Different Groups Of Actors Research Articles

The Land Conversion in the Urbanization Process of China and Ecosystem Service Value

The paper studies the changes of welfare and ecosystem service value (ESV) in urbanization process under the fact that the land is a kind of ecological capital. We develop a model to analyze the impact of the current hybrid governance structure on the welfare changes for different groups of actors and calculate the ESV changes caused by the urbanization in the Hang-Jia-Hu region (China) between 1994 and 2003. The results show that the farmers’ welfare and the net social welfare will be changed comparing to the results of Rong TAN, Futian QU (2011) and the ESV decreases; the declines of ESV can reach up to 3% of the GDP in the study region.

Ecosystem engineer unleashed: Prosopis juliflora threatening ecosystem services?

The introduction of fast-growing plant species has been a strategy worldwide to combat problems arising from land degradation. Prosopis juliflora is an ecosystem engineer that was introduced to Ethiopia in the 1970s to address erosion problems but has subsequently become an important invader. This paper analyzes the spread of P. juliflora in Baadu, located in the middle Awash Basin of Ethiopia, qualitatively assesses its impacts on ecosystem services and identifies research needs and challenges for sustainable land management. The plant was introduced in 1983 around cotton farms in the case study region to provide erosion regulation. By the year 2013, P. juliflora had invaded 20,000 ha (40 % of wetlands). It partly invaded also the riverbanks and agricultural lands and is expanding into adjacent dryland areas. The negative impacts of this invasion are partially offset by provisioning of firewood and charcoal. However, the difficulties to control its rapid spread indicate that the threats it poses to ecosystem services, people’s livelihoods and lifestyles may exceed its benefits. We argue for an integrated research approach that considers both the services and disservices, as well as the social discourse among different groups of actors to appropriately address this issue and identify options for sustainable action.

Boundaries of Welfare between the EU and Member States during the ‘Great Recession’

This paper focuses on the changing boundaries of welfare between EU and national levels by developing a dynamic and actor-centred approach, where different groups of actors compete to influence the social and economic dimensions of EU social policy. The success of ideas and policies around welfare-state reform changes over time in line with socio-economic conditions as well as shifting political-party governmental coalitions in the Council. We argue that in particular the economically oriented actors, including the European Central Bank, have been successful in the context of the Great Recession. More recently, social priorities around notions such as social investment are becoming more central in the EU debate on economic and social policy.

Status quo and potential of health services research: the perspective of Bavarian actors

In 2011, the Bavarian Parliament decided to advance health services research (HSR) in Bavaria by bundling scientific competencies in a State Working Group and integrating other actors in it. The establishment of such a State Working Group "Health Services Research" -(LAGeV) together with members from science, health care and politics followed in 2012. The objective of this study is to identify the status quo of HSR in Bavaria including its determinants and potential for development based on the actors' perspective.After the inaugural meeting a semi-structured questionnaire was sent to all 36 members from 28 organisations. Items comprise information on the respondent's background as well as status quo, future topics and potential for development of HSR in Bavaria.27 members took part in the survey, resulting in a response rate of 75.0%. Satisfaction of actors with the status quo of HSR is rather low, especially regarding the effectiveness of policy advice. Researchers and health care providers are also not much satisfied with the HSR environment. For the future of HSR, respondents prioritise the topics interface and networking research, followed by innovative care concepts, care for patients with multiple or chronic conditions as well as evaluation of innovations, processes and technologies. Potential for development and thus improvement of care is primarily seen in the abolishment of existing constraints by an overall HSR concept (including selective research promotion), networking and cooperation, research funding as well as improving the interface between politics and science. Respondents assess the benefit of an increased networking within the LAGeV as high.Status quo of HSR in Bavaria is not very satisfactory. The survey reveals important constraints as well as promoting factors based on the viewpoints of different groups of actors. It also prioritises future HSR topics and identifies potential for development, which are important for the LAGeV. The findings can be used for advancing HSR in Bavaria and beyond.

