Search results

WOS: 000411988800002 ; Dijet events are studied in the proton-proton collision dataset recorded at root s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider in 2015 and 2016, corresponding to integrated luminosities of 3.5 fb(-1) and 33.5 fb(-1) respectively. Invariant mass and angular distributions are compared to background predictions and no significant deviation is observed. For resonance searches, a new method for fitting the background component of the invariant mass distribution is employed. The dataset is then used to set upper limits at a 95% confidence level on a range of new physics scenarios. Excited quarks with masses below 6.0 TeV are excluded, and limits are set on quantum black holes, heavy W' bosons, W* bosons, and a range of masses and couplings in a Z' dark matter mediator model. Model-independent limits on signals with a Gaussian shape are also set, using a new approach allowing factorization of physics and detector effects. From the angular distributions, a scale of new physics in contact interaction models is excluded for scenarios with either constructive or destructive interference. These results represent a substantial improvement over those obtained previously with lower integrated luminosity. ; ANPCyT, ArgentinaANPCyT; YerPhI, Armenia; ARC, AustraliaAustralian Research Council; BMWFW, Austria; FWF, AustriaAustrian Science Fund (FWF); ANAS, AzerbaijanAzerbaijan National Academy of Sciences (ANAS); SSTC, Belarus; CNPq, BrazilNational Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq); FAPESP, BrazilFundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo (FAPESP); NSERC, CanadaNatural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada; NRC, Canada; CFI, CanadaCanada Foundation for Innovation; CERN; CONICYT, ChileComision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica (CONICYT); CAS, ChinaChinese Academy of Sciences; MOST, ChinaMinistry of Science and Technology, China; NSFC, ChinaNational Natural Science Foundation of China; COLCIENCIAS, ColombiaDepartamento Administrativo de Ciencia, Tecnologia e Innovacion Colciencias; MSMT CR, Czech RepublicMinistry of Education, Youth & Sports - Czech RepublicCzech Republic Government; MPO CR, Czech RepublicCzech Republic Government; VSC CR, Czech RepublicCzech Republic Government; DNRF, Denmark; DNSRC, DenmarkDanish Natural Science Research Council; IN2P3-CNRS, FranceCentre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); CEA-DSM/IRFU, France; SRNSF, Georgia; BMBF, GermanyFederal Ministry of Education & Research (BMBF); HGF, Germany; MPG, GermanyMax Planck Society; GSRT, GreeceGreek Ministry of Development-GSRT; RGC, China; Hong Kong SAR, China; ISF, IsraelIsrael Science Foundation; I-CORE, Israel; Benoziyo Center, Israel; INFN, ItalyIstituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare; MEXT, JapanMinistry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan (MEXT); JSPS, JapanMinistry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan (MEXT)Japan Society for the Promotion of Science; CNRST, Morocco; NWO, NetherlandsNetherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO)Netherlands Government; RCN, Norway; MNiSW, PolandMinistry of Science and Higher Education, Poland; NCN, Poland; FCT, PortugalPortuguese Foundation for Science and Technology; MNE/IFA, Romania; MES of Russia; NRC KI, Russian Federation; JINR; MESTD, Serbia; MSSR, Slovakia; ARRS, SloveniaSlovenian Research Agency - Slovenia; MIZS, Slovenia; DST/NRF, South Africa; MINECO, Spain; SRC, Sweden; Wallenberg Foundation, Sweden; SERI, Switzerland; SNSF, SwitzerlandSwiss National Science Foundation (SNSF); Cantons of Bern and Geneva, Switzerland; MOST, TaiwanMinistry of Science and Technology, Taiwan; TAEK, TurkeyMinistry of Energy & Natural Resources - Turkey; STFC, United KingdomScience & Technology Facilities Council (STFC); DOE, USAUnited States Department of Energy (DOE); NSF, USANational Science Foundation (NSF); BCKDF; Canada Council; CANARIE; CRCAustralian GovernmentDepartment of Industry, Innovation and ScienceCooperative Research Centres (CRC) Programme; Compute Canada; FQRNTFQRNT; Ontario Innovation Trust, Canada; EPLANET, ERC, ERDF, FP7, Horizon 2020 and Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions, European Union; Investissements d'Avenir Labex and Idex, FranceFrench National Research Agency (ANR); DFGGerman Research Foundation (DFG); EU-ESFEuropean Union (EU); Greek NSRFGreek Ministry of Development-GSRT; BSF, IsraelUS-Israel Binational Science Foundation; GIF, IsraelGerman-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development; Minerva, Israel; BRF, Norway; CERCA Programme Generalitat de Catalunya, Generalitat Valenciana, SpainGeneralitat Valenciana; Royal Society and Leverhulme Trust, United Kingdom; WLCG; ATLAS Tier-1 facilities at TRIUMF(Canada); NDGF (Denmark, Norway, Sweden); CC-IN2P3 (France); KIT/GridKA (Germany); INFN-CNAF (Italy); NL-T1 (Netherlands)Netherlands Government; PIC (Spain); ASGC (Taiwan); RAL (UK); BNL (USA); Tier-2 facilities worldwide; ANR, FranceFrench National Research Agency (ANR); Region Auvergne, FranceRegion Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes; Fondation Partager le Savoir, France; AvH Foundation, GermanyAlexander von Humboldt Foundation; ANPCyT, ArgentinaANPCyT; YerPhI, Armenia; ARC, AustraliaAustralian Research Council; BMWFW, Austria; FWF, AustriaAustrian Science Fund (FWF); ANAS, AzerbaijanAzerbaijan National Academy of Sciences (ANAS); SSTC, Belarus; CNPq, BrazilNational Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq); FAPESP, BrazilFundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo (FAPESP); NSERC, CanadaNatural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada; NRC, Canada; CFI, CanadaCanada Foundation for Innovation; CERN; CONICYT, ChileComision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica (CONICYT); CAS, ChinaChinese Academy of Sciences; MOST, ChinaMinistry of Science and Technology, China; NSFC, ChinaNational Natural Science Foundation of China; COLCIENCIAS, ColombiaDepartamento Administrativo de Ciencia, Tecnologia e Innovacion Colciencias; MSMT CR, Czech RepublicMinistry of Education, Youth & Sports - Czech RepublicCzech Republic Government; MPO CR, Czech RepublicCzech Republic Government; VSC CR, Czech RepublicCzech Republic Government; DNRF, Denmark; DNSRC, DenmarkDanish Natural Science Research Council; IN2P3-CNRS, FranceCentre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); CEA-DSM/IRFU, France; SRNSF, Georgia; BMBF, GermanyFederal Ministry of Education & Research (BMBF); HGF, Germany; MPG, GermanyMax Planck Society; GSRT, GreeceGreek Ministry of Development-GSRT; RGC, China; Hong Kong SAR, China; ISF, IsraelIsrael Science Foundation; I-CORE, Israel; Benoziyo Center, Israel; INFN, ItalyIstituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare; MEXT, JapanMinistry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan (MEXT); JSPS, JapanMinistry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan (MEXT)Japan Society for the Promotion of Science; CNRST, Morocco; NWO, NetherlandsNetherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO)Netherlands Government; RCN, Norway; MNiSW, PolandMinistry of Science and Higher Education, Poland; NCN, Poland; FCT, PortugalPortuguese Foundation for Science and Technology; MNE/IFA, Romania; MES of Russia; NRC KI, Russian Federation; JINR; MESTD, Serbia; MSSR, Slovakia; ARRS, SloveniaSlovenian Research Agency - Slovenia; MIZS, Slovenia; DST/NRF, South Africa; MINECO, Spain; SRC, Sweden; Wallenberg Foundation, Sweden; SERI, Switzerland; SNSF, SwitzerlandSwiss National Science Foundation (SNSF); Cantons of Bern and Geneva, Switzerland; MOST, TaiwanMinistry of Science and Technology, Taiwan; TAEK, TurkeyMinistry of Energy & Natural Resources - Turkey; STFC, United KingdomScience & Technology Facilities Council (STFC); DOE, USAUnited States Department of Energy (DOE); NSF, USANational Science Foundation (NSF); BCKDF; Canada Council; CANARIE; CRCAustralian GovernmentDepartment of Industry, Innovation and ScienceCooperative Research Centres (CRC) Programme; Compute Canada; FQRNTFQRNT; Ontario Innovation Trust, Canada; EPLANET, ERC, ERDF, FP7, Horizon 2020 and Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions, European Union; Investissements d'Avenir Labex and Idex, FranceFrench National Research Agency (ANR); DFGGerman Research Foundation (DFG); EU-ESFEuropean Union (EU); Greek NSRFGreek Ministry of Development-GSRT; BSF, IsraelUS-Israel Binational Science Foundation; GIF, IsraelGerman-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development; Minerva, Israel; BRF, Norway; CERCA Programme Generalitat de Catalunya, Generalitat Valenciana, SpainGeneralitat Valenciana; Royal Society and Leverhulme Trust, United Kingdom; WLCG; ATLAS Tier-1 facilities at TRIUMF(Canada); NDGF (Denmark, Norway, Sweden); CC-IN2P3 (France); KIT/GridKA (Germany); INFN-CNAF (Italy); NL-T1 (Netherlands)Netherlands Government; PIC (Spain); ASGC (Taiwan); RAL (UK); BNL (USA); Tier-2 facilities worldwide; ANR, FranceFrench National Research Agency (ANR); Region Auvergne, FranceRegion Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes; Fondation Partager le Savoir, France; AvH Foundation, GermanyAlexander von Humboldt Foundation ; We thank CERN for the very successful operation of the LHC, as well as the support staff from our institutions without whom ATLAS could not be operated efficiently. We acknowledge the support of ANPCyT, Argentina; YerPhI, Armenia; ARC, Australia; BMWFW and FWF, Austria; ANAS, Azerbaijan; SSTC, Belarus; CNPq and FAPESP, Brazil; NSERC, NRC and CFI, Canada; CERN; CONICYT, Chile; CAS, MOST and NSFC, China; COLCIENCIAS, Colombia; MSMT CR, MPO CR and VSC CR, Czech Republic; DNRF and DNSRC, Denmark; IN2P3-CNRS, CEA-DSM/IRFU, France; SRNSF, Georgia; BMBF, HGF, and MPG, Germany; GSRT, Greece; RGC, Hong Kong SAR, China; ISF, I-CORE and Benoziyo Center, Israel; INFN, Italy; MEXT and JSPS, Japan; CNRST, Morocco; NWO, Netherlands; RCN, Norway; MNiSW and NCN, Poland; FCT, Portugal; MNE/IFA, Romania; MES of Russia and NRC KI, Russian Federation; JINR; MESTD, Serbia; MSSR, Slovakia; ARRS and MIZS, Slovenia; DST/NRF, South Africa; MINECO, Spain; SRC and Wallenberg Foundation, Sweden; SERI, SNSF and Cantons of Bern and Geneva, Switzerland; MOST, Taiwan; TAEK, Turkey; STFC, United Kingdom; DOE and NSF, USA. In addition, individual groups and members have received support from BCKDF, the Canada Council, CANARIE, CRC, Compute Canada, FQRNT, and the Ontario Innovation Trust, Canada; EPLANET, ERC, ERDF, FP7, Horizon 2020 and Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions, European Union; Investissements d'Avenir Labex and Idex, ANR, Region Auvergne and Fondation Partager le Savoir, France; DFG and AvH Foundation, Germany; Herakleitos, Thales and Aristeia programmes co-financed by EU-ESF and the Greek NSRF; BSF, GIF and Minerva, Israel; BRF, Norway; CERCA Programme Generalitat de Catalunya, Generalitat Valenciana, Spain; the Royal Society and Leverhulme Trust, United Kingdom. The crucial computing support from all WLCG partners is acknowledged gratefully, in particular from CERN, the ATLAS Tier-1 facilities at TRIUMF(Canada), NDGF (Denmark, Norway, Sweden), CC-IN2P3 (France), KIT/GridKA (Germany), INFN-CNAF (Italy), NL-T1 (Netherlands), PIC (Spain), ASGC (Taiwan), RAL (UK) and BNL (USA), the Tier-2 facilities worldwide and large non-WLCG resource providers. Major contributors of computing resources are listed in Ref. [92].

Einleitung: Masern, Mumps und Röteln sind weltweit verbreitete Kinderkrankheiten. Laut Zielvorgaben der World Health Organization (WHO) sollten bis 2015 die Masernviren eradiziert und die Inzidenzen für Mumps und Röteln deutlich vermindert sein. Trotz der beträchtlichen Senkung der Erkrankungszahlen nach der Einführung der jeweiligen Impfungen in den 1970 Jahren kommt es bis heute, sowohl national als auch international zu lokalen Ausbrüchen der Krankheiten. Dabei sind immer häufiger junge Erwachsene betroffen, deren Komplikationsrate bei allen drei Viruserkrankungen im Vergleich zu Kindern deutlich höher liegt. Dies erhöht die Brisanz im Falle eines Ausbruches und führt dazu, dass es auch heute noch in Deutschland vereinzelt zu Todesfällen im Fall von Masern kommt und auch dass nicht wenige Menschen an den Spätfolgen dieser drei impfpräventablen Erkrankungen leiden. Ziele der Untersuchungen: Die Zielstellung der vorliegenden Arbeit war es, die Immunitätslage von 18 bis 29 jährigen Angestellten des Universitätsklinikums Leipzig gegen diese drei viralen Erreger zu bestimmen und im Kontext mit dem Impfstatus der Probanden zu stellen. Zudem sollte untersucht werden, ob auch heute noch die historischen Veränderungen der Impfregime durch die Wiedervereinigung und die Unterschiede bei den untersuchten sogenannten "Wendekindern" nachgewiesen werden können. Des Weiteren sollten die Verlässlichkeit der diagnostischen Parameter über die Beurteilung des Immunstatus bewertet werden. Materialien und Methoden: Es standen insgesamt über 500 Serumproben zur näheren Auswertung zur Verfügung. Mittels ELISA-Test wurde die jeweils spezifische IgG-Konzentration gegen Masern, Mumps und Röteln ermittelt. Zudem wurden die virusspezifischen Aviditäten von IgG-Antikörpern bestimmt und durch die Anfertigung von Neutralisationstesten (NT) auch deren neutralisierende Wirkung untersucht. Von 326 Probanden wurde die Impfanamnese ermittelt und analysiert. Ergebnisse: Bei keiner der drei Viruserkrankungen wurde in der untersuchten Altersgruppe der 18-29 Jährigen die Seroprävalenz von 95% erreicht, welche notwendig ist, um nachhaltig eine Eindämmung der viralen Erreger in einer Population erreichen zu können. Der Immunstatus der untersuchten Probandengruppe fiel gegen Masern (90,5% IgG-positiv) am besten aus, gefolgt von dem Röteln- (87,1% IgG-positiv) und dem Mumps-Immunstatus (81,6% IgG-positiv). Eine Abnahme der Antikörperkonzentrationen in dem zeitlichen Verlauf nach einer Impfung konnte in der vorliegenden Arbeit gezeigt werden. Bei den vor mehr als 10 Jahren gegen das jeweilige Virus Geimpften sank der Anteil an Seropositiven um 7,4% (Masern und Röteln) bzw. 8,1% (Mumps) im Gegensatz zu den Probanden, die ihre letzte Impfung vor weniger als 10 Jahren erhalten hatten. Die unterschiedlich durchgeführten Impfregime vor und nach der Wiedervereinigung waren in der untersuchten Probandengruppe noch gut zu erkennen. Bei den Geburtsjahrgängen vor 1990 waren die Impfquoten um durchschnittlich 15% niedriger als bei den Jahrgängen ab 1990. Aufgrund der erhöhten Wildviruszirkulation vor 20 Jahren zeigten die älteren Jahrgänge dennoch einen ähnlich hohen Antikörperstatus, wie die Jüngeren. Auch die Auswertung der Aviditätsindices und der NT-Titer im zeitlichen Abstand zu der zuletzt erhaltenen Impfung ergab einen Hinweis auf die Boosterung der Immunität gegen den jeweiligen viralen Erreger durch den Kontakt der Probanden mit Wildvirus. Die Korrelation zwischen den diagnostischen Parametern IgG-Konzentration, Avidität und Neutralisationstiter ließen sich am besten bei den Masern- und den Rötelnwerten erkennen. Die Zusammenhänge bei Mumps waren im Vergleich zu den anderen beiden viralen Erregern gering. Die Abhängigkeit von der Impfanamnese konnte bei allen drei viralen Erregern nur bei den IgG-Konzentrationen festgestellt werden. Ein Zusammenhang zwischen Impfstatus und Höhe der Aviditätsindices bzw. Neutralisationstiter lag nicht vor. Schlussfolgerungen: Sowohl der Immun- als auch der Impfstatus der untersuchten jungen Erwachsenen (18 29 Jahre) ist für eine nachhaltige Eindämmung des Masern-, Mumps- und des Rötelnvirus nicht ausreichend. Die Bestimmung der IgG-Konzentration als Routinediagnostikum für die Erhebung eines Immunstatus ist bei allen drei Viren nur mit Einschränkungen geeignet. Die Durchführung von Neutralisationstesten, insbesondere gegen Mumps, ist Goldstandard für die Bestimmung einer Immunitätslage.:1. Einleitung 1 2. Literaturübersicht 4 2.1 Erkrankungsbilder Masern, Mumps und Röteln 4 2.1.1 Masern 4 2.1.2 Mumps 5 2.1.3 Röteln 5 2.2 Historie der Impfregime 6 2.2.1 Impfregime in der DDR und in der BRD vor 1990 6 2.2.2 Impfungen nach der Wiedervereinigung bis heute 7 2.2.3 Konzept "Gesundheit für alle" der WHO 8 2.2.4 Impfstrategien in anderen Ländern 9 2.2.5 Impfmüdigkeit und Impfgegner 10 2.3 Epidemiologische Situation in Deutschland 12 2.3.1 Meldepflicht 12 2.3.2 Erkrankungszahlen und Inzidenzen 13 2.4 Fragestellung 20 3. Material und Methoden 21 Material 21 Methoden 28 3.1 Probenmaterial 28 3.2 Zellkultur 28 3.2.1 Zellkultivierung 28 3.2.2 Zellzahlbestimmung 29 3.2.3 Einfrieren und Auftauen von Zellen 30 3.2.4 Mykoplasmentest mittels DNA-Färbung 30 3.2.5 Mykoplasmennachweis mittels PCR 32 3.2.6 Gelelektrophorese 33 3.3 Stockvirus 34 3.3.1 Herstellung von Stockvirus 34 3.3.2 Titerbestimmung mittels Plaqueassay 35 3.3.3 Titerbestimmung mittels Endpunkttitration 36 3.4 IgG-ELISA 36 3.5 Aviditäts-Bestimmung 37 3.6 Neutralisationsteste 38 3.6.1 Masern Mikroneutralisationstest 38 3.6.2 Mumps Mikroneutralisationstest 39 3.6.3 Mumps Focus Reduktions-Neutralisationstest 39 3.6.4 Röteln Plaque Reduktions-Neutralisationstest 41 3.7 Statistische Auswertung 42 3.7.1 Erfassung von Korrelationen 42 3.7.2 Erfassung von statistischer Signifikanz 42 4. Ergebnisse 43 4.1 Destriktive Auswertung der verwendeten Serumproben 43 4.2 Immunstatus der untersuchten Probanden 44 4.2.1 Spezifische Antikörper-Konzentrationen gegen Masern, Mumps und Röteln 44 4.2.2 Spezifische Aviditätsindices gegen Masern, Mumps und Röteln 49 4.2.3 Neutralisierende Antiköper gegen Masern 52 4.2.4 Neutralisierende Antiköper gegen Mumps 54 4.2.5 Neutralisierende Antiköper gegen Röteln 58 4.3 Zusammenhänge der diagnostischen Parameter 59 4.3.1 Korrelationen zwischen IgG und Avidität 59 4.3.2 Korrelationen zwischen IgG und NT 61 4.3.3 Korrelationen zwischen Avidität und NT 63 4.4 Impfstatus 63 4.5 Zusammenhang Immunstatus und Impfanamnese 67 5. Diskussion 73 5.1 Unzureichender Serostatus der Probanden 73 5.2 Geschlechterunterschiede in der Immunitätsausbildung 75 5.3 Grenzwert-Diskussion 76 5.4 Zusammenhänge zwischen den diagnostischen Parametern 77 5.5 Unzureichende Impfquoten der Probanden 79 5.6 Waning-Effekt der Antiköper-Konzentrationen 80 5.7 Unterschiede in der Effektivität der Impfstämme 83 5.8 Wildviruskontakt versus Impfimmunität 85 6. Zusammenfassung 87 7. Summary 89 Literaturverzeichnis 91 Abbildungsverzeichnis 103 Tabellenverzeichnis 107 Danksagung 108 ; Introduction: Measles, mumps and rubella are worldwide occurring childhood diseases. World Health Organization (WHO) declared the goal of measles eradication by 2015 and significant reduction of the incidence of mumps and rubella. Despite the substantial decrease after implementation of vaccination, there are still yearly outbreaks of the three infections on national and international level. At the same time, more often young adults are affected by all three viral diseases and their rate of complications is significantly higher than children. The explosive nature of the diseases leads to the fact that, even in Germany people die of measles. Further, more than a few people suffer from long-term effects of these diseases which could be prevented by vaccination. Aim of the research: The aim of the present project was to determine the immune status against the three viral diseases. Serum samples of 18 to 29 years-old employees of the Leipzig University Hospital were analyzed and connected with vaccination status. It was also determined if the historic changes of the vaccination politics in children of German reunification can still be demonstrated. Furthermore, the reliability of the diagnostic parameters, which is routinely taken for the evaluation of the immune status of a person, was considered. Material and Methods: More than 500 serum samples were available. The IgG concentration of mumps, measles and rubella was determined using routine ELISA assay. Furthermore, the specific antiviral IgG antibody avidity as well as their ability to neutralize viral infectivity (neutralization test) the vaccination history was recorded and analyzed. Results: The results show, that in none of the three diseases seroprevalence of >95% could be achieved which would be necessary for the sustainably containment of the viral pathogens in a population. In the examined cohort immunity against measles (90,5% IgG positive) was somewhat higher than against rubella (87,1% IgG positive) and mumps (81,6% IgG positive). A decrease in the antibody concentration could be demonstrated in the present paper when comparing the immune response in person with vaccination history of less than 10 years and those with last vaccination more than 10 years back. The seropositive rates decreased 7,4% (measles and rubella) or 8,1% (mumps). The different vaccination regimes before and after German reunification were still apparent. The vaccination rates from the birth cohort before 1990, was by an average of 15% lower than the cohorts from 1990. Due to the higher circulation of wild virus before 20 years ago, the older age groups had a similar status of antibodies than the younger group. Also, the analysis of the avidity and neutralization titer in the relationship of the period of time between the collection of data and the last obtained vaccination indicated booster of immunity by contact occult immunization ("stille Feiung"). The correlation between the diagnostic parameters, i.e. IgG concentration, avidity and neutralization assay, was best for measles and rubella. The relationships of mumps were lower than both the other viral pathogens. Only the IgG concentration from all three viruses correlated with the vaccination history. A relationship between the vaccination and the level of avidity or neutralization titers did not exist. Conclusion: The immune status and also the vaccination status from the investigated young adults (18 29 years) is not sufficient for the containment of measles, mumps and rubella. The determination of IgG concentration for surveillance of immunity all three viruses is of limited value. Particularly in case of mumps a neutralization assay appear indispensable.:1. Einleitung 1 2. Literaturübersicht 4 2.1 Erkrankungsbilder Masern, Mumps und Röteln 4 2.1.1 Masern 4 2.1.2 Mumps 5 2.1.3 Röteln 5 2.2 Historie der Impfregime 6 2.2.1 Impfregime in der DDR und in der BRD vor 1990 6 2.2.2 Impfungen nach der Wiedervereinigung bis heute 7 2.2.3 Konzept "Gesundheit für alle" der WHO 8 2.2.4 Impfstrategien in anderen Ländern 9 2.2.5 Impfmüdigkeit und Impfgegner 10 2.3 Epidemiologische Situation in Deutschland 12 2.3.1 Meldepflicht 12 2.3.2 Erkrankungszahlen und Inzidenzen 13 2.4 Fragestellung 20 3. Material und Methoden 21 Material 21 Methoden 28 3.1 Probenmaterial 28 3.2 Zellkultur 28 3.2.1 Zellkultivierung 28 3.2.2 Zellzahlbestimmung 29 3.2.3 Einfrieren und Auftauen von Zellen 30 3.2.4 Mykoplasmentest mittels DNA-Färbung 30 3.2.5 Mykoplasmennachweis mittels PCR 32 3.2.6 Gelelektrophorese 33 3.3 Stockvirus 34 3.3.1 Herstellung von Stockvirus 34 3.3.2 Titerbestimmung mittels Plaqueassay 35 3.3.3 Titerbestimmung mittels Endpunkttitration 36 3.4 IgG-ELISA 36 3.5 Aviditäts-Bestimmung 37 3.6 Neutralisationsteste 38 3.6.1 Masern Mikroneutralisationstest 38 3.6.2 Mumps Mikroneutralisationstest 39 3.6.3 Mumps Focus Reduktions-Neutralisationstest 39 3.6.4 Röteln Plaque Reduktions-Neutralisationstest 41 3.7 Statistische Auswertung 42 3.7.1 Erfassung von Korrelationen 42 3.7.2 Erfassung von statistischer Signifikanz 42 4. Ergebnisse 43 4.1 Destriktive Auswertung der verwendeten Serumproben 43 4.2 Immunstatus der untersuchten Probanden 44 4.2.1 Spezifische Antikörper-Konzentrationen gegen Masern, Mumps und Röteln 44 4.2.2 Spezifische Aviditätsindices gegen Masern, Mumps und Röteln 49 4.2.3 Neutralisierende Antiköper gegen Masern 52 4.2.4 Neutralisierende Antiköper gegen Mumps 54 4.2.5 Neutralisierende Antiköper gegen Röteln 58 4.3 Zusammenhänge der diagnostischen Parameter 59 4.3.1 Korrelationen zwischen IgG und Avidität 59 4.3.2 Korrelationen zwischen IgG und NT 61 4.3.3 Korrelationen zwischen Avidität und NT 63 4.4 Impfstatus 63 4.5 Zusammenhang Immunstatus und Impfanamnese 67 5. Diskussion 73 5.1 Unzureichender Serostatus der Probanden 73 5.2 Geschlechterunterschiede in der Immunitätsausbildung 75 5.3 Grenzwert-Diskussion 76 5.4 Zusammenhänge zwischen den diagnostischen Parametern 77 5.5 Unzureichende Impfquoten der Probanden 79 5.6 Waning-Effekt der Antiköper-Konzentrationen 80 5.7 Unterschiede in der Effektivität der Impfstämme 83 5.8 Wildviruskontakt versus Impfimmunität 85 6. Zusammenfassung 87 7. Summary 89 Literaturverzeichnis 91 Abbildungsverzeichnis 103 Tabellenverzeichnis 107 Danksagung 108

