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This paper examines the interplay between leading international and American accounting authorities over the span of a critical four-year period, 2001–2005. Historically, US regulators and private-sector accounting institutions have taken a cautious approach to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs), citing the superior rigor and overall quality of their own Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). During the past four years, however, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) have each become markedly receptive to the International Accounting Standards Board's (IASB) efforts to harmonize accounting standards worldwide based on IFRSs. Why? This paper offers an explanation that highlights the role of the high-profile American corporate scandals (2001–2002) in precipitating a shift in US accounting authorities' views of the optimal form of accounting rules, an issue that has stood in the way of trans-Atlantic accounting standard convergence. Prior to the accounting scandals, the highly-detailed rules that are characteristic of US GAAP were widely seen to be the most effective form of accounting rule. Since 2002, a normative shift has taken place such that the SEC now endorses objectives-oriented rules that are conceptually aligned with the principles-based standards promulgated by the IASB. The analysis is framed by insights from contemporary International Relations theory which emphasize the influence of scope conditions on patterns of governance.

Why have housing reforms failed to achieve the desired improvements in housing in the Philippines? A review of trends in government housing strategies shows that while many problems in housing are linked to institutional barriers in the land and financial markets, government reforms focused on operational and program specific issues. While these reforms may be needed, they can only be effective if basic institutional issues are first addressed. The paper suggests that the efficient functioning of the land and financial markets is a necessary condition for the efficient functioning of the housing market. This requires government to undertake major reforms in land regulations and land administration infrastructure including the implementation of an effective real property tax system. On housing finance, government should re-adopt the financial reform concept developed in 1997 with assistance from the World Bank that calls for a clear separation of subsidy mechanisms from transactions in housing finance and to take initial steps to reduce subsidy that goes to high and middle-income housing markets. These reforms would also warrant reforms in the governance structure of housing delivery. Complete devolution of housing delivery functions to the local government is necessary. On the other hand, national government concerns will primarily be on providing the policy environment and housing subsidy management. These concerns may only require the creation of a corporate organization rather than a Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Educational policies in the face of globalization : whither the nation-state? / Martin Carnoy -- World society and the globalization of educational policy / Francisco O. Ramirez, John W. Meyer, and Julia Lerch -- The global diffusion of education privatization : unpacking and theorizing policy adoption / Antoni Verger -- Economic growth in developing countries : the role of human capital / Eric Hanushek -- Education, poverty and the 'missing link' : the limits of human capital theory as a paradigm for poverty reduction / Xavier Bonal -- Gender and education in the global polity / Elaine Unterhalter -- The global educational reform movement and its impact on schooling / Pasi Sahlberg -- Global convergence or path dependency? : skill formation regimes in the globalized economy / Marius R. Busemeyer and Janis Vossiek -- Education and social cohesion : a panglossian global discourse / Andy Green and Jan Germen Janmaat -- Policies for education in conflict and post-conflict reconstruction / Sarah Dryden-Peterson -- Human rights and education policy in South Asia / Monisha Bajaj and Huma Kidwai -- Early childhood education and care in global discourses / Rianne Mahon -- Education for all 2000-2015 : the influence of global interventions and aid on EFA achievements / Aaron Benavot, Manos Antoninis, Nicole Bella, Marco Delprato, Joanna Harma, Catherine Jere, Priyadarshani Joshi, Nihan KoseleCi Blanchy, Helen Longlands, Alasdair McWilliam, David Post and Asma Zubairi -- The politics of language in education in a global polity / M. Obaidul Hamid -- The global governance of teachers' work / Susan L. Robertson -- The global construction of higher education reform / Simon Marginson -- The historical evolution and current challenges of the United Nations and global education policy-making / Francine Menashy and Caroline Manion -- The World Bank and the global governance of education in a changing world order / Karen Mundy and Antoni Verger -- The changing organizational and global significance of the OECD's education work / Bob Lingard and Sam Sellar -- The policies that shaped PISA, and the policies that PISA shaped / Andreas Schleicher and Pablo Zoido -- Dragon and the tiger cubs : China-ASEAN relations in higher education / Rui Yang and Jingyun Yao -- An analysis of power in transnational advocacy in education / Ian Macpherson -- The business case for transnational corporate participation, profits, and policy making in education / Zahra Bhanji -- New global philanthropy in education and philanthropic governance in education in a post-2015 world / Prachi Srivastava and Lianna Baur -- Rational intentions and unintended consequences : on the interplay between international and national actors in education policy / Timm Fulge, Tonia Bieber, and Kerstin Martens -- Policy and administration as culture : organizational sociology and global and cross-national educational trends / Patricia Bromley -- Ethnography and the localization of global education policy / Amy Stambach -- Global education policy and the postmodern challenge / Stephen Carney -- Policy reponses to the rise of Asian higher education : a postcolonial analysis / Fazal Rizvi -- Joined-up policy : network connectivity and global education governance / Carolina Junemann, Stephen J. Ball and Diego Santori -- A vertical case study of global policy-making : early grade literacy in Zambia / Lesley Bartlett and Frances Vavrus -- Global indicators and local problem recognition : an exploration into the statistical eradication of teacher shortage in the post-socialist region / Gita Steiner-Khamsi.

