Suchergebnisse

V dizertaciji sem poskušal raziskati, kako oskrba z energijo v vsaki od štirih svetovnih velesil (EU, ZDA, Ruski federaciji, Ljudski republiki Kitajski) vpliva na njihovo zunanjo energetsko politiko, kateri od treh elementov energetske politike (konkurenčnost, varnost oskrbe, trajnostnost) odraža zunanjo energetsko politiko teh držav in kako lahko različne regionalne iniciative iyhajajoče iz zunanje energetske politike teh držav pojasnjujemo s teorijo neofunkcionalizma. Prvo poglavje želi predstaviti neofunkcionistično teorijo kot teorijo regionalne integracije. Najprej analizira poskus Jeana Monneta za spodbujanje evropske integracije, ki so jo po drugi svetovni vojni ilustrirale Evropske skupnosti: Evropska gospodarska skupnost, Euratom in Evropska skupnost za jeklo in premog. Neofunkcionalizem je teorija, ki razlaga proces integracije na regionalni ravni glede na naraščajoče vzajemne gospodarske odnose med državami. Analizira sposobnost regionalnih organizacij za reševanje sporov in oblikovanje mednarodnih pravnih režimov, znotraj katerih lahko nadnacionalna tržna pravila nadomestijo nacionalne regulatorne režime. Integracijo pojasnjuje tudi s specializacijo elit in s pozitivnim učinkom prelitja (spill over effect), ki se kaže v nujnosti sodelovanja med sektorji, povezanimi s tistim sektorjem, v katerem se je regionalno sodelovanje prvič začelo. Drugo poglavje na kratko predstavlja 130 let zgodovine regulacije za zaščito konkurence na energetskih trgih, približno 80 let izzivov glede varnosti oskrbe in prestopa te teme v politiko ter približno 70 let stremljenja k trajnostnosti v sodobni energetski politiki. Tretje poglavje predstavlja strukturo oskrbe z energijo v vsaki od analiziranih svetovnih velesil. Očitno je, da so energetski trgi (nafta, plin, elektrika) v ZDA in EU zelo konkurenčni in učinkoviti. Velesili si prizadevata za trajnostnost in nenehno zmanjšujeta izpuste škodljivih emisij iz elektrarn, v prometu ter pri drugih dejavnostih. Medtem, ko je EU močno odvisna od uvoza (leta 2017 je uvozila več kot 55% vseh virov energije), so se ZDA v zadnjih 15 letih iz največjega uvoznika energetskih virov na svetu razvile v neto izvoznico in leta 2018 dosegle energetsko samozadostnost. Ruski indeks neto uvoza energije znaša -84%. Po podatkih iz leta 2014 je država ena največjih neto izvoznikov nafte (približno 10% svetovne proizvodnje) in plina (blizu 20% svetovne proizvodnje). Leta 2018 je bila izvožena količina energije skoraj enaka tisti, ki jo je država v tem letu porabila. Kljub energetskemu izobilju, ima Rusija močno regulirane in neučinkovite trge s plinom, nafto in električno energijo. Med štirimi analiziranimi velesilami daleč najmanj učinkovito izrablja svoje energetske vire. Monopol državnega podjetja Gazprom postaja vedno bolj vprašljiv zaradi vse manjših koristi, ki jih tako stanje prinaša Rusiji. Posledično naraščajo pritiski na Moskvo za reformo energetskega (zlasti plinskega) sektorja. Do zdaj je ruska vlada bolj ali manj odklanjala strukturne reforme in se poskušala prilagajati novim okoliščinam s prerazporejanjem obstoječih dohodkov. Kitajska počasi liberalizira svoj trg s plinom. Reforma, ki je v devetdesetih pritegnila v proizvodnjo električne energije nove, zasebne vlagatelje, je bila vmes že odpravljena, zasebni vlagatelji pa izrinjeni. Plin, premog, nafto ter proizvodnjo električne energije v glavnem nadzirajo državna podjetja, ki praviloma ne dopuščajo konkurence. Kitajska je leta 2017 porabila 22% vseh svetovnih virov energije in je bila tako daleč največji porabnik energije na vsem svetu. Kitajska izkoplje in sežge približno polovico svetovnega premoga in je tako močno netrajnostno usmerjena. Količina izpustov škodljivih emisij iz elektrarn ostaja visoka in stabilna, emisije CO2 pa se nenehno povečujejo. Se pa Kitajska v zadnjih letih veliko bolj osredotoča na storitveno ekonomijo in proizvodnjo elektrike iz obnovljivih virov. Kitajski indeks neto uvoza energije je 15%, kar kaže na zmerno odvisnost od uvoza. Četrto poglavje je namenjeno analizi zunanje energetske politike EU v globalnem kontekstu zapletenih energetskih odnosov. Energetika je že zelo dolgo politično občutljiv sektor in je kot tak tesno povezan z državno suverenostjo in nacionalnimi interesi. Posledično so se bruseljska prizadevanja za oblikovanje skupne zunanje energetske politike, ob delitvi pristojnosti z državami članicami in ob upoštevanju skrbno pripravljenega kompromisa iz člena 194 Pogodbe o delovanju EU, izkazala za zelo zahteven in težko dosegljiv cilj. Dejstvo, da je Evropska unija močno odvisna od tujih dobaviteljev energije (med katerimi ima Rusija s svojo vizijo političnim ciljem podrejene energetske politike najpomembnejšo vlogo), dodatno omejuje težnje EU po uvedbi univerzalnih tržnih pravil v energetskem sektorju. Pri promociji tržnih pravil kot osnovi energetske politike je EU vseeno uspelo doseči nekaj napredka, zlasti z ustanovitvijo Evropskega gospodarskega prostora in Energetske skupnosti. V zadnjih letih, ki jih zaznamujeta zmanjšan pomen multilateralizma in povečan pomen bilateralnih odnosov, je EU začela oblikovati svojo lastno zunanjo energetsko politiko (po moji oceni od 2015 dalje) in takoj, tako kot druge velesile, v svojo zunanjo energetsko politiko vnesla elemente dominantnosti. Neofunkcionalistična teorija, ki evropsko integracijo razlaga z učinkom prelitja, se je izkazala za uporabno tudi pri razlagi procesov oblikovanja zunanje energetske politike EU in povečane vloge in avtonomije Evropske komisije v tem procesu. Po teoriji Nye-ja o štirih stopnjah pri oblikovanju regionalne integracije EU trenutno prehaja iz tretje stopnje (redukcija alternativ) v četrto (eksternalizacija). Peto poglavje skuša pokazati kako je ameriška energetska politika skozi zgodovino doživela več sprememb. ZDA so si v začetku dvajsetega stoletja, tako kot mnogo let od krize v Sueškem prekopu sredi 70-ih let 20.stoletja, prizadevale za konkurenco, ki naj bi omogočila ustrezen dostop do virov energije s ciljem, da bi ohranile sprotno zadovoljevanje svojih energetskih potreb. Od sredine osemdesetih let je postala ameriška energetska politika bolj večstranska, z vedno večjo skrbjo glede okoljskih vprašanj, vendar sta varnost oskrbe in konkurenčnosti še vedno na prvem mestu. Medtem, ko je ameriško energetsko politiko v dvajsetem stoletju vodil strah pred pomanjkanjem energije, je tako imenovana nekonvencionalna revolucija pri pridobivanju plina in nafte iz škrilavcev v drugem desetletju enaindvajsetega stoletja spremenila odnos Washingtona do zunanje energetske politike in močno vplivala na mednarodne trge nafte in plina. Obdobje nenehno rastoče skrbi glede pridobivanja energetskih virov je tako nadomestila doba energetske obilnosti. V dobi energetske obilnosti v ZDA si je Trumpova administracija zastavila cilj, da ZDA postanejo energetsko dominantne. Zaradi tega je Trumpova administracija začela podpirati politične posege v kreacijo cen na naftnem trgu in odmik od multilateralizma, ki je poprej omogočal globalno konkurenco. Kljub temu, da so ZDA dosegle status največje svetovne proizvajalke nafte in plina, se zdi, da Washington še vedno ne odstopa od ciljev, ki jih tradicionalno zasleduje s svojo zunanjo energetsko politiko: zagotavljanje zalog na svetovnih naftnih trgih in zmanjševanje motenj pri dobavi ; spodbujanje zaveznikov, da diverzificirajo lastne energetske vire, kjer je bila Evropa v glavnem v središču prizadevanj ZDA ; in s svojo močjo kaznovati države izvoznice plina in nafte ter jim ukazati, naj spremenijo politike, z uporabo možnosti uvedbe sankcij. Uvajanje sankcij ima vse pomembnejšo vlogo v ameriški zunanji politiki, saj je vedno bolj vprašljivo, kdaj, in če sploh, uporabiti vojaško silo za politične cilje. Nova doba obilja energije ZDA omogoča, da k uvedbi sankcij pritegnejo tudi druge države ter jih tako skupaj lažje uvedejo koordinirajo. Po drugi strani pa je zelo verjetno, da bi odločitev ZDA, da izkoristijo svoj položaj energetskega dobavitelja in začnejo izvoz energije uporabljati v politične namene, lahko delovala proti njihovim lastnim interesom in zmožnosti doseganja njihovih zunanjepolitičnih ciljev. ZDA nikoli niso sodelovale v nobeni gospodarski organizaciji, ki bi omogočala prenos suverenosti glede energetske politike v roke neke nadnacionalne strukture in neofunkcionalizem v njihovi zunanji energetski politiki nima nobenega odmeva. Šesto poglavje, ki je posvečeno Rusiji, raziskuje, kako njena bogata baza energetskih virov zagotavlja davčno osnovo za državno porabo, devizne prihodke in vzvod (zlasti v primeru dobave plina) v mednarodnih odnosih. Zahvaljujoč visokim cenam nafte iz obdobja pred pandemijo COVID-19 je Rusiji uspelo obnoviti gospodarstvo in povečati svojo geopolitično trdnost. Zaradi izjemne odvisnosti od energetskih prihodkov za ruski državni proračun je neugodna kombinacija nizkih cen nafte in finančnih sankcij ZDA in EU skupaj z naraščajočo konkurenco v proizvodnji nafte in plina povzročila postopno zmanjševanje ruskega vpliva v mednarodni politiki. Rusija nima veliko možnosti, da bi v bližnji prihodnosti postala pomemben igralec na azijskih trgih. Tako se je država usmerila k širitvi in osvežitvi svojih energetskih vezi z Evropo. Kljub temu pa Moskva vzporedno s tem spodbuja svoj konkurenčni integracijski projekt Evroazijske ekonomske unije (EAEU), katerega namen je povsem nasproten cilju evropskih integracijskih projektov, po katerih se vsaj formalno zgleduje. S tem projektom želi Rusija, med drugim, v energetskem sektorju zaščiti svoj prevladujoči položaj v postsovjetskem prostoru. Kljub formalni podobnosti EAEU z EU tam ni mogoče pričakovati učinkov prelitja na nadnacionalni ravni v skladu s teorijo neofunkcionalizma, saj gre za združitev neenakopravnih partnerjev z močnim ruskim vodstvom, ki ne dovoljuje socializacije neke nove, nadnacionalne elite. Sedmo poglavje predstavlja kako je zaradi hitro rastočega gospodarstva in povečanega povpraševanja po energiji Kitajska povečevala vpliv na svetovnih energetskih trgih. Na energetsko politiko kitajske vlade je močno vplivalo vse večje povpraševanje po nafti in odvisnost države od uvoza le-te. Naftna in plinska industrija sta zaslužni za zagotavljanje oskrbe, za zadosten proračunski dohodek in tudi za delovna mesta. Kitajska državna podjetja skušajo svoje poslovanje prilagoditi svetovnim praksam, vendar je bil do sedaj njihov manevrski prostor vedno omejen z državnim nadzorom. Pod sedanjim vodstvom kitajska podjetja sodelujejo v mednarodnem prodoru z velikimi, neposrednimi naložbami. Prvi poskus takega prodora je bila iniciativa 16+1 (sedaj 17+1) [e pred sedanjim predsednikom Xi Jinpingom. Njegov prihod na oblast je sprožil še obsežnejšo iniciativo. Prosor v svetovnem merilu je bil pred kratkim zasnovan kot Iniciativa pasu in ceste (Belt and Road Initiative - BRI). Kljub temu, da v BRI sodeluje skoraj 70 držav, pomen iniciative ostaja nejasen. BRI zagotavlja zaščito kitajskih trgovskih poti in oskrbe z energijo ter omogoča državi, da svoje industrijske presežke in gradbene kapacitete učinkovito izvaža po vsem svetu. Z BRI kitajska zunanja politika prek gospodarske diplomacije poskuša povečati svoj vpliv. Ta projekt je treba razumeti kot dolgoročno, globalno iniciativo, ki nima samo gospodarskega cilja. BRI in iniciativa 17+1 sta še dve obliki mednarodnega sodelovanja, ki sta neprimerljivi s postopkom vključevanja v EU in v njiju zaradi dominantnosti Kitajske ni prelitja funkcij na nadnacionalno raven kot ga opisuje neofunkcionalistična teorija. ; In the study, I tried to explore how characteristics of energy supply in each of the four global superpowers (EU, US, Russian Federation, People's Republic of China) influences their foreign energy policy, which out of the three elements of energy policy (competitiveness, security of supply, sustainability) primarily reflects it and how and if different forms of foreign energy policy regional initiatives can be explained with the theory of neofunctionalism. The first chapter aims to present the neofunctionalist theory as a theory of regional integration. It first analyzes Jean Monnet's attempts for European integration, at that time illustrated by the European Communities: European Economic Community, Euratom and the European Steel and Coal Community. Later, it was further developed to be able to explain processes like territorial growth of a regional integrated area and also processes of its shrinking, i.e. Brexit. Neofunctionalism is a theory explaining the process of integration on a regional level with reference to growing reciprocal economic relationships in-between nations. It also analyzes capacity of a regional organization in dispute resolution and creation of international legal regimes, within which the supranational market rules may replace national regulatory regimes. It explains also integration by positive spillover effects as necessities to cooperate in sectors, which are indirectly related to the sector where regional cooperation first started. I briefly present also intergovernmentalism as an alternative theory. The first chapter also briefly presents 130 years of history of regulation to protect competiveness on energy markets, some 80 years of security of supply challenges and their translation into political decisions and some 70 years of history of creation of sustainability in modern energy policy. The second chapter presents the structure of energy supply and the market structure in each of the analyzed global superpowers. It is evident that energy markets (oil, gas, electricity) in the US and the EU are highly competitive and efficient. Both superpowers strive also towards sustainability and are constantly decreasing harmful emissions from fossil fuel power plants as well as transport and other energy consuming activities. While the EU is highly import dependent (in 2017 imported more than 55% of all energy sources), the United States in the last 15 years developed from the biggest importer of energy sources globally into a net exporter, reaching energy self-sufficiency in 2018. Russia has a net energy imports index at -84%. It is one of the biggest net exporters of oil (some 10% of global production) and gas (close to 20% of global production), according to data from 2014. In 2018, it exported almost the same amount of energy as was consumed in the country. Despite its energy abundance, Russia has heavily regulated and inefficient gas, oil and electricity markets. Among the four analyzed superpowers, it has far the least energy efficient use of its energy resources. The position of Gazprom, which enjoys a monopoly on pipeline gas exports to Russia's neighbors, has been increasingly challenged. Consequently, pressures on Moscow to reform its energy (particularly gas) sector have been rising. So far, the Russian government has shown reluctance with regard to implementing structural reforms in its energy sector and has rather been trying to adjust, react and adapt to created circumstances. China is slowly liberalizing its gas market. Reform that attracted new private investors into electricity generation in the 1990s has backslid. Gas, coal, electricity generation and oil sectors are primarily controlled by state-owned companies and do not allow much room for competition. China in 2017 consumed 22% of all energy sources globally and was by far the biggest energy consumer worldwide. China extracts and burns around half of all coal being extracted worldwide and is heavily unsustainable. Its harmful emissions from power plants remain high and stable, while CO2 emissions are in constant ascent. However, in recent years, the country has been focusing much more on services-based economy and renewable energy. Additionally, taking into account the combination of effects of factors like structural changes in the economy, growing efficiency within the energy industry and demographic changes, total growth of the energy demand up until the year of 2040 will be comparable to the one that China experienced from 2008 to 2016. Its net energy imports index is 15% and shows moderate dependence on import. The third chapter aims at analyzing the EU's emerging foreign energy policy in a global context of imperfect energy relations. Energy, being an increasingly politicized sector, still remains closely linked with state sovereignty and national interest. Consequently, Brussels's efforts to shape a coherent foreign energy policy, while sharing competences with the Member States and taking into account the carefully drafted compromise of article 194 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU, has proved to be increasingly challenging. Moreover, Europe, being highly dependent on foreign energy suppliers (among which Russia, with its contrasting vision of energy policy, plays the most important role) has been further undermining the EU's aspirations of introducing universal, market-based norms in global energy relations. Against this backdrop, the EU managed to make some achievements in its foreign energy policy, particularly, by the means of the European Economic Area and the Energy Community, which was a successful example of what Europe aspired to achieve globally. In recent years marked by the decreased role of multilateralism and the increased role of bilateral relations, also the EU introduced elements of dominance into its foreign energy policy despite opposition to such behavior when performed by other superpowers. The neofunctionalist theory explaining European integration by spillover effect has proven to be usable also in explaining processes of creation of EU foreign energy policy in the years from 2015 on and increased role and autonomy of the European Commission in it. The fourth chapter attempts to demonstrate that US energy policy has gone through multiple changes throughout history. While in the beginning of the twentieth century, the US pursued competitive access to energy sources to sustain the strong growth of its demand, after the Suez Canal crisis and the subsequent oil crisis in the mid-seventies, the US energy policy became centered on ensuring the security of supply. Since the mid-eighties, it became much more multi-sided, with growing concern about environmental issues, yet without detriment to the importance given to security of supply and competitiveness. While American energy policy throughout the twentieth century has been driven by fears of energy scarcity, the so-called unconventional revolution of the past decade changed Washington's attitude towards its foreign energy policy and also considerably impacted international oil and gas markets. An atmosphere of continuously growing competition for resources has, thus, been replaced by the age of energy abundance, where the Trump's US administration has set the objective of the United States becoming energy dominant, supporting political interventions into the creation of prices on the oil market and moving away from multilateralism, which enabled global competition. Despite the fact that the US achieved the status of being the biggest producer of oil and gas in the world, Washington does not seem to withdraw the objectives traditionally pursued by its foreign energy policy. Namely, ensuring supplies on the global oil markets and minimizing disruptions ; encouraging allies to diversify their own energy resources, where Europe has usually been the main focus of US efforts ; and using its power to punish countries and to command them to change policies, using the possibility of imposing sanctions on gas and oil exporting nations. With latest Biden's administration US seems to reposition its focus on sustainability and multilateral cooperation again. Despite that sanctions play increasingly important role in US foreign policy, since it is more and more questionable when and if at all to deploy military force. New energy abundant age enables the US to get on board other nations to collectively impose multilateral sanctions easier than in previous times. ON the other side it is very possible that US decision to become energy dominant and start using energy exports for political purposes could work against their interests and ability to achieve their objectives. The US never participated in any economic organization that would tend to transfer sovereignty over energy policy to a supranational structure. The fifth chapter dealing with Russia explores how its vast energy resource base provides the fiscal basis for state spending, foreign exchange earnings, and leverage (especially for gas) in international relations. Thanks to the high oil prices of the pre COVID-19 pandemic decade, Russia managed to recover its economy and increase its geopolitical assertiveness. Nevertheless, due to its extreme dependence on energy revenues, following the unfavorable combination of low oil prices, financial sanctions of the West combined with the rising competition in production resulted in Russia's gradually diminishing economic leverage. Russia, with unlikely prospects to become a prominent player in Asian markets in the foreseeable future, has turned to expanding and refreshing its energy ties with Europe. Yet, in parallel, Moscow has been pushing forward its competing integrationist project of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), which aims to conflict and overlap with the European integrationist projects, inter alia, in the sector of energy in order to safeguard its dominant position in the post-Soviet space. Despite the formal similarity of the EAEU with the EU, there is no spillover effect since it is an association of unequal partners with strong Russian leadership. Country's fast-growing economy and rapid increase in energy demand has lead China to gain more influence in global energy markets. The energy policy of the Chinese government has been strongly influenced by the increasing demand for oil and country's dependence on oil imports. The oil and gas industry has remained a strategic asset for the Chinese government. This industry is responsible for ensuring supplies of oil and gas, for sufficient budget income as well as for employment. With closer integration into global markets, Chinese state-owned companies have been seeking to adapt their operations to global practices, yet, the room for maneuver has always been limited by state control. Under the present leadership, Chinese companies have been engaged in large-scale outward direct investments. This process was recently soon packed as a Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The fact that nearly 70 countries are participating in the BRI does not improve the perception that its label remains unclear. There is still no exact definition of the qualification of a BRI project Yet, half a decade after the launch of one of the most ambitious geo-economic projects of recent history, some more things became clearer. To name a few, BRI is not only responsible for securing China's trade routes and energy supplies, it is also accountable for the fact, that the country is being able to export worldwide several construction projects due to its industrial overcapacities. The BRI became a major component of China's grandiose foreign policy agenda aimed at increasing Chinese influence in the BRI region and beyond. The past years have proven that the BRI project is to be understood as a long-term, global and not having only an economic goal. Yet, challenges regarding to the future success of the BRI are many and of different nature: technical, political, financial and regulatory, to name a few. Both suspicion and skepticism concerning its real motives and viability remain high, especially among those countries who have been the main designers of today's global financial system and international trade rules. The Belt and Road Initiative is yet another form of international cooperation which is incomparable with the EU integration process and neofunctionalist theory cannot be used for its explanation. The thesis confirmed that characteristics of energy supply in a country are directly and with the same attitude reflected in the foreign energy policy. Foreign energy policy is additionally held up by whichever tool of dominance being available to one of the four studied cases. The thesis also confirmed that Haas' theory of neofunctionalism is still supportive in explanation of regional integration of all initiatives proposed in and by the four global superpowers. EU is creating its own foreign energy policy entering externalization as the last, fourth stage of regional cooperation, according to Nye.

