Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Dilemmas and Trade-Offs in Peacemaking: A Framework for Navigating Difficult Decisions
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2234
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2234
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 4
Pages: 331-342
Author-Name: Anne Isabel Kraus
Author-Workplace-Name: Center for Peace Mediation, Europa-Universität Viadrina, Germany
Author-Name: Owen Frazer
Author-Workplace-Name: Center for Security Studies, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Author-Name: Lars Kirchhoff
Author-Workplace-Name: Center for Peace Mediation, Europa-Universität Viadrina, Germany
Author-Name: Tatiana Kyselova
Author-Workplace-Name: Mediation and Dialogue Research Center, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Ukraine
Author-Name: Simon J. A. Mason
Author-Workplace-Name: Center for Security Studies, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Author-Name: Julia Palmiano Federer
Author-Workplace-Name: Swisspeace, University of Basel, Switzerland
Abstract: This article focuses on the dilemmas and trade-offs that third parties face when mediating violent political conflicts. Should they ignore human rights violations because pushing the issue could jeopardize relationships with political actors who grant access for humanitarian aid? Will bringing moderates and hardliners together help the peace process or radicalize moderate actors? What should dialogue facilitators do when the act of identifying non-mainstream groups to be included into dialogue increases division and polarization? The activity of peacemaking is inherently characterized by such process and strategy dilemmas where two equally compulsory imperatives seem not to be attainable at the same time. The article proposes a framework to break out of either-or thinking in these situations. We argue that: 1) making oneself aware of how a decision is perceived, and 2) systematically exploring a set of different strategies for creating new unexpected options helps to ease these decisions and avoid rotten compromises. The model reworks and combines existing problem-solving strategies to create a new explorative option generation approach to peacemaking dilemmas and trade-offs. Some of these strategies, such as sequencing and incrementalization, are already well-established in peacemaking. Others, such as compartmentalization and utilization, are rather unconsciously used. All identified strategies, however, are not yet systematically employed to manage third parties’ own dilemmas and trade-offs. Under the suggested framework, these strategies can act in complement to synthesize creativity and strategic thinking with surprising ease. Using examples from the authors’ peacemaking activities and observations in Myanmar, Thailand, and Ukraine, the article demonstrates the real-world benefits of the framework in terms of decision assessment and optional thinking.
Keywords: decision-making; human rights; mediation; peacemaking; peace process
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:4:p:331-342

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Identifying Profiles of Democracies: A Cluster Analysis Based on the Democracy Matrix Dataset from 1900 to 2017
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2244
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2244
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 4
Pages: 315-330
Author-Name: Oliver Schlenkrich
Author-Workplace-Name: Chair of Comparative Politics and German Government, University of Wuerzburg, Germany
Abstract: This study examines types of democracies that result from trade-offs within the democratic quality. Recently, the existence and relevance of trade-offs has been widely discussed. The idea is that the functions associated with the quality of democracy cannot all be maximized simultaneously. Thus, trade-offs are expressed in distinct profiles of democracy. Different profiles of democracy favour certain democracy dimensions over others due to their institutional design. Conceptually, we differentiate between four different democracy profiles: a libertarian-majoritarian (high political freedom, lower political equality, and lower political and legal control values), an egalitarian-majoritarian (high equality combined with lower freedom and control values), as well as two control-focused democracy profiles (high control values either with high degrees of freedom or high degrees of equality). We apply a cluster analysis with a focus on cluster validation on the Democracy Matrix dataset—a customized version of the Varieties-of-Democracy dataset. To increase the robustness of the cluster results, this study uses several different cluster algorithms, multiple fit indices as well as data resampling techniques. Based on all democracies between 1900 and 2017, we find strong empirical evidence for these democracy profiles. Finally, we discuss the temporal development and spatial distribution of the democracy profiles globally across the three waves of democracy, as well as for individual countries.
Keywords: cluster analysis; democracy; democracy profiles; quality of democracy; trade-offs
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:4:p:315-330

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Associations between the Mixture of Governance Modes and the Performance of Local Public Service Delivery
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2218
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2218
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 4
Pages: 301-314
Author-Name: Yin Lei Win Swe
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Applied Economics, Yangon University of Economics, Myanmar
Author-Name: Seunghoo Lim
Author-Workplace-Name: Public Management and Policy Analysis Program, Graduate School of International Relations, International University of Japan, Japan
Abstract: Since the Myanmar central government decentralized some of its power to state and regional governments, few studies investigated the performance of local governments, and no studies investigated the relationships between the types of governance modes and the performance of public service delivery. This study investigates the associations between three types of governance—i.e., hierarchy, market, and network—and the multiple performances of agricultural services in terms of the competing public values of efficiency, effectiveness and equity in southern Shan State. The findings indicate that the three types of governance simultaneously coexist in local agriculture departments and that their associations with the performances of public services differ. Network governance is negatively associated with efficiency, effectiveness, and equity during its initial stage, but these associations become positive when the degree of network governance increases in agriculture departments. In contrast, market governance is positively related to effectiveness and equity during its initial stage; however, increasing the degree of market governance further leads to a negative association with both public service values. This assessment of the performance of public programmes in terms of the trade-offs among public service values contributes to improving the local governance of public service delivery not only in Myanmar but also in other developing countries.
Keywords: agricultural services; governance modes; Myanmar; network governance; policy tools; public service
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:4:p:301-314

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Free Trade versus Democracy and Social Standards in the European Union: Trade-Offs or Trilemma?
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2272
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2272
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 4
Pages: 291-300
Author-Name: Claudia Wiesner
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Social and Cultural Sciences, Fulda University of Applied Sciences, Germany
Abstract: This article aims at conceptualising, in analytical as well as normative-theoretical terms, the tensions between free trade, democratic and social standards, and national sovereignty that are named in Dani Rodrik´s “globalisation trilemma” for the case of the European Union (EU). It is argued that the trilemma concept is much more fitting to the EU than a simple trade-off concept. This model offers a conceptual path to both analysing existing tensions and thinking of resolving them: a) the EU has, indeed, been intervening into national democracies and national sovereignty as its legislation is superior to national legislation; b) EU legislation and judgements of the Court of Justice of the EU have been reducing national social standards; c) executives and numerous new institutions and agencies with indirect legitimation have taken over competencies that formerly lay in the domain of national directly legitimated legislatives; and d) these negative effects relate to the EU’s giving preference to the liberalisation of free trade of capital, goods and services over democracy, social standards, and national sovereignty. Against the framework of the globalisation trilemma, analysis is combined with normative-theoretical judgements on the quality democracy of the setting that has been found and a conceptual discussion. The article concludes by discussing the perspectives of the setting examined and the possible paths to solutions, arguing that in order to keep a high level of economic integration, democracy, and social standards in the EU, national sovereignty needs to give way.
Keywords: democracy; European Union; free trade; globalisation trilemma; social standards
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:4:p:291-300

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Globalization and Modern Slavery
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2233
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2233
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 4
Pages: 275-290
Author-Name: Todd Landman
Author-Workplace-Name: School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham, UK
Author-Name: Bernard W. Silverman
Author-Workplace-Name: School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham, UK
Abstract: This article presents a cross-national comparative analysis of the relationship between different dimensions of globalization and modern slavery. It argues that both the economic and political dimensions of globalization are strongly associated with lower levels of slavery prevalence. Recent estimates suggest there are more than 40 million people in some form of slavery and the United Nations has committed the world to ending this problem by 2030. Some argue that a race to the bottom, and the structure of economic incentives associated with globalization have contributed to the problem of modern slavery. Others argue that increased openness and the diffusion of values, the spread of democratic forms of rule, and the advance of human rights that come with globalization limit modern slavery. This article presents a preliminary empirical analysis of these arguments using data on slavery prevalence across more than 60 countries and various measures of economic and political globalization. The analysis shows that economic measures of globalization and higher levels of democracy are significantly related to lower levels of slavery prevalence, even after controlling for armed conflict and regional differentiation. In order to support these findings, the article examines the international law on slavery, definitions and conceptions of modern slavery, and comparative data on slavery prevalence modeled across indicators of economic and political globalization. It concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for the trade-offs between globalization and modern slavery.
Keywords: armed conflict; economic development; forced labour; globalization; human rights; modern slavery; worker rights protection
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:4:p:275-290

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: The Theory of Democratic Antinomies and the Identification of Value Trade-Offs in Political Practice
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2243
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2243
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 4
Pages: 264-274
Author-Name: Oliver Hidalgo
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Political Science, University of Münster, Germany
Abstract: In theory, the idea of democracy consists of several insoluble contradictions, aporias, and conflicts. In practice, democracy demands an effective balancing of its essentially opposing principles and values in order to preserve an authentic character as well as to avoid its inherent self-destructive tendencies. In this regard, the concept of value trade-offs promises a heuristic tool to grasp both the analytical and normative impact of a political theory which takes the complexity of democracy seriously. Proceeding from this, the contribution will demonstrate to what extent the conceptualisation of democratic antinomies and the notion of value trade-offs can be seen as a kind of communicating vessel. The article’s general argument is that democracy is defined by several antinomies that are irreducible in theory and therefore require trade-offs in political practice. Moreover, it will discuss three relevant issue areas to suggest the approach’s empirical relevance and to prove the existence of value trade-offs as an operating benchmark for the legitimacy and consolidation of democratic processes on the one hand but also for their shortcomings and risks on the other. Correspondingly, the article concerns the antinomic relationships between freedom and security, economic growth and sustainability, and finally, democracy and populism to underpin the general perception that the success of democratic institutions first and foremost depends on the balance of the necessarily conflicting principles of democracy.
Keywords: antinomies; democracy; economic growth; freedom; populism; security; sustainability; value trade-offs
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:4:p:264-274

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Governing Trade-Offs and Building Coherence in Policy-Making for the 2030 Agenda
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2229
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2229
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 4
Pages: 254-263
Author-Name: Måns Nilsson
Author-Workplace-Name: Stockholm Environment Institute, Sweden / 
Department of Sustainable Development, Environmental Science and Engineering, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
Author-Name: Nina Weitz
Author-Workplace-Name: Stockholm Environment Institute, Sweden
Abstract: This article introduces a suggested comprehensive framework for identifying, assessing and governing trade-offs and enhancing coherence in public policy decision-making. The framework is based on a simple three-stage model of policy-making: understanding policy interactions (input), integrating policy-making (process), and assessing <em>ex ante</em> policy decisions (output). The first stage is tackled with an interactions assessment framework, identifying how different sectors or ministries relate to each other in terms of their respective objectives, and on what topics negotiations are required to manage trade-offs. The second stage draws on approaches and experiences in environmental policy integration. It focuses on institutional procedures, structures and rules that enable integrated policy-making processes. The third stage draws on the longer-standing policy-analytical field of impact assessment applied to sustainable development. The article discusses the conceptual and theoretical foundations of each stage, as well as practical policy experiences. Discussing this in the context of 2030 Agenda implementation, the article suggests how trade-offs and policy coherence can be better governed using adapted policy-analytic methods and approaches.
Keywords: 2030 agenda; cross-impact analysis; decision-making; environmental policy integration; impact assessment; policy analysis; policy coherence; sustainable development goals
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:4:p:254-263

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Designing Democratic Constitutions: The Search for Optimality
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2239
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2239
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 4
Pages: 243-253
Author-Name: Steffen Ganghof
Author-Workplace-Name: Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, University of Potsdam, Germany
Abstract: This article analyses salient trade-offs in the design of democracy. It grounds this analysis in a distinction between two basic models of democracy: simple and complex majoritarianism. These models differ not only in their electoral and party systems, but also in the style of coalition-building. Simple majoritarianism concentrates executive power in a single majority party; complex majoritarianism envisions the formation of shifting, issue-specific coalitions among multiple parties whose programs differ across multiple conflict dimensions. The latter pattern of coalition formation is very difficult to create and sustain under pure parliamentary government. A separation of powers between executive and legislature can facilitate such a pattern, while also achieving central goals of simple majoritarianism: identifiable cabinet alternatives before the election and stable cabinets afterward. The separation of powers can thus balance simple and complex majoritarianism in ways that are unavailable under parliamentarism. The article also compares the presidential and semi-parliamentary versions of the separation of powers. It argues that the latter has important advantages, e.g., when it comes to resolving inter-branch deadlock, as it avoids the concentration of executive power in a single human being.
Keywords: electoral systems; parliamentary government; presidential government; semi-parliamentary government
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:4:p:243-253

