Politics and Governance Open Access Journal | ISSN: 2183-2463 Volume 7, Issue 4 (2019) Trade-OffsTrade-Offs inin thethe PoliticalPolitical Realm:Realm: HowHow ImportantImportant AreAre Trade-OffsTrade-Offs inin Politics?Politics? Editors Todd Landman and Hans-Joachim Lauth Politics and Governance, 2019, Volume 7, Issue 4 Trade-Offs in the Political Realm: How Important Are Trade-Offs in Politics? Published by Cogitatio Press Rua Fialho de Almeida 14, 2º Esq., 1070-129 Lisbon Portugal Academic Editors Todd Landman (University of Nottingham, UK) Hans-Joachim Lauth (University of Wuerzburg, Germany) Available online at: www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance This issue is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY). Articles may be reproduced provided that credit is given to the original andPolitics and Governance is acknowledged as the original venue of publication. Table of Contents Political Trade-Offs: Democracy and Governance in a Changing World Todd Landman and Hans-Joachim Lauth 237–242 Designing Democratic Constitutions: The Search for Optimality Steffen Ganghof 243–253 Governing Trade-Offs and Building Coherence in Policy-Making for the 2030 Agenda Måns Nilsson and Nina Weitz 254–263 The Theory of Democratic Antinomies and the Identification of Value Trade-Offs in Political Practice Oliver Hidalgo 264–274 Globalization and Modern Slavery Todd Landman and Bernard W. Silverman 275–290 Free Trade versus Democracy and Social Standards in the European Union: Trade-Offs or Trilemma? Claudia Wiesner 291–300 Associations between the Mixture of Governance Modes and the Performance of Local Public Service Delivery Yin Lei Win Swe and Seunghoo Lim 301–314 Identifying Profiles of Democracies: A Cluster Analysis Based on the Democracy Matrix Dataset from 1900 to 2017 Oliver Schlenkrich 315–330 Dilemmas and Trade-Offs in Peacemaking: A Framework for Navigating Difficult Decisions Anne Isabel Kraus, Owen Frazer, Lars Kirchhoff, Tatiana Kyselova, Simon J. A. Mason and Julia Palmiano Federer 331–342 Politics and Governance (ISSN: 2183–2463) 2019, Volume 7, Issue 4, Pages 237–242 DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2642 Editorial Political Trade-Offs: Democracy and Governance in a Changing World Todd Landman 1,* and Hans-Joachim Lauth 2 1 School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, UK; E-Mail: [email protected] 2 Chair of Comparative Politics and German Government, University of Wuerzburg, 97074 Wuerzburg, Germany; E-Mail: [email protected] * Corresponding author Submitted: 14 November 2019 | Published: 25 November 2019 Abstract The investigation of trade-offs in political science receives only limited attention, although many scholars acknowledge the importance of trade-offs across a variety of different areas. A systematic and comprehensive examination of the topic is missing. This thematic issue of Politics and Governance sheds light on this research deficit by providing a holistic but also an integrative view on trade-offs in the political realm for the first time. Researchers of trade-offs from different political areas present and discuss their findings, and promote a fruitful exchange, which overcomes the current isolation of the approaches. They consider the theoretical and methodological questions as well as the identification of empirical trade- offs. Furthermore, they provide insights into the possibility to balance trade-offs and strategies, which could help actors to find such compromises. Keywords balancing trade-offs; constructed trade-offs; logical trade-offs; trade-offs Issue This editorial is part of the issue “Trade-Offs in the Political Realm: How Important Are Trade-Offs in Politics?” edited by Todd Landman (University of Nottingham, UK) and Hans-Joachim Lauth (University of Wuerzburg, Germany). © 2019 by the authors; licensee Cogitatio (Lisbon, Portugal). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribu- tion 4.0 International License (CC BY). Trade-offs are central to economics, as they are to life. ernment (Nohlen, 1996); (4) majoritarian and consen- They are at the heart of economics because neither sus democracy and the representation of interests the decision-maker nor society can have everything it (Ganghof, 2018; Lijphart, 2012); (5) freedom and secu- wants. We look at the trade-offs that must be made rity in times of terrorism (Brysk & Shafir, 2007; Hidalgo, when the criteria that are used to govern social deci- 2009); (6) economic abundance and political freedom sions cannot all be fully satisfied. (Campbell & Kelly, (Landman, 2013); (7) truth and justice (Landman, 2013); 1994, p. 422) (8) the “dilemma” (Smilov, 2008) between libertarian and egalitarian political finance models; and (9) the many 