Inhaltsangabe:Einleitung: 'Ein Schlachtfeld, das scheint für einige Reporter so etwas zu sein wie ein Abenteuerspielplatz, illuminiert von einem Feuerwerk, ein aufregendes Lichterspiel mit einer bombigen Geräuschkulisse. Das Bild vom Kriegsreporter, das in den Köpfen mancher meiner Kollegen irrlichtert, sieht ungefähr so aus: Lederjacke, düsterer Blick, der sagt: ,Ich habe schon so ziemlich alles gesehen', dazu noch ordentlicher Alkoholkonsum, Whiskey natürlich passend zu rauen Stimmen und den drei Scheidungen, die der ,verdammte Beruf' halt so mit sich gebracht hat. Andere verstehen das Wort vom Kriegsspiel allzu wörtlich. Sie meinen, ein Kurzeinsatz in Afghanistan könne sie von der angeblichen Langeweile der Regionalberichterstattung erlösen, wenn auch nur für drei Wochen. Schließlich gibt es noch jene Kollegen, die glauben, durch einen Einsatz als Kriegsreporter ihre Karriere beschleunigen zu können. Gerade die letzteren sind nicht wenige.' (Armbruster 2007; ARD-Kriegsreporter vor dem zweiten Irakkrieg in Bagdad). Mythische Vorstellungen über das Berufsbild des Krisen- bzw. Kriegsreporters gibt es nicht nur auf Seiten der Journalisten, sondern auch auf Seiten der Rezipienten medialer Informationen aus weltweiten Kriegsgebieten: Kriegsreporter gelten als ,coole' Helden in weißen Hemden, die im mutigen Alleingang an der Front leben und arbeiten - weit entfernt von der sicheren Heimat. Sie haben keine Angst und scheuen sich nicht, nur ,bewaffnet mit einem Presseausweis' im Schützengraben zu liegen, um unter Einsatz ihres eigenen Lebens ,live' für ,ihr' Publikum aus dem Ausland Bericht erstatten zu können. Für Kriegsreporter ist der Ausnahmezustand Normalzustand. Ihre Arbeit ist ein ständiger Adrenalin-Kick. Kehrt der Kriegsreporter in seine Heimatredaktion zurück, bringt der Auslandseinsatz unter Gefechtsbedingungen einen Karriere-Kick, heißt es. Im Extremfall stirbt der Kriegsreporter einen ,heroischen', weil unschuldigen und öffentlichen Tod, denn Kriege werden oftmals zu globalen Medienereignissen stilisiert. Vielleicht sind es gerade die außergewöhnlichen Arbeitsbedingungen im Krieg und Verantwortlichkeiten des Kriegsreporters, die die mythischen Elemente im Selbstbild dieser Profession begründen. Weil Krieg für Rezipienten aus Westeuropa häufig ein von der Heimat weit entferntes Spektakel ist, fungieren Kriegsberichterstatter als die einzigen Augenzeugen vor Ort mit öffentlichem Informationsauftrag. Sie tragen außerhalb des heimatlichen Einflussbereiches der Rezipienten dafür Sorge, dass das Publikum in der Heimat wie ,selbstverständlich' von den kriegerischen Auseinandersetzungen im Ausland erfährt. Als Spezialkorrespondenten im Ausland sind Kriegsreporter oft die Ersten, die am Ort einer Katastrophe eintreffen. Ihr Einsatz im Kriegsgebiet zählt zu den gefährlichsten und schwierigsten Auslandseinsätzen eines Journalisten. Momente und Bilder von Tod, Barbarei und Sinnlosigkeit gehören von Berufs wegen zu ihrem riskanten Arbeitsalltag. Sprachlosigkeit können sich Kriegsreporter angesichts der Omnipräsenz von Tod und Gewalt aber nicht leisten, denn ,Krieg' ist ein Wort, das die Agenda der Medien tagtäglich dominiert. Mit seiner Dominanz wächst die Nachfrage der Rezipienten nach vertrauenswürdigen Informationen aus dem Ausland, die durch eine Orientierung bietende Kriegsberichterstattung gestillt werden muss. Für viele Menschen beginnen Kriege zudem erst dort, wo die Medien auftreten. Eine professionelle und unabhängige Kriegsberichterstattung ist besonders wichtig, weil Kriegsberichterstattung nicht nur für die Strukturierung der Realität des Rezipienten und für seine Vorstellungen von der Welt von besonderer Relevanz ist, sondern auch dafür, wie die am Krieg beteiligten Länder, Völker und Politiker massenmedial wahrgenommen werden. Weil Kriegsparteien die Macht der Medien erkannt haben, wirkt diese Tatsache unmittelbar auf die Kriegsberichterstatter zurück. So reagieren die Kriegsparteien mit einem immer professioneller ausgestalteten Informationsmanagement und versuchen, die Nachfrage nach Informationen mit möglichst produktionsgerechtem Informationsmaterial oder durch mediengerechte Inszenierung von Ereignissen zu befriedigen. Zu den besonderen Herausforderungen eines Kriegsberichterstatters gehört es folglich, den Überblick in Zeiten der desorientierenden Informationsflut und der Instrumentalisierungs- und Abschirmungsversuche zu bewahren. Im Sinne des allgegenwärtigen journalistischen Objektivitäts-Primats müssen Journalisten auch unter verschärften Arbeitsbedingungen im Kriegsgebiet nach der ,Wahrheit' suchen. Gleichzeitig müssen die Kriegsreporter die Erwartungshaltungen der Redaktionen und des Publikums im Rahmen ihrer Berichterstattung erfüllen, die sich in Abhängigkeit von den Tendenzen und Trends in der Auslandsberichterstattung des 21. Jahrhunderts herauskristallisieren. Verstärkte Kommerzialisierungstendenzen und technologische Innovationen haben seither einen markanten Einfluss auf die Art der journalistischen Berichterstattung und erhöhen nicht nur den Selektions- und Aktualitätsdruck, sondern provozieren vor allem scharfe Kritik am Journalismus. Ereignisorientierung statt Hintergrundberichterstattung, Abhängigkeit vom militärischen Informationsmanagement, Spekulationen statt Fakten, überflüssige oder übertrieben-dramatische Berichterstattung lauten häufige Vorwürfe im speziellen Kontext der Kriegsberichterstattung (vgl. Löffelholz 2003, S. 11). In Anbetracht der verschärften Arbeitsbedingungen und Herausforderungen im fernen Ausland ist es nachvollziehbar, dass Kriegsreporter zu den prominentesten Journalisten zählen und diese ,Sonderform' der journalistischen Auslandsberichterstattung viele Klischees und Mythen hervorgebracht hat. Das mythische Bild vom Kriegsreporter ist auch im 21. Jahrhundert noch existent, weil der Forschungsstand speziell rund um die Person des Kriegsberichterstatters als rudimentär subsumiert werden kann. Nach Beham ist die Kriegsberichterstattung selbst in der Journalistenausbildung eine 'terra incognita' (Beham 1996, S. 234). Statt wissenschaftlich fundierten Erkenntnissen zu den Rahmenbedingungen des journalistischen Kriegseinsatzes und den Urhebern der ausländischen Berichte existieren primär (kommerzielle) Berichte von einzelnen Kriegsreportern in Tagebuchform über ihre Arbeit im Kriegsgebiet. Es ist auffallend, dass sich zahlreiche Studien allgemein dem journalistischen Berufsstand an sich widmen, die wenigen Studien im speziellen Kontext der Kriegsberichterstattung den Journalisten selbst aber regelmäßig ausblenden. Die Mehrzahl dieser analytischen Studien beschäftigt sich nicht mit dem Kommunikatorverhalten, sondern mit dem Rezipientenverhalten (vgl. Bentele 1993, S. 121 f.). Hinzu kommt, dass die wenigen Kommunikatorstudien entweder den Auslandsberichterstatter allgemein fokussieren (siehe z. B. Hahn et al. 2008) und ihn nur an einzelnen Nachrichtenplätzen erforschen (siehe z. B. Mükke 2009) oder sich lediglich mit speziellen Kriegsreportern wie den ,Embedded Journalists' auseinandersetzen (siehe z. B. Kryszons 2007; Richter 1999). Zwar haben die Kriegserfahrungen der jüngsten Vergangenheit das Thema Kriegsberichterstattung mit neuer Dringlichkeit auf die wissenschaftliche Agenda gesetzt (vgl. Daniel 2006, S. 8), jedoch wirft sie aufgrund der oben beschriebenen Lücken in der Forschung (,gap of research') auch im Jahre 2010 noch eine Reihe von zu untersuchenden Fragen auf (vgl. Kleffel 1994, S. 76). Forschungsgegenstand dieser Arbeit sind daher die Protagonisten, die im Kern des Verhältnisses von Medien und Krieg an verschiedenen Kriegsschauplätzen weltweit stehen. Aus einer akteurszentrierten Perspektive sollen deutschsprachige Kriegsberichterstatter als Berufskommunikatoren näher beleuchtet werden, die vor Ort in weltweiten Kriegsgebieten arbeiten. Die vorliegende explorative Untersuchung ist als eine Fallstudie der Kommunikatorforschung zu verstehen. Forschungsziel ist, Erkenntnisse über deutschsprachige Kriegsberichterstatter und die Rahmenbedingungen ihrer Arbeit vor Ort sowie vor und nach ihrem Kriegseinsatz zu gewinnen. Dazu sollen die theoretischen Behauptungen in der Literatur durch einen Vergleich der Aussagen von Praktikern in Bezug auf personenbezogene Dispositionen sowie Arbeitsweisen und Arbeitsumstände angereichert werden, um etwaige Tendenzen innerhalb eines weltweiten Kontextes aufzeigen zu können. Die zum Vergleich benötigten Daten werden mittels einer Befragung von deutschsprachigen Kriegsberichterstattern gesammelt, durch die der Zielgruppe die Gelegenheit gegeben wird, individuelle Meinungen bzw. Einstellungen zu äußern sowie Überzeugungen, Verhaltensweisen und personenbezogene Eigenschaften darzulegen. Die folgenden Forschungsfragen, die den Fokus insbesondere auf Selbstwahrnehmung, Meinungen und Verhaltensweisen der Kriegsreporter legen, spezifizieren das Forschungsziel und verdeutlichen, welche Aspekte in der vorliegenden Studie von zentralem Interesse sind: Personenbezogene Dispositionen: Wie sieht das Profil der befragten deutschsprachigen Kriegsberichterstatter aus? Welches Motiv bewegt den Journalisten, als Kriegsreporter vor Ort arbeiten zu wollen? Welches Rollenbild hat der Journalist in Bezug auf seine Aufgabe im Kriegsgebiet? Arbeitsumstände: Wie sind die infrastrukturellen und logistischen Arbeitsbedingungen vor Ort zu bewerten? Wie lässt sich das Verhältnis der Kriegsberichterstatter untereinander charakterisieren? Welche Rolle spielt die Heimatredaktion für den Kriegsreporter vor Ort? Wie lässt sich das kommunikative Verhältnis zwischen Heimatredaktion und Kriegsreporter vor Ort beschreiben? Hat die Heimatredaktion eine Ordnungsfunktion inne? Welche Vor- und Nachsorgemaßnahmen werden getroffen? Welche physischen und psycho-sozialen Gefahren birgt der Einsatz im Kriegsgebiet? Arbeitsweisen: Wie generieren die Journalisten ihr Fachwissen über das Einsatzgebiet? Aus welchen Quellen gewinnt der Reporter seine Informationen und wie überprüft er deren Vertrauenswürdigkeit? Wie häufig werden unverifizierte Informationen weitergeleitet? Welche Meinung vertritt der Reporter in Bezug auf kontrovers diskutierte visuelle und verbale Darstellungsoptionen in seinen Kriegsberichten? Zur Beantwortung der Forschungsfragen ist die Arbeit in fünf Kapitel gegliedert. Nach der Einleitung (I.) wird in Kapitel II. das theoretische Fundament zum Verständnis von Kriegsberichterstattung gelegt. Weil Kriegsberichterstattung zur Auslandsberichterstattung gehört, liefert Kapitel II.1. zunächst eine kurze Einführung in dieses Feld, damit in Kapitel II.2. die Kriegsberichterstattung als eine ,Sonderform' der Auslandsberichterstattung verortet und näher beleuchtet werden kann. Kapitel III. skizziert praktische Implikationen der Kriegsberichterstattung und bildet mit der Fokussierung der besonderen Modalitäten vor (III.1.), während (III.2.; III.3.; III.4.) und nach (III.5.) dem journalistischen Einsatz im Kriegsgebiet den Schwerpunkt der vorliegenden Arbeit. In Kapitel IV. wird die empirische Untersuchung vorgestellt (IV.1.) und ein exklusives Meinungsbild von weltweit tätigen Kriegsreportern präsentiert und diskutiert (IV.2.), um die forschungsleitenden Fragestellungen in der Einleitung zu beantworten. Die Arbeit schließt mit einem Fazit (V.), in dem das Ziel der Arbeit rekapituliert und der Versuch unternommen wird, Empfehlungen für die künftige Praxis der Kriegsberichterstattung zu geben.Inhaltsverzeichnis:Inhaltsverzeichnis: AbbildungsverzeichnisVII AbkürzungsverzeichnisVIII AnhangsverzeichnisIX I.Einleitung1 II.Theoretische Grundlagen der Auslandskorrespondenz6 1.Auslandsberichterstattung6 1.1Einführung: Bedeutung der Auslandsberichterstattung6 1.2Tendenzen und Trends: Auslandsberichterstattung heute8 1.3Selbstdefinition: Rollenbilder von Auslandskorrespondenten11 2.Kriegsberichterstattung14 2.1Spezialkorrespondent: Der Kriegsberichterstatter14 2.2Beruf Kriegsreporter: Mythen und Motive16 2.3Dilemma: Wahrheit und Objektivität im Kriegsgebiet19 III.Praxis der Kriegsberichterstattung22 1.Vorbereitung: Verantwortlichkeiten und Sicherheit22 1.1Verantwortung: Einsatzorganisation und Vorsorgemaßnahmen22 1.2Formalien: Bürokratische Modalitäten25 1.3Sicherheit: Potenzielle Gefahren vor Ort26 2.Produktion: Freiheitsgrade und Einflussnahmen28 2.1Reisen und Unterkunft: Infrastruktur und Logistik28 2.2Recherche: Informationsquellen und -gruppen30 2.3Hürden der Pressefreiheit: Propaganda und Zensur32 2.4Kommunikation: Das Verhältnis der Reporter zur Redaktion35 2.5Arbeitsklima: Die Beziehung der Reporter untereinander36 3.Inhalte: Auswahl und Thematisierung39 3.1Kriegsberichte: Einflussfaktoren auf Inhalte39 3.2Angstpotenzierung: Das Dilemma der Terrorberichterstattung41 4.Darstellung: Visualisierung und Verbalisierung44 4.1Selbstzensur: Ethische Fragen der Bilddarstellung44 4.2Sprache: Problematik der Polarisierung und Dämonisierung46 5.Nachbereitung: Verdrängung und Verarbeitung50 5.1Trauma: Psycho-soziale Risiken des Berufes50 5.2Betreuung: Fürsorgepflicht der Redaktion53 IV.Befragung deutschsprachiger Kriegsreporter weltweit55 1.Methodik: Das Untersuchungsdesign55 1.1Untersuchungsinstrument: Die Befragung55 1.2Operationalisierung: Konzeption des Fragebogens59 1.3Zielgruppe: Bildung der Stichprobe63 1.4Feld-Phase: Durchführung der Befragung65 1.5Analyse: Auswertung der empirischen Daten66 2.Untersuchungsergebnisse: Präsentation und Diskussion67 2.1Profil deutschsprachiger Kriegsberichterstatter67 2.1.1Soziodemographische Angaben und Berufserfahrung67 2.1.2Motive für den Beruf des Kriegsreporters71 2.1.3Rollenverständnisse der Reporter vor Ort75 2.2Vorbereitung79 2.2.1Vorsorge- und Sicherheitsmaßnahmen79 2.2.2Wissensaneignung über das Einsatzgebiet82 2.3Produktion84 2.3.1Aufenthaltsdauer der Reporter vor Ort84 2.3.2Infrastrukturelle und logistische Arbeitsumstände85 2.3.3Informationsquellen und Informationsüberprüfung86 2.3.4Arbeitsklima der Reporter vor Ort92 2.3.5Rolle der Heimatredaktion im Kriegszustand95 2.3.6Kommunikation zwischen Heimatredaktion und Reporter97 2.4Inhalte und Darstellung98 2.4.1Individuelle inhaltliche Kriterien der Reporter98 2.4.2Kriegsreporter als Multiplikatoren des Terrors102 2.4.3Selbstzensur des Reporters zum Schutz der Rezipienten104 2.5Nachbereitung107 2.5.1Durchlebte Gefahrensituationen der Reporter107 2.5.2Psycho-soziale Einsatz-Folgen und Unterstützung109 2.6Zusammenfassende Betrachtung113 V.Fazit Kriegsreporter zwischen Mythos und Arbeitsrealität118 Literaturverzeichnis123 Anhang143Textprobe:Textprobe: Kapitel 2.2, Beruf Kriegsreporter: Mythen und Motive: Im Kontext des übermittelten Mythos ziehen es Kriegsberichterstatter vor, sich als Einzelkämpfer zu präsentieren, die zu Helden werden können, indem sie den Tod eines unschuldigen Kriegsberichterstatters sterben oder entsprechende heroische Taten vollbringen. Befördert wurde die mythische Betrachtungsweise der Person des Kriegsreporters dadurch, dass er zu damaliger Zeit traditionsgemäß aus der Oberschicht oder den oberen Mittelschichten stammte und damit auch oftmals aus der gleichen sozialen Schicht wie die angesehenen Offiziere der damaligen Truppen, die ihn begleiteten. Überlappende Bekanntschaftskreise und geteilte Männlichkeitsvorstellungen sowie Ehrenkodizes verfestigten das Verhältnis zwischen den militärischen Befehlshabern und den Kriegsberichterstattern zusätzlich. Kriegsberichterstatter waren 'Gentlemen unter Gentlemen' (Daniel 2006, S. 13), die den Kontakt mit einfachen Soldaten mieden und privilegiert mit Diener, Pferd und Wagen reisten. Erst um 1900 sei diese elitäre Gruppe der Kriegsberichterstatter mit einem weniger elitären Typus konfrontiert worden, der später als ,freelancer' bezeichnet wurde. Sein vorrangiges Ziel ist es gewesen, durch seine Berichte vom Schlachtfeld Karriere zu machen (Vgl. ebda.): 'Sie brachten einen neuen, von der Generation der Älteren und Erfahrenen nicht goutierten Stil in die Korrespondentenschar, da sie sich ihren Namen erst noch machen mussten und deswegen die einvernehmlichen Umgangsweisen zwischen Korrespondenten und Militärs durch Umgehen von Zensurvorschriften und ähnliches störten.' (Daniel 2006, S.13). Zwar habe sich im Verlaufe des 20. Jahrhunderts die soziale Einzugsbasis beider Berufsgruppen erweitert, durch die sich der 'soziale Konnex zwischen Offizierskorps und Journalisten' (ebda.) auflöste, dennoch ist der Mythos Kriegsreporter auch heute noch beständig. Nach Klein und Steinsieck sind die um das Berufsbild kursierenden Mythen insbesondere im Zusammenhang mit dem damals gängigen Bild des 'archetypischen' (Klein/Steinsieck 2006, S. 9) Kriegsberichterstatters, welches sich auf einer fortwährend suggerierten Kompetenz und Glaubwürdigkeit gründen würde, auch heute nicht überholt. Klein und Steinsieck sind überzeugt, dass Kriegsberichterstatter auch im 21. Jahrhundert noch bemüht sind, Vertrauen aufzubauen, indem sie ein spezifisches Bild von ihrer Persönlichkeit und ihrem Beruf zu vermitteln versuchen. In autobiographischen Diskursen würden Kriegsreporter deshalb vorzugsweise ihre unmittelbare Augenzeugenschaft vor Ort betonen, mit dem Ziel, ihre Glaubwürdigkeit auf diese Weise nachhaltig unterstreichen zu können. In diesem Zusammenhang würden Kriegsreporter mit Vorliebe nicht über ihren Alltag, der meist eher langweilig sei, sondern vor allem von außergewöhnlichen Momenten erzählen, in denen sie als Kriegsreporter selbst im Mittelpunkt explosiver Gewalt stünden. (Vgl. ebda.) Kriegsreporter Pedelty argumentiert in ähnlicher Weise die mythischen Elemente im Selbstbild seiner Profession: 'The mythological core of press corps culture contains a shared narrative of adventure, independence, and truth that imbues the correspondents` heavily controlled practice with sense of magic and purpose. The myths become anodynes, narcotic fantasies (and ?phalluses?) which assuage the pangs of mundane, difficult, and disciplined labor.' (Pedelty 1995, S. 39). Spekuliert werden kann, ob mit dieser bewussten Betonung der persönlichen Augenzeugenschaft ein Grund für den klischeegeprägten Mythos des beinahe unverwundbaren und coolen Berichterstatters gegeben ist (vgl. Hoff 2008), 'der notfalls abends an der Bar die gruseligen Bilder des Tages herunterspült' (Staun 2010; vgl. auch Hoff 2008). Darüber hinaus hat aber auch die Frage nach Beweggründen für die persönliche Grundsatzentscheidung des Journalisten aus einem Kriegsgebiet zu reportieren und damit das eigene Leben bei der Berufsausübung zu riskieren, schon viele Spekulationen befördert: Ist es 'Sensationsgier, Effekthascherei, um durch Heldentum seiner Karriere einen Schub zu verpassen?' (Armbruster 2008, S. 55) Doch neben den eigentlichen Motiven sind auch die Charakterzüge eines Kriegsreporters wichtig. Brase (2008, S. 42), selbst Kriegsreporter im damaligen Kosovo-Krieg, mahnt eindringlich: 'Der Einsatz in einem Krisengebiet ist nichts für Zartbesaitete, genauso wenig wie der journalistische Einsatz etwas für Draufgänger und Abenteurer ist'. Eine ähnliche Ansicht vertritt Limbourg (2008, S. 171 f.), der als verantwortlicher Chefredakteur auch für die Auswahl von Kriegsreportern zuständig ist: 'Bei Kriseneinsätzen gilt: viele Kollegen fühlen sich berufen – wenige sind ausersehen. Natürlich wissen Reporter, dass bei einem gelungenem Einsatz Ruhm und Ehre warten. Die Aufmerksamkeit von Redaktion und Chefs ist sicher. Tägliche Präsenz in den Hauptnachrichten ist gewiss. Man kann es sogar selbst zum Medienereignis bringen [...] Aber im Vordergrund müssen immer der Journalismus und die Geschichte stehen. Lawrence of Arabia-Darsteller und Bruce Willis-Imitate sollen schön zu Hause bleiben. An der Front braucht es den besonnenen Kollegen'. Verantwortliche Entscheidungen bei der Rekrutierung von Kriegsreportern sind folglich auch auf Redaktionsseite notwendig, die feststellen sollte, ob die Charakterzüge und Motive eines Journalisten nicht im Widerspruch zum eigentlichen öffentlichen Informationsauftrag stehen. Allerdings werfen manche selbstkommunizierten Motive von Kriegsreportern Fragen in Bezug auf die Eignung des Journalisten für die Besetzung des Auslandpostens auf. Wenig kritisch reflektiert erscheint beispielsweise das Motiv von Kriegsreporter Judah, der offen zugibt, primär den Wunsch nach einem Ausbruch aus der alltäglichen Arbeitsroutine der Heimatredaktion verspürt zu haben und im Rahmen eines 'Spaßfaktors' auch persönlich dabei sein wollte, wenn Geschichte geschrieben wird: 'I became a journalist because I wanted to see history being made, and I certainly didn`t want to while away my working years behind a flickering screen in an office while everyone else had fun.' (Judah 2002, S. 39) Ebenso offenbart der junge Kriegsreporter Reichelt, was für ihn den 'wirklichen' Reiz an seinem Job ausmacht: 'Ich wollte schon immer da sein, wo Menschen Leid ertragen müssen. Warum? Die gute Antwort lautet: Um darüber zu berichten, etwas zu ändern, zu bewegen, einen Unterschied zu machen. Die nicht so gute Antwort ist, dass ich dachte, es wäre irgendwie cool. Cool, an Orten zu sein, an die sonst kein Mensch fahren würde. Man will wissen, wie viel Leid man ertragen kann. Es ist, als würde man die Hand über eine Flamme halten.' (Reichelt 2009, S. 49). Herkel (2000) sieht hinter dieser besonderen und riskanten Berufswahl den Wunsch mancher (junger) Journalisten, sich in der Redaktion etablieren zu wollen, indem ein spannender Kriegsbericht den lang ersehnten Karrieresprung einleiten und so der Redaktion zur erhofften Einschalt- und Leserquote verhelfen würde. Eine gute Quote aufgrund eines sensationellen Fotos oder ein Berichtes kann folglich auch unter Umständen bereits ,über Nacht' zum schnellen, persönlichen Profit des Kriegsreporters führen. Himmelstein und Faithorn (2002, S. 553) konstatieren, dass sich besonders am frühen Anfang des 21. Jahrhunderts viele junge Journalisten für den Job des Kriegsreporters beworben hätten: 'The wars in Afghanistan in 2001 and Israel/Palestine in 2002 produced a waiting list of young general assignment reporters who felt they could advance their careers by covering war'. Klein und Steinsieck kommen in ihrer Studie aus dem Jahr 2006 zu dem Schluss, dass die Motivation der Kriegsberichterstatter am Anfang und Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts Kontinuitäten aufweise. Motive der Kriegsreporter sind demnach 'in wesentlichen Punkten unverändert geblieben: Abenteuerlust, der Wunsch nach Anerkennung und die Hoffnung, Karriere zu machen.' (Klein/Steinsieck 2006, S. 4) Nach Auffassung von Himmelstein und Faithorn basieren die Motive für den Kriegseinsatz allerdings bei berufserfahrenen Reportern auf einem weitgefächerten Set von Beweggründen. Diese reichen von altruistischen bzw. empathischen Motiven für (unter anderem) das menschliche Leid im Kriegsgebiet bis hin zu Neugierde und dem Wunsch nach Lernen bzw. Wissenserweiterung in Zusammenhang mit kulturellen und geschichtlichen Ereignissen: 'Many top reporters share a conviction that their work has purpose, specifically that they can help their audience gain greater insight into the larger social meaning of the events they report. Their concern with the human condition and desire to contribute to its improvement whenever possible inevitably involve an underlying altruistic motive based in empathy for human suffering, ignorance and confusion. Other reporters have a more self-enhancing sense of purpose - for example, an intense curiosity and desire to learn about cultures and history - and consider the benefit their audiences may derive from their reporting to be a positive by-product of their primary motivation.' (Himmelstein/Faithorn 2002, S. 54).