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Political Trade-Offs: Democracy and Governance in a Changing World
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2642
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2642
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 4
Pages: 237-242
Author-Name: Todd Landman
Author-Workplace-Name: School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham, UK
Author-Name: Hans-Joachim Lauth
Author-Workplace-Name: Chair of Comparative Politics and German Government, University of Wuerzburg, Germany
Abstract: The investigation of trade-offs in political science receives only limited attention, although many scholars acknowledge the importance of trade-offs across a variety of different areas. A systematic and comprehensive examination of the topic is missing. This thematic issue of <em>Politics and Governance</em> sheds light on this research deficit by providing a holistic but also an integrative view on trade-offs in the political realm for the first time. Researchers of trade-offs from different political areas present and discuss their findings, and promote a fruitful exchange, which overcomes the current isolation of the approaches. They consider the theoretical and methodological questions as well as the identification of empirical trade-offs. Furthermore, they provide insights into the possibility to balance trade-offs and strategies, which could help actors to find such compromises.
Keywords: balancing trade-offs; constructed trade-offs; logical trade-offs; trade-offs
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:4:p:237-242

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Making Taste Public: Industrialized Orders of Sensing and the Democratic Potential of Experimental Eating
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2215
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2215
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 4
Pages: 224-236
Author-Name: Jan-Peter Voß
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Sociology, Technische Universität Berlin, Germany
Author-Name: Michael Guggenheim
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK
Abstract: Existing discussions of food democracy focus on people’s freedom to choose healthy, sustainable, or otherwise ‘good’ foods. Such foods are supposed to be unrestrained by oligopolistic structures of food supply, economic inequality, misinformation, or the misleading lobbying campaigns of the food industry. Our article aims to broaden the discussion about food democracy: focusing on people’s freedom to choose the food they want, but also on people’s freedom to engage with what they eat and how they want to eat it. This thematizes collective orders of sensing and, more specifically, taste. Based on pragmatist and praxeological studies we pose that tasting food is a matter of historically grown collective practices. In a second step, we assert that the reflexive shaping of such practices is currently dominated by the food industry and related forms of sensory science. Democratizing taste is a matter of people’s capacity to self-govern how they experience and enjoy food. To this end, we suggest the approach of ‘experimental eating’ as a way to question and reflexively engage with embodied forms of tasting. We report on the development of methods that, in a next step, are to be combined for a participatory exhibition inviting people to experimentally reconfigure their habitual tasting practices and experience agency in matters of shaping taste. The exhibition makes taste public by demonstrating the construction of sensory experience in eating practices. It positions taste as a collective issue which every human being can experiment with—and thus to contest the governance of taste as currently exercised by industrial corporations and scientific experts.
Keywords: eating sociology; experimental eating; food democracy; food studies; sensory studies; taste
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:4:p:224-236

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: The Role of Knowledge in Food Democracy
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2084
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2084
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 4
Pages: 214-223
Author-Name: Camilla Adelle
Author-Workplace-Name: Centre of Excellence for Food Security, University of Pretoria, South Africa / Centre for the Study of Governance Innovation, University of Pretoria, South Africa
Abstract: If food democracy is about who gets to determine the food that we eat and the character of the underlying food system, then we must examine not only who gets to make decisions that impact on food but also on what evidence, or knowledge, these decisions are made. This article argues that widening the democratic scope of knowledge on which our decisions on food are based is an essential component of food democracy. Food democracies do not just call for citizens to be knowledgeable about the food system but for all stakeholders to actively contribute to the holistic understanding of the food system. Four dimensions of knowledge democracy are set out: The co-production of knowledge with stakeholders; harnessing non-cognitive knowledge represented in arts and culture; knowledge as a tool for action; and the open access and sharing of knowledge. This framework is then used to explore how knowledge is currently already produced and used in a way that enhances food democracy, including through Participatory Action Research with peasant farmers, using the arts to create a ‘contemplative commons’ about food and the unique dialogue process through which the social movement <em>La Vía Campesina</em> operates. Based on these, and other, examples the article concludes that universities, and other recognized centres of knowledge production, need to focus not only on creating new knowledge partnerships but also on finding spaces to challenge and shift accepted ways of knowing in order to better promote food democracy.
Keywords: cognitive justice; community of practice; food democracy; food security; food sovereignty; indigenous knowledge; knowledge; knowledge democracy
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:4:p:214-223

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Food Democracy as ‘Radical’ Food Sovereignty: Agrarian Democracy and Counter-Hegemonic Resistance to the Neo-Imperial Food Regime
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2091
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2091
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 4
Pages: 202-213
Author-Name: Mark Tilzey
Author-Workplace-Name: Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience, Coventry University, UK
Abstract: This article argues that a thoroughgoing and meaningful food democracy should entail something closely akin to ‘radical’ food sovereignty, a political programme which confronts the key social relational bases of capitalism. The latter comprise, in essence, ‘primitive accumulation,’ the alienability or commodification of land and other fundamental use values, and market dependence. A thoroughgoing food democracy of this kind thus challenges the structural separation of the ‘economic’ and ‘political’ spheres within capitalism and the modern state (the state-capital nexus), a separation which enables purely political rights and obligations (‘political’ freedom or formal democracy) whilst simultaneously leaving unconstrained the economic powers of capital and their operation through market dependence (‘economic’ unfreedom or the lack of substantive democracy). We argue that much ‘food democracy’ discourse remains confined to this level of ‘political’ freedom and that, if food sovereignty is to be realized, this movement needs to address ‘economic’ unfreedom, in other words, to subvert capitalist social-property relations. We argue further that the political economy of food constitutes but a subset of these wider social relations, such that substantive food democracy is seen here to entail, like ‘radical’ food sovereignty, an abrogation of the three pillars upholding capitalism (primitive accumulation, absolute property rights, market dependence) as an intrinsic part of a wider and more integrated movement towards <em>livelihood</em> sovereignty. We argue here that the abrogation of these conditions upholding the state-capital nexus constitutes an essential part of the transformation of capitalist social-property relations towards common ‘ownership’―or, better, stewardship―of the means of livelihood, of which substantive food democracy is a key component.
Keywords: agrarian democracy; counter-hegemony; food democracy; food sovereignty
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:4:p:202-213

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Food Citizenship and Governmentality: Neo-Communitarian Food Governance in The Hague
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2192
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2192
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 4
Pages: 190-201
Author-Name: Shivant Jhagroe
Author-Workplace-Name: Leiden University, The Netherlands
Abstract: This article presents an account of food citizenship based on a governmentality framework. Moving beyond the dichotomy of democratic or neoliberal accounts of food citizenship, a food governmentality framework is presented. This Foucaultian inspired framework conceptualises food citizenship as identity formation in relation to various modes of power that govern food systems and subjects in significantly different ways. The article empirically illustrates how food citizenship relates to food governmentality by focussing on the food-related activities of a Transition Town initiative in the Netherlands (The Hague) called <em>Den Haag In Transitie </em>(DHIT). By defining food as a community issue, and employing holistic-spiritual and collaborative knowledge, food citizens in the DHIT case render sustainable food systems governable in radically new ways. I argue that this type of citizenship can be considered <em>neo-communitarian</em> food citizenship and moves beyond democratic or neoliberal accounts. Finally, the article reflects on neo-communitarian citizenship and argues for a nuanced understanding of food citizenship, moving away from either democratic romanticism or neoliberal criticism.
Keywords: food citizenship; food democracy; governmentality; neoliberalism; Transition Towns
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:4:p:190-201

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Land Investments, Food Systems Change and Democracy in Kenya and Mozambique
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2101
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2101
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 4
Pages: 178-189
Author-Name: Koen Dekeyser
Author-Workplace-Name: DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Food Security and Centre for the Study of Governance Innovation, University of Pretoria, South Africa
Abstract: In Africa, food systems intersect with dynamics such as demographic growth, urbanisation, and climate change, as African food systems are key drivers of livelihood provision, development, and human-environment interactions. The governance of African food systems shapes how food systems are changing as a response to these dynamics, which will have important social, economic, and ecological impacts for generations of Africans. This article positions large land investments in food system changes in central Kenya and northern Mozambique based on a large-scale household survey and interviews, and uses these findings to debate the concept of food democracy. Large land investments contributed to more modern food systems, which impacted land availability, household’s engagement in agriculture, and supply chains. These changes shifted power and control in local food systems. But even in the ‘extreme’ example of land investments, local perspectives challenge what could, and could not, be included in a democratic food system.
Keywords: food democracy; food systems; Kenya; land investments; large agricultural investments; Mozambique
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:4:p:178-189

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Conflicts over GMOs and their Contribution to Food Democracy
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2082
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2082
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 4
Pages: 165-177
Author-Name: Beate Friedrich
Author-Workplace-Name: Institute of Sustainability Governance, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany
Author-Name: Sarah Hackfort
Author-Workplace-Name: IZT—Institute for Future Studies and Technology Assessment, Germany
Author-Name: Miriam Boyer
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Agriculture and Food Policy, Faculty of Life Sciences, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany
Author-Name: Daniela Gottschlich
Author-Workplace-Name: Institute for Diversity, Nature, Gender and Sustainability, Germany
Abstract: The use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) embodies a specific vision of agricultural systems that is highly controversial. The article focuses on how conflicts over GMOs contribute towards food democracy. Food democracy is defined as the possibility for all social groups to participate in, negotiate and struggle over how societies organize agricultural production, thereby ensuring that food systems fulfil the needs of people and sustain (re)productive nature into the future. EU agricultural policy envisages the coexistence of agricultural and food systems with and without GMOs. This policy, which on the surface appears to be a means of avoiding conflict, has in fact exacerbated conflict, while creating obstacles to the development of food democracy. By contrast, empirical analysis of movements against GMOs in Germany and Poland shows how they create pathways towards participation in the food system and the creation of alternative agricultural futures, thereby contributing to a democratization of food systems and thus of society–nature relations. Today, as products of new breeding techniques such as genome editing are being released, these movements are gaining new relevance.
Keywords: agriculture; conflicts; food democracy; genetically modified organisms; new breeding techniques; social ecology; social movements; society–nature relations
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:4:p:165-177

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Building London’s Food Democracy: Assessing the Contributions of Urban Agriculture to Local Food Decision-Making
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2079
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2079
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 4
Pages: 154-164
Author-Name: Alban Hasson
Author-Workplace-Name: The Bartlett Development Planning Unit, University College London, UK
Abstract: This article presents the contributions of Urban Agriculture practitioners in establishing the local food movement and the foundations of an active food democracy in London. It argues that food democracy is emerging from a set of contestations within institutional channels, but also through the historical struggle of formulating the dominating political discourses, both of which are co-constituted through specific social and political practices. Webster and Engberg-Pedersen’s political space framework (2002) breaks up this article in order to describe: 1) How specific institutional channels form different strategies of collaboration and contestation; 2) how these are reflected in political discourses evolution; and 3) what dilemmas and opportunities this evolution in practice entails in relation to responsibilisation and its influence on the possibility of establishing true active food democracy in London.
Keywords: allotments; community food projects; food democracy; political space; responsibilisation; urban agriculture
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:4:p:154-164

