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Sustainable development aims at addressing economic, social, and environmental concerns, but the current lack of responsive environmental governance hinders progress. Short-term economic development has led to limited actions, unsustainable resource management, and degraded ecosystems. The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) may continue to fall short of achieving significant progress without a better understanding of how ecosystems contribute to achieving sustainability for all people. Ecosystem governance is an approach that integrates the social and ecological components for improved sustainability and includes principles such as adaptive ecosystem co-management, subsidiarity, and telecoupling framework, as well as principles of democracy and accountability. We explain the importance of ecosystem governance in achieving the SDGs, and suggest some ways to ensure that ecosystem services are meaningfully considered. This paper reflects on how integration of these approaches into policies can enhance the current agenda of sustainability.

Citations, productivity measures & rankings have become reality in modern university life. Many of the bibliometric reports presented by ranking institutes & non-professional bibliometricians are flawed due to methodologically unsound procedures. This article discusses three important methodological problems involved in bibliometric studies: 1) number of personnel at university departments; 2) counting of articles from these departments; & 3) counting of citations to these articles. Relating to earlier research (Hix, 2004) it is shown that the counting of personnel -- a very important reference value -- can be conducted in several different ways. Following Dale & Goldfinch (2005) we discuss the limitation to political science journals proposed by Hix. There is a large influx of non political scientist to the area & a similar outflow of political scientists to other journal categories (eg, environmental studies). Therefore, the proposed limitation is questioned. Implementing advanced methods for field normalized citation scores (van Raan, 2004) we conclude the article with an analysis of Swedish university departments in political science during the period 1998-2005. The result is a promising 33 per cent better citation scores than the world average, but the downside is a low number of articles per researcher. Adapted from the source document.

It is epistemologically motivated to describe the human sciences as divided into one objectivistic (nature/body) & one intersubjectivistic (society) part. The problem is to bridge these parts, & evolutionary theory is chosen as a possible instrument. As a preparation it is necessary to find the relevant epistemological & ontological categories. Two epistemological (objectivism & intersubjectivism) & three ontological (levels of aggregation, position of actors & plans of reality) dimensions are discussed together with some fundamental methodological problems. Another important part of the task is to elucidate societal change in relation to different types of societal patterns (from laws to similarities & differences). 8 Figures, 104 References. Adapted from the source document.

This article examines five common misunderstandings about case-study research: (1) Theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge. (2) One cannot generalize from a single case; therefore the single case study cannot contribute to scientific development. (3) The case study is most useful for generating hypothesis, while other methods are more suitable for hypothesis testing & theory building. (4) The case study contains a bias towards verification. (5) It is often difficult to summarize specific case studies. The article explains & correct these misunderstandings one by one & concludes with the Kuhnian insight that a scientific discipline without a large number of thoroughly executed case studies is a discipline without systematic production of exemplars, & that a discipline without exemplars is an ineffective one. Social science may be strengthened by the execution of more good case studies. 1 Table, 59 References. Adapted from the source document.

Most theories on the fall of communism focus on non-ideological factors. An approach with a potential to make visible also the ontological crisis of Marxism-Leninism is the study of communist regime legitimacy. This paper reviews Max Weber's & David Beetham's respective theories on the legitimition of power. It presents the mainly Weber-inspired research on political legitimacy that was conducted by Western scholars of the communist world & goes onto argue that the Weber-typology has very little to offer if one wants to render intelligible the ideological aspects to the demise of communism. With Beetham's theory as a point of departure, & with references to other students of Marxism-Leninism, the paper tries to show how ideology can be seen as a manifest, active & limiting factor in the former communist systems & that it is possible to study the fall of communism focusing on ideology & political legitimacy. 44 References. Adapted from the source document.

This article identifies four main problems with existing research on symbolic politics. Symbolic politics is poorly defined, resulting in theoretical vagueness. Typologies of different kinds of symbolism are lacking. The connection between symbolic politics & mainstream political science is unelaborated. Finally, there are methodological problems establishing symbolic aspects of politics. Possible solutions to the four problems are suggested. Symbolic politics can be given a negative definition -- as noninstrumental motives behind a political decision. Four different kinds of symbolic politics are identified: classifications, principles, examples, & expressions. Using these four concepts, it is demonstrated how symbolic variables can enhance theories on public policymaking, exemplified by Baumgartner & Jones' punctuated equilibrium theory. The problem of establishing symbolic politics cannot be solved conclusively, but some provisional methods are suggested. 1 Figure, 81 References. Adapted from the source document.

The first decade of the 21st century has brought with it two important breakthroughs in the study of comparative politics. The first one concerns the availability of data. Nowadays, access to a wide range of information sources for a large number of countries in the world can be gained without too much effort. The second one concerns the methodological achievements made in recent years. Today, sophisticated multi-level analyses can be conducted fairly easily. Among qualitatively oriented researchers, Charles Ragin has made a significant contribution by introducing the fs/QCA-technique into the field of political science. However, the growing amount of data & the new methods not only open up new possibilities for the researcher. The present article explicitly deals with the problems related to the use of multi-level analyses & fs/QCA in comparative political research. In addition, attention is drawn to the drawbacks of using survey data from heterogeneous settings. Adapted from the source document.