The next issue of "Constellations" (vol. 40, no. 4) features articles on The Institute for Social Research (Frankfurt am Main) and the Frankfurt School:"The Institute for Social Research at 100: Continuity and Transformation"Eleven articles are now available online:* Axel Honneth - "The Institute for Social Research on its 100th birthday. A former director's perspective"Excerpt: "There are deeper, less superficial reasons for being skeptical today with regard to the potential of this tradition to guide us in our social–theoretical attempts to comprehend the present situation in a fruitful way, both philosophically sound and empirically productive. In the following, I want to discuss three challenges resulting from structural changes in our social and intellectual environment that make it more and more difficult to preview a fruitful, productive, and energizing future for Critical Theory in its traditional form. These three challenges stem from (1) the growing awareness of the endurance of the colonial past of Western societies, (2) the unmistakable importance of the ecological question, and, finally, (3) the growing uncertainties about the exact format and arrangement of interdisciplinary research."* Rainer Forst: "The rational critique of social unreason. On critical theory in the Frankfurt tradition"  [open access]Excerpt: "In my view, then, critical theory must be reconfigured as a critique of relations of justification. This calls, on the one hand, for a critical social scientific analysis of social and political relations of domination that includes cultural and, not least, economic structures and relationships. In this regard, two dimensions of domination must be distinguished: subjugation to unjustifiable norms and institutions, and subjugation to conditions that prevent practices of justification. Such critical analysis must be combined with a discourse-theoretical, genealogical critique of the justifications and justification narratives that confer legitimacy on unjustifiable relations. On the other hand, we must pose the constructive question of how a "basic structure of justification" can be conceived as a requirement of fundamental justice and be realized in social practice - not as an ideal or a model to be imposed on societies, but as a normative order to be developed autonomously. Essentially, a theory we call critical ought to be based on the principle of criticism itself. Its medium is reason striving for practices of autonomous justification among equals."* Alessandro Ferrara - "If Foucault, why not Rawls? On enlarging the critical tent"Excerpt: "It is undeniably among the aims of critical theory to envisage a society in which diversity can exist in the absence of oppression. Now, it's all too easy to merely invoke the ideal of equals living together with their diversity (ethnic, ethical, religious, cultural, or of gender, lifestyle, sexual preference) and without oppression. Deconstructionists, post-colonial theorists, and theorists of recognition often emphatically do so. However, when it comes to specifying concretely which institutions should form the basic structure of such a society, how they should relate to one other, what rights and liberties (and how limited and balanced) citizens should have, and what democratic legitimacy means, it is a whole different story.On the nuts and bolts of an oppression-free society the entire first generation had little to offer, to say nothing of the cauldron of the "verwaltete Welt" (Adorno). Habermas has quite a lot to say, in Between Facts and Norms and in his exchange with Rawls. Among the younger critical theorists who long for reviving the earlier program of the Frankfurt School, few even attempt to say anything. This is the problem, instead, on which [John Rawls's] Political Liberalism, not A Theory of Justice, offers an elaborate theory unmatched by any other to date (....) Critical theory can only gain from enlarging its tent to include also some of Rawls's concepts - reasonability, civility, reciprocity - and from launching empirical research on the conditions of the possibility for them to maintain traction in the challenging decades ahead of us."* Maeve Cooke - "Social theory as critical theory: Horkheimer's program and its relevance today"Excerpt: "Since formalist models of politics abstain from critique of the prevailing deep-seated ethical-existential values and from recommendation of alternatives, they are conducive toward unquestioning acceptance of the ethical-existential values undergirding the established political procedures, facilitating the reproduction of the political status quo. Against this, I take the view that contemporary critical theory must engage with ethical-existential questions, not least if it is to meet the challenges posed by our disastrous ecological situation. This requires it, in turn, to engage with the question of ethical-existential validity. Given the challenge of value pluralism, therefore, a key task for contemporary critical theory is to elaborate a conception of ethical validity that is at once universalist and attentive to the plurality of ethical values and worldviews."* Samuel Moyn - "Critical theory's generational predicament" [Link]Excerpt: "(....) it seems clear that the principal cause of the lack of interest in critical theory for younger generations - the lack of zeal to perpetuate or even study it - is that the votaries of the tradition conformed unreflectively to "the end of history" in the 1990s. They had essentially nothing to say about American unipolarity and the militarism that has so clearly accompanied it. Worse, for one-time Marxists, they never formulated an analysis or critique of economic neoliberalism. Yet these are the causes at the center of the activism and theorizing of many who lived through the past decade and forging a critical perspective on their times."* Martin Saar - "Rethinking Critique and Theory" [open access]Excerpt: "Benjamin's partisanship for the perspective of the defeated in historiography, Adorno's and Horkheimer's insistence on the deep ambivalence of enlightenment ideals, and Marcuse's clear-sighted perception of the central role of the excluded and marginalized, whom the capitalist system cannot even properly exploit, are starting points for a radical self-critique of the Western liberation movements, which have yet to admit their own entanglement in domination elsewhere and thus should actually make way for an even more radical, decentered enlightenment and liberation."* Frank I. Michelman - "Totality, morality, and social philosophy"Excerpt: "We thus see the Institute for Social Research, at a signal moment in its early history, posing for itself the dialectic of human individual agency and environing social totality - with neither element placed at the other's disposal - as a main topic for pursuit by social philosophy and its connected program of social research. It is by pursuit of that topic that the Institute's engagements over the decades of my own academic career have figured, importantly for me, in my work (not generally classified as "Frankfurt School") on liberal constitutional theory. Most pointedly it has done so in undertakings by Jürgen Habermas to explicate a moral point of view from which citizens in a political society encounter one another as each a free and equal person commanding full respect as such - but to explicate that morality, as I have sought to explain, not as a view "that philosophy independently discovers," but rather as one that lies embedded in a historically particular social totality."* Cristina Lafont - "The return of the critique of ideologies" [open access]Excerpt: "(....) I shall focus on just one issue: the recent revival in critiques of ideology. In my view, this type of critique is an important task of critical theory and remains one of its most significant legacies. Yet, if one focuses on the work of critical theorists over the past decades, this statement is far from obvious. In fact, the second generation of the Frankfurt school,most notably Habermas in his Theory of Communicative Action, explicitly rejects ideology critique as obsolete in the context of contemporary societies. Even though in the 1960s and 1970s, he had embraced the classicalMarxist approach to ideology critique, he ultimately rejected it. It was the explicit attempt to rebut objections that had plagued this approach that brought about the so-called "democratic turn" of critical theory characteristic of Habermas's work from the 1980s onward and in which the critique of ideologies no longer plays a role."* Christopher F. Zurn -  "We're not special: Congratulations!"Excerpt: "It is fine, then, to get right to work on current social movements - Occupy Wall Street and other Square movements, Black Lives Matter, the Sunrise and Third Act movements, MeToo, the Arab Spring, or the Mahsa Amini protests - and on pressing contemporary social problems - climate change and human adaptation, deepening material inequality, the erosion of constitutional democracy, artificial intelligence and human de-skilling, global migration and refugee waves, the transformation of the Westphalian international order, the resilience and resurgence of patriarchy, and so on - without worrying how to fit these movements and problems into the architectonic of Dialectic of Enlightenment or Theory of Communicative Action. To be sure, we need not ignore the conceptual resources and insights of our tradition when they are relevant and enlightening. But we need to take interdisciplinarity seriously by looking to the much broader currents of critical thought on social formations and the changing horizons of human emancipation."* Peter E. Gordon - "The animating impulses of critical theory"Excerpt: "For some readers, this generational shift - between the first and second generations of critical theory - is overdramatized into a stark contrast between totalizing negativism and restorationist optimism, both of which seem to hover at too great an altitude above social reality. Needless to say, this contrast does an injustice to both parties. Adorno and Horkheimer are far more committed to reason's self-reflective possibilities, while Habermas remains far more attentive to reason's systemic distortion. They converge at a point of dialectical mediation, whereas neither pure negativism nor pure idealism would serve as a viable groundwork for critical theory. In what follows I wish to suggest that Horkheimer's original model of social philosophy, as animated by a rational but materialist ideal of emancipation, still has enduring merit."* William E. Scheuerman - "Horkheimer's unrealized vision"Excerpt: "Horkheimer's idea of a mutually constructive exchange between philosophy and critical social science has too often been rare and ephemeral. And this should worry us if you believe, as this author does, that Horkheimer was right to see such an exchange as indispensable to critical theory. (....) Only in 1962 did Habermas, in an appropriately interdisciplinary study that relied heavily on research from legal scholars, political scientists, and sociologists, begin to revitalize Frankfurt critical theory. Not only did his landmark Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere take the social sciences seriously, but its young author seems to have implicitly grasped that critical theory could only flourish on the basis of an authentically cooperative, mutually beneficial relationship between philosophy and the social sciences. Horkheimer's original interdisciplinary vision clearly inspired the young Habermas. When properly reconstructed, it should inspire us today as well."