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Food Democracy for All? Developing a Food Hub in the Context of Socio-Economic Deprivation
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2057
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2057
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 4
Pages: 142-153
Author-Name: Sebastian Prost
Author-Workplace-Name: Open Lab, School of Architecture Planning and Landscape, Newcastle University, UK
Abstract: This article proposes a localised and differentiated understanding of food democracy, or rather a plurality of localised food democracies. Based on the experiences of developing a local food hub in an area of socio-economic deprivation in the UK using a participatory action research (PAR) approach, it presents local responses to three key challenges derived from the literature. It argues that for civic food networks (CFNs) to contribute to a transition towards a food democracy, they need to address challenges of: 1) balancing ethical aspirations for environmental sustainability, social justice, as well as community and individual health; 2) developing the skills required for participation in CFNs; and 3) achieving wider impact on food system transformation beyond niche solutions. The responses, or tactics, presented in this article include flexible ethical standards responding to community needs, accessible participation focusing on relationships rather than skills, and a focus on local impact while striving to collaborate and network with other organisations. It thus frames food democracy as a plurality of approaches to build and replicate CFNs. The article positions PAR with its democratic and localised approach to address real-world problems as uniquely suited to navigate the challenges of CFNs. It also discusses the role of researchers in initiating, facilitating, and shaping such processes of food system democratisation as engaged actors.
Keywords: civic food networks; food democracy; food hubs; participatory action research; social justice; sustainability
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:4:p:142-153

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Food Activism and Citizens’ Democratic Engagements: What Can We Learn from Market-Based Political Participation?
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2072
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2072
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 4
Pages: 131-141
Author-Name: Jasmine Lorenzini
Author-Workplace-Name: Institute of Citizenship Studies, University of Geneva, Switzerland
Abstract: Food democracy calls for a democratization of the production, distribution, and consumption of food. Researchers and lay citizens are showing a growing interest for initiatives associated with food democracy, yet the specific democratic ideals and involvements that make up food democracy have gained limited attention. Many forms of participation associated with food democracy are market-based, such as buying organic food or joining community-supported agricultural projects. Research shows that market-based logics influence multiple spheres of life and threaten democratic ideals. However, scholars working on political participation have not yet analyzed the influence of market-based logics across forms of participation. This article analyses the action repertoire of food democracy to assess the influence of market-based logics on different forms of food activism. It builds on four critiques of market-based politics to question the relationship between different forms of participation and the market. It addresses three research questions: Which forms of political participation do citizens use to democratize the food regime? Which conceptions of democracy relate to these different forms of food activism? Which critiques of market-based politics apply to different forms of food activism? The article highlights the widespread risk of unequal participation, crowding out, commodification, and state retreat across forms of participation used to democratize food regimes. This study provides insights into the types of democratic renewal being experimented with in the framework of food democracy as well as their limits.
Keywords: food activism; food democracy; institutional politics; political participation; protest politics
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:4:p:131-141

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: How Shall We Judge Agri-Food Governance? Legitimacy Constructions in Food Democracy and Co-Regulation Discourses
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2087
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2087
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 4
Pages: 119-130
Author-Name: Julia Behringer
Author-Workplace-Name: Thaer Institute of Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences, Humboldt University at Berlin, Germany
Author-Name: Peter H. Feindt
Author-Workplace-Name: Thaer Institute of Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences, Humboldt University at Berlin, Germany
Abstract: The food democracy discourse has emerged as a normatively grounded critique of an increasingly transnational agri-food system and its dominant co-regulatory mode of governance, where private and public norms and standards interact with public policy and regulation in complex ways. Analyzing competing agri-food discourses through a legitimacy lens can contribute to understanding how authority is transferred from traditional, hierarchical and state-centered constellations to a range of novel agri-food governance arrangements. This article reconstructs and compares the legitimacy constructions articulated in the co-regulation and the food democracy discourses, generating three key findings: first, there are two distinct articulations of food democracy discourse, which we label liberal and strong food democracy; second, while conceptualizations of legitimacy in the liberal food democracy and the co-regulatory discourse share many commonalities, legitimacy in the co-regulatory discourse relies more heavily on output, while the liberal food democracy discourse is more sensitive to issues of input and throughput legitimacy; third, the strong food democracy discourse articulates a critical counter-model that emphasizes inclusive deliberation which in turn is expected to generate a shared orientation towards the common good and countervailing power.
Keywords: agri-food governance; co-regulation; discourse; food democracy; governance; legitimacy; participation
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:4:p:119-130

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Empowering People—Democratising the Food System? Exploring the Democratic Potential of Food-Related Empowerment Forms
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2190
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2190
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 4
Pages: 105-118
Author-Name: Basil Bornemann
Author-Workplace-Name: Sustainability Research Group, Department of Social Sciences, University of Basel, Switzerland
Author-Name: Sabine Weiland
Author-Workplace-Name: European School of Political and Social Sciences, Université Catholique de Lille, France
Abstract: The current food system, characterised by considerable concentrations of economic and political power, is widely regarded as undemocratic and in many respects unsustainable in its outcomes. To address the democratic deficits in the food system, empowerment has become a central claim and point of reference for actors seeking to transform the system. In fact, numerous venues and practices have emerged in recent years to develop people’s capacities to engage with food issues. These range from local food initiatives and health-food movements to food policy councils and government education policies. This article takes a closer look at the theory and practice of democratic empowerment in the food system. It explores whether and how different forms of food-related empowerment have the potential to improve the democratic quality of the food system. Based on a broad analytical understanding of empowerment that is combined with a notion of power-based complex democracy, it is argued that different forms of food-related empowerment promote the development of different types of power, which in turn are constitutive for different functions of the democratic process. From this perspective, the challenge of democratising the food system lies in linking different complementary empowerment practices into functioning configurations of complex democratic governance.
Keywords: complex democracy; empowerment; food democracy; food policy; food policy councils; government food education; local food movements; plant-based diet
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:4:p:105-118

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Anti-Democratic Tenets? Behavioural-Economic Imaginaries of a Future Food System
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2216
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2216
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 4
Pages: 94-104
Author-Name: Tobias Gumbert
Author-Workplace-Name: Institute of Political Science, University of Münster, Germany
Abstract: This article makes the central argument that basic democratic values such as justice, autonomy and participation run the risk of being neglected when designing ‘nudges’ (i.e., indirect suggestions to influence individual behaviour) for sustainable behaviour change in the context of food governance, potentially complicating a democratisation of the food system. ‘Nudges’ uphold freedom of choice while simultaneously advocating a non-coercive soft force of paternalism to help people realise their preferences, maximise societal well-being and meet macro-sustainability goals. While the promises of the ‘nudge’ approach are widely echoed, nudging is also being contested because of its possible anti-democratic effects, such as individualisation, depoliticization and the emphasis of the status of citizens as ‘consumer-citizens.’ From a food democracy perspective, these dangers may undermine efforts to organise collective political action and impede alternative visions of a future food system. Empirically, the article examines specifically how behavioural-economic approaches imagine transitions to a more sustainable food system. By using the “COOP Supermarket of the Future” as a case study, the following analysis will illustrate how private actors are increasingly involved in steering consumer choice towards socially desirable actions. The analysis suggests that the design of choice environments may under specific circumstances increase the susceptibility of individuals to the influence of corporate preferences and simultaneously decrease the prospects for democratic legitimation and decision-making. The article therefore critically assesses whether reforming the food system by altering consumers’ choice-sets and the attribution of personal responsibility, may in fact point towards implicit anti-democratic tenets underlying the ‘will to nudge’ citizens.
Keywords: behaviour change; food choice; food democracy; nudging; responsibilisation; sustainable consumption
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:4:p:94-104

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Collective Agency in the Making: How Social Innovations in the Food System Practice Democracy beyond Consumption
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2111
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2111
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 4
Pages: 81-93
Author-Name: Paula Fernandez-Wulff
Author-Workplace-Name: Center for Philosophy of Law, Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium
Abstract: As the deleterious impacts of conventional food systems on areas including public health, environmental sustainability, and farmers’ livelihoods are progressively unveiled, citizen-led initiatives have ubiquitously sprouted, collectively building what is now known as the alternative food system. Despite recent academic interest in the role of alternative food initiatives in countering a narrow view of democracy based on market-based purchasing power, little attention has been paid to a specific democratizing feature that allows for collective expression beyond consumption, that of collective agency. This article argues that it is precisely by focusing on collective agency as the driving force for food systems’ change that we can recognize the diverse contributions of social innovations to the democratization of food systems. By engaging with the reasonings of consumer sovereignty proponents, building on academic literature on the concept of collective agency, and drawing from empirical work with over a hundred local social innovations of the global North, this article proposes an agency typology that allows for parsing out its different dimensions, highlighting social innovations’ key role as agency enablers and agents of change in the democratization of food systems.
Keywords: alternative food systems; collective agency; food democracy; social innovations
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:4:p:81-93

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Food Democracy from the Top Down? State-Driven Participation Processes for Local Food System Transformations towards Sustainability
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2089
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2089
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 4
Pages: 68-80
Author-Name: Jana Baldy
Author-Workplace-Name: Chair of Forest and Environmental Policy, University of Freiburg, Germany
Author-Name: Sylvia Kruse
Author-Workplace-Name: Chair of Forest and Environmental Policy, University of Freiburg, Germany
Abstract: Food democracy is a concept with growing influence in food policy research. It involves citizens regaining democratic control of the food system and enabling its sustainable transformation. In focusing mainly on civil society initiatives, food democracy research has so far neglected the potential of state-driven food-related participation processes. We base our study on qualitative interviews with local stakeholders in two smaller cities in southern Germany where the city administration and city council initiated participatory processes. The study aims to understand how local actors are framing state-driven participation processes concerning sustainable local food system transformation along key dimensions of food democracy. We identify eight categories that conceptually constitute food democracy: mutual knowledge exchange; legitimacy and credibility of knowledge claims; transparent processes for deliberating ideas; shared language for sharing ideas; expectations of and experience with efficacy; role model function of municipalities; raising awareness; and motivation and justification of the normative orientation. Furthermore, the empirical analysis shows that state actors can have important roles in food-related participation processes as potential initiators, shapers and implementers depending on how they interact with local food-related actors and how they design and coordinate food system transformation processes. This suggests that food democracy research should not necessarily conceptualize state actors, local entrepreneurs and citizens as opponents, but rather, should reconsider how these various actors can drive food democracy and citizenship in a supportive and coordinated way.
Keywords: food democracy; food policy; local food systems; participation; state actors; sustainability
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:4:p:68-80

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: How Civil Servants Frame Participation: Balancing Municipal Responsibility With Citizen Initiative in Ede’s Food Policy
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2078
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2078
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 4
Pages: 59-67
Author-Name: Joëlla van de Griend
Author-Workplace-Name: Rural Sociology Group, Wageningen University, The Netherlands
Author-Name: Jessica Duncan
Author-Workplace-Name: Rural Sociology Group, Wageningen University, The Netherlands
Author-Name: Johannes S. C. Wiskerke
Author-Workplace-Name: Rural Sociology Group, Wageningen University, The Netherlands
Abstract: Contemporary governance is marked by increased attention for participation of non-governmental actors (NGAs) in traditionally governmental activities, such as policy-making. This trend has been prevalent across food policy processes and reflects a key feature of food democracy. However, the role of governmental actors in facilitating and responding to this participation remains a gap in the literature. In this article, we ask how civil servants frame the participation of NGAs in policy processes. Drawing on ethnographic research, we introduce the case of civil servants working on an urban food policy for the municipality of Ede (the Netherlands). Our analysis uncovers two competing frames: 1) highlighting the responsibility of the municipality to take a leading role in food policy making, and 2) responding reflexively to NGAs. The analysis provides insights into how the framing of participation by civil servants serves to shape the conditions for participation of NGAs. It further sheds light on related practices and uncovers existing tensions and contradictions, with important implications for food democracy. We conclude by showing how, in the short term, a strong leadership role for civil servants, informed by the responsibility frame, may be effective for advancing policy objectives of the municipality. However, the reactive frame illustrates that civil servants worry this approach is not effective for maintaining meaningful participation of NGAs. This remains a key tension of participatory municipal-led urban food policy making, but balancing both municipal responsibility and an open and reactive attitude towards the participation of NGAs is useful for enhancing food democracy.
Keywords: civil servants; food democracy; non-governmental actors; participation; urban food policy
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:4:p:59-67