1. Introduction trade-offs evident in the Brexit negotiations between the EU and the UK since the 2016 Referendum. Trade-offs play an important role not only in the econ- Such an enumeration could be extended ad nau- omy, but also in politics and society. Many scholars ac- seam; however, these examples highlight that perfect so- knowledge the importance of trade-offs across a variety lutions are likely not to be available, and that the choices of different areas: (1) ecology vs. economy (Inglehart, made by societies and/or political actors have conse- 1977); (2) democratic functions (responsibility vs. re- quences in the form of serious and unavoidable oppor- sponsiveness) and the quality of democracy (Campbell, tunity costs. Given the ubiquity and relevance of trade- 2019; Diamond & Morlino, 2004; Lauth, 2016); (3) ef- offs in the political realm, the understanding of the phe- ficiency of electoral systems and representative gov- nomenon of trade-offs remains undertheorized and is Politics and Governance, 2019, Volume 7, Issue 4, Pages 237–242 237 particularly thin empirically, which reveals a significant cies to identify, address, and mitigate trade-offs far as gap in research. In addition, often the concept of trade- possible. Nilsson and Weitz (2019) discuss the treatment offs remains unclear: Is it a logical trade-off between two of trade-offs in the input, process and output stages of goals such that each cannot be realized at the same time policy-making to improve the governance infrastructure, under any circumstances, or is the trade-off simply con- which not only generates the much needed a priori un- structed? The trade-off between effectiveness and par- derstanding for policy-makers around the character of ticipation in democracy (Dahl, 1994), which processes of trade-offs, but also paves the way for more effective ap- deliberation might resolve may be such a case of a con- proaches in the latter two stages. structed trade-off. Other authors discuss in a similar way Swe and Lim (2019) analyze the quality of public ser- the relationship between input and output legitimacy vices in Myanmar as a function of different modes of (Lindgren & Persson, 2011). governance. They compare the trade-offs between and This thematic issue of Politics and Governance sheds among three public service values of efficiency, effective- new light on this deficit in research by providing an inte- ness, and equity, which cannot all be achieved at the grative view on trade-offs in the political realm. The col- same time. Their different modes of governance at the lo- lection of articles brings together researchers of trade- cal level include hierarchy, market, and network, the com- offs from different political areas to promote a fruitful bination of which affect the delivery of public services in set of exchanges, which we believe overcome the cur- the area of agriculture. For them, the initial contradictions rent isolation of many different approaches. The contri- among efficiency, effectiveness, and equity in systems of butions deal with trade-offs in politics across three differ- network governance are overcome as the network ma- ent perspectives: tures, while market governance systems see a reverse in this logic, leading to greater contradictions over time. 1. Conceptually: What are the specific trade-offs in Landman and Silverman (2019) investigate the trade- the political area, how can we conceptualize and offs between globalization and modern slavery. They identify them? How can we distinguish between compare the positive and negative arguments surround- a logical trade-off and relationship between two ing the economic and political dimensions of globalisa- things that merely appear to be a trade-off? tion with respect to their possible effect on the preva- 2. Methodologically: How can we assess trade-offs lence of modern slavery. Using a cross-national data set and their mutual and interdependent relation- covering 70 countries, they show that countries with ships? higher degrees of economic globalisation and better 3. Empirically: Which research findings exist and how democratic and legal institutions tend to have lower lev- relevant are trade-offs in the political realm? How els of slavery prevalence. These findings are upheld even possible is it to balance trade-offs? Which strate- after taking into account other explanatory variables gies help actors find such compromises? How do such as violent conflict and regional differentiation. In empirical findings differ from logical trade-offs? similar fashion, Wiesner (2019) addresses the trilemma associated with globalisation and the EU: (1) free trade; The majority of the contributions address empirical ques- (2) democratic and social standards; and