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This paper explores the public perception of energy transition pathways, that is, individual behaviors, political strategies, and technologies that aim to foster a shift toward a low-carbon and sustainable society. We employed affective image analysis, a structured method based on free associations to explore positive and negative connotations and affective meanings. Affective image analysis allows to tap into affective meanings and to compare these meanings across individuals, groups, and cultures. Data were collected among university students in Norway (n = 106) and Germany (n = 125). A total of 25 energy transition pathway components were presented to the participants who generated one free association to each component by indicating the first that came to mind when thinking of the component. Participants evaluated their associations by indicating whether they considered each association to be positive, negative, or neutral. These associations were coded by two research assistants, which resulted in 2650 coded responses in the Norwegian sample and 2846 coded responses in the German sample. Results for the two samples are remarkably similar. The most frequent type of association is a general evaluation of the component, for example concerning its valence or its importance. The second most frequent types of association are requirements needed to implement the component (e.g., national policies) and consequences of the component (e.g., personal or environmental consequences). Individual behaviors (e.g., walking) elicited thoughts about consequences and requirements, but also about the prevalence of such behaviors. Associations in response to technologies (e.g., carbon capture and storage) mainly referred to some descriptive aspect of the technology. Evaluations of the free responses were predominantly positive, but some components also elicited negative associations, especially nuclear power. The free associations that people generate suggest that they have vague and unspecific knowledge about energy transition pathways, that they process them in an automatic and intuitive rather than deliberative manner, and that they have clear affective evaluations of the presented components. ; publishedVersion

This paper explores the public perception of energy transition pathways, that is, individual behaviors, political strategies, and technologies that aim to foster a shift toward a low-carbon and sustainable society. We employed affective image analysis, a structured method based on free associations to explore positive and negative connotations and affective meanings. Affective image analysis allows to tap into affective meanings and to compare these meanings across individuals, groups, and cultures. Data were collected among university students in Norway (n = 106) and Germany (n = 125). A total of 25 energy transition pathway components were presented to the participants who generated one free association to each component by indicating the first that came to mind when thinking of the component. Participants evaluated their associations by indicating whether they considered each association to be positive, negative, or neutral. These associations were coded by two research assistants, which resulted in 2650 coded responses in the Norwegian sample and 2846 coded responses in the German sample. Results for the two samples are remarkably similar. The most frequent type of association is a general evaluation of the component, for example concerning its valence or its importance. The second most frequent types of association are requirements needed to implement the component (e.g., national policies) and consequences of the component (e.g., personal or environmental consequences). Individual behaviors (e.g., walking) elicited thoughts about consequences and requirements, but also about the prevalence of such behaviors. Associations in response to technologies (e.g., carbon capture and storage) mainly referred to some descriptive aspect of the technology. Evaluations of the free responses were predominantly positive, but some components also elicited negative associations, especially nuclear power. The free associations that people generate suggest that they have vague and unspecific knowledge about energy transition ...