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Food Policy Councils as Loci for Practising Food Democracy? Insights from the Case of Oldenburg, Germany
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2081
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2081
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 4
Pages: 48-58
Author-Name: Annelie Sieveking
Author-Workplace-Name: Institute of Sustainability Governance, Leuphana University of Lueneburg, Germany
Abstract: In the highly concentrated and consolidated 21st century food systems, a broad range of stakeholders are rarely involved in food-related decision-making processes. One innovative institutional response is the establishment of food policy councils (FPCs). These institutions are often initiated by civil society actors and seek to transform prevailing agro-industrial food systems. They aim to raise awareness for alternative practises of food consumption and production, and they try to shape food policies at different governance levels. FPCs have been acclaimed for their democratic potential in the past. This study uses the five key dimensions of food democracy identified by Hassanein (2008) to assess the ways in which FPCs might represent loci for practising food democracy. This is achieved by taking one of the first FPCs in Germany as an example. During a two-year study period (2016–2018), the emergence of the FPC Oldenburg was studied through participant observations, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis. Data analysis reveals examples of, as well as challenges related to, all five dimensions of food democracy. In addition, the in-depth analysis of the case also illustrates the importance of taking additional aspects into account, i.e., openness and transparency. Looking at an additional dimension of food democracy, which covers the “How?” of the deliberative process, might allow for a more nuanced analysis of the democratic potential of food initiatives in the future.
Keywords: civil society; empowerment; food citizenship; food democracy; food policy council
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:4:p:48-58

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Finding Our Way to Food Democracy: Lessons from US Food Policy Council Governance
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2092
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2092
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 4
Pages: 32-47
Author-Name: Karen Bassarab
Author-Workplace-Name: Center for a Livable Future, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering, The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA
Author-Name: Jill K. Clark
Author-Workplace-Name: John Glenn College of Public Affairs, Ohio State University, USA
Author-Name: Raychel Santo
Author-Workplace-Name: Center for a Livable Future, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering, The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA
Author-Name: Anne Palmer
Author-Workplace-Name: Center for a Livable Future, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering, The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA / Department of Health, Behavior and Society, The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA
Abstract: Food policy councils (FPCs) are an embodiment of food democracy, providing a space for community members, professionals, and government to learn together, deliberate, and collectively devise place-based strategies to address complex food systems issues. These collaborative governance networks can be considered a transitional stage in the democratic process, an intermediary institution that coordinates interests not typically present in food policymaking. In practice, FPCs are complex and varied. Due to this variety, it is not entirely clear how the structure, membership, and relationship to government of an FPC influence its policy priorities. This article will examine the relationship between an FPC’s organizational structure, relationship to government, and membership and its policy priorities. Using data from a 2018 survey of FPCs in the United States by the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future paired with illustrative cases, we find that an FPC’s relationship to government and membership have more bearing on its policy priorities than the organizational structure. Further, the cases illustrate how membership is determined and deliberation occurs, highlighting the difficulty of including underrepresented voices in the process.
Keywords: collaborative governance; food democracy; food policy council; membership; participatory democracy
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:4:p:32-47

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Linking Food Democracy and Sustainability on the Ground: Learnings from the Study of Three Alternative Food Networks in Brussels
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2023
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2023
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 4
Pages: 21-31
Author-Name: François Lohest
Author-Workplace-Name: Institute for Environmental Management and Land-Use Planning, Center for Studies on Sustainable Development, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
Author-Name: Tom Bauler
Author-Workplace-Name: Institute for Environmental Management and Land-Use Planning, Center for Studies on Sustainable Development, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
Author-Name: Solène Sureau
Author-Workplace-Name: Institute for Environmental Management and Land-Use Planning, Environmental Management, Society and Territory, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
Author-Name: Joris Van Mol
Author-Workplace-Name: Institute for Environmental Management and Land-Use Planning, Environmental Management, Society and Territory, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
Author-Name: Wouter M. J. Achten
Author-Workplace-Name: Institute for Environmental Management and Land-Use Planning, Environmental Management, Society and Territory, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
Abstract: The article explores and discusses, both conceptually and empirically, the exercise of food democracy in the context of three alternative food networks (AFNs) in Brussels, Belgium. It demonstrates that food democracy can be described as a “vector of sustainability transition”. The argumentation is built on the results of a 3.5-year participatory-action research project that configured and applied a sustainability assessment framework with the three local AFNs under study. Firstly, the article presents a localized understanding of food democracy. Food democracy is defined as a process aiming to transform the current food system to a more sustainable one. This transformation process starts from a specific point: the people. Indeed, the three AFNs define and implement concrete processes of power-configuration to alter the political, economic, and social relationships between consumers and producers as well as between retailers and producers. Secondly, the article assesses and discusses how the three AFNs perform these practices of food democracy and what effects these have on the actors concerned. The assessment shows that the three AFNs distinguish themselves along a gradient of their transformative potential in terms of practices. However, this variation in their interpretation of food democracy does not translate into a gradient of performance.
Keywords: alternative food networks; food democracy; sustainability assessment; sustainability transition
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:4:p:21-31

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Food Sharing Initiatives and Food Democracy: Practice and Policy in Three European Cities
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2090
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2090
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 4
Pages: 8-20
Author-Name: Anna R. Davies
Author-Workplace-Name: School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Author-Name: Agnese Cretella
Author-Workplace-Name: School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Author-Name: Vivien Franck
Author-Workplace-Name: School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Abstract: Calls for greater food democracy in Europe have emerged as the limitations of urban food systems dominated by commercial organisations are documented, but little attention has been paid to how policy arrangements affect attempts to transition to more democratic food futures. This article examines food sharing initiatives—increasingly facilitated by the use of information and communication technologies—as a potential means to enhance urban food democracy, and explores the role of policy in shaping those practices in three European capital cities: Berlin, London, and Dublin. We pose two related questions: To what extent are diverse food sharing initiatives exemplars of food democracy, and to what extent do policy arrangements affect food sharing practices and the nature of any food democracy they might embody? Our empirical evidence demonstrates where the goals and impacts of food sharing initiatives align with key dimensions of food democracy. We also consider how food sharing initiatives—and any food democracy dimensions that they support—are affected by the policy environment in which they operate. The food sharing initiatives examined revealed to be agents of pro-democratic change, at least within the boundaries of their spheres of influence, despite policies rarely having their activities and aspirations in mind.
Keywords: community gardens; community kitchens; food democracy; food governance; food sharing; surplus food redistribution
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:4:p:8-20

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Editorial: New Perspectives on Food Democracy
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2570
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2570
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 4
Pages: 1-7
Author-Name: Basil Bornemann
Author-Workplace-Name: Sustainability Research Group, Department of Social Sciences, University of Basel, Switzerland
Author-Name: Sabine Weiland
Author-Workplace-Name: European School of Political and Social Sciences, Université Catholique de Lille, France
Abstract: <div>With the overall intention of stimulating the debate on food democracy, this thematic issue aims to shed fresh light on the complex relationship between food and democracy in different contexts. New theoretical perspectives and empirical analyses are presented that explore, sharpen, question, and expand the potential of food democracy as both, an analytical lens onto the state and development of contemporary food systems, and as a political idea for transforming the dominant agri-industrial food system. In this editorial to the thematic issue “New Perspectives on Food Democracy,” we briefly recapitulate the existing debate on food democracy, explain the goals and overarching questions of the thematic issue and provide an overview of the assembled articles.</div>
Keywords: democratic governance; food citizenship; food democracy; food system; participation
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:4:p:1-7

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Parliamentarizing a Politicized Policy: Understanding the Involvement of the European Parliament in UN Climate Negotiations
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2093
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2093
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 339-349
Author-Name: Tom Delreux
Author-Workplace-Name: Institut de Sciences Politiques Louvain-Europe, UCLouvain, Belgium
Author-Name: Charlotte Burns
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Sheffield, UK
Abstract: Climate change is a central topic of concern for EU international diplomacy and is the site of increased politicization globally. Concomitantly, a parallel process of parliamentarization of the EU has unfolded. Whilst the European Parliament (EP) has enjoyed significant powers in internal policy-making on climate change, since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009 the EP has gained the right to veto the EU’s ratification of international (climate change) agreements. This development raises questions about our understanding of the EP as an actor in international climate diplomacy that this article addresses through the following research question: What impact have the increased powers of the EP had on its involvement in UN climate diplomacy? We analyze the EP’s evolving role in international climate diplomacy through an evaluation of its policy preferences prior to international climate conferences (COPs) and its activities during those meetings. We find evidence that the EP’s preferences have become more moderate over time, and that it is also more active at COPs and increasingly engaged with a range of more important actors. However, we find little evidence that the EP’s involvement in international negotiations is significantly different when it holds a veto power, which we attribute to a willingness to depoliticize internal EU climate negotiations to secure policy gains at the international level.
Keywords: climate change; climate diplomacy; Conference of the Parties; European Parliament; European Union; parliamentarization; parliamentary diplomacy; United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:339-349

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: The European Parliament as an Arena and Agent in the Politics of Climate Change: Comparing the External and Internal Dimension
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2156
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2156
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 327-338
Author-Name: Frank Wendler
Author-Workplace-Name: Institute for Political Science, University of Hamburg, Germany
Abstract: Climate change policy is a key example for globalized multi-level governance, involving the European Parliament (EP) both as legislator of internal European Union (EU) regulation and discursive agent in global climate negotiations. Based on the comparison of decision-making in external and internal climate change policy, the article investigates the link between the role of the EP as a political actor and arena for the interaction of competing party groups: Does EP involvement in negotiations on legally binding legislation prompt or constrain partisan polarization in comparison to declaratory statements about future goals of climate action? Harnessing a discursive institutionalist theoretical framework, the article compares EP resolutions about annual Conferences of the Parties (COPs 20 to 24) with the revision of four legislative acts for Phase IV of EU Climate Action: namely, emissions trading, effort sharing between Member States, the promotion of renewable energies, and energy efficiency standards. Using roll-call voting data and the review of legislative documentation, the contribution tracks the emergence and negotiation of political conflict in these two sets of cases. Overall, the case studies indicate a low level of external politicization, as indicated by low party group polarization, internalization of political conflict at the committee level, and compromise-building between issue dimensions.
Keywords: climate change policy; conference of the parties; discursive institutionalism; emissions trading; European Parliament; European Union; politicization
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:327-338

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: In the Shadow of Public Opinion: The European Parliament, Civil Society Organizations, and the Politicization of Trilogues
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2175
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2175
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 316-326
Author-Name: Justin Greenwood
Author-Workplace-Name: Aberdeen Business School, Robert Gordon University, UK
Author-Name: Christilla Roederer-Rynning
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Political Science and Public Management, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
Abstract: This article examines the relations between the European Parliament (EP) and civil society organizations (CSOs) in the EU’s legislative process. It focuses specifically on legislative trilogues, an informal institution bringing together the representatives of the EP, Council, and Commission in a secluded setting to conclude legislative agreements. Trilogues have become the modus operandi and an absolutely pivotal part of the EU law-making process: they are where the deals are made. While secluded decision-making offers plenty of opportunities for EU institutions to depoliticize law-making, we argue that trilogues have become politicized, partly from the relationship between the EP and CSOs. We flesh out this argument on the basis of insights from the politicization and the historical institutionalist literatures, advance two ideal types of trilogue politics, and explore these types on the basis of a preliminary examination of a comprehensive interview material.
Keywords: civil society organisations; European Parliament; institutionalism; law-making; legislative process; politicisation; trilogues
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:316-326

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Preparatory Bodies as Mediators of Political Conflict in Trilogues: The European Parliament’s Shadows Meetings
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2197
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2197
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 303-315
Author-Name: Ariadna Ripoll Servent
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Political Science, University of Bamberg, Germany
Author-Name: Lara Panning
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Political Science, University of Bamberg, Germany
Abstract: Trilogues have become ‘normal’ structures in European Union (EU) decision-making but their functioning, based on secluded decision-making, makes it difficult to understand how institutional positions are formed and managed and which actors are better positioned to influence policy outputs. These are, however, important questions because, first, a coherent position in trilogues (one that withstands the scrutiny of the Council) enhances the European Parliament’s (EP) chances of achieving a favourable outcome following negotiation; second, because it has become more complicated to find a common position within the EP due to increased levels of politicisation and polarisation (especially in the form of Euroscepticism) in EU policy-making. Therefore, this article focuses on preparatory bodies preceding trilogues and the role they play in building Parliament’s positions. With the shift of political conflict from plenary to committees and now to shadows meetings, the latter have become de facto decision-making bodies. Not only do they serve to mediate intra-institutional conflict but also to anticipate Council and Commission positions. This article compares the use of shadows meetings in politicised and non-politicised issues. With the use of ethnographic data provided by participant observation and elite interviews, we aim to provide explanations on how these new instruments serve to informally manage politicisation, focusing in particular on the advantages of insularity in highly publicised negotiations.
Keywords: committees; Common European Asylum System; European Parliament; European Union political parties; politicisation; shadows meetings; trilogues
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:303-315

