Eine dauerhafte Verfügbarkeit ist nicht garantiert und liegt vollumfänglich in den Händen der Herausgeber:innen. Bitte erstellen Sie sich selbständig eine Kopie falls Sie diese Quelle zitieren möchten.
The 2023 EU-China summit on December 7 in Beijing ended without a dramatic clash of views but also without much agreement. The summit did not do any harm, it seems, but it did not lead to any major results either. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, and Charles Michel, President of the European Council, probably expected as much. In her opening statement von der Leyen asked Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) chairman, Xi Jinping, for a "frank and open exchange" of views and it seems that is what she got, once the doors closed for the two-part meeting. The EU pair, accompanied by the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, first met with Xi and then after lunch with the new premier Li Qiang. At both meetings the elephants in the rooms were the United States and Russia. In what has almost become a tradition by now, the Chinese leaders attempted to do their best to drive a wedge between the transatlantic allies by warning the EU leaders against "all kinds of interference" from outside powers, such as the United States and its latest export curbs on high-end artificial intelligence chips and chipmaking tools. In turn, the two EU presidents tried to persuade Xi to drop his support for Russia's war against Ukraine and persuade Putin to withdraw his troops. China's position regarding Russia's aggression would define the EU's relationship with China, von der Leyen told a news conference after the summit but Xi remained unswayed, as far as we know. China buys huge amounts of Russian oil at discounted prices and is providing Moscow with drones, microchips, and other dual-use goods, which may well classify as military aid. Wang Luton, the director-general for European affairs in the Chinese foreign ministry, suggested at a later press conference that the EU countries should talk to Putin themselves, if they wanted to bring about an end to the war.Trade and market access matters were at the core of the first EU-China summit to be held in four years. After all, both Europe and China are in economic difficulties and both sides know that they need each other. Europe is under increasing pressure due to the financial and military demands of the Ukraine war, increasing social policy expenditures and declining industrial creativity. Xi is greatly upset about the difficulties caused by US and European high-tech export controls and grapples with very high youth unemployment (which is still increasing), a looming demographic crisis, and not least the collapse of the property bubble. Just before the summit meeting Xi learned that the government in Rome had pulled out of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a humiliating blow as Italy was the only G7 country which had ever joined the BRI.In their meetings with the Chinese leaders, von der Leyen and Michel bitterly complained about the massive EU trade deficit with China, which ran at almost 400 billion euros in 2022. They told them that this was not sustainable and the very fact that the trade deficit had doubled during the last two years showed that irregularities were at play. Beijing needed to fix this situation as a matter of urgency. Not surprisingly, Xi dismissed this. Many exports to the EU actually originated from European-owned factories in China. Moreover, the trade deficit in 2023 had already declined by some 17 percent compared to the previous year. China's industries were developing rapidly due to their high innovation abilities and there was no overcapacity and no unfair subsidies of EV vehicles in China. These products were needed and would help the green transition in Europe. And in any case the EU was heavily subsidizing the European battery industries. The EU fears, however, that China will soon flood the EU countries with even more low-cost goods such as solar panels, wind turbines, medical devices, and more subsidized electric cars. EU trade experts are convinced that low consumer demand in China, enormous state subsidies for these goods, and the re-direction of massive bank lending from the property sector to EV vehicles as well as a great lack of fair market access for EU companies have led to a significant overcapacity which China now needs to export. The EU estimates that the Chinese state makes a loss of up to $30,000 for each China-made EV vehicle sold in Europe. Last September, von der Leyen initiated an EU investigation into Chinese subsidies for EV cars. The high tariffs imposed by the US and other non-EU countries, makes the EU the only sizable market available for the Chinese low-cost export drive regarding EV cars.While the EU "prefers to have negotiated solutions," von der Leyen indicated that the Europeans had "tools to protect our market." The European Commission President, whose first term in office is ending soon, was clearly referring to the imposition of tariffs. "Politically, European leaders will not be able to tolerate that our industrial base is undermined by unfair competition," she told Xi. She repeated that the EU was not interested in de-coupling from China – but "de-risking" and "diversifying" supply chains was necessary to make the EU economies more resilient. Outgoing European Council President Michel referred to Beijing's export curbs on critical minerals, such as graphite which is essential for the EU defense industries. Upholding European "sovereignty and strategic autonomy" thus made a "de-risking" policy utterly necessary. And incidentally Beijing had started this trend, the two EU leaders pointed out, when China announced its "dual circulation strategy" some three years ago. With this policy, China had tried to rely more on domestic consumption and home-made technology rather than on exports and high-tech goods from abroad.Michel and von der Leyen also presented details of 13 Chinese companies to Xi which sell EU-made dual-use products to Russia and thus avoid the European sanctions put on Moscow. They expect Beijing to take "appropriate action" otherwise these Chinese companies will also be sanctioned as part of the 13th sanctions package on Russia, which is currently being debated in the European Parliament. The meeting was indeed quite "candid" as Beijing later expressed. Von der Leyen and Michel also raised serious human rights issues in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong though they were delighted that the EU-China Human Rights Dialogue had commenced again. The two EU leaders expressed their concern about the rising tensions in the Taiwan Strait but also reiterated the EU's consistent One China policy. The Israel-Hamas War was also discussed.And both sides were also able to agree on a number of issues, such as their mutual interest in the continued cooperation on climate change and the environment, and Beijing's commitment to deal with the rising emission of methane. They also agreed to cooperate on global health issues and working out global rules and standards for AI. Both sides welcomed the establishment of working groups on exports controls, wines and spirits, cosmetics, food safety, intellectual property rights, and financial regulation. China had pressed for the relaunching of High-Level People-to-People Dialogue (HPPD) next year and this was agreed. First initiated in 2012, the HPPD consists of meetings of decision-makers and practitioners in various civil society and cultural fields. Agreement was also reached regarding the controversial issue of the ambiguous Chinese rules for data transfers. Beijing agreed to publish guidelines to provide greater transparency regarding how western companies can transfer their data out of China without running the danger of breaking any laws and rules. Nevertheless, this was a difficult and contentious summit. Regarding the essential topics such as how to deal with the continuing lack of market access for EU companies, the EU's huge trade imbalance with China, and Beijing's dubious support for Russia's war on Ukraine (China has still not condemned Moscow's aggression), no agreement was reached. There was no joint communiqué at the end. Both sides merely held separate press conferences. Yet, among all the tension and distrust of the last few years the summit did take place and both sides engaged and spoke to each other quite openly, and without falling out with each other. It is questionable, however, whether this will be enough to bring about "the foundation of a constructive relationship," which von der Leyen stated to Xi Jinping as the goal with a degree of polite optimism at the outset of the 2023 EU-China summit.
Eine dauerhafte Verfügbarkeit ist nicht garantiert und liegt vollumfänglich in den Händen der Herausgeber:innen. Bitte erstellen Sie sich selbständig eine Kopie falls Sie diese Quelle zitieren möchten.
The 2023 EU-China summit on December 7 in Beijing ended without a dramatic clash of views but also without much agreement. The summit did not do any harm, it seems, but it did not lead to any major results either. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, and Charles Michel, President of the European Council, probably expected as much. In her opening statement von der Leyen asked Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) chairman, Xi Jinping, for a "frank and open exchange" of views and it seems that is what she got, once the doors closed for the two-part meeting. The EU pair, accompanied by the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, first met with Xi and then after lunch with the new premier Li Qiang. At both meetings the elephants in the rooms were the United States and Russia. In what has almost become a tradition by now, the Chinese leaders attempted to do their best to drive a wedge between the transatlantic allies by warning the EU leaders against "all kinds of interference" from outside powers, such as the United States and its latest export curbs on high-end artificial intelligence chips and chipmaking tools. In turn, the two EU presidents tried to persuade Xi to drop his support for Russia's war against Ukraine and persuade Putin to withdraw his troops. China's position regarding Russia's aggression would define the EU's relationship with China, von der Leyen told a news conference after the summit but Xi remained unswayed, as far as we know. China buys huge amounts of Russian oil at discounted prices and is providing Moscow with drones, microchips, and other dual-use goods, which may well classify as military aid. Wang Luton, the director-general for European affairs in the Chinese foreign ministry, suggested at a later press conference that the EU countries should talk to Putin themselves, if they wanted to bring about an end to the war.Trade and market access matters were at the core of the first EU-China summit to be held in four years. After all, both Europe and China are in economic difficulties and both sides know that they need each other. Europe is under increasing pressure due to the financial and military demands of the Ukraine war, increasing social policy expenditures and declining industrial creativity. Xi is greatly upset about the difficulties caused by US and European high-tech export controls and grapples with very high youth unemployment (which is still increasing), a looming demographic crisis, and not least the collapse of the property bubble. Just before the summit meeting Xi learned that the government in Rome had pulled out of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a humiliating blow as Italy was the only G7 country which had ever joined the BRI.In their meetings with the Chinese leaders, von der Leyen and Michel bitterly complained about the massive EU trade deficit with China, which ran at almost 400 billion euros in 2022. They told them that this was not sustainable and the very fact that the trade deficit had doubled during the last two years showed that irregularities were at play. Beijing needed to fix this situation as a matter of urgency. Not surprisingly, Xi dismissed this. Many exports to the EU actually originated from European-owned factories in China. Moreover, the trade deficit in 2023 had already declined by some 17 percent compared to the previous year. China's industries were developing rapidly due to their high innovation abilities and there was no overcapacity and no unfair subsidies of EV vehicles in China. These products were needed and would help the green transition in Europe. And in any case the EU was heavily subsidizing the European battery industries. The EU fears, however, that China will soon flood the EU countries with even more low-cost goods such as solar panels, wind turbines, medical devices, and more subsidized electric cars. EU trade experts are convinced that low consumer demand in China, enormous state subsidies for these goods, and the re-direction of massive bank lending from the property sector to EV vehicles as well as a great lack of fair market access for EU companies have led to a significant overcapacity which China now needs to export. The EU estimates that the Chinese state makes a loss of up to $30,000 for each China-made EV vehicle sold in Europe. Last September, von der Leyen initiated an EU investigation into Chinese subsidies for EV cars. The high tariffs imposed by the US and other non-EU countries, makes the EU the only sizable market available for the Chinese low-cost export drive regarding EV cars.While the EU "prefers to have negotiated solutions," von der Leyen indicated that the Europeans had "tools to protect our market." The European Commission President, whose first term in office is ending soon, was clearly referring to the imposition of tariffs. "Politically, European leaders will not be able to tolerate that our industrial base is undermined by unfair competition," she told Xi. She repeated that the EU was not interested in de-coupling from China – but "de-risking" and "diversifying" supply chains was necessary to make the EU economies more resilient. Outgoing European Council President Michel referred to Beijing's export curbs on critical minerals, such as graphite which is essential for the EU defense industries. Upholding European "sovereignty and strategic autonomy" thus made a "de-risking" policy utterly necessary. And incidentally Beijing had started this trend, the two EU leaders pointed out, when China announced its "dual circulation strategy" some three years ago. With this policy, China had tried to rely more on domestic consumption and home-made technology rather than on exports and high-tech goods from abroad.Michel and von der Leyen also presented details of 13 Chinese companies to Xi which sell EU-made dual-use products to Russia and thus avoid the European sanctions put on Moscow. They expect Beijing to take "appropriate action" otherwise these Chinese companies will also be sanctioned as part of the 13th sanctions package on Russia, which is currently being debated in the European Parliament. The meeting was indeed quite "candid" as Beijing later expressed. Von der Leyen and Michel also raised serious human rights issues in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong though they were delighted that the EU-China Human Rights Dialogue had commenced again. The two EU leaders expressed their concern about the rising tensions in the Taiwan Strait but also reiterated the EU's consistent One China policy. The Israel-Hamas War was also discussed.And both sides were also able to agree on a number of issues, such as their mutual interest in the continued cooperation on climate change and the environment, and Beijing's commitment to deal with the rising emission of methane. They also agreed to cooperate on global health issues and working out global rules and standards for AI. Both sides welcomed the establishment of working groups on exports controls, wines and spirits, cosmetics, food safety, intellectual property rights, and financial regulation. China had pressed for the relaunching of High-Level People-to-People Dialogue (HPPD) next year and this was agreed. First initiated in 2012, the HPPD consists of meetings of decision-makers and practitioners in various civil society and cultural fields. Agreement was also reached regarding the controversial issue of the ambiguous Chinese rules for data transfers. Beijing agreed to publish guidelines to provide greater transparency regarding how western companies can transfer their data out of China without running the danger of breaking any laws and rules. Nevertheless, this was a difficult and contentious summit. Regarding the essential topics such as how to deal with the continuing lack of market access for EU companies, the EU's huge trade imbalance with China, and Beijing's dubious support for Russia's war on Ukraine (China has still not condemned Moscow's aggression), no agreement was reached. There was no joint communiqué at the end. Both sides merely held separate press conferences. Yet, among all the tension and distrust of the last few years the summit did take place and both sides engaged and spoke to each other quite openly, and without falling out with each other. It is questionable, however, whether this will be enough to bring about "the foundation of a constructive relationship," which von der Leyen stated to Xi Jinping as the goal with a degree of polite optimism at the outset of the 2023 EU-China summit.
Eine dauerhafte Verfügbarkeit ist nicht garantiert und liegt vollumfänglich in den Händen der Herausgeber:innen. Bitte erstellen Sie sich selbständig eine Kopie falls Sie diese Quelle zitieren möchten.
This CIDOB briefing summarises the key findings of the international seminar "The dark side of urban artificial intelligence: addressing the environmental and social impact of algorithms", held on June 19th, 2023 at CIDOB and organised by CIDOB's Global Cities Programme with support from Barcelona City Council. Scholars, experts and practitioners convened to deliberate and offer recommendations for the efficient governance and deployment of algorithmic tools in urban settings, with a view to mitigating the environmental, social and political challenges associated with AI.
We are seeing a surge in global efforts to establish governance frameworks for Artificial Intelligence (AI): from the United States' Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of AI (October 2023), to the AI Safety Summit in the United Kingdom (November 2023); taking in a consolidated working draft Convention by the Council of Europe on AI, Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law (July 2023); not to mention the political agreement reached in December 2023 (to be ratified in 2024) between the negotiators at the European Parliament and the Council to adopt the EU AI Act. According to the Council of Europe's compendium of AI Initiatives, there are currently more than 600 ongoing initiatives aimed at governing AI. However, what is to be governed when it comes to algorithms? According to a recent piece in The Economist, any AI regulation should first aim to answer three key questions: What should the world worry about? What should any rules target? And how should they be enforced? It is far from clear whether any of the above initiatives will hit the nail on the head in terms of AI's impact on the environment and society. The issue becomes even thornier if we take into account the multi-stakeholder dimension of AI governance: it is not just national or local governments, or intergovernmental organisations who are involved. Private players – and especially companies – play a growing role, if not the leading one, in some of these initiatives. This CIDOB briefing expands upon the findings of the international seminar "The dark side of urban artificial intelligence: addressing the environmental and social impact of algorithms", held on June 19th, 2023. We delve into two crucial aspects of AI and algorithmic governance: firstly, the environmental consequences of AI, and secondly, the wider social and political implications of algorithms. The briefing wraps up by offering insights and recommendations for the effective governance of AI in urban contexts.1. The environmental impact of algorithms: "AI for sustainability" and "sustainable AI" There are two interconnected perspectives on the relationship between AI and environmental sustainability, broadly referred to as "AI for sustainability" and "sustainable AI" (van Wynsberghe, 2021).1 The former involves using algorithmic tools in areas that contribute to ecologically desirable developments, such as climate protection. Examples of AI applications in this field include counting trees, providing precise estimates of biodiversity in various areas, monitoring real-time weather patterns, or forecasting energy consumption, air quality and CO₂ emissions, as well as enhancing efficiency in resource allocation. These illustrate how AI serves as a robust tool for swift and informed decision-making, facilitating progress towards more sustainable cities. Given this, "AI for sustainability" accounts for the enthusiastic adoption of AI solutions by many cities. The AI4Cities project is a good illustration of this trend, representing one of the most significant initiatives showcasing how cities are actively seeking AI-driven solutions in the energy and mobility domains to support their transitions to carbon neutrality. Yet, as more resources are dedicated to the development and use of urban AI solutions, it becomes increasingly crucial to consider the environmental impact of these technologies. Indeed, designing, producing and employing AI technologies requires a physical infrastructure that calls for extensive amounts of material resources, including water, metals, energy and human labour. Consequently, not only their computational power but their very material existence gives rise to significant ethical issues from a sustainability standpoint. After all, and as Falk and van Wynsberghe (2023, p.7) put it: "How useful can the impact of an AI system be towards sustainable ends if its development and use defeat the purpose of its existence in the first place?" In this context, the term "AI for sustainability" should be distinguished from "sustainable AI". The latter is about "developing, implementing, and using AI in a manner that minimises the adverse social, ecological and economic impacts of the applied algorithms" (Rohde et al., 2021, p.1). However, the environmental impact is not easy to analyse, let alone estimate. One key aspect involves grounding the discussion in the relationship between the benefits of AI systems and their environmental cost in factual data. The problem is that at present developers and operators of these systems are not furnishing the necessary data, hindering the formulation and implementation of effective policies. The most recent iterations of the EU's AI Act represent a potential breakthrough. For the first time they may compel companies to measure and disclose information regarding the environmental impact of specific high-risk systems. This might entail incorporating data collection methods into these systems, drawing inspiration from already-established approaches for monitoring energy consumption, CO₂-equivalent emissions, water usage, mineral use for hardware, and electronic waste generation. This would streamline the assessment of the sustainability of AI systems (Mollen and Vieth-Ditlmann, 2023). Yet, considering that the evaluation of the sustainability of AI is still a developing and nascent area, the SustainAI index can be regarded as another notable stride in this direction. It provides a comprehensive blueprint for assessing and improving the sustainability of AI systems. This initiative proposes evaluating the environmental sustainability of algorithms through different stages (planning and design, data, development and implementation) based on four criteria:2 energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, sustainability in use and indirect resource consumption. Among these, energy consumption (intertwined with greenhouse gas emissions) is acknowledged as the primary source of concern. Granted, all Internet-related activities rely heavily on substantial electricity, primarily sourced from fossil fuels. However, when compared with other technologies, AI, especially applications like ChatGPT, stands out for its extraordinary power usage. To start with, training a large language or other AI model requires huge amounts of power. Furthermore, large language models rank among the biggest in the realm of machine learning, incorporating as many as hundreds of billions of parameters. The training process demands several weeks of GPU hours, contributing to carbon emissions. As an illustration, the energy consumption for training BLOOM, an open-access multilingual language model, equated to the amount needed to power an average American home for 41 years (Falk and van Wynsberghe, 2023, p.5). Moreover, the chatbot or any other end product needs electricity every time it is used. Recently, some proposals have emerged to address this concern, including the idea of affixing a label to algorithms that discloses the amount of CO₂ emissions and computing power used in their creation. For a city administration, prioritising these types of algorithms may be a good way of improving the ecological sustainability of their digital initiatives, as most urban technologies are not developed in-house. Likewise, local governments could give precedence to employing algorithms trained with small and conscientiously curated datasets. Although this approach may take more time, it not only contributes to sustainability but also enhances fairness and accuracy, thereby contributing to the reduction of "data pollution". Secondly, it is crucial to take into account the broader infrastructure that supports and links hardware, encompassing the energy consumption of networking systems, maintenance of data centres and cooling systems (Falk and van Wynsberghe, 2023, p.5). This includes the production of computer chips and the establishment of data centres where AI operates. Fortunately, there are existing initiatives aimed at rendering urban data centres more eco-friendly, such as Stockholm Data Parks (see box 1) or a Paris project using server energy to heat swimming pool water. However, there is a pressing need for broader efforts at the urban level, as these measures remain more anecdotal than standard practice.