Todos los días en el Perú, los periódicos dan cuenta de accidentes de tránsito; la gente se queja de la inacción de las autoridades y la falta de políticas y planes para mitigar los efectos de los accidentes de tránsito. Los servicios del transporte terrestre y la circulación en la red vial nacional son afectadas negativamente por la falta de una adecuada normatividad y la informalidad en el servicio, generadora de graves consecuencias como el alto número de personas que sufren accidentes de tránsito. Según la información estadística disponible los accidentes de tránsito presentan una tendencia creciente, pasando de 76,655 accidentes en el año 2000 a 102,762 en el año 2013 y según el informe de la Dirección General de Epidemiología del Ministerio de Salud – MINSA dichos accidentes afectan en mayor número de lesionados a los varones de 15 a 29 años. La mayor pérdida de años de vida saludable (AVISA) se produce en el grupo de edad entre los 15 a 44 años que constituyen conductores jóvenes; así como entre los 5 a 14 años que constituyen peatones u ocupantes de vehículos. El consultor Gustavo Guerra García, estima que el costo económico de los accidentes de tránsito representa para el país aproximadamente el 0.8% del PBI. El Informe Mundial sobre los Traumatismos causados por el Tránsito, elaborado por la Organización Mundial de la Salud – OMS y el Banco Mundial – BM (2004), indica que cada día en el mundo, cerca de 16, 000 personas mueren a causa de todo tipo de traumatismos. Estos representan el 12% de la carga mundial de morbilidad, y la principal causa de muerte en el grupo de edades de 1 a 40 años. Asimismo, los traumatismos causados por el tránsito pueden prevenirse; para tal efecto los países deben designar un organismo coordinador en la administración pública para que oriente las actividades nacionales en materia de seguridad vial; evaluar el problema, las políticas y los marcos institucionales relativos a los traumatismos causados por el tránsito; así como la capacidad para prevenirlos; preparar estrategias y planes nacionales en materia de seguridad vial, asignar recursos financieros y humanos para abordar el problema; ejecutar acciones concretas para prevenir las colisiones en la vía pública, reducir al mínimo los traumatismos y sus consecuencias y evaluar los resultados de esas acciones. En el Perú se creó el Consejo Nacional de Seguridad Vial adscrito al Ministerio de Transportes y Comunicaciones, como el organismo rector de la seguridad vial; la Superintendencia de Transportes Terrestre de Personas, Carga y Mercancías como entidad competente en materia de fiscalización del transporte terrestre por carretera; la Dirección General del Transporte Terrestre responsable de la regulación y promoción del transporte terrestre y el Proyecto Especial de Infraestructura de Transporte Nacional, encargado de la Construcción, Rehabilitación y Mejoramiento de la Red Vial Nacional; sin embargo dichas dependencias realizan acciones no articuladas y los demás actores involucrados en la problemática de la seguridad vial no se identifican con dichas acciones por la ausencia de una Política y Sistema Nacional de Seguridad Vial. En este contexto, la presente investigación tiene por objetivo demostrar que el incumplimiento de las normas del transporte terrestre si influye en los usuarios de la Red Vial Nacional por accidentes de tránsito, para tal efecto se ha diseñado el marco teórico y la matriz de consistencia de la investigación, en donde se determinaron las variables, factores e instrumentos que permitieron validar el modelo de regresión lineal y múltiple para la demostración de las hipótesis respectivas. La Hipótesis General tiene como variable independiente X = Incumplimiento de las normas del transporte terrestre; variable dependiente Y= Afectación de Usuarios de la Red Vial Nacional por Accidentes de Tránsito; las Hipótesis Específicas tienen como variables independientes: X1 = Incumplimiento de las normas del transporte de personas por carretera; X2 = Incumplimiento de las normas del transporte de mercancías por carretera. Como resultado del proceso de modelación, se concluye que la Hipótesis General ES VERDADERA; en consecuencia, se puede afirmar que hay evidencia empírica respecto que: "El incumplimiento de las normas del transporte terrestre influye en los usuarios de la Red Vial Nacional por accidentes de tránsito". De igual modo las hipótesis especificas SON VERDADERAS; en consecuencia hay evidencia empírica para afirmar que: "El incumplimiento de las normas del transporte terrestre de personas y mercancías influye en los usuarios de la Red Vial Nacional por accidentes de tránsito". Finalmente, los resultados de la investigación demuestran que existe correlación entre la fiscalización del transporte terrestre de personas y mercancías y los accidentes de tránsito en la Red Vial Nacional; así mismos se ha comprobado que la problemática expuesta tiene baja prioridad en las políticas públicas, las entidades involucradas realizan acciones no articuladas con escaso alineamiento a los ejes del Plan Mundial Para el Decenio de Acción para la Seguridad Vial 2011-2020 de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas. ; Every day in Peru, newspapers realize traffic accidents; people complain of the failure of the authorities and lack of policies and plans to mitigate the effects of traffic accidents. Land transport services and circulation in the national road network are negatively affected by the lack of adequate regulations and informality in service, generating serious consequences as the high number of people suffering accidents. According to available statistical data traffic accidents show an increasing trend from 76.655 accidents in the year 2000 to 102.762 in 2013 and the report of the General Directorate of Epidemiology, Ministry of Health - MINSA such accidents affect more disabled males of 15-29 years. The greater loss of healthy life years (DALYs) occurs in the age group between 15-44 years are young drivers; and between 5-14 years are pedestrians or occupants of vehicles. The consultant Gustavo Guerra García, estimates that the economic cost of road accidents in the country representing approximately 0.8% of GDP. The World Report on Road Traffic Injury and developed by the World Health Organization - WHO and the World Bank - BM (2004) indicates that every day worldwide, about 16, 000 people die all type of trauma. These represent 12% of the global burden of disease, and the leading cause of death in the age group of 1-40 years. Furthermore, road traffic injuries are preventable; for this purpose countries should designate a lead agency in government to guide the national activities in road safety; evaluate the problem, policies and institutional frameworks for injuries caused by traffic; and the ability to prevent; develop national strategies and plans for road safety, allocating financial and human resources to address the problem; implement specific actions to prevent collisions on public roads, minimize injuries and their consequences and evaluate the results of those actions. In Peru, the National Road Safety Council under the Ministry of Transport and Communications was established as the governing body for road safety; the Superintendent of Land Transport of Persons, Goods Loading and as an entity in the control of land transport by road; the Directorate General responsible for the regulation and promotion of land transport and the Special Land Transport Infrastructure Project National Transportation; however such units perform actions unarticulated and other actors involved in road safety issues do not identify with these actions by the absence of a Policy and National Highway Traffic Safety System. In this context, this research aims to demonstrate that a breach of the rules of the road transport if it affects users of the National Road Network traffic accidents, for this purpose we have designed the framework and matrix consistency research, where the variables and factors that enabled instruments validate the model and multiple linear regression for the demonstration of the respective hypotheses were determined. The General Hypothesis has the independent variable X = Breaches of the rules of land transport; dependent variable Y = User Involvement of the National Road Network by Traffic Accidents; Specific Hypothesis has as independent variables: X1 = Violation of the rules of carriage of passengers by road; X2 = Non-compliance with rules for transport of goods by road. As a result of the modeling process, it is concluded that the General Hypothesis IS TRUE; therefore, it can be said that there is empirical evidence for that: "The breach of the rules of the road transport affects users of the National Road Network traffic accidents." Just as the specific hypotheses ARE TRUE; consequently no empirical evidence to state that: "The breach of the rules of the road transport of people and goods affects users of the National Road Network traffic accidents." Finally, the results of the research show that there is a correlation between the control of land transport of people and goods traffic accidents in the National Road Network; themselves have been found to the problems exposed is a low priority in public policy, the involved entities perform actions not linked with poor alignment to the axes of the Global Plan for the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020 of the Organization United Nations. ; Tesis