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: The Politicisation of the European Central Bank and the Bundestag
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2214
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2214
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 291-302
Author-Name: Anna-Lena Högenauer
Author-Workplace-Name: Institute of Political Science, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Abstract: The European Central Bank (ECB) became one of the key actors during the Eurozone crisis. However, its prominent role was not without controversy. On one hand, the Eurozone was stabilised, no member state defaulted, and no state had to leave the Euro. On the other hand, the ECB had to stretch its mandate, expand its policy remit, and adopt so-called ‘unconventional’ monetary policies. These attempts to depoliticise political challenges through a technocratic approach reduced the opportunities for democratic contestation, but they also bred frustration that led to politicisation. This article studies to what extent this politicisation affected the perception of the ECB in national parliaments. For this purpose, it studies the extent to which ECB policy has become politicised in the German Bundestag through an analysis of plenary debates from 2005 to 2018. The Bundestag represents an unlikely case for politicisation despite wide-spread criticism of the ECB in the media, as Germany was traditionally attached to creating a highly independent ECB, until recently had no major Eurosceptic right-wing parties, and parliamentary scrutiny of the national central bank is low. However, by studying the salience of ECB policies, the polarisation of opinion in the parliament, as well as the range of actors participating in the debates, this article finds that the ECB’s policies have become politicised and the subject of scrutiny and dissatisfaction.
Keywords: banking union; Bundestag; European Central Bank; Eurozone crisis; Germany; national parliaments; plenary debates; politicisation
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:291-302

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Brexit under Scrutiny in EU Member States: What Role for National Parliaments in Austria and Germany?
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2007
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2007
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 279-290
Author-Name: Katharina Luise Meissner
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Political Science, University of Vienna, Austria
Abstract: Among national parliaments (NPs) in the EU, the Austrian Nationalrat and the German Bundestag stand out as strong legislatures in EU affairs. Both parliaments have used their rights to great extent in recent EU negotiations on international agreements such as the one with Canada on a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement. Yet, in the negotiations with the UK their involvement varies. Why is this so? Scholarly work on Brexit so far focused on the European Parliament or the UK parliament, while attention to NPs in the EU27 is scarce. This article fills this void in research by tracing the Austrian and German parliaments’ activities in the Brexit negotiations. Despite similar institutional strength I find that the German Bundestag is more extensively involved, particularly on an informal level, compared to the Austrian Nationalrat. The reason for this is Brexit’s varying saliency in these two countries given their different levels of exposure to the UK’s withdrawal. As saliency of a policy issue is considered a major explanatory factor for why NPs engage in EU affairs, the results of this article confirm this expectation within the realm of EU international negotiations.
Keywords: Brexit; European Union; international negotiations; national parliaments; saliency; United Kingdom
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:279-290

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Proving Their Worth? The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and the Members of the European Parliament
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2225
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2225
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 266-278
Author-Name: Guri Rosén
Author-Workplace-Name: ARENA Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo, Norway
Abstract: Recent trade negotiations in the EU have provoked unprecedented levels of controversy, in particular the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the EU and the US. One crucial channel for public contestation is the European Parliament (EP) which, following the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, has to give consent to international agreements. Thus, this article sets out to answer the question: During the dispute over TTIP, did members of the EP (MEPs) engage in the public debate, and if so, how? If they engage in debates, what characterises their engagement: Do they engage with voter concerns, do they engage in a responsive manner, and do they contribute to politicisation as quite a few feared? Building on an analysis of newspaper coverage and plenary debates in the EP, the article shows that many supporters of TTIP attempted to de-politicise the debate, while opponents most frequently evoked ‘the voice of the people’ to politicise TTIP. Thus, MEPs do not only respond to politicisation, they also attempt to make politicisation happen by evoking public concerns. The article highlights the multifaceted relationship between responsiveness and politicisation, where claims responding to voter concerns, are used both to incite contestation and alleviate it.
Keywords: European Parliament; European Union; parliamentarisation; politicisation; responsiveness; trade policy; Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:266-278

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Eurosceptics into the Limelight? Eurosceptic Parliamentary Actors and Media Bias in EU Affairs
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2159
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2159
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 248-265
Author-Name: Katrin Auel
Author-Workplace-Name: Research Group European Governance and Public Finance, Institute for Advanced Studies, Austria
Abstract: In the spotlight for some time now, the potential of national parliaments to legitimise EU politics has become even more salient given the growing politicisation and public contestation of EU issues. Their ability to realise this potential depends, however, vitally on citizens being actually aware of parliamentary involvement in EU affairs. Academic as well as political attention has therefore more recently turned to the communication function of parliaments, and here the media play a crucial role. Important is not only whether EU parliamentary affairs are covered in the media, but also <em>who</em> within parliament gets the opportunity to raise European issues in the media. In the context of this thematic issue, the question of media visibility is of particular interest with regard to Eurosceptic parliamentary party groups and their members. Do Eurosceptics in parliament get to dominate parliamentary EU news in the media and thus to take ownership of EU issues—or do the media freeze parliamentary Eurosceptics out of the coverage? Both would seriously undermine the legitimising potential of national parliaments. The article therefore analyses to what extent we can find a visibility bias in the print media coverage of Eurosceptic parliamentary actors and explores the factors that contribute to such bias. For the analysis, it draws on a quantitative dataset of all newspaper articles covering parliamentary EU affairs in six member states (Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Poland and the UK) over a period of four years (2010 to 2013).
Keywords: communication; European Union; Eurosceptics; media bias; media coverage; national parliaments
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:248-265

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: The European Parliament and the Layered Politicization of the External Dimension of the Common Fisheries Policy
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2178
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2178
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 237-247
Author-Name: Hubert Zimmermann
Author-Workplace-Name: Institute for Political Science, Philipps University Marburg, Germany
Abstract: When the Lisbon Treaty entered into effect, the European Parliament became a core player in the decision-making processes of the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and its external dimensions. This new role suggested a shift towards stronger politicization in what had previously been a rather technocratic policy field. However, the CFP is not yet marked by a clear and consistent level of politicization. I use the concept of ‘layered politicization’ to explain this pattern. Although it is not comparable to the degree of political controversy shaping fully politicized policy fields, some similar political dynamics can be observed. Among them is a transformation in the policy process due to higher ratification requirements; a higher likelihood of political deadlock resulting from an increasing number of veto-players; and a strengthening of the contested legitimacy of EU decision-making. An empirical test of these theoretical propositions is provided here in the form of two case studies; the negotiation of Fisheries Partnership Agreements with Morocco and Mauritania.
Keywords: common fisheries policy, European Parliament, fisheries partnership agreements, politicization
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:237-247

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Conceptualizing the Parliamentarization and Politicization of European Policies
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2144
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2144
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 227-236
Author-Name: Niels Gheyle
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Political Sciences, Ghent University, Belgium
Abstract: In the past 20 years, two related literature strands have gradually moved centre stage of the attention of EU Studies scholars. The first is preoccupied with the ‘politicization of European integration’, a multi-faceted concept that aims to tie together a multitude of political and societal manifestations underlying an increasing controversiality of the EU. A second concerns the parliamentarization of the EU, referring to the changing (institutional) role and EU-related activities national parliaments engage in. The key point of this contribution is simple, but often overlooked: We can and should be seeing parliamentarization as a necessary, yet insufficient, component of a wider process of politicization. Doing so goes beyond the often ad hoc or pars pro toto theoretical assumptions in both literature strands, sheds new light on the normative consequences attached to these phenomena, and furthers a more complete understanding of how a ‘comprehensive’ politicization of European policies develops.
Keywords: communication; Europeanization; parliamentary; parliamentarization; politicization; national parliaments
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:227-236

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Introduction to “Out of the Shadows, Into the Limelight: Parliaments and Politicisation”
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2443
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2443
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 220-226
Author-Name: Christine Neuhold
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Political Science, University of Maastricht, The Netherlands
Author-Name: Guri Rosén
Author-Workplace-Name: ARENA Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo, Norway
Abstract: The Lisbon Treaty gave the European Parliament extensive new powers and its consent is now required for the vast majority of EU international agreements. At the same time, national parliaments—and even regional ones—are increasingly asserting their powers over areas of European governance that were traditionally dominated by the executive. Exerting influence and conducting oversight is time-consuming, however. Particularly at the EU-level parliaments cannot influence or scrutinise every policy dossier with equal rigour. A key factor directing parliamentary attention seems to be the ‘politicisation’ of an issue. In other words, the amount of contestation and attention given to a particular issue seems to affect parliamentary activity. This thematic issue seeks to assess <em>how</em> politicisation affects the role parliaments play within the system of EU governance. In particular, the contributions aim to answer the over-arching question of whether politicisation has an impact on how parliaments seek to influence policy-making and hold the EU executives to account. Furthermore, we raise the question of whether and how politicisation affects the role of parliaments as arenas for contestation and communication of different political interests. Jointly, the findings provide the empirical foundations for a more comprehensive debate regarding the democratic implications of politicisation. Politicisation puts pressure on parliaments to act, but parliamentarians themselves may also find it in their interest to instigate contestation. This thematic issue addresses these questions by shedding light on both the European Parliament and national parliaments and examines different policy-fields reaching from climate change and trade, to financial affairs and the Common Fisheries Policy.
Keywords: democracy; European Central Bank; European Parliament; national parliaments; politicisation; Common Fisheries Policy
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:220-226

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: The Evolution of Representative Claim-Making by the Chinese Communist Party: From Mao to Xi (1949–2019)
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2151
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2151
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 208-219
Author-Name: Emilie Frenkiel
Author-Workplace-Name: School of Public Administration and International Exchanges, Université Paris-Est Créteil, France
Author-Name: Anna Shpakovskaya
Author-Workplace-Name: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Abstract: This article traces the evolution of representative claim-making by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 up to the present day. Based on the analysis of official political discourses on the mass line, the Three Represents and more recent ongoing discourses on digitalization, we demonstrate the change and continuity of claim-making by the CCP. We show that while representative claim-making has undergone a significant transformation from the CCP as the representative of the working class to the sole representative of the Chinese people and nation, the CCP has been consistent throughout decades in maintaining its hegemony over representative claim-making.
Keywords: China; digitalization; discourse; mass line; political representation; representative claim-making; responsiveness
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:208-219

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: On Authoritarian Political Representation in Contemporary China
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2119
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2119
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 199-207
Author-Name: Demin Duan
Author-Workplace-Name: School of Government, Peking University, China
Abstract: Both in the Party Charter and in the State Constitution, the Chinese Communist Party claims to represent the Chinese people. Instead of treating this claim as mere rhetoric made by the party for propaganda purposes, this article demonstrates that it indicates a rather significant transition in the party’s understanding of its relationship with the people. Particularly, roughly about two decades into the Open and Reform policy initiated under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, the party made a strategic choice in imagining itself as the representative of the people instead of the revolutionary vanguard. This change in the language was very remarkable in the post-1949 Chinese history, in the sense that the party no longer considers itself as the facilitator of proletariat revolution, but as the authoritarian representative in the political community. If representation means “re-presentation”, as in bringing something absent present, this appears to be what the party tries to do. By embodying the nation, the party tries to represent both the rich and the poor, acting as the arbiter of forever present discords and conflicts within the society. Clearly, this representation has nothing to do with what people usually call “democratic” representation. But considering that representation and democracy are conceptually rooted in very different sources, exploring “authoritarian representation” in contemporary China would enable us to better understand both China and democratic representation.
Keywords: authoritarian politics; authority; China; Chinese Communist Party; deliberation; democracy; representation
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:199-207