La tesi di dottorato elaborata dal dott. Serafini analizza specificamente lo "statuto civilistico" di associazioni e fondazioni del Terzo settore, come risultante a seguito dell'entrata in vigore del d.lgs. 3 luglio 2017, n. 117, recante il «Codice del Terzo settore, a norma dell'art. 1, co. 2º, lett. b), della legge 6 giugno 2016, n. 106». In particolare, l'indagine è stata condotta nella prospettiva – segnata, in primis, dal legislatore delegante – della ridefinizione del ruolo del Terzo settore, nell'ambito dei rapporti tra Stato e cittadini, così come emergente da una lettura costituzionalmente orientata (ex. art. 118, co. 4°, Cost.), delle norme in tema di autonomia privata ed attività dei gruppi intermedi non lucrativi. Il fenomeno del Terzo settore è identificato per differenza rispetto a quelle forme organizzative della società civile che non sono riconducibili né alla struttura dello Stato (Primo settore) né alla dialettica del mercato (Secondo settore). Tale fenomeno individua, appunto, l'insieme dei soggetti che utilizzano strutture giuridiche collettive private, (anche) al fine della produzione di beni o di servizi, con destinazione al soddisfacimento di bisogni "sociali". In considerazione del carattere relativo e storicamente determinato dell'àmbito di autonomia riconosciuto ai privati nell'auto-organizzazione in strutture metaindividuali, il Capitolo I è stato dedicato alla ricostruzione storica dell'evoluzione dei rapporti tra Stato e corpi intermedi. A tal fine, si è scelto di analizzare due istituti che costituiscono un'efficace "cartina al tornasole" del fenomeno in discorso. Il riferimento agli istituti della personalità giuridica e della soggettività giuridica, intesi quali «procedimenti tecnici elaborati in vista dell'attribuzione di determinati vantaggi pratici a gruppi organizzati di individui» La progressiva autonomizzazione del diritto dei privati dal controllo statale è stata ricostruita dando ampio spazio, non solo al dato normativo, ma anche al formante dottrinale, con particolare attenzione all'impatto della Costituzione repubblicana sulla sistematica del diritto privato delle società intermedie. Primo punto d'assestamento dell'analisi sviluppata nel Capitolo I è costituito dall'illustrazione del nuovo regime di acquisto della personalità giuridica, riservato agli enti che intendano qualificarsi come "ETS" (mediante iscrizione al Registro unico nazionale del Terzo settore). Peraltro, com'è stato rendicontato nell'elaborato, tale regime – che si affianca a quello previgente previgente ex d.P.R. n. 361/2000 – ha suscitato considerevoli reazioni della dottrina, in merito ai (plurimi) problemi di coordinamento tra le due discipline di riferimento. Definito, nel Capitolo I, l'approccio generale del legislatore della riforma al tema dell'attribuzione della personalità agli enti del Terzo settore, nel Capitolo II sono stati analizzati gli elementi qualificanti per la sussunzione nella categoria degli ETS. Tale verifica, oltre ad essere intesa a definire il perimetro soggettivo della riforma, è diretta al fine di individuare dei presupposti causalistici ed organizzativi alla ricorrenza dei quali è consentito ai privati di accedere al trattamento di favore che il Codice riserva gli enti in discorso. A ben vedere, è tra il Capitolo II e il Capitolo III (volto ad indagare la specifica disciplina di associazioni e fondazioni del Terzo settore), che si rivela l'attitudine interdisciplinare del tema de qua, che vede, nel diritto tributario, un "fine" e, nel diritto commerciale, (quantomeno) un "mezzo". Sul presupposto dogmatico per cui la forma giuridica della personalità non incida sull'essenza della soggettività, limitandosi bensì ad indicarne una disciplina funzionale ad assicurare l'accesso a determinati effetti giuridici, il Capitolo III indaga quali siano questi effetti con riferimento specifico agli enti del Terzo settore. Questi ultimi, nella prospettiva sopra indicata, sono individuabili nell'accesso, da un lato, al regime fiscale agevolato e, dall'altro lato, al c.d. "statuto civilistico" degli ETS. Detto statuto, costituito dal complesso di regole di governance e di controllo, costituirebbe un valore in se', in vista del quale i privati sarebbero mossi alla iscrizione del Registro unico degli enti del Terzo settore. Difatti, mentre molti Autori hanno individuato il movente principale per (ambire a) qualificarsi quali ETS solo nella possibilità di accedere ad un regime fiscale agevolato, il lavoro qui presentato illustra come concorra con detta causale quella di presentarsi nel mercato con un'organizzazione più strutturata e con una trasparenza maggiore, di talché risulti potenziata la c.d. accountability sociale dell'ente. Ciò convince soprattutto se si accede alle più moderne ricostruzioni della law and economics che spiegano come il favore dell'utenza verso gli enti non profit deriverebbe dalla circostanza che questo settore meglio soddisfa il desiderio dell'utente di beneficenza, cioè, in particolare, di acquistare beni e servizi destinati, in ultima istanza, al soddisfacimento (anche) di un fine altruistico. Il codice del Terzo settore tutela specificamente la verificabilità di tale fine, estendendo agli ETS un'articolata serie di norme di corporate governance, di controllo contabile e di trasparenza, costituenti, appunto, lo "statuto" di cui sopra. In definitiva, l'elaborato mira ad offrire una ricostruzione sistematica della disciplina degli enti del Terzo settore, nella convinzione che questa possa costituire oggetto di particolare rilievo teorico, per gli studiosi della soggettività metaindividuale, e di grande interesse pratico, per i gruppi sociali intermedi attivi nel mercato del "non per profitto".

