Key Policy Makers Research Articles

Varieties of framing the circular economy and the bioeconomy: unpacking business interests in European policymaking

ABSTRACT This article analyses policy framing as a means of interest politics in the context of the European Union’s circular economy and bioeconomy agendas. It discusses the extent to which business actors engage with the concepts of circular economy and bioeconomy in their public communication, how they frame these concepts, and whether we can observe frame congruence with views held by key policymakers. Empirically the study compares the paper, plastics and bioplastics value chains using computer-assisted text analysis of industry and policy documents. The findings suggest that while industry actors proactively engage with both concepts, they diverge significantly in the ways they do so. This highlights the need to unpack business interests in order to account for frame varieties.

An Investigation of the Socio-Economic Benefits of Small-Scale Gold Mining in Malawi

In the recent years, there has been a surge in artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) in various districts of Malawi. Reports of a gold rush have emerged in various districts, including Mangochi, Lilongwe, Balaka, and lately in Kasungu. There has been persistence by many indigenous communities participating in ASGM activities, yet little is being done by the government to formalize and support the sub-sector. The purpose of this study was to investigate the benefits of artisanal small-scale gold mining in Malawi and expose the shortfalls so that key stakeholders and policy makers are well informed. A quantitative approach which used semi-structured questionnaires was used and the data was analyzed using Microsoft excel and Statistical Packages for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The study shows that ASGM is characterized by people with low literacy levels, who use traditional tools (low-tech) and use methods fueled by lack of capital, and deficiency of basic knowledge of mining and geology. The study found that the government could achieve substantial socio-economic development from the sector by: (1) revising the current artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) legislation so that it embraces the customary practices whilst safeguarding the environment and improving the tax collection base; (2) providing support in form of mining related training and education to these communities; (3) leading in transfer of modern technologies for improved extraction; (4) supporting ASM cooperatives in securing credit facilities from financial institutions; and (5) closing the existing knowledge gap for ASM related issues through introduction of mining desk officers in district councils.

State Preemption: An Emerging Threat to Local Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Taxation.

We sought to examine the strategies promoting and countering state preemption of local sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) taxes in the United States. Using Crosbie and Schmidt's tobacco preemption framework, we analyzed key tactics used by the SSB industry to achieve state preemption of local taxes identified in news sources, industry Web sites, government reports, and public documents.Starting in 2017, 4 states rejected and 4 passed laws preempting local SSB taxes. The beverage industry attempted to secure state preemption through front groups and trade associations, lobbying key policymakers, inserting preemptive language into other legislation, and issuing legal threats and challenges. The public health community's response is in the early stages of engaging in media advocacy, educating policymakers, mobilizing national collaboration, and expanding legal networks.State preemption of local SSB taxes is in the early stages but will likely scale up as local tax proposals increase. The public health community has a substantial role in proactively working to prevent preemption concurrent with health policy activity and using additional strategies successfully used in tobacco control to stop preemption diffusion.

Barriers and Interventions in Maintaining Education for Health Professionals During Conflict and War: A Systematic Review

Background: Conflicts negatively impact health professional education when healthcare is needed most. The aim of this systematic review was to describe the barriers and interventions identified in maintaining health professional education during times of conflict and war to inform key stakeholders and policy makers. Methods: We searched PubMed, EMBASE, and ERIC between June 20, 2018 and March 29, 2019, restricting our search to publications in English, using key search terms “war” “armed conflicts” “conflicts” “medical education” and “nursing education”. We included only peer reviewed publications without date ranges involving conflict or war, health professional education (medical school, residency training, and nursing school), with interventions described to maintain educational activities. Studies regarding continuing medical education and professional development were excluded. Two independent reviewers completed inclusion determinations, data abstraction, and thematic coding of results using Covidence. Outcomes were barriers and interventions identified in maintaining health professional education during conflict.Findings: Screening using MESH terms identified 3,271 articles, with 56 studies meeting final inclusion criteria. Publication dates ranged from 1914-2018 with 16 unique conflicts involving 35 countries. The majority of studies involved medical students (61.4%) followed by residents (28.6%) and nursing students (10% ). Thematic coding identified 5 distinct types of barriers and interventions in maintaining health professions education during conflict; curriculum, personnel, wellness, resources, and oversight. Interpretations: There are consistent and predictable barriers and enabling interventions identified in maintaining health professional education during times of conflict and war that should be considered when supporting and stabilizing these vital efforts. Funding Statement: Grant funding from Open Society Foundation’s Higher Education Support Program (OSF HESP).Declaration of Interests: We declare no conflicts of interests.Ethics Approval Statement: IRB Approval- Protocol #:2019P000131 Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Partners Healthcare.