Introduction: multiplicity and plurality in the world of standards

Globalization is often described as a chaotic process which signals the end of national institutions’ ability to regulate markets. However, a closer look reveals a new world of standards and regulations, often with a transnational scope and reach. Contemporary rule making and rule monitoring increasingly take place in the context of transnational arenas that bring around the table many different types of actors, all of whom have or feel to have a “stake” in the regulatory project at hand, yet often for quite diverse reasons and with varying interests. While standardization would seem to suggest regularity, rationalization, and a reduction of diversity if not the advance of homogeneity and convergence, we can easily document a surprising multiplicity and plurality in our transnational world of standards. In most industries, fields and arenas, we find multiple standards and standard setting coalitions. Even so, scholars have only barely started to explore this multiplicity and plurality. Building upon what we know on technical standards, this Symposium describes and explains important patterns in the world of transnational standard-setting, revealing the nature of this plurality and the ways in which it impacts upon and is impacted by different groups of actors involved.

Cosmopolitanism as Cultural Capital: Exploring the Intersection of Globalization, Education and Stratification

In recent years, sociological research on cosmopolitanism has begun to draw on Pierre Bourdieu to critically examine how cosmopolitanism is implicated in stratification on an increasingly global scale. In this paper, we examine the analytical potential of the Bourdieusian approach by exploring how education systems help to institutionalize cosmopolitanism as cultural capital whose access is rendered structurally unequal. To this end, we first probe how education systems legitimate cosmopolitanism as a desirable disposition at the global level, while simultaneously distributing it unequally among different groups of actors according to their geographical locations and volumes of economic, cultural, and social capital their families possess. We then explore how education systems undergird profitability of cosmopolitanism as cultural capital by linking academic qualifications that signal cosmopolitan dispositions with the growing number of positions that require extensive interactions with people of multiple nationalities.

Producing European armaments: Policymaking preferences and processes

Nothing is more important to Europe’s future as a security actor than supplying its armed forces with modern weaponry. Because individual states lack the research and development budgets and scale economies to remain autarkic, the survival of Europe’s defence-industrial base depends on international cooperation. As in other areas of international affairs, the ability of states to cooperate ‘under anarchy’ is inextricably tied to the existence of international institutions. However, the nature of arms production renders the design of institutions particularly challenging. Problems lie in both the multiplicity of potential cooperative outcomes and the variety of policy tools available. Ultimately, the choice of policies and policy tools can generate friction between the key groups of actors involved in defence-industrial policymaking. This study systematically explores how variations in the structure of international armaments institutions have shaped both the influence of different groups of actors and the nature of collaborative weapons projects. To preview my conclusions, three broad trends can be observed in the evolution of armaments institutions. These are as follows: (1) the gradual incorporation of a larger number of actors into the arms cooperation process; (2) the incremental exclusion of military professionals from armaments institutions; and (3) the growing influence of corporate actors.

Enhancing the sustainability of commodity supply chains in tropical forest and agricultural landscapes

The rapid expansion of the production of agricultural commodities such as beef, cocoa, palm oil, rubber and soybean is associated with high rates of deforestation in tropical forest landscapes. Many state, civil society and market sector actors are engaged in developing and implementing innovative interventions that aim to enhance the sustainability of commodity supply chains by affecting where and how agricultural production occurs, particularly in relation to forests. These interventions – in the form of novel or moderated institutions and policies, incentives, or information and technology – can influence producers directly or achieve their impacts indirectly by influencing consumer, retailer and processor decisions. However, the evidence base for assessing the impacts of these interventions in reducing the negative impacts of commodity agriculture production in tropical forest landscapes remains limited, and there has been little comparative analysis across commodities, cases, and countries. Further, there is little consensus of the governance mechanisms and institutional arrangements that best support such interventions. We develop a framework for analyzing commodity supply chain interventions by different actors across multiple contexts. The framework can be used to comparatively analyze interventions and their impacts on commodity production with respect to the spatial and temporal scales over which they operate, the groups of supply chain actors they affect, and the combinations of mechanisms upon which they depend. We find that the roles of actors in influencing agricultural production depends on their position and influence within the supply chain; that complementary institutions, incentives and information are often combined; and that multi-stakeholder collaborations between different groups of actors are common. We discuss how the framework can be used to characterize different interventions using a common language and structure, to aid planning and analysis of interventions, and to facilitate the evaluation of interventions with respect to their structure and outcomes. Studying the collective experience of multiple interventions across commodities and spatial contexts is necessary to generate more systematic understandings of the impacts of commodity supply chain interventions in forest-agriculture landscapes.

