Suchergebnisse

At the academic level and in political practice, participatory and evidence-based political processes are increasingly recognized as mechanisms that guarantee more efficient political decisionmaking. However, no theoretical framework that allows a clear definition of participatory and evidence-based policy processes and demonstrates the positive impact of these processes on political performance is currently available. In addition, no operational approach that allows for the empirical measurement and characterization of these processes currently exists. In this context, this chapter develops the evolutionary computable general political economy equilibrium model (eCGPE) as a theoretical framework and an empirically applicable tool for defining, evaluating and designing efficient participatory and evidencebased policy processes. We further demonstrate that based on the eCGPE approach, a political diagnosis can be made (i.e., political performance gaps can be identified). Furthermore, a political therapy (i.e., a set of adequate strategies for reducing existing performance gaps) can be derived via simulation analyses that are based on the eCGPE.

In this paper, the mechanisms of climate change impacts on the incidence of civil conflict are tested separately in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) compared to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) for the period 1981 to 2015. We draw several conclusions: (i) Climate has a significant impact on economic development, through economic growth rate in the MENA, and food production in SSA. (ii) Economic growth rate and food production index are significant indicators for social stability reduce the risk of civil conflict, in SSA and MENA, respectively. (iii) A direct impact of climate change on civil conflict is identified. (iv) Conflict in the previous year increases the probability of civil conflict in SSA by 0.30 pp, and in the MENA by 0.50 pp. Moreover, as the type of political system and accountability are important control variables in SSA, water availability reduces the risks of conflict in the MENA region. However, there appears to be evidence of different mechanisms in different regions. However, the identification of stable mechanisms needs to be precisely addressed in future work.