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Anti-Corruption Movement: A Story of the Making of the Aam Admi Party and the Interplay of Political Representation in India
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2155
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2155
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 189-198
Author-Name: Aheli Chowdhury
Author-Workplace-Name: Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, India
Abstract: The Aam Admi Party (AAP; Party of the Common Man) was founded as the political outcome of an anti-corruption movement in India that lasted for 18 months between 2010–2012. The anti-corruption movement, better known as the India Against Corruption Movement (IAC), demanded the passage of the <em>Janlokpal </em>Act<em>, </em>an Ombudsman body. The movement mobilized public opinion against corruption and the need for the passage of a law to address its rising incidence. The claim to eradicate corruption captured the imagination of the middle class, and threw up several questions of representation. The movement prompted public and media debates over who represented civil society, who could claim to represent the ‘people’, and asked whether parliamentary democracy was a more authentic representative of the people’s wishes vis-à-vis a people’s democracy where people expressed their opinion through direct action. This article traces various ideas of political representation within the IAC that preceded the formation of the AAP to reveal the emergence of populist representative democracy in India. It reveals the dynamic relationship forged by the movement with the media, which created a political field that challenged liberal democratic principles and legitimized popular public perception and opinion over laws and institutions.
Keywords: Aam Admi Party; India; India Against Corruption; Janlokpal; political representation; populism
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:189-198

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Political Representation in the Discourse and Practices of the “Party of the Common Man” in India
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2122
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2122
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 179-188
Author-Name: Stéphanie Tawa Lama-Rewal
Author-Workplace-Name: Centre d’Etudes de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France
Abstract: One of the many challenges presented by populism concerns its relationship with political representation. What happens when an anti-politics movement wins elections? This article offers an analysis of the exercise of power by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP, Party of the Common Man), which has been ruling the city-state of Delhi since 2015, in order to bring elements of answer to this question. On the basis of discourse analysis as well as direct observation of meetings, the article first identifies a series of populist tropes in the official discourse of the AAP, including a de-emphasis on representation to the advantage of participation. It then describes the two main participatory schemes implemented by the AAP government since 2015, and shows that these generate, in different ways, a magnification of the mediation work that is central to political representation at the local level in the Indian context. Finally, the article argues that the party has been developing, through these participatory schemes, a form of “inclusive representation” (Hayat, 2013), in which inclusion is linked to mobilization.
Keywords: Aam Aadmi Party; India; mediation; participatory democracy; political representation; populism
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:179-188

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: The Radical Right versus the Media: from Media Critique to Claims of (Mis)Representation
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2131
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2131
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 165-178
Author-Name: Louise Knops
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Political Science, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
Author-Name: Benjamin De Cleen
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Communication Studies, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
Abstract: Criticizing mainstream media for their ‘lies’ or ‘fake news’ has become a common political practice on the radical right. Further empirical research is needed to better understand the intricacies of these attacks on media, in particular for the way they relate to criticism of the political system as a whole and to matters of political representation. How do radical right actors construct a sense of political misrepresentation through their critique of media, and how does this allow them to make representative claims? This is what we explore in this article through a discourse analysis of the Flemish radical right youth movement Schild &amp; Vrienden. Drawing inspiration from constructivist theories of representation, we explore the entanglement in empirical practice between two dimensions of representation: 1) between its literal meaning (as ‘portrayal’) and its political meaning (as standing or speaking for), and 2) between representation and misrepresentation. With our analysis, we shed light on the increasing politicization of the media as a non-electoral space of representation and misrepresentation, and on the role played by media criticism in the radical right’s broader (meta)political strategies.
Keywords: discourse; media critique; misrepresentation; radical right; representative claims; Schild & Vrienden
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:165-178

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Claims of Misrepresentation: A Comparison of Germany and Brazil
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2143
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2143
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 152-164
Author-Name: Petra Guasti
Author-Workplace-Name: Research Unit Democratic Innovations, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany
Author-Name: Debora Rezende de Almeida
Author-Workplace-Name: Political Science Institute, University of Brasília, Brazil
Abstract: The system of representative democracy is under considerable strain. Its institutions are struggling to maintain legitimacy, and its elected representatives are failing to keep their monopoly on (formal) political representation. An emerging multitude of (new) claim makers contests the authority of elected representatives as well as the functioning of the existing system of representative democracy by alleging misrepresentation. In this article, we identify a significant shortcoming in Saward’s claims-making approach; specifically, we argue that it offers little direction in addressing misrepresentation. We distinguish between claims of representation and claims of misrepresentation, and show how the latter can fulfill one, two or all three of the following functions: (1) they appeal to an enemy/antagonist (strategy), (2) identify causes of misrepresentation related to policies, politics, and polity (persuasion), and (3) claim to create a new linkage to “the people”, sometimes present themselves as new representatives (reframing). To test this proposed framework, we compare claims of misrepresentation in Brazil made by civil society groups (before and during the presidential impeachment between 2014 and 2016) and in Germany (focusing on the parliamentarians of the Alternative for Germany during the first six months of mandate). Our results suggest that claims of misrepresentation are not intrinsically democratic or undemocratic, but are instead ambiguous, have different manifestations and disparate impacts on the representative system. Our article contributes to the conceptual development of the claims approach and to further understanding several critical and current challenges to representative democracy.
Keywords: Brazil; democracy; Germany; misrepresentation; populism; representation; representative claims
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:152-164

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: A New Approach to Map and Quantify Representative Claims and Measure Their Validation: A Case Study Analysis
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2150
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2150
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 137-151
Author-Name: Viola Joschko
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Political Science, Goethe University, Germany
Author-Name: Luis Glaser
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Computer Science, Goethe University, Germany
Abstract: Relying on the theory of Saward <a href="https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?cbB5hi">(2010)</a> and Disch <a href="https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?qzXWLX">(2015)</a>, we study political representation through the lens of representative claim-making. We identify a gap between the theoretical concept of claim-making and the empirical (quantitative) assessment of representative claims made in the real world’s representative contexts. Therefore, we develop a new approach to map and quantify representative claims in order to subsequently measure the reception and validation of the claims by the audience. To test our method, we analyse all the debates of the German parliament concerned with the introduction of the gender quota in German supervisory boards from 2013 to 2017 in a two-step process. At first, we assess which constituencies the MPs claim to represent and how they justify their stance. Drawing on multiple correspondence analysis, we identify different claim patterns. Second, making use of natural language processing techniques and logistic regression on social media data, we measure if and how the asserted claims in the parliamentary debates are received and validated by the respective audience. We come to the conclusion that the constituency as ultimate judge of legitimacy has not been comprehensively conceptualized yet.
Keywords: multiple correspondence analysis; parliamentary debate; reception; representation; representative claims; Saward; social media; women’s quota
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:137-151

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Defining Women’s Representation: Debates around Gender Quotas in India and France
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2130
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2130
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 124-136
Author-Name: Virginie Dutoya
Author-Workplace-Name: Center for South Asian Studies, School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences/French National Center for Scientific Research, France
Author-Name: Yves Sintomer
Author-Workplace-Name: Centre Marc Bloch, Humboldt University Berlin, Germany / Nuffield College, University of Oxford, UK / Department of Political Science, Paris 8 University, France
Abstract: In 1999, after a heated debate on gender parity in political representation, the French constitution was amended to include the principle of “equal representation” of both sexes. This paved the way for the introduction of gender quotas. In the same period, a bill providing reservations for women at the national level provoked a political crisis in India. The objective of this article is to compare both debates, looking in particular at the way women’s representation was framed. In France, the main argument against quotas was that republican representation should be unitary and transcend social differences, but at the end of the 1990s, women in mainstream politics were seen as one element of the dual nature of human kind, different from other categories such as class or race. In India, the specific representation of certain groups (Dalits, lower castes, tribal groups) had been the traditional framework for political representation since independence in 1947. But when the bill proposed to extend reservations to women, opponents of the project claimed that women did not constitute a category in themselves, and that sex should be intersected with caste and religion for the attribution of quotas. Looking at parliamentary debates, articles, and tribunes supporting or opposing quotas in both countries, we show that the arguments mobilized reveal different conceptions of the political representation of gender difference, which are partly transversal and partly specific to each country.
Keywords: France; gender difference; India; parity; political representation; universalism; women quotas
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:124-136

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: The Redistribution of Representation through Participation: Participatory Budgeting in Chengdu and Delhi
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2139
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2139
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 112-123
Author-Name: Emilie Frenkiel
Author-Workplace-Name: Université Paris-Est Créteil, France
Author-Name: Stéphanie Tawa Lama-Rewal
Author-Workplace-Name: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France
Abstract: A strong contention of the “representative turn” is that representation is consubstantial with politics (Saward, 2010). One way to test the heuristic value of this vision is to look for representation in an institution that was historically built against representation, namely participatory budgeting (PB), a democratic innovation that has spread globally with exceptional rapidity. The literature on PB identifies two types of relationships between participation and representation: (i) participation “challenges” (Houtzager &amp; Gurza Lavalle, 2009) existing forms and principles of representation (through “assumed representation” by civil society activists; or through “citizen agents”; Montambeault, 2016); or (ii) participation is “instrumentalised” (Fischer, 2012) by classic forms and actors of representation. On the basis of a comparative analysis of PB experiences in Chengdu (China) and Delhi (India), we argue in this article that a third type of relationship can be observed: participation—as implemented through PB—can also redistribute representation insofar as new, official representative roles are created. Moreover, looking at these new roles provides important clues about the principles of representation that are implemented and therefore about the transformative nature of PB.
Keywords: China; democracy; India; participation; participatory budgeting; representation
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:112-123

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Saward’s Concept of the Representative Claim Revisited: An Empirical Perspective
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2103
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2103
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 98-111
Author-Name: Petra Guasti
Author-Workplace-Name: Research Unit Democratic Innovations, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany
Author-Name: Brigitte Geissel
Author-Workplace-Name: Research Unit Democratic Innovations, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany
Abstract: Representation is a process of making, accepting, or rejecting representative claims (Disch, 2015; Saward, 2014). This groundbreaking insight challenged the standard assumption that representative democracy can be reduced to elections and activities of elected representatives (Pitkin, 1967). It broadened the scope of representative democracy to encompass representation activities beyond those authorized by elections, transformed our thinking and provided a new perspective, putting claims and their reception into the center. This paradigm shift erased the distinction between elected and non-elected representatives and disclosed the potential of non-elected actors’ claims to represent (Andeweg, 2003; Kuyper, 2016; Rosanvallon &amp; Goldhammer, 2008; Saward, 2006, 2009; Van Biezen &amp; Saward, 2008). In spite of this lively debate, we identify an important gap in the literature: while this paradigmatic shift inspired many authors, conceptual <em>frameworks that can be applied for systematic empirical analysis of real-life cases</em> are missing. In this article, we fill this gap and propose frameworks for assessing and validating a variety of real-life claims. Our study provides empirical substance to the ongoing theoretical debates, helping to translate the mainly theoretical ‘claim approach’ into empirical research tools. It helps to transform the conventional wisdom about what representation can (not) be and shines a new light on the potential future of (claims on) representation.
Keywords: democracy; representation; representative claim; Saward; typology
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:98-111

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Rethinking Representation: Representative Claims in Global Perspective
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2464
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2464
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 93-97
Author-Name: Petra Guasti
Author-Workplace-Name: Research Unit Democratic Innovations, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany
Author-Name: Brigitte Geissel
Author-Workplace-Name: Research Unit Democratic Innovations, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany
Abstract: The established notion of political representation is challenged on multiple accounts—theoretically, conceptually, and empirically. The contributions to this thematic issue explore the constructivist turn as the means for rethinking political representation today around the world. The articles included here seek to reconsider representation by theoretically and empirically reassessing how representation is conceptualized, claimed and performed—in Western and non-Western contexts. In recognition that democratic representation in Western countries is in a process of fundamental transformation and that non-Western countries no longer aim at replicating established Western models, we look for representation around the world—specifically in: Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, China, and India. This enables us to advance the study of representative democracy from a global perspective. We show the limits and gaps in the constructivist literature and the benefits of theory-driven empirical research. Finally, we provide conceptual tools and frameworks for the (comparative) study of claims of representation.
Keywords: constructivist turn; democracy; representation; representative claim
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:93-97