Who Gets on the News? The relation between media biases and different actors in news reporting on complex policy processes

Having a voice in media is important to gain power and legitimacy in policy processes. However, media are biased in transmitting information. Using a quantitative content analysis of ten years’ news reporting around water management policies in the Netherlands, we study how much media attention different groups of actors receive and how media biases relate to this attention. Executive politicians get on the news because of their authoritative position; less authoritative actors getting on the news is more related to information biases. Information biases can thus function as a form of checks and balances in news reporting on policy processes.

Technology Planning for Energy and Climate in the US and EU

Emerging technologies are not simply pursued out of economic interests, but also on the basis of assumptions about the societies and publics that technologies will serve. This paper compares how carbon dioxide capture and storage – a technology for sustainable energy generation – has been supported in the United States and European Union over the last decade. Distinct land ownership laws and market structures have helped legitimate different groups of actors as stakeholders in the technology, and CO2 has been redefined in relation to different policy narratives and legal ontologies in the two sites. Climate change mitigation might appear to depend on international cooperation founded on a shared epistemic basis. However, this article suggests that mitigation options should not simply be assessed as functions of technical qualities, but also be understood in relation to how political actors articulate and pursue the societal implications of technological futures.

The Europeanisation of the measurement of diversity in education: a soft instrument of public policy

Faced with an increasing number of data and rankings, the author questions the roles of the different groups of actors who were originally involved in questioning the use of statistical indicators as a means of addressing issues of access to higher education. The comparison and nature of these international (UNESCO, OECD, EUROSTAT) and national (Germany, England, France, Switzerland) indicators in matters of inequalities of access to higher education question the tension between the discourses and the indicators they generate, and their recording at the national level. Who says what and with what consequences? What range of actors are involved in this process? What kind of power relations forms them? The author discusses how the issue of inequalities of access to higher education got on to the agendas of European organisations, identifies the policies that were defined, and sets them against an array of indicators, showing the discrepancy between the discourses and what the indicators reveal, the gap between the recommendations and the available tools. Why is there such a contrast? What are the mechanisms at work? Is it a technical or a political problem? What does this discrepancy reveal as far as national specificities within the construction of social inequalities are concerned?

Aid Relations and Aid Legitimacy: mutual imaging of aid workers and recipients in Nepal

This paper considers mutual imaging of aid workers and Bhutanese refugees in Nepal. Based on a theoretical perspective of aid as a socially negotiated arena, the contextual and interactionist concept of imaging is used, rather than labelling (which is done to people), or perceptions (located in one actor's head). The paper uses a Q-methodology that symmetrically researches different groups of actors by posing the same questions. Our data confirm that the distinctions between the way aid workers and recipients view themselves, each other and the aid provided were more gradual than clear-cut between categories and that the legitimacy of aid workers is not determined by the perceived quality of aid. Problems with routinised aid were not translated into negative images, whereas problems with new and irregular types of aid were. Our research indicates the importance of the interaction between implementing staff and active beneficiaries. The roles of these active volunteers and incentive workers are important but ambiguous. They may smooth the divide between aid agencies and clients, but their proximity to the aid regime may also lead to tensions. The way these roles are played out and the effect this has on imaging and aid legitimacy is an area for further research.

Relationship development in Greenfield expansions

This paper investigates conceptually how new Greenfield subsidiaries develop relationships over time. We focus our analysis on the earliest start-up stage of new Greenfield subsidiaries, and on the dynamics of relationships development with five different groups of actors within the MNC and the local environment of the new Greenfield. We argue that relationship strength, or the intensity of interaction and resource exchange, depends on the new Greenfield's degree of dependence or interdependence within these relationships and develop propositions based on institutional theory, resource dependency theory and network approaches. In the concluding sections we suggest directions for future work to enhance understanding of the dynamics of relationship management in new Greenfield expansions.