2. The social impact of algorithms As is the case for the environmental impact of AI, two main views prevail when it comes to the political dimensions of algorithms, which could be labelled "AI for democracy" and "democratic AI" (see box 2). Likewise, and while the political and social impact of AI may have been researched for longer (e.g., disinformation and misinformation or algorithmic discrimination), its actual implications for politics and societies are still far from clear. In this regard, most concerns seem to focus on the possibility of the singularity, i.e., the point in time at which AI surpasses human intelligence. However, and as Shazade Jameson put it during the seminar, "the real revolution in AI will be mundane". Indeed, probably the most problematic aspect of (generative) AI is that it hides in plain sight.
Algorithms are already embedded in many of our daily habits, from searching for directions on maps or mobile navigation apps to voice assistants. Not to mention that most online services rely on AI: generally, what we see online is the result of classification and association algorithms (such as search engines or online advertising), and we may be filtered by an algorithm without us even knowing (when applying for a job, a mortgage, or enrolling for medical and insurance programmes). Public administrations also use algorithms extensively, for example, for medical diagnosing, policing, to find eligible persons for public subsidies, or to decide on whether to provide police protection to survivors of gender violence. At the local level, many municipalities are using generative AI models to gain insights from unstructured data, improving the understanding of what is happening in the city, as well as using algorithmic tools to enable public services delivery to be more accessible and efficient (typically taking the form of chatbots).There are several shortcomings in each of these cases, and they all usually boil down to issues of discrimination, transparency, accuracy and trustworthiness. Examples abound. In 2013, it was found that Google searches using "black-sounding" names were more likely to turn up ads for services such as criminal background checks; in 2015, Amazon realised its new system was not rating candidates for software developer jobs and other technical posts in a gender-neutral way; in 2018, it was found that setting a user's gender to female in Google resulted in being shown fewer ads for high-paying jobs. However, private corporations are not alone when it comes to the use of algorithms that discriminate based on gender and/or race. There are also several cases where policing algorithms have been found to discriminate against people based on where they lived, such as in Chicago in the United States and Durham in the UK. More recently, Eticas Foundation and Fundación Ana Bella-Red de Mujeres Supervivientes found that the algorithm used in the Spanish Ministry of the Interior's system to assess the risks of survivors from gender violence, VioGén, falls short of delivering on its promise. Some 80% of interviewed survivors raised issues with the use of the algorithm. In the Dutch city of Rotterdam, an algorithm used to rank welfare recipients based on their fraud risk was found to discriminate against single mothers. These shortcomings are magnified because algorithms are usually in the hands of a small number of private companies, in what has been referred to by Aviv Ovadya as "autocratic concentration". These private, for-profit actors cannot by themselves address the costs and drawbacks of AI. In many cases, not even AI researchers fully understand the recommendations made by algorithms.
3. Lessons learned and challenges ahead for local governments a) Regulation and governance come with their own challenges It is widely acknowledged that addressing the challenges posed by AI often involves seeking solutions through regulatory measures. However, regulating AI comes with its own set of difficulties, including dealing with the rapid pace of AI advancements, dissecting the elements to be regulated and deciding who regulates and how. At the global level, the current geopolitical conditions add an extra layer of complexity to the task of regulation.From a European standpoint, the continent is facing the consequences of excessive regulation, which has led to gaps in investment in research and development as well as capacity-building. Similarly, the seminar's participants expressed concerns that AI requirements imposed by Europe can pose significant challenges to small businesses and open-source projects. Hence, while acknowledging the positive aspects of the EU's AI Act, such as its human rights-based approach, it is essential to recognise the potential long-term negative impacts of the act and address them. While many countries have already released national guidelines on AI, most local governments are still lagging behind on the development of regulatory frameworks for AI in a technical and policy capacity. While governance may certainly be a challenging task, four essential lessons to guide progress emerged from the seminar: Focus on processes: while most governance initiatives address AI outcomes, it is crucial to recognise that (machine) learning is a continuous process, and it is as part of these processes that policies should step in.Governing uncertainty is a constant practice: effectively governing uncertainty requires ongoing efforts, with feedback mechanisms and a supportive culture playing vital roles in enabling organisations, including local governments, to adapt over time.Accountability for algorithmic decisions should be established.Aim big, start small: optimal governance is built through projects, exemplified by initiatives like the Data Governance Clinics project. This innovative approach aligns data governance with the public interest in cities and underscores the importance of adopting an ambitious yet gradual approach to achieve broader goals. b) Human resources: capacity-building and talent attraction Decision-makers need to assess the available human resources capable of designing, implementing, deploying and overseeing urban AI systems. To fully reap the benefits of digital transformation, public sector leaders must acquire new skills that equip them to tackle the intricate challenges of the digital era. Artificial Intelligence is no exception to that, and the effective adoption and regulation of algorithmic tools require digital literacy among civil servants. These competencies encompass the ability to create enabling frameworks, foresee technological trends, implement measures to address ethical and human rights risks, comprehend the development of digital platforms, and collaborate effectively with third parties, including vendors. In essence, talent and digital skills are indispensable, underscoring the importance of enhancing the government's digital capacity as a prerequisite for ambitious local AI projects. In the context of an urban AI strategy, capacity-building refers to the process of cultivating and reinforcing the skills, instincts, abilities, processes and resources that a local community requires to plan, design and deploy AI applications. Interestingly, most local governments perceive capability constraints as a significant obstacle to both the adoption and regulation of AI applications. More specifically, cities commonly encounter two types of limitations: the availability of a local workforce with the requisite skills for constructing and managing the AI system (human capacity), and the proficiency of this workforce in interacting with and supervising the AI system (AI literacy). These limitations are linked to a scarcity of locally accessible skills and a global shortage of AI talent. It is worth noting that in the global race for IT talent and specific AI skills, the private sector has traditionally surpassed governments in their ability to attract specialised human resources. Consequently, many cities lack the financial resources to develop urban technologies in-house, leading them to rely on outsourcing and procurement to access the technical expertise essential for AI development and governance. The skills gap is not inconsequential. In the first place, poor knowledge among decision-makers responsible for funding AI solutions and those tasked with implementing the technology renders system monitoring very difficult. From a geographical perspective, the global competition for talent aggravates the imbalance between small and large cities. It should be noted that in secondary cities, the lack of capacity is often not solely technical but also legal, as they may lack the competences to develop technology. This heightens the risk of creating disparities between first and second-class cities. While the global digital divide and a city's socioeconomic situation may exacerbate the shortage of AI skills in public administrations, this issue is a concern for affluent and economically challenged cities alike. Cities can implement a series of measures to address these constraints. Foremost among these is the need to make capacity-building a central component of any effective local AI strategy. This involves investing in developing both technical capabilities (such as digital literacy) and interdisciplinary skills (such as AI regulation and law, AI ethics and AI business development). Ultimately, local governments must ensure that staff directly involved in implementing an AI system in an urban sector are adequately trained and informed about the specific AI system they are employing. This means they should have a comprehensive understanding of how AI may impact their responsibilities and be capable of interpreting the system's output to identify potential failures. Moreover, any capacity-building strategy should also include specific efforts to educate the public about AI, its transformative effects on current practices, and the opportunities, challenges and risks it presents. Nevertheless, capacity-building initiatives alone may prove insufficient, prompting local governments to formulate strategies for attracting and retaining talent. In the immediate term, they can tackle budget and skills shortages by forging cross-sectoral collaborations with local stakeholders to offset the scarcity of public capacities. c) Procurement is key As argued above, most cities lack the internal capacity to develop AI solutions on their own, leading them to acquire urban AI primarily through procurement channels. In fact, AI procurement serves as a powerful governance tool that can be leveraged to address some of the harmful effects that AI use may have on citizens, especially those in vulnerable communities. However, throughout the procurement process, cities must possess the ability to assess the AI solutions presented to them. One effective method to ensure that private providers adhere to the city's standards regarding digital rights and ethical principles is by incorporating procurement clauses. For instance, in 2021 the City of Amsterdam formulated a set of contractual terms outlining the specific information required from suppliers. Municipal governments can keep control over the technology they adopt by seeking three types of information: technical transparency (the code), procedural transparency (the algorithm's purpose and how it reaches its outcomes), and "explainability" (the rules that apply if an algorithm impacts someone personally). The value of these contractual terms lies in their ability to help local governments operationalise standards, create obligations and define responsibilities for trustworthy, transparent and accountable development and procurement of AI technologies. Unsurprisingly, other local governments, including Barcelona, are emulating Amsterdam's approach by crafting their own AI procurement clauses. d) Citizen participation and co-creation to enhance diversity A fourth element that is crucial to address the adverse effects of AI is to engage civil society in both the development and use of algorithmic tools. The concerns surrounding AI extend beyond the principle of "public money, public ownership" to encompass public intelligence and citizen data. In that sense, seminar participants concurred that involving civil society in AI initiatives is essential to prevent biases from being ingrained in AI and to ensure that AI regulations are understandable to the general public. Additionally, it was emphasised that when public entities use algorithms, consideration should be given to governance and institutional frameworks, recognising that the current state of data governance in public governance is far from optimal. Similarly, some participants underscored the importance of transparent research and public repositories, advocating for the implementation of mechanisms that hold public administrations accountable to their citizens when using automated decision systems. References Rohde, Friederike; Gossen, Maike; Wagner, Josephin and Santarius, Tilman (2021) "Sustainability challenges of Artificial Intelligence and Policy Implications". Ökologisches Writschaften, 36. van Wynsberghe, Aimee (2021) "Sustainable AI: AI for sustainability and the sustainability of AI". AI Ethics, 1, 213-218. Falk, Sophia and van Wynsberghe, Aimee (2023) "Challenging AI for Sustainability: what ought it mean?". AI Ethics Mollen, Anne and Vieth-Ditlmann, Kilian (2023) "Just Measure It: The Environmental Impact of AI". SustainAI Magazine, number 3. Autumn, 2023.Notes:The notion of sustainability is a complex one. It is often understood as comprising three distinct dimensions: an environmental, a social, and an economic one. In this section, we limit the analysis to the environmental dimension of sustainability.For a more detailed account of the different criteria, see: https://sustain.algorithmwatch.org/en/step-by-step-towards-sustainable-ai/For more examples on the use of algorithms in cities, refer to the Atlas of Urban AI curated by the Global Observatory of Urban Artificial Intelligence (led by CIDOB's Global Cities Programme).
The decade 2009-2019 was particularly intense in rhetoric about efforts to tackle the climate crisis, such as the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP 21. However, the carbon dioxide emissions at the world scale increased constantly from 29.7 (GtCO2) in 2009 to 34.2 in 2019. The current gap between rhetoric and reality on emissions was and is still huge. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change proposed different mitigation strategies to achieve the net emissions reductions that would be required to follow a pathway that limits global warming to 1.5°C with no or limited overshoot. There are still pathways to reach net-zero by 2050. Several reports propose detailed scenarios and strategies to achieve these targets. They remain narrow and highly challenging, requiring all stakeholders, governments, businesses, investors, and citizens to take action this year and every year after so that the goal does not slip out of reach. In most of these trajectories, electrification and an increased share of renewables are some of the key pillars. The transition towards a carbon-free society goes through an inevitable increase in the share of renewable generation in the energy mix and a drastic decrease in the total consumption of fossil fuels. In contrast to conventional power plants, renewable energy is subject to uncertainty. Most of the generation technologies based on renewable sources are non-dispatchable, and their production is stochastic and complex to predict in advance. A high share of renewables is challenging for power systems that have been designed and sized for dispatchable units. Therefore, this thesis studies the integration of renewables in power systems by investigating forecasting and decision-making tools. Since variable generation and electricity demand both fluctuate, they must be forecast ahead of time to inform real-time electricity scheduling and longer-term system planning. Better short-term forecasts enable system operators to reduce reliance on polluting standby plants and proactively manage increasing amounts of variable sources. Better long-term forecasts help system operators and investors to decide where and when to build variable plants. In this context, probabilistic forecasts, which aim at modeling the distribution of all possible future realizations, have become a vital tool to equip decision-makers, hopefully leading to better decisions in energy applications. When balancing electricity systems, system operators use scheduling and dispatch to determine how much power every controllable generator should produce. This process is slow and complex, governed by NP-hard optimization problems such as unit commitment and optimal power flow. Scheduling becomes even more complex as electricity systems include more storage, variable generators, and flexible demand. Thus, scheduling must improve significantly, allowing operators to rely on variable sources to manage systems. Therefore, stochastic or robust optimization strategies have been developed along with decomposition techniques to make the optimization problems tractable and efficient. These two challenges raise two central research questions studied in this thesis: (1) How to produce reliable probabilistic renewable generation forecasts, consumption, and electricity prices? (2) How to make decisions with uncertainty using probabilistic forecasts to improve scheduling? The thesis perimeter is the energy management of "small" systems such as microgrids at a residential scale on a day-ahead basis. The manuscript is divided into two main parts to propose directions to address both research questions: (1) a forecasting part; (2) a planning and control part. The forecasting part presents several techniques and strategies to produce and evaluate probabilistic forecasts. We provide the forecasting basics by introducing the different types of forecasts to characterize the behavior of stochastic variables, such as renewable generation, and the tools to assess the different types of forecasts. An example of forecast quality evaluation is given by assessing PV and electrical consumption point forecasts computed by standard deep-learning models such as recurrent neural networks. Then, the following Chapters investigate the quantile forecasts, scenarios, and density forecasts on several case studies. First, more advanced deep-learning models such as the encoder-decoder architecture produce PV quantile forecasts. Second, a density forecast-based approach computes probabilistic forecasts of imbalance prices on the Belgian case. Finally, a recent class of deep generative models, normalizing flows, generates renewable production and electrical consumption scenarios. Using an energy retailer case study, this technique is extensively compared to state-of-the-art generative models, the variational autoencoders and generative adversarial networks. The planning and control part proposes approaches and methodologies based on optimization for decision-making under uncertainty using probabilistic forecasts on several case studies. We introduce the basics of decision-making under uncertainty using optimization strategies: stochastic programming and robust optimization. Then, we investigate these strategies in several case studies in the following Chapters. First, we propose a value function-based approach to propagate information from operational planning to real-time optimization in a deterministic framework. Second, three Chapters focus on the energy management of a grid-connected renewable generation plant coupled with a battery energy storage device in the capacity firming market. This framework promotes renewable power generation facilities in small non-interconnected grids. The day-ahead planning of the system uses either a stochastic or a robust approach. Furthermore, a sizing methodology of the system is proposed. Finally, we consider the day-ahead market scheduling of an energy retailer to evaluate the forecast value of the deep learning generative models introduced in the forecasting part. (1) Forecasting techniques of the future. The development of new machine learning models that take advantage of the underlying physical process opens a new way of research. For instance, new forecasting techniques that take advantage of the power system characteristics, such as the graphical normalizing flows capable of learning the power network structure, could be applied to hierarchical forecasting. (2) Machine learning for optimization. Models that simplify optimization planning problems by learning a sub-optimal space. For instance, a deep learning model can partially learn the sizing space to provide a fast and efficient tool. A neural network can also emulate the behavior of a physics solver that solves electricity differential equations to compute electricity flow in power grids. Furthermore, such proxies could evaluate if a given operation planning decision would lead to acceptable trajectories where the reliability criterion is met in real-time. (3) Modelling and simulation of energy systems. New flexible and open-source optimization modeling tools are required to capture the growing complexity of such future energy systems. To this end, in the past few years, several open-source models for the strategic energy planning of urban and regional energy systems have been developed. EnergyScope TD and E4CLIM are two of them where we think it may be relevant to implement and test the forecasting techniques and scheduling strategies developed in this thesis. (4) Psychology and machine learning. Achieving sustainability goals requires as much the use of relevant technology as psychology. Therefore, one of the main challenges is not designing relevant technological tools but changing how we consume and behave in our society. Thus, machine learning and psychology could help to identify appropriate behaviors to reduce carbon footprint. Then, inform individuals, and provide constructive opportunities by modeling individual behavior.
The real exchange rate was not at the center of the first generation of neoclassical growth models, nor was it prominent among the policy prescriptions that flowed from those models. Recent analyses, in contrast, have paid it more attention. This paper analyzes the role of the real exchange rate in the growth process, the channels through which the real exchange rate influences other variables, and policies useful (and not useful) for governing the real rate. An appendix provides econometric evidence supportive of the emphases in the text.
The rebound in tourism experienced since August 2009 seems to have been sustained, auguring well for a sizeable recovery this year from the slump of 2009. Despite having posted better-than-expected fiscal results in the first half of the year, the country will be hard-pressed to sustain this in the medium term. However, despite the challenges, the government remains steadfastly committed to fiscal consolidation. Monetary policy has been made more conducive to sustaining both domestic stability and external stability. Inflation pressures remain modest, with the introduction of non-monetary financing of the deficit. However, the country's turbulent political environment persists, complicating forecasts of future outcomes. The ambitious task of fiscal consolidation and the establishment of macro stability require much political bi-partisanship and cooperation.
