Suchergebnisse

Eco-innovations are crucial for the mitigation of climate change effects. It is therefore important to know if the existing climate change regulations and carbon pricing are appropriate and sufficient to trigger such innovations. Besides government measures, the demand for carbon neutral products or the impacts of climate change such as extreme weather conditions leading to higher costs for the affected firms may also promote eco-innovation activities. For the first time, the new wave of the Community Innovation Survey 2020 in Germany allows an analysis of the effects of climate change policy and costs, demand for climate friendly goods and extreme weather conditions on (eco-)innovation. The results of probit and treatment effect models show that innovative firms seem to be significantly more affected by climate change measures and consequences compared to other firms. All climate change indicators are positively correlated to eco-innovations. Interestingly, other innovation activities also profit from the extent to which a firm is affected by climate change albeit the marginal effects are lower compared to eco-innovations. Demand for climate neutral products is significantly important for all eco-product-innovations.

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit internationally in March 2020, governments and political incumbents received exceptionally high approval ratings. Such a sudden spike of public support in times of crisis is often explained as the 'rally 'round the flag' effect. This paper has three goals: first, to examine whether a rally effect indeed occurred; second, to analyse whether and how much it is related to (i) affectedness, i.e. the occurrence of infections on individual and aggregate level, and (ii) fear of Covid-19; and third, to examine an assumed moderating effect of partisanship. We merged individual survey data from an online survey conducted in September 2020 as part of the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES) with infection rates on the state level (Bundesländer) published by the Robert Koch Institute. We detect a striking rally effect in all partisan camps. Furthermore, we identify fear of Covid-19 as the driving mechanism while there is no evidence that affectedness is a major force behind the rally effect. Furthermore, we show that partisanship takes on a moderating role for fear of Covid-19 regarding satisfaction with government.

In my contribution to this collection, I aim to expose how the growing transnationalisation of groups of affected persons – in this case children and young people – has brought to the fore normative contradictions and tensions built into the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. More specifically, I will show how the universal notion of children's rights and a strong global consensus on the 'scourge' of child labour has been challenged through the empowerment of affected persons – in this case child workers. Building on critical constructivist thinking on norms, my core argument is that the increasing access of affected persons' organisations (APOs) to international organisations and high-level events brings with it an increase in norm contestation. Rather than creating new normative contestations, I will show in my analysis, the inclusion of the most affected brings to light normative inconsistencies and ambiguities that have been potentially ingrained in international treaties but hitherto successfully suppressed by powerful norm advocates. The articulation of subversive perspectives on child labour by working children and young people, I will conclude, results in normative tensions and collisions and a reconsideration of seemingly universal values previously taken for granted.

In recent years, there has been much debate about the consequences of the internet and social media for activism and social movements. According to Lance W Bennett and Alexandra Segerberg, digital activism involves a logic of 'connective action', in which collective action and collective identity lose importance. To assess the validity of this theory, I focus on personal testimony campaigns that have by now become a familiar digital tactic, especially in online mobilisations around issues of gender and sexuality. Drawing on discourse analysis of some of the most prominent examples, from #MeToo to #GirlsLikeUs, I argue that more than a logic of connection, what is at stake here is a 'logic of collection', involved in gathering personal testimonies as specimens of various grievances people are affected by (sexual harassment, discrimination, etc.). Aggregating personal testimonies around shared hashtags provides a means to construct and/or trasform the collective identity of the groups involved in order to raise their self-awareness and place them in a better position to engage in collective action. These practices thus suggest the need to overcome the opposition between personal and collective identity inherent in the theory of 'connective action', and refocus research on the forms of online identification that connect these two levels.