In 2019, Sweden implemented legislative changes to renegotiate hydropower permits to both consider environmental rehabilitation and to ensure national supply of hydropower. This means that efforts for environmental rehabilitation of the 2,000 hydropower plants in Sweden need to be considered. Such rehabilitation measures include implementation of environmental flows, enhancing connectivity or morphological restoration. In order to enable prioritization among measures, it is necessary to assess the expected environmental benefits and consequences of implementation. We developed a new method to assess and prioritize among environmental-flow measures that aim to rehabilitate ecosystems in regulated rivers at the catchment level, with the Ume River in northern Sweden as an example. The Ume River is heavily regulated for hydropower production with 19 hydropower stations, with 13 run-of river impoundments in cascade and six storage reservoirs. Our strategy was to identify measures with minimal impact on hydropower production that also provide significant environmental benefits. Based on field studies of remaining natural values and potential for ecological rehabilitation, we quantified the estimated gain in the area of habitat for target organism groups, e.g. lotic fish species and riparian plants, if rehabilitation actions would be implemented along the entire Ume River. Regulated flows imply changes in the seasonal variation in flow, which often means that spring floods are lacking and that flows increase during the winter compared with natural unregulated flows. Hydropeaking, defined as rapid and frequent changes in flow and water levels to optimize hydropower production, is a common procedure that adversely affects habitats in river ecosystems. An important aspect of hydropeaking is zero-flow events, which occurs when hydropower stations are stopped due to low electricity demand or low electricity prices. We quantified the consequences for hydropower production of introducing environmental flows by identifying a set of rules of operation of the hydropower stations that reflect the limitations that ecological regulation of flows and water levels entail. In the work, consideration of technical limitations in the hydropower stations was a key to attain cost-effective measures. We then used hydropower production optimization programs to calculate changes in hydropower production and revenues. We also quantified the environmental benefits of environmental flows described as increases in the area of habitat for riverine species and improvements in ecosystem functions in the Ume River. We identified increasing the area of aquatic habitat with high flow velocity, providing suitable habitat for lotic species, enhancing the establishment of riparian and increasing longitudinal connectivity as the main aspects of the Ume River ecosystems in need of rehabilitation. This thesis focuses specifically on three aspects of environmental flows. (1) Analysis of hydropeaking and zero-flow events for all hydropower stations in a catchment and the introduction of a ban of zero-flow events as an environmental flow measure. The hydropower stations in Ume River system stand still without flow 9% to 55% of the time in a hydrologically normal year, transforming lotic habitat into stagnant water. (2) A comprehensive assessment of environmental flow measures which in addition to banning zero-flow events include improvements of connectivity, spill water to by-passed reached laid dry as well as more natural water-level variation, combined into a total of scenarios where the environmental benefits and impacts on electricity production were quantified. In addition, we modeled a spring-flood scenario and a scenario transforming the flow of the Ume River to its natural flow regime. (3) Predictions of the effects on hydropower production of introducing environmental flow scenarios were modeled using climate change projections for IPCC scenario A1B until the year 2040, where the efficiency of environmental flow measures in a future climate and detection of potential bottlenecks in flow linked to ecological extremes such as periods of drought and flood. Further, the thesis present the framework of collaborative management that facilitated the process to solve complicated societal challenges connected to mitigation measures and environmental flows in higly-regulated river basins. This framwork allowed both for finding the most cost effective environmental flow measures as well as detecting environmental rehabilitation measures that otherwise might go undetected, despite having little impact on hydropower production. Our results show that introducing a zero-flow ban with the aim of avoiding stagnant water would on average mean 0.5% electricity production loss per year and benefit existing and newly created 240 hectares of lotic habitat with a flow rate exceeding 0.1 m/s, suitable for lotic species such as grayling Thymallus thymallus. The small effect in electricity production is the result of an effort to route the flow through the turbines to generate electricity, which means that the main effect is to move electricity production from daytime to nighttime. Implementation of zero-flow restrictions in combination with allocating 1-12% of the average annual flow at all hydropower stations to side channels and reaches laid dry would result in a loss of 2.1% of the annual electricity production for the Ume River catchment. Adding flow to fish-ways would increase the loss to 3.1% per year. With the implementation of more natural water-level variation in the main channel, the loss increases to 3.8%. These measures would more than triple the habitat of lotic species such as grayling Thymallus thymallus, and increase the area of riparian vegetation by about 66%. Assessing hydropower production in the Ume River in a future climate shows that hydropower production is expected to increase by 2.6% compared to current conditions until 2040, which opens up for mitigating the effects of climate change by implementing flow measures that mimic conditions before climate change, which can help to avoid extreme hydrological events potentially harming the riverine ecosystem. The environmental flow scenarios developed in previous projects were tested in simulations with future flow conditions and the results show that all effects on electricity production were projected to be significantly smaller in the future compared with models without climate change. The operation of storage reservoirs is expected to become more important in a future climate. Our assessment is a way of predicting the effectiveness of environmental flow measures in the future with climate change. Our method forms the basis to guide future nationwide implementation of environmental rehabilitation of regulated rivers with the aim of maintaining and restoring riverine ecosystems. ; Sverige har cirka 2000 kraftverk som står inför en miljöanpassning enligt Nationella Prövningsplanen, där miljöåtgärder som ekologisk flödesreglering, återetablerad konnektivitet och morfologiska restaureringsåtgärder ska utvärderas och i nästa steg prioriteras mellan. För att möjliggöra prioritering bland åtgärder för ekologisk reglering är det absolut nödvändigt att veta de förväntade miljönyttorna och konsekvenserna av genomförandet, vilket sällan har kvantifierats för ett helt avrinningsområde. Vi har utvecklat en ny metod för att bedöma och prioritera bland miljöflödesåtgärder som syftar till att rehabilitera reglerade ekosystem på avrinningsområdesnivå med Umeälven i norra Sverige som exempel. Umeälven är kraftigt reglerad för vattenkraftproduktion med 19 vattenkraftstationer, varav 13 är kraftverksdammar i kaskad och sex är dammar som fungerar som regleringsmagasin. Strategin var att identifiera åtgärder med minimal påverkan på vattenkraftproduktionen som samtidigt gav betydande miljövinster. Baserat på fältundersökningar av kvarvarande naturvärden och potential för ekologisk rehabilitering, kvantifierade vi den beräknade vinsten i form av area av livsmiljö för målorganismgrupper, t.ex. strömlevande fiskarter och strandvegetation längs hela Umeälven. Reglerade flöden innebär att den naturliga flödesregimen förändras och att flödenas säsongsvariation blir tidsmässigt omvänd, vilket ofta innebär att vårflod saknas och att flöden ökar under vintern jämfört med naturliga flöden. Korttidsreglering, definierat som snabba och frekventa förändringar i flöde och vattenstånd för att optimera vattenkraftsproduktionen, är ett vanligt förfarande som påverkar livsmiljöer i vattendraget negativt. En viktig aspekt av korttidsreglering är nolltappning som inträffar när vattenkraftstationer stoppas på grund av lågt elbehov eller låga elpriser. Vi kvantifierade konsekvenserna för vattenkraftproduktionen genom att identifiera en uppsättning vattenhushållningsregler för driften av vattenkraftsstationerna som återspeglar de begränsningar som ekologisk reglering av flöden och vattenstånd medför. I arbetet var hänsyn till tekniska begränsningar i kraftverken en nyckel till kostnadseffektiva åtgärder. Vi använde sedan produktionsoptimeringsprogram för att beräkna förändringar i vattenkraftproduktion och intäkter. Vi kvantifierade även miljönyttor beskrivet som den beräknade ökningen i yta av de ekosystem som minskat mest i yta till följd av reglering och förbättringar i ekosystemfunktioner i Umeälven. I Umeälven betydde det att vi fokuserade på habitat för strömlevande arter, strandvegetation samt på att öka konnektiviteten. Denna avhandling fokuserar på tre områden inom ämnet ekologiska flöden. (1) Analys av korttidsreglering och nolltappningshändelser för alla kraftverk i Umeälven samt vidhängande nolltappningsförbud som flödesåtgärd med kvantifierade konsekvenser på elproduktion och miljövinster. Umeälvens vattenkraftstationer står stilla utan flöde 9 – 55% av tiden ett hydrologiskt normalt år och förvandlar lotiska livsmiljöer till stillastående vatten. (2) En bedömning av ekologiska flödesåtgärder som omfattar förbud mot nolltappning, konnektivitetslösningar, spill till torrfåror och sidofåror och vattenståndsanpassning som basfunktioner. Basfunktionerna kombinerades vidare till totalt 28 scenarier med olika miljönyttor och beskrivningar av produktionspåverkan. Dessutom modellerade vi ett vårflodsscenario och ett scenario med naturlig flödesregim. (3) Prognoser för vattenkraftsproduktion och kostnader för att införa scenarier med ekologiska flöden modellerades med den tillrinning som förväntas i ett framtida klimat enligt IPCC:s scenario A1B fram till år 2040, för att detektera t.ex. konsekvenser under hydrologiska extremer som torka. Resultaten visar att införa ett nolltappningsförbud med syfte att undvika stillastående vatten i medeltal innebär 0,5% produktionsförlust per år och gynnar befintligt eller nyskapar 240 hektar habitat med en flödeshastighet som överstiger 0,1 m/s, d.v.s. lämpligt för lotiska arter som harr (Thymallus thymallus). Den relativt begränsade produktionsförlusten är ett resultat av en strävan att vattnet ska gå genom turbinerna för att generera el. Det medför att produktionstillfällen flyttas från dagtid till nattetid, men att produktionsförlusten blir liten. Genomförande av restriktioner av nolltappning i kombination med spill till torrfåror och sidokanaler vid alla vattenkraftverk om 1-12% av det genomsnittliga årliga flödet skulle resultera i en förlust av 2,1% av den årliga elproduktionen för Umeälvens avrinningsområde. Att lägga till erforderligt flöde till fiskvägar skulle öka förlusten till 3,1% per år. Med implementering av mer naturliga vattenståndsvariationer i huvudfåran ökar förlusten till 3,8%. Dessa åtgärder skulle öka livsmiljön för lotiska arter som harr mer än tredubbelt, och öka arean av strandvegetation med cirka 66%. Modellering av ekologisk reglering i ett framtida klimat visar att vattenkraftsproduktionen beräknas öka med 2,6% fram till 2040 jämfört med nuvarande förhållanden, vilket öppnar upp för genomförande av flödesåtgärder som efterliknar hydrologiska förhållanden före klimatförändringar, vilket är nödvändigt för att undvika hydrologiska extremförhållanden, som skulle kunna skada älvens ekosystem och samhällsfunktioner. Scenarierna med ekologiska flöden framtagna i tidigare projekt testades med framtida flöden i simuleringar, vilket visar att effekterna på elproduktionen skulle bli betydligt mindre i framtiden jämfört med modeller utan förväntade klimatförändringar. Driften av regleringsmagasin bedöms få en ökad betydelse i ett framtida klimat både för att undvika vattenbrist och höga flöden. Vår metod utgör en bas för arbete med att uppnå hållbarhetsmål för många vattendrags ekosystem i perspektivet av inte bara nuvarande reglering och tillrinning, men även i ett framtida klimat.

The 10-year treasury yield reached an historic low this week, crossing the 1% barrier. For many observers, this was a troubling development that confirms the U.S. economy is being sucked into the mire of secular stagnation. For others, it was an unsurprising outcome given the long-run trajectory of interest rates and the ongoing safe asset shortage problem.
Both views have some merit. The decline of the 10-year treasury yield does create problems for the U.S. economy, but it has been happening for some time. There is nothing magical about crossing the 1% barrier, though it does brings closer the day of reckoning for the Fed's operating framework.


The decline of the 10-year treasury yield, if sustained, means the entire yield curve may soon run into its effective lower bound. This will render useless much of the Fed's toolbox. Fortunately, there is a fix for the Fed's operating framework that makes it robust to any interest rate environment. This fix, ironically, ties the Fed more closely to fiscal policy while making it more Monetarist in practice. 

This post outlines the proposed fix, but first motivates it by explaining how the decline in the 10-year treasury yield creates problems for the U.S. economy.

Why The 10-Year Treasury Yield Decline Matters 

The are three reasons why the fall in the 10-year treasury yield matters. First, it implies there is an excess demand for safe assets. These are securities that are expected to maintain their value in a financial crisis and, as a result, are highly liquid. The biggest sources of safe assets are government bonds from advanced economies, especially U.S. Treasuries. The global demand for them has far outstripped their supply and this has led to the global safe asset shortage problem. The 10-year treasury yield falling below 1% is the latest manifestation of this phenomenon.



The safe asset shortage is problematic because it amounts to a broad money demand shock that slows down aggregate demand growth. One solution is for safe asset prices (interest rates) to adjust up (down) to the point that safe asset demand is satiated. The effective lower bound (ELB) on interest rates prevents this adjustment from happening and causes investors to search for safe assets elsewhere in the world. Other economies, as a result, are also affected by the safe asset shortage problem and experience lower aggregate demand growth.1



The demand for safe assets, as noted above, is closely tied to the demand for liquidity. This can be seen in the figure below which shows that the use of money assets (i.e. money velocity) closely tracks the 10-year treasury yield. Over the past decade, this has meant the public's desired money holdings have increased as the 10-year treasury yield has fallen. All else equal, this implies slower growth in aggregate spending.






Below is a chart from an upcoming policy brief of mine that illustrates this point from a global perspective. It shows the average 10-year government bond yield between 2009 and 2019 plotted against the average growth rate of domestic demand over the same period. The government bond yield can be viewed as the safe asset interest rate in these advanced economies. The figure reveals a strong positive relationship between the safe asset yield and the domestic demand growth rate.









One has to be careful interpreting the causality here, but I do further analysis in the policy brief and find shocks to the bond yields do influence domestic demand growth. The safe asset shortage, therefore, appears to be a drag on global aggregate demand growth. The first reason, then, why the decline in the 10-year treasury yield matters is that it portends weaker aggregate demand growth. 



The second reason the decline matters is that it leads to a flattening of the yield curve. Financial firms that fund short term and invest long term rely heavily on a positive slopping yield curve to make this business model work. A flattening yield curve undermines it and may lead to less financial intermediation. This is one reason an inverted yield helps predict recessions. In this case, however, the  effect may be longer lasting than the business cycle as the decline in treasury yields appears to be on a sustained path.


The third reason the decline matters is that it impairs the Fed's current tool box. The Fed's target interest rate is now down to a 1-1.25% range, a small margin for a central bank that normally cuts around 5% during a recession. The Fed could turn to large scale asset purchases once it hits the ELB, but with the 10-year treasury now near 1%, there is not much space here either. Consequently, the Fed's toolbox is shrinking and soon could be rendered useless. 

Now the Fed can add to its toolbox and indeed the Fed is exploring new tools--such as negative interest rates and yield curve control--under its big review of monetary policy. Even these tools, however, are limited since the declining 10-year treasury yield is compressing the yield curve. 

The Fed's current toolbox, in short, is premised on a positive interest rate world that is slowing fading. The Fed, therefore, may soon face a day of reckoning for its current operating framework. That possibility and what the Fed could do in response is considered next.


Revamping the Fed's Operating Framework

The Fed's operating framework--defined here as the instruments, tools, and targets the Fed uses in its conduct of monetary policy--has been geared toward a positive interest rate environment. This framework has been increasingly strained by the downward march of interest rates. The 10-year treasury yield dropping below 1% underscores this challenge.

The Fed needs, consequently, an operating framework that is robust to any interest rate environment and one that is capable of stabilizing aggregate demand growth. I have proposed a fix to the Fed's operating system that addresses these challenges in a forthcoming journal article. Here I want to briefly outline that proposal. It has three parts: (1) the Fed adopts a dual reaction function, (2) the Fed adopts a NGDP level target, and (3) the Fed is empowered with a standing fiscal facility for use at the ZLB.  The three parts are explained below. 






Part I: A Dual Reaction Function. To make the Fed's operating framework robust to both positive and negative interest rate environments, I call for a two-rule approach to monetary policy. Specifically, the Fed would follow a version of the Taylor rule when interest rate are above zero percent and follow the McCallum rule when interest rate are at zero percent or below. The former rule uses an interest rate as the instrument of monetary policy while the latter rule uses the monetary base as the instrument.  Consequently, the Fed would have effective instruments to use no matter what happens to interest rates. 


Part II: A NGDP Level Target. A level target provides powerful forward guidance since it forces the central bank to make up for past misses in its target. For reasons laid out here, I prefer a nominal NGDP level target (NGDPLT) and specifically, one that targets the forecast. This combined with the first feature implies the following dual reaction function system for the Fed:









Here, in is the neutral interest rate, the NGDPGap is the percent difference between the forecasted level of NGDP and the NGDPLT for the period of t to t+h, Δb is the growth rate of the monetary base, Δx* is the target NGDP growth rate, and Δv is the expected growth rate in the velocity of the monetary base for the period of t to t+h.




Part III: A Standing Fiscal Facility. The final part of the proposal establishes a standing fiscal facility for the Federal Reserve to use when implementing the McCallum rule. That is, when the Fed starts adjusting the the growth of the monetary base according to the McCallum rule, it will do so by sending money directly to the public. My proposal, then, incorporates 'helicopter drops' into the Fed's toolkit in rule-like manner. 


I provide more details in the paper, but here are the advantages of this proposed operating framework. First, it keeps countercyclical macroeconomic policy at the Federal Reserve. This provides continuity with the existing division of labor between the U.S. Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve.  Second, it enables the Fed to provide meaningful countercyclical monetary policy no matter what happens to interest rates. Third, it provides credible forward guidance since it combines a NGDPLT with helicopter drops. Finally, since this operating framework would require the Fed to be much more intentional about the rules it follows, it would make the Fed more rules-based and predictable. 



This proposal would require approval from Congress. Given the Fed's shrinking toolbox and the ongoing expectation that it deliver countercyclical policy, this may not be as big an ask as some imagine. Moreover, it could easily be seen as return to a more Monetarist Federal Reserve since it would be relying more explicitly on the monetary base to implement monetary policy. 

Conclusion 
Some commentators have speculated that the corona virus might be a shock that forces us out of our complacency and spawns many unintended innovations. To the extent this shock leads to ongoing declines in the treasury yields and exhausts the Fed current toolbox, it might also lead to innovations in U.S. monetary policy. Here's hoping it does along the lines suggested above. 






1 The safe asset shortge can also become self-perpetuating and lead to what Caballero et al (2017) call a 'safety trap'. This problem emerges when the excess demand for safe assets pushes down safe asset yields to the effective lower bound (ELB) on interest rates. If the excess demand for safe assets is not satiated at that point (i.e. the equilibrium real safe asset interest rate is below the ELB), then aggregate demand will contract and push down inflation. Via the Fisher relationship, the lower inflation will drive up the real safe asset interest rate and increase the spread between it and the equilibrium real safe asset interest rate. As a result, aggregated demand will further contract and the cycle will repeat.  This is the safety trap.

The Government White Paper on day care provision presented in December 1999 announced a three-year program to improve quality. Starting in 2001, all Norwegian day care centres were to establish tools and systems designed to further develop and safeguard the quality of day care centres. The program was to be finalised by 2003. A survey conducted at the end of the period showed that only one in five managers felt that their day care centre had attained the goals. The program to improve quality coincided with an increasing focus on strong price reductions in child care services and a commitment to make day care centres available to all families who wanted this type of child care. Since 2003, there has been a vast expansion in child care coverage rates in Norway. At the end of 2003, 205 000 children were enrolled in day care centres. By January 2008 about 265 000 children were enrolled. The biggest increase was seen for children below three, and during 2008 almost 40 000 one-year olds were enrolled in day care centres. We have compared the results from 2004 and 2008 in order to explore whether this expansion has happened at the expense of quality. On average, there are more children per day care centre in 2008 compared to 2004. This is especially true for the new centres that started up after 2004, but also the older ones have expanded. Day care centre managers are typically stable employees. More than half had managed the same day care centre for more than five years, and almost 40 percent had been in the same position for more than eight years. Since 2004 there has been a small increase in turnover of employees. In 2004, half of the day care centres reported that none of their employees had left their position within the last 6 months, while in 2008 this was reduced to 40 percent. As in 2004, the small day care centres reported the lowest turn over rates. A smaller portion of those who were educated as pre-school teachers had ended their position compared with those without such education. Ninety percent of the managers are women, and 92 percent are educated pre-school teachers. Approximately two percent have additional education. Three percent of the day care centres have managers who do not meet the educational requirement. In 14 percent of the child care centres there is at least one employee who is undertaking education to become a preschool teacher. In every fourth day care centre there is more than one preschool teacher per unit. In 16 percent of the day care centres there are at least one male pre-school teacher, and 34 percent of the day care centres had at least one male assistant. The number of day care centres with at least one male employee has increased from 33 percent in 2002 to 51 percent in 2008. The percentage of educated preschool teachers in day care centres varies a lot. In one in four day care centres 27 percent, or fewer, of the staff had preschool teacher education. In another fourth of the day care centres 43 percent, or more, were educated preschool teachers. Compared to 2004 there has not been any decrease in the proportion of preschool teachers. The proportion of preschool teachers has increased more in the private day care centres than in municipal day care centres. Nine out of ten day care centres have annual appraisal talks with their staff. Eight out of ten employ internal vocational training schemes for their staff, and more than half of the day care centres have a separate budget for such training. In this area there has been a small increase since the last evaluation in 2004. The size of the day care centre is the most decisive factor determining whether all three measures to improve the staff are set. Norwegian day care centres operate within the framework of a national curriculum (Rammeplanen). Since last survey in 2004 the number of subjects to be covered according to the national curriculum havebeen expanded from five to seven. In 2008 most day care centres emphasised the area "Communication, language and texts". Emphasis on this subject has increased steadily since 2002. Similar to what has been reported in earlier periods there was least interest for the area "Ethics, religion and philosophy". In 2008 fewer day care centres work with all areas compared to 2004, but we observed a tendency that bigger private day care centres work with more areas. The vast majority of day care centres have established formal routines for informing parents and new employees. This applies above all to what we define as «start-up information». Since 2004 the day care centres have increased their formal routines for writing down information to and from care givers. At least eight out of ten day care centres have routine parent-staff conversations, parent-staff meetings and liaison committee meetings twice a year. More day care centres employ user surveys, but not as frequent as in 2004. The existence of formal information routines depends heavily on a day care centre's size, bigger centres have more formal routines. Children's well-being and development are commonly evaluated in a traditional manner, i.e. by observation, followed by educational documentation. About half of the day care centres make little or no use of methods such as systematic conversations or interviews with children. There is however a small increase in the use of child interviews. The number of day care centres where children participate in assessment work has increased since 2002, in 2008 59 percent of the day care centres involved children in the assessment work. Children are also being drawn more and more into the process of planning the day care centre's activities, and children are now participating more than their parents in such planning. Even though participation has increased considerably there are still a high number of day care centres where there is little or no child or parental participation. The general opinion among managers is that the physical environment such as buildings and outdoor areas are satisfactory and suitably adapted for all the children in the day care centre. In 2002 every third day care centre achieved top score on this measure. In 2008 half of the day care centres did the same. This is especially true for the biggest and newest day care centres. In half of the day care centres the owners have made plans for training or post-qualifying education facilities for their staff, and two out of three are already providing such training. Municipal day care centres are still ahead of their private counterparts both in terms of planning and providing training and post-qualifying education facilities for their staff. As regards the extent of contact and collaboration between the individual day care centre and the municipality in its role as local day care centre authority, no positive change can be seen from 2002 to 2008. The contact between them is slightly lower than in earlier surveys, and we find this problematic as contact is decisive for the municipal authority in order to have control. Our survey for 2008 revealed that the municipal authority have more intensive contact with municipal day care centres than with private day care centres, which makes us question their equal treatment. Compared to 2004 there are slightly more managers who report that bullying never occurs in their day care centre in 2008. Still the majority of day care centre managers report instances of bullying during last year, but at the same time they state that this happens only very rarely. The most common method to reduce bullying is the programme entitled «You and I and the two of us», which is used by half of the day care centres. The program that has increased most since 2004 is «Step by step», this program is now used in one third of theday care centres. The measures and routines for preparing the transition between day care centres and schools have been considerably improved since last survey. Such preparations for five-year olds are now established in almost every day care centre. However, it is problematic that more measures are in place in municipal day care centres than in private day care centres. It is most common to organize day care centres in units. 80 percent of the day care centres are organised in this way, while 13 percent are not divided into units. It is most common to have units divided by age. 60 percent of the day care centres have established formal routines for assessing all the children's language development, while a third has no regular routine for doing this. Those without formal routines report they assess only children who appear to have special needs in this area. 56 percent of the day care centres have at least one child with reduced functional ability. Almost all of these get additional support in order to employ extra staff. 87 percent have established formal contact with other municipal authorities to be able to give the child maximum support. As in the two earlier surveys the day care centre managers are generally satisfied with their framework conditions. We could also find that private day care managers are more satisfied with the conditions in which they operate than the managers of municipal day care centres. Most managers state that the localities are suitable for the children and for the purpose to which they are used. This opinion is especially strong among managers of new day care centres, for big day care centres, and is even more common in private than in municipal day care centres. A joint comparison of 30 different quality indicators in 2004 and 2008 indicate that day care centres in 2008 on average get a higher score than in 2004. ; Denne rapporten er en oppfølging av to tidligere NOVA-rapporter om kvalitetssatsingen i barnehagene i årene 2001-2003. Siden den gang har arbeidet med økt kvalitet måttet skje parallelt med et stadig større fokus på full dekning og lavere barnehagepriser. Sammenlignet med år 2003 har antallet barn i barnehagene økt med 60 000 nye barn, de fleste under tre år. Hovedmålet med rapporten har vært å finne svar på hvordan denne økningen har påvirket kvaliteten sammenlignet med tidligere år. Rapporten fokuserer på barnehagenes oppfølging av rammeplanen, rutiner og arbeidsmåter, fysisk miljø, samarbeid med eier og lokal myndighet, mobbing, overgang til skole, organisering, språkstimulering og støtte til barn med ekstra behov. Undersøkelsen, som bygger på et spørreskjema til styrerne i barnehagene, viser at den sterke veksten i barnehagesektoren har funnet sted uten at det har gått på bekostning av barnehagenes kvalitet.