Los altos niveles de contaminantes atmosféricos en el nordeste de la Península Ibérica tienen un fuerte impacto tanto en los ecosistemas como en la salud humana. Esta región es particularmente sensible a la contaminación por ozono (O3), debido a su compleja topografía, que induce una estructura del flujo que tiene importantes efectos en el transporte y la transformación de contaminantes fotoquímicos. A pesar de esta complejidad, la utilización de modelos de calidad del aire multiescala y anidados se ha revelado como una herramienta útil a la hora de evaluar fenómenos relacionados con la calidad del aire en terrenos muy complejos. El modelo de calidad de aire de tercera generación empleado para simular la problemática de contaminación atmosférica en el nordeste de la Península Ibérica es MM5-EMICAT2000-CMAQ, configurado con alta resolución espacial (1-2km) y temporal (1h). El modelo meteorológico de mesoescala MM5 fue aplicado para simular las circulaciones atmosféricas en una escala regional. EMICAT2000 fue desarrollado por el Dr. Parra dentro del Laboratorio de Modelización Ambiental, bajo la dirección del Dr. Baldasano, con el fin de estimar las emisiones de contaminantes primarios; y para proporcionar la información requerida por el modelo de transporte químico CMAQ. Este modelo ha sido configurado con diferentes parametrizaciones para analizar su influencia en los resultados de O3 troposférico. Tras desarrollar una metodología de comparación y selección de mecanismos fotoquímicos, el mecanismo CBM-IV fue implementado en CMAQ para representar la química en fase gas y heterogénea, puesto que este mecanismo presentó un comportamiento medio y representativo del actual estado de los conocimientos en este campo. El episodio de contaminación fotoquímica seleccionado tuvo lugar entre el 13 y el 16 de agosto del año 2000. Este episodio corresponde a una situación típica de verano de bajo gradiente bárico con altos niveles de O3 en toda la cuenca Mediterránea que sobrepasan el umbral de 180 g m-3 establecido en la Directiva 2002/3/CE. El dominio de estudio cubre un área de 272x272 km2 centrado en el nordeste de la Península Ibérica. Los problemas derivados de la inicialización del modelo y de la generación de condiciones de contorno para el dominio se solucionaron empleando una aproximación multiescala, realizando simulaciones para toda la Península Ibérica y suministrando la información al dominio del noreste peninsular a través de procedimientos de anidamiento unidireccionales. La influencia de las condiciones iniciales fue minimizada mediante un spin-up de 48 horas previo a las simulaciones reales, que reduce el impacto de las condiciones iniciales a un factor por debajo del 10% en el caso del O3. La aplicación de una alta resolución resulta esencial a la hora de describir los fenómenos mesoescalares en terrenos muy complejos. Ciertas particularidades de pequeña escala aparecen cuando se usa una resolución horizontal de 2km y 16 capas verticales. Con la resolución propuesta, el modelo MM5-EMICAT2000-CMAQ puede ser aplicado para usos regulatorios, ya que alcanza los criterios de exactitud establecidos tanto por la USEPA como por la Directiva 2002/3/CE. El origen de los altos niveles de contaminación atmosférica en el área de estudio está condicionado por la superposición de circulaciones de diferente escala que pueden ser descritos por la combinación de modelos globales y regionales, como ECHAM5/MESSy y MM5-EMICAT2000-CMAQ, respectivamente. La presencia de niveles altos de O3 es el resultado de las interacciones de diferentes procesos en los que domina la fotoquímica local y la deposición seca, fundamentalmente. El método de los indicadores fotoquímicos presentado proporciona un test para la evaluación de la sensibilidad del sistema O3-NOx-COVs, mostrando la correlación entre indicadores fotoquímicos y la química de NOx y COVs en terrenos muy complejos. Adicionalmente, MM5-EMICAT2000-CMAQ es una herramienta útil a la hora de establecer políticas de control de emisión de precursores de O3 y para analizar su comportamiento en áreas industriales muy complejas como es el caso de Tarragona, donde la química de O3 está fuertemente controlada por las emisiones industriales de COVs. Con el fin de estudiar el efecto fin de semana, se acopló a MM5-CMAQ un inventario de emisiones considerando diferencias entre los distintos días de la semana. Durante los fines de semana, las emisiones de vehículos pesados experimentan una reducción substancial. El retraso de 1-2 horas en los picos de las emisiones de precursores en los fines de semana produce que se genere O3 más eficientemente que con las emisiones de NOx durante los días de semana laborables. Debido a este comportamiento, un importante incremento en los niveles de O3 es simulado y observado en las zonas costeras urbanas. La mayor reducción proporcional de NOx durante los fines de semana hace que el potencial de formación de O3 sea más activo en los fines de semana comparado con los días laborables. Por último, cabe destacar que la aplicación de MM5-EMICAT2000-CMAQ a la descripción de la problemática de calidad del aire representa un instrumento que puede contribuir a establecer políticas de gestión ambiental y legislativas dentro del marco de la actual Directiva 2002/3/CE para O3 en aire ambiente. ; The high levels of air pollutants over the northeastern Iberian Peninsula in summer have a strong influence both on ecosystems and human health. The region is particularly sensitive to air pollution by ozone (O3), since its complex topography, that induces an extremely complicated structure of the flow that has important effects in the transport and transformation of pollutants. Despite of its complexity, the utilization of multiscale-nested air quality models has revealed as a useful tool to assess air quality issues in very complex terrains. The third generation air quality model MM5-EMICAT2000-CMAQ was used to simulate air quality issues in the domain of the northeastern Iberian Peninsula with high spatial (1-2km) and temporal (1h) resolution. The MM5 mesoscale meteorological model was applied to simulate regional-scale atmospheric circulations. EMICAT2000 was developed by Dr. Parra within the Environmental Modeling Laboratory headed by Dr. Baldasano, in order to estimate the emission of primary pollutants in the northeastern Iberian Peninsula; and to provide the basis for work in air quality modeling using chemical transport models. The CMAQ chemical transport model has been configured with different parameterizations in order to analyze their influence in O3 results. After developing a methodology for the comparison and selection of photochemical mechanisms, CBM-IV was implemented in CMAQ, coupling gas-phase and heterogeneous chemistry, since it reveals as the mechanism that presents a closer behavior to the average state-of-the-science. Modeling was conducted for the photochemical pollution event that took place from 13-16 August, 2000. This episode corresponds to a typical summertime low pressure gradient with high levels of O3 in the Iberian Peninsula that exceed the European threshold of 180 g m-3 established in Directive 2002/3/EC. The domain of study covers a squared area of 272x272 km2 centered the northeastern Iberian Peninsula. The problems concerning the initialization of the model and the generation of boundary conditions for the domain were solved by using a multiscale approach, performing simulations in the entire Iberian Peninsula to provide the necessary boundaries by one-way nesting procedures. The influence of initial conditions was minimized through a 48h spin-up prior to formal simulations that reduces their impact factor to lower than 10% for O3. High resolution becomes essential when describing mesoscale phenomena in very complex terrains. Some small-scale features in low-troposphere processes throughout the day appear when using a horizontal resolution of 2km and 16 vertical layers. With this resolution, the MM5-EMICAT2000-CMAQ model is suitable to be used for regulatory purposes since it meets the performance criteria established both by the USEPA and the Directive 2002/3/EC. The origin of the high levels of air pollutants in the area is conditioned by the superposition of circulations of different scale that may be described by the combination of global and regional models (ECHAM5/MESSy and MM5-EMICAT2000-CMAQ). The occurrence of high O3 levels is the result of an imbalance between high local chemical production rates and dry deposition, fundamentally. The method of photochemical indicators provides a test for sensitivity evaluation of O3-NOx-VOCs sensitivity, showing the correlation between photochemical indicators and simulated NOx-VOCs chemistry in very complex terrains. Furthermore, MM5-EMICAT2000-CMAQ provides a useful tool to set control policies for the emissions of O3 precursors and to analyze their behavior in very complex industrial areas, as the area of Tarragona, where the O3 chemistry is strongly controlled by the industrial emissions of VOCs. A day-specific hourly emissions inventory considering day-to-week variations in emissions has been coupled with MM5-CMAQ to conduct a study of the O3 weekend effect. On weekends, traffic from heavy-duty vehicles undergoes a substantial reduction. The shift of 1-2 hours in peaks of precursors emissions at weekends causes the midday emissions to produce O3 more efficiently compared with the NOx emitted on weekdays. Because of this behavior, a significant weekend increase in O3 weekend concentrations is simulated in coastal urban areas. The higher proportional reduction of NOx on weekends makes O3-forming photochemistry more active on weekends compared to weekdays. Last, it should be highlighted that the utilization of MM5-EMICAT2000-CMAQ applied to the description of air quality issues over the northeastern Iberian Peninsula represents a useful instrument that may contribute to the establishment of environmental managing policies and to regulatory purposes according to the actual Directive 2002/3/EC for O3 in ambient air. ; Postprint (published version)
Los altos niveles de contaminantes atmosféricos en el nordeste de la Península Ibérica tienen un fuerte impacto tanto en los ecosistemas como en la salud humana. Esta región es particularmente sensible a la contaminación por ozono (O3), debido a su compleja topografía, que induce una estructura del flujo que tiene importantes efectos en el transporte y la transformación de contaminantes fotoquímicos. A pesar de esta complejidad, la utilización de modelos de calidad del aire multiescala y anidados se ha revelado como una herramienta útil a la hora de evaluar fenómenos relacionados con la calidad del aire en terrenos muy complejos. El modelo de calidad de aire de tercera generación empleado para simular la problemática de contaminación atmosférica en el nordeste de la Península Ibérica es MM5-EMICAT2000-CMAQ, configurado con alta resolución espacial (1-2km) y temporal (1h). El modelo meteorológico de mesoescala MM5 fue aplicado para simular las circulaciones atmosféricas en una escala regional. EMICAT2000 fue desarrollado por el Dr. Parra dentro del Laboratorio de Modelización Ambiental, bajo la dirección del Dr. Baldasano, con el fin de estimar las emisiones de contaminantes primarios; y para proporcionar la información requerida por el modelo de transporte químico CMAQ. Este modelo ha sido configurado con diferentes parametrizaciones para analizar su influencia en los resultados de O3 troposférico. Tras desarrollar una metodología de comparación y selección de mecanismos fotoquímicos, el mecanismo CBM-IV fue implementado en CMAQ para representar la química en fase gas y heterogénea, puesto que este mecanismo presentó un comportamiento medio y representativo del actual estado de los conocimientos en este campo. El episodio de contaminación fotoquímica seleccionado tuvo lugar entre el 13 y el 16 de agosto del año 2000. Este episodio corresponde a una situación típica de verano de bajo gradiente bárico con altos niveles de O3 en toda la cuenca Mediterránea que sobrepasan el umbral de 180 g m-3 establecido en la Directiva 2002/3/CE. El dominio de estudio cubre un área de 272x272 km2 centrado en el nordeste de la Península Ibérica. Los problemas derivados de la inicialización del modelo y de la generación de condiciones de contorno para el dominio se solucionaron empleando una aproximación multiescala, realizando simulaciones para toda la Península Ibérica y suministrando la información al dominio del noreste peninsular a través de procedimientos de anidamiento unidireccionales. La influencia de las condiciones iniciales fue minimizada mediante un spin-up de 48 horas previo a las simulaciones reales, que reduce el impacto de las condiciones iniciales a un factor por debajo del 10% en el caso del O3. La aplicación de una alta resolución resulta esencial a la hora de describir los fenómenos mesoescalares en terrenos muy complejos. Ciertas particularidades de pequeña escala aparecen cuando se usa una resolución horizontal de 2km y 16 capas verticales. Con la resolución propuesta, el modelo MM5-EMICAT2000-CMAQ puede ser aplicado para usos regulatorios, ya que alcanza los criterios de exactitud establecidos tanto por la USEPA como por la Directiva 2002/3/CE. El origen de los altos niveles de contaminación atmosférica en el área de estudio está condicionado por la superposición de circulaciones de diferente escala que pueden ser descritos por la combinación de modelos globales y regionales, como ECHAM5/MESSy y MM5-EMICAT2000-CMAQ, respectivamente. La presencia de niveles altos de O3 es el resultado de las interacciones de diferentes procesos en los que domina la fotoquímica local y la deposición seca, fundamentalmente. El método de los indicadores fotoquímicos presentado proporciona un test para la evaluación de la sensibilidad del sistema O3-NOx-COVs, mostrando la correlación entre indicadores fotoquímicos y la química de NOx y COVs en terrenos muy complejos. Adicionalmente, MM5-EMICAT2000-CMAQ es una herramienta útil a la hora de establecer políticas de control de emisión de precursores de O3 y para analizar su comportamiento en áreas industriales muy complejas como es el caso de Tarragona, donde la química de O3 está fuertemente controlada por las emisiones industriales de COVs. Con el fin de estudiar el efecto fin de semana, se acopló a MM5-CMAQ un inventario de emisiones considerando diferencias entre los distintos días de la semana. Durante los fines de semana, las emisiones de vehículos pesados experimentan una reducción substancial. El retraso de 1-2 horas en los picos de las emisiones de precursores en los fines de semana produce que se genere O3 más eficientemente que con las emisiones de NOx durante los días de semana laborables. Debido a este comportamiento, un importante incremento en los niveles de O3 es simulado y observado en las zonas costeras urbanas. La mayor reducción proporcional de NOx durante los fines de semana hace que el potencial de formación de O3 sea más activo en los fines de semana comparado con los días laborables. Por último, cabe destacar que la aplicación de MM5-EMICAT2000-CMAQ a la descripción de la problemática de calidad del aire representa un instrumento que puede contribuir a establecer políticas de gestión ambiental y legislativas dentro del marco de la actual Directiva 2002/3/CE para O3 en aire ambiente. ; The high levels of air pollutants over the northeastern Iberian Peninsula in summer have a strong influence both on ecosystems and human health. The region is particularly sensitive to air pollution by ozone (O3), since its complex topography, that induces an extremely complicated structure of the flow that has important effects in the transport and transformation of pollutants. Despite of its complexity, the utilization of multiscale-nested air quality models has revealed as a useful tool to assess air quality issues in very complex terrains. The third generation air quality model MM5-EMICAT2000-CMAQ was used to simulate air quality issues in the domain of the northeastern Iberian Peninsula with high spatial (1-2km) and temporal (1h) resolution. The MM5 mesoscale meteorological model was applied to simulate regional-scale atmospheric circulations. EMICAT2000 was developed by Dr. Parra within the Environmental Modeling Laboratory headed by Dr. Baldasano, in order to estimate the emission of primary pollutants in the northeastern Iberian Peninsula; and to provide the basis for work in air quality modeling using chemical transport models. The CMAQ chemical transport model has been configured with different parameterizations in order to analyze their influence in O3 results. After developing a methodology for the comparison and selection of photochemical mechanisms, CBM-IV was implemented in CMAQ, coupling gas-phase and heterogeneous chemistry, since it reveals as the mechanism that presents a closer behavior to the average state-of-the-science. Modeling was conducted for the photochemical pollution event that took place from 13-16 August, 2000. This episode corresponds to a typical summertime low pressure gradient with high levels of O3 in the Iberian Peninsula that exceed the European threshold of 180 g m-3 established in Directive 2002/3/EC. The domain of study covers a squared area of 272x272 km2 centered the northeastern Iberian Peninsula. The problems concerning the initialization of the model and the generation of boundary conditions for the domain were solved by using a multiscale approach, performing simulations in the entire Iberian Peninsula to provide the necessary boundaries by one-way nesting procedures. The influence of initial conditions was minimized through a 48h spin-up prior to formal simulations that reduces their impact factor to lower than 10% for O3. High resolution becomes essential when describing mesoscale phenomena in very complex terrains. Some small-scale features in low-troposphere processes throughout the day appear when using a horizontal resolution of 2km and 16 vertical layers. With this resolution, the MM5-EMICAT2000-CMAQ model is suitable to be used for regulatory purposes since it meets the performance criteria established both by the USEPA and the Directive 2002/3/EC. The origin of the high levels of air pollutants in the area is conditioned by the superposition of circulations of different scale that may be described by the combination of global and regional models (ECHAM5/MESSy and MM5-EMICAT2000-CMAQ). The occurrence of high O3 levels is the result of an imbalance between high local chemical production rates and dry deposition, fundamentally. The method of photochemical indicators provides a test for sensitivity evaluation of O3-NOx-VOCs sensitivity, showing the correlation between photochemical indicators and simulated NOx-VOCs chemistry in very complex terrains. Furthermore, MM5-EMICAT2000-CMAQ provides a useful tool to set control policies for the emissions of O3 precursors and to analyze their behavior in very complex industrial areas, as the area of Tarragona, where the O3 chemistry is strongly controlled by the industrial emissions of VOCs. A day-specific hourly emissions inventory considering day-to-week variations in emissions has been coupled with MM5-CMAQ to conduct a study of the O3 weekend effect. On weekends, traffic from heavy-duty vehicles undergoes a substantial reduction. The shift of 1-2 hours in peaks of precursors emissions at weekends causes the midday emissions to produce O3 more efficiently compared with the NOx emitted on weekdays. Because of this behavior, a significant weekend increase in O3 weekend concentrations is simulated in coastal urban areas. The higher proportional reduction of NOx on weekends makes O3-forming photochemistry more active on weekends compared to weekdays. Last, it should be highlighted that the utilization of MM5-EMICAT2000-CMAQ applied to the description of air quality issues over the northeastern Iberian Peninsula represents a useful instrument that may contribute to the establishment of environmental managing policies and to regulatory purposes according to the actual Directive 2002/3/EC for O3 in ambient air. ; Postprint (published version)
Стаття присвячена дослідженню та визначенню основних напрямків розвитку ринку гнучкої упаковки в світі та в Україні; процесу впровадження європейських і світових пакувальних тенденцій в українських реаліях за допомогою впливу виставкових галузевих заходів. Для досягнення мети розглянуті особливості і роль ринку упаковки, значення пакувальних матеріалів у розвитку світового господарства, маркетингова сутність гнучкої полімерної упаковки, її переваги у використанні, а також стан і розвиток індустрії м'якої упаковки в Україні. Визначено шляхи розповсюдження дифузії світових пакувальних тенденцій на український ринок упаковки, зокрема використання галузевих виставок як маркетингового інструменту політики комунікацій промислових підприємств. Наведено сучасні актуальні фактори розвитку європейської та світової пакувальної індустрії та визначено основні проблеми застосування таких інновацій на ринку упаковки України, а також можливі перспективи впровадження світових тенденцій українськими виробниками гнучкого пакування. ; The article is devoted to the research and determination of the main directions of development of the market of flexible packaging in the world and in Ukraine; to the process of implementation of European and world packaging trends in Ukrainian realities through the influence of exhibition industry events. To achieve the goal, features and the role of the packaging market, the importance of packaging materials in the development of the world economy, the marketing essence of flexible polymer packaging, its advantages in using, the state and development of the soft packaging industry in Ukraine were considered.Today, the packaging industry is one of the most important business areas around the world. Each product gets to the consumer or place of its use in the package. At the same time, packaging products are used for almost any product. Therefore, it significantly depends on the state of their production and consumption in the regional markets. Consequently, it can be argued that the Ukrainian packaging market is under the influence of global factors in the development of the world economy.In order to meet the demand of the external market and at the same time to be competitive, national companies need to take on the experience of international, in particular European packaging companies. In Europe, the packaging market is developing dynamically and it began to be actively formed much earlier than in the territory of the former USSR. The article defines an imbalance between the Ukrainian and international packaging market, and identifies specific problems of the industry on a national scale.Since independence, the attitude of producers, sellers and consumers towards packaging has changed in Ukraine. Now the Ukrainian packaging has a functional application, and the consumer of the product knows all its economic, ergonomic, environmental properties, the period of its storage and use. This was due to the emergence in the country of modern packaging, made of modern materials, in most cases also Ukrainian production. Instead, high-quality packaging is produced using the technological know-how and equipment of world leaders of foreign companies. In this case, it is often necessary to apply imported raw materials.Now in the conditions of competition, the Ukrainian packaging market began to focus on the trends of world packaging markets, in particular on European ones. In Ukraine, the predominance of ideology of marketing over the ideology of increasing the volume of production, regardless of its market demand, began to emerge. This has resulted in an increase in packaging production and the emergence of thousands of different types of packaging from modern packaging materials using technology and equipment from world leaders.One of the important advantages of packaging in the current markets is its variety in all possible aspects: form, size, materials, mass, color, technology, etc. An objective assessment of packaging from various materials in relation to its economic and environmental attractiveness gives a comparison of material consumption and energy costs for its production per unit of packaged products. The best grades have a flexible package.In the group of soft polymeric