Project Term: 01.10.2013 – 31.08.2017
Funding: German Research Foundation
Team: Georg Wenzelburger, Helge Staff, Fabienne Müller
Project Description:
The project aims to analyze the politics of law and order by comparing national policies across a large set of countries and time. Theoretically rooted in comparative policy analysis the project departs from insights won within comparative criminology by focusing much more prominently on political variables like the influence of parties or institutions. Applying both quantitative and qualitative methods the project analyzes three dimensions of law and order politics: legislation, public expenditure, and the fear of crime within the population. The project focuses quantitatively on Western industrial states in the time frame of 1990-2015. In order to support the statistical analysis, the policy processes of four selected countries are reviewed in greater detail. These cases are Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Sweden.
The project asks the following central and innovative research questions:
Which empirical differences and commonalities exhibit the politics of law and order between Western industrial states over time?
What political factors like parties or institutions explain the cross-country and temporal variance?
Project related publications:
- Staff, Helge/Wenzelburger, Georg (2017): Innere Sicherheit und Justiz. Zwischen Großreform und Kontinuität. In: Hörisch, Felix/Wurster, Stefan (eds.), Das grün-rote Experiment in Baden-Württemberg. Eine Bilanz der Landesregierung Kretschmann 2011-2016. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 97-123.
- Staff, Helge (2017): Partisan effects and policy entrepreneurs. New Labour’s impact on British law and order policy. In: Policy Studies, Early View, 1-18.
- Wenzelburger, Georg (2017): “Political economy or political systems? How welfare capitalism and political systems affect law and order policies in 20 Western industrialized nations”, in: Social Policy & Society, 17:2, 209-226..
- Wenzelburger, Georg/Staff, Helge (2017): “The ‘third way’ and the politics of law and order: Explaining differences in law and order policies between Blair’s New Labour and Schröder’s SPD”, in: European Journal of Political Research, 56:3, 553-577.
- Wenzelburger, Georg/Staff, Helge (2016): “German Exceptionalism? An empirical analysis of 20 years of law and order legislation in Germany”, in: Politics&Policy, 44:2, 319-350.
- Wenzelburger, Georg (2015): “A global trend towards law and order harshness? How globalization, partisan ideology and the party system shape law and order policies in 20 Western industrialized countries”, in: European Political Science Review, 8:4, 589-613.
- Wenzelburger, Georg (2015): “Parties, institutions, and the Politics of Law and Order”, in: British Journal of Political Science, 45:3, 663-687.
- Wenzelburger, Georg (2015): „Politik der Inneren Sicherheit“, in: Wenzelburger, Georg/Zohlnhöfer, Reimut (Eds.): Handbuch Policy-Forschung. Wiesbaden: SpringerVS, 663-698.
- Wenzelburger, Georg (2015): „Innere Sicherheit im Vergleich“, in: Lauth, Hans-Joachim/Kneuer, Marianne/Pickel, Gert (Eds.): Handbuch Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft. Wiesbaden: SpringerVS, 797-814.
- Wenzelburger, Georg (2013): „Die Politik der Inneren Sicherheit. Konturen eines Forschungsfelds aus Sicht der Vergleichenden Politikforschung“, in: Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft, 7:1, 1-25.