New Normal Context in Health Care Settings after COVID-19 Pandemic: A Narrative Literature Review

COVID-19 is an infectious disease that rapidly developed into a pandemic status. This deemed a need for new strategies to carry out routine health care activities. The recent practices and adaptations of the system as a response to the pandemic status were called a new normal situation. The aim of the study was to describe principles for adaptation to a new normal context for health care settings in COVID-19 pandemic. This narrative review of literature was conducted based on policy documents, guidelines, and public notices issued by the government and other key policymakers from the United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore, and Canada between June 15, 2020, and July 15, 2020, available on their government websites. The study revealed several principles, namely, enhanced surveillance, phasedown strategy for restoring routine services, vulnerability, dynamics of the service demand, new principles in human resource management, infection control measures, supply and usage of personal protective equipment, demand for intensive-care unit bed capacity, coordination and collaboration internally and externally, promotion and utility of remote care, ensuring equity, pre-hospital communication and assessment before reaching service facility, enhancing clinician participation in local-level decision-making, and risk assessments within all levels of service facility. The results of this study exposed new principles that facilitated managerial decision-making to the adaptation of new strategies. This new normal context created many challenges for resource management, which needed to consider dynamics of demand of services, prevention of spreading infections, and readiness for surge of cases while safeguarding quality and safety.

An Investigation into Teleworking as An Innovative Work Practice in Small Business Enterprises in South Wales

The research reported in this paper was undertaken to investigate the importance of teleworking as an innovative work practice in small business enterprises (SBEs) in South Wales. In order to accomplish this the research uses a qualitative research approach which employed an online focus group and in-depth interviews through questionnaires and interviews with various organizations, employees and employers and key policy makers in Wales to construct a framework to provide greater understanding of this phenomenon. The research concludes that teleworking is regarded to be important for the advancement of SBEs in Wales. It is the first study to investigate and evaluate the practice of teleworking and how its innovative application framework affects SBEs directly in Wales to help businesses succeed.

Cryptocurrencies, DLT and crypto assets – the road to regulatory recognition in Europe