Textual analysis of 14,270 NBER Working Papers published during 1999–2016 is done to assess the effects of the 2008 crisis on the economics literature. The volume of crisis-related WPs is counter-cyclical, lagging the financial-instability-index. WPs by the Monetary-Economics, Asset-Pricing, and Corporate-Finance program members, hardly refer to "crisis/crises" in the pre-crisis period. As the crisis develops, however, their study-efforts of crisis-related issues increase rapidly. In contrast, WPs in macroeconomics-related programs refer quite extensively in the pre-crisis period to "crisis/crises" and to crises-related topics. Overall, our findings are consistent with the claim that economists were not engaged sufficiently in crises studies before the 2008 crisis. However, counter to the popular image, as soon as the crisis began to unravel, the NBER affiliated economists responded dramatically by switching their focus and efforts to studying and understanding the crisis, its causes and its consequences.

This report on observance of standards and codes in accounting and auditing (ROSC A & A) provides an assessment of accounting, financial reporting, and auditing requirements and practices within the enterprise and financial sectors of Serbia and sets forth areas of consideration with a view to improving the country's institutional environment for corporate financial reporting. To assess Serbia's compliance with standards and codes, this report uses international benchmarks of good practice, including international financial reporting standards (IFRS), international standards on auditing (ISA), the statements of membership obligations (SMO) of the international federation of accountants (IFAC), and - because Serbia is seeking accession to the European Union (EU) - relevant provisions of the EU acquis communautaire (the acquis) governing financial reporting. The assessment focuses on the strengths and weaknesses of the A and A environment that influence the quality of corporate financial reporting, and includes a review of both statutory requirements and actual practice. It updates an earlier assessment published in 2005. ROSC A and A assess accounting and auditing practices in participating countries.

