Room For Manoeuvre Research Articles

Creating Statutory Remuneration Rights in Copyright Law: What Policy Options Under the International Legal Framework?

Statutory remuneration rights are progressively attracting the attention of policy makers as regulatory tools since they constitute a middle way between exclusivity and free uses. Remuneration rights have the potential to realise the delicate balance between access to and protection of copyrighted works, while at the same time potentially safeguarding the interests of all parties involved in the process of cultural production. Scholars have also increasingly advocated the use of remuneration rights when the enforcement of exclusive rights is hardly achievable. This is particularly the case with regard to addressing infringing mass uses in the digital environment such as streaming or peer-to-peer file sharing, or unlocking the blocking effects of exclusivity in order to foster the reuse of copyright-protected material. In these cases, the use of statutory remuneration rights would help the copyright system to fulfil its basic function and to safeguard important fundamental rights such as freedom of expression. However, despite their attractiveness, the creation of statutory remuneration rights has also some constraints as they need to comply with obligations resulting from international copyright law. Therefore, it is crucial that legislators know exactly what their room for manoeuvre is when using this tool to regulate copyright law. Surprisingly, this policy space remains until now quite blurry. This article attempts to bring clarity to the discussion: it analyses possible ways of creating remuneration rights in the light of international treaty obligations and maps all options. It argues that international copyright law provides far more policy space than often assumed to create statutory remuneration rights, offers a classification of remuneration rights based on their relationship with the exclusive rights, and invites legislators in the future to better use the full range of possibilities when reforming their copyright laws in order to reach more balanced solutions and to enhance the acceptance of the system among citizens.

The role of farm diversification and peasant habitus for farm resilience in mountain areas: the case of the Ötztal valley, Austria

PurposeBy examining a case study in Tyrol, Austria, the paper aims to demonstrate the role of farm diversification and the influence of the peasants’ habitus on social-ecological resilience.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on a field study conducted in two remote villages of the Ötztal valley, Austrian Alps, this study provides insights into the interplay of tourism and farming and its impact on farm resilience. Qualitative narrative interviews, the so-called farm biographies, served to investigate these issues. Interpretations of data are based on qualitative content analysis.FindingsThe results highlight that farming and tourism are highly enmeshed in the case study area and that the additional income creates room for manoeuvre for the farms to activate their adaptive capability. At the same time, peasant values guide the farming activities. The farms in this study demonstrate a strong farm resilience that is enabled by farm diversification and rooted in their peasant habitus. This positively affects the social-ecological resilience.Originality/valueIn contrast to other studies, which have mainly applied the concepts of social or community resilience to investigate the resilience and vulnerability of rural areas, this study highlights the resilience of farms in mountain areas.

Conditions of Democracy in German Austria and Hungary, 1918–1919

Conditions of Democracy in German Austria and Hungary, 1918–1919

The “Now” Odyssey: Present Tense in Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying

Novelists have conventionally written in the past tense, because it provides them with a maneuvering room to organize the data of their narrative into a comprehensive perspective. Yet more and more writers are recently adopting the present tense in narrating to bring immediacy and intimacy to their work. A large part of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying is treated in the present time. Throughout the narrative, the first-person narration using interior monologue helps strengthen an ongoing action in the present and arouses a sense of urgency to readers. Accordingly, nothing is told by the author in his own authority; in actuality, no author’s voice or representative is identified to the last. In consequence, the lack of an authoritative presence requires our real commitment to the ultimate completion of the novel on the part of the readers.

The Covid-19 economic crisis: dangerously unique.

The Covid-19 crisis is unique in several respects. This devastating recession does not have an economic origin, will dance largely to the tune of non-economic factors, and is truly global. The policy response has been equally unique, in terms of speed, size and scope, eliciting an unprecedented concerted effort combining monetary, fiscal and prudential policies. This has contained the fallout. At the time of writing, financial markets have rebounded to the point of looking exuberant, but it all feels more like a truce than a peace treaty. The crisis is transitioning from the liquidity to the solvency phase in a context of limited and shrinking room for policy manoeuvre. All this raises difficult near- and longer-term challenges. Rebuilding policy buffers in all policy areas is likely to be the policy challenge of the decade ahead.

Iran’s strategic culture: the ‘revolutionary’ and ‘moderation’ narratives on the ballistic missile programme

Drawing on an analytical framework that combines strategic culture theory with narrative analysis, this paper explores the recent evolution of Iran’s ballistic missile programme (BMP) (2015–2019). Iran’s strategic culture attributes a key role to the BMP but nevertheless allows room for manoeuvre in Iran’s security policy, which explains multiple and sometimes contradicting visions of the BMP. We demonstrate that Iran’s approach towards the programme is enveloped by political discourses, which shift with the direction of Iran’s international relations and domestic politics. We distinguish two competing narratives – ‘revolutionary’ and ‘moderation’ – and demonstrate how they define the opportunities and constraints of Iran’s military behaviour in different ways. Finally, we demonstrate a move towards a more confrontational approach, reflected in the consolidation of the ‘revolutionary’ narrative. This article contributes to a more fine-grained understanding of Iran’s policy towards its BMP, which remains central to Iran’s strategic culture.