packaging of single-layer films made of polyethylene and polypropylene, multilayer (3-8 layers) of various polymers, aluminum foil, paper, decorated with flexographic or rotogravure printing, in Ukraine there are up to 100 enterprises of different production capacity, but it is possible to allocate the main players of the market.The main Ukrainian manufacturers of flexible polymer materials and flexible packaging:1. Volyn region: Lutskhim.2. Khmelnitsky region: Sirius Extrusion.3. Zhytomyr region Grief: Flexibles Ukraine.4. Kherson region: Almateya.5. Kyiv region: Tandem, Ithac, Pentopack, Aventine, Plastmodern, Ukrplastik.6. Dnieper region: Mega Pack MonoPack.7. Kharkiv region: Deltana, Nargus, Aris.An important competitive factor in the packaging market is its safety. The problem of production, regulation and control of safety and quality of products is directly related to the system of technical regulation in Ukraine.The organizational and normative basis of the system of technical regulation in Ukraine does not meet the requirements of a market economy, the main provisions of the legislation of the European Union and the World Trade Organization, and as a result does not promote economic competitiveness, complicates the introduction of new technologies and innovations, does not fully protect the Ukrainian market from low-quality products and hinders the international exchange of goods.Ukraine has not yet formed and no declared state policy in the field of packaging. Ukraine's packaging industry is self-regulated in a market economy with the help of information support of several professional associations.The development of international economic relations should force national packagers to introduce European and world standards and innovative packaging solutions in order to maintain and enhance competitiveness on both the domestic and foreign markets.The world packaging industry is one of the largest, diversified and competitive sectors of the global economy that is developing rapidly and steadily.In the future, the greatest growth will be observed in the sectors of packaging for food and beverages. This is facilitated by technological innovations, changes in the cost price of products, environmental initiatives. But one of the most important reasons is the increase in the middle class and the growth of incomes in developing countries.Raising living standards leads to an increase in consumption of consumer goods, as increased use of packaging for these products.For the world packaging market, it is important not only how quickly technologies are improved for the production of packaging and packaging products, but also how quickly they are diffused.Thanks to modern communications, opportunities for regular exchange of technological developments at world exhibitions, manufacturers of packaging equipment open up new markets and opportunities for themselves.The development of packaging in the world depends on the demand for it, which is constantly increasing. The reason for this is globalization as a kind of economic integration between companies and countries, which leads to the merger of individual national markets into one global market. Its catalyst is international trade. As a result, consumers in a variety of regional markets are faced with numerous new products and their packaging. In such conditions, globalization incives manufacturers of packaging products to find innovative technological solutions aimed at increasing competitiveness not only on the national but also on external markets.In Ukraine there is a small number of national manufacturers of flexible packaging, so the main players will set trends to the entire Ukrainian packaging market, while pursuing their own economic motives and in order to meet the demand abroad.One of the ways to take over the experience of international manufacturers and learn about the latest developments in the field of packaging is international exhibitions. They are a powerful marketing tool in the industrial market.For Ukrainian manufacturers of flexible packaging the most relevant are international European industry exhibitions. It is in Europe that significant exhibition events are devoted to the packaging industry and technology. For Ukraine, the European market is currently the most attractive in terms of export development, and European exhibitions can reach a huge number of potential consumers. If the firm is aimed at developing and increasing its competitiveness, it must be present at sectoral exhibitions, thus changing and shifted the entire national market.At the time of the writing of this work, the latest closing event in the field of the packaging industry was the FachPack - September 25-27, 2018.According to the materials provided by the organizers of the exhibition, about two thousand exhibitors of various sizes took part in the event, including Ukrainian companies Aris and Aventine. The exhibition was attended by 45,000 participants, including representatives of both small and large industrial businesses.On the FachPack exhibition site, the main trends that have emerged at this event are in open access: minimization of material and energy resources in packaging production for many years will determine the competitiveness of the business as the main trend in the development of modern packaging; increasing the informativeness of the package and the convenience of use make the relationship between consumers and the producer of the product understandable and trustworthy; the safety of packaging for humans and the environment at all stages of its life cycle is a guarantee of improvement of the life of the population and a thrifty attitude to natural resources; the individualization of goods and products remains relevant; the attention is paid to the means and technologies of utilization of packaging from polyethylene, polypropylene, PET, foil; open to everyone: in the design of flexible packaging there is an increasing number of transparent windows, cutouts, through which one can see or feel the product to the end user; the use of natural, natural texture in the design of flexible packaging, the widespread use of craft paper.As a result of the research demands of consumers of quality characteristics of packaging, noted the emergence of "mythical" trends that are set unsubstantiated and often technically incorrect beliefs visitors, such as environmental, biodegradable packaging, and also false claims of "less harmful" material. The problem is that people have realized the negative impact of their activities on the planet, but they are involved in superficial propaganda on the issue of environmental friendliness, without deepening the technical aspects of this issue.The main mistake of packaging consumers is the belief in the thesis that paper and bioplastics are more environmentally friendly than plastic. People, who are relatively indirectly connected with the packaging industry, believe that the paper package is more environmentally friendly, because it decomposes faster than plastic. But nobody thinks about how cardboard and paper production affects the nature, which pollutes water bodies and causes deforestation.Bioplastics is made from a material of plant origin, which is actually relatively quickly decomposed. But this process occurs only under certain conditions. In the European market, trends in bioplast packaging development will be justified and in fact relevant, but as far as Ukraine is concerned, there are currently no conditions for thoroughly sorting and further processing of packaging waste. In this case, the whole nature of the so-called biopacket is lost - they are not able to decompose on the general landfill next to other materials.In the domestic market of Ukraine, not all European trends will be relevant and feasible in the implementation due to deficiencies in the state regulation of the packaging industry and the unsatisfactory state of the regulatory framework, especially as regards the sorting and processing of garbage. If the Ukrainian producer is more focused on exports to developed countries, the trend towards biodegradable materials can significantly increase the company's profitability.So the ways of diffusion of world packaging tendencies on the Ukrainian packaging market are determined, especially using of exhibitions as a marketing tool of the communications policy of industrial enterprises. The actual factors of development of the European and world packaging industry are presented. The main problems of application of such innovations in the packaging market of Ukraine are determined. Also, possible prospects for the implementation of world trends by Ukrainian manufacturers of flexible packaging are determined.
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Daniel Deudney on Mixed Ontology, Planetary Geopolitics, and Republican Greenpeace
This is the second in a series of Talks dedicated to the technopolitics of International Relations, linked to the forthcoming double volume 'The Global Politics of Science and Technology' edited by Maximilian Mayer, Mariana Carpes, and Ruth Knoblich
World politics increasingly abrasions with the limits of state-centric thinking, faced as the world is with a set of issues that affect not only us collectively as mankind, but also the planet itself. While much of IR theorizing seems to shirk such realizations, the work of Daniel Deudney has consistently engaged with the complex problems engendered by the entanglements of nuclear weapons, the planetary environment, space exploration, and the kind of political associations that might help us to grapple with our fragile condition as humanity-in-the world. In this elaborate Talk, Deudney—amongst others—lays out his understanding of the fundamental forces that drive both planetary political progress and problems; discusses the kind of ontological position needed to appreciate these problems; and argues for the merits of a republican greenpeace model to political organization.
Print version of this Talk (pdf)
What is, according to you, the biggest challenge / principal debate in current IR? What is your position or answer to this challenge / in this debate?
The study of politics is the study of human politics and the human situation has been—and is being—radically altered by changes in the human relationships with the natural and material worlds. In my view, this means IR and related intellectual disciplines should focus on better understanding the emergence of the 'global' and the 'planetary,' their implications for the overall human world and its innumerable sub-worlds, and their relations with the realization of basic human needs. The global and the planetary certainly don't comprise all of the human situation, but the fact that the human situation has become global and planetary touches every other facet of the human situation, sometimes in fundamental ways. The simple story is that the human world is now 'global and planetary' due to the explosive transformation over the last several centuries of science-based technology occurring within the geophysical and biophysical features of planet Earth. The natural Earth and its relationship with humans have been massively altered by the vast amplifications in dispersed human agency produced by the emergence and spread of machine-based civilization. The overall result of these changes has been the emergence of a global- and planetary-scale material and social reality that is in some ways similar, but in other important ways radically different, from earlier times. Practices and structures inherited from the pre-global human worlds have not adequately been adjusted to take the new human planetary situation into account and their persistence casts a long and partially dark shadow over the human prospect.
A global and planetary focus is also justified—urgently—by the fact that the overall human prospect on this planet, and the fate of much additional life on this planet, is increasingly dependent on the development and employment of new social arrangements for interacting with these novel configurations of material and natural possibilities and limits. Human agency is now situated, and is making vastly fateful choices—for better or worse—in a sprawling, vastly complex aggregation of human-machine-nature assemblies which is our world. The 'fate of the earth' now partly hinges on human choices, and helping to make sure these choices are appropriate ones should be the paramount objective of political scientific and theoretical efforts. However, no one discipline or approach is sufficient to grapple successfully with this topic. All disciplines are necessary. But there are good reasons to believe that 'IR' and related disciplines have a particularly important possible practical role to play. (I am also among those who prefer 'global studies' as a label for the enterprise of answering questions that cut across and significantly subsume both the 'international' and the 'domestic.')
My approach to grappling with this topic is situated—like the work of now vast numbers of other IR theorists and researchers of many disciplines—in the study of 'globalization.' The now widely held starting point for this intellectual effort is the realization that globalization has been the dominant pattern or phenomenon, the story of stories, over at least the last five centuries. Globalization has been occurring in military, ecological, cultural, and economic affairs. And I emphasize—like many, but not all, analysts of globalization—that the processes of globalization are essentially dependent on new machines, apparatuses, and technologies which humans have fabricated and deployed. Our world is global because of the astounding capabilities of machine civilization. This startling transformation of human choice by technological advance is centrally about politics because it is centrally about changes in power. Part of this power story has been about changes in the scope and forms of domination. Globalization has been, to state the point mildly, 'uneven,' marked by amplifications of violence and domination and predation on larger and wider scales. Another part of the story of the power transformation has been the creation of a world marked by high degrees of interdependence, interaction, speed, and complexity. These processes of globalization and the transformation of machine capabilities are not stopping or slowing down but are accelerating. Thus, I argue that 'bounding power'—the growth, at times by breathtaking leaps, of human capabilities to do things—is now a fundamental feature of the human world, and understanding its implications should, in my view, be a central activity for IR scholars.
In addressing the topic of machine civilization and its globalization on Earth, my thinking has been centered first around the developing of 'geopolitical' lines argument to construct a theory of 'planetary geopolitics'. 'Geopolitics' is the study of geography, ecology, technology, and the earth, and space and place, and their interaction with politics. The starting point for geopolitical analysis is accurate mapping. Not too many IR scholars think of themselves as doing 'geography' in any form. In part this results from of the unfortunate segregation of 'geography' into a separate academic discipline, very little of which is concerned with politics. Many also mistake the overall project of 'geopolitics' with the ideas, and egregious mistakes and political limitations, of many self-described 'geopoliticans' who are typically arch-realists, strong nationalists, and imperialists. Everyone pays general lip service to the importance of technology, but little interaction occurs between IR and 'technology studies' and most IR scholars are happy to treat such matters as 'technical' or non-political in character. Despite this general theoretical neglect, many geographic and technological factors routinely pop into arguments in political science and political theory, and play important roles in them.
Thinking about the global and planetary through the lens of a fuller geopolitics is appealing to me because it is the human relationship with the material world and the Earth that has been changed with the human world's globalization. Furthermore, much of the actual agendas of movements for peace, arms control, and sustainability are essentially about alternative ways of ordering the material world and our relations with it. Given this, I find an approach that thinks systematically about the relations between patterns of materiality and different political forms is particularly well-suited to provide insights of practical value for these efforts.
The other key focus of my research has been around extending a variety of broadly 'republican' political insights for a cluster of contemporary practical projects for peace, arms control, and environmental stewardship ('greenpeace'). Even more than 'geopolitics,' 'republicanism' is a term with too many associations and meanings. By republics I mean political associations based on popular sovereignty and marked by mutual limitations, that is, by 'bounding power'—the restraint of power, particularly violent power—in the interests of the people generally. Assuming that security from the application of violence to bodies is a primary (but not sole) task of political association, how do republican political arrangements achieve this end? I argue that the character and scope of power restraint arrangements that actually serve the fundamental security interests of its popular sovereign varies in significant ways in different material contexts.
Republicanism is first and foremost a domestic form, centered upon the successive spatial expansion of domestic-like realms, and the pursuit of a constant political project of maximally feasible ordered freedom in changed spatial and material circumstances. I find thinking about our global and planetary human situation from the perspective of republicanism appealing because the human global and planetary situation has traits—most notably high levels of interdependence, interaction, practical speed, and complexity—that make it resemble our historical experience of 'domestic' and 'municipal' realms. Thinking with a geopolitically grounded republicanism offers insights about global governance very different from the insights generated within the political conceptual universe of hierarchical, imperial, and state-centered political forms. Thus planetary geopolitics and republicanism offers a perspective on what it means to 'Think Globally and Act Locally.' If we think of, or rather recognize, the planet as our locality, and then act as if the Earth is our locality, then we are likely to end up doing various approximations of the best-practice republican forms that we have successfully developed in our historically smaller domestic localities.
How did you arrive at where you currently are in IR?
Like anybody else, the formative events in my intellectual development have been shaped by the thick particularities of time and place. 'The boy is the father of the man,' as it is said. The first and most direction-setting stage in the formation of my 'green peace' research interests was when I was in 'grade school,' roughly the years from age 6-13. During these years my family lived in an extraordinary place, St Simons Island, a largely undeveloped barrier island off the coast of southern Georgia. This was an extremely cool place to be a kid. It had extensive beaches, and marshes, as well as amazing trees of gargantuan proportions. My friends and I spent much time exploring, fishing, camping out, climbing trees, and building tree houses. Many of these nature-immersion activities were spontaneous, others were in Boy Scouts. This extraordinary natural environment and the attachments I formed to it, shaped my strong tendency to see the fates of humans and nature as inescapably intertwined. But the Boy Scouts also instilled me with a sense of 'virtue ethics'. A line from the Boy Scout Handbook captures this well: 'Take a walk around your neighborhood. Make a list of what is right and wrong about it. Make a plan to fix what is not right.' This is a demotic version of Weber's political 'ethic of responsibility.' This is very different from the ethics of self-realization and self-expression that have recently gained such ground in America and elsewhere. It is now very 'politically incorrect' to think favorably of the Boy Scouts, but I believe that if the Scouting experience was universally accessible, the world would be a much improved place.
My kid-in-nature life may sound very Tom Sawyer, but it was also very Tom Swift. My friends and I spent much of our waking time reading about the technological future, and imaginatively play-acting in future worlds. This imaginative world was richly fertilized by science fiction comic books, television shows, movies, and books. Me and my friends—juvenile technological futurists and techno-nerds in a decidedly anti-intellectual culture—were avid readers of Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, and Robert Heinlein, and each new issue of Analog was eagerly awaited. While we knew we were Americans, my friends and I had strong inclinations to think of ourselves most essentially as 'earthlings.' We fervently discussed extraterrestrial life and UFOs, and we eagerly awaited the day, soon to occur, we were sure, in which we made 'first contact.' We wanted to become, if not astronauts, then designers and builders of spaceships. We built tree houses, but we filled them with discarded electronics and they became starships. We rode bicycles, but we lugged about attaché cases filled with toy ray guns, transistor radios, firecrackers, and homemade incendiary devices. We built and fired off rockets, painstaking assembled plastic kit models of famous airplanes and ships, and then we would blow them apart with our explosives. The future belonged to technology, and we fancied ourselves its avant garde.
Yet the prospect of nuclear Armageddon seemed very real. We did 'duck and cover' drills at school, and sat for two terrifying weeks through the Cuban Missile Crisis. My friends and I had copies of the Atomic Energy Commission manuals on 'nuclear effects,' complete with a slide-rule like gadget that enabled us to calculate just what would happen if near-by military bases were obliterated by nuclear explosions. Few doubted that we were, in the words of a pop song, 'on the eve of destruction.' These years were also the dawning of 'the space age' in which humans were finally leaving the Earth and starting what promised to be an epic trek, utterly transformative in its effects, to the stars. My father worked for a number of these years for a large aerospace military-industrial firm, then working for NASA to build the very large rockets needed to launch men and machines to the moon and back. My friends and I debated fantastical topics, such as the pros and cons of emigrating to Mars, and how rapidly a crisis-driven exodus from the earth could be organized.
Two events that later occurred in the area where I spent my childhood served as culminating catalytic events for my greenpeace thinking. First, some years after my family moved away, the industrial facility to mix rocket fuel that had been built by the company my father worked for, and that he had helped put into operation, was struck by an extremely violent 'industrial accident,' which reduced, in one titanic flash, multi-story concrete and steel buildings filled with specialized heavy industrial machinery (and everyone in them) into a grey powdery gravel ash, no piece of which was larger than a fist. Second, during the late 1970s, the US Navy acquired a large tract of largely undeveloped marsh and land behind another barrier island (Cumberland), an area 10-15 miles from where I had lived, a place where I had camped, fished, and hunted deer. The Navy dredged and filled what was one of the most biologically fertile temperate zone estuaries on the planet. There they built the east coast base for the new fleet of Trident nuclear ballistic missile submarines, the single most potent violence machine ever built, thus turning what was for me the wildest part of my wild-encircled childhood home into one of the largest nuclear weapons complexes on earth. These events catalyzed for me the realization that there was a great struggle going on, for the Earth and for the future, and I knew firmly which side I was on.