With Bitcoin, a new type of technology was born in 2008 when Satoshi Nakamoto released the white paper for a new cash payment system (Nakamoto 2008), which effectively invented blockchain technology. By 2015 the technology already gained a lot of interest among startups, financial institutions, and industrial enterprises. Besides Bitcoin, many other crypto assets emerged with various design approaches such as stablecoins, utility tokens, security tokens, decentralized finance (DeFi), and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Many of these tokens have an identifiable issuer to whom existing regulatory frameworks could potentially apply. However, other types of assets that are based on fully decentralized protocols are governed entirely by technology and either do not have an issuer (like in the case of Bitcoin) or the initiators designed the technology in an ‘issuerless’ way - and have no relation to any ‘real-world asset’. It is the latter class of assets that are truly new and that have recently attracted increasing attention from regulatory authorities, international organizations, standard-setting bodies, and the like. On the part of regulators and policymakers, interest in and the activity surrounding cryptocurrencies, crypto assets, and stablecoins peaked in 2019 so far. Of the several key regulators and policymakers at the supra-national level, nearly all issued a report, warning, study, or recommendations on some aspect of blockchain technology in financial markets. This spike in interest is related to the increasing business activity in this area and growing interest of investors and consumers. The exponential rise in the price of Bitcoin also attracted the interest of a wider audience (Edwards et al. 2019). The increasing business activity always preceded the actions of regulators and policymakers, thus rendering the activities of the latter a ‘reaction’ to the market developments. According to the Financial Stability Board (FSB), crypto assets reached an estimated total market capitalization of $830 billion on January 8, 2018, before falling sharply in subsequent months (Financial Stability Board 2018). While the global value of the crypto assets market is still relatively small compared to the entire financial system, its absolute value and daily transaction volume are substantial, and its rapid development continues, gaining increasing market acceptance (Basel Committee on Banking Supervision 2019). This paper seeks to analyze regulators’ and policymakers’ efforts to understand and develop an adequate regulatory approach to crypto assets, tokens, and the distributed ledger technology (DLT) in general. After several years of innovation in the space of decentralized technologies, several principles became clear on how to treat both issuer-based tokens and issuerless tokens. However, when regulators and policymakers tried at first to understand these new decentralized technologies and the assets they enable, it was not clear to them from the beginning how to treat assets based on this new technology. Only recently has it been possible to identify best regulatory practices and to disentangle good approaches to regulation from the ‘noise’ of warnings, recommendations, or studies. Liechtenstein has adopted a remarkable perspective on and vision for crypto assets and tokens by creating a set of abstract definitions and models and applying them in their bespoke regulatory approach. The Liechtenstein Token Act has therefore inspired other policymakers and subsequent regulatory actions. The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. First, we seek to present the history of ‘opinions’' on behalf of regulatory bodies and policymakers over the last years. These opinions often lacked clear definitions, understanding, and models but also included valuable contributions. In the next section, we present key definitions and models of the Liechtenstein Token Act and describe how these have been included in Liechtenstein’s national framework to build a solid basis for the emerging token economy. Thereafter, we describe how the European Union’s approach to regulate crypto assets - the Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA) - tackles crypto assets and tokens, and how it relates to the Liechtenstein Token Act. In the subsequent section, we review a variety of regulatory approaches and strategies. Finally, we offer concluding remarks.

The agency of reformers in new European financial centres: A historically informed financial geography

AbstractWhile institutional frameworks are the dominant approach to analysing the geography of finance, this article focuses on how individual policymakers influence the characteristics of financial institutions and set, or even alter, financial centre development. The historical narratives from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) that this article presents reveal postsocialist reformers’ contrasting philosophies and approaches, despite their shared goals of market liberalisation and European integration. These reforms (or lack thereof) differentiated the securities markets in Warsaw, Prague, and Budapest, especially with respect to financial intermediary mechanisms. Although the legacies of such reforms continue to shape an uneven landscape of financial centres in CEE, this article proposes reformer-centred narratives as an alternative to deterministic institutional thinking. The article argues that historical narratives that foreground the actions and ideas of key policymakers need to be included in the observation framework of financial centre development, in a similar way to how scholars analyse foreign policy by focusing on the heads of governments and ministers.

An Analysis of the Adoption and Implementation of A Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Tax in South Africa: A Multiple Streams Approach

ABSTRACT This paper describes a case study of the adoption and implementation of the sugar-sweetened beverage tax in South Africa, termed the Health Promotion Levy. Qualitative data extraction and analysis of institutional documents, such as policy proposals and parliamentary debate records, stakeholder submissions to Parliament and media reports, were guided by the Kingdon Multiple Streams Theory as adapted to study agenda setting, policy adoption, and implementation. We present the following key findings: First, consistent messaging from policy entrepreneurs, consisting of advocacy groups, health organizations, and research entities, was key to ensuring that a tax policy solution was proposed and passed. Second, the continuity of certain key policymakers contributed to the relatively expedient passage of the tax policy. Third, the use of an excise tax was, amongst others, an appealing policy solution because of its revenue-raising potential; however, uncertainty regarding the purpose of the tax negatively impacted public attitudes toward it. Fourth, industry arguments, relating to unemployment, were effective in restructuring the tax in favor of industry actors. Finally, regulatory action by sectors outside of finance and health impacted stakeholder perceptions of the tax and possibly obstructed regular annual adjustments for inflation.

