Publikationsliste KOPS

Despite questions having a long-standing history in theoretical linguistics, the interface between empirically grounded corpus linguistics of questioning behaviour and analytically driven pragmatic theory of question structure and context has received significantly less attention. This paper aims to contribute to this field of research by showing that a four-way categorisation into question types, namely, pure questioning, assertive questioning, rhetorical questioning and challenge questioning, allows us to capture and represent questions in over two million words in natural language argumentative dialogue. In this type of dialogue questioning has been claimed to serve as the engine that drives the shape and development of a discourse. Our investigation covers three genres of argumentative discourse in which questions play a key role, namely political debates, moral dilemmas and sessions of participatory deliberative democracy. Through deep algorithmic analysis of the data, we test a variety of hypotheses from argumentation and linguistic theory, clearly demonstrating for the first time that (particular types of) questions directly catalyse argument structure and that the illocutionary consequences of non-canonical questions are much more varied than previously thought.

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Research on differentiated integration (DI) in the European Union has burgeoned in recent years. However, we still know little about citizens’ attitudes towards the phenomenon. In this article, we argue that at the level of individual citizens, liberal economic values increase support for DI. Stronger preferences for equality, in contrast, make opposition to the concept more likely. Similarly, concerns about discriminatory differentiation at the member state level lead citizens to oppose DI. We test the theoretical claims by analysing survey data on citizens’ attitudes towards a ‘multi-speed Europe’. Supporters of DI, indeed, are marked by liberal economic attitudes. In contrast to general EU support, we do not find robust correlations with socio-demographic variables. Moreover, the data reveal striking differences amongst macro-regions: support for DI has become much lower in Southern European states. We attribute this opposition to negative repercussions of the Eurozone crisis.

How does European integration affect the welfare state? This paper argues that European integration has non-complementary consequences for the political economy of welfare spending: European economic integration increases popular demand for social spending, whereas European political integration decreases the supply of social spending. Thus, the conflicting implications of European integration essentially break the link between social policy preferences and social policy. Using statistical models that deal with the multilevel structure of the theoretical argument, we find a positive relationship between economic integration and support for social policy. In the second part of the empirical analysis, dynamic model specifications at the country level show that higher levels of political integration are associated with lower levels of social spending. Furthermore, we provide evidence that social policy responsiveness declines as political integration increases.

We use German KiGGS data to add to existing knowledge about trends in vaccination-related attitudes and behavior. Looking at vaccinations against measles, we assess whether a low confidence in vaccination and vaccination complacency is particularly prevalent among parents whose children were born somewhat recently, as compared to parents whose children belong to earlier birth cohorts. We further analyze how these attitudes relate to vaccination rates in the corresponding birth cohorts, and which sociodemographic subgroups are more likely to have vaccination-hesitant attitudes and to act upon them. Results show that the share of parents who report "deliberate" reasons against vaccination has decreased across birth cohorts; at the same time, the children of these parents have become less likely to be vaccinated. This suggests that vaccination-hesitant parents became more willing to act upon their beliefs towards the turn of the millennium. Regarding efforts to convince parents and the public about the benefits of vaccination, the number of parents who think that vaccinations have serious side effects, or that it is better for a child to live through a disease, may have become smaller-but these parents are more determined to follow their convictions. Interestingly, the trend we describe started before the Internet became a widespread source of health-related information.

The nascent literature on the political consequences of technological change studies either left-behind voters or successful technology entrepreneurs ("superstars"). However, it neglects the large share of skilled workers who bene t from limited but steady economic improvements in the knowledge economy. This paper examines how workplace digitalization a ects political preferences among the entire active labor force by combining individual-level panel data from the United Kingdom with industry-level data on ICT capital stocks between 1997-2017. We rst demonstrate that digitalization was economically bene cial for workers with middle and high levels of education. We then show that growth in digitalization increased support for the Conservative Party, the incumbent party, and voter turnout among bene ciaries of economic change. Our results hold in an instrumental variable analysis and multiple robustness checks. While digitalization undoubtedly produces losers (along with some superstars), ordinary winners of digitalization are an important stabilizing force content with the political status quo.