Rejoice, oh you PolSci nerds out there: Three of my favourite European blogs – Ballots & Bullets at Nottingham and the British Politics and European Politics blogs at the LSE – are launching a collaboration on euroscepticism, with a whole host of interesting stuff in the pipeline. What’s not to like?
Category: Politics
Annette Schavan Resigns as German Education Minister – not a zu Guttenberg
Annette Schavan has done the honest thing and resigned as Federal Minister for Education. Compare and contrast with the zu Guttenberg Saga
German Education Minister Stripped of Doctorate
German Federal Education Minister Annette Shavan has been stripped of her PhD What is it about German politicians and their dodgy doctorates?
Banning Germany’s NPD – Not a Very Bright Idea
The NPD is Germany’s oldest surviving Extreme Right party. It has been around for about five decades. After merging with its long-time rival German People’s Union (DVU, the ruling mentioned in the post was finally squashed), it is also a serious contender for the coveted title of Germany’s daftest party (see exhibit number one). While…
How many people die each year because of the “Second Amendment”? My estimate is 8000+
Following Friday’s events, the attached image went viral. The figures (if correct) are certainly suggestive, but obviously, the population at risk varies widely between countries. What we need is the gun-related homicide rate for a sample of comparable countries. I headed over to the Brady Campaign, which had created the image, but could not easily…
Nine Circles of (Social) Scientific Hell
A friend sent me the link to this very short article in Perspectives on Psychological Science that use precious journal space to highlight a lot of rather disturbing parallels between (social) science and Dante’s Inferno in creative ways. It would seem that we are all sinners, which, on second thought, is hardly news. For once,…
Helmut Kohl’s Round Table
The world remembers Helmut Kohl as the (self-styled) Chancellor of Unity. The middle-aged, slightly left-leaning segment of the West German population remembers him as the greying giant that presided for 16 years over a place where nothing would ever change. Even unification, which happened in the middle of his reign, did not really interrupt the…
APSA 2012: A disaster waiting to happen (it’s a tired headline, but someone had to come up with it)
Quite rightfully, most folks couldn’t care less about the woes of a bunch of Political Scientists (useless people at any rate) whose cunning plan to congregate in a prospective disaster area was foiled by – guess what – a hurricane. But while the world may dwell on Syria, Romney or Isaac’s s impact in the…
Germany and the European Crisis: Confusion and Delay
Yesterday, the BBC’s man in Berlin discovered that there are constitutional limits to Merkel’s ability to somehow save the Euro. Following a constitutional amendment in the 1990s, article 23 of the Basic Law stipulates that any further transfers of sovereignty to the EU require absolute two-thirds majorities in both the Bundestag and the Federal Council…
Germany’s and Merkel’s role in the euro-crisis
Globalisation is a wonderful thing. I just had a full Brazilian. Interview, that is. A journalist for Exeme sent me a mail with a couple of questions, I sent back my answers a few hours later and lo, thanks to broken English and the internet, the job is done, time difference and the Atlantic not…