Who is at risk? The development of a tool to predict and prevent postpartum hemorrhage

Background: Postpartum hemorrhage remains the main cause of maternal mortality in Low and Middle Income Countries. There is a need to advocate for extra vigilance to recognize women at a greater risk and implement early intervention for Postpartum hemorrhage prevention. The purpose of the present study is to develop a content validated risk assessment tool for the prediction and prevention of Postpartum hemorrhage among childbearing women.Methods: This study is drawn from a larger mixed method sequential exploratory study. Factors influencing the prevention of Postpartum hemorrhage were identified from a scoping review and qualitative descriptive studies previously conducted. To establish content validity Index of the instrument, content experts assessed each item of the tool for comprehensiveness, relevance, and face validity. The tool was pilot tested to assess its clinical utility by fifteen (15) health care providers purposively selected from one district hospital based on a minimum of one-year experience in maternity. Ethical considerations were observed.Results: The Risk Assessment Tool went through three rounds of assessment for its content validity. The final round of quantification of the content validity demonstrates that 4 items out of 46 had an Item Content Validity Index (I-CVI) of 0.85 while 42 had the maximum I-CVI of 1. The overall Scale Content Validity Index/ Average (S-CVI/Ave) was 0.98, and the universal approach of Scale Content Validity Index/Universal Agreement (S-CVI/UA) was 0.91. The assessment of clinical utility of Risk Assessment Tool for the Prediction and Prevention of Postpartum hemorrhage among Childbearing women (RATP) demonstrates that its format allows easy recording of findings and using the tool can be an added value for prevention of PPH.Conclusions: The risk assessment tool for the prediction and prevention of Postpartum hemorrhage is intended to be used by health care providers in Rwanda to identify mothers at risk of developing PPH and implement timely prevention strategies. The clinical use of the tool can be vital in the development of accurate preventive approaches by key policy makers in Rwanda in particular and in other developing countries.

Policy Series: Interdisciplinary Public Policy Discussion

Aging and health care public policy in Washington can be driven and influenced by the work of GSA researchers, educators, and practitioners from across the nation. This session will examine and explore public policy priorities from an interdisciplinary perspective and consider opportunities for communicating these policies with key policymakers. This session is an interdisciplinary look at policy issues in aging with the speakers representing views from the six sections of GSA. This session, organized by the GSA Public Policy Committee, will provide both GSA section leadership and attendees an opportunity to have an open dialogue on important public policy issues of significance in the field of aging. The session discussant will help to facilitate a robust discussion of the presentations by speakers. Organized by the GSA Public Policy Committee, this dialogue will benefit the work of the Committee in 2021.

Workforce Planning Models for Oral Health Care: A Scoping Review.