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: The European Union and the Global Arena: In Search of Post-Brexit Roles
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2133
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2133
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 83-92
Author-Name: Michael Smith
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick, UK
Abstract: This article explores the issues faced by the EU in developing its international roles post-Brexit, using a combination of discursive analysis and role theory to investigate the development and performance of roles in a number of linked arenas. Central to this analysis is the assumption that whatever form Brexit takes, the EU and the UK will remain closely entangled, and thus that the post-Brexit role assumed by the UK will shape the evolution of EU external action. But a key task for analysis is to place the impact of Brexit into the array of wider forces affecting EU external action, and this is a key aim of the article. The article begins by exploring the discourses of globalism characteristic of UK and EU foreign policies, as focused by the debates about ‘global Britain’ and EU global strategy since 2015. It then introduces a simple framework for considering the roles conceived and performed by the EU, and their potential impact in the post-Brexit world. The article then considers three areas of EU external action, and the ways in which they might be shaped by a post-Brexit world: trade and development, transatlantic relations and security and defence policy. The conclusion discusses the implications of the cases, especially in relation to the conversion of discursive role constructs into performable roles—a problem central to EU external action—and concludes that whilst the impact of Brexit will be significant, it is likely to be less fundamental than the impact of the challenges faced by the EU in the global arena more broadly.
Keywords: Brexit; European Union; external action; foreign policy; international roles; post-Brexit; transatlantic relations; United Kingdom
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:83-92

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: The Impact of Brexit on EU Development Policy
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2149
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2149
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 72-82
Author-Name: Sophia Price
Author-Workplace-Name: Politics and International Relations, Leeds Beckett University, UK
Abstract: Brexit is likely to herald fundamental changes in the operation, scope and practice of EU development policy, due to the UK’s key role in leading and defining the geographical and sectoral remit of policy, and through its provision of large-scale funding. Through a focus on the EU’s relations with the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States, this article explores these potential impacts. It highlights the importance of the timing of Brexit in relation to the contemporaneous renegotiation of EU–ACP relations and the EU’s Multiannual Financial Framework and argues that the focus on static impacts of Brexit, in terms of removing the UK from the ‘EU equation’, overlooks the broader dynamics of political economy in which it is situated. Through the analysis of the anticipatory adjustments and discursive dynamics in EU development policy that articulate the pursuit of material interests, the article helps understand both the dynamics of Brexit and the broader transformations in which it is located.
Keywords: African, Caribbean and Pacific group; Brexit; development policy; European Union
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:72-82

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Bringing Gender In? EU Foreign and Security Policy after Brexit
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2153
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2153
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 62-71
Author-Name: Toni Haastrup
Author-Workplace-Name: Division of History & Politics, University of Stirling, UK
Author-Name: Katharine A. M. Wright
Author-Workplace-Name: School of Geography, Politics & Sociology, Newcastle University, UK
Author-Name: Roberta Guerrina
Author-Workplace-Name: School of Sociology, Politics & International Studies, University of Bristol, UK
Abstract: In this article, we identify Brexit as a critical juncture, wherein the EU has had the opportunity to reflect on and reinforce its identity, as a promoter of gender issues within the security domain. It draws on this identity from a foundational myth of the EU as gender equality polity, resulting in the creation of a socio-legal order and sustained discourse on gender inclusivity in all policy areas. Existing scholarship has drawn attention to the EU’s particular success in gender equality promotion in the areas of social inclusion at member state level, including in the UK. But, is the EU’s reach comprehensive beyond this policy sphere? We examine the ways in which gender is manifested in the area of foreign policy, an area where the UK has consistently shown some leadership on the integration of gender perspectives in its foreign policy through its international development programmes and the implementation of the Women, Peace and Security agenda. It is therefore timely to consider what impact Brexit has on EU policies, practices and the promotion of gender equality in this policy domain. Using a critical feminist lens, this article looks at the evolution of gender equality as a dimension of EU foreign and security policy in the context of EU–UK relations, and the divergences, opportunities and constraints that are crystallised by the Brexit process.
Keywords: Brexit; critical feminism; EU; foreign policy; gender; gender equality; UK; women’s agency
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:62-71

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Brexit and the EU in Global Climate Governance
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2137
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2137
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 51-61
Author-Name: Claire Dupont
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Public Governance and Management, Ghent University, Belgium / Institute for European Studies, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
Author-Name: Brendan Moore
Author-Workplace-Name: Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East Anglia, UK
Abstract: Climate change governance is one of the EU’s priorities. The EU has developed a central (and arguably, a leading) role in global climate governance. The UK has been an important supporter of strong climate action both within the EU and in international climate negotiations. We investigate how/whether the EU’s role in global climate governance will be affected by Brexit by focusing on potential changes in three conditions for EU leadership: (1) credible and ambitious internal climate policy; (2) constant and effective international engagement through climate diplomacy; and (3) the ability to attract followers. We find that the UK has sometimes played the role of a pivotal outlier, either pushing for more internal policy ambition or blocking certain policy options. Brexit is likely to have cumulative effects on the EU’s role in global climate governance over the long term, through a series of changes in internal EU policymaking and climate diplomacy. The speed and scope of these changes depend on the nature of the future UK–EU relationship. We argue that the broader international context and strains on EU unity represent more urgent challenges to the EU’s role in global climate governance than those posed by Brexit.
Keywords: Brexit; climate change; EU Emissions Trading System; European Union; leadership; UN climate negotiations; United Kingdom
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:51-61

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: What Common Agricultural Policy after Brexit?
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2117
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2117
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 40-50
Author-Name: Christilla Roederer-Rynning
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Political Science and Public Management, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
Author-Name: Alan Matthews
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Economics, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Abstract: Suppose we were in 2028: what would the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) look like then? Would it be significantly different from the policy we know today? How, and why? And to what extent would Brexit have catalyzed these changes? The CAP is one of the founding policies of the EU and a strategic lever to address critical 21st century challenges such as climate change and the rising demand for food at the global level. It also has an important role in Europe to address the growing urban-rural divide and its potentially destabilizing impact on European politics. In this article, we examine the impact of Brexit from a political-economic perspective emphasizing the multi-level context within which the CAP is embedded. As an EU member state, the UK found a way to partly accommodate the CAP to its needs even though this policy was a source of intense UK dissatisfaction with the EU. Post-Brexit, the budgetary and market implications of the UK’s departure may favour positions that support a return to a more traditional policy of farm income support. On the other hand, more radical farm policies in England and Wales could partly offset these effects by setting the agenda for continued CAP reform, if they are seen to be successful.
Keywords: agricultural policy; Brexit; Common Agricultural Policy; European Union; reform; United Kingdom
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:40-50

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Why Brexit Will Do Little to Change the Political Contours of the European Social Dimension
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2126
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2126
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 30-39
Author-Name: Paul Copeland
Author-Workplace-Name: School of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary University of London, UK
Abstract: Integration within the European social dimension, understood as the EU’s competence in the field of employment and social policy, has been fraught with obstacles. Divisions between the EU’s Member States have limited integration and resulted in a complex and piecemeal system of governance that is low down on the EU’s list of priorities. The UK is often regarded as a major obstacle limiting the scope of integration in the field and this is not without good reason. Historically, the UK has formed coalitions to block policy negotiations within the European Council and has pushed for minimal neoliberal obligations in the field. The UK’s departure from the EU could result in a step-change for the European social dimension. However, as this article will argue, the UK’s departure from the EU will do little to alter the current dominance of a neoliberal market-led ideology, as it currently transcends the political agency of the UK.
Keywords: Brexit; European integration; European social dimension; European Union; neoliberalism; social policy; United Kingdom
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:30-39

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: EU Single Market(s) after Brexit
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2059
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2059
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 19-29
Author-Name: Michelle Egan
Author-Workplace-Name: School of International Service, American University, USA
Abstract: This article focuses on the European single market, which has been one of the central issues in terms of the impacts of Britain’s withdrawal from the EU. As the aim of the single market project is to open the internal borders of the EU to the free movement of goods, services, capital, and labor to create cross-jurisdictional markets, the economic and political effects of Brexit will be widespread, if not yet fully understood, outside the British polity. The article looks at the current state of the single market, then highlights the impact of British withdrawal on economic governance, focusing on different market freedoms, given the degree of trade interdependence and integrated supply chains that have evolved in response to changes in goods and services. One of the lessons from Brexit negotiations is the importance of distinguishing between different single market(s) when assessing the impact of British ‘exit’ on member states. The concluding section focuses on the political safeguards of market integration to manage the relationship between the UK and EU, to illustrate how judicial, market, and institutional safeguards create options and constraints in mitigating the effects of ‘exit’.
Keywords: Brexit; European Union; market access; market integration; single market; safeguards
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:19-29

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: The Impact of Brexit on EU Trade Policy
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2102
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2102
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 7-18
Author-Name: Ferdi De Ville
Author-Workplace-Name: Centre for EU Studies, Ghent University, Belgium
Author-Name: Gabriel Siles-Brügge
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick, UK
Abstract: There has been increased interest in trade policy following the UK’s EU membership referendum. However, relatively little scholarly analysis has been produced on how Brexit will affect EU trade policy. Instead, the received wisdom has been that Brexit will shift the EU’s trade policy position in a less liberal direction. This is based on a ‘static’ analysis where the UK variable is simply removed from the figurative ‘function’ determining EU trade policy. We argue that this neglects the potential role of more ‘dynamic’ effects. First, the negotiations to determine the nature of the EU–UK future economic partnership are likely to involve a lengthy process with a still uncertain, and possibly evolving, destination. The outcome and process of arriving there will influence how economic operators and policymakers adapt their preferences and behaviour, including through possible relocation and the formation of new alliances. This will shape EU trade policy in potentially counterintuitive ways. Second, the absence of clear material structures from which actors can ‘read’ their interests highlights the importance of considering the role of ideas and political framing. How the vote for and consequences of Brexit are interpreted will likely shape what is considered an appropriate policy response. Examining EU trade policy since the Brexit vote, the article finds that rather than push the EU in a more illiberal direction, the referendum result has been used to reinforce the European Commission’s external liberalisation agenda. The Commission’s discursive response to Brexit and Donald Trump has been to portray the EU as a champion of free trade in an era of global populism.
Keywords: Brexit; discourse; dynamic effects; European Union; trade policy; United Kingdom; uncertainty
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:7-18

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: The Impact of Brexit on EU Policies
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2129
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i3.2129
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 3
Pages: 1-6
Author-Name: Ferdi De Ville
Author-Workplace-Name: Centre for EU Studies, Ghent University, Belgium
Author-Name: Gabriel Siles-Brügge
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick, UK
Abstract: While the result of the UK’s referendum on membership of the EU has been the subject of considerable scholarly interest, relatively little has been written on the impact of Brexit on the EU. Where academics have addressed the issue, they have tended to either see Brexit through the lens of European ‘(dis)integration’ theory or focused on its ‘static’ effects, assessing the impact of removing the UK from the EU’s policymaking machinery based on its past behaviour. This editorial sets out the overarching rationale of this thematic issue and introduces some key analytical elements drawn on by the individual contributions. Given that Brexit has so far not set in train major EU disintegration, the focus is on the detailed impact of the UK’s exit across specific policy areas and on problematising the notion that it necessarily implies a more socially progressive turn in EU policies. Our starting point is the fundamental uncertainty surrounding the future EU–UK relationship, and the process of arriving there. This points to the importance of focusing on the ‘dynamic’ impacts of Brexit, namely adjustment in the behaviour of EU actors, including in anticipation of Brexit, and the discursive struggle in the EU over how to frame Brexit. Policy change may also occur as a result of small, ‘iterative’ changes even where actors do not actively adjust their behaviour but simply interact in new ways in the UK’s absence. Several of the issue’s contributions also reflect on the UK’s role as a ‘pivotal outlier’. The editorial concludes by reflecting on how we analyse the unfolding Brexit process and on what broader insights this thematic issue might offer the study of EU politics.
Keywords: anticipatory adjustment; Brexit; dynamic effects; European Union; framing; iterative effects; pivotal outlier; social Europe; United Kingdom; uncertainty
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:3:p:1-6

