Suchergebnisse

What motivated national governments to join the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM), a climate club founded in 2010? And to what extent have the club members participated in policy initiatives developed by the CEM? Our analysis shows that combinations of (a) the expected benefits of club membership and (b) the leadership of the USA induced the governments of Australia, Brazil, Canada, China and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to join the CEM. The importance of these two factors varied across countries. Participation levels in the CEM's policy initiatives varied over time. While this variation happened in a 'proportionate' manner for Australia, Canada and China, we observed singular instances of 'disproportionate' changes in levels of policy effort for the UAE and Brazil. Overall, our findings suggest that climate clubs constrain the behaviour of its members by discouraging them from engaging in sustained policy under-reactions.

The concept of agenda-setting has resulted in vibrant research in political science. The aim of this Special Issue is to advance the state of research on water governance by alluding to the possibilities for applying this particular theoretical perspective to water issues. Agenda-setting concerns how and when issues enter the public debate (discussion agenda) or are taken into account by policymakers with a view to proposing policies (decision agenda). Simply put, agenda-setting is about the process of drawing or paying attention to certain issues. Despite the intuitiveness of this concept, the underlying political and societal processes related to water governance are complex and require careful research designs in order to realize the full potential of agenda-setting research. The contributions to this Special Issue combine theoretically convincing research on agenda-setting with research on issues in water ...

Abstract: What motivated national governments to join the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM), a climate club founded in 2010? And to what extent have the club members participated in policy initiatives developed by the CEM? Our analysis shows that combinations of (a) the expected benefits of club membership and (b) the leadership of the USA induced the governments of Australia, Brazil, Canada, China and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to join the CEM. The importance of these two factors varied across countries. Participation levels in the CEM's policy initiatives varied over time. While this variation happened in a 'proportionate' manner for Australia, Canada and China, we observed singular instances of 'disproportionate' changes in levels of policy effort for the UAE and Brazil. Overall, our findings suggest that climate clubs constrain the behaviour of its members by discouraging them from engaging in sustained policy under-reactions.

This study seeks to introduce the concept of Varieties of Capitalism to the study of multi-actor implementation arrangements. It illustrates the analytical value of this classification scheme by drawing from original empirical data and addresses two key research questions, namely how do public and private actors cooperate in delivering on public policy, and which factors determine the scope of their cooperation? To address these questions, the article examines governance arrangements adopted by individual European Union member states for implementing the Youth Guarantee. The Youth Guarantee was selected because all European Union member states must and have indeed already started to implement it, meaning it provides a broad empirical base for observing different types of public–private coordination. The findings demonstrate that a hierarchical structure in a country's political economy and prior expenditure on active labour market policies result in different governance arrangements.

With Brexit imminent, the debate on the need for differentiated integration (DI) by means of opting-out has gained new momentum. At the same time, non-member states decide to adopt European Union (EU) rules as exemplified by the European Neighbourhood Policy. In light of these opposing observations, we examine the EU's disposition to supply DI. We outline the strategic interactions of the EU member states or non-members in the context of two forms of DI: opting-out and inducing-in. In the case of opting-out, EU member states can refrain from adopting EU rules; inducing-in refers to providing non-member states with incentives to adopt EU rules. We show that the information asymmetries inherent to the strategic interactions result in a situation in which the EU is likely to supply opportunities to opt-out for member states to a much greater extent than necessary. Furthermore, the EU is likely to offer more compensation to non-member states in exchange for adopting EU rules than it would actually need to.

AbstractUnemployment experiences can have consequences for how people think about democracy and where they stand vis‐à‐vis the state. We investigate how young people's experiences with public employment services can shape levels of external political efficacy—the feeling that decision‐makers are responsive to citizen needs. The personal and direct experiences one gathers at this pivotal time in life can also leave their mark on political attitudes. We analyze an original dataset on German youth to test how encounters with such agencies affect young people's political efficacy, finding that perceptions of helpfulness and being treated fairly and with respect increase the likelihood of being politically efficacious. The findings highlight the importance of personal experiences and bureaucratic interactions for vulnerable young people's democratic attitudes.

This study seeks to introduce the concept of Varieties of Capitalism to the study of multi-actor implementation arrangements. It illustrates the analytical value of this classification scheme by drawing from original empirical data and addresses two key research questions, namely how do public and private actors cooperate in delivering on public policy, and which factors determine the scope of their cooperation? To address these questions, the article examines governance arrangements adopted by individual European Union member states for implementing the Youth Guarantee. The Youth Guarantee was selected because all European Union member states must and have indeed already started to implement it, meaning it provides a broad empirical base for observing different types of public–private coordination. The findings demonstrate that a hierarchical structure in a country's political economy and prior expenditure on active labour market policies result in different governance arrangements.

While youth unemployment is a widely studied topic, many accounts fail to take into consideration young adults' experiences with and perceptions of the public services they make use of. Young people's perceptions of the services they use are closely linked to a variety of behaviours such as noncompliance, early withdrawal or non-take-up, all of which can hinder the (re-)entry to the labour market. How young people evaluate their interactions with employment services can even have impacts on societal and political attitudes; as for many young people, these experiences represent their first interactions with the state. In this study, we draw on unique survey data to offer insights into young adults' evaluations and experiences with public employment services in Germany and discuss them in light of the structure and organizational capacity of public employment services to deliver the programmes and services that young adults need. By placing the analytical focus on young people's evaluations, we argue that although Germany is often highlighted as a highly successful case in terms of youth labour market outcomes; there is nevertheless ample room for improvement in terms of how young people assess the offerings and personal experiences with public employment services.

AbstractDoes voting behaviour in the Council of Ministers reflect different national interests? In this article, we explore this question by studying requests for authorization of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The fact that GMOs constitute a highly contentious issue in the European Union enables us to look underneath the 'culture of consensus' which usually characterizes voting behaviour in the Council. We argue that the focus on one issue area can help us to discover more specific voting patterns than those that have previously been found in EU legislative studies. Indeed, based on a dataset comprising all authorization requests voted on in the Council between 2004 and 2014, we find that ministers' voting behaviour is significantly influenced by important national factors such as public opinion, party politics, and structural as well as sectoral interests.