This document is based on the debates of the Santander-CIDOB Future Leaders Forum online session titled "Bridging the digital global governance gap: international cooperation and the regulation of emerging technologies" that took place on November 21st, 2023; and the video interviews with the selected leaders from the Santander-CIDOB 35 under 35 List. The document is structured in three blocs: first, it introduces the current landscape of international digital cooperation, second, it identifies the key challenges to achieve a global framework to regulate technology; and finally, it highlights three proposals for international digital cooperation identified by the participants. The text was finalized on December 21st, 2023.The rapid development of emerging technologies is driving unprecedented changes with profound implications for our societies. On the one hand, innovations such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), including its generative capabilities, are welcomed by public administrations, businesses, and citizens because they bear the promise of enormous opportunities, the potential to help solve global challenges and the positive transformation of our societies. In fact, these technological innovations are already being used by governments and businesses alike. Indeed, AI is increasingly considered a common good, with the potential to help us in decision-making processes, improving efficiency and service delivery, and addressing some of the global challenges, such as climate change or pandemic prevention. On the other hand, this swift progress is filled with risks which need to be prevented if possible and mitigated if not. While some of these risks are still unknown, it has become evident that societies cannot afford the cost of not regulating these technologies. The potential disruption of established social structures, rising inequality, the concentration of power in digital companies, the material and social costs linked to new technologies, threats to fundamental rights – such as privacy or freedom of expression – and the increase of cyber threats are some of the reasons why regulation is imperative. This situation has become evident in the past years, with renewed enthusiasm and hyperactivity in the governance of digital technologies alongside the development of multiple initiatives to promote international cooperation in digital and technological areas. However, the ever-changing landscape of emerging and disruptive technologies has evidenced the lack of global governance and international cooperation frameworks capable of responding to the challenges arising from these developments, with many of these initiatives only finding traction in a reactive – rather than proactive – manner. Additionally, as the United Nations highlights, there are many gaps in global digital cooperation, with multiple areas of digital governance and new technologies still unregulated. Moreover, in areas where some progress has been achieved, it has been at the cost of fragmentation and voluntary frameworks. Thus, a new push towards global digital cooperation is more needed than ever, especially in a complex context characterised by permacrises, growing conflict, changing globalisation patterns, and the erosion of democratic governance.1. What is global digital cooperation?In May 2020, as the world was grappling with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the United Nations Secretary-General published a report to establish a Roadmap for Digital Cooperation. This effort, which signals the relevance of digital technologies for rethinking the role of effective multilateralism, aimed to identify a set of five areas where the international community should collaborate and cooperate regarding the use of digital technologies while, at the same time, reducing and mitigating potential risks. One of these five key areas is fostering global digital cooperation, which is defined as a multi-stakeholder effort in which governmental actors and other stakeholders, including the private sector, technology companies, civil society, or academia, jointly work to achieve an interoperable framework for digital technologies. This approach aims to guarantee the adoption of effective, inclusive, and practical solutions and policies in the digital and technological domains (UN, 2020, p. 22). The prioritisation of global digital cooperation within the UN framework was further emphasised under the Secretary-General report in 2021, titled Our Common Agenda. This document invoked the adoption of a Global Digital Compact based on shared principles for an "open, free and secure digital future for all" for the first time (p. 63). Between 2022 and 2023, negotiations between member states and consultations with relevant stakeholders have advanced within the UN with the intention to avoid the fragmentation of the Internet, increase digital connectivity, build trust within cyberspace and promote the regulation of Artificial Intelligence. The culmination of this process will be the adoption of the Global Digital Compact during the 2024 Summit of the Future. However, the UN hasn't been the sole institution promoting new initiatives of global digital cooperation. Indeed, the unprecedented irruption of generative AI at the end of 2022 set off a global – although uncoordinated – push towards regulation, with significant advances in technical and standard-setting procedures and around social and ethical aspects of AI. Initiatives by other international organisations, like the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD); plurilateral agreements such as the Bletchley Declaration on security risks of AI adopted by 30 countries – including China – during the United Kingdom's AI Safety Summit in 2023; as well as regulations at national level and guidelines by private actors are rapidly proliferating. The most recent example is the G-7 adoption of the Hiroshima AI Process Comprehensive Policy Framework in December 2023, which includes guiding principles for the development of AI systems and a code of conduct with multiple recommendations for developers and users, with an explicit focus on disinformation, as well as project-based cooperation. The European Union (EU) has been at the forefront of many of these efforts, aiming to provide the world's first comprehensive legislation with solid standards in AI. The AI Act represents an act of 'courage', which will establish a series of technical standards, but it will also create moral ones. Through a de-risking approach to regulation, this initiative aims to identify some no-go zones in the development, deployment, and use of AI technologies – especially for those considered high-risk. In December 2023, the European Parliament and the European Council reached a provisional agreement on the AI Act, which will be ratified in early 2024.The EU's AI Act is the latest addition to Brussels' arsenal of digital regulations, including the Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA). In 2022, the EU adopted the Declaration on European Digital Rights, proposing a digital transition defined by European values and six principles, including a people-centric approach, solidarity and inclusion, freedom of choice, sustainability, safety and security, and participation. Moreover, the EU has also adopted further legislation in highly specialised domains, such as the management of crypto assets, with the adoption of the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MICA) in 2023. Concurrently, the EU and the United States have strengthened cooperation on standards and technical underpinnings of regulation through the Trade and Technology Council (TTC). These elements are setting the framework for the future development of the data economy, the European industry, and the digital future of Europe – but with potential expansion beyond European borders, reminiscing the 'Brussels Effect' after the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) adoption. Cities are another actor of utmost relevance. While local governance is embedded and affected by national regulations, cities are also key players in experimentation, cross-border collaboration, and regulation. Trying to close the global governance gap, local governments are also adopting their own frameworks – such as AI strategies or public procurement clauses sensitive to human rights – and implementing bans on specific applications, including facial recognition technologies. One of the successful examples of good practices on AI governance at this level is the adoption of AI registries by cities such as Helsinki or Amsterdam to ensure transparency and accountability. However, no actor – country, organisation or forum - has become the centre for digital cooperation and technology regulation. While no single approach can address the multiplicity of global challenges of emerging technologies given the transnational nature of the digital and cyber domains, as well as growing digital interdependence, what these examples show is how the current governance landscape is fragmented, nationally and internationally (Fay, 2022). Furthermore, there is a considerable overlap between the different initiatives, regulations and mechanisms addressing digital issues. This creates a highly complex architecture for coordination and cooperation without the certainty of its effectiveness (UN, 2019).2. What are the challenges to adopt an effective global governance framework to regulate emerging technologies?While there have been increasing calls from different stakeholders to adopt a global approach in the regulations of these technologies, especially AI, it is important to ask why we have failed to do so until now.Firstly, given the transnational nature of digital issues alongside the speed of technological change and development, it is challenging to rely on traditional forms of governance based on sovereignty and territoriality to regulate technology. Our current tools and structures for regulation are insufficiently agile and lack the flexibility to ensure adaptation to future challenges, needs and unknown risks (Wheeler, 2023). Indeed, deep, continuous international collaboration will be fundamental to adapt to groundbreaking developments and ensure that adopted frameworks do not foreclose the opportunity for civil society and latecomer actors to get their perspectives on the table. Moreover, the multidimensional impact of digital technologies cuts across different policy issues managed by different governmental structures or international organisations. The lack of a global institution with a substantive mandate to develop a policy model or regulation of technology that is truly universal further complicates the efforts to adopt a global framework for cooperation.Secondly, there has been a lack of consensus on critical and baseline issues. Taking the example of artificial intelligence, the first of these barriers has been the lack of consensus in such fundamental issues such as its definition, the venue or process that is desirable for the governance of disrupting technologies, the authority and responsibility of actors involved in regulation – including the role of the private sector and big tech – or the digital future (a more utopian or a dystopian one?) that we imagine (Colomina, 2023). This absence of consensus is also visible in the lack of a shared understanding by different actors of how basic foundations and principles of international law apply to the use of technologies. As such, there is a mismatch of focus and agreement on what we are regulating, which tools we have or should create or which areas we should prioritise in global cooperation.Thirdly, past efforts to adopt a global framework have failed given the diversity of interests, values, or approaches to risks. Regulation faces an inherent tension between the promotion and defence of national interests and values, the balance of ethical issues and human rights and the protection of the fundamental freedoms of every citizen. In other words, it is a tension between protecting rights and promoting innovation. A clear example is the more consumer-oriented approach of EU regulation of technologies, which contrasts with the security and control-focused Chinese model or the US' laissez-faire. According to Tiberghien, Luo and Pourmalek (2022) digital governance is fragmenting around the US, European, Chinese and Indian models – marked by multiple splits on the role of state, data ownership, industrial innovation and competitiveness, and protection and fundamental rights. In contrast, there is a significant disparity of substantive participation between the actors involved in global digital cooperation. Developing countries, for example, are still facing significant digital divides and may lack the resources for a successful participation in some of these debates and initiatives, being then forced to follow systems that do not fit their realities, concerns or needs. A similar trend is also visible in a more individual-focused perspective, where non-experts, indigenous communities, women, youth and elderly, and people with disabilities are not able to join the discussions or may lack the capacity to participate in a meaningful way. Fourthly, the most evident challenge is the growing trend of politicisation and securitisation of digital technologies and its intersection with growing geopolitical rivalries between the United States and China. Together with the EU and India, these actors are bidding to achieve technological supremacy and to dominate the standard setting of these technologies to harvest the benefits of their development and use. In parallel, each jurisdiction is becoming wary of the risks from data and digital technologies, prompting the adoption of more protectionist measures to achieve data sovereignty. The centrality of technology in their competition heavily influences the capability to reach a consensus on international standards while promoting contrasting approaches to regulate digital issues.In conclusion, the lack of a coherent, global approach is unsettling the international order in digital governance and negatively impacting the delivery of effective and innovative solutions for the governance of digital and technological issues. This situation has consequential risks, such as the splintering of the Internet or the incapacity of successfully responding to critical problems, given the failure to conduct a comprehensive and in-depth assessment of multiple risks, vulnerabilities, and outcomes of digital and technological developments. The different rules and regulations – as well as the existing gaps, for example, the military use of these technologies – can have deep impacts on governance and, as a result, on citizens' lives. Paradoxically, guidelines and regulations are more needed than ever in the current context.3. Towards an effective global digital cooperationTaking into consideration the challenges of establishing a set of shared values to guide technology development and deployment, global digital cooperation should be people-centered, transparent, open, ethical, inclusive, and equitable while keeping in mind the multi-level, multi-issue and multi-stakeholder nature of digital and tech governance.Considering the current challenges and developments, the international community should focus on making progress in three different areas: Meaningful multi-stakeholderism The recent digital advances show the tension and interplay between two different cultures of governance: a bottom-up multi-stakeholder approach – for example, in the open consultation processes adopted by the UN for the Global Digital Compact – and a top-down multilateral approach which gives primacy to the role of states. However, even in these multi-stakeholder initiatives, the current objective is a multilateral solution for a better tomorrow, implying the subordination of multi-stakeholder processes to multilateral solutions.As a result, the emphasis must be placed on achieving meaningful multi-stakeholderism while upholding inclusivity and effective participation. Current efforts at regulating these technologies are being led and dominated by traditional technological powerhouses – such as the US, the EU or China–, creating a highly specialised conversation with a limited number of countries alongside a small pool of big tech companies. Countries from the Global South are mostly absent or overlooked in ongoing regulatory processes. As such, adopted international agreements may not be suitable for non-Western realities.Besides more a representative global cooperation in terms of geography, the different actors involved – governmental representatives, civil society actors, academia and the private sector – should have the opportunity to participate and influence the conversations on an equal footing. Diversity of genders, generations, and underrepresented communities – including most vulnerable populations, indigenous communities, and people with disabilities – must have their participation ensured. This is also especially relevant when addressing and ensuring youth participation – as the decisions taken today will ultimately define their future. Each of these groups can bring a unique perspective to the table and, through communication and trust-building measures, these initiatives can help build consensus and common understandings, and identify shared challenges and risks. In conclusion, the governance of technology must incorporate democratic and participatory elements on national and international levels.Ensuring interoperability across regulatory frameworks and enforcementThe current hyperactivity in the international landscape risks creating a patchwork approach with too many loopholes that allow easy forum shopping. As a result, the most urgent task at hand is the need for coordination. Feedback loops should be established between ad hoc, regional and international initiatives to avoid duplication, overlapping – and contradicting – efforts. As Internet governance is a cross-cutting issue, the current siloed governance should be connected to accurately address and respond to related issues around digital technologies that cross borders, topics, rights, and regulations. As such, for a truly comprehensive and harmonised regulatory framework, intergovernmental processes and global multilateral forums should be aligned, with a clear division of labour and consistency when it comes to the rules that apply to the work of these forums. Beyond ensuring policy coordination, two further concerns and challenges that arise from current efforts are the interoperability of regulations and the consequent protection of citizens who could be subjected to different jurisprudential criteria depending on applicable legislation. By building international frameworks grounded in consensus-adopted shared values, different jurisdictions should be committed to following this leadership by the international community while retaining enough flexibility to develop regimes tailored to their domestic environments. This can be further encouraged through capacity-building initiatives in the digital and cyber domains at a global level, using cooperation to assist countries with practical insights on regulation and implementation. Moreover, further collaboration through bringing legal expertise and knowledge will be necessary to support other countries in transposing international agreements and standards in their own legislations as well as its implementation and enforcement.Finally, a further challenge will be how to fulfil the promises made in regulations to safeguard rights effectively. Enforcement and sanctioning will be a requirement for the international community. As such, these international agreements need to become binding. The development of global, joint enforcement mechanisms and a sanctions framework for those who fail to comply should also be part of global digital cooperation debates and efforts.Going beyond regulationBesides the challenges of interoperability and enforcement, global digital cooperation should extend beyond regulation. While regulation is a fundamental first step, it is important to acknowledge that it is not enough to produce the desired change of cooperation and risk mitigation of emerging technologies. Previous experiences, such as the GDPR, offer relevant insights into the limitations of regulation to promote a shift in business models or different Internet behaviour. While the GDPR established clear obligations on the processing of personal data by operators, some have managed to circumvent or avoid these obligations. The €1.2 billion fine to Meta for violating the data privacy rules established in the GDPR is a clear example of how enforcement is not working. As such, other creative and innovative approaches should be considered – including the establishment of a new, digital social contract.Moreover, the unequal development and adoption of technologies around the world and the knowledge of these issues require further research and the development of capacity-building actions. Sharing best practices, promoting training for public administrations and the private sector, and ensuring the exchange of knowledge will be essential to guarantee that the benefits of these technological changes are equally shared. Regulations should also be coupled with awareness-raising campaigns to ensure that citizens, users, and developers are aware of their rights and responsibilities under these new frameworks.Additionally, given the unpredictable risks and impacts of these disruptive technologies, it is crucial to establish common safe spaces for experimental development, including sandboxes, funded by public bodies. The deployment of these spaces can help us identify and understand in the early stages of the development process the risks of specific technologies, but also, to test the effectiveness of regulations. These spaces will be useful in risk assessments. Adopting standards based on a value-sensitive design and participatory approaches for assessing the impact of these technologies before they are deployed in the market will test their respect for human rights and limit their negative externalities.Furthermore, global digital cooperation needs to provide public global goods and technological solutions for all. Government involvement can further enhance innovation, adopting a supporter investor and early customer role for these technology advancements. As such, countries should invest and develop open, shared digital public infrastructure – from computing power to democratically and justly governed data layers –, to boost global digital connectivity and ensure it is accessible for entrepreneurs and citizens. More critically, technological transfer will also be key between developed, emerging, and developing countries to leverage the opportunities of digital technologies and close the digital divide.Finally, one ambitious proposal concerns the need to establish new effective and flexible institutions of global governance that manage the profound changes that digital technologies pose for our societies. From international agencies to monitor and verify compliance, to global advisory bodies for truly multi-stakeholder and all-inclusive processes, public participation must be ensured to build the foundations of the future and take ownership of the governance of the unprecedented transformations for our societies.ReferencesColomina, Carme. "Una IA ética: la UE y la gobernanza algorítmica". CIDOB Opinion, 784 (December 2023). (online) https://www.cidob.org/es/publicaciones/serie_de_publicacion/opinion_cidob/2023/una_ia_etica_la_ue_y_la_gobernanza_algoritmicaFay, Robert. "Global Governance of Data and Digital Technologies: A Framework for Peaceful Cooperation". Center for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), February 2022. (online) https://www.cigionline.org/articles/global-governance-of-data-and-digital-technologies-a-framework-for-peaceful-cooperation/Tiberghien, Yves; Luo, Danielle and Pourmalek, Panthea. "Existential Gap: Digital/AI Acceleration and the Missing Global Governance Capacity". Center for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), February 2022 (online). https://www.cigionline.org/articles/existential-gap-digitalai-acceleration-and-the-missing-global-governance-capacity/United Nations (UN). Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation. International Governance Forum, 2019 (online). https://intgovforum.org/en/content/report-of-the-un-secretary-general%E2%80%99s-high-level-panel-on-digital-cooperationUN. Report of the Secretary-General: Roadmap for Digital Cooperation. New York: United Nations, May 2020 (online). https://www.un.org/techenvoy/sites/www.un.org.techenvoy/files/general/Roadmap_for_Digital_Cooperation_9June.pdfUN. Report of the Secretary-General: Our Common Agenda. New York: United Nations, 2021 (online).https://www.un.org/en/content/common-agenda-report/assets/pdf/Common_Agenda_Report_English.pdfWheeler, Tom. "The three challenges of AI regulation" Brookings Commentary, June 2023 (online). https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-three-challenges-of-ai-regulation/

This document is based on the debates of the Santander-CIDOB Future Leaders Forum online session titled "Bridging the digital global governance gap: international cooperation and the regulation of emerging technologies" that took place on November 21st, 2023; and the video interviews with the selected young leaders from the Santander-CIDOB 35 under 35 List. The document is structured in two blocs: first, it introduces the current landscape of international digital cooperation and the key challenges to achieve a global framework to regulate technology; and second, it highlights three proposals for international digital cooperation identified by the participants. The text was finalized on December 21st, 2023.The rapid development of emerging technologies is driving unprecedented changes with profound implications for our societies. On the one hand, innovations such as artificial intelligence, including its generative capabilities, are welcomed by administrations, businesses, and citizens because of their promises of enormous opportunities, the potential solution to global challenges and the positive transformation of our societies. These technological innovations are already being used by governments and businesses alike. AI is increasingly considered as a common good, with the potential to help us in decision-making processes, improving efficiency and service delivery and addressing some of the global challenges, such as climate change or pandemic prevention. On the other hand, the swift progress is also filled with risks, including challenges to fundamental rights, which need to be prevented if possible and mitigated if not. While some of these risks are still unknown, it has become evident that societies cannot afford the cost of not regulating these technologies. The potential disruption of established social structures, rising inequality, the concentration of power in digital companies, the material and social costs linked to new technologies, threats to fundamental rights – such as privacy or freedom of expression – and the increase of cyber threats are some of the reasons why regulation is imperative. This situation has become evident in the past years, with renewed enthusiasm and hyperactivity in the governance of digital technologies alongside the development of multiple initiatives to promote international cooperation in digital and technological issues. However, the ever-changing landscape of emerging and disruptive technologies has evidenced the lack of global governance and international cooperation frameworks capable of responding to the challenges arising from these developments, with many of these initiatives only finding traction in a reactive – rather than proactive – manner. Additionally, as the United Nations highlights, there are still many gaps in global digital cooperation, with multiple areas of digital governance and new technologies still unregulated. Moreover, in those areas where some progress has been achieved, it has been at the cost of fragmentation and voluntary frameworks. Thus, a new push towards global digital cooperation is more needed than ever, especially in a complex context characterised by permacrises, security instability and growing conflict, changing globalisation patterns, and the erosion of democratic governance.1. What is global digital cooperation?In May 2020, as the world was grappling with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the United Nations Secretary-General published a report aimed at establishing a Roadmap for Digital Cooperation. This effort, which signals the relevance of digital technologies for rethinking the role of effective multilateralism, aimed to identify a set of five areas – such as the digital economy or the protection of human rights in cyberspace – where the international community should collaborate and cooperate with regards to the use of digital technologies while, at the same time, reducing and mitigating potential risks. One of these five key areas is fostering global digital cooperation, which is defined as a multi-stakeholder effort in which governmental actors and other stakeholders, including the private sector, technology companies, civil society, or academia, among others, jointly work to achieve an interoperable framework for digital technologies. This approach aims to guarantee the adoption of effective, inclusive, and practical solutions and policies in the digital and technological domains (UN, 2020, p. 22).The prioritisation of global digital cooperation within the UN framework was further emphasised under the Secretary-General report in 2021, titled Our Common Agenda. This document invoked the adoption of a Global Digital Compact based on shared principles for an "open, free and secure digital future for all" for the first time (p. 63). Between 2022 and 2023, negotiations between member states and consultations with relevant stakeholders have advanced within the UN with the ambition to avoid the fragmentation of the internet, increase digital connectivity, build trust within cyberspace and promote the regulation of artificial intelligence. The culmination of this process will be the adoption of the Global Digital Compact during the 2024 Summit of the Future. However, the UN hasn't been the sole institution promoting new initiatives of global digital cooperation. Indeed, the unprecedented irruption of generative AI at the end of 2022 set off a global – but also uncoordinated – push towards regulation, with significant advances in technical and standard-setting procedures and around social and ethical aspects of AI. Initiatives by other international organisations, like the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD); plurilateral agreements such as the Bletchley Declaration on security risks of AI adopted by 30 countries – including China – during the United Kingdom's AI Safety Summit in 2023; as well as regulations at national level and guidelines by private actors are rapidly proliferating. The most recent example is the G-7 adoption of the Hiroshima AI Process Comprehensive Policy Framework in December 2023, which includes guiding principles for the development of AI systems (keeping a whole life-cycle approach, from design to deployment and use), and a code of conduct with multiple recommendations for developers and users, with an explicit focus on disinformation, as well as project-based cooperation. The European Union (EU) has been at the forefront of many of these efforts, aiming to provide the world's first comprehensive legislation with solid standards in AI. The AI Act represents an act of "courage", which will establish a series of technical standards, but it will also create moral ones. Through a de-risking approach to regulation, this initiative aims to identify some no-go zones in dthe development, deployment, and use of AI technologies – especially for those considered high-risk. In December 2023, the European Parliament and the European Council reached a provisional agreement on the AI Act, which will be ratified in early 2024.The EU's AI Act is the latest addition to Brussels' arsenal of digital regulations, including the Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA). In 2022, the EU also adopted the Declaration on European Digital Rights, proposing a digital transition defined by European values and six principles, including a people-centric approach, solidarity and inclusion, freedom of choice, sustainability, safety and security, and participation. Moreover, the EU has also adopted further legislation in highly specialised domains, such as the management of crypto assets, with the adoption of the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MICA) in 2023. Concurrently, the EU and the United States have strengthened cooperation on standards and technical underpinnings of regulation through the Trade and Technology Council. These elements are setting the framework for the future development of the data economy, the European industry, and the digital future of Europe – but with potential expansion beyond European borders, reminiscing the 'Brussels Effect' after the adoption of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Cities are another actor of utmost relevance. While local governance is embedded and affected by national regulations, cities are also key players in experimentation, cross-border collaboration, and regulation. Trying to close the global governance gap, local governments are also adopting their own regulation – such as AI strategies or public procurement clauses sensitive to elements such as human rights – and even implementing bans on specific applications, including facial recognition technologies. One of the successful examples of good practices on AI governance at this level is the adoption of AI registries by cities such as Helsinki or Amsterdam to ensure transparency and accountability.However, no actor – country, organisation or forum - has become the centre for digital cooperation and technology regulation. While no single approach can address the multiple global challenges of emerging technologies given the transnational nature of the digital and cyber domains, as well as growing digital interdependence, what these examples show is how the current governance landscape is fragmented, nationally and internationally (Fay, 2022). Furthermore, there is a considerable overlap between the different initiatives, regulations and mechanisms addressing digital issues. This creates a highly complex architecture for coordination and cooperation without the certainty of its effectiveness (UN, 2019).2. What are the challenges to adopt an effective global governance framework to regulate emerging technologies?While there have been increasing calls from different stakeholders to adopt a global approach in the regulations of these technologies, especially AI, it is important to ask why we have failed to do so until now.Firstly, given the transnational nature of digital issues alongside the velocity of technological change and development, it is difficult to rely on traditional forms of governance based on sovereignty and territoriality to regulate technology. Our current tools and structures for regulation are insufficiently agile and lack the flexibility to ensure adaptation to future challenges, needs and unknown risks (Wheeler, 2023). Indeed, in the regulation of technologies, deep, continuous international collaboration will be fundamental to adapt to groundbreaking developments and ensure that adopted regulations do not foreclose the opportunity for civil society and latecomer countries to get their perspectives on the table. Moreover, the multidimensional impact of digital technologies cuts across different policy issues which are managed by different governmental structures or international organisations. The lack of a global institution with a substantive mandate to develop a policy model or regulation of technology that is truly universal further complicates the efforts to adopt a global framework for cooperation.Secondly, there has been a lack of consensus on critical and baseline issues. Taking the example of artificial intelligence, the first of these barriers has been the lack of consensus in such fundamental issues such as its definition, the venue or process that is desirable for the governance of disrupting technologies, the authority and responsibility of actors involved in regulation – including the role of the private sector and big tech – or the digital future (a more utopian or a dystopian one?) that we imagine (Colomina, 2023). This lack of consensus is also visible in the lack of a shared understanding of how basic foundations and principles of international law apply to the use of technologies by different actors. As such, there is a lack of focus and agreement on what we are regulating, which tools we have or should create or which areas we should prioritise in global cooperation.Thirdly, past efforts to adopt a global framework have failed given the diversity of interests, values, or approaches to risks. Regulation faces an inherent tension between the promotion and defence of national interests and values, the balance of ethical issues and human rights and fundamental freedoms protection for every citizen. In other words, it is a tension between protecting rights and promoting innovation. A clear example is the more consumer-oriented approach of EU regulation of technologies, which contrasts with the security and control-focused Chinese model or the US' laissez-faire. According to Tiberghien, Luo and Pourmalek (2022) digital governance is fragmenting around the US, European, Chinese and Indian models – marked by multiple splits on the role of state, data ownership, industrial innovation and competitiveness, and protection and fundamental rights. In contrast, there is a significant disparity between the actors involved in global digital cooperation. Developing countries, for example, are still facing significant digital divides and may lack the resources for a successful participation in some of these debates and initiatives, being then forced to follow systems that do not fit their realities, concerns or needs. A similar trend is also visible in a more individual perspective, where non-experts, indigenous communities, women, youth and elderly, and people with disabilities are not able to join the discussions or may lack the capacity to participate in a meaningful way. Fourthly, the most evident challenge is the growing trend of politicization and securitization of digital technologies and its intersection with growing geopolitical rivalries between the United States and China. Together with the European Union and India, these actors are bidding to achieve technological supremacy and dominate the standard setting of these technologies in order to harvest the benefits of their development and use. In parallel, each jurisdiction is becoming wary over the risks from data and digital technologies, prompting the adoption of more protectionist measures to achieve data sovereignty. The centrality of technology in their competition heavily influences the capability to reach consensus on international standards while promoting contrasting approaches to regulate digital issues.The lack of a coherent, global approach is unsettling the international order in digital governance and negatively impacting the delivery of effective and innovative solutions for the governance of digital and technological issues. This situation has consequential risks, such as the splintering of the Internet or the incapacity of successfully responding to critical problems, given the failure to conduct a comprehensive and in-depth assessment of multiple risks, vulnerabilities, and outcomes of digital and technological developments. The different rules and regulations – as well as the existing gaps, for example, the military use of these technologies – can have deep impacts on governance and, as a result, on citizens' lives. And, while paradoxically, guidelines and regulations are more needed than ever in the current context.3. Towards an effective global digital cooperationTaking into consideration the challenges of establishing a set of shared values to guide technology development and deployment, global digital cooperation should be people-centered, transparent, open, ethical, inclusive, and equitable while keeping in mind the multi-level, multi-issue and multi-stakeholder nature of digital and tech governance.Considering the current challenges and developments, the international community should focus on making progress in three different areas: Meaningful multi-stakeholderism The recent hyperactivity in digital advances shows the tension and interplay between two different cultures of governance: a bottom-up multistakeholder approach, for example in the open consultation processes adopted by the UN for the Global Digital Compact, as well as a top-down multilateral approach that still gives primacy to the role of states. However, even in these multistakeholder initiatives, the current objective is a multilateral solution for a better tomorrow – which implies the subordination of multistakeholder processes to multilateral solutions.As a result, the emphasis must be placed on achieving meaningful multi-stakeholderism while upholding inclusivity and effective participation. Current efforts at regulating these technologies are being led and dominated by traditional technological powerhouses – such as the US, the EU or China–, creating a highly specialized conversation with a small pool of countries alongside a small pool of big tech companies. Countries from the Global South are mostly absent or overlooked in ongoing processes. As such, adopted international agreements may not be fit for purpose for non-Western realities.Besides more representative global cooperation in terms of geography, the different actors involved – governmental representatives, civil society actors, academia and the private sector – should have the opportunity to participate and influence the conversations on an equal footing. Diversity of genders, generations, and underrepresented communities – including most vulnerable populations, indigenous communities, and people with disabilities – must also see their participation ensured. This is also especially relevant when addressing and ensuring youth participation – as the decisions taken today will ultimately define their future. Each of these groups can bring a unique perspective to the table and, through communication and trust-building measures, these initiatives can help build consensus and common understandings, and identify shared challenges and risks. In sum, democratic and participatory elements must be incorporated into the governance of technology on national and international levels.Ensuring interoperability across regulatory frameworks and enforcementThe current hyperactivity in the international landscape risks creating a patchwork approach with too many loopholes that allow easy forum shopping. As a result, the most urgent task at hand is the need for coordination. Feedback loops should be established between ad hoc, regional and international initiatives to avoid duplication, overlapping – and contradicting – efforts. As Internet governance is a cross-cutting issue, the current siloed governance should be connected to accurately address and respond to related issues around digital technologies that cross borders, topics, rights, and regulations. As such, for a truly comprehensive and harmonised regulatory framework, intergovernmental processes and global multilateral forums should be aligned, with a clear division of labour and consistency when it comes to the rules that apply to the work of these forums. One of the main concerns and challenges of the current efforts is the need to ensure policy coordination, the interoperability of regulations and the consequent protection of citizens who could be subjected to different jurisprudential criteria depending on applicable legislation. By building international frameworks grounded in consensus-adopted shared values, different jurisdictions should be committed to following this leadership by the international community while retaining enough flexibility to develop regimes tailored to their domestic environments. This can be further encouraged through capacity-building initiatives in the digital and cyber domains at a global level, using cooperation to assist countries with practical insights on regulation and implementation. Moreover, further collaboration through bringing legal expertise and knowledge will be necessary to support other countries in transposing international agreements and standards in their own legislations as well as its implementation and enforcement.Finally, a further challenge will be how to fulfil the promises made in regulations to safeguard rights effectively. Enforcement and sanctioning will be a requirement for the international community and, as such, these international agreements need to become binding. The development of global, joint enforcement mechanisms and a sanctions framework for those who fail to comply should also be part of global digital cooperation debates and efforts. However, while regulation is a fundamental first step, it is important to acknowledge that it is not enough to produce the desired change of cooperation and risk mitigation of emerging technologies. Previous experiences, such as the GDPR, offer relevant insights into the limitations of regulation to promote a shift in business models or different Internet behaviour. While the GDPR established clear obligations on the processing of personal data by operators, some have managed to circumvent or avoid these obligations. The €1.2 billion fine to Meta for violating the data privacy rules established in the GDPR is a clear example of how enforcement is not working. As such, other creative and innovative approaches should be considered – including the establishment of a new, digital social contract. Going beyond regulationBesides the challenges of interoperability and enforcement, global digital cooperation should extend beyond regulation. The unequal development and adoption of technologies around the world and the knowledge of these issues require further research and the development of capacity-building actions. Sharing best practices, promoting training for public administrations and the private sector, and ensuring the exchange of knowledge will be key to ensuring that the benefits of these technological changes are equally shared. In parallel, regulations should also be coupled with awareness-raising campaigns, to ensure that citizens, users, and developers are aware of their rights and responsibilities under these new frameworks.Secondly, given the unpredictable risks and impacts of these disruptive technologies, it is crucial to establish common safe spaces for experimental development, including sandboxes, funded by public bodies. The deployment of these spaces can help us identify and understand in the early stages of the development process the risks of specific technologies, but also, to test the effectiveness of regulations. Furthermore, these spaces will be useful in risk assessments. Adopting standards – based on a value-sensitive design and participatory approaches – for assessing the impact of these technologies before they are deployed in the market will test their respect for human rights and limit their negative externalities.Thirdly, global digital cooperation needs to provide public global goods and technological solutions for all. Government involvement can further enhance innovation, adopting a supporter investor and early customer role for these technological advancements. As such, countries should invest and develop open, shared digital public infrastructure – from computing power to democratically and justly governed data layers –, to boost global digital connectivity, and ensure that it is accessible for entrepreneurs and citizens. More critically, technological transfer will also be key between developed, emerging, and developing countries to leverage the opportunities of digital technologies and close the digital divide.Finally, one ambitious proposal concerns the need to establish new effective and flexible institutions of global governance that manage the profound changes that digital technologies pose for our societies. From international agencies to monitor and verify compliance, to global advisory bodies for truly multistakeholder and all-inclusive processes, public participation must be ensured to build the foundations of the future and take ownership of the governance of the unprecedented transformations for our societies.ReferencesColomina, Carme. "Una IA ética: la UE y la gobernanza algorítmica". CIDOB Opinion, 784 (December 2023). (online) https://www.cidob.org/es/publicaciones/serie_de_publicacion/opinion_cidob/2023/una_ia_etica_la_ue_y_la_gobernanza_algoritmicaFay, Robert. "Global Governance of Data and Digital Technologies: A Framework for Peaceful Cooperation". Center for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), February 2022. (online) https://www.cigionline.org/articles/global-governance-of-data-and-digital-technologies-a-framework-for-peaceful-cooperation/Tiberghien, Yves; Luo, Danielle and Pourmalek, Panthea. "Existential Gap: Digital/AI Acceleration and the Missing Global Governance Capacity". Center for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), February 2022 (online). https://www.cigionline.org/articles/existential-gap-digitalai-acceleration-and-the-missing-global-governance-capacity/United Nations (UN). Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation. International Governance Forum, 2019 (online). https://intgovforum.org/en/content/report-of-the-un-secretary-general%E2%80%99s-high-level-panel-on-digital-cooperationUN. Report of the Secretary-General: Roadmap for Digital Cooperation. New York: United Nations, May 2020 (online). https://www.un.org/techenvoy/sites/www.un.org.techenvoy/files/general/Roadmap_for_Digital_Cooperation_9June.pdfUN. Report of the Secretary-General: Our Common Agenda. New York: United Nations, 2021 (online).https://www.un.org/en/content/common-agenda-report/assets/pdf/Common_Agenda_Report_English.pdfWheeler, Tom. "The three challenges of AI regulation" Brookings Commentary, June 2023 (online). https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-three-challenges-of-ai-regulation/