The Government White Paper on day care provision presented in December 1999 announced a three-year program to improve quality. Starting in 2001, all Norwegian day care centres were to establish tools and systems designed to further develop and safeguard the quality of day care centres. The program was to be finalised by 2003. A survey conducted at the end of the period showed that only one in five managers felt that their day care centre had attained the goals. The program to improve quality coincided with an increasing focus on strong price reductions in child care services and a commitment to make day care centres available to all families who wanted this type of child care. Since 2003, there has been a vast expansion in child care coverage rates in Norway. At the end of 2003, 205 000 children were enrolled in day care centres. By January 2008 about 265 000 children were enrolled. The biggest increase was seen for children below three, and during 2008 almost 40 000 one-year olds were enrolled in day care centres. We have compared the results from 2004 and 2008 in order to explore whether this expansion has happened at the expense of quality. On average, there are more children per day care centre in 2008 compared to 2004. This is especially true for the new centres that started up after 2004, but also the older ones have expanded. Day care centre managers are typically stable employees. More than half had managed the same day care centre for more than five years, and almost 40 percent had been in the same position for more than eight years. Since 2004 there has been a small increase in turnover of employees. In 2004, half of the day care centres reported that none of their employees had left their position within the last 6 months, while in 2008 this was reduced to 40 percent. As in 2004, the small day care centres reported the lowest turn over rates. A smaller portion of those who were educated as pre-school teachers had ended their position compared with those without such education. Ninety percent of the managers are women, and 92 percent are educated pre-school teachers. Approximately two percent have additional education. Three percent of the day care centres have managers who do not meet the educational requirement. In 14 percent of the child care centres there is at least one employee who is undertaking education to become a preschool teacher. In every fourth day care centre there is more than one preschool teacher per unit. In 16 percent of the day care centres there are at least one male pre-school teacher, and 34 percent of the day care centres had at least one male assistant. The number of day care centres with at least one male employee has increased from 33 percent in 2002 to 51 percent in 2008. The percentage of educated preschool teachers in day care centres varies a lot. In one in four day care centres 27 percent, or fewer, of the staff had preschool teacher education. In another fourth of the day care centres 43 percent, or more, were educated preschool teachers. Compared to 2004 there has not been any decrease in the proportion of preschool teachers. The proportion of preschool teachers has increased more in the private day care centres than in municipal day care centres. Nine out of ten day care centres have annual appraisal talks with their staff. Eight out of ten employ internal vocational training schemes for their staff, and more than half of the day care centres have a separate budget for such training. In this area there has been a small increase since the last evaluation in 2004. The size of the day care centre is the most decisive factor determining whether all three measures to improve the staff are set. Norwegian day care centres operate within the framework of a national curriculum (Rammeplanen). Since last survey in 2004 the number of subjects to be covered according to the national curriculum havebeen expanded from five to seven. In 2008 most day care centres emphasised the area "Communication, language and texts". Emphasis on this subject has increased steadily since 2002. Similar to what has been reported in earlier periods there was least interest for the area "Ethics, religion and philosophy". In 2008 fewer day care centres work with all areas compared to 2004, but we observed a tendency that bigger private day care centres work with more areas. The vast majority of day care centres have established formal routines for informing parents and new employees. This applies above all to what we define as «start-up information». Since 2004 the day care centres have increased their formal routines for writing down information to and from care givers. At least eight out of ten day care centres have routine parent-staff conversations, parent-staff meetings and liaison committee meetings twice a year. More day care centres employ user surveys, but not as frequent as in 2004. The existence of formal information routines depends heavily on a day care centre's size, bigger centres have more formal routines. Children's well-being and development are commonly evaluated in a traditional manner, i.e. by observation, followed by educational documentation. About half of the day care centres make little or no use of methods such as systematic conversations or interviews with children. There is however a small increase in the use of child interviews. The number of day care centres where children participate in assessment work has increased since 2002, in 2008 59 percent of the day care centres involved children in the assessment work. Children are also being drawn more and more into the process of planning the day care centre's activities, and children are now participating more than their parents in such planning. Even though participation has increased considerably there are still a high number of day care centres where there is little or no child or parental participation. The general opinion among managers is that the physical environment such as buildings and outdoor areas are satisfactory and suitably adapted for all the children in the day care centre. In 2002 every third day care centre achieved top score on this measure. In 2008 half of the day care centres did the same. This is especially true for the biggest and newest day care centres. In half of the day care centres the owners have made plans for training or post-qualifying education facilities for their staff, and two out of three are already providing such training. Municipal day care centres are still ahead of their private counterparts both in terms of planning and providing training and post-qualifying education facilities for their staff. As regards the extent of contact and collaboration between the individual day care centre and the municipality in its role as local day care centre authority, no positive change can be seen from 2002 to 2008. The contact between them is slightly lower than in earlier surveys, and we find this problematic as contact is decisive for the municipal authority in order to have control. Our survey for 2008 revealed that the municipal authority have more intensive contact with municipal day care centres than with private day care centres, which makes us question their equal treatment. Compared to 2004 there are slightly more managers who report that bullying never occurs in their day care centre in 2008. Still the majority of day care centre managers report instances of bullying during last year, but at the same time they state that this happens only very rarely. The most common method to reduce bullying is the programme entitled «You and I and the two of us», which is used by half of the day care centres. The program that has increased most since 2004 is «Step by step», this program is now used in one third of theday care centres. The measures and routines for preparing the transition between day care centres and schools have been considerably improved since last survey. Such preparations for five-year olds are now established in almost every day care centre. However, it is problematic that more measures are in place in municipal day care centres than in private day care centres. It is most common to organize day care centres in units. 80 percent of the day care centres are organised in this way, while 13 percent are not divided into units. It is most common to have units divided by age. 60 percent of the day care centres have established formal routines for assessing all the children's language development, while a third has no regular routine for doing this. Those without formal routines report they assess only children who appear to have special needs in this area. 56 percent of the day care centres have at least one child with reduced functional ability. Almost all of these get additional support in order to employ extra staff. 87 percent have established formal contact with other municipal authorities to be able to give the child maximum support. As in the two earlier surveys the day care centre managers are generally satisfied with their framework conditions. We could also find that private day care managers are more satisfied with the conditions in which they operate than the managers of municipal day care centres. Most managers state that the localities are suitable for the children and for the purpose to which they are used. This opinion is especially strong among managers of new day care centres, for big day care centres, and is even more common in private than in municipal day care centres. A joint comparison of 30 different quality indicators in 2004 and 2008 indicate that day care centres in 2008 on average get a higher score than in 2004. ; Denne rapporten er en oppfølging av to tidligere NOVA-rapporter om kvalitetssatsingen i barnehagene i årene 2001-2003. Siden den gang har arbeidet med økt kvalitet måttet skje parallelt med et stadig større fokus på full dekning og lavere barnehagepriser. Sammenlignet med år 2003 har antallet barn i barnehagene økt med 60 000 nye barn, de fleste under tre år. Hovedmålet med rapporten har vært å finne svar på hvordan denne økningen har påvirket kvaliteten sammenlignet med tidligere år. Rapporten fokuserer på barnehagenes oppfølging av rammeplanen, rutiner og arbeidsmåter, fysisk miljø, samarbeid med eier og lokal myndighet, mobbing, overgang til skole, organisering, språkstimulering og støtte til barn med ekstra behov. Undersøkelsen, som bygger på et spørreskjema til styrerne i barnehagene, viser at den sterke veksten i barnehagesektoren har funnet sted uten at det har gått på bekostning av barnehagenes kvalitet.

Relevance of the research problem. Sport is a value of every nation, which includes the system of physical, spiritual and cultural education, sports achievements, scientific knowledge, international communication (Karoblis, 2005). High level sport is inseparable from competitive activities, the pursuit of sports results (Hargreaves & MacDonald, 2000; Karoblis, 2005). The special training of athletes in the chosen sports is a part of general education of personality, which has a close connection with social, educational, political, economic issues of humanity development (Johnson et al., 2007). The athlete training process is a multi-year educational process of a specific structure and organizational form, which develops physical characteristics of an athlete, determines his activity, behavior, independence and responsibility, promotes to achieve excellent results. However, optimization of athlete training technology, construction of training system and its filling with full content still have the greatest impact on the improvement of sports results (Bompa & Buzzichelli, 2018; Karoblis, 2005; Платонов, 2004). Management of high-performance athlete training is related to prognostication, individual model characteristics of sport fitness, general and special load ratio, search for new effective directions of workout methodology, modeling of competition activity indicators, workout process planning, competition program conclusion, sport training adjustment (Karoblis, Raslanas, Steponavičius, 2002). Track-and-field athletics is integral sports that combine cyclic and acyclic exercise competitions: running, throws, vertical and horizontal jumps (Armonavičius, 1995). Short distance running is one of the most prestigious track-and-field athletics competitions. An exceptional short distance motor feature is the maximum intense activity of the whole body, especially the nervous and muscular systems, lasting from 0.1 to 40–50 s (Stanislovaitis et al., 2008). The ever-improving sports results reveal new human mental and physical abilities, vast resources of the body that could not even be dreamed of before. The organization of exercise, methodology, their scope and intensity, their combination with the means of recovery according to the main laws of phenotypic adaptation form the basis for the training of high-performance athletes (Платонов, 2004; Stonkus, 2000; Issurin, 2008; Krylovas, Kosareva, Dadelienė, & Dadelo, 2020). The particularity of the sport is based on competition. The results recorded in sport receive global recognition and become a true human achievement standard. In the world, they are constantly progressing, promoting the development of the sport community, therefore the greatest human intellectual and material resources are directed to the training of high-performance athletes (Skernevičius, 2015; Krylovas, Kosareva, Dadelienė, & Dadelo, 2020). However, the results of a research conducted by scientists showed that over the past nearly 20 years, elite athletes, including Olympic, world champions and prizewinners, have achieved personal best results in key competitions of the season by only in 50 percent cases (Yakimovich & Ovchinnikov, 2016). This shows that the opinion that contemporary coaches are high-performance and knowledgeable in the training of elite athletes and immaculately control and manage the process of sport training of athletes is not sufficiently substantiated. It has been established that the development of high-performance sprinters depends on many factors, the most important of which is the directionality of the training process, its management, taking into account the individual characteristics of the athlete's body adaptation to workout and competition loads (Stanislovaitis, 2008; Бондаренко, 1999; Нбанекова, Филин, 1995). The training of sprinters and their competitive activities have been extensively studied not only by foreign (Smith, 2005; Doscher, 2009; Kale & Bayrak, 2009; Prins, Murata, Derenne, Morgan, & Solomon, 2010; Dickin, Reyes, & Dolny, 2009; Nelson, Landin, Young, & Schexnayder, 2008; Eikenberry, Mcauliffe, Welsh, Zerpa, Mcpherson, & Newhouse, 2008; Oзoлин, 1986), but also by Lithuanian sport scientists (Stanislovaitis, 2008, 2006, 2005; Grūnovas, 2006; Butkus, 2006, 1995; Skurvydas, 1999, 2003; Bradauskienė, 2006). Although the world record of female sprinters in a 100 m distance is quite high (10.49 s), the search for new training methods and their application in the process of female sprinter workouts continues. Scientists are not only analyzing and evaluating existing workout methodological tools, but also looking for new methods for an advanced sprinter training process. Thus, in search of new methods to increase running speed, through more research and the application of the latest training technologies, methods can be discovered to help athletes to become faster and to develop a running speed, which has never been achieved before. Recently, in a 100 m running, as in many track-and-field athletics competitions, the results of athletes are progressing rapidly. That progress depends heavily on the selection of talented athletes, scientifically and practically sound and effective workout methodologies, the selection and application of remedial measures, the material compensation of athletes, which greatly increases motivation of athletes, and etc. Therefore, in order to achieve good results and prizes in high rank competition in contemporary sport, it is necessary to know the peculiarities of the application of training methodology, to properly select the most important starts of the annual training cycle, taking into account all conditions at the place and time of competition. An athlete and a coach must not only follow the innovations of training methodology, science and medicine, but also look back, be able to analyze his own results and the results of athletes, who have shown significant results theretofore, the peculiarities of workout tools and methods applied by them, the reasons for successful and unsuccessful starts, and then all this to apply to the management of his own training process. Discovering, revealing and learning about new technologies through the theory and didactics of sport workout is the most important function of sport science (Mester, 2003), and it is important for a coach to be able to use scientific results and recommendations, be insightful and be able to successfully model the training of elite athletes (Karoblis, Raslanas, Poteliūnienė, Steponavičius, Petkus, & Žilinskienė, 2011). The purposeful training of female sprinters and the search for effective technologies in order to increase the maximum running speed become a scientific problem. The presented scientific problem is relevant for the following reasons: ● It is important to analyze the change in results in terms of age and to determine the age, at which the highest results are achieved; ● It is important to research and theoretically substantiate, which components determine the sports result in short distance running; ● To research the effectiveness of training measures in order to increase maximum running speed; ● The contribution of running at maximum speed to the sports result in a 100 m run has not been sufficiently researched; ● It is important to establish criteria that affect the progress of athletes' mastery and the change of sport performance. Hypothesis. It is likely that sports results of female sprinters are not improving due to the integrated and concentrated training models applied separately. A universal speed training model is more effective. Object of the research is the process of female sprinter training. Aim is to identify the peculiarities of optimizing the training of high-performance female sprinters. Objectives of the research: 1. On the basis of the data of the theoretical analysis of scientific sources, to reveal the change of the results of high-performance female sprinters in terms of age. 2. To perform a comparative analysis of the preparation of high-performance female spriners for the Athens, Beijing, London and Rio Olympic Games. 3. To review the technologies of sports training of female sprinters and to examine the factors influencing their results. 4. To determine the effectiveness of a universal method for training the speed of high-performance female sprinters. 5. To reveal/identify the opinion of high-performance female sprinters about the factors determining their training system. Theoretical and practical significance Researching the structure and content of sports training for female sprinters of different ages and sports mastery, analyzing the change of sports results in terms of age, evaluating workout methods, running speed components, the provisions for effective running speed increase were identified: ● Running speed is determined by the speed of muscle contraction, the length of leg support, the frequency of steps, and the sports result in a 100-meter run depends mainly on the maximum running speed. ● In order to improve the results of the maximum running speed of female sprinters, it is important to apply a universal, combined method in the workout process, running with weight and stretching with an elastic band. These provisions are relevant to the theory and practice of female sprinter training. The results of the study can be used in the development of training programs for sports schools and high-performance female sprinters. CONCLUSIONS 1. The age for achieving the best personal result in the women's 100 m running competition is 24.69 ± 3.27 year. The best Lithuanian sprinter L. Grinčikaitė-Samuolė achieved her best result in this running competition at the age of 25 – 11.19 s. At the beginning of their athletic career, American sprinters had the highest running scores and dominated until the age of 17, however later is observed leadership of the Caribbean Region female sprinters up to the age of 35. The results of European sprinters were average in almost all age groups. 2. Analysis of the four Olympic Games revealed a significant improvement in the results of the 100 m running and starting reaction speed (p < 0.05). In order to get to in the 100 m running final, athletes should run an average of 10.96 ± 0.03 s, and to become the prizewinners of the competition – 10.86 ± 0.08 s. Sprinters become the prizewinners of the 100 m run at the age of 25.42 ± 3.18 year. 3. Lithuanian female sprinters lose to the best sprinters of Europe and the world in the competition requiring the maximum running speed – 40 m in acceleration (11.99 %). The best Lithuanian sprinter L. Grinčikaitė-Samuolė reduces this difference to 4.05 % in the 100 m running distance, the gap between Europe's and the world's best female sprinters is gradually declining due to improved European sprinters' maximum running speed results. 4. The resisted/assisted running method is the most effective way to increase the running speed and starting acceleration, as this speed training method significantly improves the values of step length and support duration than running normally. 5. High-performance female sprinters lack attention to an important component of training – psychological training – in the process of their sports training. It was found out that their sports training and improvement of results are more influenced by external (monetary prizes, premiums) than internal motives (desire to improve results, honor to represent their country). A coach's personality also has impact. The coach is valued not only as a specialist, but distinguishing his personal qualities, such as sincerity, friendliness, motivation, promotion is considered an integral part of the training process.

