Suchergebnisse

In vielen Teilen der Welt, in Entwicklungs- wie Industrieländern, wird landwirtschaftliche und ländliche Entwicklung durch zivilgesellschaftliche Organisationen (ZGO) unterstützt. In Deutschland ist ihre Aktivität mittlerweile so hoch, dass ihnen seitens Wissenschaft und Politik gestiegener Einfluss auf den agrarpolitischen Entscheidungsprozess bescheinigt wird. Hinter ZGO stehen verschiedene freiwillige Vereinigungen von Privatpersonen, die demokratisch und nicht profitorientiert organisiert sind. Da sie weder marktwirtschaftlichen noch staatlichen Akteuren zuzuordnen sind, werden sie als dritter Sektor bezeichnet. Um die Motive und die Bedeutung der ländlichen ZGO für ein nachhaltiges Wirtschaften zu verstehen, muss man die ausgetretenen Pfade der rein ökonomischen Erklärungsansätze verlassen.

While renewable energy is considered as an indispensable component of the energy mix from the political and societal perspective, its economic relevance remains questionable. Especially bioenergy production from agricultural crops and its promotion have generated a highly emotional and controversial debate. Indeed, the currently very small global share of crop-based bioenergy is opposed by the disproportionately high macroeconomic and social costs of its production. Thus, it is unsurprising that this topic continues to attract much research attention. [.] ; Während erneuerbare Energien gesellschaftlich und wirtschaftspolitisch zunehmend als ein unverzichtbarer Bestandteil der Energieversorgung betrachtet werden, bleibt ihre ökonomische Relevanz fraglich. Besonders kontrovers wird dabei die Energiegewinnung aus Agrarrohstoffen diskutiert. In der Tat stehen dem aktuell geringen Anteil agrarbasierter Bioenergien im globalen Energiemix unverhältnismäßig hohe makroökonomische und soziale Kosten gegenüber. Deshalb ist es kaum überraschend, dass diese Energieart nach wie vor für ein großes Forschungsinteresse sorgt. [.]

Drawing inspiration from Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory, the present note argues that the complexity of social systems has the potential to undermine their sustainability and thus to generate social dilemmas. The conceptual construct of the 'complexity‐sustainability trade‐off' is invoked to make the point that ensuring sustainability, if at all possible, requires controlling the proliferation of systemic complexity. To some extent, this control is feasible through structural couplings that correspond to the economic concept of the internalization of externalities. If this solution falls short of meeting the sustainability goals, systemic complexity can be alternatively controlled through the dampening of systemic imperatives, which translates, at the individual level, into the weakening of incentives. Williamson's transaction cost theory of for‐profit hierarchy and Hansmann's trustworthiness theory of nonprofit organizations present cases in point.

In vielen Teilen der Welt, in Entwicklungs- wie Industrieländern, wird landwirtschaftliche und ländliche Entwicklung durch zivilgesellschaftliche Organisationen (ZGO) unterstützt. In Deutschland ist ihre Aktivität mittlerweile so hoch, dass ihnen seitens Wissenschaft und Politik gestiegener Einfluss auf den agrarpolitischen Entscheidungsprozess bescheinigt wird. Hinter ZGO stehen verschiedene freiwillige Vereinigungen von Privatpersonen, die demokratisch und nicht profitorientiert organisiert sind. Da sie weder marktwirtschaftlichen noch staatlichen Akteuren zuzuordnen sind, werden sie als dritter Sektor bezeichnet. Um die Motive und die Bedeutung der ländlichen ZGO für ein nachhaltiges Wirtschaften zu verstehen, muss man die ausgetretenen Pfade der rein ökonomischen Erklärungsansätze verlassen.

The present paper explains why social dilemmas are endemic to the regime of functional differentiation theorized by Niklas Luhmann. It is argued that within this regime, social systems combine two systems‐theoretic identities elaborated by the theories of Luhmann and Bertalanffy. Social systems are operationally closed and thus limitedly sensitive to the environment; at the same time, they are metabolically dependent on it. Social dilemmas are shown to originate from the conflict between these two identities, a conflict that occurs when social systems disregard their critical environmental dependence. An implication of the argument is that economic incentives present the individual‐level projections of systemic imperatives arising from the operational closure of the functional system of the economy. This implication informs the institutional economics analysis of social dilemmas by explaining these in terms of the excessive intensity of economic incentives that makes economic actors insensitive to their critical dependence on their environment. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The present paper draws upon the open systems perspective to identify the common systems‐theoretic core of two schools of modern economic thought, the new institutional economics and the heterodox institutionalism. This core is shown to be in the argument that the maintenance of complexity requires appropriate self‐regulatory mechanisms. While the new institutional economics focuses on the technological complexity maintained by corporate hierarchies, the heterodox institutionalism is concerned with the civilizational complexity that needs to be maintained by broader self‐regulatory institutions of the public and nonprofit sector. This argument highlights the complementary and paradoxical relationship between the concepts of transaction costs and social costs analyzed by the respective schools. Corporate hierarchies may successfully exercise their self‐regulatory role by economizing on transaction costs, yet in doing so they generate social costs that are reducible through the self‐regulatory activity of public and nonprofit institutions. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the Central Asian countries have been faced with numerous development challenges in agriculture, especially those related to water use. Well-intentioned foreign donors and development agencies have stepped in to support local farmers, research centers, and public authorities in devising innovative solutions. Yet, development aid projects have borne fruit only partially. Paradoxically, innovative and apparently useful technologies proposed by foreign donors have rarely and only partially succeeded in taking root in the local institutional contexts. To explain this paradox, this paper draws on the institutional approach which shows the possibility of technological innovations being encapsulated by dysfunctional institutions. Reviewing recent studies of water-related projects in Central Asia, the paper shows this encapsulation to be at the core of the development project failures pervasive both in the Soviet period and today. If the concept of encapsulation is valid, then the current development efforts can be made more effective by detecting and counteracting the structures of vested interest on the part of all the actors involved, such as foreign donors, public authorities, research centers and local farmers.