Author's introductionBy reflecting on violence in its many manifestations this course is intended to problematize youth's relationship to violence. Not only will it underscore how and why violence is perpetrated by young people, but, perhaps more important, how young people are affected. Students will reflect on how violence impacts and enters their own lives – sometimes in very inauspicious ways. Much of what counts as entertainment is laden with, and centres on, violence. For example, Grand Theft Auto is a popular video game wherein game players assume the role of a wannabe gangster whose rise though the criminal underworld is predicated upon his thieving and murderous efficiency. Similarly, the movie Never Back Down follows a young male as he attempts to fight his way into the vaunted inner circle of his high school's 'in' group. Marred by and revered for his reputation as a 'tough guy', the protagonist is forced, in a contradiction that only makes coherent sense in the context of the pervasive violent masculinity which buoys the film, to fight his way clear of this foul reputation.Human intersections with violence are undeniably and unexpectedly complicated. We are fascinated and our lives are directly affected by violence regardless of proximity. Significantly, violence – both the Hollywood version and that which is 'real'– affects each and all. Fears of violence, whether they are informed by official statistics, crime‐based dramas, the 6 o'clock news or reality television, contour our existence in very definite ways. Our temporal and spatial movement through urban space, our understandings of law and governance strategies, our relations with 'others'– significant and otherwise – are conditioned by tangential, lived, experienced and witnessed violence. It alters our way of being, where we choose to live, and how we conduct, protect and entertain ourselves. No one is immune. Human experience is contoured irrevocably by violence.At issue is our inconsistent and contradictory relationship to youth violence. Parents applaud young people's violence – especially their sons'– as they 'duke it out' on the football field and in the hockey arena and urge them to 'get' or 'kill' the other team. At the same time, young people are overrepresented as victims of violence – especially our daughters. This course provides an opportunity to explore and analyze how youth [and] violence is braided into the fabric of Western culture.Starting points/learning objectives1What follows are issues students should consider and meditate on throughout the term. I encourage readers to introduce them at the beginning of the semester and return to them several times throughout. They may also be used to frame study questions and as a course summary.

What is violence?
Why is there such growing concern about youth violence?
What role does the media play in our understanding of youth violence?
How are youth gangs perceived?
What is the relationship between youth and violence?
What is the connection between masculinity(ies) and violence?
How does Western culture champion and, at the same time, abhor youth violence?
What are 'solutions' to youth violence?
What role can youth play in this process?

Author recommendationsHannah Arendt, 1970, On Violence. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace.Following her tumultuous experiences of living through the Second World War and student protests of the 1960s, Hannah Arendt penned her reflections on violence. She famously writes that, 'Violence can always destroy power; out of the barrel of a gun grows the most effective command, resulting in the most instant and perfect obedience. What never can grow out of it is power' (53). She maintains that even though power and violence may hold phenomological elements in common, they are in fact opposites: 'where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. Violence appears where power is in jeopardy, but left to its own course it ends in power's disappearance' (56). Arendt develops this line of argument later in the book and concludes that, 'Every decrease in power is an open invitation to violence – if only because those who hold power and feel it slipping from their hands ... have always found it difficult to resist the temptation to substitute violence for it' (87). For Arendt, worlds (both individual and global) become irrevocably altered through incidences of violence. She writes, 'the practice of violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probable change is to a more violent world' (80). Arendt's reflections occasion an opportunity to reflect not only on interpersonal violence, but perhaps more important, state violence.Fearnley, Fran (ed.). 2004. I wrote on all Four Walls: Teens Speak Out on Violence. Toronto, Canada: Annick.How do youth experience violence? This collection contains the captivating stories of nine affected youth whose voices narrate experiences of being victims and instigators of violence. Their stories evidence the complexities of violence. They demonstrate how a great deal of slippage exists between the categories of victim and offender. Instead of being clear cut, the spellbinding tales evidence how the line separating the violent and the victim is often blurred. Most striking about this collection is the demand that adults listen to youth's voices. Tragically, youth are too often the objects of social regulation and academic discourse without being its authors. This collection forces the reader to consider what role, if any, youth voices may play in the amelioration of violence.Loeber, Rolf and David P. Farrington (eds.). 1998. Serious and Violent Juvenile Offenders: Risk Factors and Successful Interventions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Co‐edited by Rolf Loeber and David Farrington, this impressive collection offers innovative and insightful essays centring on the aetiology and trajectory of violent youth. This report of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention's focus group on serious and violent offenders asks the reader to reflect on well‐worn assumptions. Instead of attending to single and static causal explanations of youth violence, the authors identify significant risk and resiliency factors. Collectively, the 17 chapters argue for more proactive responses to youth violence that attend to the complexity of juvenile development. The authors maintain that effective reforms and interventions can be implemented only when predictable assemblages of risk and protective factors are isolated. This volume of essays is impressive for the surfeit of data on risk and resiliency.Messerschmidt, James. 2000. Nine Lives: Adolescent Masculinities, The Body and Violence. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.No list of recommended readings on violence would be complete without at least one of James Messerschmidt's splendid books. In addition to Nine Lives, his Masculinities and Crime and Flesh and Blood are equally impressive. Tying these works together is the author's insistence that masculinities are at the centre of any coherent understanding of violence. Equally important to Messershmidt's work in Nine Lives is his use of the 'life history method'; which involves 'appreciating how adolescent male violent offenders construct and make sense of their particular world, and to comprehend the ways in which they interpret their own lives and the world around them' (5). For Messerschmidt, the world of boys is saturated with violent images that provide a rather limited cultural script through which to define manhood and manliness. Instead of prizing sensitivity and empathy, this hegemonic masculinity rewards (among other destructive qualities) toughness. The significance of this book lies in how Messerschmidt underscores the gendered meaning of violence in the world of nine boys.Sheridan, Sam. 2007. A Fighter's Heart: One Man's Journey Through the World of Fighting. New York, NY: Grove.A scarred man dripping in blood emblazons the cover of Sam Sheridan's book. Taken after one of his professional fights, the image captures the gaze while it repulses the mind. Sheridan's work takes the reader through the preparation and training of the violent body. The interested are catapulted into the world of fighting for sport and the intense and somewhat bizarre physical and, perhaps more important, psychological preparations fighters undertake to do violence to an other. In this book, Sheridan takes the reader on a journey through the life of a professional fighter and along the way provides insight into the corporeality of violence. Sheridan writes, 'Fighting is not just a manhood test; that is the surface. The depths are about knowledge and self knowledge, a method of examining one's own life and motives. For most people who take it seriously, fighting is much more about the self than the other' (337). While the other books I have recommended seek to stand at a distance from violence and describe the physical, psychological and spiritual construction of the violent body from a safe vantage, Sheridan's book dives head first into the masculine phenomenon.Zimring, Franklin. 1998. American Youth Violence. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.With fantastic media claims of a looming youth violence crisis and equally unreasonable governmental policy responses as the backdrop, Franklin Zimring's book offers a sober(ing) reflection. While the author finds media representations of juvenile violence particularly troubling, he considers the aggressive governmental response exceedingly incongruent with the scope of the problem. Wild media depictions of marauding youth criminals and equally pugnacious governmental responses has contributed to an ethos of intolerance manifest in an increasingly punitive juvenile court. After a systematic and careful analysis of juvenile court data and existing state policy, Zimring concludes that youth violence is a problem that requires a more level‐headed approach than is evidenced in escalating incarceration rates and reactionist policy.Zizek, Slavoj. 2008. Violence. New York, NY: Picador.Like Arendt, Slavoj Zizek implores the reader to think more critically and widely about the meanings of violence. Enjoining his characteristic psychoanalytic cunning bolstered by Marxist sagicity, Zizek maintains that violence embodies three overlapping and bouying configurations: subjective, objective and systemic. Through the lens of popular and not‐so‐popular movies and jokes, he suggests that our myopic preoccupation with subjective violence (interpersonal) obscures more insidious forms of systemic violence (committed by capital as intrinsic to the cost of doing business). Engrossment in subjective violence not only allows the systemic forms to go on (relatively) undetected, but to fester. Zizek's book demands that the reader assume a more panoramic stance when posing questions about violence.Course assignmentAdvertising campaign to end violenceIn groups or individually, students act as the creative marketing team for the mayor who is intent on curbing violent youth crime.Instructions

Select a category of violent youth crime for which you would like to create an advertising campaign (e.g. gang violence; dating violence; assault; sexual assault/rape & etc).
For your selected issue, create an advertisement in any media (i.e. poster; newspaper/magazine spot; radio ad (60 sec.); television spot (90 sec.); Public Service Advertisement (PSA, 20 min.); Youtube message (2 min.); newspaper insert; billboard & etc.). You must describe the location/place where the campaign will be found (i.e. which newspaper? During what television show(s)?, etc.).
In addition to your advertisement, you are required to submit a 7 to 10‐page paper that provides the theoretical and intellectual background to your advertising campaign (drawing on at least seven sources). The paper will outline the nature of the selected violent crime problem and explain how the campaign will manage or curb its incidence. Elements of your paper will include: clear introduction and conclusion; clear identification of the major factors involved in the issue; familiarity with the relevant literature; clear organization of the material and arguments; and critical analysis (i.e. What are the limitations of your approach).
You will be given 10 minutes during a town‐hall meeting held during the last week of classes to pitch your campaign to the mayor and alderpersons (aka the class). You must explain why your approach will prove effective and ultimately receive the mayor's endorsement.
Effective Advertising campaigns will be attractive, memorable, clear and creative. A useful example can be found at: http://www.gov.ab.ca/acn/200706/216833FE9BEF6‐0ECF‐81D6‐01A4883EC4C04B71.html
Supporting media: http://www.aglc.gov.ab.ca/pdf/social_responsibility/cage_poster_one_stepped_toe.pdf http://www.aglc.gov.ab.ca/pdf/social_responsibility/cage_poster_five_asked_dance.pdf
You must submit and justify the budget for your campaign. The price tag must be in‐line with potential return.