Philippine local governments were given increased autonomy, revenue-raising and expenditure responsibilities under the Local Government Code of 1991 (LGC). At the same time, the LGC instituted the intergovernmental fiscal transfer called the internal revenue allotment (IRA) to help to help local governments fulfill their mandates recognizing fiscal imbalance in devolved functions. Apart from this, national government provides additional assistance to local governments through programs lodged in different agencies that are meant for devolved infrastructure services. This study examines these national government programs, evolution and expenditure trends and surveys the literature of assessments of these programs. Understanding the evolution in the design and implementation of these programs would be a powerful tool moving forward with strengthened decentralization, especially in designing policy for national government oversight agencies and for any envisioned support programs of national government. In the past decade, the three programs that received the largest budgetary allocations, are the Department of Public Works and Highways' Local Infrastructure Program, Department of Agriculture's Farm to Market Road programs and the Department of the Interior and Local Government's Financial Subsidy to Local Government Units (LGUs). Though expenditures on these programs have been increasing as a whole, there have been no clear trends for the individual programs except for one performance-based program. Furthermore, several programs were initially targeted toward poorer LGUs but eventually expanded in coverage because of the low uptake of these targeted LGUs. These national government programs have almost 100% budget utilization rates compared to lower utilization rates of local development funds (which are the primary source of infrastructure investments of LGUs). This, combined with the evidence of low uptake of assistance programs by poorer LGUs, offer two clear considerations for policymakers in strengthening local government oversight especially if the assistance programs will be discontinued. First, ensure that local governments will spend on infrastructure, i.e. at the very least spend the mandated local development fund. Infrastructure spending has the largest impact on incomes and in jumpstarting the economy and the path to growth would be arduous if this slows down as a result of insufficient local government investments absent national government programs. Second, if policymakers decide to maintain a more targeted assistance program, its objective, criteria and monitoring and evaluating plan should be clear. It should be complementary and aligned with the assistance programs of the Seal of Good Local Governance and Community-Based Monitoring System Laws to be efficient in the use of public funds. The goal moving in recovering from COVID coupled with the implementation of the Mandanas ruling is how to protect the vulnerable with social safety nets but also ensure that local governments contribute to economic recovery, of which infrastructure spending brings the largest multiplier effect.

Just one flagrant American ESG violation among countless others.This news story from Bloomberg had me laffing so hard it hurt: Despite the action being rather novel--banning investment in US Treasuries over environmental, social and governance [ESG] grounds--it is undoubtedly true that America is an ESG disaster. Offhand, we can cite endless ESG offenses that the US has perpetuated on its citizens and the rest of the world. Among others:Environmental: Being the world's second-largest carbon emitter and, historically speaking, by far the world's largest;Social: Maintaining a persistent racial underclass of nearly half of blacks who have experienced inter-generational poverty despite accounting for less than 15% of the overall population;Governance: Inflicting far more gun deaths annually than any other country by allowing largely unfettered sale and ownership of military-style weapons. Now, it is not news to anyone that the US is a super-polluting, racialized and hyper-violent nation. However, it is news when others like the German state of Baden-Württemberg start calling a spade a spade... and put their money where their mouth is at: That's because the new environmental, social and good governance filters
have resulted in US Treasuries ending up on an investing blacklist, due
to America's failure to ratify a number of treaties in areas including
women's rights and controversial weapons...The bulk of Baden-Württemberg's exclusions impact its equity and
corporate bond portfolios. The law establishes the United Nations
Sustainable Development Goals, the European Union's Taxonomy Regulation
and the Paris Agreement on climate change as the basis for future
investment decisions.Lest you think it's just one German state objecting to America, Inc., there are others:Back in Germany, meanwhile, other states have taken similar steps.
Baden-Württemberg, the only one of Germany's 16 states with a coalition
government led by the Greens, was inspired by a similar law in the
smaller state of Schleswig-Holstein, where bans apply to US Treasuries
as well as to fossil-fuel companies. And the pension funds of
Brandenburg, Hesse and Germany's richest state North Rhine-Westphalia
are this year allocating as much as €11 billion to Paris-aligned stock
indexes that exclude ESG laggards alongside Baden-Württemberg. While I do not doubt the sincerity of these actions, I am not convinced that what international ESG-related treaties a country has ratified should constitute the basis for assigning ESG ratings to sovereign debt. Solability, for instance, has a "Global Sustainable Competitiveness Index" (GSCI) that takes into account a number of indicators similar to conventional bond credit ratings.Ah well, I guess it's the thought that counts for these Germans.  