Relevance of the research problem. Sport is a value of every nation, which includes the system of physical, spiritual and cultural education, sports achievements, scientific knowledge, international communication (Karoblis, 2005). High level sport is inseparable from competitive activities, the pursuit of sports results (Hargreaves & MacDonald, 2000; Karoblis, 2005). The special training of athletes in the chosen sports is a part of general education of personality, which has a close connection with social, educational, political, economic issues of humanity development (Johnson et al., 2007). The athlete training process is a multi-year educational process of a specific structure and organizational form, which develops physical characteristics of an athlete, determines his activity, behavior, independence and responsibility, promotes to achieve excellent results. However, optimization of athlete training technology, construction of training system and its filling with full content still have the greatest impact on the improvement of sports results (Bompa & Buzzichelli, 2018; Karoblis, 2005; Платонов, 2004). Management of high-performance athlete training is related to prognostication, individual model characteristics of sport fitness, general and special load ratio, search for new effective directions of workout methodology, modeling of competition activity indicators, workout process planning, competition program conclusion, sport training adjustment (Karoblis, Raslanas, Steponavičius, 2002). Track-and-field athletics is integral sports that combine cyclic and acyclic exercise competitions: running, throws, vertical and horizontal jumps (Armonavičius, 1995). Short distance running is one of the most prestigious track-and-field athletics competitions. An exceptional short distance motor feature is the maximum intense activity of the whole body, especially the nervous and muscular systems, lasting from 0.1 to 40–50 s (Stanislovaitis et al., 2008). The ever-improving sports results reveal new human mental and physical abilities, vast resources of the body that could not even be dreamed of before. The organization of exercise, methodology, their scope and intensity, their combination with the means of recovery according to the main laws of phenotypic adaptation form the basis for the training of high-performance athletes (Платонов, 2004; Stonkus, 2000; Issurin, 2008; Krylovas, Kosareva, Dadelienė, & Dadelo, 2020). The particularity of the sport is based on competition. The results recorded in sport receive global recognition and become a true human achievement standard. In the world, they are constantly progressing, promoting the development of the sport community, therefore the greatest human intellectual and material resources are directed to the training of high-performance athletes (Skernevičius, 2015; Krylovas, Kosareva, Dadelienė, & Dadelo, 2020). However, the results of a research conducted by scientists showed that over the past nearly 20 years, elite athletes, including Olympic, world champions and prizewinners, have achieved personal best results in key competitions of the season by only in 50 percent cases (Yakimovich & Ovchinnikov, 2016). This shows that the opinion that contemporary coaches are high-performance and knowledgeable in the training of elite athletes and immaculately control and manage the process of sport training of athletes is not sufficiently substantiated. It has been established that the development of high-performance sprinters depends on many factors, the most important of which is the directionality of the training process, its management, taking into account the individual characteristics of the athlete's body adaptation to workout and competition loads (Stanislovaitis, 2008; Бондаренко, 1999; Нбанекова, Филин, 1995). The training of sprinters and their competitive activities have been extensively studied not only by foreign (Smith, 2005; Doscher, 2009; Kale & Bayrak, 2009; Prins, Murata, Derenne, Morgan, & Solomon, 2010; Dickin, Reyes, & Dolny, 2009; Nelson, Landin, Young, & Schexnayder, 2008; Eikenberry, Mcauliffe, Welsh, Zerpa, Mcpherson, & Newhouse, 2008; Oзoлин, 1986), but also by Lithuanian sport scientists (Stanislovaitis, 2008, 2006, 2005; Grūnovas, 2006; Butkus, 2006, 1995; Skurvydas, 1999, 2003; Bradauskienė, 2006). Although the world record of female sprinters in a 100 m distance is quite high (10.49 s), the search for new training methods and their application in the process of female sprinter workouts continues. Scientists are not only analyzing and evaluating existing workout methodological tools, but also looking for new methods for an advanced sprinter training process. Thus, in search of new methods to increase running speed, through more research and the application of the latest training technologies, methods can be discovered to help athletes to become faster and to develop a running speed, which has never been achieved before. Recently, in a 100 m running, as in many track-and-field athletics competitions, the results of athletes are progressing rapidly. That progress depends heavily on the selection of talented athletes, scientifically and practically sound and effective workout methodologies, the selection and application of remedial measures, the material compensation of athletes, which greatly increases motivation of athletes, and etc. Therefore, in order to achieve good results and prizes in high rank competition in contemporary sport, it is necessary to know the peculiarities of the application of training methodology, to properly select the most important starts of the annual training cycle, taking into account all conditions at the place and time of competition. An athlete and a coach must not only follow the innovations of training methodology, science and medicine, but also look back, be able to analyze his own results and the results of athletes, who have shown significant results theretofore, the peculiarities of workout tools and methods applied by them, the reasons for successful and unsuccessful starts, and then all this to apply to the management of his own training process. Discovering, revealing and learning about new technologies through the theory and didactics of sport workout is the most important function of sport science (Mester, 2003), and it is important for a coach to be able to use scientific results and recommendations, be insightful and be able to successfully model the training of elite athletes (Karoblis, Raslanas, Poteliūnienė, Steponavičius, Petkus, & Žilinskienė, 2011). The purposeful training of female sprinters and the search for effective technologies in order to increase the maximum running speed become a scientific problem. The presented scientific problem is relevant for the following reasons: ● It is important to analyze the change in results in terms of age and to determine the age, at which the highest results are achieved; ● It is important to research and theoretically substantiate, which components determine the sports result in short distance running; ● To research the effectiveness of training measures in order to increase maximum running speed; ● The contribution of running at maximum speed to the sports result in a 100 m run has not been sufficiently researched; ● It is important to establish criteria that affect the progress of athletes' mastery and the change of sport performance. Hypothesis. It is likely that sports results of female sprinters are not improving due to the integrated and concentrated training models applied separately. A universal speed training model is more effective. Object of the research is the process of female sprinter training. Aim is to identify the peculiarities of optimizing the training of high-performance female sprinters. Objectives of the research: 1. On the basis of the data of the theoretical analysis of scientific sources, to reveal the change of the results of high-performance female sprinters in terms of age. 2. To perform a comparative analysis of the preparation of high-performance female spriners for the Athens, Beijing, London and Rio Olympic Games. 3. To review the technologies of sports training of female sprinters and to examine the factors influencing their results. 4. To determine the effectiveness of a universal method for training the speed of high-performance female sprinters. 5. To reveal/identify the opinion of high-performance female sprinters about the factors determining their training system. Theoretical and practical significance Researching the structure and content of sports training for female sprinters of different ages and sports mastery, analyzing the change of sports results in terms of age, evaluating workout methods, running speed components, the provisions for effective running speed increase were identified: ● Running speed is determined by the speed of muscle contraction, the length of leg support, the frequency of steps, and the sports result in a 100-meter run depends mainly on the maximum running speed. ● In order to improve the results of the maximum running speed of female sprinters, it is important to apply a universal, combined method in the workout process, running with weight and stretching with an elastic band. These provisions are relevant to the theory and practice of female sprinter training. The results of the study can be used in the development of training programs for sports schools and high-performance female sprinters. CONCLUSIONS 1. The age for achieving the best personal result in the women's 100 m running competition is 24.69 ± 3.27 year. The best Lithuanian sprinter L. Grinčikaitė-Samuolė achieved her best result in this running competition at the age of 25 – 11.19 s. At the beginning of their athletic career, American sprinters had the highest running scores and dominated until the age of 17, however later is observed leadership of the Caribbean Region female sprinters up to the age of 35. The results of European sprinters were average in almost all age groups. 2. Analysis of the four Olympic Games revealed a significant improvement in the results of the 100 m running and starting reaction speed (p < 0.05). In order to get to in the 100 m running final, athletes should run an average of 10.96 ± 0.03 s, and to become the prizewinners of the competition – 10.86 ± 0.08 s. Sprinters become the prizewinners of the 100 m run at the age of 25.42 ± 3.18 year. 3. Lithuanian female sprinters lose to the best sprinters of Europe and the world in the competition requiring the maximum running speed – 40 m in acceleration (11.99 %). The best Lithuanian sprinter L. Grinčikaitė-Samuolė reduces this difference to 4.05 % in the 100 m running distance, the gap between Europe's and the world's best female sprinters is gradually declining due to improved European sprinters' maximum running speed results. 4. The resisted/assisted running method is the most effective way to increase the running speed and starting acceleration, as this speed training method significantly improves the values of step length and support duration than running normally. 5. High-performance female sprinters lack attention to an important component of training – psychological training – in the process of their sports training. It was found out that their sports training and improvement of results are more influenced by external (monetary prizes, premiums) than internal motives (desire to improve results, honor to represent their country). A coach's personality also has impact. The coach is valued not only as a specialist, but distinguishing his personal qualities, such as sincerity, friendliness, motivation, promotion is considered an integral part of the training process.

Nell'ordinamento italiano, il tema della disciplina delle procedure e dei contenuti della contrattazione collettiva rappresenta una delle maggiori questioni giuslavoristiche, che non ha ancora trovato una stabile soluzione. Ad essa, inoltre, si lega strettamente il tema della regolamentazione, a fini negoziali, dei soggetti dell'autonomia collettiva. La finalità della presente trattazione è quella di esaminare, dapprima, lo sviluppo storico del dibattito nell'ordinamento italiano, per concentrare, in seguito, l'attenzione sulle tematiche più recenti che, anche alla luce della crisi dell'unità sindacale e della frammentazione dei tessuti produttivi generata dalla globalizzazione, evidenziano una richiesta di regolamentazione obiettiva dell'attività negoziale. In merito a tali questioni verrà infine esaminato, in una logica comparata, l'ordinamento francese che, a differenza di quello italiano, ha disciplinato per legge i presupposti, le procedure e i requisiti di accesso alla negoziazione collettiva sin dalla prima metà del XX Secolo. In particolare, il primo capitolo della tesi prende in esame, dapprima, la questione che si pone alla base dell'intero dibattito nazionale sulle modalità di regolamentazione della contrattazione collettiva: la mancata attuazione da parte del legislatore della seconda parte dell'art. 39 Cost. e la conseguente illegittimità costituzionale di quelle norme volte a generalizzare l'efficacia degli accordi collettivi aggirando quanto previsto dalla Carta fondamentale. L'analisi prosegue con la disamina dell'evoluzione storica della contrattazione anomica nel nostro ordinamento: a partire dalla negoziazione accentrata a livello nazionale nei primi anni Cinquanta, dalle istanze di decentramento e dall'effimera introduzione della contrattazione articolata con il Protocollo Intersind-Asap del 1962, fino alla bipolarità totale tra livello confederale e aziendale manifestatasi tra la fine degli anni Sessanta e la metà degli anni Settanta del Novecento, per giungere alla negoziazione collettiva della crisi, con gli accordi triangolari e la concertazione che, tra alterni risultati, hanno prodotto i loro effetti fino alla metà degli anni Duemila. In tale contesto, particolare attenzione è dedicata al sistema degli accordi del luglio-dicembre 1993 che, per quasi vent'anni, hanno costituito il fulcro di una disciplina delle relazioni industriali organizzata su due livelli, e che hanno tentato, nel contempo, con l'introduzione delle RSU, di contrastare la crisi di rappresentatività delle organizzazioni sindacali, evidenziata nella sua gravità, pochi mesi dopo, dal referendum del 1995 sull'art. 19 della l. 300/1970. La parte finale del primo capitolo si pone in ideale continuazione con l'inizio del secondo. Al centro dell'esame vi sono le questioni dei nostri giorni che hanno indotto le parti sociali, significativamente del settore industriale – a seguito della crisi del sistema del 1993, che ha avuto il proprio epicentro nella vertenza Fiat del 2009-2011, della successiva e connessa sentenza manipolativa della Corte Costituzionale del 2013 in riferimento, ancora una volta, all'art. 19 St. lav., e all'introduzione da parte del legislatore del discusso art. 8 del d.l. 138/2011 – a ritenere maturi i tempi per una nuova regolamentazione pattizia del sistema. Al riguardo, vengono analizzati nel dettaglio i tre accordi interconfederali del 28 giugno 2011, 31 maggio 2013 e 10 gennaio 2014, l'ulteriore e recentissima intesa del 28 febbraio-9 marzo 2018 e il dibattito, in una prospettiva de iure condendo, sull'opportunità di introduzione di una legge sindacale, capace, eventualmente, di dare completa attuazione all'art. 39 Cost. Il terzo capitolo, infine, si pone in parallelo con i primi due, dal punto di vista dell'ordinamento francese. Pertanto viene inizialmente presa in considerazione l'evoluzione normativa di tale contesto giuridico, a partire dalla loi del 1919 sulla contrattazione collettiva di diritto comune e dalla leggi del 1936 e 1950 sull'estensione erga omnes in via amministrativa dei contratti collettivi sottoscritti dalle organizzazioni sindacali rappresentative, fino al nuovo modello di "cittadinanza nell'impresa" proposto dalla leggi Auroux del 1982 e alla frammentazione del sistema tra gli anni Ottanta e Duemila, punteggiata di provvedimenti privi di carattere sistematico e, in alcuni casi, contraddittori. Ci si sofferma, infine, sulle riforme che, in tempi recenti, hanno svolto il ruolo di pietre angolari nella ridefinizione degli assetti dell'ordinamento francese: l'introduzione di criteri obiettivi per la selezione dei sindacati rappresentativi nel 2008, l'estensione di tale modello alle organizzazioni datoriali nel triennio 2014-2016 e, sul versante dell'assetto contrattuale, le discusse riforme introdotte con la loi Travail dell'8 agosto 2016 e dalle ordonnances promosse dal neo-presidente Macron nell'autunno del 2017, nella direzione di una forte valorizzazione del secondo livello negoziale, a discapito delle conventions de branche. Il punto d'arrivo del percorso tracciato supra porterà a cercare di dare una risposta, da un lato, all'interrogativo inerente all'opportunità di intervenire, nell'ordinamento italiano, con una legge sindacale, per fornire certezza, chiarezza e stabilità al sistema contrattuale e, in seconda istanza, anche sulla base della riflessione comparata, ad una valutazione su quali potrebbero essere gli istituti più efficienti da adottare, nei termini anzidetti, per assicurare un'estensione generalizzata della contrattazione collettiva, idonea a permettere un armonico sviluppo anche degli accordi di secondo livello. ; In the Italian legal framework, the question concerning the regulation of procedures and contents of collective bargaining represents one of the major labour law issues, which has not found a satisfying solution yet. The abovementioned topic is, in addition, strictly connected to the selection of criteria aimed to determine the actors of the bargaining process. The purpose of the present dissertation is then to examine, first of all, the historical development of the debate on the aforementioned issues in the Italian context, to focus attention, afterwards, on the most recent instances to enact a clearer regulation of the bargaining process, in reason of the crisis of trade unions' cohesion and of the fragmentation of production originated by globalisation. Finally, the last part of the dissertation will be centred on a comparative analysis with the French regulative context that, in opposition to the Italian one, disciplined by law prerequisites and procedures to accede to collective bargaining process already at the beginning of XX Century. In particular, the first chapter starts from the matter of contention at the base of the whole national discussion referred to the regulative process of arrangements executed between employers' and workers' organizations: the incapability of the Italian legislator to enact a law concerning the collective bargaining proceeding respecting, in the meantime, the criteria set forth by Article 39 of the Constitution, that has been at the base of the consequential declaration of illegitimacy of all the legislative attempts to generalize the efficacy of the considered agreements, circumventing the provision of the Fundamental Chart. The analysis continues focusing on the evolution of collective agreements regulated by civil law in the national legal framework: highly centred during the Fifties, then organized on two ordered levels in the brief period of "contrattazione articolata" – introduced initially in public industries with the Protocol Intersind-Asap of 1962 and soon extended to the private field – until the total independence between company and sectorial bargaining level in the years between the end of the Sixties and the beginning of the Seventies, and to the particular characteristics assumed by the said agreements during the oil crisis and in the following years, when the practice of the three-side covenants executed between main trade unions, employers' organizations and the government, with different outcomes, perdured until the middle of 2000's. In this context, particular attention is devoted to the collective agreements executed at national level in July-December 1993 that, during the following twenty years, have been considered the fulcrum of the two-level collective bargaining system, and which attempted, in the meantime, with the introduction of Trade unions' Unitary Representative bodies (in Italian, Rappresentanze Sindacali Unitarie, RSU) to contrast the deep crisis of representativeness of workers' organizations, whose gravitas has been highlighted, several months after, by the national referendum held in 1995 on Article 19 of law no. 300 of 1970. The last section of the first chapter founds an ideal continuation in the second one. In this field, the main topic become the most recent issues concerning the Italian bargaining system, and significantly the one which moved social actors of the industrial sector – on the base of the crisis of the system of 1993, showed by the Fiat dispute of 2009-2011, followed by the connected judgment of Constitutional Court that in 2013 modified another time the interpretation of Article 19 of law no. 300 of 1970, expanding the criteria to admit workers' organization to benefits provided by the law, and by the enactment of Article 8 of law-decree no. 138 of 2011 – to affirm that is come the time to set new rules to try to govern the bargaining system. On this point, the dissertation focuses attention on the three national collective agreements held on 28 June 2011, 31 May 2013 and 10 January 2014 and on the further arrangement of 28 February-9 March 2018 and on the respective debate centred, in a perspective of reform, on the opportunity to introduce a bill able to completely fulfil the requirements of Article 39 of the Italian Constitution. The third chapter, finally, follows the scheme of the precedent ones, from the point of view of the French legal framework. Therefore, firstly is described the evolution of the said juridical context, from the loi of 1919 concerning collective agreements regulated by civil law and the regulations of 1936 and of 1950 on the extension erga omnes, through an administrative decree, of collective agreements signed by representative trade unions, until the new model of "citizenship in the company" promoted by the laws Auroux enacted in 1982 and to the fragmentation of the labour law system occurred between the 80s and 2000s, characterised by measures without a systematic approach and, sometimes, in contrast between each other. The attention is focused, then, on the reforms that, recently, heavily redefined the structure of the French labour law framework consisting in the introduction, in 2008, of objective criteria to select representative trade unions, in the extension of this model to employers' organizations in 2014-2016 and, with reference to the bargaining structure, in the disputed reform responding to the name of loi Travail, held in 2016, and in the ordonnances promoted by the new President Macron in the late 2017, towards the direction of a relevant and decisive expansion of company collective agreement, to the detriment of sectoral level. The arrival point of the path traced above regards the attempt to reply to the issue concerning the opportunity to provide or not, in the Italian context, for a law regulating collective bargaining and the related obligations and rights of social actors, to clarify and stabilize the arrangement system. Secondly, also on the base of the comparison with the French frame of reference, the dissertation is closed by a reflection on the possible legal institutes to be introduced in the Italian juridical framework, in order to assure a general extension of collective bargaining, in the light to allow an harmonious development also of the company level.