Background:For health care services to address the health care needs of populations and respond to changes in needs over time, workforces must be planned. This requires quantitative models to estimate future workforce requirements that take account of population size, oral health needs, evidence-based approaches to addressing needs, and methods of service provision that maximize productivity. The aim of this scoping review was to assess whether and how these 4 elements contribute to existing models of oral health workforce planning.Methods:A scoping review was conducted. MEDLINE, Embase, HMIC, and EconLit were searched, all via OVID. Additionally, gray literature databases were searched and key bodies and policy makers contacted. Workforce planning models were included if they projected workforce numbers and were specific to oral health. No limits were placed on country. A single reviewer completed initial screening of abstracts; 2 independent reviewers completed secondary screening and data extraction. A narrative synthesis was conducted.Results:A total of 4,009 records were screened, resulting in 42 included articles detailing 47 models. The workforce planning models varied significantly in their use of data on oral health needs, evidence-based services, and provider productivity, with most models relying on observed levels of service utilization and demand.Conclusions:This review has identified quantitative workforce planning models that aim to estimate future workforce requirements. Approaches to planning the oral health workforce are not always based on deriving workforce requirements from population oral health needs. In many cases, requirements are not linked to population needs, while in models where needs are included, they are constrained by the existence and availability of the required data. It is critical that information systems be developed to effectively capture data necessary to plan future oral health care workforces in ways that relate directly to the needs of the populations being served.Knowledge Transfer Statement:Policy makers can use the results of this study when making decisions about the planning of oral health care workforces and about the data to routinely collect within health services. Collection of suitable data will allow for the continual improvement of workforce planning, leading to a responsive health service and likely future cost savings.

Governmental accounting reforms at a time of crisis: the Italian governmental accounting harmonization

PurposeAcknowledging fiscal crises as critical junctures for policy makers, this paper investigates how the recent fiscal crisis has affected the paradigmatic approach to the design of an ongoing governmental accounting (GA) reform.Design/methodology/approachThis paper analyses the Italian GA harmonization as a peculiar instance of an ongoing GA reform at the crisis outbreak. A longitudinal narrative analysis of official documents is complemented with semi-structured interviews with key policy makers and participant observations.FindingsThe fiscal crisis is found to play an indirect role in the Italian GA reform, which, promoting centralization of competencies in the fields of GA, determines the intensification of the approach adopted before the crisis outbreak.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper extends the knowledge on the nature of post-crisis reforms by highlighting how fiscal crises can work as catalysts for paradigmatic approaches to ongoing GA reforms. This paper analyses the designing of a GA reform, whereas the long-term adaptations and outcomes of the reform are not taken into consideration.Practical implicationsThe tight link between GA and financial management issues featuring the current paradigmatic approaches to reforms suggests the need to design GA reforms consistently with fiscal and financial management policies.Originality/valueWhereas the extant literature on the nature of post-crisis reforms analyses the latter as responses to the former, this paper enlarges the knowledge on the topic by focusing on a peculiar instance of a GA reform that was ongoing at the crisis outbreak.

Policy makers' perception on the potential of adoption of the Tailored Activity Program (TAP) in Chile

AbstractBackgroundThe Tailored Activity Program (TAP) is an evidenced‐based program targeting behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia and caregivers’ readiness, among other outcomes. TAP has been tested and implemented in different settings and countries. Evidence‐based interventions face the challenge of transference and adoption with a complexity of dimensions. This study explored the perception of key stakeholders and policy makers related to dementia care on the potential adoption of TAP in Chile, utilizing Roger’s Model of Innovation‐Decision Process (1983).MethodQualitative study. Key policy makers related to Chile’s Ministry of Health, Ministry of Social Development, and National Plan of Dementia, were introduced to TAP’s main features, process, and outcomes, and later interviewed to describe the following five attributes of TAP: relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, observability. These attributes were extracted from the Persuasion Phase of Rogers’ Model of Innovation‐Decision Process (1983). Interviews were recorded and transcribed, and narrative content analysis was used to produce content categories. Ethical approval was obtained from the Scientific Ethics Committee of Adults, Metropolitan Health Service, Santiago, 2019. Informed consent was completed by all participants.ResultSeven interviews were performed to policy makers at a national level part of Chile’s National Plan of Dementia. Participants described TAP in a low‐level of complexity, easy to understand, and highly feasible for implementation, as well as highly compatible with existing efforts on dementia care in Chile, highlighting its observable results, pertinence for local testing and its comparative advantage to existing interventions.ConclusionPolicy makers value positively TAP’s features and its adoption is highly feasible within current initiatives on dementia care in Chile.