This article provides a study of corporate control in a general equilibrium framework for production economies. When markets are incomplete, trading assets does not allow agents to fully resolve their conflict of interest: at the market equilibrium, shareholders disagree on the way to evaluate production plans which ly outside the market span, and the objective function of the firm is not well defined. Two ways of resolving these conflicts are compared here. The first one (see, e.g., Dr'eze (1974) and Grossman & Hart (1979)) relies on sidepayments between shareholders. The second one (see, e.g., Dr'eze (1985) and DeMarzo (1993)) relies on majority voting in the assembly of shareholders: a stable production plan is one which cannot be overruled by a majority of shareholders. Since voting occurs in a multi-dimensional setup, super majority rules are needed to ensure existence of such 'political' equilibria. The most interesting equilibria are those which are stable with respect to the super majority rule with smallest rate. The present paper provides a framework where these two approaches yield the same equilibria.

This article provides a study of corporate control in a general equilibrium framework for production economies. When markets are incomplete, trading assets does not allow agents to fully resolve their conflict of interest: at the market equilibrium, shareholders disagree on the way to evaluate production plans which ly outside the market span, and the objective function of the firm is not well defined. Two ways of resolving these conflicts are compared here. The first one (see, e.g., Dr'eze (1974) and Grossman & Hart (1979)) relies on sidepayments between shareholders. The second one (see, e.g., Dr'eze (1985) and DeMarzo (1993)) relies on majority voting in the assembly of shareholders: a stable production plan is one which cannot be overruled by a majority of shareholders. Since voting occurs in a multi-dimensional setup, super majority rules are needed to ensure existence of such 'political' equilibria. The most interesting equilibria are those which are stable with respect to the super majority rule with smallest rate. The present paper provides a framework where these two approaches yield the same equilibria.