A multi-actor multi-criteria scenario analysis of regional sustainable resource policy

The increasing scarcity of natural resources prompts the need to develop effective strategies for sustainable development at regional levels with a view to balancing the interests of different groups of actors or stakeholders. This study aims to address the stakeholders' multifaceted viewpoints on future sustainable development, mainly at regional scales. To this end, five experimental test cases – in the form of five different case studies in Europe – are analyzed, to encapsulate different approaches and different needs for sustainable development. A ‘pentagon model’ is used to represent systematically five critical aspects of sustainability. To analyze the trade-offs and synergies between different objectives on sustainable development, four distinct scenarios – competitiveness; continuity; capacity; and coherence – reflecting distinct and relevant images of sustainability are presented. The relative merits of these four scenarios are empirically assessed by means of a particular type of multi-criteria analysis: namely, regime analysis. The analysis is carried out by ranking different attributes of sustainable development, i.e. social, economic, ecological, institutional profile, and physical, from the perspective of different stakeholders. We find that the most preferred sustainable future is the coherence scenario, in which a combination of ecological and social aspects is the most important determinants.

Regional innovation policy and public-private partnership: The case of Triple Helix Arenas in Western Sweden

Policies for regional innovation in Sweden rely on the view that different groups of actors enter into collaboration on the basis of a mutual interest. One recent organisational expression of this view is the development of innovation policy and development organisations known as 'Arenas'. These organisations were modelled on the Triple Helix innovation theory, which is known for promoting innovation as collaboration between industry, university and policy. This paper analyses the historical development of two such Arenas, which were created by public and private actors in two Swedish cities. The study used a historical case-study approach, combined with interviews with project management and project workers, to highlight the difficulties in stabilising broad collaboration patterns. The paper concludes that diverging interests may result in unresolved tensions within Triple Helix Arenas. (Less)

Integration and the Context of Law: Why the European Court of Justice is Not a Political Actor

What characterizes the EU today is that it is not only a multi-level governance system, but also a multi-context system. The making of Europe does not just take place on different levels within the European political framework, executed and fostered by different groups of actors or institutions. Rather, it also happens in different and distinguishable social contexts – distinct functional, historical, and local frameworks of reasoning and action – that political science alone cannot sufficiently analyze with conventional and generalizing models of explanation. The European law is such a context and it should be perceived as a self-contained sphere governed by a specific logic and rationality that constitute a self-generating impetus for integration. As a consequence, Europe’s legal sphere and the processes happening within its boundaries have to be carefully distinguished from politics. Following this line of argument, it will be shown that the perception of the European Court of Justice as an actor engaging in judicial politics or politically motivated expansionist lawmaking has to be rethought. Only by examining and analyzing the context of European law as an independent space of reasoning and action may the role of Europe’s high court in the process of integration be adequately captured.

Rural to urban land conversion in China — How large is the over-conversion and what are its welfare implications?

The current system of converting farmland to urban land use in China can be characterized as a hybrid system that combines government controls with market-based transfers. In this paper we argue that this hybrid governance structure causes an over-conversion of farmland from the rural to the urban sector, as compared to a competitive market situation, and a welfare reallocation that discriminates against farmland owners. We develop a partial equilibrium model that can be used to examine the impact of the current hybrid governance structure on the over-conversion of farmland and to analyze the welfare changes for different groups of actors and the resulting net social welfare loss. Using a dataset with detailed information on farmland acquisitions and urban land transactions in Yingtan City in Jiangxi Province, we illustrate how this framework can be applied. Our results indicate an over-conversion of 33.5% of the total converted farmland in this city between 1999 and 2003. The welfare of farmland owners affected by the conversion decreased by 1.38 billion RMB, while the net social welfare loss equaled more than 270 million RMB during the same period. The local government obtained 380 million RMB of revenues by re-selling farmland as urban land through competitive conveyance mechanisms between 2002 and 2005, while the manufacturing sector gained an estimated 280 million RMB from buying land use rights at relatively low prices. We conclude that the current policy of increasing urban land conveyance through competitive mechanisms does not address two major underlying causes of over-conversion, and that protection of farmland would be better served by replacing the current hybrid rural to urban land market structure by a competitive land market. ► The current system of converting farmland to urban land use in China combines government controls with market-based transfers. ► We present a partial equilibrium framework that can be used to examine the degree of over-conversion of farmland and its welfare implications. ► Over-conversion of farmland in Yingtan City, Jiangxi between 1999 and 2003 amounted to 33.5 % of the total converted farmland. ► The estimated welfare loss of farmland owners in Yingtan City equaled 1.38 billion RMB, and the estimated net social welfare loss amounted more than 270 million RMB. ► The current policy of increasing urban land conveyance through competitive mechanisms does not address major underlying causes of over-conversion.