My approach to thinking about problems was also strongly shaped by high school debate, where I learned the importance of 'looking at questions from both sides,' and from this stems my tendency to look at questions as debates between competing answers, and to focus on decisively engaging, defeating, and replacing the strongest and most influential opposing positions. As an undergraduate at Yale College, I started doing Political Theory. I am sure that I was a very vexing student in some ways, because (the debater again) I asked Marxist questions to my liberal and conservative professors, and liberal and conservative ones to my Marxist professors. Late in my sophomore year, I had my epiphany, my direction-defining moment, that my vocation would be an attempt to do the political theory of the global and the technological. Since then, the only decisions have been ones of priority and execution within this project.
Wanting to learn something about cutting-edge global and technological and issues, I next went to Washington D.C. for seven years. I worked on Capitol Hill for three and a half years as a policy aide, working on energy and conservation and renewable energy and nuclear power. I spent the other three and a half years as a Senior Researcher at the Worldwatch Institute, a small environmental and global issues think tank that was founded and headed by Lester Brown, a well-known and far-sighted globalist. I co-authored a book about renewable energy and transitions to global sustainability and wrote a study on space and space weapons. At the time I published Whole Earth Security: a Geopolitics of Peace (1983), in which my basic notions of planetary geopolitics and republicanism were first laid out. During these seven years in Washington, I also was a part-time student, earning a Master's degree in Science, Technology and Public Policy at George Washington University.
In all, these Washington experiences have been extremely valuable for my thinking. Many political scientists view public service as a low or corrupting activity, but this is, I think, very wrong-headed. The reason that the democratic world works as well as it does is because of the distributive social intelligence. But social intelligence is neither as distributed nor as intelligent as it needs to be to deal with many pressing problems. My experience as a Congressional aide taught me that most of the problems that confront my democracy are rooted in various limits and corruptions of the people. I have come to have little patience with those who say, for example, rising inequality is inherent in capital C capitalism, when the more proximate explanation is that the Reagan Republican Party was so successful in gutting the progressive tax system previously in place in the United States. Similarly, I see little value in claims, to take a very contemporary example, that 'the NSA is out of control' when this agency is doing more or less what the elected officials, responding to public pressures to provide 'national security' loudly demanded. In democracies, the people are ultimately responsible.
As I was immersed in the world of arms control and environmental activism I was impressed by the truth of Keynes's oft quoted line, about the great practical influence of the ideas of some long-dead 'academic scribbler.' This is true in varying degrees in every issue area, but in some much more than others. This reinforced my sense that great potential practical consequence of successfully innovating in the various conceptual frameworks that underpinned so many important activities. For nuclear weapons, it became clear to me that the problem was rooted in the statist and realist frames that people so automatically brought to a security question of this magnitude.
Despite the many appeals of a career in DC politics and policy, this was all for me an extended research field-trip, and so I left Washington to do a PhD—a move that mystified many of my NGO and activist friends, and seemed like utter folly to my political friends. At Princeton University, I concentrated on IR, Political Theory, and Military History and Politics, taking courses with Robert Gilpin, Richard Falk, Barry Posen, Sheldon Wolin and others. In my dissertation—entitled Global Orders: Geopolitical and Materialist Theories of the Global-Industrial Era, 1890-1945—I explored IR and related thinking about the impacts of the industrial revolution as a debate between different world order alternatives, and made arguments about the superiority of liberalist, internationalist, and globalist arguments—most notably from H.G. Wells and John Dewey—to the strong realist and imperialist ideas most commonly associated with the geopolitical writers of this period.
I also continued engaging in activist policy affiliated to the Program on Nuclear Policy Alternatives at the Center for Energy andEnvironmental Studies (CEES), which was then headed by Frank von Hippel, a physicist turned 'public interest scientist', and a towering figure in the global nuclear arms control movement. I was a Post Doc at CEES during the Gorbachev era and I went on several amazing and eye-opening trips to the Soviet Union. Continuing my space activism, I was able to organize workshops in Moscow and Washington on large-scale space cooperation, gathering together many of the key space players on both sides. While Princeton was fabulously stimulating intellectually, it was also a stressful pressure-cooker, and I maintained my sanity by making short trips, two of three weekends, over six years, to Manhattan, where I spent the days working in the main reading room of the New York Public Library and the nights partying and relaxing in a world completely detached from academic life.
When it comes to my intellectual development in terms of reading theory, the positive project I wanted to pursue was partially defined by approaches I came to reject. Perhaps most centrally, I came to reject an approach that was very intellectually powerful, even intoxicating, and which retains great sway over many, that of metaphysical politics. The politics of the metaphysicians played a central role in my coming to reject the politics of metaphysics. The fact that some metaphysical ideas and the some of the deep thinkers who advanced them, such as Heidegger, and many Marxists, were so intimately connected with really disastrous politics seemed a really damning fact for me, particularly given that these thinkers insisted so strongly on the link between their metaphysics and their politics. I was initially drawn to Nietzsche's writing (what twenty-year old isn't) but his model of the philosopher founder or law-giver—that is, of a spiritually gifted but alienated guy (and it always is a guy) with a particularly strong but frustrated 'will to power' going into the wilderness, having a deep spiritual revelation, and then returning to the mundane corrupt world with new 'tablets of value,' along with a plan to take over and run things right—seemed more comic than politically relevant, unless the prophet is armed, in which case it becomes a frightful menace. The concluding scene in Herman Hesse's Magister Ludi (sometimes translated as The Glass Bead Game) summarized by overall view of the 'high theory' project. After years of intense training by the greatest teachers the most spiritually and intellectually gifted youths finally graduate. To celebrate, they go to lake, dive in, and, having not learned how to swim, drown.
I was more attracted to Aristotle, Hume, Montesquieu, Dewey and other political theorists with less lofty and comprehensive views of what theory might accomplish; weary of actions; based on dogmatic or totalistic thinking; an eye to the messy and compromised world; with a political commitment to liberty and the interests of the many; a preference for peace over war; an aversion to despotism and empire; and an affinity for tolerance and plurality. I also liked some of those thinkers because of their emphasis on material contexts. Montesquieu seeks to analyze the interaction of material contexts and republican political forms; Madison and his contemporaries attempt to extend the spatial scope of republican political association by recombining in novel ways various earlier power restraint arrangements. I was tremendously influenced by Dewey, studying intensively his slender volume The Public and its Problems (1927)—which I think is the most important book in twentieth century political thought. By the 'public' Dewey means essentially a stakeholder group, and his main point is that the material transformations produced by the industrial revolution has created new publics, and that the political task is to conceptualize and realize forms of community and government appropriate to solving the problems that confront these new publics.
One can say my overall project became to apply and extend their concepts to the contemporary planetary situation. Concomitantly reading IR literature on nuclear weapons, I was struck by fact that the central role that material realities played in these arguments was very ad hoc, and that many of the leading arguments on nuclear politics were very unconvincing. It was clear that while Waltz (Theory Talk #40) had brilliantly developed some key ideas about anarchy made by Hobbes and Rousseau, he had also left something really important out. These sorts of deficiencies led me to develop the arguments contained in Bounding Power. I think it is highly unlikely that I would have had these doubts, or come to make the arguments I made without having worked in political theory and in policy.
I read many works that greatly influenced my thinking in this area, among them works by Lewis Mumford, Langdon Winner's Autonomous Technology, James Lovelock's Gaia, Charles Perrow's Normal Accidents (read a related article here, pdf), Jonathan Schell's Fate of the Earth and The Abolition, William Ophul's Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity... I was particularly stuck by a line in Buckminster Fuller's Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (pdf), that we live in a 'spaceship' like closed highly interconnected system, but lack an 'operating manual' to guide intelligently our actions. It was also during this period that I read key works by H.G. Wells, most notably his book, Anticipations, and his essay The Idea of a League of Nations, both of which greatly influenced my thinking.
This aside, the greatest contribution to my thinking has come from conversations sustained over many years with some really extraordinary individuals. To mention those that I have been arguing with, and learning from, for at least ten years, there is John O'Looney, Wesley Warren, Bob Gooding-Williams, Alyn McAuly, Henry Nau, Richard Falk, Michael Doyle (Theory Talk #1), Richard Mathew, Paul Wapner, Bron Taylor, Ron Deibert, John Ikenberry, Bill Wohlforth, Frank von Hippel, Ethan Nadelmann, Fritz Kratochwil, Barry Buzan (Theory Talk #35), Ole Waever, John Agnew (Theory Talk #4), Barry Posen, Alex Wendt (Theory Talk #3), James der Derian, David Hendrickson, Nadivah Greenberg, Tim Luke, Campbell Craig, Bill Connolly, Steven David, Jane Bennett, Daniel Levine (TheoryTalk #58), and Jairus Grove. My only regret is that I have not spoken even more with them, and with the much larger number of people I have learned from on a less sustained basis along the way.
What would a student need to become a specialist in IR or understand the world in a global way?
I have thought a great deal about what sort of answers to this question can be generally valuable. For me, the most important insight is that success in intellectual life and academia is determined by more or less the same combination of factors that determines success more generally. This list is obvious: character, talent, perseverance and hard work, good judgment, good 'people skills,' and luck. Not everyone has a talent to do this kind of work, but the number of people who do have the talent to do this kind of work is much larger than the number of people who are successful in doing it. I think in academia as elsewhere, the people most likely to really succeed are those whose attitude toward the activity is vocational. A vocation is something one is called to do by an inner voice that one cannot resist. People with vocations never really work in one sense, because they are doing something that they would be doing even if they were not paid or required. Of course, in another sense people with vocations never stop working, being so consumed with their path that everything else matters very little. People with jobs and professions largely stop working when they when the lottery, but people with vocations are empowered to work more and better. When your vocation overlaps with your job, you should wake up and say 'wow, I cannot believe I am being paid to do this!' Rather obviously, the great danger in the life paths of people with vocations is imbalance and burn-out. To avoid these perils it is beneficial to sustain strong personal relationships, know when and how to 'take off' effectively, and sustain the ability to see things as an unfolding comedy and to laugh.
Academic life also involves living and working in a profession. Compared to the oppressions that so many thinkers and researchers have historically suffered from, contemporary professional academic life is a utopia. But academic life has several aspects unfortunate aspects, and coping successfully with them is vital. Academic life is full of 'odd balls' and the loose structure of universities and organization, combined with the tenure system, licenses an often florid display of dubious behavior. A fair number of academics have really primitive and incompetent social skills. Others are thin skinned-ego maniacs. Some are pompous hypocrites. Some are ruthlessly self-aggrandizing and underhanded. Some are relentless shirkers and free-riders. Also, academic life is, particularly relative to the costs of obtaining the years of education necessary to obtain it, not very well paid. Corruptions of clique, ideological factionalism, and nepotism occur. If not kept in proper perspective, and approached in appropriate ways, academic department life can become stupidly consuming of time, energy, and most dangerously, intellectual attention. The basic step for healthy departmental life is to approach it as a professional role.
The other big dimension of academic life is teaching. Teaching is one of the two 'deliverables' that academic organizations provide in return for the vast resources they consume. Shirking on teaching is a dereliction of responsibility, but also is the foregoing of a great opportunity. Teaching is actually one of the most assuredly consequential things academics do. The key to great teaching is, I think, very simple: inspire and convey enthusiasm. Once inspired, students learn. Once students take questions as their own, they become avid seekers of answers. Teachers of things political also have a responsibility to remain even-handed in what they teach, to make sure that they do not teach just or mainly their views, to make sure that the best and strongest versions of opposing sides are heard. Teaching seeks to produce informed and critically thinking students, not converts. Beyond the key roles of inspiration and even-handedness, the rest is the standard package of tasks relevant in any professional role: good preparation, good organization, hard work, and clarity of presentation.
Your main book, Bounding Power: Republican Security Theory from the Polis to the Global Village (2007), is a mix of intellectual history, political theory and IR theory, and is targeted largely at realism. How does a reading and interpretation of a large number of old books tell us something new about realism, and the contemporary global?
Bounding Power attempts to dispel some very large claims made by realists about their self-proclaimed 'tradition,' a lineage of thought in which they place many of the leading Western thinkers about political order, such as Thucydides, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau, and the 'global geopoliticans' from the years around the beginning of the twentieth century. In the book I argue that the actual main axis of western thinking about political order (and its absence) is largely the work of 'republican' thinkers from the small number of 'republics', and that many of the key ideas that realists call realist and liberals call liberal are actually fragments of a larger, more encompassing set of arguments that were primarily in the idioms of republicanism. This entails dispelling the widely held view that the liberal and proto-liberal republican thought and practice are marked by 'idealism'—and therefore both inferior in their grasp of the problem of security-from violence and valuable only when confined to the 'domestic.' I demonstrate that this line of republican security thinkers had a robust set of claims both about material contextual factors, about the 'geopolitics of freedom', and a fuller understanding of security-from-violence. The book shows how perhaps the most important insights of this earlier cluster of arguments has oddly been dropped by both realists (particularly neorealists) and liberal international theorists. And, finally, it is an attempt to provide an understanding that posits the project of exiting anarchy on a global scale as something essentially unprecedented, and as something that the best of our inherited theory leaves us unable to say much about.
The main argument is contained in my formulation of what I think are the actual the two main sets of issues of Western structural-materialist security theory, two problematiques formulated in republican and naturalist-materialist conceptual vocabularies. The first problematique concerns the relationship between material context, the scope of tolerable anarchy, and necessary-for-security government. The second problematic concerns the relative security-viability of two main different forms of government—hierarchical and republican.
This formulation of the first problematic concerning anarchy differs from the main line of contemporary Realist argument in that it poses the question as one about the spatial scope of tolerable anarchy. The primary variable in my reconstruction of the material-contextual component of these arguments is what I term violence interdependence (absent, weak, strong, and intense). The main substantive claim of Western structural-materialist security theory is that situations of anarchy combined with intense violence interdependence are incompatible with security and require substantive government. Situations of strong and weak violence interdependence constitute a tolerable (if at times 'nasty and brutish') second ('state-of-war') anarchy not requiring substantive government. Early formulations of 'state of nature' arguments, explicitly or implicitly hinge upon this material contextual variable, and the overall narrative structure of the development of republican security theory and practice has concerned natural geographic variations and technologically caused changes in the material context, and thus the scope of security tolerable/intolerable anarchy and needed substantive government. This argument was present in early realist versions of anarchy arguments, but has been dropped by neorealists. Conversely, contemporary liberal international theorists analyze interdependence, but have little to say about violence. The result is that the realists talk about violence and security, and the liberals talk about interdependence not relating to violence, producing the great lacuna of contemporary theory: analysis of violence interdependence.
The second main problematique, concerning the relative security viability of hierarchical and republican forms, has also largely been lost sight of, in large measure by the realist insistence that governments are by definition hierarchical, and the liberal avoidance of system structural theory in favor of process, ideational, and economic variables. (For neoliberals, cooperation is seen as (possibly) occurring in anarchy, without altering or replacing anarchy.) The main claim here is that republican and proto-liberal theorists have a more complete grasp of the security political problem than realists because of their realization that both the extremes of hierarchy and anarchy are incompatible with security. In order to register this lost component of structural theory I refer to republican forms at both the unit and the system-level as being characterized by an ordering principle which I refer to as negarchy. Such political arrangements are characterized by the simultaneous negation of both hierarchy and anarchy. The vocabulary of political structures should thus be conceived as a triad-triangle of anarchy, hierarchy, and negarchy, rather than a spectrum stretching from pure anarchy to pure hierarchy. Using this framework, Bounding Power traces various formulations of the key arguments of security republicans from the Greeks through the nuclear era as arguments about the simultaneous avoidance of hierarchy and anarchy on expanding spatial scales driven by variations and changes in the material context. If we recognize the main axis of our thinking in this way, we can stand on a view of our past that is remarkable in its potential relevance to thinking and dealing with the contemporary 'global village' like a human situation.
Nuclear weapons play a key role in the argument of Bounding Power about the present, as well as elsewhere in your work. But are nuclear weapons are still important as hey were during the Cold War to understand global politics?
Since their arrival on the world scene in the middle years of the twentieth century, there has been pretty much universal agreement that nuclear weapons are in some fundamental way 'revolutionary' in their implications for security-from-violence and world politics. The fact that the Cold War is over does not alter, and even stems from, this fact. Despite this wide agreement on the importance of nuclear weapons, theorists, policy makers, and popular arms control/disarmament movements have fundamental disagreements about which political forms are compatible with the avoidance of nuclear war. I have attempted to provide a somewhat new answer to this 'nuclear-political question', and to explain why strong forms of interstate arms control are necessary for security in the nuclear age. I argue that achieving the necessary levels of arms control entails somehow exiting interstate anarchy—not toward a world government as a world state, but toward a world order that is a type of compound republican union (marked by, to put it in terms of above discussion, a nearly completely negarchical structure).
This argument attempts to close what I term the 'arms control gap', the discrepancy between the value arms control is assigned by academic theorists of nuclear weapons and their importance in the actual provision of security in the nuclear era. During the Cold War, thinking among IR theorists about nuclear weapons tended to fall into three broad schools—war strategists, deterrence statists, and arms controllers. Where the first two only seem to differ about the amount of nuclear weapons necessary for states seeking security (the first think many, the second less), the third advocates that states do what they have very rarely done before the nuclear age, reciprocal restraints on arms.
But this Cold War triad of arguments is significantly incomplete as a list of the important schools of thought about the nuclear-political question. There are four additional schools, and a combination of their arguments constitutes, I argue, a superior answer to the nuclear-political question. First are the nuclear one worlders, a view that flourished during the late 1940s and early 1950s, and held that the simple answer to the nuclear political question is to establish a world government, as some sort of state. Second are the populist anti-nuclearists, who indict state apparatuses of acting contrary to the global public's security interests. Third are the deep arms controllers, such as Jonathan Schell, who argue that nuclear weapons need to be abolished. Fourth are the theorists of omniviolence, who theorize situations produced by the leakage of nuclear weapons into the hands of non-state actors who cannot be readily deterred from using nuclear weapons. What all of these schools have in common is that they open up the state and make arguments about how various forms of political freedom—and the institutions that make it possible—are at issue in answering the nuclear-political question.
Yet one key feature all seven schools share is that they all make arguments about how particular combinations and configurations of material realities provide the basis for thinking that their answer to the nuclear-political question is correct. Unfortunately, their understandings of how material factors shape, or should shape, actual political arrangements is very ad hoc. Yet the material factors—starting with sheer physical destructiveness—are so pivotal that they merit a more central role in theories of nuclear power. I think we need to have a model that allows us to grasp how variations in material contexts condition the functionality of 'modes of protection', that is, distinct and recurring security practices (and their attendant political structures).
For instance, one mode of protection—what I term the real-state mode of protection—attempts to achieve security through the concentration, mobilization, and employment of violence capability. This is the overall, universal, context-independent strategy of realists. Bringing into view material factors, I argue, shows that this mode of protection is functional not universally but specifically—and only—in material contexts that are marked by violence-poverty and slowness. This mode of protection is dysfunctional in nuclear material contexts marked by violence abundance and high violence velocities. In contrast, a republican federal mode of protection is a bundle of practices that aim for the demobilization and deceleration of violence capacity, and that the practices associated with this mode of protection are security functional in the nuclear material context.
