Abstract

Collective action problems derive from interactions among actors pursuing the same goal to generate so-called collective goods such as collective defense. Yet, each actor involved faces simultaneously a high incentive to shirk on his own contribution to the common cause because he will benefit anyway if others produce these desired collective goods. In NATO European allies have been criticized for “free riding” on American collective goods production for a long time. This raises the question why NATO does not crumble from these irreconcilable conflicts. After all it consists of highly heterogenous member states.

This article answers this puzzle by demonstrating that NATO build up and adjusted many different institutions to address and ameliorate a wide range of collective action problems. These institutional adjustments and innovations therefore provide a very persuasive explanation why NATO still persists despite substantial collective action challenges.

This rather abstract explanation is illustrated by analyzing several illuminating examples such as burden sharing, NATO’s defense planning system, procedures to generate and activate national forces for NATO operations, and decisions for the first use of nuclear weapons.

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This article (German language only) guides teachers to lecture on democracy and autocracy. It identifies the key features of both concepts and compares them systematically.

The article also explains how democracies seek to solve the dilemma that government is a necessary evil. Only governments can provide some necessary services to societies. Yet, it should not become too powerful. State and society must balance each other.

Democracies turn into autocracies when formal institutions such as the separation of powers disappear or when the informal guardrails erode.

Moreover, inertness is a necessary feature of democracies often underappreciated. It helps protect the guardrails and optimizes problem solving.

Todays democracies expose two underlining long-term trends. First, political communication and action used to be channeled through formal organizations such as interest groups, churches, or political parties. Today, people prefer acting through informal channels in a flexible and more spontaneous manner. Second, in the past citizens mostly demonstrated political allegiance. Today they practice individualism by being politically assertive.

This chapter seeks to demonstrate that EU politics deeply and directly affects the daily life of all its citizens. It creates both, opportunities and constraints for member state governments and people. They cannot be disentangled because the EU deeply penetrates domestic politics in member states. In essence, domestic politics cannot be understood without the inescapable context of EU politics. The EU effectively transformed its members. EU politics therefore raises two key puzzles that political scientists sought to reckon with. Why did Europeans integrate into the EU in the first place when its effects were so ambiguous? How did Europeans respond and sought to protect themselves against undesirable penetration, when the EU hit home? The answer to both questions will allow to discuss the question of how democratically legitimate EU politics can be.

The paper is published in the Aus der Forschung research notes series as no. 1/2023 in English language.