Volume 34, Issue 5

Concerning the problem of the supply of public goods the logic of the utilitarian action model produces a dilemma: on the one hand, a market failure appears in regard to their supply within the scope of this model; on the other hand, the theoretical model assumptions make the only solution - that the state has to provide for such goods - seem ineffective (state failure). The solution offered in the framework of a “constitutional political economy”, according to which the same social mechanism must become effective as in the conclusion of an imaginary social contract, will ultimately result in a “prisoner’s dilemma” due to the actors’ lacking value commitment. This consequence can be avoided in the frame of reference of classical political economy, because here individual utility orientation and normative value commitments do not exclude each other, so that the actors are able to overcome the dilemma. As a result, value commitments must be taken into account alongside market, state, and community as central mechanisms in the coordination of social action. However, such pure mechanisms of action coordination condense empirically into a complicated manner of coordination.

This article presents a general model of action based on Hartmut Esser’s theory of frame-selection, which overcomes the central objections to the previous formalizations of the theory. This model explains how an actor defines a situation (frame-selection), which program of action he activates (script-selection), and which action he is willing to perform (action-selection). Proceeding from the assumption that the rationality of actors is variable, it goes on to specify the conditions under which an actor will consciously choose the alternative which will maximize his subjectively expected utility (reflecting-calculating mode) as opposed to those under which he will select - without any prior reflection - a mentally strongly accessible alternative (automatic-spontaneous mode). Thus the attempt is made to integrate concepts of action from sociology, economics, and social psychology into a general and formally precise theory of action.

German vocational training certificates are presumed to guarantee access to work, especially to qualified occupational positions. But is this similarly true for young non-Germans who have completed vocational training in Germany? Do they attain job opportunities similar to German graduates of training programs? In this article, we answer these questions empirically utilizing the German Microcensus.We compare the job opportunities of trained and untrained young adults of various ethnic groups and analyze how strongly ethnic disadvantages can be compensated for by vocational training certificates. If the German vocational training system meets its charge to facilitate “integration,” we should find that such certificates actually do provide opportunities for non-Germans similar to those for Germans. Our investigation shows, however, that especially Turkish young adults have poorer job opportunities. This indicates an “ethnic” signal value of vocational training certificates.

In current research on migration and the welfare state, it is often stated that differences in access to social rights between citizens and non-citizens are becoming less relevant due to an expansion of migrants’ rights. The expansion- thesis, however, gives only an incomplete picture of the development of migrants’ social rights. Looking at Britain and Germany, we can see that some migrant groups are facing contractions of their rights and that economic restructuring, welfare state retrenchment, and socio-economic marginality are leading to the erosion of social rights even of long-term residents and their offspring. It is argued in this article that these parallel trends of expansion, contraction, and erosion can best be explained if we conceive of migrants’ rights as a system of stratified rights in which different groups of migrants experience different kinds of changes and in which different mechanisms - residency laws, social policy regulations, and socio-structural conditions - work together in the exclusion of migrants from the national welfare state.