Over the last two decades, transboundary regional environmental governance has witnessed some institutional change through an increasing shift from intergovernmentally constituted political institutions to new complex structures of decision-making where policy-making has begun to adapt to a new, more active role of societal actors at multiple levels of political authority. In addressing this issue, the article raises the following questions: How can new structures and processes of public deliberation and participation in transboundary regional environmental governance be designed, and which opportunities and risks emerge? To address these questions, the article develops a normative-analytical design for regional environmental governance in ecoregions; this design defines the conditions under which public deliberation and participation conveying discourse, argument, and persuasion can help to democratize collective decision-making.
The unfolding of the euro area crisis has revealed fundamental political, economic and legal shortcomings of the macroeconomic governance in the Union. This contribution first demonstrates that the original legal architecture of the EMU has proven conducive to accelerating imbalances produced by the political and economic dynamics of the euro. It then describes how the legal underpinnings of the EMU fell victim of the accelerating crisis and proceeds to discuss the legal countermeasures recently agreed at the EU level, from rescue funds to the six-pack reform and the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance. The article argues that all those measures essentially follow the same intergovernmental governance paradigm which had previously proven entirely inefficient. The euro area falters, because it is - just as is the macroeconomic picture - not a real community, but an aggregate outcome of national policies exposed to substantially destabilizing forces of the monetary union. The text wraps up with a conclusion that only when the governance paradigm is entirely overhauled may the crisis be contained.
As the successor to the decade-long Lisbon agenda, Europe 2020 is the European Union's 10-year strategy for 'smart', 'sustainable' and 'inclusive' growth. This article analyses the 'governance architecture' of this new agenda, and, more particularly, its social dimension. Insofar as Europe 2020 has a social dimension it is located within a suite of thematic 'flagship initiatives', as well as within a policy coordination framework that, while building upon the Lisbon agenda's governance architecture, now forms part of the European Semester framework. Whereas the flagship initiatives continue a long tradition of the deployment of non-legislative instruments and EU funds towards the EU's social goals, the role to be played by the 'open method of coordination' as a 'new' post-Lisbon form of EU social governance remains unclear. Indeed, the risk is that political energy will be concentrated on policy coordination as a means of strengthening EU economic governance rather than as a vehicle for articulating a progressive social policy vision.
AbstractThis article explores the responses of senior local government actors to the 2004 Wales Spatial Plan and its 2008 update. An example of the so‐called 'new spatial planning' which has emerged in the movement towards regional devolution in the UK, this planning discourse foregrounds elements of relational thinking that seek to alternatively augment, destabilize and overturn orthodox administrative categories and divisions of space. Whereas spatial planners have traditionally thought and practised with and through clearly bounded scales (national, regional, local), in this century the new spatial planning is imposing relationally inscribed concepts such as 'soft space' and 'fuzzy boundaries' into the lexicon of spatial planners. Keystones in a vocabulary used to conceptualize the emergence of new spaces of more networked governance, the importance attached to both concepts in current thinking is that they seek to translate theory into policy, and policy into action. A key question arising from this, however, is how the lexicon of the new spatial planning translates, intersects, and compares with the spatial imaginations of the local government and non‐government officials who have to implement and deliver the strategy. By drawing on the case study of post‐devolution Wales, this article draws on interview data to critically explore the impact of the Wales Spatial Plan as a strategy indicative of the new spatial planning in action, and the implications it has had for service delivery.RésuméL'étude s'intéresse aux réactions de hauts responsables des autorités locales face au programme 'Wales Spatial Plan' de 2004 et à son actualisation de 2008. Représentatif de ce qu'on a appelé la 'nouvelle planification spatiale', née dans le sillage de la dévolution régionale au Royaume‐Uni, le discours utilisé met en avant des éléments de la pensée relationnelle qui, eux, cherchent à grossir, déstabiliser et rompre les catégories administratives classiques et les divisions de l'espace. D'habitude, les aménageurs réfléchissaient et opéraient dans le cadre d'échelons territoriaux clairement établis (national, régional, local), mais depuis le début de ce siècle, la nouvelle planification spatiale impose, dans leur lexique, des concepts définis en fonction des interconnexions, tels que soft space (espace transversal) et fuzzy boundaries (délimitations floues). Éléments fondamentaux d'un vocabulaire servant à conceptualiser l'apparition de nouveaux espaces de gouvernance en réseau, ces deux concepts doivent leur place dans la réflexion actuelle au fait qu'ils tentent de traduire la théorie en politiques, et les politiques en actions. D'où une question essentielle : comment le lexique de la nouvelle planification spatiale parvient‐il à donner une traduction, à se superposer et àêtre comparable aux imaginations spatiales des responsables locaux, gouvernementaux et non gouvernementaux, qui doivent mettre en œuvre et concrétiser la stratégie? En partant de l'après‐dévolution galloise de l'étude de cas, ce travail s'appuie sur des résultats d'entretiens pour effectuer une analyse critique sur l'impact du 'Wales Spatial Plan' en tant que stratégie révélatrice de la nouvelle planification spatiale opérationnelle, et sur les conséquences de ce programme pour la fourniture des services.
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate whether there has been a change in the level of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure and to determine whether corporate governance attributes influence CSR disclosure in corporate annual reports of Malaysian government‐linked companies (GLCs).Design/methodology/approachThe annual reports of 27 GLCs for two years (2005 and 2007) were analysed using content analysis. Multiple regression analysis was performed to identify factors influencing CSR disclosure in annual reports.FindingsConsistent with expectations, the paired‐sample t‐tests showed that there was an increase (significant at the 1 percent level) in the extent of CSR disclosure. The multiple regression analysis revealed that board size was positively associated and statistically significant (at the 1 percent level) with the extent of CSR disclosure.Research limitations/implicationsThe regression model reported an R2 of 33.9 percent, which means that almost 66 percent of factors influencing CSR disclosure in Malaysian GLCs have not been captured by the model. These other factors may perhaps be identified through other research methods such as questionnaire surveys or interviews.Practical implicationsThe findings appear to suggest that the government efforts in promoting CSR among GLCs through the introduction of the Silver Book in 2006 have had some positive impact on CSR disclosure in annual reports. The results also imply that larger board size through wider exchange of ideas and experience could lead to better appreciation and involvement in corporate social activities and hence disclosure in annual reports.Originality/valueThis paper is one of the few studies to examine CSR disclosure and corporate governance attributes in GLCs after the introduction of new initiatives to promote CSR.
