Suchergebnisse

This paper analyses how the public policies of potable water distribution have influenced the perceptions people in Villa Chaquimayu, a marginalized neighbourhood of Cochabamba (Bolivia), have about the State. This analysis is based on the theoretical distinction between 'State-system' and 'State-idea' proposed by Abrams (1988). Following Abrams, this paper examines both the practices the Bolivian State has implemented to deliver potable water to Villa Chaquimayu (State-system), and the notions people in this neighbourhood have about the State (State-idea). By using ethnographic data, this investigation shows that a deficient public management of potable water distribution has negatively influenced people's ideas and perceptions about what is the State.

Large emissions of greenhouse gases are expected to cause major environmental problems in the future. European policy makers have therefore declared that they aim to implement cost-efficient and fair policies to reduce carbon emissions. The purpose of this paper is to assess whether the cost of the EU policies for 2020 can be reduced through the inclusion of carbon sequestration as and abatement option while also equity is improved. The assessment is done by numerical calculations using a chance-constrained partial equilibrium model of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme and national effort-sharing targets, where forest sequestration is introduced as an uncertain abatement option. Fairness is evaluated by calculation of Gini-coefficients for six equity criteria to policy outcomes. The estimated Gini-coefficients range between 0.11 and 0.32 for the current policy, between 0.16 and 0.66 if sequestration is included and treated as certain, and between 0.19 and 0.38 when uncertainty about sequestration is taken into account and policy-makers wish to meet targets with at least 90 percent probability. The results show that fairness is reduced when sequestration is included and that the impact is larger when sequestration is treated as certain.

Summary

This article analyses the relationship between EU security, integration and associated members using insights from security studies and the literature on Europeanization. While much of the recent literature emphasizes either the EU's insignificance as a security actor or its importance as a normative and global actor, I investigate its role as a security actor in its own region, arguing that the EU is primarily a regional security actor. I make two general claims: (1) it is the development of common rules and values in various policy areas that constitutes the basis for the EU as a security actor; and (2) it is the successful projection of these rules and values beyond EU borders that will determine the impact of the EU as a security actor. The aim is therefore to show how the EU promotes security and stability through the externalization of rules and values through various processes, association agreements and neighbourhood policies. Adapted from the source document.

Sweden has recently decided to ratify the European Landscape Convention (ELC). Methods for implementation have been discussed for both the ELC and related national environmental objectives. Thus, the Swedish Government decided that seven County Administrative Boards should undertake pilot studies for Regional Landscape Strategies (RLS) during 2006–2007. The RLS pilot projects aimed at a new and more effective approach for conservation and sustainable land use at regional level. Additionally, RLS should also function as a method for implementing the ELC and other environmental objectives. One specific focus of the pilot studies was on developing methods for public participation. Other important issues were to involve different administrative sectors, municipalities and regional authorities in the process, as well as attaining a good balance between conservation and profitable land use. This chapter presents some of the results from the RLS case study in Vellinge municipality, Scania (Skåne), Sweden's southernmost province. The focus of the study was on public participation in particular by equestrians and landowners. The first 'bridleway organization' of its kind in Sweden was established as a direct result of the project.

Biodrivmedel blev efter millennieskiftet en alltmer prioriterad energikälla för EU och ansågs kunna stävja både klimathot och energissäkerhetsproblem samtidigt som drivmedelsproduktionen skulle gynna sysselsättningen i jordbruket. EUkommissionen formulerade 2007 ett mål om att ersätta 10 % av transportenergin till biodrivmedel. Snabbt uppkom dock en strid mellan en grupp av aktörer (miljörörelse och livsmedelsindustri) som såg biodrivmedelssatsningen som ett hot mot både miljön och livsmedelssäkerheten medan en annan grupp bestående av företrädesvis biodrivmedelsintressenter såg det som viktigt att behålla och utveckla EU:s mål för att rädda både klimat och miljö. Motsättningarna som uppkommit väcker frågor kring vilka logiker som legat bakom detta. Avhandlingens syfte är att analysera EU:s biodrivmedelspolicy, vilka aktörer och nätverk som har format denna process, vilka problem och lösningar som dessa aktörer och nätverk argumenterat för i processen, samt hur de har agerat för att mobilisera stöd för sina ståndpunkter. Detta har kopplats till teorier om nätverksstyrning, förekomsten av utlösande händelser i policyprocessen, resursberoende i nätverksmodellen samt på vilket sätt managementteori utövat inflytande. Metoden har varit att utifrån dokumentstudier rekonstruera det historiska förloppet och de aktörer som medverkat i processen. Avhandlingens visar att en förhållandevis liten grupp aktörer har haft ett stort inflytande över policyprocessen från det att problemen som biodrivmedel var satta att lösa definierades i slutet av 80-talet till det att hållbarhetsstandarder utvecklades och implementerades. Dessa aktörer har funnits i policynätverkens kärna och har som ett av sina centrala mål velat utarbeta globala regelverk för råvaruhandeln. De miljöorganisationer som medverkat i processen har genom resursberoenden till stor del varit underordnade denna grupp. Processerna har innehållit ett stort inslag av strategisk planläggning men även utlösande händelser som klimat- och livsmedelskriser har varit viktiga för att motivera politiska beslut. ; Biofuels became a prioritized energy source for the EU in the new millennium. It was believed that biofuels would suppress both climate change and problems with energy security, and would simultaneously benefit agricultural employment. The EU Commission decided in 2007 that 10 % of the energy used in transportation would be replaced by biofuels. This was, however, soon criticized by a group of actors (environmental associations and the food industry) that saw the biofuels initiative as a threat to both the environment and food security. The biofuels proponents, on the other hand, argued that it was important to maintain and develop the EU's biofuels objectives to save both the climate and the environment. These contradictions raised my interest to understand and analyze the logics that lie behind these different perspectives on the same issue. The aim of this thesis is to analyze the EU's biofuels policy, which actors and networks shaped this process, which problems and solutions these actors and networks put forward in the process, and how they have acted to mobilize support for their positions. Theoretically, I have applied theories on policy networks, the occurrence of triggering events in the policy process, resource dependence between actors and networks, and how management theory can be used to understand how policy develops. The main results are that a relatively small group of actors has had a strong influence on the policy process. These actors have been at the core of the policy community. The environmental organizations involved in the process have been subordinate to this policy community through resource dependencies. One actor network was formed that wanted to increase the amount of biofuels, while another was formed to protect the forest and soil from heavy exploitation. It took over 20 years before these contradicting efforts collided. This thesis concludes that the process contained large elements of strategic planning and that triggering events such as climate and food crises have been important to justify political decisions.

In this paper, we discuss the bridging potential of "interspecies" solidarity between the often incommensurable ethics of care and justice. Indeed, we show that the Environmental Communication literature emphasizes feelings of care and compassion as vectors of responsibility taking for animals. But we also show that a growing field of Political Animal Rights suggest that such responsibility taking should instead be grounded in universalizable terms of justice. Our argument is that a dual conception of solidarity can bridge this divide: On the one hand, solidarity as a pre-political relation with animals and, on the other hand, as a political practice based on open public deliberation of universalizable claims to justice; that is, claims to justice advanced by human proxy representatives of vulnerable non-humans. Such a dual conception can both challenge and validate NGOs' claims to "speak on behalf of animals" in policy following the Aarhus Convention, indeed underwriting the Convention by insights from internatural communication in solidarity as relation, and by subjecting it to rational scrutiny in mini-publics in solidary as practice.