An impressive trend in global financial markets is the growth of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), some of which purport to invest ethically by considering the social and environmental impact of their financing. Yet, like private investors, these funds primarily view themselves as financial institutions interested in enhancing investment returns. A significant tension, therefore, may emerge between the ethical and financial expectations of SWFs. This article investigates two contrasting cases, the Norwegian Government Pension Fund - Global (NGPF-G) and the New Zealand Superannuation Fund (NZSF), in order to evaluate how they address any tensions between being both virtuous and prosperous. These SWFs have legislative mandates to invest ethically, and have been hailed by some researchers as having among the most progressive approaches in this area.1 But neither fund yet manages its entire portfolio comprehensively to promote sustainable development. Increasingly, nation-states are establishing SWFs in a trend that seemingly defies an era in which many governments have sought to deregulate or otherwise limit their hand in the market.2 In their governance, formally SWFs are public institutions but functionally they are generally expected to be private actors. They invest large pools of state-owned assets in the market to meet macro-economic policy objectives,3 such as to buffer the sponsoring state's budget and economy against swings in international markets, or to build savings to meet future financial burdens such as pension payments. SWFs are typically funded through either commodity-based earnings, such as from a country's natural resources sector, or by noncommodity- based resources, such as foreign exchange reserves and general taxation revenue.4 The NGPF-G is a commodity-based fund, built on Norway's large oil reserves, while the NZSF is supported by non-commodity financing. Such concentration of wealth has made SWFs, an institutional phenomenon that began in the mid-1950s, influential actors in the global economy.5 According to the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute, as of May 2011 there were 52 SWFs worldwide, with assets of some US$4.3 trillion.6 A recent survey by the Monitor Group, published in July 2011, put Norway's SWF as the largest (with US$560 billion in assets), while New Zealand's was ranked 20th (valued at US$15.8 billion).7 With SWFs' assets expected to at least double within the next decade,8 and growing awareness of their economic clout and capacity to project state political power, international efforts to create voluntary behavioural codes for such funds have grown. The principal achievement to date is the Santiago Principles,9 which emphasise transparency, clarity, and equivalent treatment with private funds similarly operated. In addition to these issues, the socially conscious goals of some SWFs has stirred debate about the wisdom of mixing ethical investment with wealth maximisation goals, and attempting to influence corporate social and environmental behaviour.10 SWFs share several characteristics which might lead them more than private sector financiers to invest in sustainable development. Their ownership or control by a state can enmesh them in the machinery of government, and thereby render them instruments of public policy. Further, because of their sheer size and government backing, SWFs tend to have higher risk tolerances and might therefore bear investment strategies eschewed by private financiers. Thirdly, SWFs tend to have longer-term financial considerations than the private sector, which may encourage investing that is mindful of threats such as climate change. However, few states so far have obliged SWFs to invest ethically. While regulations to encourage socially responsible investment ("SRI," as ethical investment is sometimes known) in the private sector are appearing, such as taxation incentives and corporate governance reforms, explicit duties to practice SRI have only been imposed on public financial institutions.11 The first precedents were adopted in the 1980s by some states and municipalities in the United States, which restricted government pension funds from investing in firms operating in the discriminatory milieu of South Africa12 or Northern Ireland.13 Since 2000, the SWFs of Sweden, Norway, New Zealand and France have been subject to legislative direction to invest ethically, with more comprehensive and ambitious obligations than the American precedents. Ethical investment by SWFs is controversial. Some observers believe that investment should be based only on economic and financial grounds and, especially in the case of SWFs, there is further concern that SRI could be a means for sponsoring states to insinuate their social and environmental policies globally.14 For instance, a 2009 survey of 146 asset managers having routine dealings with SWFs reported that most "did not think governments should have any influence over investment decisions despite the fact that SWFs are managing governments' money."15 But such concerns misunderstand the changing rationale and aims of SRI. A long-standing movement that once had few adherents,16 SRI is attracting investors who are reassessing the financial relevance of social and environmental behaviour. No longer is SRI pursued largely as a matter of ethical compulsion, as in the 1970s divestment campaign led by religious groups against South Africa's apartheid regime,17 and their earlier admonitions against investment in tobacco, alcohol and other "sin" stocks.18 Rather, many social investors today, in both the institutional and retail sectors, take a more comprehensive view of business conduct through the lens of sustainable development. Sustainable development (or "sustainability" as the concept is sometimes known) is an ideal widely endorsed in theory as a goal of states, international bodies and businesses, and has been enshrined as an objective of the European Union treaty.19 It seeks to curb unfettered economic exploitation of nature by ensuring consumption of renewable resources within their rate of regeneration, limiting waste and pollution to the assimilative capacity of the biosphere, and conserving the biodiversity of the planet.20 Some investors recognise the financial materiality of sustainability, such as when corporate polluters create financial risks or, conversely, firms pioneer innovative environmental technologies and services.21 Although, often the nexus between environmental and financial returns is misunderstood or overlooked by financiers. For large institutional investors, including SWFs, the sustainability imperative has mostly fluently been theorised through the concept of the "universal owner." Hawley and Williams hypothesise that institutional investors who invest widely across the market will benefit financially by taking into account the social and environmental externalities in their portfolios.22 As economy-wide investors, they should "have no interest in abetting behavior by any one company that yields a short-term boost while threatening harm to the economic system as a whole."23 Acting as a universal investor implies that any "externality" at the level of an individual company may result in a costly "internality" for an investor's global portfolio. Such sentiments have underpinned the proliferation of codes of conduct for SRI,24 such as the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI)25 and the Equator Principles.26 Although adherence to such benchmarks is ostensibly voluntary, they have garnered many signatories, including the NGPF-G and the NZSF, and thereby helped standardise and disseminate SRI norms and practices.27 Some interesting research has begun to measure the cost of environmental externalities to universal investors. A report prepared for the UNPRI Secretariat evaluated the price of environmental damage worldwide to which the companies in a representative investment portfolio contribute, and estimated these in 2008 to be US$6.6 trillion or 11% of global GDP.28 The report expects such costs by 2050 to grow to US$28.6 trillion (18% of projected global GDP).29 The rest of this article takes up these themes by examining the SRI policies and practices of the Norwegian and New Zealand SWFs. In comparing how they attempt to reconcile their ethical and financial aspirations, the article highlights the importance of governance frameworks. While there are some salient differences in how each SWF is governed, each has, especially in their early years, focused on avoiding complicity in unethical conduct or social and environmental harm. This stance represented a rather narrow approach to ethical investment, which limited the capacity of these SWFs to promote environmentally sustainable development. More recently, both funds have begun to accept the business case for SRI, and reconceptualised ethical investment as a means of promoting long-term financial returns. But neither the NGPFG nor the NZSF is mandated to actively promote sustainable development or to seek improvements in corporations' sustainability performance. In the future evolution of SWFs, the creation of explicit duties to invest in sustainability is perhaps the next logical step if they are to influence benignly the global economy.