Lobbying via Consultation — Territorial and Functional Interests in the Commission’s Consultation Regime

Starting off with a short introduction to the current Commission’s consultation regime the paper analyses participation of various actors in different consultation instruments of Directorate General Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities and Directorate General Health and Consumers based on quantitative data. Analyzing participation patterns of different groups of actors, we explain differences in participation patterns recurring to actor’s resources and the properties of the instrument as a means to effectively advocate positions. In particular, we test whether the new consultation instruments, designed to counter-balance the dominance of specific groups and professional lobbyists, meet their intended purpose in that they effectively reach out and include new, additional sets of actors. Our results indicate a spill-over between consultation and lobbying and underline the different roles attributed to different actors such as functional and territorial interest representatives in the Commission’s consultation regime.

Productivity, Capital Mobilization and Moral Hazard in Fisheries Share Contracts: Lake Nasser, Egypt

As part of an international research project on reservoir fisheries productivity in developing countries, this paper examines contractual relations in the Lake Nasser fishery, seeking to understand why so many seemingly redundant contract types coexist and what effect they have on productivity. Based on the results of a socio-economic survey conducted in the fishery and drawing on the literature on agricultural sharecropping and share remuneration systems in fisheries, the paper analyses the roles of the different contracts observed in the Lake Nasser fishery. In particular, it discusses the incentives, limitations, and opportunities that these contracts offer to the different groups of actors (gear owners, license owners, crew members), and shows how these arrangements influence and shape the fishing strategies, capital mobilisation, and ultimately labour productivity of those different groups. While the debate on share contracts generally seeks to assess their efficiency relative to other types of contracts, this paper argues that the relevant question is not how efficient the contracts are, but what functions are served by the various co-existing contracts, and why different actors may choose each type. While the standard explanations of risk management and the impossibility of close supervision seem to provide some insight into this, it is also clear that the actors in the fishery use these contracts to mobilise capital and combine productive resources with other actors. This interlinking is a key function of the contracts, and the diversity of resource endowments and needs of the different actors helps explain the diversity of contract types.

Politics in Robes?: The European Court of Justice and the Myth of 'Judicial Activism'

What characterizes the EU today is that it is not only a multi-level governance system, but also a multi-context system. The making of Europe does not just take place on different levels within the European political framework, executed by different groups of actors or institutions. Rather, it also happens in different and distinguishable social contexts – distinct functional, historical, and local frameworks of reasoning and action – that political science alone cannot sufficiently analyze with conventional and generalizing models of explanation. The European law is such a context, and it should be perceived as a self-contained sphere of argument and action that generates impetus for integration. Therefore, the role of the European Court of Justice in the process of integration may only be adequately captured by examining European law as an independent space of reasoning and action. key words: European Court of Justice (ECJ); Integration through Law; Integration Theory; Regional Integration; Rationalism; Trivial Rationalism; Context Rationality; Context of Law; Context Analysis; Judicial Politics. *Andreas Grimmel is a Ph.D. student and works as a lecturer at the University of Hamburg and the Europa-Kolleg Hamburg. He is also scientific consultant and managing director of the Gemeinschaft fur Politikberatung (Association for Political Advice, www.gpb-hamburg.de). This paper was written in 2010 during a research stay at the Department of POLIS (Department of Politics and International Studies) at the University of Cambridge, UK. The author thanks Dr. Arif Ahmed, Prof. Catherine Barnard, Prof. Bengt Beutler, Prof. Thomas Bruha, Prof. Alan Dashwood, Dr. Markus Gehring, Dr. Geoffrey Edwards, Prof. Armin Hatje, Prof. Jane Heal, Prof. Christopher Hill, Prof. Cord Jakobeit, and Dr. Julie Smith for their advice, guidance, and many helpful comments on this research.