Recommended films and videosA number of outstanding videos on the topic of youth violence now exist, and I use a number of these throughout the course. In addition to films, I use a variety of additional media forms (i.e. websites, newspaper articles and television news) and guest speakers (i.e. Former gang members, juvenile justice professionals, street kids) that encourage critical thinking. Three films that I find particular useful are: Tough Guise–http://www.mediaed.org/videos/MediaGenderAndDiversity/ToughGuiseTeaching guide: http://mediaed.org/videos/MediaGenderAndDiversity/ToughGuise/studyguide/html Gang Aftermath–http://www.nfb.ca/collection/films/fiche/?id=54450 A Clockwork Orange–http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066921/Useful websitesFight Violence.net –http://www.fightviolence.net/Ihuman –http://www.ihuman.org/Jackson Katz – 10 Things Men Can do to Prevent Gender Violence –http://www.jacksonkatz.com/wmcd.htmlPromoting Relationships and Eliminating Violence (PREVnet) –http://prevnet.ca/Public Health Agency of Canada – Dating Violence –http://www.phac‐aspc.gc.ca/ncfv‐cnivf/familyviolence/html/femdatfreq_e.htmlThe Youth Restorative Action Project –http://yrap.org/Youth Violence: A Report of the Surgeon General –http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/youthviolence/Sample course outlineSection 1 –Introduction to the courseThe first class(es) are intended to provide students with an overview of the course. The starting points/learning objectives outlined above provide a useful entry.Section 2 –What is violence?Providing conceptual clarification of the main concept under consideration is essential before proceeding too far into course content. This section reflects on how violence is defined (and left undefined) in philosophy, law, and criminology. Students will be asked to meditate on the limitations of each approach and to query whether violence can ever be justified and, if so, how.Section 3 –How much violence?Citizens are concerned about violent crime and are impressed by what crime statistics reveal. However, official statistics reveal only those cases which come to police attention or, more specifically, where police arrest a suspect for committing what the criminal code determines to be a violent offence. Understandably, not all violent crime is reported to police. Criminologists refer to the remainder as the dark figure of crime. It follows that crime scholars and statisticians can never be certain they have captured all the crime – violent or otherwise – that is committed in a particular society. When official statistics and media reports are the sole means employed to construct the public face of violence, victimization remains obscured. 'Not on the public's radar in the ethos of school shootings and high profile stabbings is that youth are the most likely victims of violence. Indeed, when the focus of the public's ire is set against a (perceived) rise in violent crime';2 victimization (i.e. bullying, dating violence, and, but not limited to, sexual assault) becomes an almost irrelevant aside to statistics. This section of the course provides an opportunity to shift the locus of debate from sensational media accounts to the complexities involved in youth violence.Section 4 –Understanding Violence and the Violent Offender?For what reasons do youth act violently? Since expert opinion varies widely, the answer you receive to this question will depend greatly on to whom it is posed. With particular attention paid to gender (especially masculinity), this section surveys various explanations of violent youth behaviour.Section 5 –Violent VictimizationYouth are typically overrepresented as victims of violent crime. This section of the course considers why this seems to be the case. It also surveys different forms of violent victimization including: racial violence, bullying, dating violence and sexual assault. Students will be asked to consider the most likely perpetrators of these crimes.Section 6 –The Culture of ViolenceViolence pervades Western culture. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the mass media. Movies, video games, sports, music videos and television programmes all contain heavy doses of violence. This section of the course confronts the violent images many take for granted. An attempt is made to juxtapose simulated violence with 'real‐life' violence and ponder what renders the former (more) acceptable while the latter is (almost) universally condemned. Through an examination of violence in media (movies, video games, etc.) and sport (hockey, football and mixed martial arts) students consider what our relative acceptance of these forms of violence reveals about Western society.Section 7 –Regulating and Managing ViolenceFear of violence has prompted individuals to respond in very direct ways to the prospect of victimization (i.e. buying pepper spray, purchasing burglar alarms, avoiding a particular area of town after dark). They have also demanded that their governments impose the most austere punishments on violent offenders and enact increasingly intrusive legislation. Bootcamps, chain gangs, the strap and, of course, incarceration have been advanced in the fight against violence. Canada's ruling Conservative party has recently pressured the Senate to speed up their deliberations over their proposed Tackling Violent Crime Act; which boasts a number of measures intended to satiate demand from a fearful public.Questions to consider in this section of the course include: Why has state intervention proven relatively ineffective? What innovative programs exist 'outside' of the state? To what extent does the amelioration of violence depend on the creation and widespread acceptance of a more tolerant and less aggressive masculine ethic? What role can youth play in preventing violence?Section 8 –ConclusionThe final section provides an opportunity to reflect on course themes by returning to the learning objectives and starting points outlined above. It is also an opportunity to move forward. If all agree that youth violence is indeed a problem, we must ask what we (each and all) are willing to do toward its amelioration. In the meantime we need to ask difficult and uncomfortable questions while assembling creative means of positively improving the situation many young people face. This means going beyond interventions that replicate the status quo to considering what a more just and humane world would look like.Notes
* Correspondence address: Department of Sociology, University of Alberta, 5‐21 H.M. Tory Building, Edmonton, AB T6G 2H4, Canada. Email: bryan.hogeveen@ualberta.ca.

1 Starting Points are adapted from Minaker and Hogeveen, Youth, Crime and Society: Issues of Power and Justice.

2 Hogeveen, Bryan. 2007. 'Youth (and) Violence.' Sociology Compass. ½: 463–484. ReferencesHogeveen, Bryan 2007. 'Youth (and) Violence.' Sociology Compass ½: 463–84.Minaker, Joanne C. and Bryan Hogeveen 2008. Youth, Crime and Society: Issues of Power and Justice. Toronto, Canada: Pearson.

Western media never had any problem with health statistics from Gaza — until Israel was accused of bombing a hospital there. For years, English-speaking journalists straightforwardly cited reports from the "Palestinian health ministry in Gaza," using its official name. But after the October 17 attack on Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, media outlets began portraying the ministry as an arm of the rebel force Hamas.Foreign journalists had struggled to make sense of the carnage on October 17, and whether Israeli or Palestinian forces were to blame. The New York Times edited its headline several times, and initially reports may have overstated how many hundreds died. The Israeli army and U.S. President Joe Biden took advantage of the confusion to cast doubt on the truthfulness of Gaza's medical authorities.The stakes are critical. The health ministry has reported over 11,000 Palestinian deaths, nearly half a percent of Gaza's entire population, including thousands of children. Even though U.S. officials have come to accept the accuracy of those numbers, the damage to the health ministry's credibility is done.Meanwhile, the Israeli military has moved from attacking the health authorities' claims to marking them as military targets. Israeli forces raided Al-Shifa Hospital, the health ministry's headquarters, on Wednesday. Hundreds of doctors, patients, and displaced people have evacuated since. The health ministry has reported severe difficulties updating the death toll due to Israeli attacks, communications blackouts, and the sheer volume of casualties.Israeli and U.S. attempts to change the conversation have largely succeeded. Before the current war, and even before the Ahli hospital bombing, descriptions like "Hamas-run," "Hamas-controlled," or "Hamas-affiliated" for the Palestinian health ministry were virtually non-existent, according to the News on the Web Corpus, a database of newspapers and magazines from 21 countries.Most Western English language media simply referred to the "Palestinian health ministry." Since the October 17 hospital attack, however, it is now more common to see the health ministry labeled as some variation of "Hamas-run" than "Palestinian."

The actual relationship between Gaza's health ministry and Hamas is complicated. Hamas took over as the governing authority in Gaza in the chaos around a 2007 coup d'etat attempt, splitting Palestinian ministries between staffers loyal to Hamas in Gaza and staffers loyal to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.But the Gazan branch of the health ministry is not completely disconnected from the broader Palestinian medical system, or even the Israeli government. Officials in both the West Bank and Gaza report births and deaths to the same Israeli-controlled population registry. In response to Biden casting doubt on its statistics, the Palestinian health ministry released the name and ID number of every single identifiable person allegedly killed by the fighting.The current war began on October 7, when Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israeli villages, killing 1,200 people and taking around 240 hostages. The Israeli army released a video on Sunday purporting to show two wounded hostages being taken to Al-Shifa. Hamas itself released a video last month claiming to show an Israeli hostage being treated in a Palestinian hospital, but denied keeping any hostages in hospitals for non-medical reasons. The doubt surrounding the health ministry's objectivity only began after the Ahli hospital attack. On October 17, an explosion ripped through the courtyard of the hospital, where hundreds of displaced people had been sheltering. Health ministry officials held a press conference surrounded by corpses and accused Israel of committing a massacre.Israel claimed that a misfired Palestinian rocket had struck Al-Ahli, and presented several contradictory pieces of evidence for that scenario. (Outside investigations have been inconclusive so far, ruling out an Israeli aerial bomb but leaving open the possibility of some other type of Israeli or Palestinian weapon.) Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari complained the next day that "many media outlets immediately reported the unverified claims by Hamas, the lies by Hamas."Biden jumped in a week later, stating that he "had no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed." He also privately complained about the New York Times' headlines on Al-Ahli during a meeting with Wall Street bankers, Semafor reported."We all know that the Gazan ministry of health is just a front for Hamas. It's run by Hamas, a terrorist organization," U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on October 26. "We can't take anything coming out of Hamas, including the so-called 'ministry of health,' at face value."The political pushback seems to have changed the overall tone of American news coverage. In the weeks after the Ahli attack, many English-language reporters appeared to hedge any Palestinian health ministry claims by noting Hamas's alleged control of the ministry.

The Associated Press, widely considered the gold standard in English-language reporting, used the term "Hamas-run health ministry" only five times before October 2023. During previous wars, the Associated Press often cited statistics from "the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza."AP newswires have not used the phrase "Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza" since the Ahli hospital bombing, instead referring to the "Hamas-run Health Ministry" or the "Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza." It is unclear whether the change was a matter of policy, or simply an ad hoc decision by editors.The AP press office did not answer an email request for comment. Neither did the New York Times foreign desk, the Reuters newswire service, or the cable news station CNN.Some journalists have pushed back hard against the notion that Gaza's health authorities are a Hamas propaganda arm. The Washington Post ran a column on October 24 defending the accuracy of statistics from the Palestinian health ministry.In the meantime, Israeli forces have escalated their attacks on Palestinian health infrastructure. On November 3, the Israeli army bombed a Palestinian ambulance outside of Al-Shifa. On November 13, an Israeli bulldozer destroyed the Swedish Clinic in Al-Shati Refugee Camp, which had been bombed and overrun by Israeli forces the day before. A day later, the Israeli army shelled Al-Shifa and falsely claimed that misfired Palestinian rockets were to blame.Israel accuses Hamas of hiding fighters and holding Israeli hostages inside of hospitals. The White House has backed Israeli claims. Kirby, the U.S. spokesman, said on Tuesday that the United States has intelligence about Hamas's use of hospitals, including a "command and control node" under Al-Shifa. Biden echoed those claims after the Israeli raid on the hospital.Hagari, the Israeli army spokesman, brought foreign reporters to the basement of the abandoned Rantisi Hospital on Monday to view alleged proof of Hamas's presence. Israeli forces displayed weapons and explosives that they claimed to have found in the hospital, as well as a bullet-ridden motorcycle.Journalists were shown a chair with a woman's gown, a length of rope, and a baby bottle nearby. Hagari promised to test them for DNA evidence of hostages. Health ministry official Muhammad Zarqout told CNN that Palestinian women and children, not Israeli hostages or Hamas fighters, had been staying in the basement.Hagari also pointed to a chart on a wall, claiming that it was a "guarding list, every terrorist has his own shift." In fact, the chart was just a calendar with the days of the week written in Arabic. CNN aired Hagari's claim without pushing back. The Israeli army later chalked it up to a translation error, and CNN quietly removed that segment from videos posted online, according to the Huffington Post.After Wednesday's raid on Al-Shifa, the Israeli military shared images of its booty from the supposed Hamas stronghold: fifteen rifles, some grenades, and assorted body armor. "It's a hospital. There shouldn't be any assault rifles at a hospital," Kirby told reporters on Thursday, smirking.However, Human Rights Watch stated that the Israeli evidence was not sufficient to attack the hospitals. According to the Fourth Geneva Convention, the presence of "sick or wounded members of the armed forces" does not make a hospital a military target, even if those patients brought along "small arms and ammunition" with them.CNN and BBC reporters both found that Israeli troops may have tampered with the evidence at Al-Shifa Hospital, a claim that Hagari denies.Two days after the raid, The Economist reported that "Israeli intelligence officials do not believe that Hamas currently has its main headquarters—to the extent that such a thing exists—below the hospital. These, they say, have probably moved to Khan Younis" south of Gaza City.Meanwhile, U.S. officials have come around to accepting that Palestinians were telling the truth about their deaths — and may have actually understated the numbers."In this period of conflict and conditions of war, it is very difficult for any of us to assess what the rate of casualties are," Barbara Leaf, assistant U.S. secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, told Congress last week. "We think they're very high, frankly, and it could be that they're even higher than are being cited."

This piece was written by Alex Reep (CEGA Agriculture Intern) and Emily Sylvia (J-PAL Policy Manager) and was originally posted on the J-PAL blog.Farmer working in a field in Kenya | Neil PalmerAs farms become more productive, grow in size, or diversify into more lucrative crops, farmers require more labor hours and, often, more skilled labor. Labor needs may change with agricultural production practices, as commercial crops often require more labor than staples (e.g. horticulture requires additional weeding and regular harvesting in comparison to seasonal staple cultivation) and as farming practices change (e.g. regular irrigation requires consistent labor, and mechanization may displace labor at some stages of production). Despite being crucial to profitable farming systems, we know less about land and labor market failures than other constraints to agricultural technology adoption and productivity. Further evidence is required to understand important gaps in our knowledge of how farmers can best utilize household and hired labor, in addition to agricultural technologies.Evidence from randomized evaluations on labor and agricultural productivityThe Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative (ATAI), a collaboration between the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), was launched in 2009 to rigorously test programs that aim to increase farmers' welfare through the broader use of technologies that help increase farmers' productivity in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Since then, ATAI has funded randomized evaluations to answer critical questions around labor decisions and constraints to farmers' growth. This research has focused on how labor affects and is affected by gender and household dynamics, mechanization, and income diversification. But, there are a number of open questions yet to be rigorously tested.Household labor and gender dynamicsResearch has shown that there is a gender gap in agricultural productivity. Women, who make up nearly half of the agricultural labor force in Africa, produce less per hectare on average than men. This may be because women often have more limited access to productivity-enhancing resources and knowledge of improved practices. They also tend to have less agency in allocating their own time and labor. Gender equity among agricultural laborers and household members is therefore an essential piece in unlocking broader productivity and growth in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly.Households often allocate labor along gendered lines — women may be more involved in planting, food processing, and ensuring dietary diversity, while men may be involved in field preparation, sales, managing non-household workers, or harvest. One ATAI-funded pilot study in Zambia looked at intra-household dynamics related to agricultural technology adoption and broader decision-making. Survey results suggested that a wife's bargaining power in the household explained the most variation in yields between the plots cultivated by herself and her husband, even more so than the practices they used. More evidence is needed to understand these intra-household dynamics, as well as the broader market dynamics related to demand for male versus female labor, differences in wages and work conditions, and productivity based on levels of cooperation for both women and men.Family labor versus hired workersBoosting agricultural productivity calls for an increased focus on changing farming systems toward higher-value crops that make more extensive use of labor throughout the year. Approximately 75 percent of farms worldwide rely on household labor to remain viable. Whether laborers come from the household or are hired externally affects costs and demand for work in local markets.Research has suggested that farmer profits can be improved by valuing work on agricultural activities done by household members the same as wages paid to hired labor. Intensive tasks require greater supervision, so households can cut costs by reallocating intensive activities to household members who may have an intrinsic motivation to do the job well, rather than seasonally hired workers. Similarly, supervision may be more difficult to allocate to hired labor so that farmers may need to prioritize family workers for certain tasks.Researchers have conducted evaluations in Ghana, Mali, Niger, and Zambia using different interventions and policy levers to assess households' decision making and pricing of family labor versus hired laborers.For example, the ATAI-funded evaluation in Niger tested the impact of providing training for the construction of an environmental technology (demi-lunes or water collection pits) on household labor allocation among other outcomes. Constructing demi-lunes is labor-intensive, and adhering to certain technical norms increases their effectiveness. Therefore, increased adoption of and investment in demi-lunes led households to reallocate household labor in the short-term to facilitate the construction of demi-lunes. Specifically, farmers moved household members to lead the more skilled yet cumbersome work of building the demi-lunes and hired outside laborers to cover seasonal agricultural tasks, such as sowing and weeding.Social norms and pressures additionally affect labor costs and patterns by influencing peoples' willingness to accept various jobs and salaries. An ATAI-funded study in India found that workers may take jobs with wage cuts in private, but reject them in public due to fear of social stigma. Understanding the balance between household labor and hired labor is essential to accurately value labor force participation and estimate labor productivity, particularly among small-scale farms in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia where household members play a larger role in smooth farm operations.Agriculture mechanization: Labor-demanding and labor-saving technologiesMechanizing farm operations can allow laborers to work on other important tasks rather than time-consuming or high-skill tasks, like tilling, reaping, and sowing seeds. Some technologies and practices are labor-saving (tractors and irrigation systems), while others are labor-demanding (transplanting seedlings to fields to improve germination rather than broadcasting seeds into a tilled field). Adopting innovations may allow households to reallocate their time spent on manual labor to higher-skilled roles, supervising hired labor, overseeing mechanized processes, and for non-agricultural economic activities. In an ATAI-funded evaluation in India, researchers found that vouchers and cash grants for machine rentals increased mechanization during land preparation, freeing up hired labor in other stages of production and freeing up household time, particularly from members engaged in farm supervision activities. They also found evidence of higher time engagement in off-farm activities from farmers that already participated in those markets. However following the successful introduction of new technologies, complementary investments in labor may be required to ensure that technology is working the way it was intended. More research is needed to better understand the effect of introducing technologies at different stages of agricultural production.Promoting local economic diversification among agricultural householdsBroader planning against the agricultural calendar is a critical step in households' decisions to hire workers or seek off-farm employment for family members. Agricultural activities are seasonal, and demand and supply of labor for production and harvest ebb and flow depending on the time of year and skill of the worker. In many contexts, there is a lull in demand for labor after planting, often called a "lean season," where households have less disposable income. Therefore, there is a need to generate economic opportunities or activities for farming households outside of agriculture in their local market or in nearby urban centers.A randomized evaluation in Bangladesh looked at grants delivered to households who opted to migrate to urban areas for work during the lean season. Researchers found that the grants improved migrants' income and made it less competitive to get work within the village, increasing wages and the number of work hours available in the market.Future research could build on this and assess other ways to increase productive, local, and lucrative employment opportunities between peak planting and harvesting periods to ensure work is available throughout the year.Open questions for new research on agricultural laborAs some of the evaluations cited here suggest, results may not always translate to other contexts. Therefore, researchers often call for more research to test the aforementioned interventions and relevant questions in different agricultural labor markets.In addition to those highlighted above, there are a number of open questions at the nexus of labor and agriculture to develop a deeper understanding of wage setting, skill-building, and how households allocate labor to agricultural activities. Areas for further research include:assessing interventions that allow households to hire workers and take jobs in other sectors or allow them to more extensively use family labor throughout the year (through crop diversification, mechanization, role specialization, etc.)evaluating the effects of farm size, health of workers, contracting, and trust in the local labor marketshifting from subsistence cultivation of staple crops to intensive cultivation of commercial crops through a process of agricultural transformation, where the former heavily utilizes female labor while the latter is traditionally a domain of male labor in many contexts; and understanding what complementary interventions can improve outcomes for women when labor demands and activities favor menimproving access to productive assets, like machine rentalstesting interventions designed to engage women and other vulnerable or marginalized groups, such as landless laborers, in more lucrative, appealing, or empowering work.On February 21, ATAI released its newest call for proposals, and encourages more research that expands the body of evidence related to labor and agricultural systems. For information on eligibility, please review the ATAI call for proposals.If you are a researcher or implementing organization interested in partnering with ATAI to evaluate a related program, please reach out to atai [at] povertyactionlab [dot] org. In addition to the general RPF, the initiative also specifically invites proposals that investigate approaches designed to benefit or empower women. Applicants with a gender-focused approach should choose the gender-focused application on the online portal.Agricultural productivity and labor: Evidence and open questions for researchers was originally published in CEGA on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Multiparty Trade Agreement between Ecuador and the European Union was the subject of controversy regarding the advisability of its signature until it finally came into effect in January 2017. After three years in place, numerous statistics were reviewed to analyze the exchange evolution of non-oil goods between these trading partners in a period between January 2015 and December 2019. The research was carried out through a comparative analysis of the records of public and private organizations, obtained through their databases, reports and bulletins, and complemented with a theoretical analysis. This study concluded the total commercialized values have increased and the application of the commercial agreement has allowed the European Union to consolidate as the first destination for Ecuador's non-oil exports. Keywords:Multiparty agreement, Ecuador, European Union, integration, import, export. URL:https://revistas.uta.edu.ec/erevista/index.php/bcoyu/article/view/1157 References: Aguas, L. (2016). La Economía Popular y Solidaria como proyecto político postneoliberal de Ecuador. Caso : Acuerdo Comercial Unión Europea. Revista PUCE, 100, 313–342. Bayoumi, T., & Eichengreen, B. J. (1997). Is Regionalism Simply a Diversion? Evidence from the Evolution of the EC and EFTA. In Regionalism versus Multilateral Trade Arrangements, NBER-EASE (Vol. 6, pp. 141–168). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. CAN. (2019). Comunidad Andina. September 15, 2019. http://www.comunidadandina.org/Seccion.aspx?id=189&tipo=QU&title=somos-comunidad-andina Corbella, V. I. (2017). La integración comercial y productiva de ALADI y su cambio estructural. Economía UNAM, 14(41), 90–109. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eunam.2017.06.005 De la Reza, G. (2015). Art . XXIV del gatt-omc : la relación entre regionalismo y multilateralismo Art . XXIV of the gatt / wto : the Relationship between Regionalism and Multilateralism. Revista Problemas Del Desarrollo, 181(46), 185–204. European Commission. (2018). Cómo exportar a la Unión Europea. https://doi.org/10.2781/566645 Falcony y Oleas. (2012). El retorno de las carabelas : Acuerdo Comercial Multipartes entre Ecuador y la Unión Europea. Quito. http://openbiblio.flacsoandes.edu.ec/libros/digital/52435.pdf Herrera, L. (2017). Proceso De Integración De América Latina Y El Caribe Process of Integration of Latin America and the Caribbean Palabras Clave: América Latina * Caribe * Integración Regional * Sociología Política* Política De Desarrollo. Rev. Ciencias Sociales Universidad de Costa Rica, 158(IV), 167–183. http://www.cuba.cu/ Hill, C. (2015). Negocios Internacionales (Octava). México: MCGRAW-HILL. Izquierdo, Novillo, & Mocha. (2019). Las bases del cambio de la matriz productiva en Ecuador. Universidad y Sociedad, 9(2), 313–318. http://scielo.sld.cu/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2218-36202019000400377 Latorre, J. (2017). El desarrollo de las negociaciones en el Acuerdo Comercial Multipartes de la UE con Ecuador Javier. FLACSO. Lucio, J. (2019). Liderazgo geopolítico: el papel de los acuerdos comerciales. Comillas Journal of International Relations, (15), 52–77. https://doi.org/10.14422/cir.i15.y2019.005 Ministerio de Comercio Exterior. (2017). Memorias de las negociaciones del acuerdo multipartes entre Euador y la Unión Europea. Quito. Ministerio de Comercio Exterior e Inversiones. (2018). Ecuador y la UE consideran positiva su relación comercial tras Acuerdo Multipartes. September 16, 2019. https://www.comercioexterior.gob.ec/ecuador-y-la-ue-consideran-positiva-su-relacion-comercial-tras-acuerdo-multipartes/ OMC. (2019). Organización Mundial de Comercio. September 14, 2019. https://www.wto.org/spanish/tratop_s/tariffs_s/tariffs_s.htm OMC. (2020). Los principios del sistema de comercio. https://www.wto.org/spanish/thewto_s/whatis_s/tif_s/fact2_s.htm Pérez, C. (1996). La mdernización industrial en América Latina y la Herencia, 46, 347–363. Proecuador. (2018). Ficha Técnica de la Unión Europea. September 16, 2019, https://www.proecuador.gob.ec/ficha-tecnica-de-union-europea/ Pública, S. N. de C. (2020). Acuerdo comercial multipartes con la UE. https://portal.compraspublicas.gob.ec/sercop/acuerdo-comercial-multipartes-con-la-ue/ Rosales, D., & De La Cruz, L. (2019). Los primeros 18 meses del Acuerdo Multipartes Ecuador – Unión Europea. Podium, 35, 43–56. https://doi.org/10.31095/podium.2019.35.3 Sanahuja, J. (2013). La Unión Europea y el Regionalismo Latinoamericano: Un balance. Investigación & Desarrollo, 21(1). Saura, J. (2013). Implicaciones de derechos humanos en el tratado de libre comercio entre Colombia y la Unión Europea. InDret. https://www.raco.cat/index.php/InDret/article/viewFile/270131/357687 Unión Europea. (2020). Ecuador y la Unión Europea. Retrieved from https://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/ecuador/1146/ecuador-y-la-unión-europea_es Vargas, J. (2007). Las reglas cambiantes de la competitividad global en el nuevo milenio:Las competencias en el nuevo paradigma de la globalización. In Red Internacional de Investigadores en Competitividad Memoria del I Congreso (pp. 0–21). Red Internacional de Investigadores en Competitividad. https://www.riico.net/index.php/riico/article/view/1050/411 Villagómez, M. (2017). Acuerdo comercial multipartes Ecuador - Unión Europea. AFESE, 56, 11–51. Zúñiga; Espinoza; Campos; Tapia; Muñoz. (2016). Una mirada a la globalización: pymes ecuatorianas. Observatorio de La Economía Latinoamericana, Ecuador. http://www.eumed.net/cursecon/ecolat/ec/2016/pymes.html ; El Acuerdo Comercial Multipartes entre Ecuador y la Unión Europea fue motivo de controversias respecto de la conveniencia o no de su firma, hasta que finalmente entró en ejecución en enero de 2017. Luego de tres años de vigencia, se revisaron las estadísticas para conocer y analizar la evolución del intercambio de mercancías no petroleras entre estos socios comerciales en el período comprendido entre enero del año 2015 y diciembre del año 2019. La investigación se la realizó mediante un análisis comparativo de los registros de organismos públicos y privados, obtenidos de sus bases de datos, de reportes y de boletines, lo cual se complementó con una revisión bibliográfica para darle soporte teórico. Se concluye que los valores totales comercializados se han incrementado y que la aplicación del acuerdo comercial ha permitido consolidar a la Unión Europea como el primer destino de las exportaciones de mercancías no petroleras del Ecuador. Palabras clave:Acuerdo Multipartes, Ecuador, Unión Europea, integración, importaciones, exportaciones. URL:https://revistas.uta.edu.ec/erevista/index.php/bcoyu/article/view/1157 Referencias: Aguas, L. (2016). La Economía Popular y Solidaria como proyecto político postneoliberal de Ecuador. Caso : Acuerdo Comercial Unión Europea. Revista PUCE, 100, 313–342. Bayoumi, T., & Eichengreen, B. J. (1997). Is Regionalism Simply a Diversion? Evidence from the Evolution of the EC and EFTA. In Regionalism versus Multilateral Trade Arrangements, NBER-EASE (Vol. 6, pp. 141–168). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. CAN. (2019). Comunidad Andina. September 15, 2019. http://www.comunidadandina.org/Seccion.aspx?id=189&tipo=QU&title=somos-comunidad-andina Corbella, V. I. (2017). La integración comercial y productiva de ALADI y su cambio estructural. Economía UNAM, 14(41), 90–109. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eunam.2017.06.005 De la Reza, G. (2015). Art . XXIV del gatt-omc : la relación entre regionalismo y multilateralismo Art . XXIV of the gatt / wto : the Relationship between Regionalism and Multilateralism. Revista Problemas Del Desarrollo, 181(46), 185–204. European Commission. (2018). Cómo exportar a la Unión Europea. https://doi.org/10.2781/566645 Falcony y Oleas. (2012). El retorno de las carabelas : Acuerdo Comercial Multipartes entre Ecuador y la Unión Europea. Quito. http://openbiblio.flacsoandes.edu.ec/libros/digital/52435.pdf Herrera, L. (2017). Proceso De Integración De América Latina Y El Caribe Process of Integration of Latin America and the Caribbean Palabras Clave: América Latina * Caribe * Integración Regional * Sociología Política* Política De Desarrollo. Rev. Ciencias Sociales Universidad de Costa Rica, 158(IV), 167–183. http://www.cuba.cu/ Hill, C. (2015). Negocios Internacionales (Octava). México: MCGRAW-HILL. Izquierdo, Novillo, & Mocha. (2019). Las bases del cambio de la matriz productiva en Ecuador. Universidad y Sociedad, 9(2), 313–318. http://scielo.sld.cu/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2218-36202019000400377 Latorre, J. (2017). El desarrollo de las negociaciones en el Acuerdo Comercial Multipartes de la UE con Ecuador Javier. FLACSO. Lucio, J. (2019). Liderazgo geopolítico: el papel de los acuerdos comerciales. Comillas Journal of International Relations, (15), 52–77. https://doi.org/10.14422/cir.i15.y2019.005 Ministerio de Comercio Exterior. (2017). Memorias de las negociaciones del acuerdo multipartes entre Euador y la Unión Europea. Quito. Ministerio de Comercio Exterior e Inversiones. (2018). Ecuador y la UE consideran positiva su relación comercial tras Acuerdo Multipartes. September 16, 2019. https://www.comercioexterior.gob.ec/ecuador-y-la-ue-consideran-positiva-su-relacion-comercial-tras-acuerdo-multipartes/ OMC. (2019). Organización Mundial de Comercio. September 14, 2019. https://www.wto.org/spanish/tratop_s/tariffs_s/tariffs_s.htm OMC. (2020). Los principios del sistema de comercio. https://www.wto.org/spanish/thewto_s/whatis_s/tif_s/fact2_s.htm Pérez, C. (1996). La mdernización industrial en América Latina y la Herencia, 46, 347–363. Proecuador. (2018). Ficha Técnica de la Unión Europea. September 16, 2019, https://www.proecuador.gob.ec/ficha-tecnica-de-union-europea/ Pública, S. N. de C. (2020). Acuerdo comercial multipartes con la UE. https://portal.compraspublicas.gob.ec/sercop/acuerdo-comercial-multipartes-con-la-ue/ Rosales, D., & De La Cruz, L. (2019). Los primeros 18 meses del Acuerdo Multipartes Ecuador – Unión Europea. Podium, 35, 43–56. https://doi.org/10.31095/podium.2019.35.3 Sanahuja, J. (2013). La Unión Europea y el Regionalismo Latinoamericano: Un balance. Investigación & Desarrollo, 21(1). Saura, J. (2013). Implicaciones de derechos humanos en el tratado de libre comercio entre Colombia y la Unión Europea. InDret. https://www.raco.cat/index.php/InDret/article/viewFile/270131/357687 Unión Europea. (2020). Ecuador y la Unión Europea. Retrieved from https://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/ecuador/1146/ecuador-y-la-unión-europea_es Vargas, J. (2007). Las reglas cambiantes de la competitividad global en el nuevo milenio:Las competencias en el nuevo paradigma de la globalización. In Red Internacional de Investigadores en Competitividad Memoria del I Congreso (pp. 0–21). Red Internacional de Investigadores en Competitividad. https://www.riico.net/index.php/riico/article/view/1050/411 Villagómez, M. (2017). Acuerdo comercial multipartes Ecuador - Unión Europea. AFESE, 56, 11–51. Zúñiga; Espinoza; Campos; Tapia; Muñoz. (2016). Una mirada a la globalización: pymes ecuatorianas. Observatorio de La Economía Latinoamericana, Ecuador. http://www.eumed.net/cursecon/ecolat/ec/2016/pymes.html

Les années 1990 constituent un tournant décisif dans la gestion de la migration dans l'espace européen et ceci pour plusieurs facteurs. En effet, au moment où une régionalisation ou une communautarisation se mettait en place progressivement en Europe (Schengen 1985 et Convention d'application de 1990), des ressortissants de certains pays tiers tentaient de rejoindre le continent européen dans le but d'améliorer leurs conditions de travail et de vie, de trouver une protection internationale, de fuir les guerres, les conflits et des conditions climatiques peu propices au respect de leurs fondamentaux. Elles coïncident avec la réduction des possibilités de migrer également vers l'Europe, la fermeture et le contrôle des frontières extérieures de l'Union européenne (UE), l'organisation internationale qui regroupe 27 pays membres ayant pour mission de créer une communauté économique et politique et qui a mis en place une politique de lutte contre l'immigration irrégulière. La lutte européenne contre l'immigration vise principalement à stopper l'arrivée de migrants irréguliers et à renvoyer des étrangers irréguliers présents sur le sol européen vers des pays tiers. Désormais, l'accès à l'Europe forteresse devient presque impossible pour des ressortissants provenant de certaines régions notamment d'Afrique subsaharienne qui ont orienté leur choix vers l'immigration irrégulière. De pays d'émigration, le Sénégal et le Maroc deviennent aussi des pays de transit pour les candidats à l'émigration irrégulière vers l'Europe. Cet état de fait explique amplement les choix opérés par l'UE de renforcer sa coopération avec ces pays tiers en vue de mieux lutter contre l'immigration irrégulière. Il s'agit pour l'UE de transférer des obligations et des responsabilités aux pays d'origine ou de transit dans la gestion des flux migratoires et le contrôle des frontières extérieures de l'UE. C'est l'externalisation de la lutte européenne contre l'immigration irrégulière. Cette externalisation se réalise au travers de l'adoption d'accords internationaux qui peuvent mener à l'introduction de clause migratoire également dans des accords généraux conclus entre l'UE et les pays tiers, notamment dans l'accord de Cotonou, conclu entre l'UE et les pays ACP. En outre, l'adoption de déclarations politiques entre l'UE et les pays tiers afin de transférer à ces derniers la responsabilité de limiter les départs et d'accepter de réadmettre leurs ressortissants ou des étrangers ayant transité sur leur sol, qui sont présents irrégulièrement en Europe, est un instrument de mesure de l'externalisation. L'externalisation se réalise aussi dans les pays tiers qui criminalisent la sortie de leurs ressortissants et des étrangers y résidant légalement ou non, dans le but de se rendre en Europe. Par ailleurs, les cadres législatifs adoptés par les autorités marocaines et sénégalaises criminalisent l'immigration et l'émigration irrégulières et la migration clandestine. Le but de la recherche est de démontrer que l'externalisation de la lutte contre les migrations irrégulières de l'UE porte atteinte aux droits des migrants dans les pays d'origine ou de transit, et il paraît essentiel de définir un cadre conceptuel et une méthodologie. Pour ce faire, reposant sur une méthodologie positiviste suivant une approche critique (herméneutique), la recherche analyse les cadres juridiques de l'UE et de pays tiers (Sénégal et Maroc). Ainsi, l'examen de la jurisprudence des juridictions marocaines et sénégalaises relative au contentieux du droit des étrangers montre que les pays tiers contribuent clairement à la lutte européenne contre l'immigration irrégulière, à travers la poursuite et les sanctions appliquées aux ressortissants marocains, sénégalais et étrangers résidant également ou non dans ces pays, pour leur volonté présumée de partir vers le continent européen de façon irrégulière et lors de leur retour dans leur pays d'origine ou de transit. En outre, l'étude de ces deux pays démontre un autre aspect important dans cette externalisation : la difficulté d'établir les responsabilités des États comme de l'UE dans les différentes violations des droits de l'homme des migrants dans ce contexte d'externalisation. Nonobstant la complexité de définir les responsabilités des acteurs dans cette externalisation, la documentation de l'UE et de ses institutions, ainsi que le rôle des agences et particulièrement de Frontex, peuvent apporter un éclairage essentiel à nos interrogations sur la responsabilité des États et de l'UE dans les différentes violations des droits de l'homme constatées lors du renvoi des migrants et de leur blocage dans les pays tiers. Dès lors, il est pertinent d'étudier les positions des juridictions internationales afin d'établir cette responsabilité des États et de l'UE, mais les décisions rendues à ce jour ne permettent pas d'arriver à cette conclusion. Ce faisant, il est plus qu'indispensable de poser de nouvelles orientations si l'on souhaite mettre fin à cette externalisation et à ses conséquences néfastes sur les droits de l'homme des migrants irréguliers même dans les pays tiers, car l'adoption des deux pactes (pacte mondial sur la migration et pacte mondial sur les réfugiés) ne semblent pas apporter des solutions judiciaires et une meilleure protection des droits des migrants ; The 1990s were a decisive turning point in the management of migration in the European area, for several factors. Indeed, at the time when regionalization or communitarization was gradually taking place in Europe (Schengen 1985 and 1990 Implementation Convention), nationals of certain third countries were trying to join the European continent in order to improve their conditions of work and life, of finding international protection, of fleeing wars, conflicts and unfavorable climatic conditions for the respect of their fundamentals. They coincide with the reduction in the possibilities of migrating also to Europe, the closure and control of the external borders of the European Union (EU), the international organization which brings together 27 member countries whose mission is to create an economic and policy and which has implemented a policy to combat irregular immigration. The main objective of the European fight against immigration is to stop the arrival of irregular migrants and to return irregular foreigners present on European soil to third countries. From now on, access to fortress Europe is becoming almost impossible for nationals coming from certain regions, notably from sub-Saharan Africa, who have turned their choice towards irregular immigration. From emigration countries, Senegal and Morocco also become transit countries for applicants for irregular emigration to Europe. This fact amply explains the choices made by the EU to reinforce its cooperation with these third countries with a view to better combating illegal immigration. It is a question for the EU of transferring obligations and responsibilities to the countries of origin or transit in the management of migratory flows and the control of the external borders of the EU. It is the outsourcing of the European fight against irregular immigration. This outsourcing is achieved through the adoption of international agreements which can lead to the introduction of a migration clause also in general agreements concluded between the EU and third countries, in particular in the Cotonou Agreement, concluded between the EU and ACP countries. In addition, the adoption of political declarations between the EU and third countries in order to transfer to the latter the responsibility for limiting departures and agreeing to readmit their nationals or foreigners having transited on their soil, who are present irregularly in Europe, is an instrument for measuring outsourcing. Outsourcing is also carried out in third countries which criminalize the exit of their nationals and foreigners legally or illegally resident there, with the aim of traveling to Europe. In addition, the legislative frameworks adopted by the Moroccan and Senegalese authorities criminalize irregular immigration and emigration and illegal migration The aim of the research is to demonstrate that the outsourcing of the fight against irregular migration from the EU infringes the rights of migrants in the countries of origin or transit, and it seems essential to define a conceptual framework and a methodology. To do this, based on a positivist methodology following a critical (hermeneutical) approach, the research analyzes the legal frameworks of the EU and third countries (Senegal and Morocco). Thus, the examination of the jurisprudence of the Moroccan and Senegalese jurisdictions relating to the litigation of the right of the foreigners shows that the third countries clearly contribute to the European fight against the irregular immigration, through the prosecution and the sanctions applied to the Moroccan nationals, Senegalese and foreigners residing or not also in these countries, for their presumed will to leave towards the European continent in an irregular way and at the time of their return in their country of origin or transit. In addition, the study of these two countries demonstrates another important aspect in this outsourcing: the difficulty of establishing the responsibilities of States and of the EU in the various violations of the human rights of migrants in this context of outsourcing. Notwithstanding the complexity of defining the responsibilities of the actors in this outsourcing, the documentation of the EU and its institutions, as well as the role of the agencies and particularly of Frontex, can shed essential light on our questions about the responsibility of States and the EU in the various human rights violations observed during the return of migrants and their blockage in third countries. Therefore, it is relevant to study the positions of international courts in order to establish this responsibility for States and the EU, but the decisions delivered to date do not allow this conclusion to be reached. In doing so, it is more than essential to set new directions if we want to put an end to this outsourcing and its harmful consequences for the human rights of irregular migrants even in third countries, because the adoption of two pacts (global pact on migration and global pact on refugees) do not seem to provide legal solutions and better protection of the rights of migrants.