What emerges from such an approach to ideas about the relation between nuclear power and security from violence is that the epistemological foundations for any of the major positions about nuclear weapons are actually much weaker than we should be comfortable with. People often say the two most important questions about the nuclear age are: what is the probability that nuclear weapons will be used? And then, what will happen when they are used? The sobering truth is that we really do not have good grounds for confidently answering either of those two questions. But every choice made about nuclear weapons depends on risk calculations that depend on how we answer these questions.
You have also written extensively on space, a topic that has not recently attracted much attention from many IR scholars. How does your thinking on this relate to your overall thinking about the global and planetary situation?
The first human steps into outer space during the middle years of the twentieth century have been among the most spectacular and potentially consequential events in the globalization of machine civilization on Earth. Over the course of what many call 'the space age,' thinking about space activities, space futures, and the consequences of space activities has been dominated by an elaborately developed body of 'space expansionist' thought that makes ambitious and captivating claims about both the feasibility and the desirability of human expansion into outer space. Such views of space permeate popular culture, and at times appear to be quite influential in actual space policy. Space expansionists hold that outer space is a limitless frontier and that humans should make concerted efforts to explore and colonize and extend their military activities into space. They claim the pursuit of their ambitious projects will have many positive, even transformative, effects upon the human situation on Earth, by escaping global closure, protecting the earth's habitability, preserving political plurality, and enhancing species survival. Claims about the Earth, its historical patterns and its contemporary problems, permeate space expansionist thinking.
While the feasibility, both technological and economic, of space expansionist projects has been extensively assessed, arguments for their desirability have not been accorded anything approaching a systematic assessment. In part, such arguments about the desirability of space expansion are difficult to assess because they incorporate claims that are very diverse in character, including claims about the Earth (past, present, and future), about the ways in which material contexts made up of space 'geography' and technologies produce or heavily favor particular political outcomes, and about basic worldview assumptions regarding nature, science, technology, and life.
By breaking these space expansionist arguments down into their parts, and systematically assessing their plausibility, a very different picture of the space prospect emerges. I think there are strong reasons to think that the consequences of the human pursuit of space expansion have been, and could be, very undesirable, even catastrophic. The actual militarization of that core space technology ('the rocket') and the construction of a planetary-scope 'delivery' and support system for nuclear war-fighting has been the most important consequence of actual space activities, but these developments have been curiously been left out of accounts of the space age and assessments of its impacts. Similarly, much of actually existing 'nuclear arms control' has centered on restraining and dismantling space weapons, not nuclear weapons. Thus the most consequential space activity—the acceleration of nuclear delivery capabilities—has been curiously rendered almost invisible in accounts of space and assessments of its impacts. This is an 'unknown known' of the 'space age'. Looking ahead, the creation of large orbital infrastructures will either presuppose or produce world government, potentially of a very hierarchical sort. There are also good reasons to think that space colonies are more likely to be micro-totalitarian than free. And extensive human movement off the planet could in a variety of ways increase the vulnerability of life on Earth, and even jeopardize the survival of the human species.
Finally, I think much of space expansionist (and popular) thinking about space and the consequences of humans space activities has been marked by basic errors in practical geography. Most notably, there is the widespread failure to realize that the expansion of human activities into Earth's orbital space has enhanced global closure, because the effective distances in Earth's space make it very small. And because of the formidable natural barriers to human space activity, space is a planetary 'lid, not a 'frontier'. So one can say that the most important practical discovery of the 'space age' has been an improved understanding of the Earth. These lines of thinking, I find, would suggest the outlines of a more modest and Earth-centered space program, appropriate for the current Earth age. Overall, the fact that we can't readily expand into space is part of why we are in a new 'earth age' rather than a 'space age'.
You've argued against making the environment into a national security issue twenty years ago. Do the same now, considering that making the environment a bigger priority by making it into a national security issue might be the only way to prevent total environmental destruction?
When I started writing about the relationships between environment and security twenty years ago, not a great deal of work had been done on this topic. But several leading environmental thinkers were making the case that framing environmental issues as security issues, or what came to be called 'securitizing the environment', was not only a good strategy to get action on environmental problems, but also was useful analytically to think about these two domains. Unlike the subsequent criticisms of 'environmental security' made by Realists and scholars of conventional 'security studies', my criticism starts with the environmentalist premise that environmental deterioration is a paramount problem for contemporary humanity as a whole.
Those who want to 'securitize the environment' are attempting to do what William James a century ago proposed as a general strategy for social problem solving. Can we find, in James' language, 'a moral equivalent of war?' (Note the unfortunately acronym: MEOW). War and the threat of war, James observed, often lead to rapid and extensive mobilizations of effort. Can we somehow transfer these vast social energies to deal with other sets of problems? This is an enduring hope, particularly in the United States, where we have a 'war on drugs', a 'war on cancer', and a 'war on poverty'. But doing this for the environment, by 'securitizing the environment,' is unlikely to be very successful. And I fear that bringing 'security' orientations, institutions, and mindsets into environmental problem-solving will also bring in statist, nationalist, and militarist approaches. This will make environmental problem-solving more difficult, not easier, and have many baneful side-effects.
Another key point I think is important, is that the environment—and the various values and ends associated with habitat and the protection of habitat—are actually much more powerful and encompassing than those of security and violence. Instead of 'securitizing the environment' it is more promising is to 'environmentalize security'. Not many people think about the linkages between the environment and security-from-violence in this way, but I think there is a major case of it 'hiding in plain sight' in the trajectory of how the state-system and nuclear weapons have interacted.
When nuclear weapons were invented and first used in the 1940s, scientists were ignorant about many aspects of their effects. As scientists learned about these effects, and as this knowledge became public, many people started thinking and acting in different ways about nuclear choices. The fact that a ground burst of a nuclear weapon would produce substantial radioactive 'fall-out' was not appreciated until the first hydrogen bomb tests in the early 1950s. It was only then that scientists started to study what happened to radioactive materials dispersed widely in the environment. Evidence began to accumulate that some radioactive isotopes would be 'bio-focused', or concentrated by biological process. Public interest scientists began effectively publicizing this information, and mothers were alerted to the fact that their children's teeth were become radioactive. This new scientific knowledge about the environmental effects of nuclear explosions, and the public mobilizations it produced, played a key role in the first substantial nuclear arms control treaty, the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963, which banned nuclear weapons testing in the atmosphere, in the ocean, and in space. Thus, the old ways of providing security were circumscribed by new knowledge and new stakeholders of environmental health effects. The environment was not securitized, security was partially environmentalized.
Thus, while some accounts by arms control theorists emphasize the importance of 'social learning' in altering US-Soviet relations, an important part of this learning was not about the nature of social and political interactions, but about the environmental consequences of nuclear weapons. The learning that was most important in motivating so many actors (both within states and in mass publics) to seek changes in politics was 'natural learning,' or more specifically learning about the interaction of natural and technological systems.
An even more consequential case of the environmentalization of security occurred in the 1970's and 1980's. A key text here is Jonathan Schell's book, The Fate of the Earth. Schell's book, combining very high-quality journalism with first rate political theoretical reflections, lays out in measured terms the new discoveries of ecologists and atmospheric scientists about the broader planetary consequences of an extensive nuclear war. Not only would hundreds of millions of people be immediately killed and much of the planet's built infrastructure destroyed, but the planet earth's natural systems would be so altered that the extinction of complex life forms, among them homo sapiens, might result. The detonation of numerous nuclear weapons and the resultant burning of cities would probably dramatically alter the earth's atmosphere, depleting the ozone layer that protects life from lethal solar radiations, and filling the atmosphere with sufficient dust to cause a 'nuclear winter.' At stake in nuclear war, scientists had learned, was not just the fate of nations, but of the earth as a life support system. Conventional accounts of the nuclear age and of the end of the Cold War are loath to admit it, but it I believe it is clear that spreading awareness of these new natural-technological possibilities played a significant role in ending the Cold War and the central role that nuclear arms control occupies in the settlement of the Cold War. Again, traditional ways of achieving security-from-violence were altered by new knowledges about their environmental consequences—security practices and arrangements were partly environmentalized.
Even more radically, I think we can also turn this into a positive project. As I wrote two decades ago, environmental restoration would probably generate political externalities that would dampen tendencies towards violence. In other words, if we address the problem of the environment, then we will be drawn to do various things that will make various types of violent conflict less likely.
Your work is permeated by references to 'material factors'. This makes it different from branches of contemporary IR—like constructivism or postmodernism—which seem to be underpinned by a profound commitment to focus solely one side of the Cartesian divide. What is your take on the pervasiveness and implications of this 'social bias'?
Postmodernism and constructivism are really the most extreme manifestations of a broad trend over the last two centuries toward what I refer to as 'social-social science' and the decline—but hardly the end—of 'natural-social science'. Much of western thought prior to this turn was 'naturalist' and thus tended to downplay both human agency and ideas. At the beginning of the nineteenth century—partly because of the influence of German idealism, partly because of the great liberationist projects that promised to give better consequence to the activities and aspirations of the larger body of human populations (previously sunk in various forms of seemingly natural bondages), and partly because of the great expansion of human choice brought about by the science-based technologies of the Industrial Revolution—there was a widespread tendency to move towards 'social-social science,' the project of attempting to explain the human world solely by reference to the human world, to explain social outcomes with reference to social causes. While this was the dominant tendency, and a vastly productive one in many ways, it existed alongside and in interaction with what is really a modernized version of the earlier 'natural-social science.' Much of my work has sought to 'bring back in' and extend these 'natural-social' lines of argument—found in figures such as Dewey and H.G. Wells—into our thinking about the planetary situation.
In many parts of both European and American IR and related areas, Postmodern and constructivist theories have significantly contributed to IR theorists by enhancing our appreciation of ideas, language, and identities in politics. As a response to the limits and blindnesses of certain types of rationalist, structuralist, and functional theories, this renewed interest in the ideational is an important advance. Unfortunately, both postmodernism and constructivism have been marked by a strong tendency to go too far in their emphasis of the ideational. Postmodernism and constructivism have also helped make theorists much more conscious of the implicit—and often severely limiting—ontological assumptions that underlay, inform, and bound their investigations. This is also a major contribution to the study of world politics in all its aspects.
Unfortunately, this turn to ontology has also had intellectually limiting effects by going too far, in the search for a pure or nearly pure social ontology. With the growth in these two approaches, there has indeed been a decided decline in theorizing about the material. But elsewhere in the diverse world of theorizing about IR and the global, theorizing about the material never came anything close to disappearing or being eclipsed. For anyone thinking about the relationships between politics and nuclear weapons, space, and the environment, theorizing about the material has remained at the center, and it would be difficult to even conceive of how theorizing about the material could largely disappear. The recent 're-discovery of the material' associated with various self-styled 'new materialists' is a welcome, if belated, re-discovery for postmodernists and constructivists. For most of the rest of us, the material had never been largely dropped out.
A very visible example of the ways in which the decline in appropriate attention to the material, an excessive turn to the ideational, and the quest for a nearly pure social ontology, can lead theorizing astray is the core argument in Alexander Wendt's main book, Social Theory of International Politics, one of the widely recognized landmarks of constructivist IR theory. The first part of the book advances a very carefully wrought and sophisticated argument for a nearly pure ideational social ontology. The material is explicitly displaced into a residue or rump of unimportance. But then, to the reader's surprise, the material, in the form of 'common fate' produced by nuclear weapons, and climate change, reappears and is deployed to play a really crucial role in understanding contemporary change in world politics.
My solution is to employ a mixed ontology. By this I mean that I think several ontologically incommensurate and very different realities are inescapable parts the human world. These 'unlikes' are inescapable parts of any argument, and must somehow be combined. There are a vast number of ways in which they can be combined, and on close examination, virtually all arguments in the social sciences are actually employing some version of a mixed ontology, however implicitly and under-acknowledged.
But not all combinations are equally useful in addressing all questions. In my version of mixed ontology—which I call 'practical naturalism'—human social agency is understood to be occurring 'between two natures': on the one hand the largely fixed nature of humans, and on the other the changing nature composed of the material world, a shifting amalgam of actual non-human material nature of geography and ecology, along with human artifacts and infrastructures. Within this frame, I posit as rooted in human biological nature, a set of 'natural needs,' most notably for security-from-violence and habitat services. Then I pose questions of functionality, by which I mean: which combinations of material practices, political structures, ideas and identities are needed to achieve these ends in different material contexts? Answering this question requires the formulation of various 'historical materialist' propositions, which in turn entails the systematic formulation of typologies and variation in both the practices, structures and ideas, and in material contexts. These arguments are not centered on explaining what has or what will happen. Instead they are practical in the sense that they are attempting to answer the question of 'what is to be done' given the fixed ends and given changing material contexts. I think this is what advocates of arms control and environmental sustainability are actually doing when they claim that one set of material practices and their attendant political structures, identities and ideas must be replaced with another if basic human needs are to going to continue to be meet in the contemporary planetary material situation created by the globalization of machine civilization on earth.
Since this set of arguments is framed within a mixed ontology, ideas and identities are a vital part of the research agenda. Much of the energy of postmodern and many varieties of critical theory have focused on 'deconstructing' various identities and ideas. This critical activity has produced and continues to produce many insights of theorizing about politics. But I think there is an un-tapped potential for theorists who are interested in ideas and identities, and who want their work to make a positive contribution to practical problem-solving in the contemporary planetary human situation in what might be termed a 'constructive constructivism'. This concerns a large practical theory agenda—and an urgent one at that, given the rapid increase in planetary problems—revolving around the task of figuring out which ideas and identities are appropriate for the planetary world, and in figuring out how they can be rapidly disseminated. Furthermore, thinking about how to achieve consciousness change of this sort is not something ancillary to the greenpeace project but vital to it. My thinking on how this should and might be done centers the construction of a new social narrative, centered not on humanity but on the earth.
Is it easy to plug your mixed ontology and interests beyond the narrow confines of IR or even the walls of the ivory tower into processes of collective knowledge proliferation in IR—a discipline increasingly characterized by compartimentalization and specialization?
The great plurality of approaches in IR today is indispensible and a welcome change. The professionalization of IR and the organization of intellectual life has some corruptions and pitfalls that are best avoided. The explosion of 'isms' and of different perspectives has been valuable and necessary in many ways, but it has also helped to foster and empower sectarian tendencies that confound the advance of knowledge. Some of the adherents of some sects and isms boast openly of establishing 'citation cartels' to favor themselves and their friends. Some theorists also have an unfortunate tendency to assume that because they have adopted a label that what they actually do is the actually the realization of the label. Thus we have 'realists' with limited grasp on realities, 'critical theorists' who repeat rather than criticize the views of other 'critical theorists,' and anti-neoliberals who are ruthless Ayn Rand-like self aggrandizers. The only way to fully address these tendencies is to talk to people you disagree with, and find and communicate with people in other disciplines.
Another consequence of this sectarianism is visible in the erosion of scholarly standards of citation. The system of academic incentives is configured to reward publication, and the publication of ideas that are new. This has a curiously perverse impact on the achievement of cumulativity. One seemingly easy and attractive path to saying something new is to say something old in new language, to say something said in another sect or field in the language of your sect or field, or easiest of all, simply ignore what other people have said if it is too much like what you are trying to say. George Santyana is wide quoted in saying that 'those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.' For academics it can unfortunately be said, 'those who can successfully forget what past academics said are free to say it again, and thus advance toward tenure.' When rampant sectarianism and decline in standards of citation is combined with a broader cultural tendency to valorize self-expression and authenticity, academic work can become an exercise in abstract self expressionism.
Confining one's intellectual life within one 'ism' or sect is sure to be self-limiting. Many of the most important and interesting questions arise between and across the sects and schools. Also, there are great opportunities in learning from people who do not fully share your assumptions and approaches. Seriously engaging the work and ideas of scholars in other sects can be very very valuable. Scholars in different sects and schools are also often really taking positions that are not so different as their labels would suggest. Perhaps because my research agenda fits uncomfortably within any of the established schools and isms, I have found particularly great value in seeking out and talking on a sustained basis with people with very different approaches.
My final question is about normativity and the way that normativity is perceived: In Europe and the United States, liberal Internationalism is increasingly considered as hollowed out, as a discursive cover for a tendency to attempt to control and regulate the world—or as an unguided idealistic missile. Doesn't adapting to a post-hegemonic world require dropping such ambitions?
American foreign policy has never been entirely liberal internationalist. Many other ideas and ideologies and approaches have often played important roles in shaping US foreign policy. But the United States, for a variety of reasons, has pursued liberal internationalist foreign policy agendas more extensively, and successfully, than any other major state in the modern state system, and the world, I think, has been made better off in very important ways by these efforts.
The net impact of the United States and of American grand strategy and particularly those parts of American brand strategy that have been more liberal internationalist in their character, has been enormously positive for the world. It has produced not a utopia by any means, but has brought about an era with more peace and security, prosperity, and freedom for more people than ever before in history.
Both American foreign policy and liberal internationalism have been subject to strong attacks from a variety of perspectives. Recently some have characterized liberal internationalism as a type of American imperialism, or as a cloak for US imperialism. Virtually every aspect of American foreign policy has been contested within the United States. Liberal internationalists have been strong enemies of imperialism and military adventurism, whether American or from other states. This started with the Whig's opposition to the War with Mexico and the Progressive's opposition to the Spanish-American War, and continued with liberal opposition to the War in Vietnam.
The claim that liberal internationalism leads to or supports American imperialism has also been recently voiced by many American realists, perhaps most notably John Mearsheimer (Theory Talk #49). He and others argue that liberal internationalism played a significant role in bringing about the War on Iraq waged by the W. Bush administration. This was indeed one of the great debacles of US foreign policy. But the War in Iraq was actually a war waged by American realists for reasons grounded in realist foreign policy thinking. It is true, as Mearsheimer emphasizes, that many academic realists criticized the Bush administration's plans and efforts in the invasion in Iraq. Some self-described American liberal internationalists in the policy world supported the war, but almost all academic American liberal internationalists were strongly opposed, and much of the public opposition to the war was on grounds related to liberal internationalist ideas.