I.2. La coopération franco-allemande dans le domaine de la Judenpolitik , 1940-1942

The reaction of the French and the country’s administration to the German occupation during WWII is too often reduced to either collaboration or resistance. However, recent Holocaust research has shown that European societies both contributed to and benefited from the persecution of Jews without necessarily being pro-German. By focusing on France, Michael Mayer demonstrates that the German concept of occupation was based on the fact that Germany could not implement the Holocaust in France without a relatively high degree of French cooperation. Furthermore, he shows that the French administration took German anti-Semitic measures into their own hands in 1940 and 1941. Through this strategy, the French were able to curb German influence in France at the expense of the persecuted. At the same time, the Vichy government enacted its own anti-Semitic policies that were aimed at segregating French Jews through race-specific legislation.In 1940 and 1941, the relationship between France and Germany oscillated between a surprisingly high degree of cooperation (despite the French government’s generally anti-German attitude) and the relatively large room for maneuver that the Vichy government used to implement French anti-Semitic policies. However, from 1942 on, the German occupational policy increasingly curtailed France’s semi-autonomous status. In the end, Vichy France was no more than a half-hearted participant in the Holocaust.

State of Civil Society and NGOs in Bangladesh: Examining the Recent Trends and Changes

This paper is the outcome of a revisit study conducted in 2016 in three locations of two districts in Bangladesh. The original and/ or the 1st study was conducted in the same locations using same objectives and methods in 2005. The main purpose of the revisit study was to perceive the changes taken place in relation to the civil society space and activism, and the state of activism of NGOs. Qualitative approaches were used in collecting primary data from field and secondary sources were also used. The revisit study finds that NGOs are increasingly offering support to non - poor borrower groups, and today less emphasis is placed on offering small loans to the disadvantaged. The provision of larger loans (than the micro-credit loans encountered earlier), support to small businesses, and the appearance of migration support loans. In other respects, civil society space has been reduced in 2016. In 2005 we found rights-based works on the road to room for maneuvering, such as legal aid, we also found a civil society had been more politically focused, with the power to influence local officials in some cases. The 2005 study also found that with various civil society actors (services, rights, social mobilization and advocacy) a kind of dynamism in the stage, there was an opening of space indeed. On the other hand, the revisit study 2016 observed the shrinking state of civil society space. Rights-based NGOs and informal civil societies are at significantly reduced state; and it was found the social mobilization by the non-government organizations and agencies has a very slim opportunity to reinstall their activities in civil society space in near future. Extreme political control over institutions and citizens’ rights-based activities may be attributed as the main reasons of halting civil society action in Bangladesh.

Political parties, globalization and labour strength: Assessing differences across welfare state programs

AbstractThis article investigates how globalization and organized labour condition partisan effects on different welfare state programs. The main argument is that the conditional effect of globalization on government partisanship depends on how relevant a program is to the needs of vulnerable groups and that organized labour additionally affects this relationship. Analyzing 21 OECD countries between 1980 and 2011/2014, empirical evidence largely corroborates this argument: Firstly, the expectation that partisan differences decrease with globalization in general and especially in weak labour countries in the case of programs that are less relevant for compensation holds true for old‐age provision and partly for sick pay insurance. Secondly, and in accordance with theoretical expectations concerning programs that are primarily relevant for compensation, partisan differences increase with globalization, in general regarding education and only in strong labour countries regarding unemployment benefits. Therefore, while globalization constrains national politics’ room for manoeuvre in some areas, parties are still able to follow their ideologically preferred policies and respond to compensation demands in others.

Under pressure. Economic constraints, electoral politics and labour market reforms in Southern Europe in the decade of the Great Recession

AbstractEven when subject to comparable exogenous constraints during the Eurozone crisis and in its immediate aftermath, governments in Southern Europe have pursued distinct labour market reform agendas. What room for manoeuvre did governments of crisis‐struck peripheral countries really have in shaping their labour market reform strategies, and how can we account for the observed variation? We address these questions by making a twofold contribution to the debate on the political economy of austerity in the Eurozone periphery. First, through the first systematic analysis of all labour market and collective bargaining (CB) reforms implemented in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece over 2009–2019, we identify those elements of core labour market deregulation common across Southern European countries (namely, the loosening of employment protection for workers on open‐ended contracts and the decentralisation of CB to the firm level); and those elements of variation, both cross‐country and cross‐party, in the content of corollary labour market interventions that accompanied this core deregulation. Second, we explain these similarities and variations in reform outcomes as the product of the interaction of two factors: economic constraints and electoral dynamics. We argue that the implementation of the common core of deregulation is linked to the exogenous pressure to improve export competitiveness to which Southern European countries have been subjected since the crisis. Through the combination of survey data analysis and qualitative evidence, we then show empirically how the variation in the corollary measures accompanying deregulation is linked to the class composition of the electoral social blocs Southern European partisan governments rely on or aim to assemble. Based on this analysis, we identify four ideal‐typical labour market reformist strategies attempted by Southern European governments during the decade of the Great Recession. The analysis highlights that although domestic politics plays a crucial role in shaping structural adjustment under crisis conditions, not all reform strategies are equally viable within the framework of Economic and Monetary Union.