The organization, management, and production of urban space through digital information and communication technologies have become a central means for governing urban life. To overcome a lack of citizen-centered practices in today's smart cities, governments and municipalities institutionalize citizen-centered digital infrastructures such as Decidim, a digital infrastructure proposing non-corporate, decentralized, and collaborative forms of digital production to evoke participatory governance practices and ultimately social transformation (Barandiaran et al., 2018). Swiss city administrations have adapted the Decidim platform for participatory budgeting processes and city-wide participation platforms since 2019. This article explores the process of institutional adoption, focusing on how the use of Decidim impacts local practices and negotiations for governing urban space. The examination of the Decidim platform in the Swiss cities of Zurich and Lucerne will be framed by re-conceptualizing Lefebvre's right to the city in the age of digital transformation. The findings show that for a successful introduction of the Decidim platform based on principles of the right to the city (a) local needs for a new digital democratic instrument need to be pre-existent, (b) government employees must implement a scope of action which allows organized civil society and grassroots initiatives to appropriate the infrastructure for their own purposes, and (c) local practices of hybrid communication and organizing must be aligned with the structure of the platform. Nevertheless, digital participation tools such as Decidim cannot solve entrenched inequalities such as the financialization of land, the issue of disadvantaged neighborhoods, or the absence of voting rights for certain communities. Therefore, city administrations need to integrate hybrid participation strategies which prioritise collective power over distributive power as well as tackle urban inequalities through political means.

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Amtsinhaber Reimund Neugebauer erklärte "einvernehmlich" seinen sofortigen Rückzug. Bis zu Hanselkas Amtsantritt soll es eine Interimslösung geben.








Holger Hanselka. Foto: KIT








SEIT TAGEN HATTEN SICH die Gerüchte verdichtet, jetzt steht es offiziell fest: Der Senat der Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft hat Holger Hanselka am Donnerstagnachmittag einstimmig zum neuen
Präsidenten der Forschungsgesellschaft gewählt. Und noch bemerkenswerter: Schon am heutigen Tag wird der bisherige Spitzenmann Reimund Neugebauer sein Amt niederlegen – "einvernehmlich", wie
der Tagesspiegel, der zuerst über den
Führungswechsel berichtete, die Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zitierte. 



 



Hanselka solle möglichst schnell sein Amt antreten, teilte die Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft wenig später in ihrer Pressemitteilung mit, derzeit liefen dazu
"Gespräche mit allen Beteiligten". Bis es soweit ist, soll Finanzvorständin Sandra Krey als Interimschefin fungieren.



 



Eigentlich lief Neugebauers – bereits abgekürzte – Amtszeit noch bis Ende September. Dass man ihm die letzten Monate nicht mehr
zugesteht, ist das lange überfällige Signal zum Bruch mit dem mutmaßlichen Hauptverantwortlichen am Spesenskandal. Zu lange hatte der Senat zuvor die Forderungen zur sofortigen Ablösung
Neugebauers unter anderem von Bundesforschungsministern Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP) ignoriert. Ein Handling des Skandals, das Fraunhofer immer tiefer in die Vertrauenskrise abrutschen ließ. Vor
der für heute angesetzten Wahl hatte die Politik deshalb den öffentlichen Druck auf den Senat, jetzt unmittelbar Tatsachen zu schaffen, noch einmal erhöht. "Wir lassen uns nicht länger auf der
Nase herumtanzen", sagte der Vorsitzende des Bundestagsforschungsausschusses, Kai Gehring (Grüne), heute im Spiegel. 



 



Neugebauers Rückzug als doppelte
Gesichtswahrung und Voraussetzung



 



Den vermeintlich freiwilligen Rückzug kann man insofern als doppelte Gesichtswahrung deuten: vor allem für Neugebauer, aber auch für den Senat selbst. Und den Abtritt Neugebauers auch als
Voraussetzung, dass Hanselka überhaupt zur Amtsübernahme bereit war. "Holger Hanselka ist für Fraunhofer die richtige Person zum richtigen Zeitpunkt im richtigen Amt", sagt die Senatsvorsitzende
Hildegard Müller im Anschluss an die Wahl. Die Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft trifft sich zurzeit in Dresden zu ihrer Mitgliederversammlung.



