This paper analyzes the importance of governance of international organizations (IOs) to Swiss policy making in the field of education. The focus is on the Bologna Process driven by the European Commission, and the ‘Programme for International Student Assessment’ (PISA) of the Organization...

Far-reaching transformations in Swiss education were pushed in the last decade by two prominent international initiatives, namely the 1999 Bologna process and the OECD's PISA study starting in 2000. To what extent and in which way were these soft governance initiatives able to trigger Swiss...

Despite of their methodological and practical significance mixed-methods-designs have so far largely been neglected by political science. In this working paper, we elaborate a mixed-methods-design combining qualitative methods, such as expert interviews and document analysis, and quantitative...

Europa wird meist mit dem Stier dargestellt. Allerdings gibt es auch eine lange Tradition Europa als Schiff abzubilden und damit an die Tradition des Staatsschiffs anzuknüpfen. In dem Artikel werden unterschiedliche Formen des Staatsverständnisses herausgearbeitet, die sich mit dieser...

The state is one of the major institutions in modern industrial societies which have an enduring influence on societal development. Since the latter part of the 20th century developments have pointed to a far-reaching transformation of the modern nation state in the OECD world (Organisation for...

We examine whether a fundamental change in the core dimension of modern 20th century statehood, the welfare state, has become evident in response to changed exogenous and endogenous challenges. By combining quantitative and qualitative approaches we take stock of social policy development in...

What is the nature of the European Union? Does it have the characteristics of a state, and if so, which? We employ a single imagea poster that won a Marshall Plan competition in 1950to examine the various legal perspectives of the EU that have emerged over the past six decades. Created as a...