Suchergebnisse

The auto industry provides a useful focus for examining the changing nature of employment relations around the world as new production systems are introduced. This article summarizes the results of an international project which analyzed the diffusion of lean production and associated employment patterns in different national contexts. It was found that despite the widespread application of lean production principles, significant variation existed in the way that management and unions adapted to change. There is a need to comprehend both the role of national institutions and local practices in the choices which parties make at the workplace level. These factors are significant in shaping employment relations in the auto industry despite the pervasive influence of new production systems. (Economic and Industrial Democracy / FUB)

This is the final version. Available on open access from MDPI via the DOI in this record ; Although the effects of public austerity have been the subject of a significant literature in recent years, the changing role of the state as a partner in collaborative environmental governance under austerity has received less attention. By employing theories of collaborative governance and state retreat, this paper used a qualitative research design comprised of thirty-two semi-structured interviews within the case study UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in the United Kingdom to address this lacuna. Participants perceived that the austerity period has precipitated negative changes to their extant state-orientated funding regime, which had compelled changes to their organisational structure. Austerity damaged their relationships with the state and perceptions of state legitimacy whilst simultaneously strengthening and straining the relationships between intra-partnership non-state governance actors. This case offers a critical contemporary reflection on normative collaborative environmental governance theory under austerity programmes. These open up questions about the role of the state in wider sustainability transitions. ; United Kingdom Food and Environment Research Agency

This is the final version. Available on open access from MDPI via the DOI in this record ; Tackling diffuse pollution from agriculture is a key challenge for governments seeking to implement the European Union's Water Framework Directive (WFD). In the research literature, how best to integrate and align effective measures for tackling diffuse pollution, within the context of the EU's multilevel governance structure, remains an open question. This paper focuses on the first and second implementation cycles of the WFD to explore how national governance arrangements either facilitated or hindered the adoption of effective policies, especially with regards to the delivery of agricultural and water policies on the ground. It draws on data collected through systematic document analysis and interviews with key experts, policymakers and interest groups, and presents a comparative analysis of two case studies: England and Scotland. The case studies show that Scotland's joined-up governance structure, which enabled policymakers and interest groups to work together and to build trust and cooperation, facilitated the adoption of stricter measures for tackling diffuse pollution. In contrast, in England institutional fragmentation prevented a meaningful engagement of all parties and acted as a barrier. The analysis unpacks the design of policy mixes and the conditions that allow national governments to pursue more holistic and integrated governance approaches to overcome opposition from interest groups and gain their support.

Integration of relatively new policy tasks like climate adaptation into established higher-level policy field is insufficiently understood in the academic literature. This paper proposes a framework to evaluate the integration of climate adaptation into the sectoral policy-making of the European Commission, particularly following the publication of the EU Adaptation Strategy (in 2013). The paper uses a framework of micro, meso and macro-level institutional behaviour drawing strongly on new institutionalism perspectives to identify and explain factors enabling and hindering policy integration. It focuses on integration in the coastal and marine policy sector, which is expected to be particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts, and draws from data collected through systemic document review and interviews with key informants. The findings show that integration of climate adaptation is still at an early stage. The integration process appears to be largely dependent on institutional dynamics at the EU-level combined with how member states and wider sectoral stakeholders engage with adaptation concerns. In particular ambivalence of some member states and a lack of urgency among sectoral stakeholders has hampered the integration of adaptation goals.

This is the final version. Available on open access from MDPI via the DOI in this record ; Climate change adaptation (CCA) is argued to require coordinated policy responses because it is a complex, long-term, knowledge intensive, cross-sectoral, and multi-level governance challenge that involves many interdependencies and actors with different perceptions, goals, and approaches. This study, therefore, examines approaches of a set of European Union (EU) member states (Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom (England)) to pursue a more coordinated approach to CCA policy. It specifically addresses the co-ordination approaches that the selected countries use for the development and implementation of their national CCA policies in the immediate period following the publication of the EU's 2013 Adaptation Strategy. The analysis demonstrates that while useful coordination processes have been established in the analyzed EU member states, they have difficulty in challenging existing institutional hierarchies and decision rules. Consequently, longer-term opportunities for managing CCA conflicts and synergies among sectoral policies have to date been limited. ; European Union FP7