Supervision Beyond Borders: Perspectives on a Mutual Process of Becoming in Higher Education

In the context of problem-based higher education, students are typically supervised by a person referred to as either a teacher, a tutor, or a supervisor. The supervisor’s job is to facilitate students’ learning—most prominently by asking questions encouraging students to reflect and become active participants in the construction of knowledge. But supervision can take many different forms. The purpose of this paper is not to provide readers with a set of strict guidelines for how to supervise students in the context of problem-based higher education. Rather, we merely strive to show that even within the confines of the neoliberal university, there is room for maneuver to resist the status quo of commoditization and to carry out oppositional practices that may ultimately result in transformational learning. To accomplish this goal, we have employed a post-qualitative perspective allowing us to think supervision differently and describe ways in which the relation between supervisors and students may also be performed differently. We argue that while it is necessary to let go of the rigid thinking and professional expectations about what proper supervision is that confine supervision to a limited and limiting space, such oppositional practices can challenge hegemonic discourses and contest the legitimacy of the structures governing higher education today. More specifically, we draw on a patchwork of collaborative narratives written before, during, and after the fall semester of 2018 to describe a particular process of supervision that significantly affected the both of us, that is, the student as well as the supervisor.

A swift turnaround? Abating shipping greenhouse gas emissions via port call optimization

Waiting times for trucks, trains, airplanes and ships in service represent apparent transport system inefficiencies, and measures to reduce these may have the potential to abate transport GHG emissions. In international shipping, transportation researchers have pointed out that reduced waiting time in association with port calls holds such promise. We explore the potential for GHG abatement through port call optimization, focusing on crews and their employers - the shipping companies. Adding new empirical evidence to the transportation literature, we confirm the existence of idle time during port calls, and go beyond this in describing the causes for it. We show how several port stakeholders, including government officials, limit the crews’ and shipping companies’ room for maneuver in relation to port calls. We also show why the process of reducing waiting time in shipping is more complex than that for onshore transport modes, where real-time traffic information guides drivers’ route choices, and reduces congestion and waiting time. Our findings have implications for both policy makers and transportation research.

(Nearly) Outside the Shadow of Hierarchy: An Enquiry into the Teleology of Municipal Paradiplomacy in the EU

Summary Local authorities have increasingly deployed instruments and practises proper of the international diplomatic repertoire—a phenomenon referred in the literature as paradiplomacy. These state-like diplomatic praxes, ranging from participating in transnational networks to signing international agreements, hint at an increased room for manoeuvre for local authorities, in that they occur without the intervention and control of the central state. While emulating states’ international behaviour, municipal paradiplomacy displays distinctive features and purposes. Drawing on the scholarship on paradiplomacy, this article provides a theoretical reflection on the teleology of municipal paradiplomatic practices. By proceeding through parallelism with state diplomacy’s objectives, this article identifies three functional equivalents that constitute the primary teloi of paradiplomacy; namely, municipal self-determination, influence and contention. By delving into the aims of municipal paradiplomacy, the article points out how municipal paradiplomacy constitutes a valuable means for municipalities to progressively free themselves from the grip of the central state.

European Policies Towards the Gulf: Patterns, Dynamics, Evolution, and the case of the Qatar Blockade

This paper discusses European policies towards the Qatar crisis in the context of the evolution of broader past and present European policies towards the Gulf. It starts with a summary discussion of historical patterns of relations between Europe and the Gulf, before briefly sketching the major changes in the regional environment after the Second World War, beginning with the US supplanting the UK as the dominant hegemon, through to the changes wrought by Trump’s elevation to the US presidency. It then turns to a discussion of the effects of these changes for the Gulf and other regional states and their policy postures, before going on to examine the ways in which European states and the EU have interpreted and reacted to this changing environment. These reactions are often at one and the same time a reaction to the changes and uncertainties in US policy under Trump, since this changing US role is also a crucial ingredient both in the region and for Europe’s room for manoeuvre. Against this background, the paper will outline European policies towards the Gulf theater in particular, focusing on Iran and the JCPOA nuclear deal, and the GCC (or Qatar) crisis –– while also briefly considering the Yemen crisis and the impact of Gulf competition on and in the Libyan theater. From October 2018, the Khashoggi affair added an additional dimension to the crisis, as did the renewed oil price crash amidst the global COVID-19 pandemic beginning in 2020.

