaches?