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Based on the continuous observation of the ongoing China–India border conflict in recent years, the author intends to answer why China has not yielded prospective policy returns from the Indian side, even if it has been pursuing a cooperative strategy toward India after the Doklam standoff. Inspired by several doctrines of game theory under the dynamic game scenario and the application of relevant gaming tactics, this essay argues that after the Doklam standoff, China has been consistently pursuing an India policy that is risk-averse in nature, represented by its fundamental goal of persevering stability in the secondary direction of China–India border area. As a supporter of this argumentation, a diachronic investigation in terms of the evolution of China–India Relations between 2017 and 2020 was conducted, in which both countries were presumed as state actors involving in repeated gaming process with observable actions and asymmetric information sources. The investigation covers the respective actions adopted by both China and India since the Doklam standoff in 2017, along with the strategic interactions between the two sides from 2018 to 2019, till the most recent standoff in the Galwan Valley and the standoff along the Panggong Tso in 2020. The major finding of this essay is that there exists a causal-effect relationship between the expected payment structures of both sides in a gaming process and the outcome of the implementation of a certain cooperative strategy. Besides, as opponents in a gaming process, either side's self-cognition and its evaluation on the bilateral relations will pose critical impact on its policy-making. Therefore, in the specific case of China–India border conflict, it is highly advised that China should make practical efforts to avert cognition risks of all kinds while managing its relation with India; otherwise, negative consequences may occur due to the mismatch of its strategic goals and its policy devices.

The article analyzes the social aspects of Hinduism as a combination of not only religious, but also mythological, legal and ethical concepts. They form, on the basis on which the social life of Indian society is largely organized. The author's analysis of the historical development of Hinduism shows that, despite the absence of a rigid organizational structure, it has an internal unity at the social, ideological and religious levels. Hinduism is united in a whole by sacred texts and the Pantheon of Gods, recognized by almost all its trends and schools, as well as the faith in karma — the causal relationship between the actions of an individual in past incarnations and his fate, character, position in society in the current incarnation, and reincarnation. The cornerstone of both the faith and the social component of the Hindu doctrine is the concept of classes and castes, which denote separate groups whose members have a common professional occupation, do not marry other groups, and do not even share meals with them. The article considers the hierarchy of classes that originated in India in the Vedic period, as well as the principles, primarily professional and regional, of the formation of modern castes.The author analyzes a set of religious prescriptions and cult practices that regulate the daily life of Hindus, the ritual side of Hinduism associated with the most significant events in human life. Special attention is paid to new practices of "redemptive rites", including asceticism, fasting, various methods of mortification of the flesh, and redemptive gifts. It is noted that the essence of Hinduism is not limited to its religious and ideological content. An organic integral part of it is a number of social institutions, legal and moral norms, social institutions and cultural phenomena. In this regard, Hinduism is not only and not so much a religion, but a way of life and holistic behavior, which can also have its own spiritual practice.

In this dissertation, I contribute to three strands of the environmental economics literature: (1) regulation of air pollution from stationary sources, (2) interaction between behavioral biases and consumer demand for energy, and (3) long-term distributional outcomes of policies that seek to mitigate climate damages from the housing sector. The first paper looks at how environmental regulations work in practice -- assessing ex-post the causal consequences of a specific policy, the Large Combustion Plant Directive. The Large Combustion Plant Directive was a key policy instrument to limit air pollution from power stations in the European Union. The Directive set limits on emissions of harmful sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and particle dust from combustion plants with total capacity of at least 50 MWth. A fundamental empirical problem is to create a valid counterfactual, to understand what would have happened in the absence of such a regulation. As is the case with most command and control policies, all plants fell under regulation, but the stringency was vintage-differentiated. More crucially, a group of plants chose to opt-out of emissions performance standards but were instead required to gradually cease operations. I exploit the structure of the directive to construct valid control groups to assess the effectiveness of emission performance standards. Evidence from this empirical study suggests that EU-wide emission performance standards, when sufficiently stringent, are an effective instrument for pollution abatement at the plant stack-level. However, the regulation was not ambitious enough and in fact allowed business-as-usual operations for some of the most carbon-intensive power plants operating in the European Union. In the second paper, I exploit a large-scale natural experiment in utility billing cycles at the building level to identify the salience effect of costs on energy consumption. By exploiting variation in billing cycles, I find new evidence for consumer inattention to energy costs: consumers ...

Vielfältige lokale Ökonomien sind ein zentraler Faktor für das Gelingen von Nachhaltigkeitstransformationen auf kommunaler Ebene. Doch gerade die heterogenen Strukturen inhabergeführter, ortsansässiger (Klein‑)Betriebe scheinen in ihrer Existenz von voranschreitenden überregionalen Marktkonzentrations- und Filialisierungsprozessen bedroht. Gleichzeitig haben kommunale Planung, Verwaltung und Politik bisher nicht alle Bereiche lokaler Ökonomien vollumfänglich im Blick. Die Suche nach Hebelpunkten für Governance-Interventionen zur Förderung und zum Erhalt lokaler Ökonomien erfordert mehr Aufmerksamkeit. Auch das Fallbeispiel des vorliegenden Beitrags, das inhabergeführte, ortsansässige Lebensmittelhandwerk, ist von existenziellen Schwierigkeiten bedroht. Über qualitative Experteninterviews mit Bäckereien und Metzgereien in zwei süddeutschen Mittelstädten wird den Ursachen des Betrieberückgangs und diesbezüglicher betriebsinterner Strategien nachgegangen. Dies erfolgt aus systemischer Perspektive, in Form der Modellierung von Kausalschleifendiagrammen und der Einordnung dieser in die Typologie sogenannter Systemarchetypen. Ziel des Beitrags ist die Identifikation von Hebelpunkten für Governance-Interventionen, über welche die Stadtentwicklung die Branchen einer kleinteiligeren lokalen Ökonomie gezielt unterstützen kann. ; The diversity of local economies represents a central factor for the success of sustainability transformations at municipal levels. But especially the heterogeneous structures of family-owned, locally based (small-scale) businesses seem to be threatened in their existence by market concentration and branching processes. At the same time, municipal planning departments as well as local administrations and politics have not yet taken account of all sectors of local economies and their differing needs. Searching levers for governance interventions to promote and maintain local economies therefore requires more attention. Family-owned, locally based (small-scale) food trade businesses, which represent the case study of this paper, are currently exposed to existential threats. In a first step, the causes of the business closures and the accompanying expectations and strategic considerations are analysed via qualitative expert interviews with bakeries and butchers in two medium-sized towns in Southern Germany. This is done from a systemic perspective, in the form of modelling causal loop diagrams and the classification of these into so-called system archetypes. The aim is, in a second step, to identify leverage points for governance interventions, through which local authorities can support the branches of the (small-scale) local economy.

Abstract. The interaction between physical drivers from oceanographic, hydrological, and meteorological processes in coastal areas can result in compound flooding. Compound flood events, like Cyclone Idai and Hurricane Harvey, have revealed the devastating consequences of the co-occurrence of coastal and river floods. A number of studies have recently investigated the likelihood of compound flooding at the continental scale based on simulated variables of flood drivers, such as storm surge, precipitation, and river discharges. At the global scale, this has only been performed based on observations, thereby excluding a large extent of the global coastline. The purpose of this study is to fill this gap and identify regions with a high compound flooding potential from river discharge and storm surge extremes in river mouths globally. To do so, we use daily time series of river discharge and storm surge from state-of-the-art global models driven with consistent meteorological forcing from reanalysis datasets. We measure the compound flood potential by analysing both variables with respect to their timing, joint statistical dependence, and joint return period. Our analysis indicates many regions that deviate from statistical independence and could not be identified in previous global studies based on observations alone, such as Madagascar, northern Morocco, Vietnam, and Taiwan. We report possible causal mechanisms for the observed spatial patterns based on existing literature. Finally, we provide preliminary insights on the implications of the bivariate dependence behaviour on the flood hazard characterisation using Madagascar as a case study. Our global and local analyses show that the dependence structure between flood drivers can be complex and can significantly impact the joint probability of discharge and storm surge extremes. These emphasise the need to refine global flood risk assessments and emergency planning to account for these potential interactions.

The aim of this PhD thesis is to understand how the European Union (EU) may affect domestic electronic health ('eHealth') politics and policies despite its lack of competence in this area. Over the past years, the EU has supported the use of information and communication technologies within healthcare systems through the development of numerous instruments. The key argument of this research is that selective and strategic uses of European instruments by domestic actors are the core mechanisms of Europeanisation. This hypothesis is tested using a comparative analysis of eHealth policies in France, Austria and Ireland.Through actors 'usage', the EU is likely to affect the content of public policies, power games between policy actors, or the prioritisation of policy problems. This thesis shows that three conditions explain the appearance of various instances of EU usage at the domestic level: the presence of a strong interest for actors to use external resources in their political work, a positive relationship to the European level, and a diversified structure of European instruments. If these conditions are met, the EU influence is likely to occur at every stage of the policy development process. To take into account the empirical variety of EU usage, a new model based on the multiple streams framework is presented. This model allows for an accurate definition of EU causal influence in the domestic policy-making processes. ; L'objectif de cette thèse en science politique est d'analyser l'influence de l'Union européenne (UE) sur les politiques de santé électronique nationales, autrement appelées 'politiques d'e-santé'. En effet, depuis plusieurs années, l'UE développe des instruments visant à favoriser l'introduction des technologies de l'information et de la communication dans l'organisation des soins, bien qu'elle ne dispose pas de compétences dans ce domaine. L'argument central de cette recherche est le suivant : les usages sélectifs et stratégiques des instruments européens sont le vecteur principal de ...

The aim of this PhD thesis is to understand how the European Union (EU) may affect domestic electronic health ('eHealth') politics and policies despite its lack of competence in this area. Over the past years, the EU has supported the use of information and communication technologies within healthcare systems through the development of numerous instruments. The key argument of this research is that selective and strategic uses of European instruments by domestic actors are the core mechanisms of Europeanisation. This hypothesis is tested using a comparative analysis of eHealth policies in France, Austria and Ireland.Through actors 'usage', the EU is likely to affect the content of public policies, power games between policy actors, or the prioritisation of policy problems. This thesis shows that three conditions explain the appearance of various instances of EU usage at the domestic level: the presence of a strong interest for actors to use external resources in their political work, a positive relationship to the European level, and a diversified structure of European instruments. If these conditions are met, the EU influence is likely to occur at every stage of the policy development process. To take into account the empirical variety of EU usage, a new model based on the multiple streams framework is presented. This model allows for an accurate definition of EU causal influence in the domestic policy-making processes. ; L'objectif de cette thèse en science politique est d'analyser l'influence de l'Union européenne (UE) sur les politiques de santé électronique nationales, autrement appelées 'politiques d'e-santé'. En effet, depuis plusieurs années, l'UE développe des instruments visant à favoriser l'introduction des technologies de l'information et de la communication dans l'organisation des soins, bien qu'elle ne dispose pas de compétences dans ce domaine. L'argument central de cette recherche est le suivant : les usages sélectifs et stratégiques des instruments européens sont le vecteur principal de ...

The aim of this PhD thesis is to understand how the European Union (EU) may affect domestic electronic health ('eHealth') politics and policies despite its lack of competence in this area. Over the past years, the EU has supported the use of information and communication technologies within healthcare systems through the development of numerous instruments. The key argument of this research is that selective and strategic uses of European instruments by domestic actors are the core mechanisms of Europeanisation. This hypothesis is tested using a comparative analysis of eHealth policies in France, Austria and Ireland.Through actors 'usage', the EU is likely to affect the content of public policies, power games between policy actors, or the prioritisation of policy problems. This thesis shows that three conditions explain the appearance of various instances of EU usage at the domestic level: the presence of a strong interest for actors to use external resources in their political work, a positive relationship to the European level, and a diversified structure of European instruments. If these conditions are met, the EU influence is likely to occur at every stage of the policy development process. To take into account the empirical variety of EU usage, a new model based on the multiple streams framework is presented. This model allows for an accurate definition of EU causal influence in the domestic policy-making processes. ; L'objectif de cette thèse en science politique est d'analyser l'influence de l'Union européenne (UE) sur les politiques de santé électronique nationales, autrement appelées 'politiques d'e-santé'. En effet, depuis plusieurs années, l'UE développe des instruments visant à favoriser l'introduction des technologies de l'information et de la communication dans l'organisation des soins, bien qu'elle ne dispose pas de compétences dans ce domaine. L'argument central de cette recherche est le suivant : les usages sélectifs et stratégiques des instruments européens sont le vecteur principal de ...

The purpose of this project is to explore the causal factors of church decline through the perspectives of church leadership, membership, community engagement, social factors, political and economic climate, denominational polity, and human choice to determine if church decline is fatal. It is argued that, though these factors contribute to church decline and eventual death if not addressed, a church can be revitalized to new life when appropriate measures are taken. Church revitalization is a long, tedious process but when a pastor and congregation determine to commit the time, effort, and resources necessary to bring the church back to a healthy state, it is possible to do so. The thesis was tested at St. James AME Zion Church in San Mateo, California, a local church that had been in a slow yet steady decline for several decades. This is evidenced by the fact that the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of the most senior members are no longer members of the church, few new members have joined, and the church focus turned inward to protect the remnant who remained. An examination of Scripture confirms that decline has never been an expectation for the Church of God. The expectation was and remains, church growth and expansion. The hypothesis that church decline can be reversed is tested by developing and implementing a revitalization process for ministry at St. James, creating a new church within an established, historic structure. The process began by performing an environmental scan in every area of ministry, creating the supporting framework for changes made thus far by the revitalization team, a combination of staff and lay leadership. This project will necessarily continue after publishing, but what has been concluded thus far is that St. James is already experiencing new life, new membership, and a bright hope for the future.

BACKGROUND: Indonesia shoulders a significant tobacco burden, with almost two million cases of tobacco-related illnesses and more than two hundred thousand tobacco-related deaths annually. Indonesian tobacco control is progressing but lags behind other countries. Our study evaluates factors that contribute to the slow progress of tobacco policy change in Indonesia from the perspective of tobacco control experts (TCEs). METHOD: We conducted qualitative interviews with four international and ten national TCEs, who have been active in tobacco control for at least 5 years. Our interview guideline included questions on the current tobacco control situation in Indonesia and explored reasons why tobacco control is progressing so slowly. The interviews were conducted either in English or Bahasa Indonesia, recorded and then transcribed verbatim. We conducted a thematic analysis based on five core causal factors for policy adoption: institutions, networks, socio-economic factors, agendas and ideas. RESULTS: The multistage delay of tobacco policy adoption is principally due to political structures and policy hierarchy, complex bureaucracy, unclear roles and responsibilities, and a high degree of corruption. The low bargaining position and lack of respect for the Ministry of Health also contributes. There are contrasting frames of tobacco as a strategic economic asset and tobacco control as a sovereignty threat. There is an imbalance of power and influence between well entrenched and resourced tobacco industry networks compared to relatively young and less established tobacco control networks. The policy agenda is likely influenced by the privileged position of tobacco in Indonesia as a socially acceptable product with high consumption. There are constraints on transferring ideas and evidence to successful policy adoption. CONCLUSION: Tobacco companies have substantially influenced both policy decisions and public perceptions, signifying a power imbalance within the government system and broader networks. Acceding to and ...

The contemporary world continues to suffer from a number of social problems that are global in scope but impact the Global South disproportionately. While broad and coordinated policy responses to overcome these problems exist, such policies are not shaped solely by the political will to address the problems. On the contrary, their content largely depends on how societies in general and the social problems in particular are routinely explained and conceptualized. We refer to these as explanatory tendencies or paradigms of explanation. As complex problems always have multiple root causes with long causal chains, explanations of these causes necessarily involve some assumptions about relevant causalities. Typically, the main choice in explaining international politics relates to the extent to which social phenomena should be explained by domestic institutions, decisions and events. Social science in general has been noted to have a bias toward a "nationalist" approach to explanation [Beck, 2007; Brenner, 1999; Gore, 1993; Pogge, 2002]. This means treating the state as the primary and even sufficient object of analysis, so that problems are explained by the malfunctioning institutions and misinformed policies of states. Such explanatory biases become naturalized in everyday politics and social analysis [Amin, 2004]. While this has been widely discussed as an epistemological issue, the interplay between international organizations and explanatory tendencies has received less attention. The present article addresses this gap. We argue that explanatory tendencies and biases should not be treated exclusively as an epistemological matter. They need to be accompanied by an analysis of the role of international organizations as both influenced by an explanatory tendency and upholding it. Paradigms of explanation are reflected in the priorities and relative powers of international organizations, as their very structure can reflect particular explanatory tendencies. As an example, we will use the ascent and descent of the United Nations work on the power of multinational enterprises. ; Peer reviewed

1 22 11 ; S Mann, K. S., Bejerman, N., Johnson, K. N., & Dietzgen, R. G. (2016). Cytorhabdovirus P3 genes encode 30K-like cell-to-cell movement proteins. Virology, 489, 20-33. doi:10.1016/j.virol.2015.11.028 ; [EN] Brevipalpus-transmitted viruses (BTVs) belong to the genera Dichorhavirus and Cilevirus and are the main causal agents of the citrus leprosis (CL) disease. In this report, we explored aspects related to the movement mechanism mediated by dichorhaviruses movement proteins (MPs) and the homologous and heterologous interactions among viral proteins related to the movement of citrus leprosis-associated viruses. The membrane-spanning property and topology analysis of the nucleocapsid (N) and MP proteins from two dichorhaviruses revealed that the MPs are proteins tightly associated with the cell membrane, exposing their N- and C-termini to the cytoplasm and the inner part of the nucleus, whereas the N proteins are not membrane-associated. Subcellular localization analysis revealed the presence of dichorhavirus MPs at the cell surface and in the nucleus, while the phosphoproteins (P) were located exclusively in the nucleus and the N proteins in both the cytoplasm and the nucleus. Co-expression analysis with the MP, P, and N proteins showed an interaction network formed between them. We highlight the MP capability to partially redistribute the previously reported N-P core complex, redirecting a portion of the N from the nucleus to the plasmodesmata at the cell periphery, which indicates not only that the MP might guide the intracellular trafficking of the viral infective complex but also that the N protein may be associated with the cell-to-cell movement mechanism of dichorhaviruses. The movement functionality of these MPs was analyzed by using three movement-defective infectious systems. Also, the MP capacity to generate tubular structures on the protoplast surface by ectopic expression was analyzed. Finally, we evaluated the in vivo protein-protein interaction networks between the dichorhavirus MP ...

The persistence of health inequities is a wicked problem for which there is strong evidence of causal roots in the maldistribution of power, resources and money within and between countries. Though the evidence is clear, the solutions are far from straightforward. Integrated knowledge translation (IKT) ought to be well suited for designing evidence-informed solutions, yet current frameworks are limited in their capacity to navigate complexity. Global health governance (GHG) also ought to be well suited to advance action, but a lack of accountability, inclusion and integration of evidence gives rise to politically driven action. Recognising a persistent struggle for meaningful action, we invite contemplation about how blending IKT with GHG could leverage the strengths of both processes to advance health equity. Action on root causes of health inequities implicates disruption of structures and systems that shape how society is organised. This infinitely complex work demands sophisticated examination of drivers and disrupters of inequities and a vast imagination for who (and what) should be engaged. Yet, underlying tendencies toward reductionism seem to drive superficial responses. Where IKT models lack consideration of issues of power and provide little direction for how to support cohesive efforts toward a common goal, recent calls from the field of GHG may provide insight into these issues. Additionally, though GHG is criticised for its lack of attention to using evidence, IKT offers approaches and strategies for collaborative processes of generating and refining knowledge. Contemplating the inclusion of governance in IKT requires re-examining roles, responsibilities, power and voice in processes of connecting knowledge with action. We argue for expanding IKT models to include GHG as a means of considering the complexity of issues and opening new possibilities for evidence-informed action on wicked problems. Integrated learning between these two fields, adopting principles of GHG alongside the strategies of IKT, is a promising opportunity to strengthen leadership for health equity action.

The operation of energy systems has a significant role in climate change and global warming, coupled with increasing international commitments that are calling to preserve the environment. This situation needs to optimally exploit the energy resources and develop in a more sustainable way. Recently, the worldwide trend of introducing renewable energy sources is increasing and moving towards achievable sustainability. Furthermore, the change in the structure of energy systems, and the new system arising from deregulation and decentralization of the system, is influenced by various actors. Those circumstances of energy systems indicate that they can develop models based on the agent-based methodology. This approach can help find many possible options based on determining the assumptions for an energy system before they are actually applied. The main motivation to develop an energy distributed planning model is to find a suitable solution for the case of Iraq's electricity power system that is suffering from many challenges. That emerged as a result of atypical circumstances occurring in Iraq during the last three decades. It aims to analyse the electricity supply development in Iraq with a simultaneous economic growth and shifts in the electricity market. Moreover, Iraq's domestic energy prospects and the factors which influence projections for the future energy electrical demand are analysed. It is clear in this study that the security situation has a significant impact on the investment in the electricity sector and its rehabilitation. Therefore, the focus on privatisation means that the government has to adopt strong legislation for electrical systems, because, on the one hand, it can give a framework for the ownership and financing of infrastructure improvements, and can create incentives to encourage greater investment. On the other hand, under this security situation and existing causal relationship between energy demand and the economic development of GDP, meeting demand growth remains a major challenge. ...

The democratic tradition of post independent India has been quite complicated. The constitutional prescriptions for minorities provides just liberal and equal guarantee in civil society but the plural nature of the social structure confines them into different social groups not only as religious groups but beyond this canvas too. Many of us see reservations as an instrument for excluded Muslims but thousands also think reservation as a tool of divisive society. But the fact remains taller than utopian arguments of divisive politics and appeasement agenda. The crucial question is, if the reservations can upheld the dignity of Hindu Dalits and neo-Buddhists which was buried on the name of social hierarchy and smooth functioning of social order. Reservations is basically regeneration of new order based on just equal and justified inclusive system and this has only brought the best social mobility among the reserved social groups why not the Muslims or Muslim Dalits too question the right of reservation. The conundrum of reservation has been bone of contention in Indian socio-politico institutions but it has also been most appropriate tool of upliftment of certain social groups as proven. It is also inherently deep-rooted feature of the upper castes and upper class to ensconce the systematic social stratification not only in the Hindu fourfold groups rather the outreach is reflected among Indian Muslims and Christians as well. This paper tries to study the causal effects of pervasive politics that obstructing the marginalized group's inclusion through reservation into mainstream and questioning the validity of argument against or pro of marginalized Muslims and Dalit Muslims as it has given to other backward sections. The study questions -is reservation beyond an agenda or tool of inclusion-A case of Muslims in India. The study conducts on the basis of primary as well as secondary data that has been collected from various reports and newspapers.