15 páginas, un mapa, 6 tablas y una figura ; Large Scale Grazing Systems (LSGSs) in Europe are extensive systems of grassland management, which have developed from the interaction of historical background, human behaviour and natural resources, and are mainly located in the Less Favoured Areas (LFAs). LSGSs currently face competing threats towards intensification and/or abandonment but, at the same time, they harbour a significant part of European nature values. Socio-economic driving forces of land abandonment and intensification are poorly addressed. The current system assumes that these LSGSs are inherently uneconomic and only payments for the potential delivery of environmental services and side line activities are the source of continuity and justification of support. Our conceptual approach, however, is based on the assumptions that endogenous development and targeted policy schemes cannot be disregarded. A framework profile is provided for the identification and description of European LSGSs where regeneration plans can be more cost-effective. Under this conceptual approach, operational tools such as pastoral strategies for survival and system-specific management alternatives can be devised for interplay of environmental and socio-economic functions, facilitating interdisciplinary research within and across systems. From the empirical perspective, we show how the trend of abandonment of LSGS in the last 60 years is spread over different regions of Europe, how management alternatives are designed for six separate LSGS, and how beneficial management alternatives, environmental functions and side line activities cited by experts on an additional sample of 46 European LSGS are grouped by type of action. We conclude that the continuity of LSGSs in the European Union (EU) may require a new and sustainable intensification path with new farming models and farming categories as far removed from the conventional intensification path as from the low-input, nature reserve and generalised policy support paradigms. Beneficial management with key actions can be a sensible rationale for specific and dynamic support to LSGS in the next CAP reform post-2013, time of stressing budgetary conditions. ; The author wishes to thank partners of the EU-funded LACOPE project (Contract EVK2-CT-2002-00150) for discussion and implementation of the LSGS concept and descriptions of the six LACOPE case studies, and to Xavier Fernández Santos in drafting the map. The author wishes to thank the following representative experts for their contributions in filling out the 46 questionnaires on the territorial identity of European LSGS and further narrative comments and explanations to their responses: Brendan Duncan (case study N° 1 in the map), Norbert Röder (2), Ewa Tyran (3), Juan Antonio Valladares (4), Niklas Labba (5), Teresa D. Soares and Augusta Costa (6), Nathaniel Page and Razvan Popa (7), Sally Huband (8), Geza Nagy (9), Rosario Fanlo (10), Suzana Kratovalieva (11), Nikos Theodoridis (12), Senija Alibegovic and Muhamed Brka (13), Anna Sidiropoulou and Vasilios P. Papanastasis (14), Pius Hofstetter (15), Andy Guy and Ian Condliffe (16), Giovanni Peratoner (17), Paride D'Ottavio (18), Lucia Sepe and Salvatore Claps (19), Tommaso La Mantia and Salvatore Pasta (20), Iva I. Apostolova (21), Tiiu Koff (22), Giampiero Lombardi (23), Anna Berg and Ulf Segerström (24), Berien Elbersen (25), Antun Alegro and Renata Sostaric (26), Fernando J. Pulido (27), Veronica Sarateanu (28), Rosa M. Canals (29), Rainer Luick (30), Jan Jansen (31), Ivica Ljubicic (32), Federico Fillat (33), Terry McCormick, Stephen Lard and Lois Mansfield (34), Marina Meca Ferreira de Castro (35), Bruce Forbes and Ari Laakso (36), Edgar Reisinger (37), Martin Stock (38), Martin Vadella (39), Marijn Nijssen (40), Jacques Lasseur (41), Davy McCracken (42), Pier Paolo Roggero and Simonetta Bagella (43), Marie-José Gaillard (44, 45). Particular thanks are due to Norbert Röder, Davy McCracken, and Lucia Sepe for their amendments and comments to a first draft of this paper. ; Peer reviewed

A framework to account for social acceptance in the modelling of energy-transition pathways is outlined. The geographical focus is on the Nordic-Baltic energy region and the technological focus is on onshore wind power and power transmission, which are considered key technologies in achieving carbon-neutral energy systems in northern Europe. We combine qualitative analysis of social acceptance with quantitative assessments of scenarios using techno-economic energy-system modelling. Key factors in and consequences of social acceptance are identified, especially environmental, health, and distributional factors, as well as costs for developers and society. The energy system analysis includes four scenarios illustrating the system effects and costs of low social acceptance. The results indicate that if low social acceptance were to restrict investments in onshore wind power, costlier solar photovoltaics and offshore wind power would step in. Greater social acceptance cost for onshore wind and transmission lines favours local solutions and a more balanced renewable energy mix. There are important distributional effects: no restrictions on transmission line investments benefit power producers while raising consumer prices in the Nordic-Baltic energy region, while very low social acceptance of onshore wind power would lead to 12% higher consumer costs. The results imply that socio-technical and political factors such as social acceptance may significantly affect transition pathway scenarios based on techno-economic variables alone. Therefore, the techno-economic, socio-technical and political layers of co-evolution of energy systems should be considered when analysing long-term energy transitions. It is important to link energy-system models with a consideration of the dynamics of socio-technical factors. ; Peer reviewed

This article examines the political legacies of the transition process from authoritarian to democratic rule in the Philippines and their impact on the process of democratic consolidation. The consolidation process has been particularly difficult because of a combination of the following factors: a state with weak capacities, a vibrant but contentious civil society, and a slow growth economy that has accentuated class, regional, and religious cleavages. In the post-Marcos era, an outstanding feature of the consolidation process, however, has been the unusual ability of militant social movements to be part of the broader process of democratic incorporation through the electoral party-list system while maintaining their contentious politics of claim-making on behalf of marginalized sectors. This unique feature constitutes an important aspect of the consolidation process that the state needs to address, particularly in the context of its capacity-building efforts.(Contemp Southeast Asia/DÜI)

Questions about the future of the energy system in the UK have, in recent years become deeply entangled with a number of previously discrete intellectual, commercial and policy domains. Not least, the emergence of what Hulme (2009) refers to as 'upper-case Climate Change' to distinguish this discourse from the routine dynamics of weather and climate systems, with its imperative massively to reduce global production of greenhouse gases within the next 50-60 years, has added a sense of urgency and a different rationale to underpin future strategies for managing the energy sector than has previously been the case. Each IPCC assessment report has provided stronger justification for the need for action; many governments in the developed world have responded by seizing opportunities to review, redirect and /or renew their energy policies and provide a framework for future investment by the private sector (see, for example, DTI 2003, 2006, 2007) whilst seizing opportunities to benefit from the rapid deployment of technological innovations to support the growth of 'clean energy' systems.