Editorial: Governing the EU's climate and energy transition through the 2030 Framework

Editorial: Governing the EU's climate and energy transition through the 2030 Framework

Privacy protection in Hungary

Abstract The EU beneficial ownership register leaves very little room for maneuver for those who prefer to maintain their privacy in present times. This article discusses the privacy element of the Hungarian Asset Management Foundation (AMF), analyzes the impact of the AMF law on the privacy of the participants in an AMF, and gives an insight into the workings of a hybrid structure when an AMF acts as trustee.

Innovations on a shoestring: Consequences for job quality of public service innovations in health and social care

The article examines the innovation-job quality-employment nexus in social and health care in the United Kingdom and Sweden, respectively. Through seven case studies carried out with a common methodological and analytical framework in the two countries, it shows how the constraining factors of fiscal strictures derived from budgetary regimes and chronic labor shortages have two key consequences for innovation. The first is that in the absence of room for maneuver with regard to extrinsic job quality, intrinsic job quality becomes the primary innovation arena. Here the activation of feelings and ideologies of empathy towards patients and clients and occupational/professional pride are central. The second is that most of the innovations found aimed at addressing labor shortages are ameliorative rather than solutions, leading to the development of the concept of “coping innovations.”Both of these processes are symptomatic of “innovation on a shoestring” due to structural conditions. Certain, arguably beneficial, aspects of these constraints are identified, such as activities directed towards enhancing person-centered approaches to clients/patients and colleagues, less ‘technologization’ of care contact and opening up opportunities for non-traditional occupational and social groups in health and care work. Non-beneficial aspects of these constraints include heightened work intensity and employee turnover, an overtaxing of the Florence Nightingale ethos, and incomplete or unsatisfactory training and career development programs.

Protecting the Citizenry—or an Instrument for Surveillance? The Development of Community-oriented Policing in Kenya

Community-oriented policing (COP) has become an important innovation in policing throughout the world, with variations among countries and regions, and over time. We identify and discuss contextual factors that determine the formation of COP policies, by investigating two contradictory national COP policies in Kenya: Constitutional Community Policing and Nyumba Kumi. Our study draws on primary data collection and secondary literature on contextual factors. The two competing Kenyan COP policies show, first, that there are significant variations in the nature and content of policing policies defined as COP; secondly, that the diversified and competing local contexts in transitional countries, involving reform processes while key elements of the past regimes are maintained, create significant room for manoeuvre for the actors involved. That enables the formation of radically different COP policies, in Kenya represented by a reformative COP policy as well as a repressive COP policy. Thirdly, the Kenyan case illustrates the risk of subversion of core intentions of COP: government actors have promoted COP policies focused more on information flow than on democratization and police reform. As a result, COP in Kenya has become more of an instrument for surveillance than a tool for protecting the citizenry. This development demonstrates clear historical continuities with colonial policing, significantly enabled by the emerging threat of terrorism. We argue that COP policies building on such criteria are counterproductive and are likely to fail. To avoid the misuse of the label ‘COP’ and legitimation of repressive policing practices, a common coherent definition of COP is required—one that at least ensures the needs and rights of citizens and local communities.

VOD service providers and regulation in the European Union: an audiovisual diversity approach

ABSTRACT A firm step in order to impose a quota for the catalogues of video-on-demand service providers has been given by the EU through the amendment of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive in 2018. This paper aims to analyse the potential implications of this change, in relation to the way the promotion of European works has been implemented so far, since some comments can be made in light of this revision. It will be argued that more interesting than the obligation to comply with a quota, defined by the geographical origin of audiovisual works, is the idea of making VOD service providers part of every national audiovisual production and financing system via direct or indirect financial contributions. It is concluded that indirect obligations could offer a wider room for manoeuvre to better help focus public policy decisions.

Impact of coronavirus pandemic on social processes in Germany

Coronavirus restrictions initiated by the German government are not widely approved and supported in the country. Dissatisfaction expressed by certain groups of citizens finds reflection in various protests and acts of violence against representatives of the law enforcement agencies, which are regarded to be the main institutions overseeing adherence to the COVID-19 guidelines. The police have less room for maneuver because of the growing pressure amid the possible spread of nationalist and racist attitudes among the employees. The epidemic increases social and economic tensions, hostility in the society, the number of criminal acts especially in the field of street and financial crime. Apart from the locals, people with a migration background, refugees and in particular representatives of ethnically bound criminal groups commit felonies. The pandemic has an influence on the German foreign politics on a wide range of issues.