 



Hanselka steht seit 2013 an der Spitze des zu Helmholtz gehörenden Karlsruher Instituts für Technologie (KIT). Doch ist es für den 61 Jahre alten Maschinenbauingenieur zugleich eine Rückkehr:
Zwischen 2011 und 2013 war er Leiter des Fraunhofer-Instituts für Betriebsfestigkeit und Zuverlässigkeit LBF, ab 2006 dann auch Mitglied des Fraunhofer-Präsidiums. Interessanterweise verließ
er Fraunhofer nur ein Jahr, nachdem Neugebauer im Oktober 2012 Präsident geworden war. Kein Zufall, wie Insider bestätigen: Hanselka habe schon damals den Hut in den Ring geworfen für einen
Vorstandposten bei Fraunhofer, sei dann aber von Neugebauer und seinen Netzwerken herausmanövriert worden. Was ihn jetzt wiederum zur glaubhaften Verkörperung des notwendigen Neuanfangs
macht. 



 



Diese ist Hanselka aber auch in anderer Hinsicht, gilt er doch als persönlich integer und integrierend: Das aus Universität und Forschungszentrum fusionierte KIT litt bei seiner Amtsübernahme
unter massiven Spannungen – und befand sich, nachdem es zuvor seinen Titel als Exzellenzuniversität eingebüßt hatte, in einem Stimmungstief. Hanselka leistete hier nach Meinung vieler Beobachter
erfolgreich
Wiederaufbauarbeit.



 



Verwalter? Visionär? 
Vertrauenszurückgewinner?



 



Allerdings, sagen einige Leute, die ihn kennen, sei er eher Verwalter "und kein Visionär". Was am KIT, das er 2019 erneut zum Exzellenztitel führte, viele indes anders sehen würden. Wie auch
immer: Hanselkas unbestrittene Expertise in Verwaltungsfragen ist, wenn man an die dringend nötige Aufarbeitung bei Fraunhofer denkt, auf jeden Fall ein weiteres Argument für ihn. Denn je
länger Neugebauer in den vergangenen Monaten mit seiner Aussitzen-Taktik Erfolg hatte und sein Führungszirkel intakt schien, desto stärker stellte sich die Frage, wie erfolgreich sein Nachfolger
würde aufräumen können. Zumal es dabei um viel mehr geht als nur um den Austausch einiger Personen. Es geht um die grundlegende Neustrukturierung wichtiger Entscheidungswege und
Kontrollinstanzen bei Fraunhofer. Und um das Zurückgewinnen von Vertrauen.



 



So muss sich auch der Senat trotz der heutigen positiven Entwicklungen fragen lassen, warum er Neugebauer zuvor über Monate im Amt belassen hat – und warum selbst vielen Senatsmitgliedern die
seit längerem unvermeidliche Trennung von Neugebauer offensichtlich so schwer gefallen ist. Noch in der heutigen Pressemitteilung lobte Müller Neugebauer dafür, dass er als
Präsident "mehr als ein Jahrzehnt den Hightech-Standort Deutschland geprägt und die Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft mit heute über 30 000 Mitarbeitenden zur weltweit führenden Institution für
anwendungsorientierte Forschung ausgebaut" habe. Zur tiefen Krise, in die Neugebauer und weitere Vorstände die Gesellschaft stürzten: kein Wort.



 



Bundesforschungsministerin Stark-Watzinger kommentierte auf Twitter, sie freue sich über Hanselkas Wahl. "Als hoch anerkannter Wissenschaftler und Wissenschaftsmanager bringt er alles mit, um
Fraunhofer erfolgreich in die Zukunft zu führen. Dieser Neustart ist gut für die Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft."



 



 



Hanselka: "Fraunhofer braucht
einen Kulturwandel"



 



Hanselka äußerte sich nach seiner Wahl auf Anfrage hier im Blog. "Ich werde mich nicht zu meinem Vorgänger äußern. Das habe ich auch bislang nie getan", sagte er. "Eines sage ich aber ganz
deutlich: Fraunhofer braucht einen Kulturwandel. Hin zu einer modernen Corporate Governance, einer funktionierenden Compliance und Mitarbeitern, die in die Strukturen vertrauen."



 



Wann genau er bei Fraunhofer starte, könne er noch nicht sagen. "So schnell wie möglich – ja. Aber das heißt, ich bleibe auch noch so lange am KIT, wie nötig, um dort einen guten Übergang zu
gewährleisten." Auch könne und werde er "heute noch keine Strategie für die Zukunft von Fraunhofer formulieren. Ich habe mir vorgenommen, bis zu meinem Dienstantritt viele Gespräche zu führen,
genau in die Gesellschaft hineinzuhorchen und den Menschen zuzuhören. Und dann zu sagen: Wo geht die Reise hin."



 



Der Neuanfang bei Fraunhofer beginnt mit einem neuen Sound.




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