This dissertation examines how states shape civil society. The past two decades have seen a resurgence of scholarly interest in associational life. Some researchers place liberal civil society at the heart of democratic transformation and consolidation. Others question such claims, citing examples of authoritarian states supported by dense but illiberal associational landscapes. Yet there is a lack of research on the development of associational life. Responding to this gap in the literature, I ask what forces shape civil society and in particular its liberal or illiberal character? Despite the paucity of scholarship focused on factors that mold civil society and its character, significant amounts of research have engaged questions of how the economy and political institutions shape liberal and illiberal political outcomes. Drawing on the implicit, and in a few instances explicit, claims found in disparate debates about the relationship of the state and market to civil society, I construct various state-centered and market-driven explanatory approaches of the development of liberal and illiberal civil societies. On the one hand, economic interest or market-driven approaches claim that capitalist development drives the emergence of classes, the self-organization of which promotes the development of liberal civil societies and the consolidation of democratic states. On the other hand, institutionalism and state-centered approaches argue that states, not markets, shape the character of civil society. I examine these competing explanations of civil society and its character through an analysis of how economic development and state policies of cultural tolerance and political inclusion shaped civil society and its regional variation in pre-WWI regions of the former Lithuanian-Commonwealth (1795-1914) and of interwar Poland (1918-1939). Through a historical-comparative and narrative, mechanism-oriented, analysis, I propose a state-centered explanation of civil society that focuses on elites' conflicts, interests and the strategies that elites can apply in pursuit of those interests. I agree with economic interest approaches that economic development, particularly the growth of capitalist markets, promotes conditions favorable to the emergence and growth of associational life. However, I argue that the state, specifically the degree of political inclusion or exclusion of local elites and of the ethno-cultural autonomy or repression of the masses, plays a central role in shaping the liberal or illiberal character of civil society. The end of the 18th century marked the division of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by Russia, Prussia (the German Empire after 1871) and the Habsburg Empire (Austria-Hungary after 1867). A historical-narrative analysis of the pre-WWI Warszawa Governorate in the Russian-ruled Kingdom of Poland, the independent and subsequently Austrian-ruled Duchy of Kraków in western Galicia and of the Austrian-ruled province of Lviv in eastern Galicia illuminates how state policies of cultural repression and political exclusion rather than economic development shaped the character of each region's civil society. While the Russian-ruled Kingdom of Poland saw the political exclusion of local ethnic majority elites and cultural repression of the masses accompanied by an industrial revolution, Austrian-ruled eastern Galicia's political exclusion of local majority elites and ethno-cultural repression and discrimination of the local Ukrainian masses was accompanied by economic underdevelopment. In comparison, the Duchy of Kraków not only experienced a long period of local autonomy, and thus the rule of local ethnic majority Polish elites, but when placed under Austrian rule, it saw the continuation of political inclusion of local elites and cultural autonomy of the local Polish masses. Political liberalism in western Galicia, however, was accompanied by the absence of an industrial revolution and general economic underdevelopment similar to that found in eastern Galicia. Significant variation in economic development, political inclusion of local elites, and ethno-cultural discrimination aimed at the masses across the partitioned regions of the former Commonwealth facilitate a fruitful analysis of how state-backed cultural repression and political exclusion interacted with distinct paths of economic development and local ethno-cultural dynamics to shape the character of each region's late 19th and early 20th century civil society. Significant political and economic transformations within each case further enable the examination of how political and economic changes affected the developmental trajectory of each associational landscape. Thus, such cross-regional and cross-time comparisons allow for both an assessment of implied existing theoretical approaches to understanding and predicting the development of civil society and its character, and the development of an alternative approach focused on the relationship between the state and non-state elites. Building on state-centered, postcolonial and nationalism theories, I support claims that variation in state-backed ethnic discrimination deepens ethnic cleavage. However, I diverge from such theories in assessing the implications of political exclusion of elites for civil society. Instead of arguing that exclusion of elites necessarily undermines their power, I show that increasing political exclusion of local ethnic majority elites contributes to elite domination of associational life. For instance, the political exclusion and marginalization of local ethnic majority elites in Warszawa and Lviv contributed to elite domination of social life as elites sought to augment their social backing within and through civil society as a means of countering state power. At the same time, imperial and local, respectively, state-backed ethno-cultural discrimination invaded practices of daily life, turning culture into a tool of political repression and, thus, of political resistance. As such, cultural repression allowed local, excluded elites to politicize and dominate the public sphere by forging a common identity and interests with the ethno-culturally repressed masses. Through cultural, cross-class alliances, elites mounted support for their political struggles with exclusionary ruling elites. Conversely, after the Austro-Hungarian compromise, local majority Polish elites in Kraków received local relative political and cultural autonomy. As elites focused on negotiating power within political institutions associations developed more autonomously. Moreover, lacking cultural repression, Kraków developed a longer history of cross-ethnic cooperation.Drawing on narrative and comparative analyses of pre-WWI regions of the former Commonwealth, I suggest that elites in states with inclusive politics should protect their positions and power through participation within formal state institutions. Thus, by focusing on negotiation and cooperation with other elites within political society, these elites should allow civil society to develop more autonomously from both state and non-state elite control. However, when excluded from formal political institutions, elites should seek to counter state power through social mobilization within and through civil society. The degree to which their mobilization is successful, however, depends on the excluded and marginalized elites' ability and potential to muster significant alliances and support in civil society. In other words, the degree to which elites are successful in dominating associational life is rooted in their ability to draw on common identities or interests with broader masses. Economic and social transformations can significantly alter the identities and interests of elites, thus altering the strategies that they may be willing to enact. Yet the strategies that elites can successfully implement to forge broad-based alliances are largely shaped by the state. In particular, through policies of ethno-racial discrimination, states can provide excluded elites with the necessary mutual identities and interests to successfully dominate and mobilize large sectors of associational life, thus promoting the development of an illiberal—elite-dominated and ethno-racially fragmented—civil society. In 1918, Poland re-emerged as an autonomous state. Its first years were marked by increased political marginalization and then temporary inclusion of minorities after Piłsudski's 1926 military coup. In 1930, Piłsudski's regime overtly increased its marginalization of left-wing and right-wing political actors. Once more, excluded elites fostered close, top-down ties to civil society as a means to challenge the state. The Second Polish Republic's significant political transformations allow for an auxiliary examination of competing explanatory approaches of the development of civil society's liberal or illiberal character, including the elite-centered argument proposed by this dissertation and developed through a historical-comparative analysis of the pre-WWI regions of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Furthermore, a comparative analysis of civil society in two regions of interwar Poland illuminates the extent to which legacies of a century of imperial policies persevered, and the political and economic pressures under which they began to wane. Civil society that emerged in Kraków under pre-WWI policies of political inclusion and cultural toleration was more resistant to interwar political domination and ethnic fragmentation than that which emerged in Vilnius under pre-WWI policies of political exclusion and cultural repression. On the one hand, the analysis of interwar Polish civil society supports claims of institutional stickiness in the face of external pressures. Moreover, it demonstrates specific internal mechanism of institutional reproduction, ones rooted in the ideals, habits and goals of members and others in associations' rules, which allowed pre-WWI civil legacies to persist throughout the interwar period. On the other hand, though significant, the interwar cross-regional variation in the political domination of civil society was waning. Thus, I show that though historical legacies embedded in civil society are persistent even in the face of significant external transformations, they are not impervious to externally-driven change.

NDI's Chris Fomunyoh is once again joined by Ambassador Johnnie Carson as they discuss the steps that can be taken to strengthen democracy. They continue their conversation with their thoughts on the key challenges and opportunities facing Africa this year.
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Johnnie Carson: When female voices are not heard, the conversation is crippled, the policy is crippled, the institutions are crippled and the results are crippled.
Chris Fomunyoh: I'm Chris Fomunyoh, senior associate and regional director for Central and West Africa at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, NDI. Welcome to this edition of DemWorks.

Again we're joined by Ambassador Johnnie Carson, a proud member of the board of directors of The National Democratic Institute, NDI with a 37 year career in the U.S. Foreign Service focus on Africa. In our previous episode, you spoke about the risk of back sliding. So for this episode, we will focus on the steps that can be taken to strengthen democracy in Africa.

I'd like us to pivot a little bit to the Sahel because in Tanzania we see the back sliding that's coming from political actors themselves, but there's something happening in the Sahel, which is a region in which we see a lot of political commitment to democratic governance, whether it's from the leaders and activists in Niger Republic, in Burkina Faso and in Mali, but at the same time these countries are coming under tremendous pressure from violent extremists who are coming across the desert and destabilizing what would be an emerging democracy and what concerns do you have and how do you think organizations like NDI, like USIP and others that have the self-power expertise, so to speak can contribute to the efforts to counter violent extremism like Sahel and also the whole of Africa?

JC: Chris you're absolutely right and we should all be concerned about outside forces that can come in and destabilize a country, its politics, its economy and its society and across the Sahel we in fact see this happening. The challenges to stability, to democracy to holding free and transparent and creditable elections and having democratic systems that work, are not only challenged by sometimes authoritarian leaders seeking to maintain power and control, we also can see this emerging as a result of exogenous forces coming in from outside, and here we see non-state actors undermining stability across the Sahel, which is creating tension for democracies and tensions for states.

I think one of the things that is absolutely critical in addressing the problems with the Sahel is for government to reconnect with their citizens, to put in place the kinds of services that citizens are looking for and are demanding and expecting. They need to be responsive to the needs that they, citizens believe are not there and they have to have these connections in order to build up resilience, to build up strength against the ideologies and to the negative forces that are brought in by extremist groups.

It is extremists groups across the Sahel are taking advantage of the absence of good services and good connectivity between government and citizens and one of the things that must accompany the security response is in fact a development and government response. Security alone cannot end the problems in the Sahel. It's an important ingredient but the most important ingredient is government going in and establishing responsible connections, providing services, education, healthcare, sanitation, water cattle feeding stations and services that citizens require and are being deprived of.

So one of the things that must be hand in hand and be out front is not the military response and the security response but the governance response, the social service response and if that is absent, the security response will be deficient and will not work.

CF: In fact, I'm so thankful you say that, because I know that you and other members of our board, Secretary Albright, in particular the chair of our board, you've been emphasizing reinforcing this message about democracy and development component as part of the toolkit in conquering violent extremism and in fact, that's the approach that NDI is taking to its work in the Sahel because we currently have ongoing programs in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, and our focus, the main focus of that piece of work is on people, processes and the politics and trying to create platforms where governments can reconnect with citizens at a grassroots level.

So in a number of cases we've set up platforms where civil society with legislatures and members of the executive branch, including representatives of the security services get together regularly to figure out what the challenges are in various communities and how to foster inter-communal dialogue and better relationships between the security services and the populations that they seek to serve, because you may remember there was a UN study that said that in many of the cases where violent extremism persist, that 70% of the people who join extremist organizations, are reacting to poor performance by security services and you have paid a lot of attention to Nigerian and the whole Boko Haram phenomenon.

I don't know how this would fit into our conversation with regards to the Sahel as well.


JC: I think it also very pertinent for Nigeria, and I too have seen studies of some very distinguished organizations, Mercy Corps and others that talk about why people are recruited and indeed, the authoritarian sometimes brutal nature of security forces towards communities that they should be protecting drives individuals away from the government and into the hands of Boko Haram.

Even the origin of the current violence in Northern Nigeria has its origins in the brutal extrajudicial killing of Boko Haram's first leader in 2009. His apprehension, his questioning, his interrogation, torture and mistreatment were all recorded on someone's cellphone and became widely seen throughout the country and throughout the north. Two years later, after that event in 2009 we saw and upsurge in 2011 and the activities of Boko Haram and indeed people continued to say that the brutal nature in which the security forces sought to root out Boko Haram, in fact generated more recruits for Boko Haram than it did for support for the government's efforts.

It is absolutely critical, it's absolutely critical that security forces recognize that they have a responsibility to protect the civil liberties and the human rights of the citizens of the state that they are protecting and that the way they treat the individuals in areas that they go into, may have an impact on their ability to ultimately win the conflict, but one thinks of Nigeria and particularly of the North East and there again weak institutions of corruption of lack of social services are all playing a major part in why the conflict in that region continues.

In the north east of Nigeria particularly and the three most affected states, Borno, Yobe and Adamawa. Those three states have the lowest social indicators of any of Nigeria's 36 states, less access to education, to healthcare, to water resources and to jobs and access and this all plays out as well. Governments needs to be responsive to their citizens and while a security response is important, governance and providing social services and the needs to citizens to build resilience is critical as well.

CF: This seems like a good place to take a short break. For well over 35 years NDI has been honored to work side by side with courageous and committed pro-democracy activists and leaders around the world to help contribute to develop the institutions practices and skills necessary for democracy's success.

I realize it's many countries to cover but in the few minutes that are left, I just see if you have any parting words for four countries that we haven't really focused that much on and those are Ethiopia, Kenya, The Democratic Republic of Congo and we'll exit with Cameroon. What are your thoughts?

JC: My thoughts on Ethiopia. It is absolutely essential that those of us who support a democracy and democratic progress lend all of our efforts to those of the Ethiopian government to ensure that the democratic experiment that is underway is successful. Prime Minister Abiy won the Nobel Prize for bringing about peace with Eritrea but the more important thing is that we, outside step up our effort to help him ensure that his legislative elections, this year, are successful and that we do what we can to strengthen his country's democratic progress.

He has appointed and outstanding leader, Birtukan, former opposition leader, spent many years in jail as his country's election commissioner. We need on the outside to provide the kind of technical and financial and advocacy support that she might need to put in place the architecture for running the country's elections. It will in fact be the first real serious elections in that country since the collapse of the Derg in the early 1990s. So it's important that we help do this.

Ethiopia is Africa's second most populous country behind Nigeria and it's important that we help democracy there. It's also a key and strategic state in the region bordering a number of other countries that will look to the success of what happens here. So we need to support.

Kenya, will have elections next year. It is important that there be a continuation in the improvement of the country's electoral agencies. The shadow of the flawed and failed and controversial and violent elections of 2007 and 2008 continue to be a shadow. The controversies associated with the last elections and court decisions there continue to hang over. It is important to continue to support civil society, support the electoral commission and work with the Kenyan government to ensure an outcome.

It appears very clearly that President Kenyatta wants to leave a positive legacy of progress, economically, politically and electorally. This will be a challenge but we should support the process moving forward. The features are still there.

CF: In fact, I should say before end up with the last two countries that for listeners, Ethiopia has got a parliamentary system of government. That's why the parliamentary elections are extremely important, the national elections for Ethiopia and also with regards to Kenya, as you say, President Uhuru Kenyatta would like to leave a good legacy. He's coming to the end of his second term and NDI working with partners on the continent has been very strong on the issue constitutionalism, respect for rule of law. In fact, we had a continent wide conference in Niamey, Niger Republic last October on the whole question of presidential term limits and we'll be having a second conference in Botswana in June to discuss term limits with former African heads of states and various other partners on the continent.

Just to say that, as leaders relinquish power when their terms come to an end, they help consolidate and strengthen democratic practices and institutions. So, with the two remaining countries-

JC: I applaud President Kenyatta for saying very early on that he would adhere to the constitution, he would serve two terms and step down. This is an important message for the most important country in East Africa, especially looking at the neighboring states, particularly Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda where leaders there have found ways to extend themselves in office. He recognizes the importance of transition at the top and allowing the citizens of the country to select new leadership on a constitutional basis rather than trying to alter the constitution to eliminate term limits, age limits and perpetuate themselves in power.

So I hope others in the region are in fact looking at Kenya's model. One jumps across to West Africa and looks at President Paul Biya who's been in power for three decades, plus shows no desire whatsoever to leave office. Here is a man who has lost touch with his citizens and the communities of his country and because he has lost touch with his citizens, because there have been structural deficiencies and weaknesses and the institutions that he is responsible for, we now see a country that is suffering from three or four major political crisis, crisis with the English speaking portion of this country in the south west, the emergence of Boko Haram and radicalism across the border from Nigeria in the north west and problems of herders and farmers driven by drought and climate conditions.

President Biya has lost touch with the needs of his citizens and his government has not been responsive to anyone but himself and a small political elite. I think it is important for the international community to point out the failures and the flaws of his governance, the corruption that underpins it and to support those internally who are pushing for a constitution and political policies that fundamentally change the nature and structure of society, political architecture in society.

CF: You're so right, because that's one country that it's got tremendous potential but that it's not pulling its weight at all and because of its strategic location, invariably weakens other countries in the central Africa sub region, as well as in West Africa too and it's now taking full advantage of what could be real opportunities to improve the wellbeing of its citizens.

We'll be right back after this quick message.

And let's end with the country right in the heart of the continent, The Democratic Republic of Congo. I was in Kinshasa in October and met with political leaders and opinion leaders across the board, civil society, religious leaders who are very powerful in the Congo, very influential and I came away, I should say, a little more optimistic than I was going in. I was quite apprehensive given what has transpired in the 2018 presidential elections but after talking to the Congolese, I got a sense that a genuine attachment to reform.

Everybody wants some reforms of the political process or the electoral process and the key question is whether they are going to be able to set aside their personal agendas and actually get together to help this country, which has got tremendous resources and tremendous potential get back on its feet. I was very impressed by the fact that most of the leaders in Congo are pretty young. I know that you and I have talked about Congo for many, many times and when you were still in the administration you had to deal with some of their crisis.

I don't know what you take is on the present leadership and the present challenges but also the opportunities that present themselves in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

JC: Let me say that The Democratic Republic of the Congo has more unrealized potential than any other large state in Africa and that potential has continued to be in held in check and not realized because of the poor nature of the politics that have occurred there since the 1960s.

The 2018 elections were deeply flawed and irregular and not representative, I think, of the vote of the people. The one thing that one can say about the process that it did lead to President Kabila stepping down and a new younger president, Tshisekedi coming into power. There was immediately after the election a strong feeling that Tshisekedi was going to be instrument of Kabila going forward in that his leadership and his authority and his ability to do things would be substantially constrained. Tshisekedi has shown some degree of independence.

It is again important to recognize that there is little we can do to rerun that election or to reverse it but there is something that all of us can do going forward, and that to put pressure on President Tshisekedi to ensure that the electoral commission is strengthened, it has more independence, more technical capacity and more of an ability to deliver a more responsible, fair and transparent election going forward.

It is also important that he continue the fight against corruption, that he begin to put in place the kind of economic reforms that are going to unleash the potential of the Congo and to provide the people, The Democratic Republic of the Congo an opportunity to realize so many of the opportunities that they have been denied in the past. He has shown more independence than I thought but it is important that he not stop, that he continue to move forward, that he open up political space and continue to open it up for civil society, for the opposition, for the media, that he not constrain but unleash the country's potential and that he continue to show both in reality and fact his independence away from Kabila and those who were around him in the past.

He will be judged on the next four years very keenly, but it's important that the institutions of democracy to the extent that we can help civil society strengthen them, that they be nurtured and pushed forward. Elections and democracy...Democracy doesn't depend essentially, solely on elections. It is institutions that must be strengthened and we can help the DRC and civil society move those forward.

Again, working effectively with religions groups, Catholic Church, a very powerful instrument, working with women's groups, with working youth groups across the DRC and working with an emerging entrepreneurial class of young Congolese as well. We have to nurture and strengthen and push them forward. These next elections will be able to tell us whether there's been progress. President Tshisekedi needs to continue to move forward.

CF: Thank you very much Ambassador Johnnie Carson. It's really been an honor to have you do this tutor for us on the entire continent. Of course there still would always be ground to cover. As you were speaking, I thought about what late President John F Kennedy said about democracy as a never ending endeavor, and so NDI and similar organizations will continue to work side by side with our African partners to make sure that we can support them, give them the support and share experiences that they need so that we can all collectively, continue to work to strengthen and support democracy in countries like the DRC, Ethiopia, Sudan and across the entire continent.

Thank you also for being a member of our board of directors. We are extremely proud of that and extremely proud of the partnership that NDI has with USIP and hope that our two organizations would continue to work together to support the growth of democracy across Africa and to our listeners, can I just say thank you for sharing in this edition of DemWorks, to follow our next podcast. Please check us out on our website www.NDI.org.

Thank you for listening.