It is patently inaccurate to say that main actors in the US government that instigated the War on Iraq were liberal internationalists. The main initiators of the war were Richard Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Whatever can be said about those two individuals, they are not liberal internationalists. They initiated the war because they thought that the Saddam Hussein regime was a threat to American interests—basically related to oil. The Saddam regime was seen as a threat to American-centered regional hegemony in the Middle East, an order whose its paramount purpose has been the protection of oil, and the protection of the regional American allies that posses oil. Saddam Hussein was furthermore a demonstrated regional revisionist likely to seek nuclear weapons, which would greatly compromise American military abilities in the region. Everything else the Bush Administration's public propaganda machine said to justify the war was essentially window dressing for this agenda. Far from being motivated by a liberal internationalist agenda the key figures in the Bush Administration viewed the collateral damage to international institutions produced by the war as a further benefit, not a cost, of the war. It is particularly ironic that John Mearsheimer would be a critic of this war, which seems in many ways a 'text book' application of a central claim of his 'offensive realism,' that powerful states can be expected, in the pursuit of their security and interests, to seek to become and remain regional hegemons.
Of course, liberal internationalism, quite aside from dealing with these gross mischaracterizations propagated by realists, must also look to the future. The liberal internationalism that is needed for today and tomorrow is going to be in some ways different from the liberal internationalism of the twentieth century. This is a large topic that many people, but not enough, are thinking about. In a recent working paper for the Council on Foreign Relations, John Ikenberry and I have laid out some ways in which we think American liberal internationalism should proceed. The starting point is the recognition that the United States is not as 'exceptional' in its precocious liberal-democratic character, not as 'indispensible' for the protection of the balance of power or the advance of freedom, or as easily 'hegemonic' as it has been historically. But the world is now also much more democratic than ever before, with democracies old and new, north and south, former colonizers and former colonies, and in every civilizational flavor. The democracies also face an array of difficult domestic problems, are thickly enmeshed with one another in many ways, and have a vital role to play in solving global problems. We suggest that the next liberal internationalism in American foreign policy should focus on American learning from the successes of other democracies in solving problems, focus on 'leading by example of successful problem-solving' and less with 'carrots and sticks,' make sustained efforts to moderate the inequalities and externalities produced by de-regulated capitalism, devote more attention to building community among the democracies, and make sustained efforts to 'recast global bargains' and the distribution of authority in global institutions to better incorporate the interests of 'rising powers.'
Daniel Deudney is Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. He has published widely in political theory and international relations, on substantive issues such as nuclear weapons, the environment as a security issue, liberal and realist international relations theory, and geopolitics.
Related links
Deudney's Faculty Profile at Johns Hopkins Read Deudney & Ikenberry's Democratic Internationalism: An American Grand Strategy for a Post-exceptionalist Era (Council on Foreign Relations Working Paper, 2012) here (pdf) Read Deudney et al's Global Shift: How the West Should Respond to the Rise of China (2011 Transatlantic Academy report) here (pdf) Read the introduction of Deudney's Bounding Power (2007) here (pdf) Read Deudney's Bringing Nature Back In: Geopolitical Theory from the Greeks to the Global Era (1999 book chapter) here (pdf) Read Deudney & Ikenberry's Who Won the Cold War? (Foreign Policy, 1992) here (pdf) Read Deudney's The Case Against Linking Environmental Degradation and National Security (Millennium, 1990) here (pdf) Read Deudney's Rivers of Energy: The Hydropower Potential (WorldWatch Institute Paper, 1981) here (pdf)
Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a tool specifically developed for quantifying and assessing the environmental burden of a product across its entire life cycle, thus providing powerful support for sustainable product design. There exists a geographical imbalance in the adoption and distribution of LCA studies, with a notably poor penetration into developing countries, resulting from a lack of technical expertise, reliable data, and an inability to engage with the key issues of developing countries. These challenges are particularly prevalent in waste management. The limitations in current LCA capacity for representing product end-of-life, coupled to the disparity in waste management practices between developed and developing countries means that LCA is currently unable to accurately model product end-of-life in South Africa. This means that, for imported products designed on the basis of LCA, the upstream impacts may be accurate, while the end-of-life is not. Therefore, to improve the use of LCA as a tool to support sustainable product design, there is a need to develop life cycle datasets and methods that accurately reflect the realities of waste management in developing countries. The objectives of this dissertation are to (i) identify the current shortcomings of existing LCA datasets in representing the end-of-life stage of general waste in a South African context, and (ii) propose modifications to existing datasets to better reflect the realities of waste management in a South African context and extract lessons from this for use elsewhere. To meet these objectives, research was undertaken in three main stages, with the outcome of each stage used to inform the development of each subsequent stage. The first stage aimed to establish the status quo with regards to general waste management in South Africa. This investigation was informed through a desktop review of government and other publicly available reports, supplemented by field work and stakeholder engagements. These results formed the basis for the second stage: a review of LCA capacity for representing product end-of-life in the South African context. The review of datasets was limited to those contained within SimaPro v8.3 and was undertaken with the aim of understanding the extent to which current datasets are capable of representing South African waste management practices. Finally, three cases of existing LCA datasets were explored. This included testing modifications that could be made in an attempt to improve their applicability to the South African reality. In South Africa, a major limitation in developing a quantified mapping of waste flows lies in the paucity of reliable waste data and the exclusion of the contribution of the informal sector in existing waste data repositories. It was estimated that South Africa generates approximately 12.7 million tonnes of domestic waste per annum, of which an estimated 29% is not collected or treated via formal management options. For both formal and informal general waste, disposal to land (landfill and dumping) represents the most utilised waste management option. Landfill conditions in South Africa range from well-managed sanitary landfills to open dumps. Considering only licensed landfill facilities, it is estimated that large and medium landfill sites accept the majority of South Africa's general waste (54% and 31% respectively), while the balance is managed in small (12%) and communal (3%) sites. Considering the quantity of informal domestic waste enables a crude estimation of household waste distribution between different landfill classes. In this instance, while the majority of waste (40%) is still managed in large formal landfill sites, an appreciable quantity (26%) is managed in private dumps. Within SimaPro v8.3 landfill disposal is best represented by the sanitary landfill datasets contained within the ecoinvent v3.3 database. SimaPro preserves the modular construction of the ecoinvent dataset, meaning that various generic modifications to these datasets can be made, such as the elimination or addition of burdens, redefinition of the value of a burden, or substitution of a linked dataset. Practically, such modifications are limited to process-specific burdens. However, wastespecific burdens are of greater significance in the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) result of a landfill process. Waste-specific emissions are generated using the underlying ecoinvent landfill emission model. The current model structure allows for the parametrisation of waste composition in addition to landfill gas (LFG) capture and utilisation efficiencies. However, besides the incorporation of a methane correction factor to account for the effect that various site conditions have on the waste degradation environment, the extent to which the existing model can be adapted to represent alternative landfill conditions is limited. This is particularly true in the case of leachate generation and release. Although adaptation that incorporates the effect of climatic conditions on waste degradability and emission release is possible, this requires a high level of country-specific data and modelling expertise. Thus, the practicality of such a modification within the skills set of most LCA practitioners is questionable. Further limitations in the existing modelling framework include its inability to quantify the potential impacts of practices characteristic of unmanaged sites such as open-burning, waste scavenging, and the presence of vermin and other animal vectors for disease. Analysis of the LCIA results for different landfill scenarios showed that regardless of either the deposited material or the specific landfill conditions modelled, the time frame considered had the most pronounced effect on the normalised potential impacts. Regardless of landfill conditions, when long-term leachate emissions are considered, freshwater and marine ecotoxicity impacts dominate the overall potential impacts of the site. This result implies that if landfill disposal is modelled over the long-term, the potential impacts of the process has less to do with site-specific conditions than it does to do with the intrinsic properties of the material itself. Given the ensuing extent of degradation that occurs over the time frame considered, the practise of very long-term modelling can equalise landfills that differ strongly in the short-term. In terms of product design on the basis of LCA, the choice of material can be more strongly influenced by the time frame considered than the specific landfill scenario. From a short-term perspective, for fast degrading materials the impacts incurred from leachate emissions and their subsequent treatment are of lesser importance than those arising from LFG. From a long-term perspective by contrast, leachate emissions have a significant effect on the LCIA result. Investigation into the effect of reduced precipitation on the LCIA result showed that the exclusion of leachate emissions lowers the potential impacts of a number of impact categories, with the most substantial quantified reduction observed in the freshwater and marine ecotoxicity impact categories. This result implies that for dry climates, the long-term impacts of landfilling could be significantly lower than when compared to landfill under temperate conditions, with the potential impacts of the waste remaining locked-up in the landfill. Given quantified findings on South Africa's dependence on both formal and informal disposal, and the variation in landfill conditions across the country, it can be concluded that LCA results for the impacts of products originating from global supply chains, but consumed and disposed of in South Africa, will be inaccurate for the end-of-life stage if modifications to end-of-life modelling are not made. The findings from this dissertation provide the basis for i) a crude estimate of 'market shares' of different disposal practises and ii) guidelines for parameterisation of material specific emission factors, in particular for shorter term emissions, focused on LFG and leachate emissions.
Türkiye, planlı dönemle birlikte uygulamaya başladığı bölgesel gelişme ve bölgeler arasındaki dengesizlikleri giderici yöndeki politikalarını günümüzde yeniden gözden geçirme zorunluluğu ile karşı karşıyadır. Bu zorunluluğun esas nedeni Avrupa Birliği'ne katılım sürecinde bölgesel gelişme politikalarının entegre edilmiş olmasıdır. Bu nedenle Türkiye, yaklaşık 40 yıldır uygulamakta olduğu bölgesel gelişme model, politika ve araçlarını bir yana bırakarak yeniden bir yapılanma süreci içine girmiştir. Bu yeni yapılanmanın ana öğesini Bölgesel Kalkınma Ajansları (BKA) olarak adlandırılan birimler oluşturmaktadır. Kalkınma Ajansları, bir ülkenin belli bir coğrafi bölgesi içerisindeki özel ve kamusal tüm şirketler, yerel otoriteler ile sivil toplum kuruluşları arasında işbirliği sağlayarak, o bölgenin ekonomik açıdan gelişmesini hedefleyen ve yasal bir hükme dayanarak kurulan yapılar olarak tanımlanmaktadır. Küreselleşme süreci beraberinde getirdiği yapısal uyum politikaları ile birçok konuda özgün süreçler ve araçlar geliştirilmesini gerekli kılmıştır. Bu süreçte Türkiye'ye de AB tarafından bölge planlamanın yeni bir anlayışla ele alınması gerektiği ve bunun aracının da BKA'lar olduğu ifade edilmiş ve konu ilk kez AB'ye tam üyelik müzakereleri ile başlamıştır. Bu dönemin başlangıcı sayılacak süreç ise adaylığın ilk kez tescil edildiği 1999 Helsinki Zirvesi sonunda olmuştur. AB Komisyonu'nun hazırlamış olduğu Katılım Ortaklığı Belgesi'nde orta vadede yapılması gereken düzenlemeler arasında yer alan BKA'ları oluşturmak amacıyla yasal düzenlemeler süreci başlatılmıştır. Bu doğrultuda öncelikle Topluluk kurallarına uygun olarak kısa vadede istatistiksel bölge olarak bilinen AB (NUTS) sistemi 22 Eylül 2002 tarih ve 4720 sayılı Bakanlar Kurulu kararı ile kabul edilmiştir. Daha sonra da 2003 yılı Katılım Ortaklığı Belgesinde, katılım öncesi mali yardım programından yararlanabilmek için BKA'ların kurulması öngörülmüştür. Takip eden süreçte 32 esas ve 5 geçici maddeden oluşan, 5449 sayılı Kalkınma Ajanslarının Kuruluşu, Koordinasyonu ve Görevleri Hakkında Kanun, 25.01.2006 tarihinde TBMM Genel Kurulunda görüşülerek kabul edilmiş, 08.02.2006 tarihli ve 26074 sayılı Resmi Gazetede yayımlanarak yürürlüğe girmiştir. Ülkemizde, 5449 sayılı Kanunun birinci maddesinde ifade edildiği üzere; ?kamu kesimi, özel kesim ve sivil toplum kuruluşları arasındaki işbirliğini geliştirmek, kaynakların yerinde ve etkin kullanımını sağlamak ve yerel potansiyeli harekete geçirmek suretiyle, ulusal kalkınma plânı ve programlarda öngörülen ilke ve politikalarla uyumlu olarak bölgesel gelişmeyi hızlandırmak, sürdürülebilirliğini sağlamak, bölgeler arası ve bölge içi gelişmişlik farklarını azaltmak amacıyla? BKA'lar kurulmaktadır. 6 Temmuz 2006 tarih ve 26220 sayılı Resmi Gazete'de yayımlanan ?Bazı Düzey 2 Bölgelerinde Kalkınma Ajansları Kurulmasına Dair Bakanlar Kurulu Kararı? ile ilk olarak 06.01.2007 tarihinde Adana ve Mersin illerini kapsayan Çukurova Kalınma Ajansı ve 13.01.2007 tarihinde de İzmir ilini ve çevresini kapsayan İzmir Kalkınma Ajansları kurulmuştur. Kalkınma ajansları; ? Bölgesel gelişme uygulamalarımız ile bölge planlarımızın etkinliğinin ve başarısının yükseltilmesini; bölgelerin ülkemizin genel büyümesine, gelişmesine, refahına ve istikrarına katkısının artırılmasını; sosyal uyum ve adaletin güçlendirilmesini ve değişen küresel rekabet şartlarına adaptasyonunun hızlandırılmasını sağlayacak, ? Yüksek nitelikli personeli, esnek kaynak ve istihdam yapısı ile kurum, kuruluş ve şahıslara sağladığı idari, mali, teknik desteklerle başta girişimciler olmak üzere bütün yerel aktörlerin kalkınma çabalarına katılımını teşvik edecek, ? Sağlayacağı proje ve faaliyet desteklerinde kişi, kurum ve kuruluşların eş finansmana dayalı ortak proje üretme ve yönetme kültürü ve yeteneğini geliştirecek; sahiplenme ve işbirliği duygusunu güçlendirecek; bölgenin girişimcilik potansiyelini harekete geçirecek ve sürekli olarak yükseltecek, ? Yerel potansiyeli, dinamikleri, özgünlükleri, kaynak ve imkânları ortaya çıkararak harekete geçirecek ve ulusal, uluslararası pazarlarda ekonomik, sosyal, kültürel birer değer haline dönüştürecek; Sonuç olarak, hem ulusal, hem de bölgesel-yerel düzeyde başta istihdam ve gelir olmak üzere ekonomik ve sosyal göstergelerin iyileştirilmesine, bölgeler arası ve bölge içi gelişmişlik farklarının azaltılmasına ve dolayısıyla ülkenin genel refahının artırılması ve istikrarının pekiştirilmesine olumlu katkılar sağlayacaktır. ; Turkey today faces the necessity to reexamine its policies, begun to be implemented since the planned period, which aims to eliminate the imbalances between regional development and regions. The main reason of this necessity is that regional development policies weren't integrated in the process of participation of European Union. Therefore, Turkey went into a reconstruction process by abandoning the regional development model, policy and tools that it had been has been using for 40 years. The units called Regional Development Agencies (RDA) constitute the main element of this construct. Development Agencies, all private and public enterprises within a certain geographical region of a country, are defined as structures that aim the economic development of that region by providing cooperation between local authorities and civil society organizations, and that are founded on the basis of a legal provision. As is known, globalization process entails the development of authentic processes and tools in many cases regarding structural adaptation policies that it brought along. In this process, it was explained to Turkey by EU that regional planning should be approached with a new understanding and RDA?s are the means for this and this first started with the negotiations of full membership to EU. The process that can be counted as the beginning of this period is the end of Helsinki Summit of 1999 when the candidateship was first enrolled. The legal regulations process was initiated so as to constitute RDA?s that are among regulations which should be implemented in medium term in Accession Partnership that European Commission arranged. Accordingly, EU (NUTS) system that is known as short term statistical region was initially approved by Cabinet decree no 4720 in September 22 of 2002 in accordance with the rules of congregation. Later in the Accession Partnership of 2003, it was anticipated that RDA's be constituted in order to be able to utilize the pre-accession financial support programmes. In the following process, the law number 5449 regarding the Establishment, Coordination and Missions of Development Agencies that consists of 32 major and 5 temporary articles was debated and approved in General Assembly of Grand National Assembly of Turkey and went in effect after being published in Official Journal of number 26074 and date 02.08.2006. In our country, as stated in the first article of law number 5449, RDA?s are constituted ?in order to accelerate the regional development, to insure its maintainability, reduce the differences of interregional and regional development, compatible with the principles and policies anticipated in national development plans and programmes by developing the cooperation among public sector, private sector and civil society organizations, ensuring the effective usage of resources and activating the local potency?. By ?the Cabinet Decree Regarding the Establishment of Development Agencies in Certain Level 2 Regions? that was published in Official Journal number 26220 of July, 6, 2006, Development Agencies were constituted in Cukurova regions that include Adana and Mersin and Izmir regions including Izmir, and Cukurova Development Agency officially opened in 01.06.2006 and Izmir Development Agency in 01.13.2007. Development agencies; ? Will ensure the promotion of effectiveness and success of our region plans with our regional development applications; increasing of regions' contributions to the general growth, development, welfare and stability of our country; reinforcement of social adaptation and justice and, acceleration of adaptation to changing conditions of global competition, ? Will encourage the participation of all local actors in development attemps, especially administrative, financial and technical supports that it provides to corporations, establishments and persons with its highly qualified crew, flexible resource and employment structure, ? Will improve the culture and ability to produce and manage associate projects that are based on co-financing of person, corporation and establishment in project and activity supports; reinforce the sense of ownage and cooperation; active the entrepreneurship potency of the region and keep improving it, ? Will activate the local potency, dynamics, individualities by revealing the resources and possibilities, and turn into an economic, social and cultural values in international market; Consequently, will contribute to the improvement of economic and social indicators, especially employment and income in both national and regional- local level; reduction of differences of interregional and regional development and thus increasing of general prosperity of the country and solidifying of stability.