Poverty alleviation strategies in developing countries have long focused on the monetary aspects of this phenomenon by promoting "pro-growth" measures as the most reliable and credible way to eradicate extreme poverty. But given the complexity of poverty phenomenon and especially facing the insufficiency of results observed after more than two decades of funding efforts, one have witnessed in the early 2000s, a reorientation of the strategies to multidimensional considerations of poverty. Since that time, poverty is not apprehended only from income, but also from a set of elements related to the capacity of individuals, their potentialities as well as opportunities available to them. This new paradigm, based on the notion of poverty of capability, finds one of its operational translations into the intervention strategy of "Multifunctional Platforms Program" (MFP). This program is currently implemented in several Sub-Saharan Africa countries and is supported by many development actors given its potential role in achieving the MDGs. Intervening in a "Community Driven Development" approach, the MFP concept aims to provide elements of response to the multiple problems associated with the low energy access in rural areas. Through the development of the small units of energy production in the villages, the MFP program focuses on gender-based approach, women capacity building and economic empowerment. Although launched in the 1990s in Mali, this program had, hitherto, been subject to no rigorous impact evaluation while efficiency and results requirement become fundamental criteria in the selection and the funding of development programs. By adopting an evaluation gait, this thesis aims, first, to question the effectiveness of MFP program in the fight against poverty. The potential impact of the program on poverty theoretically pass through time saving on productive activities, which can be allocated to income generating activities (for women) and to human capital formation for children (health and education). For evaluating relevance and effectiveness of such intervention approach requires first to understand individual's time allocation behaviors and choices. Hence, the thesis is organized in two parts. The first two chapters are devoted to the estimation of the impact of MFP program on women's economic activity indicators and children's health and education indicators. Given the history and the design of program's implementation in Mali, two approaches are used, the pipeline approach and the Double-Difference. In each of these approaches, we identify two types of effects: the effect expected from the presence of program (Intent-To-Treat Effect) and the participation effect (Treatment Effect on Treated). The different estimations made in this chapter validate the time saving hypothesis associated with program utilization. Indeed, we find a very significant impact of program on time spent by women in economic activities. Also, we can identify a significant impact on the probability of schooling and learning time of school-age children. However, the impact on nutritional status indicators of children under five years is not conclusive because of the ambiguity of the direction of causality of these indicators with our various treatment variables. It appears that neither the time saved from the use of platforms nor the potential increase in mother's income are significantly favorable nutritional status of children. 9 In the second part, we prolong the analysis beyond the scope of impact evaluation in order to explore and better understand the mechanisms driving the choice of time allocation within the households. In the third chapter, we examine the relationship between schooling and child labor, which are two distinct choices of time allocation of children (between human capital formation and labor force for household productive needs). The chapter aims to empirically test the degree of trade-off between these two choices taking into account the living conditions of household. Our results show very strong negative correlation between decisions of schooling and child work, thus showing an inherent competition between these choices. Concerning the influence of living conditions on child labor, we find that, contrary to economic activities that appear very flexible to change in household wealth, child time allocation to non-economic work is much more rigid to this changes. By deepening analysis on gender disparities in access to education and in the demand of child labor, we show, by Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition method that disparities between girls and boys in the allocation time are mainly due to unobservable parental preference for educating of boys rather than girls. In the last chapter presented as case study, we analyze the socioeconomic determinants of women's time allocation. We find that women's decision to participate in the labor market depends heavily on the level of access to basic infrastructure. Although the economic rationality hypothesis in the allocation of time is not rejected (wage rate signal), we find that time allocation choices are strongly influenced by purely social and cultural considerations. The main results of this thesis support the idea on the importance of infrastructure in poverty alleviation. The positive effect of MFP program on indicators of economic activity of women and on children education justifies the relevance of the "MFP" initiative in the fight against poverty. The PTFM program is a development tool that plays a similar role to that of classical infrastructures. However, the positive impact detected here from MFP program is also subject to the complexity of time allocation choices in the households, particularly for women and children. It appears necessary to accompany the implementation of platforms by more stringent educational policies or conversely more incentives to permit that time savings obtained through access energy can be translated into more important choices for schooling particularly for girls. ; Les stratégies de lutte contre la pauvreté dans les pays en développement ont été longtemps axées sur les dimensions monétaires de celle-ci en prônant des mesures " pro-croissance " comme la voie la plus fiable et la plus crédible pour éradiquer l'extrême pauvreté. Mais compte tenu de la complexité du phénomène de pauvreté et surtout face à l'insuffisance des résultats constatée après plus de deux décennies d'efforts de financement, on a assisté, au début des années 2000, à une réorientation de l'approche de la pauvreté vers des considérations multidimensionnelles. Depuis lors, la pauvreté n'est plus appréhendée à partir seulement du revenu, mais aussi à partir d'un ensemble d'éléments relatifs aux capacités des individus, aux potentialités ainsi qu'aux opportunités à leur portée. Ce nouveau paradigme, fondé sur la notion de pauvreté des capacités, trouve une traduction opérationnelle dans la stratégie d'intervention du programme " Plateformes Multifonctionnelles " (PTFM). Ce programme est aujourd'hui implanté dans plusieurs pays d'Afrique Sub-Saharienne et soutenu par de nombreux acteurs du développement compte tenu de son rôle potentiel dans la réalisation des OMD. S'inscrivant dans une démarche de "Community Driven Development ", le concept PTFM vise à apporter un élément de réponse aux nombreuses problématiques associées à la faiblesse d'accès à l'énergie. A travers le développement de petites unités de production énergétique en milieu rural, le programme PTFM privilégie une approche fondée sur le genre, le renforcement des capacités et l'autonomisation des femmes. Bien que lancé dans les années 1990 au Mali, ce programme n'avait, jusque-là, fait l'objet d'aucune évaluation d'impact rigoureuse alors que l'exigence d'efficacité est un critère fondamental dans la sélection et le financement de programmes de développement. Partant ainsi d'une démarche d'évaluation, cette thèse vise d'abord à questionner l'efficacité du programme PTFM dans la lutte contre la pauvreté. L'impact potentiel du programme PTFM sur la pauvreté passe théoriquement par un gain de temps qui est ensuite alloué à des activités génératrices de revenus (pour les femmes) et à la formation du capital humain des enfants (santé et éducation). Evaluer la pertinence et l'efficacité d'une telle approche amène à s'interroger en amont sur la nature des comportements et les choix des individus en matière d'allocation du temps. La thèse est organisée en deux parties. Les deux premiers chapitres sont consacrés à l'estimation de l'impact du programme PTFM sur des indicateurs de l'activité économique des femmes et des indicateurs de santé et de scolarité des enfants. Compte-tenu de l'histoire de l'implantation du programme au Mali, deux approches sont utilisées, celle des entrées-échelonnées (pipeline approach) et celle de la Double-Différence. Dans chacune des approches, nous identifions deux types d'effets: l'effet espéré du programme (Intention-To-Treat Effect) et l'effet de la participation au programme (Treatment Effect on Treated). Les différentes estimations réalisées permettent de valider l'hypothèse de gain de temps lié à l'utilisation des plateformes. Nous trouvons, en effet un impact très significatif du programme sur le temps consacré par les femmes aux activités économiques. Nous pouvons également identifier un impact significatif sur la probabilité de scolarisation et le temps 7 d'apprentissage des enfants en âge scolaire. En revanche, l'impact sur les indicateurs du statut nutritionnel des enfants de moins de cinq ans n'est pas concluant du fait de l'ambiguïté du sens de la causalité de ces indicateurs avec nos différentes variables de traitement. Il apparait que ni le gain de temps tiré de l'utilisation des PTFM, ni l'accroissement potentiel de revenus des mères ne sont significativement favorables à l'état nutritionnel des enfants. Dans la seconde partie, nous prolongeons le cadre de l'évaluation pour mieux explorer les mécanismes de choix d'allocation de temps au sein des ménages. Dans le troisième chapitre, nous examinons la relation entre scolarisation et travail des enfants qui sont deux choix distincts d'allocation du temps des enfants entre formation du capital humain et main d'oeuvre pour des besoins productifs du ménage. Le chapitre vise à tester empiriquement le degré d'arbitrage entre ces deux choix compte-tenu du niveau de vie du ménage. Nos résultats montrent une corrélation très fortement négative entre les deux décisions, montrant ainsi une concurrence intrinsèque entre ces choix. S'agissant de l'influence du niveau de vie sur la demande de travail des enfants, nous trouvons que, contrairement aux activités économiques qui apparaissent très flexibles à la variation du niveau de vie du ménage, l'allocation de temps pour les travaux non-économiques est beaucoup plus rigide. Approfondissant la nature des disparités de genre dans l'accès à la scolarisation et la demande de travail des enfants, nous montrons, par une méthode de décomposition à la Oaxaca-Blinder que les disparités observées entre les filles et les garçons dans l'allocation du temps sont essentiellement dues à une préférence inobservable des parents pour la scolarisation des garçons plutôt que des filles. Dans le dernier chapitre, nous analysons les déterminants socioéconomiques de l'allocation du temps des femmes à partir d'une étude de cas. Nous trouvons que la décision des femmes de participer au marché du travail dépend très fortement du niveau d'accès aux infrastructures de base. Bien que l'hypothèse de rationalité économique dans l'allocation de temps ne soit pas rejetée (signal du taux de salaire), nous trouvons que les choix sont fortement influencés par des considérations purement sociales et culturelles. Les principaux résultats obtenus dans cette thèse accréditent l'importance des infrastructures dans la lutte contre la pauvreté. L'effet positif du programme PTFM sur les indicateurs d'activité économique des femmes et sur la scolarisation des enfants justifie la pertinence de l'initiative " PTFM " dans la lutte contre la pauvreté. Le programme PTFM est un outil de développement qui joue un rôle équivalent à celui des infrastructures. Cependant, l'impact positif du programme PTFM est subordonné à la complexité des choix d'allocation de temps dans les ménages, notamment en ce qui concerne les femmes et les enfants. Il apparaît nécessaire d'accompagner l'implantation des PTFM par des politiques éducatives plus contraignantes ou au contraire plus incitatives, afin que les gains de temps obtenus par l'accès à l'énergie mécanique puissent se traduire en des choix en faveur de la scolarisation plus importante des filles.

The generational goal, which sets the direction for Sweden's environmental policy, was reformulated and decided upon in 2010 by the Riksdag. The overall goal of Swedish environmental policy is to hand over to the next generation a society in which the major environmental problems in Sweden have been solved, without increasing environmental and health problems outside Sweden's borders. There are seven bullet points linked to the generational goal. The seventh emphasises that solving the environmental problems we face are to be achieved within one generation, ensuring that: Patterns of consumption of goods and services cause the least possible problems for the environment and human health. The changes from the previous generational goal imply among other things that environmental policy in Sweden must not lead to increased environmental and health problems outside of Sweden. This implies that we have to develop the possibility of following up Sweden's environmental impact in other countries. The environmental impact that Sweden causes in other countries is due among other things to the importing of products. It is therefore necessary to try to quantify the total environmental impact that the manufacturing of the imported products causes in order to gain an understanding of the environmental impact abroad. The purpose of this project is primarily to develop indicators for emissions of greenhouse gases and other emissions to air caused by Swedish consumption, in order to follow the negative environmental impact in other countries. The indicators are generally aimed at following the trend in emissions over time, not at examining exact emission levels. The purpose is also to further develop methods to follow the emissions of chemical substances caused by Swedish consumption. The idea here is to try out a data source for point sources of discharge of chemical substances, apply an input-output analysis to them and weigh together the substances to obtain potential toxicity, by life cycle assessment (LCA) methods. This is a first step and the method needs to be further developed before an indicator can be presented. The results of the project are presented in the following proposals for indicators to follow up the generational goal and its seventh bullet point: Climate related emissions:  Emissions of greenhouse gases abroad and in Sweden, measured in carbon dioxide equivalents caused by Swedish consumption, time series 2000-2008  Emissions of greenhouse gases per person abroad and in Sweden caused by Swedish consumption, measured in carbon dioxide equivalents, time series 2000-2008  Emissions of greenhouse gases caused by Swedish consumption abroad and in Sweden, indexed with the year 2000 = 100, time series 2000-2008 Other emissions to air:  Emissions of nitrogen oxides caused by Swedish consumption, abroad and in Sweden, time series 2000-2008  Emissions of sulphur dioxide caused by Swedish consumption abroad and in Sweden, time series 2000-2008  Emissions of ammonia caused by Swedish consumption abroad and in Sweden, time series 2000-2008 An example of how the indicators can be presented together with relevant issues is available in the report in Annex 5. Emissions of greenhouse gases caused by Swedish consumption, in Sweden and abroad The indicator for greenhouse gases emissions caused by Swedish consumption abroad and in Sweden is presented below. Greenhouse gases are measured in millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents, which is a weighted total of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide (laughing gas) due to their impact on the greenhouse gas effect. The indicator shows the total greenhouse gas emissions caused by Swedish consumption, consisting of emissions in Sweden and emissions abroad. The total emissions caused by Swedish consumption increased from 90 million tonnes carbon dioxide equivalents in 2000 to 98 million tonnes carbon dioxide equivalents in 2008. This implies an increase of 9 percent during the period. The emissions abroad have increased from 44 million tonnes to 58 million tonnes, implying an increase of 30 percent between 2000 and 2008. In comparison, domestic emissions caused by Swedish consumption decreased from 46 million tonnes to 40 million tonnes during the same period, implying a decrease of about 13 percent. The exact levels depend on which data are available and model assumptions, and may vary between studies. The increase shown by the indicator of the total emissions is caused by an increase in emissions abroad and can be explained in the model by increased consumption met by increasing imports. The fact that the imports have increased by approximately 40 percent, in fixed prices, between 2000 and 2008, supports that explanation. An increase can also be the result if the composition of consumption changes, i.e. if other types of products are imported, product types that cause higher emissions, or if the production of imported goods takes place where higher emissions are caused in producing the same type of goods. Nearly half of the increase can be explained by the population growth during the period. To find out more about the driving forces behind the increased emissions, supplementary studies must be performed, which have not been carried out within this project. The indicator consists of two parts, emissions in Sweden and emissions abroad, both caused by Swedish consumption. The underlying data source for the emissions in Sweden is the official statistics on emissions reported to UNFCCC, the UN's climate change convention. These emissions are broken down by industry and processed by Environmental Accounts at Statistics Sweden and used in an environmentally extended input-output analysis (Naturvårdsverket, 2010d). The main difference between the domestic emissions caused by Swedish consumption and the domestic emissions reported to UNFCCC is that emissions caused in producing goods for export are not a part of the emissions caused by consumption. Emissions due to imported goods that are produced in other countries are estimated according to a model. The model for carbon dioxide emissions is based on how much - in economic terms - is imported from other countries (data from Statistics Sweden), emissions of carbon dioxide reported to Eurostat for EU countries and each country's emissions intensity in relation to GDP (data from World Resources Institute) for countries outside the EU. Emissions of methane and nitrous oxide in other countries are calculated as if they occurred in Sweden. Use of chemicals and emissions of chemical substances The project included further development of methods for a future indicator of the area of chemicals from a perspective of consumption. In previous work, data from the products register at the Swedish Chemicals Agency have been used to create indicators for use of chemicals in Sweden for this purpose. In this project the options for developing other indicators as a complement are investigated, where an important prerequisite is data availability abroad. The focus was to develop the idea which was presented in the background synthesis report (Naturvårdsverket, 2010d). The idea is to try to use the database EPRTR1 which contains national emissions of chemical substances from industrial point sources, reported to the EU. Input-output analyses could be applied to these data, to obtain emissions caused by final demand. The emitted chemical substances were weighted using LCA methods to enable potential toxicity to be presented for aquatic ecotoxicity and human toxicity. The results which are presented in the report show contribution to potential toxicity caused by final demand in Sweden in 2008, based on reported emissions in E-PRTR. Substances that contributed most to potential toxicity could also be distinguished. In the study using E-PRTR as a data source, several limitations should be mentioned which contribute to the fact that no ready-to-use indicator for chemical substances is presented in the report. The emissions are presented for the whole of final demand including exports. Of this followed that the large export products (basic metals, pulp and paper) contributed heavily to the results. The analysis was restricted to domestic emissions, which means that no calculations on the contribution to potential toxicity for imported goods were performed. Another restriction worth noting is that the contents of the data source are limited to those substances that are reportable and that the result depends on which substances are included in the calculation model that is used when the potential toxicity is determined. Continued work The work to produce indicators for follow up of the global environmental impact caused by consumption has made some progress through this project. During the project many development areas for methods and data sources have been identified. No development projects have been decided upon, and a decision on estimation of costs must be evaluated first. For climate related emissions there are the following suggestions for development:  Add emissions of fluorinated greenhouse gases by industry to the environmentally extended input-output analyses.  Develop emission intensities based on data from the International Energy Agency (IEA) and World Bank to obtain more detailed and updated intensities than those published by World Resources Institute (WRI).  Study to what extent the increased levels of greenhouse gas emissions are due to higher imports or higher emissions intensities.  Study which countries Sweden imports from, and analyse if this has changed over time and has had any impact on emission levels.  Further enhance the allocation of emissions of methane and nitrous oxide related to the production of food products, so that meat can be separately studied and to enhance the calculation of emissions in other countries. For emissions to air there are the following suggestions for development:  Use Eurostat data for the emissions of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and ammonia to obtain a better understanding of emissions in other countries. The results in this report are based on the "as if" assumption.  Study the following emissions to air in a consumption perspective: carbon dioxide, volatile aromatic compounds and particulates, to obtain a better understanding about how these can be followed in other countries. For the area of chemicals, there is no indicator ready to use. A possible way forward is to develop an indicator based on E-PRTR and relate it to other sources of emissions. The following indicates development areas in order to connect emissions of chemical substances to consumption:  Allocate the emissions from industrial point sources reported to E-PRTR to the components of final demand so that the emissions linked to exports can be excluded in further analyses.  Try to obtain an understanding of the size of the total industrial emissions that are covered through E-PRTR (the database EU countries report their national PRTR data to)  Estimate emissions in other countries, related to Sweden's imports, by using available data sources (available for the EU and several other countries).  Quantify and estimate the potential toxicity from diffuse emissions from the use of chemical products and from goods, for comparison with the potential toxicity from those emissions that are reported in E-PRTR.

The last three decades have witnessed an exponential increase in wildfire-related costs and losses in the United States, in part the result of rapid population migration from urban centers into relatively-undeveloped rural areas. By 2005, one in three American households was residing in volatile areas where human development is co-mingled with unaltered wildland vegetation, the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI). That proportion is expected only to rise in the coming decade. Mixing people and unaltered wildland vegetation has proved a deadly combination: each year, wildfires take lives. During these fires, scores of injuries occur, and hundreds of structures burn as millions of acres of sometimes ecologically-sensitive land is scorched. Federal agencies now spend more than one billion dollars on fire suppression activities each year, fielding thousands of wildland firefighters, aircraft, and equipment to protect communities at risk. As development of the WUI continues, it is critical that the nation work towards creating fire-adapted communities in which people and values are prepared to tolerate inevitable wildfire events with minimal loss of life and property. The importance of this goal was affirmed in the 2011 National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy. Doing so will necessarily mean involving communities and stakeholders in planning efforts and mitigation activities to reduce fire risk and prepare communities to withstand wildfires.This dissertation examines the issue of community involvement in fire risk abatement in order to identify the most effective tools to facilitate long-term engagement of the people who live and work in fire-prone areas. It presents several case studies in community fire risk abatement that focus on leveraging community involvement to achieve resource management goals and create fire-adapted communities. In Chapter 1, I outline recent changes in wildland fire policy pertinent to managers of parks and protected areas. Grasping the rapidly evolving nature of wildland fire policy, particularly federal policy, is fundamental to understanding current challenges, successes, and opportunities in community fire planning. The rapidly developing formation of the wildland-urban interface has left many parks and protected areas virtual islands of wilderness, surrounded by increasingly dense development. This situation has created new challenges for park managers, who must now contend with uncharacteristic fires originating outside park boundaries that threaten park resources. Managers also face potential liability from fires within their parks that escape park boundaries and threaten communities. By enlisting new neighbors in these communities as stakeholders or even partners in fire risk abatement, however, park managers may be able to leverage increasingly limited program funding to achieve resource management goals. In Chapter 2, I deal with the challenges of implementing broad community fire planning mandates through a resource management agency with a decentralized organizational structure. Focusing on the state agency primarily responsible for fire management in California, I examine the difficulties experienced in the implementation of a community fire planning program. These programs were envisaged in the California Fire Plan and mandated by the California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, the Governor-appointed group responsible for setting forestry and fire policy in the state. The program received full funding from the California legislature, and a decade has passed since its creation. This program required all of the organizational divisions of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) create local fire plans, written by Pre-Fire Engineers. I find that, although efforts are in the works to revitalize the program, the local plans are challenged by a lack of currency as well as an erosion of stakeholder involvement in the plan development and implementation processes. These shortcomings reflect a common challenge experienced by decentralized natural resource agencies: an absence of clear frameworks for local implementation of policy mandates. The incongruity between the priorities of state policymakers and local leadership, as well as a lack of performance-based rewards or penalties tied to mandate implementation and a lack of a clear cost-sharing structure, has resulted in inconsistently implemented policy. I describe the institutional barriers that have barred effective policy implementation in the past, and identify changes that might result in greater policy actualization. Because most state and federal resource management agencies working on fire issues operate under similarly decentralized frameworks, my findings have as much relevance outside as within California for future attempts to implement state and national policy aimed at local community fire planning.In Chapter 3, I present results from paired surveys of stakeholders and agency facilitators involved in the development of local fire plans in California. Locally developed fire plans are designed to be instrumental in the creation of fire-adapted communities, communities resilient to disaster. Since 2003, federal fire policy has encouraged the development of Community Wildfire Prevention Plans (CWPP), and communities have been offered incentives to create the planning documents, such as eligibility to apply for federal hazard abatement funding, define the perimeter of their local wildland-urban interface (WUI), and provide input on the location and prioritization of fuel hazard abatement treatment on nearby federal lands. Though 70,000 WUI communities were identified by state and federal processes as at risk of wildland fire, just 6,000 have created CWPPs in the seven years since the program was created. In order to succeed in creating fire-adapted communities and reduce out-of-control wildfire-related costs and losses, we must better understand better what factors drive long-term stakeholder involvement in local fire plans. Understanding parallels and divisions in stakeholder and facilitator perceptions of community engagement and planning is crucial to this process. A statewide network of 27 Fire Management Plans (FMP) have been in continuous development by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) for more than a decade. I surveyed 810 stakeholders and 42 CAL FIRE Pre Fire Engineers involved in the FMP in two separate efforts to better understand multiple perceptions surrounding engagement and the planning process. Reports on fire planning efforts have typically focused either on the participants or the planners; rarely are results from both perspectives available. I found striking disparities between perceptions of stakeholder engagement by agency facilitators and agency-identified stakeholders. Encouragingly, problematic stakeholder engagement did not seem to dampen their willingness to engage in future planning efforts.In my fourth essay, I evaluate a group local Fire Management Plans (FMP) to determine their quality as planning documents. High-quality plans are more likely to be implemented, functional over the long-term, utilized by targeted stakeholders, and effective at achieving their goals. In constant development by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) for more than a decade, CAL FIRE's FMPs are plans aimed at efficiently reducing fire risk to communities through the creation of regional documents that list locally identified values and hazards and propose means of abating fire risk. Though locally-developed fire plans are increasingly wide-spread, with today as many as 10,000 in existence around the United States, only rarely are they evaluated as planning documents. Through a technique called Plan Quality Evaluation and heavily informed by prior hazard planning evaluations conducted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), I evaluated a network of 27 FMPs in California. Despite the fact that the planners were hired and supported by CAL FIRE, the FMPs were inconsistent in size and scope as well as overall plan quality. My findings demonstrated some of the clear challenges for developers of local fire plans. In the fifth and final chapter of my dissertation, I examine how long-term collaboration between agencies, fire safe councils, and other stakeholders can significantly reduce the impact of a potentially catastrophic wildfire. This essay analyzes a recent significant human-caused wildfire event in California that burned in an area where extensive long-term interagency partnership with a local fire safe council had resulted in a network of shaded fuel breaks. Driven by extreme weather conditions, the wildfire had escaped ground and aerial suppression efforts and threatened multiple communities in central California's Kern County. Within three hours of its ignition, the Bull Fire was threatening homes. Firefighters, aided by the extensive network of fuel breaks around Kernville were able to stop the fire with minimal losses. I chronicle the eleven-year history of the Kern River Valley Fire Safe Council and the exceptional relationships forged with federal, state, and local agencies. This decade-long partnership gave rise to multiple opportunities for collaboration in fuel hazard risk abatement projects on public and private land. This study is a substantial demonstration of the value of devoting resources to collaborative planning and risk abatement activities, particularly in nurturing the success of community fire organizations in crafting and implementing CWPPs.In summary, my results suggest that, though the importance of community outreach and collaboration is widely accepted in the fire community, in practice it is still in its infancy - and experiencing growing pains. A structure for educating collaborative planners and facilitators is only now emerging. Uncertainty still exists as to the best way to educate or train collaborative planners and facilitators. Particularly in agencies responsible for fire suppression, facilitators and planners are most likely to enter their positions with significant fire management expertise but only limited experience with facilitating meetings, developing plans, or collaborating with stakeholder groups. As more and more people move into fire-prone WUI areas, the importance of the collaborative planner and facilitator can only grow. Professionalizing this role and the continuing maturation of the education process is likely to increase the efficacy of future planning efforts and enhance the creation of fire-adapted communities. As wildfire-related costs and losses continue to grow, finding ways to engage stakeholders who live and work in WUI areas is of increasingly important. The "Whole Community" initiative created by the Federal Emergency Management Agency recognizes the importance of the involvement of all levels of society in disaster preparedness. This new initiative segues well with the 2011 National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy (Cohesive Strategy), that recognizes that in order to develop a truly representative plan, all stakeholders must have a voice and input into completed plans. The Cohesive Strategy goes on to encourage the development of new relationships between agencies and stakeholder groups in order to collaboratively generate solutions that would have been unattainable individually. Two of the vital components in creating resilient communities adapted to the occurrence of wildfire are: stakeholder involvement in the development of local fire management plans and collaborative implementation of risk management projects. My research investigates collaborative planning and identifies barriers and drivers of local collaborative fire planning efforts. I hope that the research outlined in this dissertation assists in the development and implementation of future planning efforts, moving communities towards the goal of creating fire-wise communities