Ambassador Johnnie Carson





Peace, Security and Democratic Resilience,

eFörvaltning ses som ett medel för att göra kommunalt förvaltningsarbete mer effektivt och interoperabelt. Dock begränsas kommuner av oförmåga att uppnå det vilket försvårar genomförandet av deras uppdrag. En orsak till varför införandet av eFörvaltning inte ger de systematiska fördelar som efterfrågas beror på att införandet av informations och kommunikations teknologier (IKT) inte är tillräckligt. Förändringen som krävs kan inte ske över en natt utan är en gradvis förändring över tid som även kräver nya sätt att arbeta på. Kommuner behöver hantera sin eFörvaltningsutveckling på ett mer strukturerat sätt för att öka möjligheterna att förverkliga de fördelarna som sägs kunna erhållas. Enterprise Architecture (EA) har på senare tid kommit att ses som en möjlig lösning för att komma tillrätta med denna problematik. Genom att arbeta mot en EA skapas möjligheten att brygga IKT system med affärsprocesser och därigenom leda till effektivitet och interoperabilitet. Dock är EA inom offentlig sektor ifrågasatt. Forskare menar att EA saknar tydlig definierad omfattning och begreppsvärld, vilket gör användningen av EA inom förvaltningsarbete svår. De omfattande logiska EA ramverk som finns idag saknar innehåll som är specifikt relaterade till offentlig sektor. Vari det blir problematiskt att arbeta mot en EA inom offentlig sektor. Denna licentiatavhandling lägger följande forskningsfråga: "Vilken roll har EA för införandet av eFörvaltning inom Svenska kommuner?" Samt följande underfrågor "Vilka förutsättningar finns för att använda EA vid eFörvaltningsutveckling?" "Vad har Örebro kommun uppnått genom att arbete mot en EA i deras eFörvaltningsutveckling?" Och "Vilka problem har Örebro kommun upplevt av att arbeta mot en EA vid eFörvaltningsutvecklingen?". En longitudinell fallstudie av ett eFörvaltningsutvecklingsprojekt i Örebrokommun genomfördes mellan 2007 och 2009 med syfte att utröna dessa frågor och för att skapa insikt om EAs roll för eFörvaltningsutveckling. Förutsättningar, resultat och upplevda problem vid eFörvaltningsutvecklingen studerades. I anslutning till detta empiriska arbete genomfördes även en jämförandestudie av eFörvaltningsmål såsom de anges i officiella statliga dokument inom så väl Sverige som i EU gentemot förmodade fördelarna med EA som diskuteras i samtida EA-litteratur. Studien visar att EA som fenomen ses som en förutsättning för att lyckas med eFörvaltning. 7 viktiga aspekter gällande förutsättningen för att lyckas med kommuners eFörvaltningsutveckling identifierades: Skillnaden mellan administrativa och politiska ansvaret, Politiskt mandat, Politisk timing, Resursfördelning, Samordning under NPM, Leverantörsberoende, Val av standard och bäst praxis. För att förbättra möjligheten att röna framgång i eFörvaltningsutveckling behöver dessa aspekter aktualiseras och hanteras. New Public Management (NPM) som styrmodell utgör ett strukturellt hinder för eFörvaltningsutveckling som förhindrar en mer explicit användning av EA-ramverk, vilket påverkar möjligheten att uppnå uppsatta mål negativt. Trots den strukturella problematik som föreligger, kan stöd erhållas genom att arbeta utifrån ett "EA-tänk". Ett "EAtänk" kan här ses som ett medel för att påbörja förändringen mot en EA utan att för den delen explicit använda sig av ett EA-ramverk, eller -metod. Dock är det viktigt skapa en förståelse för att "EA-tänk" som fenomen i sin tur ger upphov till strukturer och således kan leda till problem som även de måste hanteras för att eFörvaltningsutveckling skall lyckas. eFörvaltning, NPM och ett "EA-tänk" skapar en strukturell triad där olika strukturella egenskaper i vissa fall sammanfaller med varandra vari de kan stödja kommuner i dess arbete och således bidra till positiv utveckling. Medan det i andra fall leder till negativ utveckling där administrationen upplever problem att ta till sig av de rekommendationer eFörvaltningsprojektet kan tänkas ge till organisationen som helhet. Paradoxalt nog skapar denna strukturella triad en situation där kommuner måste arbete runt sig själv för att komma framåt. Normer och befintliga strukturer i kommuner förhindrar effektiv samarbete både internt mellan olika förvaltningar och externt gentemot andra kommuner och landsting vilket leder till fragmentariska framsteg mot projektmålen och i slutänden även kommunens övergripande mål gällande eFörvaltningsutveckling. Givet de i många fall motstridiga strukturella egenskaper som finns mellan NPM och eFörvaltning innebär att det initiala arbetet mot EA i eFörvaltningsutveckling är ett ytterst komplext fenomen. För att öka möjligheten att eFörvaltningsutvecklingen blir lyckad krävs det att kommuner känner till och hantera den negativa inverkan NPM har på eFörvaltningsutveckling. Samtidigt behöver de känna till och hanterar problematiken som uppstår av att arbeta mot en EA genom ett "EA-tänk", Samt att som studien visat, EA ger inget stöd för mer politiseras mål, vari kommuner behöver annat sätt och andra strategier för sådant arbete. Detta är viktigt att beakta, speciellt med tanke på att mer politiserade mål i mångt och mycket är de mål som kommer premieras av politiker. Av just den enkla orsaken att politiker inte blir omvalda på grund av "effektiva IKT integrerade interna processer" utan blir omvalda utifrån förbättringar som är synliga och som gagnar medborgare positivt. Avhandlingen bidrar till forsknings genom att öka förståelse för och behovet av att hantera både positiva och negativa faktorer som påverkar möjligheten att lyckas med eFörvaltningsutveckling inom kommunalt arbete. Vilket inkluderar de 7 identifierade kritiska faktorer måste aktualiseras och hanteras för att öka möjligheten att lyckas. Den negativa effekt NPM har på eFörvaltningsutveckling och hur ett "EA-tänk" kan leda till positiv utveckling, även om det som denna studie visat inte kan bidra till mer politiserade mål. Vad gäller denna licentiatavhandlings bidrag till praktiken så bidrar den med att belysa den problematiska situation som föreligger av att institutionaliserade strukturer i många fall verkar som ett hinder mot förändring. Studien möjliggör även till att kommuner kan skapa en förståelse för sin egna eFörvaltningsutveckling och möjligtvis kan verka för att inte uppleva samma problematik som identifierats i Örebros eFörvaltningsutveckling samt visa på hur en kommun kan arbeta för att hantera den problematik som inte kan förhindras alternativ som uppstår trots denna kunskap. ; Governments struggle with inefficiencies and an inability to achieve interoperable information communication technology (ICT) systems. Apparent issues include a failure of local government to realize the benefits of electronic government (eGov) initiatives, high project failure rates, administrations hampered with inefficiencies, and a lack of interoperability between systems within the local government. Thus, local governments need to address their eGov initiatives in a structured way to improve their chances of providing the benefits that are sought after. Sweden's eGov model is decentralized, following a strict new public management (NPM) model. Whilst eGov ought to bring benefits to local government, Sweden is still hampered by inefficiencies and an inability to achieve interoperable ICT systems. This has been the case for quite some time. One reason why systemic gains from adopting eGov have not reached the levels sought after could be that, in many cases, ICT implementations are not enough. The transformation needed for eGov is not instantaneous; it requires various new ways of working. Enterprise Architecture (EA) has come to be seen as a possible solution to the apparent issues of developing, adopting and managing eGov successfully. By utilizing EA, it is argued that it is possible to bridge ICT systems and business processes, thus making the organization more efficient. However EA's usefulness for eGov development and adoption is the subject of debate. Some researchers argue that EA lacks clearly defined scopes and concepts, which makes the use of EA in government difficult. Whereas other argues that although EA frameworks are comprehensive logical frameworks, they lack content that is related specifically to government organizations. The thesis posits the following research questions: What is the role of EA in eGov adoption in Swedish local government? together with three sub questions: What are the prerequisites for using EA in Swedish local eGov adoption? What has the Swedish local government in Örebro achieved with its use of EA in eGov adoption? And What problems have the Swedish local government in Örebro experienced in its use of EA when adopting eGov? To explore the role of EA in eGov adoption a longitudinal case study is carried out on the municipality of Örebro's eGov project MovIT, a project launched in 2007 that ended in 2009. I study the prerequisites, results and problems associated with using EA in Swedish local government as part of eGov adoption. A comparative study is conducted of the goals of eGov, as stated in official eGov documents at EU and Swedish governmental levels will attest as to the supposed benefits of EA in contemporary EA-literature. From the study, it can be concluded that EA, as a phenomenon, is thought to be, if not a silverbullet, then at least a prerequisite to eGov success. In term of prerequisites, EA use cannot assist Swedish local government where there are more politicized objectives; in this situation, local government is required to look elsewhere to find support for its work. The study identify several critical issues from the empirical study of the prerequisites: distinction between administrative and political responsibilities; political mandate; political timing; resource allocation; coordination under NPM; dependence on providers; and choosing among standards and best practices. These issues need to be acknowledged and handled appropriately by Swedish local government in order to improve the chances for success in eGov adoption. The study also showed that NPM as governance model becomes a hindrance in eGov adoption, preventing the project from a more explicit use of an EA-framework and negatively affecting the projects possibility to adopt eGov. However, despite this structural problem, it is still possible – as observed – for a project that is based on EA-thinking to begin working. EGov, NPM and EA-thinking form a triad, with structural properties that, in some instances, correlate. In such cases, this can lead to positive changes. However, in other situations, they are contradictory, resulting in Swedish local government having a difficult time in adhering to the suggestions endorsed by the eGov project. This lead to incoherent progressions towards requested results. The existing structures hindered effective cooperation, both internally between different departments and externally with other local governments. This licentiate thesis has shown that the initial use of EA in local government eGov adoption is complex. Given the contradictory nature of NPM and eGov, local government has to acknowledge the negative impacts of NPM on eGov adoption. As well as acknowledging the issues that arise from EA use, a key area is a lack of support of local government in an area that is most likely to be endorsed by politicians. Politicians do not get re-elected based on efficient internal processes with a highly integrated ICT; rather, changes must be visible to citizens and businesses. This licentiate thesis has also shown that 'EA-thinking', as a means for local government, can move towards an EA without the explicit use of an EA framework or EA method. However, 'EA-thinking' may give rise to other issues that need to be acknowledged and dealt with. This licentiate thesis contributes to research by improving our understanding of the nature and importance of promoting and inhibiting different factors. Including critical issues for succeeding with eGov adoption, the negative effects of NPM and how EA-thinking can lead to positive changes, even though it cannot assist local government in all aspects deemed important to eGov adoption. In terms of practice, this thesis contributes by highlighting the problematic nature of institutionalized structures and the effect that this has on eGov adoption. It also contributes by enabling local governments to acknowledge the problems identified. This allows them to better understand their own development and possibly avoid similar problems or at least have a better understanding of how to handle the issues that arise.

SDM of Countryside process SDA Capital Property of People (Economic Study of Politics Policy Of Alokatif Orient Nationality) Problem of Resident Wild Countryside Gold-Mine and Clear Away Forest. Pursuant to result of paradigm analysis policy of alokatif in this research, economic study of case politics resident of countryside mineworker of wild gold (mining illegal) and forest clear away (illegal loging) in north Sulawesi. Referred as by central government of illegal and fought against by because bothering policy of program contract central government sharing holder masterpiece with foreign investor mining of and gold of HPH (result of processing of forest). After traced to be checked exhaustively come up with its problems root is found that; the root cause becoming problems root is laying in formula formulasi of ratio State capital, opportunity and advantage becoming policy of alokatif in system planning of played the part of APBN tanunan and specified by President, DPR, Bapenas and of kementrian. That in formulasi formulation of policy of alokatif, SDA and of SDM [do] not be viewed as by capital at mechanism rencara of APBN annual. As a result 50% capital properties of State of SDA taken by exit by foreign investor through policy of program sharing holder system alokatif contract masterpiece, 50% capital properties of State of SDA which is acceptance by central government become used expense finished in annual APBN makanisme. So that construction of APBN every year always in a state of empty budget deficit of productive capital, having an effect on negative to condition of political economy always in keadan before crisis and slowly reach its top happened national economic recession and later; then bother political stability, case example of when the fall of old order and of erde new. Capital properties of state Ought to SDA dug by self by our SDM later;then its result have to be defended as capital as according to economic principle, capital in mechanism expense rotation of APBN formulated annual to yield advantage, later;then advantage taken as expense finished wear. So that capital properties of State which have been dug remain to be intact on-hand government, and stepped-up mount rhythm with make-up of prosperity of people flatten by itself, because capital properties of SDA dug by sharing holder people with government, people also get rotation capital, thereby capital properties of SDA State remain to be intact in political economy rotation, expanding to have continuation become rich State of capital in rich governmental artian and rich people flattened. Become strength of tatanan economic of self-supporting and permanent national politics, APBN shall no longger depend on foreign investor or foreign capital.Formula policy of alokatif by delivering foreign investor or foreign capital only enriching foreigner, because capital properties of their State dredge up some of becoming property of them. Sachs & Warner, Todaro, Kosack in Ahmad E.Y., (2009), telling there is no Nations evidence expand world develop;build its economics with foreign investor or foreign capital becoming byword have gone forward and is rich, in general remain to be impecunious, national income depend on that foreign investor and trapp overseas debt, so that become rich Nations patient as previous pendonor aim to help.Result of research qualitative which I execute in the year 1995 hitting impact policy of program contract masterpiece central government of mining of and gold of HPH (result of processing of forest) by take careing foreign in north Sulawesi, becoming elementary evidence result of the analysis above, result of research of menunjukan that policy of alokatif, do not have the character of and ditributif of redistributive to resident of didesa-desa in north Sulawesi. Malahan removed from previous farm of their place of gold-mine and process forest wood. And because resident of countryside there is no other choice of work to fulfill requirement of everyday life, so that they perforced to continue it him till now, volunteer accept risk. This problem have endless since new order hitherto long draw out, so that push me to continue research to find concept solve problem. For the purpose of and target of this, research continued in the year 1999, entitling is: In perpective of Human Resource in Rural In Ell Natural Resources and Environment. Result of research of menunjukan that in the reality; what referred as by central government of mineworker of wild gold and clear away of that forest is resident of countryside having technique readyness and ability of tibean, owning appliance produce tibean, powered of productive performance, efficient and effective in process SDA forest wood and gold. They is SDM countryside termpil ready for use, ought to in viewing as capital properties of State in formulation of policy of alokatif. this Research evidence if compared to result of gold production, Skillful SDM of that countryside by take careing is foreign of great Minahasa Newmont, hence skillful SDM of countryside of menghasikan 150 gold singk of perminggu (working team sample 200 people), while take careing is foreign of Newmont yield 100 gold singk of perminggu, clear result of production of SDM skillful of superordinate. In north Sulawesi there are 25.598 people mineworker of gold, 3.482 people processor of wood result of forest, operating on regional farm of forest for the width of 1.660.000 Ha. Pursuant to fact in this research is found by concept "Tibean'' name of appliance produce wise gold of local resident of sub-province countryside of Bolaang north Sulaewsi mongondow, containing meaning of SDM countryside termpil is capital properties of State, having technical ability, owning production appliance, powered of productive kenerja, efficient and effective in process SDA, ready for use in process wood and gold result of forest, representing State capital which must be powered.In line with and utilize research develop theory later;then find new theory or concept to solve problem resident of wild gold-mine countryside and wood merambah result of forest as victim policy of alokkatif. Conception controlled by important tibean of its scope performance setting of him in time and room proceed as which the existence of is productive. Defended and developed will become model enableness of SDM countryside termpil in policy of alokatif process SDA gold mineral through research program with title : Approach Of Concept of Tibean In Enableness Of Skillful SDM of Countryside Process SDA As Authorized Capital Prosperity of People.Idea and idea Enableness Of Skillful SDM of Countryside Socialization to resident of government and countryside will become enableness model since early research of year 1995, inwrought dilasanakan with stages;steps process research of continuation at region of obyek and of focus research which have been determined as research sampel with resident of regional countrysides of National Park of Dumoga Bone Sub-Province of Bolaang Monondow. Result of socialization, resident understand citizen rights and obligations exploit SDA which pursuant to constitution commendation of UUD 1945, resident agree to struggle with conception diterimah tibean become program of kibijakan gold natural resources allocation and wood result of forest. Is to be dialogued and discussion with resident of government and countryside in District of Dumoga Center organization structure Co-Ordinate Reform of Dumoga Bone (PKRDB) in the year 1999, countryside office of Imandi. Start since then society of Dumoga claim government through lobby and demonstration is so that given by opportunity of gold-mine and process forest cane and wood with sharing holder system with government like [at] program of konrak masterpiece. demand of Diterimah in the year 2001 by government of Sub-Province of Bolaang Mongodow with government of Province Sulawesi North, given by region for the width of 305 Ha countryside of Toraut national park area as region for example conception Tibean at the same time await decision of central government. Pemeritah Center as owner of authority promise will be processed by since year 2001, hitherto there is no realization because actor maker of policy, politician and bureaucracy as determinant of owner of decision, orient idea in taking policy of resource allocation still handcuffed with program contract masterpiece with foreign investor. So that process struggle of concept of tibean remain to be continued by socialization to get political support through political process succeed.Keyword: Legality of SDM Skillful of Countryside

Poverty is one of the greatest problems affecting developing countries. Socio-economic imbalances, created by both natural and artificial resource scarcity, restrict impoverished people's access to economic opportunities, limiting their purchasing power and empowerment. Environmental degradation is thus both a cause and effect of resource scarcity, as the poor are forced to seek increasingly environmentally and economically unsustainable methods of income generation, further marginalizing them. Microfinance is known to be one of the best tools to combat poverty, as it allows the poor to empower both themselves and their communities through the creation and sustainment of their own businesses. Moreover, green microfinance, which combines the core concepts of microfinance with environmental awareness and preservation, aims to allow empowerment to occur without compromising the environment. Microfinance institutions (MFIs) use simple administrative procedures and the general abolishment of collateral to allow inhabitants of remote areas to access microfinance, whilst maintaining relationships with them and assisting with their financial and personal problems, educating them, and providing aid in the event of environmental disasters. Hence, microfinance is believed to have a positive effect on both poverty alleviation and environmental awareness. In Indonesia, the country with the largest Muslim population in the world, Islamic finance, which was established in 1991 and saw rapid development during the politically volatile years of 1997 and 1998 (Seibel 2008), comprises commercial banks and banking units, Islamic rural banks, and Islamic financial cooperatives. Commercial Islamic banks focus on providing savings, financing, and insurance to medium and large businesses. People running small or micro businesses are thus restricted from receiving their services. Islamic microfinance, in the form of banking units, rural banks, and financial cooperatives, fills the void left by the commercial banks, enabling Indonesia's disadvantaged entrepreneurs to generate income on their own terms. Most people in Pasuruan Regency, East Java, earn their incomes in the processing industry, agriculture, and trading. In this region, these sectors contribute more than any other to the total Gross Regional Domestic Product (BPS Pasuruan). However, most of them generally negatively affect the environment, through pollutive and chemically harmful practices, as well as a lack of skill and knowledge required to mitigate the negative impacts of these practices. These effects could be influenced by the microfinance institutions that finance their business activities and have a say in how their businesses are run. This is particularly the case with the Islamic MFIs in the region, in whom clients put a great deal of trust, and whose growth has been stimulated by Islamic finance's own growth in Indonesia as a whole. Although MFIs have seen significant development since the 1970s, not enough is known about them. While they have been shown to contribute to poverty alleviation, little is known about their simultaneous roles as facilitators of poverty alleviation and environmental development. Understanding this dynamic was of particular concern in Pasuruan Regency, as the peoples of our research sites appeared to show little regard for their environment whilst relying on MFIs to support their businesses. With their institutions failing to intervene in their destructive behaviors, there is an opening for environmental degradation to be countered with the use of MFIs as promoters of environmentally-friendly business practices. This study aimed to investigate the effect of Islamic microfinance institutions on the welfare of their clients, and whether they positively contribute to their environmental awareness. We examined the role of Islamic microfinance institutions in poverty alleviation and environmental awareness in three different areas of Pasuruan Regency, namely lowland, coastal, and upland. We further compared the impact of Islamic MFIs with that of conventional MFIs, to understand whether Islamic microfinance is consistent with other microfinance types or is able to stand out in its influence on clients' welfare, awareness, and behavior Field work data was collected using qualitative and quantitative approaches. The qualitative approach comprised in-depth interviews, direct observations, and focus group discussions, while the quantitative approach comprised standardized and semi-structured questionnaires. Additionally, secondary data was obtained from banks and a number governmental organizations and officials and statistics offices. Triangulation and a logic model were used to evaluate and validate data before conducting both qualitative and quantitative data analyses. The qualitative analysis was used to describe the behavior of the people in our research area, particularly towards changes in their economic welfare and awareness of specific environmental issues after joining a microfinance institution. Quantitative data analyses consisted of frequency distributions and numerical summaries. Our results revealed that both Islamic and conventional MFIs' primary concerns were self-sustainability, as they attempted to maintain financial performances and increase client bases within a regional context. Pondok pesantren, through their prevalence and their teachers and students' social programs, contributed to the development of Islamic MFIs in the lowland area by improving the public's perceptions of Islamic microfinance. In the coastal area, Islamic MFIs managed to mitigate the challenges and poor perceptions created by their failed predecessors. Meanwhile, Islamic MFIs in the upland area employed specific strategies to overcome challenges to their sustainability during periods of mass withdrawals. Conventional MFIs largely tailored their services to the needs of their clients, helping farmers acquire seeds and fertilizer in the lowland area, for example, or assisting fisheries and small entrepreneurs in the coastal area and helping clients grow, harvest, and process agroforestry products in the upland area. The microfinance institutions in all three areas positively contributed to poverty alleviation, with a significant majority of MFI clients being able to develop their businesses after receiving financing or loans—more so those in the lowland and coastal areas than the upland area. In terms of business re-investment, the lowland area was found to have the lowest percentage of clients spending their surplus incomes on increasing business size or employee numbers; a factor that requires attention from the local government and MFIs if they are to contribute to self-empowerment. Contrasting their impacts on poverty alleviation, both conventional and Islamic MFIs had negligible impacts on increasing the environmental awareness of their clients. Our analyses revealed that the MFIs in all three areas had problems with providing environmental training to their clients, failing to combat the already existent lack in awareness, and consequent accumulative degradation that occurred as a result. In all three research sites, more respondents reported that they did not receive training from their MFI than those who did. MFIs found it costly to dedicate a part of their net profits to environmental matters, but we found one cost-effective way to contribute to environmental awareness was through informing them of the existence of the few training programs that were available. There are still a limited number of empirical studies on Islamic microfinance's contributions to the poverty reduction of both the poor and the poorest. Our comparisons of the roles of Islamic and conventional MFIs in alleviating poverty revealed that both Islamic and conventional MFIs had a positive effect on poverty alleviation—Islamic MFIs slightly more than conventional ones. The screening system used by the Islamic MFIs, in particular their targeting of clients who were less inclined to use their funds for unrelated purposes, had a significant impact on their ability to avoid the lending risks encountered by the conventional MFIs, as well as the development of their clients' businesses. This was supported by key informants' observations that Islamic microfinance reduces the poverty level of clients, with their interest-free financing options and more flexible repayment plans being major factors. Islamic MFIs' redistributions of public donations to the poorest in the form of qard al hasan (credit without interest) also fortified their roles as important contributors to poverty reduction. Nevertheless, considering how integral the environment is to their clients' livelihoods, their environmental initiatives were merely enablers in their clients' destructive behaviors, and will only contribute to increased resource scarcity and more arduous poverty alleviation efforts. Islamic MFIs should therefore look at targeting environmentally-friendly businesses, in spite of their unfairly negative associations with cost and risk, whether through the use social funds or collaboration with the government. Green microfinance, which was unsuccessful in our study, should continue to be studied as a viable method of providing financial services to poor communities. Green Islamic microfinance, further, may be considered the next step in Islamic finance's development, as institutions attempt to empower individuals and communities in increasingly vulnerable environments.