Problem setting. The state of the national labor market is characterized by an extremely acute crisis. Its essence is that there is no balance in the field of public administration of the population employment system. In particular, as always, national governments and international structures draw the attention to the imbalance of labor markets, as an important determinant of socio-economic development and a multidimensional problem of public administration policy. Due to globalization, digitalization, demographic change, migration, etc., the problem of public administration in the field of population employment became significantly relevant in recent years, which has a strong impact on the state of the world and national labor markets. The importance of labor market institutions is critical for overcoming imbalances in the employment sector – this is clear from global and, including European experience. Now it is necessary for domestic state policy to comprehend and adapt such experience, as in recent years there have been significant conceptual and practical differences between the institutional approaches used by Ukraine and the European Union concerning how to develop labor and social relations.The effectiveness of the population employment system which is conducted by public administration at the current stage of development of the country – a qualitative indicator of the effectiveness of public policy in the socio-economic sphere, its level directly determines the current state of the domestic economy. The structure of employment and the level of its efficiency, which had a direct connection with various sectors of the economy, the phenomena of illegal labor migration and shadow employment, still remain problems of the labor market. The inefficiency of the structure of public administration of the population employment system is a reflection of the model of economic development, which is based on cheap workforce. Thus, in connection with the current state of the Ukrainian economy, public administration bodies must develop a very prudent employment policy, because only positive changes in public administration of the employment system, including the possibility of free movement of labor, which stimulates structural change, can assist the country to emerge from the crisis and revive economic growth.Recent research and publications analysis. Many researches by both domestic and foreign authors are dedicated to the analysis of the institutional environment of the employment system and the labor market. Analysis of employment legislation and its impact on the labor market, the activities of employment services in the world is presented in researches of such foreign authors as J. Keynes, A. Marshall, O. Williamson, Fan Tui, E. Hansent and D. Price others.Among the domestic authors who resaerched this issue can be identified scientific achievements of M. Butka, S. Goncharova, Yu. Marshavina, E. Libanova, L. Novak-Kalyaeva, V. Petyukha, L. Shchetinina, L. Fokas, T. Vonberg, T. Kitsak, S. Kalinina and others.Highlighting previously unsettled parts of the general problem. The diversity of modern institutional research, however, leaves unanswered a number of important issues for modern state policy of Ukraine - the institutional foundations of public administration of the population employment system of Ukraine. Paying tribute to the conducted researchws, many important problems of institutional restructuring of the domestic labor market in the context of the social crisis and the destruction of the regional economic space remain unresolved.Paper main body. The interaction of individuals in society is regulated by numerous social organizations and regulations. In other words, the activity of each person is institutionalized. Institutionalization is mainly understood as the formalization of social relations, the transition from informal relations and unorganized work to the formation of organizational structures, which were characterized by a clear hierarchy of power. The process of institutionalization also means that the activities of people and their relationships will be regulated, legally legalized organizational structures, if it is necessary and possible.The process of institutionalization is associated with a complex systemic transformation, differently implemented in the normative, organizational and communicative forms of social institutions.At the present stage, the institutional basis (formal component) of the state employment service is determined:1) The Law of Ukraine "On Population Employment" № 5067-VI of 05.07.2012, in its section III it is determined that the state policy in the field of population employment and labor migration is carried out by the Central Executive Body, which implements the state policy in the field of population employment and labor migration, which has its own territorial bodies that are legal entities under public law. Financing of activity is carried out at the expense of means of Fund of the Obligatory State Social Insurance of Ukraine in Case of Unemployment;2) The Law of Ukraine "On Compulsory State Social Insurance in Case of Unemployment" stipulates that the functions of the executive directorate of the Fund are performed by the central executive body implementing state policy in the field of population employment and labor migration, and its territorial bodies;3) In accordance with the Fundamentals of the legislation of Ukraine concerning compulsory state social insurance, the management of funds of compulsory state social insurance is carried out by the boards and executive directorates of insurance funds, which ensure defined by laws specific types of social insurance, the implementation of board decisions;4) The Decree of the President of Ukraine "On the State Employment Service of Ukraine" № 19/2013 of January 16, 2013 approved the Regulations on the State Employment Service of Ukraine, determined that the new service is the successor of the relevant bodies of the state employment service. The same Decree amended Section II and Clause 12 of Section IV of the Scheme of Organization and Interaction of Central Executive Bodies of the Decree of the President of Ukraine "On Optimization of the System of Central Executive Bodies" № 1085/2010 of December 9, 2010, supplemented by the following paragraph: "State Employment Service of Ukraine". We would like to draw special attention to the fact that the Decree of the President of Ukraine is currently in force. However, the new "State Employment Service of Ukraine" did not last long after its creation. On July 11, 2013, the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine "Issues of the State Employment Service" №565 was adopted, according to it territorial bodies of the State Employment Service were established as legal entities under public law, and the State Employment Center of the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy was merged with the State Employment Service. According to the appendix to the Resolution, departments of the State Employment Service was established in regional and district centers. However, in fact this did not happen. The Resolution expired on the basis of the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine "Some Issues of Public Administration in the Field of Employment" № 90 of March 5, 2014, which states that "in order to improve public administration in the field of population employment and optimize the system of central executive bodies "the state employment service" was liquidated. It was also determined that the state employment service as a centralized system of state institutions, its activities are directed and coordinated by the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture, is the successor of the State Employment Service. Along with the liquidation of the State Employment Service of Ukraine, employees of the State Employment Service also lost the status of civil servants. It is interesting that the Presidential Decree established the State Employment Service of Ukraine, and the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine abolished the State Employment Service;5) Presidential Decree "On Optimization of the System of Central Executive Bodies" № 1085/2010 of 09.12.2010, where in the section "Central authorities" there is such a body as the "State Employment Service", and in section IV the central executive bodies, which activities are directed and coordinated by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine through the relevant members of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, determine that the activities of "the State Employment Service of Ukraine" are directed through the Minister of Social Policy of Ukraine.We would like to draw your attention to the fact that "the State Employment Service of Ukraine" was liquidated, but this Decree is valid and was not amended since 2014;6) There was also an attempt to change the organizational and legal form and transform the SESU into the National Employment Agency. The concept of such reform was presented by the Minister of Social Policy of Ukraine on June 25, 2015 at the International Scientific and Practical Conference "Labor Market of Ukraine: European Dimension". The work of the National Employment Agency on the basis of the SESU was scheduled to start on January 1, 2016. However, due to the lack of substantiation of the planned reforms, no reforms were carried out. Even while discussing the idea of reorganization, experts had doubts about its relevance, but noted the necessity for change in the work of the employment service;7) The next step in "reforming" the state employment service was the issuance of the Order of the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine № 1543 of 15.12.2016, which approved the "Regulations on the State Employment Service", but not taking into account that the title mentions "state", according to item 1 of the Regulation such institution as "State employment service" which is the centralized system of the state institutions which activity is directed and coordinated by the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine again appears. The Service consisted of the Central Office of the Service, Regional and Basic Employment Centers, the Ukrainian State Employment Service Training Institute, vocational schools of the State Employment Service, which are defined as legal entities under public law. However, this Order expired on the basis of the Order of the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine "On approval of the Regulations on the State Employment Service" № 945 of June 14, 2019. In our opinion, the only significant change in this order was that instead of the Central Office in the service, the State Employment Center reappeared. This provision is valid;8) On December 5, 2019, the Law of Ukraine "On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine Concerning the Formation of State Policy in the Sphere of Labor, Labor Relations, Employment and Labor Migration" № 341-IX was adopted, pursuant to it the Resolution was adopted Of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine № 206 of March 3, 2020 "On Amendments to Certain Resolutions of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine Concerning the Transfer of Certain Powers from the Ministry of Social Policy to the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture in the Field of Employment population", which entered into force on March 12, 2020. In accordance with the provisions of this Resolution, taking into account the new priorities of public policy, the issue of public administration of the employment system is a component of economic rather than social policy. Also, this resolution, by amending the existing regulations, destroys the concept of "public employment service". Only the State Employment Center remains. At the same time, no changes were made to the Order of the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine "On approval of the Regulations on the State Employment Service" № 945 of June 14, 2019, according to it the activities of the State Employment Service are directed and coordinated by the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine. is the main institution of the service. The new provision has not yet been approved. In connection with these conflicts in the law there is a question of legitimacy of the institution.Conclusions of the research and prospects for further researches. Institutional principles of public administration of the population employment system of Ukraine are a process that consists in defining and consolidating social norms, rules, statuses and roles, bringing them into a system capable of acting to reduce the negative impact of unemployment by identifying, eliminating and neutralizing the causes and conditions of unemployment. The result of this process is the creation of an institute of state employment service.The analysis makes it possible to identify in our country an imperfect institutional environment for employment and the labor market. First of all, it is related to the existing contradictions in the legislative system, the shortcomings of the current regulations on the state employment service in Ukraine, and the lack of a clearly defined development strategy.A clearly defined goal, a detailed presentation of the tasks and functions of the state employment service were not formed, in particular those that take into account new trends and realities of employment and the labor market, provide employment legislation with formalities that do not ensure effective activity of service, does not encourage new forms of cooperation of neither potential employees nor employers. ; Розглянуто співвідношення понять "інституціоналізація" та "інституалізація".Зроблено висновок, що ці поняття є тотожними. Доведено, що у контексті глобалізації, цифровізації, демографічних змін, міграції тощо проблема державного управління у сфері зайнятості населення упродовж останніх років суттєво актуалізується, що сильно впливає на стан світового і національного ринків праці. Наголошено, що значення інститутів ринку праці є критичним для подолання розбалансованості у секторі зайнятості. Досліджено інституціональні основи діяльності Державної служби зайнятості. Визначено, що інституціональне середовище зайнятості та ринку праці є недосконалим: існує велика кількість колізій у нормативно-правовому забезпеченні, відсутня чітко окреслена стратегія розвитку
Problem setting. The state of the national labor market is characterized by an extremely acute crisis. Its essence is that there is no balance in the field of public administration of the population employment system. In particular, as always, national governments and international structures draw the attention to the imbalance of labor markets, as an important determinant of socio-economic development and a multidimensional problem of public administration policy. Due to globalization, digitalization, demographic change, migration, etc., the problem of public administration in the field of population employment became significantly relevant in recent years, which has a strong impact on the state of the world and national labor markets. The importance of labor market institutions is critical for overcoming imbalances in the employment sector – this is clear from global and, including European experience. Now it is necessary for domestic state policy to comprehend and adapt such experience, as in recent years there have been significant conceptual and practical differences between the institutional approaches used by Ukraine and the European Union concerning how to develop labor and social relations.The effectiveness of the population employment system which is conducted by public administration at the current stage of development of the country – a qualitative indicator of the effectiveness of public policy in the socio-economic sphere, its level directly determines the current state of the domestic economy. The structure of employment and the level of its efficiency, which had a direct connection with various sectors of the economy, the phenomena of illegal labor migration and shadow employment, still remain problems of the labor market. The inefficiency of the structure of public administration of the population employment system is a reflection of the model of economic development, which is based on cheap workforce. Thus, in connection with the current state of the Ukrainian economy, public administration bodies must develop a very prudent employment policy, because only positive changes in public administration of the employment system, including the possibility of free movement of labor, which stimulates structural change, can assist the country to emerge from the crisis and revive economic growth.Recent research and publications analysis. Many researches by both domestic and foreign authors are dedicated to the analysis of the institutional environment of the employment system and the labor market. Analysis of employment legislation and its impact on the labor market, the activities of employment services in the world is presented in researches of such foreign authors as J. Keynes, A. Marshall, O. Williamson, Fan Tui, E. Hansent and D. Price others.Among the domestic authors who resaerched this issue can be identified scientific achievements of M. Butka, S. Goncharova, Yu. Marshavina, E. Libanova, L. Novak-Kalyaeva, V. Petyukha, L. Shchetinina, L. Fokas, T. Vonberg, T. Kitsak, S. Kalinina and others.Highlighting previously unsettled parts of the general problem. The diversity of modern institutional research, however, leaves unanswered a number of important issues for modern state policy of Ukraine - the institutional foundations of public administration of the population employment system of Ukraine. Paying tribute to the conducted researchws, many important problems of institutional restructuring of the domestic labor market in the context of the social crisis and the destruction of the regional economic space remain unresolved.Paper main body. The interaction of individuals in society is regulated by numerous social organizations and regulations. In other words, the activity of each person is institutionalized. Institutionalization is mainly understood as the formalization of social relations, the transition from informal relations and unorganized work to the formation of organizational structures, which were characterized by a clear hierarchy of power. The process of institutionalization also means that the activities of people and their relationships will be regulated, legally legalized organizational structures, if it is necessary and possible.The process of institutionalization is associated with a complex systemic transformation, differently implemented in the normative, organizational and communicative forms of social institutions.At the present stage, the institutional basis (formal component) of the state employment service is determined:1) The Law of Ukraine "On Population Employment" № 5067-VI of 05.07.2012, in its section III it is determined that the state policy in the field of population employment and labor migration is carried out by the Central Executive Body, which implements the state policy in the field of population employment and labor migration, which has its own territorial bodies that are legal entities under public law. Financing of activity is carried out at the expense of means of Fund of the Obligatory State Social Insurance of Ukraine in Case of Unemployment;2) The Law of Ukraine "On Compulsory State Social Insurance in Case of Unemployment" stipulates that the functions of the executive directorate of the Fund are performed by the central executive body implementing state policy in the field of population employment and labor migration, and its territorial bodies;3) In accordance with the Fundamentals of the legislation of Ukraine concerning compulsory state social insurance, the management of funds of compulsory state social insurance is carried out by the boards and executive directorates of insurance funds, which ensure defined by laws specific types of social insurance, the implementation of board decisions;4) The Decree of the President of Ukraine "On the State Employment Service of Ukraine" № 19/2013 of January 16, 2013 approved the Regulations on the State Employment Service of Ukraine, determined that the new service is the successor of the relevant bodies of the state employment service. The same Decree amended Section II and Clause 12 of Section IV of the Scheme of Organization and Interaction of Central Executive Bodies of the Decree of the President of Ukraine "On Optimization of the System of Central Executive Bodies" № 1085/2010 of December 9, 2010, supplemented by the following paragraph: "State Employment Service of Ukraine". We would like to draw special attention to the fact that the Decree of the President of Ukraine is currently in force. However, the new "State Employment Service of Ukraine" did not last long after its creation. On July 11, 2013, the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine "Issues of the State Employment Service" №565 was adopted, according to it territorial bodies of the State Employment Service were established as legal entities under public law, and the State Employment Center of the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy was merged with the State Employment Service. According to the appendix to the Resolution, departments of the State Employment Service was established in regional and district centers. However, in fact this did not happen. The Resolution expired on the basis of the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine "Some Issues of Public Administration in the Field of Employment" № 90 of March 5, 2014, which states that "in order to improve public administration in the field of population employment and optimize the system of central executive bodies "the state employment service" was liquidated. It was also determined that the state employment service as a centralized system of state institutions, its activities are directed and coordinated by the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture, is the successor of the State Employment Service. Along with the liquidation of the State Employment Service of Ukraine, employees of the State Employment Service also lost the status of civil servants. It is interesting that the Presidential Decree established the State Employment Service of Ukraine, and the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine abolished the State Employment Service;5) Presidential Decree "On Optimization of the System of Central Executive Bodies" № 1085/2010 of 09.12.2010, where in the section "Central authorities" there is such a body as the "State Employment Service", and in section IV the central executive bodies, which activities are directed and coordinated by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine through the relevant members of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, determine that the activities of "the State Employment Service of Ukraine" are directed through the Minister of Social Policy of Ukraine.We would like to draw your attention to the fact that "the State Employment Service of Ukraine" was liquidated, but this Decree is valid and was not amended since 2014;6) There was also an attempt to change the organizational and legal form and transform the SESU into the National Employment Agency. The concept of such reform was presented by the Minister of Social Policy of Ukraine on June 25, 2015 at the International Scientific and Practical Conference "Labor Market of Ukraine: European Dimension". The work of the National Employment Agency on the basis of the SESU was scheduled to start on January 1, 2016. However, due to the lack of substantiation of the planned reforms, no reforms were carried out. Even while discussing the idea of reorganization, experts had doubts about its relevance, but noted the necessity for change in the work of the employment service;7) The next step in "reforming" the state employment service was the issuance of the Order of the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine № 1543 of 15.12.2016, which approved the "Regulations on the State Employment Service", but not taking into account that the title mentions "state", according to item 1 of the Regulation such institution as "State employment service" which is the centralized system of the state institutions which activity is directed and coordinated by the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine again appears. The Service consisted of the Central Office of the Service, Regional and Basic Employment Centers, the Ukrainian State Employment Service Training Institute, vocational schools of the State Employment Service, which are defined as legal entities under public law. However, this Order expired on the basis of the Order of the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine "On approval of the Regulations on the State Employment Service" № 945 of June 14, 2019. In our opinion, the only significant change in this order was that instead of the Central Office in the service, the State Employment Center reappeared. This provision is valid;8) On December 5, 2019, the Law of Ukraine "On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine Concerning the Formation of State Policy in the Sphere of Labor, Labor Relations, Employment and Labor Migration" № 341-IX was adopted, pursuant to it the Resolution was adopted Of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine № 206 of March 3, 2020 "On Amendments to Certain Resolutions of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine Concerning the Transfer of Certain Powers from the Ministry of Social Policy to the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture in the Field of Employment population", which entered into force on March 12, 2020. In accordance with the provisions of this Resolution, taking into account the new priorities of public policy, the issue of public administration of the employment system is a component of economic rather than social policy. Also, this resolution, by amending the existing regulations, destroys the concept of "public employment service". Only the State Employment Center remains. At the same time, no changes were made to the Order of the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine "On approval of the Regulations on the State Employment Service" № 945 of June 14, 2019, according to it the activities of the State Employment Service are directed and coordinated by the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine. is the main institution of the service. The new provision has not yet been approved. In connection with these conflicts in the law there is a question of legitimacy of the institution.Conclusions of the research and prospects for further researches. Institutional principles of public administration of the population employment system of Ukraine are a process that consists in defining and consolidating social norms, rules, statuses and roles, bringing them into a system capable of acting to reduce the negative impact of unemployment by identifying, eliminating and neutralizing the causes and conditions of unemployment. The result of this process is the creation of an institute of state employment service.The analysis makes it possible to identify in our country an imperfect institutional environment for employment and the labor market. First of all, it is related to the existing contradictions in the legislative system, the shortcomings of the current regulations on the state employment service in Ukraine, and the lack of a clearly defined development strategy.A clearly defined goal, a detailed presentation of the tasks and functions of the state employment service were not formed, in particular those that take into account new trends and realities of employment and the labor market, provide employment legislation with formalities that do not ensure effective activity of service, does not encourage new forms of cooperation of neither potential employees nor employers. ; Розглянуто співвідношення понять "інституціоналізація" та "інституалізація".Зроблено висновок, що ці поняття є тотожними. Доведено, що у контексті глобалізації, цифровізації, демографічних змін, міграції тощо проблема державного управління у сфері зайнятості населення упродовж останніх років суттєво актуалізується, що сильно впливає на стан світового і національного ринків праці. Наголошено, що значення інститутів ринку праці є критичним для подолання розбалансованості у секторі зайнятості. Досліджено інституціональні основи діяльності Державної служби зайнятості. Визначено, що інституціональне середовище зайнятості та ринку праці є недосконалим: існує велика кількість колізій у нормативно-правовому забезпеченні, відсутня чітко окреслена стратегія розвитку
The World Development Report 2011 on conflict, security and development will look at conflict as a challenge to economic development. It will analyze the nature, causes and development consequences of modern violence and highlight lessons learned from efforts to prevent or recover from violence. Between two thirds and three quarters of the children without access to school, infants dying and mothers dying in childbirth in the developing world live in countries at risk or, affected by or recently recovering from violence. There are strong links between local conflicts, national conflict, organi