 I woke up in the middle of the night because I am old and I ate and drank too much.  I couldn't resist schnitzel and strudel as I am in Vienna for a talk and for some other shenanigans (more on that in another post).  And then I saw Phil Lagassé's post on the Conservatives and if they might spend on defence if elected.  On that general topic, I am a skeptic as I think the CPC cares more about deficits than about defence, and the place to cut the budget is, alas, defence.  That is where the money is.  This was true under Harper.  I don't know what Pierre Poilevre believes in, other than opportunism and pandering to the far right, but I don't think he will commit lots of money to get Canada to 2% of GDP (on the other hand, he could tank the economy, and that is the other way to get there).  Oh, and to be clear, I think we need to spend significantly more on the military--I am just not going to threat inflate to get us there.Anyway, Phil said in his piece that we need to spend more to deal with the threat in the Arctic, and I had to scoff. Which led to a fun exchange in bluesky, reminiscent of the old days on twitter where we would argue and people thought we hated each other.  Hint: I don't co-author with people I don't like.  Ir don't co-author with the same person several times unless we get along very well.  But it is both fun and educational to push back against one of the very sharpest defence minds in Canada.Specifically, Phil said: "Canadians know their Arctic is vulnerable."  And my ensuing commentary focused on that: what exactly is the threat to Canada from on high?  And should we consider this the most significant/dangerous threat?  My point is that it is way back in line.  Phil says we need to have better situational awareness up north.  My rejoinder is: no invasion coming, just some spy ships on the water and below it.  Others chimed in: more ships going through the northwest passage means more environmental stuff could go awry.  And, I agree.  But where does that line up in the threat picture?  Here's my cranky, awakened with acid in my throat, ranking of the threats facing Canada. Climate change: Canadians are paying a high price for the changing climate even if we could joke about being a beneficiary as our winters get mostly shorter.  Milder?  Variance is more certain than anything else.  Anyhow, people are dying in floods and fires, much property is being destroyed.  When I speak of threat, I think of real harms to Canadians, to the economy, to governance.  Climate change is first and it is not close.  I was mocked by someone via email when I said this on TV,  but I have never been a super lefty, green environmentalist type in my work.  It is just the reality that in dollar amounts and in lives, the warming planet is harming Canadians in a big way and it is only going to get worse. A recurring theme is that many of the threats either cannot or will not have the military as the lead agency.  This actually comes the closest given that the provinces underinvest in emergency management, knowing that the military will act if asked and won't present a bill.Pandemics: how many people were killed by covid in Canada?  Nearly 60,000, which is more than Canadians killed in all foreign wars combined if one leaves out WWI.  Plus many people now have long covid.  It did a heap of damage to the economy, and, if you care about deficits (I don't really), guess what blew a big hole in the budget? I am very glad the Liberal government poured a ton of money into the economy as we didn't have runs on food banks during the height of the pandemic.  I just wish Conservative-led provinces actually spent the money allotted to health care on.... health care.  Will covid be the last pandemic?  No.  Indeed, given what it has done to attitudes about vaccinations, quarantines, and masking, I doubt we will respond as well next time.  Scary, eh?  The military was called out because other agencies lacked capacity, but this was really a medical/scientific thing, so let's not allocate a ton of money to the military for pandemic preparedness.Cyber attacks.  Wars are distant, but cyber attacks are hitting Canadians every day, disrupting people's lives, hurting various businesses and public agencies, and pose a significant threat where some country could bring down our power or harm dams and more.  Is this the military's job?  Partially but not really.  We don't need people who are trained to fire weapons and ready to deploy abroad and all that stuff to fight a cyber war.  We need smart folks at well equipped desks.  We definitely need to have more money spent on the military to survive and thrive in a cyberwar environment, but the CAF is not really our answer to thwarting cyber attacks against the Canadian public.Far right violence.  We live in a time of increasing attacks by xenophobes, misogynists, homophobes, racists, anti-semities, Islamophobes, and white supremacists (these hates tend to travel together).  Yes, left wing extremists can have many of these attributes, but
it is clear that the violence is almost entirely coming from the far
right. These haters are doing real harm to Canadians right now, and the trend is in the wrong direction.  Can the military do anything about this?  I think the general rule of not having the military police the public is a very good idea.  Instead, the military's role is mostly to make sure it is not training the next generation of far right terrorists.  Disinformation.  This is, of course, related to the prior one, but it also involves foreign actors who are trying to tilt election outcomes.  We are increasingly living in a time where people can't trust what they see and hear, or they are trusting the wrong actors.  This leads to develop dangerous beliefs--like vaccines are poisonous, that the government in power is engaging in great, deliberate harm against its ideological opponents, and so forth,  While the Liberals have screwed up many things, they need some trust in government to operate on our behalf, just as the Conservatives or NDP would need people to trust in institutions.  The military should not be the primary actor at home on this either even as they engage in info ops abroad.People might I was joking about the increases in truck/SUV size being a threat, but more than 2000 people died in car accidents in 2023, and the trend is going up, even if one cuts the peak covid years from the dataset.North Korean missiles. While China and Russia have nuclear missiles, I have a bit more faith in the workings of deterrence and a bit less worried about accidental/deliberate first use.  North Korea would not have any reason to attack Canada, but I could imagine that their aim might be that good.  Of course, what is the CAF's role in this?  Providing warning that Vancouver is doomed and then helping to respond to the aftermath.  We have no defences against ballistic missiles nor will Canada have any such systems  anytime in the future.  I am a skeptic about American strategic defense (although tactical anti-missile systems seem to range from pretty good to amazing), but I do think Canada should join the US system as the ABM treaty is very dead.  This is a military job and would justify the massive investment in NORAD modernization.  Otherwise, it really is a system to warn us to give us a few minutes to kiss our loved ones goodbye.  Oh, and manage relations with the US.US relations!  The Canadian economy and its security crucially depend on the US, and, oh my, Canada will be so very, very fucked if Trump were to win. Democracies have lived beside authoritarian regimes before (hey, Finland!), but so much of Canada's position in the world relies on this huge market and this peaceful border and cooperation with the US.  When was the last time Canada fought abroad without the US beside its side?  UN missions?  Guess again as the UN relies heavily on American support to do its ops.  One could argue this would mean less wars for Canada--no more Afghanistans (which was purely to help its ally).  But Canada would be even at greater risk of being bullied by the China's and Saudi Arabia's of the world.  And, of course, by Trump himself.  But again, this is not the CAF's job to prevent or mitigate this.  If Trump is elected, most of the problems above get worse and this item zooms to the top.Maybe here goes: incomplete understanding of what is happening in the Arctic. Yes, that stuff up north is still Canada, but the threat to Canadians up there is not really that posed by Russia or China but by the lack of infrastructure and by the aforementioned climate change, pandemics, etc.So, if the military is not needed for this stuff, or only needed for domestic emergency ops, why spend tens of billions on it?  Why increase spending?  It comes down to this: the military is an instrument of policy.  This means that it can and is used to further Canadian government objectives even if most of those objectives are not about thwarting threats to Canada.  Canada has consistent interests in the world for which the CAF is a key tool, such as helping to foster stability in Europe and Asia.  Canada, like the US, has learned that when those continents catch fire, it damages Canadian interests and hurts Canadians.  A war in the South China Sea with or without the Canadian navy would be catastrophic to the Canadian economy.  War west of Ukraine would also be quite damaging.  NATO itself is an important interest that requires the Canadian military to invest in itself and in NATO missions.  Ultimately, Canadians want to do good in the world and want to support the international order, whether we call it liberal or rules-based or American hegemony or whatever.  Because we understand that Canadians have more influence within institutions than outside of them, that the rules have favored the Canadian economy, and helped the Canadian people to enjoy the fruits of international cooperation.Ultimately, one wants a well armed, well trained, well staffed military to prepare for the worst.  In my ranking of threats, I focused on both likelihood of the threat being realized and the amount of harm that is likely if the threat happens.  Climate change is at the top because it is happening and is not going away and is going to do heaps of damage.  The threat in the Arctic is lower down because it is unlike that any foreign actor will attack that way and the damage they can do is not that great, again compared to everything else.Oh, and what is also a threat?  Having an under-funded, unprepared, ill-equipped military sent off to war--that way lies tragedy.  So, yes, spend more, but let's not exaggerate where the threats are coming from and what the role of the military is.

America's Global War on Terror has seen its share of stalemates, disasters, and outright defeats. During 20-plus years of armed interventions, the United States has watched its efforts implode in spectacular fashion, from Iraq in 2014 to Afghanistan in 2021. The greatest failure of its "Forever Wars," however, may not be in the Middle East, but in Africa."Our war on terror begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated," President George W. Bush told the American people in the immediate wake of the 9/11 attacks, noting specifically that such militants had designs on "vast regions" of Africa.To shore up that front, the U.S. began a decades-long effort to provide copious amounts of security assistance, train many thousands of African military officers, set up dozens of outposts, dispatch its own commandos on all manner of missions, create proxy forces, launch drone strikes, and even engage in direct ground combat with militants in Africa. Most Americans, including members of Congress, are unaware of the extent of these operations. As a result, few realize how dramatically America's shadow war there has failed.The raw numbers alone speak to the depths of the disaster. As the United States was beginning its Forever Wars in 2002 and 2003, the State Department counted a total of just nine terrorist attacks in Africa. This year, militant Islamist groups on that continent have, according to the Pentagon, already conducted 6,756 attacks. In other words, since the United States ramped up its counterterrorism operations in Africa, terrorism has spiked 75,000%.Let that sink in for a moment.75,000%.A Conflict that Will Live in InfamyThe U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq opened to military successes in 2001 and 2003 that quickly devolved into sputtering occupations. In both countries, Washington's plans hinged on its ability to create national armies that could assist and eventually take over the fight against enemy forces. Both U.S.-created militaries would, in the end, crumble. In Afghanistan, a two-decade-long war ended in 2021 with the rout of an American-built, -funded, -trained, and -armed military as the Taliban recaptured the country. In Iraq, the Islamic State nearly triumphed over a U.S.-created Iraqi army in 2014, forcing Washington to reenter the conflict. U.S. troops remain embattled in Iraq and neighboring Syria to this very day.In Africa, the U.S. launched a parallel campaign in the early 2000s, supporting and training African troops from Mali in the west to Somalia in the east and creating proxy forces that would fight alongside American commandos. To carry out its missions, the U.S. military set up a network of outposts across the northern tier of the continent, including significant drone bases – from Camp Lemonnier and its satellite outpost Chabelley Airfield in the sun-bleached nation of Djibouti to Air Base 201 in Agadez, Niger — and tiny facilities with small contingents of American special operations troops in nations ranging from Libya and Niger to the Central African Republic and South Sudan.For almost a decade, Washington's war in Africa stayed largely under wraps. Then came a decision that sent Libya and the vast Sahel region into a tailspin from which they have never recovered."We came, we saw, he died," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joked after a U.S.-led NATO air campaign helped overthrow Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi, the longtime Libyan dictator, in 2011. President Barack Obama hailed the intervention as a success, but Libya slipped into near-failed-state status. Obama would later admit that "failing to plan for the day after" Qaddafi's defeat was the "worst mistake" of his presidency.As the Libyan leader fell, Tuareg fighters in his service looted his regime's weapons caches, returned to their native Mali, and began to take over the northern part of that nation. Anger in Mali's armed forces over the government's ineffective response resulted in a 2012 military coup. It was led by Amadou Sanogo, an officer who learned English in Texas and underwent infantry-officer basic training in Georgia, military-intelligence instruction in Arizona, and was mentored by U.S. Marines in Virginia.Having overthrown Mali's democratic government, Sanogo and his junta proved hapless in battling terrorists. With the country in turmoil, those Tuareg fighters declared an independent state, only to be muscled aside by heavily armed Islamists who instituted a harsh brand of Shariah law, causing a humanitarian crisis. A joint Franco-American-African mission prevented Mali's complete collapse but pushed the militants into areas near the borders of both Burkina Faso and Niger.Since then, those nations of the West African Sahel have been plagued by terrorist groups that have evolved, splintered, and reconstituted themselves. Under the black banners of jihadist militancy, men on motorcycles — two to a bike, wearing sunglasses and turbans, and armed with Kalashnikovs — regularly roar into villages to impose zakat (an Islamic tax); steal animals; and terrorize, assault, and kill civilians. Such relentless attacks have destabilized Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger and are now affecting their southern neighbors along the Gulf of Guinea. Violence in Togo and Benin has, for example, jumped 633% and 718% over the last year, according to the Pentagon.U.S.-trained militaries in the region have been unable to stop the onslaught and civilians have suffered horrifically. During 2002 and 2003, terrorists caused just 23 casualties in Africa. This year, according to the Pentagon, terrorist attacks in the Sahel region alone have resulted in 9,818 deaths — a 42,500% increase.At the same time, during their counterterrorism campaigns, America's military partners in the region have committed gross atrocities of their own, including extrajudicial killings. In 2020, for example, a top political leader in Burkina Faso admitted that his country's security forces were carrying out targeted executions. "We're doing this, but we're not shouting it from the rooftops," he told me, noting that such murders were good for military morale.American-mentored military personnel in that region have had only one type of demonstrable "success": overthrowing governments the United States trained them to protect. At least 15 officers who benefited from such assistance have been involved in 12 coups in West Africa and the greater Sahel during the war on terror. The list includes officers from Burkina Faso (2014, 2015, and twice in 2022); Chad (2021); Gambia (2014); Guinea (2021); Mali (2012, 2020, and 2021); Mauritania (2008); and Niger (2023). At least five leaders of a July coup in Niger, for example, received American assistance, according to a U.S. official. They, in turn, appointed five U.S.-trained members of the Nigerien security forces to serve as that country's governors.Military coups of that sort have even super-charged atrocities while undermining American aims, yet the United States continues to provide such regimes with counterterrorism support. Take Colonel Assimi Goïta, who worked with U.S. Special Operations forces, participated in U.S. training exercises, and attended the Joint Special Operations University in Florida before overthrowing Mali's government in 2020. Goïta then took the job of vice president in a transitional government officially charged with returning the country to civilian rule, only to seize power again in 2021.That same year, his junta reportedly authorized the deployment of the Russia-linked Wagner mercenary forces to fight Islamist militants after close to two decades of failed Western-backed counterterrorism efforts. Since then, Wagner — a paramilitary group founded by the late Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former hot-dog vendor turned warlord — has been implicated in hundreds of human rights abuses alongside the longtime U.S.-backed Malian military, including a 2022 massacre that killed 500 civilians.Despite all of this, American military aid for Mali has never ended. While Goïta's 2020 and 2021 coups triggered prohibitions on some forms of U.S. security assistance, American tax dollars have continued to fund his forces. According to the State Department, the U.S. provided more than $16 million in security aid to Mali in 2020 and almost $5 million in 2021. As of July, the department's Bureau of Counterterrorism was waiting on congressional approval to transfer an additional $2 million to Mali. (The State Department did not reply to TomDispatch's request for an update on the status of that funding.)The Two-Decade StalemateOn the opposite side of the continent, in Somalia, stagnation and stalemate have been the watchwords for U.S. military efforts."Terrorists associated with Al Qaeda and indigenous terrorist groups have been and continue to be a presence in this region," a senior Pentagon official claimed in 2002. "These terrorists will, of course, threaten U.S. personnel and facilities." But when pressed about an actual spreading threat, the official admitted that even the most extreme Islamists "really have not engaged in acts of terrorism outside Somalia." Despite that, U.S. Special Operations forces were dispatched there in 2002, followed by military aid, advisers, trainers, and private contractors.More than 20 years later, U.S. troops are still conducting counterterrorism operations in Somalia, primarily against the Islamist militant group al-Shabaab. To this end, Washington has provided billions of dollars in counterterrorism assistance, according to a recent report by the Costs of War Project. Americans have also conducted more than 280 air strikes and commando raids there, while the CIA and special operators built up local proxy forces to conduct low-profile military operations.Since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, the U.S. has launched 31 declared airstrikes in Somalia, six times the number carried out during President Obama's first term, though far fewer than the record high set by President Trump, whose administration launched 208 attacks from 2017 to 2021.America's long-running, undeclared war in Somalia has become a key driver of violence in that country, according to the Costs of War Project. "The U.S. is not simply contributing to conflict in Somalia, but has, rather, become integral to the inevitable continuation of conflict in Somalia," reported Ẹniọlá Ànúolúwapọ Ṣóyẹmí, a lecturer in political philosophy and public policy at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University. "U.S. counterterrorism policies are," she wrote, "ensuring that the conflict continues in perpetuity."The Epicenter of International Terrorism"Supporting the development of professional and capable militaries contributes to increasing security and stability in Africa," said General William Ward, the first chief of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) — the umbrella organization overseeing U.S. military efforts on the continent — in 2010, before he was demoted for profligate travel and spending. His predictions of "increasing security and stability" have, of course, never come to pass.While the 75,000% increase in terror attacks and 42,500% increase in fatalities over the last two decades are nothing less than astounding, the most recent increases are no less devastating. "A 50-percent spike in fatalities tied to militant Islamist groups in the Sahel and Somalia over the past year has eclipsed the previous high in 2015," according to a July report by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a Defense Department research institution. "Africa has experienced a nearly four-fold increase in reported violent events linked to militant Islamist groups over the past decade… Almost half of that growth happened in the last 3 years."Twenty-two years ago, George W. Bush announced the beginning of a Global War on Terror. "The Taliban must act, and act immediately," he insisted. "They will hand over the terrorists, or they will share in their fate." Today, of course, the Taliban reigns supreme in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda was never "stopped and defeated," and other terror groups have spread across Africa (and elsewhere). The only way "to defeat terrorism," Bush asserted, was to "eliminate it and destroy it where it grows." Yet it has grown, and spread, and a plethora of new militant groups have emerged.Bush warned that terrorists had designs on "vast regions" of Africa but was "confident of the victories to come," assuring Americans that "we will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail." In country after country on that continent, the U.S. has, indeed, faltered and its failures have been paid for by ordinary Africans killed, wounded, and displaced by the terror groups that Bush pledged to "defeat." Earlier this year, General Michael Langley, the current AFRICOM commander, offered what may be the ultimate verdict on America's Forever Wars on that continent. "Africa," he declared, "is now the epicenter of international terrorism."This article has been republished with permission from TomDispatch.