Addressing antimicrobial resistance in China: progress and challenges in translating political commitment into national action

Background: In 2016, 14 department ministers collaboratively launched China's five-year National Action Plan (NAP) on antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The NAP sets out strategic objectives including diagnostic innovation, mandatory prescriptions for antibiotics in human and animal use, antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) in hospitals, and professional capacity building. We conducted an interim post-implementation analysis to assess the impact of the NAP and provide critical insights about where efforts should focus next. Methods and materials: We synthesized evidence from multiple sources, including 1) the World Health Organisation (WHO) global tripartite database of country progress in addressing AMR, 2) two national surveillance networks, China Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (CARSS) and China Antimicrobial Surveillance Network (CHINET), collectively reporting cross-sectional and time-series data of AMR epidemiology, and 3) published literature and government documents. The analysis was validated by key strategic and operational policy makers in China, including the Chief Advisor of the National Consultative Expert Commission of AMR Containment, who also scored a 7-dimension framework to identify levers for future change. Results: Legislative enforcement in antibiotic use in paediatric patients and food-producing animals, and national surveillance with timely mandatory reporting and data accessibility highlighted the country's progress, reflected by the reduction in broad-spectrum antibiotic consumptions for surgical prophylaxis and among hospital inpatients; and decrease in total hospital resistance and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) incidence. Tailored training and research has been embedded in hospitals to guide clinical practice and minimise skill and knowledge gaps in healthcare professionals. However, areas for improvement remain. AMR is absent from the nation's wider public health agenda, including Healthy China 2030, which lacks any strategic measure to address AMR. Shortages of qualified general practitioners and low utilisation of nursing workforce hindered local implementation of top-level policy directive. Organisational regulation relies on administrative power rather than dedicated professional roles. Further, pharmaceutical industry continues incentivising prescription and over-the-counter sales. Low public awareness, driven by limited health literacy about anti-infective and anti-inflammatory drugs, remains a barrier to engaging patients and citizens to promote optimal AMS and infection prevention. Conclusion: Despite the progress, China faces challenges across health systems. A whole-health-economy approach is needed to involve wider stakeholders to achieve sustainable long-term benefit.

Introducing an innovative model of acute paediatric mental health and addictions care to paediatric emergency departments: a protocol for a multicentre prospective cohort study

IntroductionChildren and youth with mental health and addiction crises are a vulnerable patient group that often are brought to the hospital for emergency department care. We propose to evaluate the...

Stakeholders' perception of the adoption potential of TAP: Lessons from Chile

AbstractBackgroundChile’s National Plan of Dementia has been implemented since 2017. This national strategy has the urgent need to develop or adopt non pharmacological interventions targeting people with dementia and caregivers. The Tailored Activity Program (TAP) is an evidenced‐based program that has been translated to different contexts, however, its outreach in Chile is still under development. This study describes how key stakeholders involved in the National Plan of Dementia in Chile perceive this intervention’s characteristics.MethodThis is a qualitative study addressing the perceptions of key policy makers involved in the National Plan of Dementia on the characteristics of the TAP. Interviews were recorded and transcribed, and content analysis was used to describe stakeholders’ perception. Written consent was completed by all participants. Ethical approval was obtained from the Scientific Ethics Committee of Adults, Metropolitan Health Service, Santiago, 2019.ResultSeven stakeholders were interviewed, all directly involved in the design, implementation, or evaluation of the actions part of the National Plan of Dementia in Chile. Six main categories describing stakeholders’ perception of TAP were produced: 1) Feelings towards TAP, 2) How they see TAP, 3) What to expect from TAP, 4) Institutional fit, 5) Profiles of providers, and 6) Suggestions for a pilot study.ConclusionStakeholders in Chile show a positive perception of the TAP, offering relevant information on the potential adoption of the TAP in a new context.

NPM Reforms in Ghana’s Public Sector Management & Administration: Changing Trends in MDAs & MMDAs Functions

The purpose of the study is to examine the new public management (NPM) reforms in Ghana’s Ministries, Departments and Agencies, and at the local government level in terms of key changes implemented and its successes. The study also examines the challenges that have been encountered in the implementation process and recommendations to address the weaknesses in the system. The methodology used is based on the qualitative approach and the descriptive method. The findings in the study show that regardless of the in-roads made since the introduction of the NPM reforms, a number of challenges such as lack of expertise, lack of political will, inadequate resources among others, continue to affect the performance of Ghana’s civil service, which in turn, impact the delivery of public services. The study recommends that NPM reforms must seek to increase levels of accountability because monitoring the performance of key institutions will go a long way to promote efficiency and effectiveness in the public service. The significance of the study is that it provides key insights into important issues in Ghana’s NPM reforms, which can serve as useful tools for decision makers in moving the reforms towards accomplishing its goals more successfully. The outlined challenges and recommendations will inform the government, key policy makers and local government officials to enable them address the challenges affecting the effective implementation of NPM reforms. This study further contributes toward academic discussions relating to the impact of NPM reforms in Ghana and Africa in general.

Why the French Said ‘Non’: A New Perspective on the Hoover Moratorium of June 1931

Why did the French government delay its endorsement of the Hoover Moratorium in the summer of 1931? Key policymakers were fully aware that their stance would exacerbate the German financial crisis, which ultimately dragged the European economy into the abyss. Most historical accounts identify the plan for an Austro-German customs union, which became known publicly in March 1931, as a major cause for the French ‘non’. We suggest a different chronology by showing that the French government was reluctant to help Germany as early as the fall of 1930 when, in the wake of the Nazi victory in the Reichstag elections, a currency crisis threatened to ruin the German monetary and financial system and bring down the government. We also argue that the reason for this French reluctance to extend financial help to Germany was the traumatic experience resulting from the evacuation of the Rhineland in June 1930. This chauvinistic outburst in Germany not only frightened the French public, but also made it clear to French politicians how the lack of military cooperation with the Anglo-Saxon powers had made France highly vulnerable on its Eastern front. After June 1930 a financial bargain with Germany became unrealistic, due to domestic opposition.

Dynamic Stability of Soil Carbon: Reassessing the “Permanence” of Soil Carbon Sequestration

Enhancing soil organic matter in agricultural soils has potential to contribute to climate mitigation while also promoting soil health and resilience. However, soil carbon (C) sequestration projects are rare in C markets. One concern surrounding soil C is uncertainty regarding the permanence of newly sequestered soil C. This scientific uncertainty is exacerbated by differences in terminology used by scientists and policymakers, which impedes the integration of new scientific findings regarding soil carbon longevity into evidence-based policies. Here, we review the evolution of understanding of soil C lifespan and the language used to describe it in both scientific and policy sectors. We find that recent scientific findings that have bearing on soil C lifespan are not part of discussions surrounding C policy, and conversely, policymaker concerns are not clearly addressed by scientific research. From a policy perspective, soil C is generally assumed to be a vulnerable pool at risk of being quickly lost via microbial degradation or other avenues of physical loss if soil C building practices are not maintained indefinitely. This assumption has been challenged by recent scientific advances demonstrating that microbial consumption and transformation of plant-derived C actually necessary for the long-term storage of soil organic matter. Here, we argue that soil C longevity can best be understood as resulting from continual movement and transformation of organic compounds throughout the soil matrix, and show that this definition is directly at odds with how soil C longevity is represented in current policies. Given current interest in new policies to promote soil C sequestration activities, resolving these definitions is critical. We further identify priority areas for future research in order to answer key policymaker questions about soil C lifespan, and to help develop new tools and benchmarks necessary to assess efficacy of agricultural soil C sequestration efforts.