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Explaining Foreigners’ Political Rights in the Context of Direct Democracy: A Fuzzy-Set QCA of Swiss Cantonal Popular Votes
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1779
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i2.1779
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 2
Pages: 410-426
Author-Name: Francesco Veri
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Political Science, University of Lucerne, Switzerland / Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, University of Canberra, Australia
Abstract: In the direct democratic arena, the consensus of voters is required to deliberate policies; without that consent policies are blocked. When bills that support cultural diversity or foreigners’ integration are put into referendums, voters may or may not exert their veto power over the proposed policies. In order to determine under which circumstances these types of bills are successful in referendum, I have undertaken a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis of 39 referendums about the extension of political rights to foreigners at the Swiss cantonal level. My analysis identified a total of five theoretically-informed conditions that explain citizenship liberalization and the success of popular votes. I then located these conditions within two configurational hypotheses which postulate how referendum proponents might overcome direct democratic hurdles. The analysis of the success of referendums reveals that the only sufficient path that leads to the popular vote’s success is to insert the sensitive issues into a multi-faceted bill. As demonstrated by a more in-depth case analysis, the sensitive object is successful because it is hidden from voters during the referendum campaign or because other priority objects inside the bill reduce its salience.
Keywords: alien residents; citizenship light; direct democracy; foreigner; political rights; referendum; Switzerland
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:2:p:410-426

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: American State Ballot Initiatives and Income Inequality
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1873
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i2.1873
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 2
Pages: 380-409
Author-Name: Joshua J. Dyck
Author-Workplace-Name: Political Science Department, University of Massachusetts - Lowell, USA
Author-Name: Wesley Hussey
Author-Workplace-Name: Political Science Department, California State University, USA
Author-Name: Edward L. Lascher, Jr.
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Public Policy & Administration, California State University, USA
Abstract: Some have argued that the ballot initiative process prevalent in many American states might lower inequality. We contend this is improbable based on what is known about whether expansion of democracy leads to redistribution, the attitudes of citizens, and the characteristics of the initiative process. Nevertheless, the proposition needs testing. We examine three types of evidence. First, we analyze the content and passage of all post-World War II initiatives going to voters in California, a state that makes heavy use of ballot propositions. Second, we model institutional factors influencing differences in inequality at the state-level from 1976–2014 to test the aggregate-level effect of ballot initiatives on income inequality. Third, we use individual level data to evaluate the claim that frequent initiative use makes lower income people happier because it helps to reduce inequality. Our analyses consistently indicate that the ballot initiative process fails to reduce income inequality.
Keywords: direct democracy; life satisfaction; income inequality; state ballot initiatives; redistribution
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:2:p:380-409

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: It Depends…Different Direct Democratic Instruments and Equality in Europe from 1990 to 2015
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1881
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i2.1881
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 2
Pages: 365-379
Author-Name: Brigitte Geißel
Author-Workplace-Name: Research Unit Democratic Innovations, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany
Author-Name: Anna Krämling
Author-Workplace-Name: Research Unit Democratic Innovations, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany
Author-Name: Lars Paulus
Author-Workplace-Name: Research Unit Democratic Innovations, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany
Abstract: Despite the popularity of direct democracy in recent decades, research on the actual output effects of popular decision-making is rare. This is especially true with regard to equality, where there are at least three major research gaps: 1) a lack of cross-national analyses; 2) insufficient investigation of the differential effects of different direct democratic instruments on equality; and 3) a failure to distinguish between different aspects of equality, i.e., socioeconomic, legal and political equality. This article takes a first step to tackle these shortcomings by looking at all national referenda in European democracies between 1990 and 2015, differentiating between mandatory, bottom-up and top-down referenda. We find that a large majority of successful direct democratic bills—regardless of which instrument is employed—are not related to equality issues. Of the remaining ones, there are generally more successful pro-equality bills than contra-equality ones, but the differences are rather marginal. Mandatory referenda tend to produce pro-equality outputs, but no clear patterns emerge for bottom-up and top-down referenda. Our results offer interesting, preliminary insights to the current debate on direct democracy, pointing to the conclusion that popular decision-making via any type of direct democratic instrument is neither curse nor blessing with regard to equality. Instead, it is necessary to look at other factors such as context conditions or possible indirect effects in order to get a clearer picture of the impacts of direct democracy on equality.
Keywords: direct democracy; direct democratic instruments; equality; Europe
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:2:p:365-379

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Public Support for Higher Taxes on the Wealthy: California’s Proposition 30
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1915
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i2.1915
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 2
Pages: 351-364
Author-Name: Caroline J. Tolbert
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Political Science, University of Iowa, USA
Author-Name: Christopher Witko
Author-Workplace-Name: School of Public Policy, Pennsylvania State University, USA
Author-Name: Cary Wolbers
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Political Science, University of Nebraska, USA
Abstract: It has long been argued that growing inequality would lead to growing demands for redistribution, especially from less affluent individuals who would benefit most from redistribution. Yet, in many countries we have not seen tax increases and even when ballot initiatives allow individuals to directly vote to raise taxes on the wealthy they decline to do so. This raises the question of how economic self-interest shapes voting on tax proposals, and what factors may weaken the links between economic self-interest and tax policy preferences. In the U.S. context partisanship is a factor that has a major influence on attitudes about taxation. To explore how self-interest sometimes overcomes partisanship we take advantage of competing initiatives that were simultaneously on the ballot in California in 2012. California’s Proposition 30, a successful 2012 initiative, significantly increased taxes on the wealthy. By comparing voting on Proposition 30 to voting on Proposition 38, which would have raised taxes on nearly everyone, we observe that when tax hikes are focused only on the wealthy a substantial number of lower income Republicans (i.e., conservatives) defect from their party position opposing taxation. We identify these low-income Republicans as “populists.” Lower income Republicans are also less supportive of income tax increases on the lower and middle classes, and are more sensitive to income tax increases than sales tax increases. We argue that economic self-interest causes heterogeneity within the parties in terms of attitudes toward tax increases.
Keywords: California; direct democracy; economic self-interest; inequality; partisanship; Proposition 30; redistribution; taxes; voting; wealth
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:2:p:351-364

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Economic Voting in EU Referendums: Sociotropic versus Egocentric Voting in the Lisbon Treaty Plebiscites in Ireland
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1944
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i2.1944
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 2
Pages: 334-350
Author-Name: Johan A. Elkink
Author-Workplace-Name: School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin, Ireland
Author-Name: Stephen Quinlan
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Monitoring Society and Social Change, GESIS—Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Germany
Author-Name: Richard Sinnott
Author-Workplace-Name: School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin, Ireland / UCD Geary Institute for Public Policy, University College Dublin, Ireland
Abstract: Economic voting is one of the most studied aspects of electoral behaviour. The dominant view is that sociotropic economic considerations are more important to voters in national elections. However, other research suggests that utilitarian motivations are key to understanding support for the EU. An EU integration referendum offers the opportunity to explore whether and when sociotropic or utilitarian motivations are more important in determining vote choice. The unusual combination of two successive referendums in Ireland on the Lisbon Treaty, either side of the global financial crisis, provides the ideal opportunity to test these assumptions. Using data from two post-referendum surveys, we demonstrate that the economy mattered in both referendums but that different economic motivations drove vote choice in each, with sociotropic motivations more critical as a result of the global financial crisis. Our study has implications for economic voting and referendums and demonstrates that context is crucial in determining a voter’s economic motivations in a plebiscite.
Keywords: economic voting; egocentric voting; financial crisis; Ireland; Lisbon Treaty; referendum; sociotropic voting
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:2:p:334-350

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Economic Voting in Direct Democracy: A Case Study of the 2016 Italian Constitutional Referendum
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1917
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i2.1917
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 2
Pages: 306-333
Author-Name: Arndt Leininger
Author-Workplace-Name: Otto Suhr Institute of Political Science, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
Abstract: Referendums provide citizens with more control over policy. At the same time, they often entail choices over highly complex policies and are politicised along partisan lines, suggesting that partisan rather than policy considerations will guide voters’ choices. I look to the 2016 Italian constitutional referendum, which was particularly complex and polarised, as an opportunity to test for mechanisms of government accountability in a referendum. Using a national survey of voters, I show that the more negative a respondent’s evaluation of the state of the economy, the lower their likelihood to vote ‘yes’ on the government’s reform proposal. This relationship is remarkably strong: an average respondent with a very positive evaluation of the state of the economy has an 88% probability of supporting the government’s reform proposal compared to only 12% for a respondent with a very negative evaluation. The fact that economic evaluations are a strong determinant of vote choice provides evidence for the existence of an economic vote in a referendum. This further suggests that voters may treat referendums as a sort of second-order election.
Keywords: direct democracy; economic voting; Italy; referendums; second-order election; voting
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:2:p:306-333

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Intra-Camp Coalitions in Direct Democracy: Evidence from Referendums on Asylum
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1897
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i2.1897
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 2
Pages: 297-305
Author-Name: Laurent Bernhard
Author-Workplace-Name: Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences (FORS), University of Lausanne, Switzerland
Abstract: This article seeks to advance the underdeveloped literature on coalitions in direct democracy by considering intra-camp coalitions (ICC) at the level of political elites. The binary format of ballot measures leads to the formation of two opposing camps (i.e., supporters and opponents). However, political actors who belong to a given camp are not obliged to work with each other in the course of direct-democratic campaigns. I argue that the formation of ICC is ideologically driven, as political actors may be inclined to more closely cooperate with those actors who share their beliefs. Therefore, I expect that the actors of a given camp will create ideologically more homogeneous coalitions. The empirical analysis focuses on the salient issue of asylum by examining the cooperative ties between political organizations that participated in two Swiss referendum campaigns. Drawing on the CONCOR algorithm, I identify the actor compositions of the four camps in question. I show that the organizations that form the two main ICC on either side significantly differ from each other in terms of their positioning on the left-right scale. Hence, actors who campaign on the same side tend to separate into coalitions that are ideologically more homogeneous.
Keywords: asylum; coalitions; direct democracy; referendum; Switzerland
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:2:p:297-305

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Losing in the Polls, Time Pressure, and the Decision to Go Negative in Referendum Campaigns
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1940
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i2.1940
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 2
Pages: 278-296
Author-Name: Alessandro Nai
Author-Workplace-Name: Amsterdam School of Communication Research, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Author-Name: Ferran Martínez i Coma
Author-Workplace-Name: Griffith Business School, Griffith University, Australia
Abstract: Why do parties and candidates decide to go negative? Research usually starts from the assumption that this decision is strategic, and within this framework two elements stand out: the prospect of electoral failure increases the use of negative campaigning, and so does time pressure (little reaming time to convince voters before election day). In this article, we contribute to this framework by testing two new expectations: (i) political actors are more likely to go negative when they face unfavourable competitive standings <em>and</em> voting day is near; and (ii) they are <em>less</em> likely to go negative when they faced a substantive degradation in their competitive standing over the course of the campaign. We test these expectations on a rich database of newspaper ads about national referenda in Switzerland and provide preliminary empirical evidence consistent with those expectations. The results have important implications for existing research on the strategic underpinnings of campaigning and political communication.
Keywords: anxiety; advertisement timing; competitive standing; direct democracy; polls; strategic behaviour; Switzerland; negative campaigning
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:2:p:278-296

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Legal Regulation of Campaign Deliberation: Lessons from Brexit
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1942
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i2.1942
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 2
Pages: 268-277
Author-Name: James Organ
Author-Workplace-Name: School of Law and Social Justice, University of Liverpool, UK
Abstract: There has been significant attention paid to explaining and understanding the impact of the UK’s vote to leave the EU on UK politics and its constitution. There has also been criticism of the political campaigning, from both the “leave” and “remain” sides, and of people’s understanding of what they were voting for. There has been limited discussion, though, of how to improve the quality of campaign deliberation, which is fundamental to the legitimacy of both representative and direct democratic processes. Using the UK’s vote on EU membership as a case study, this article examines the importance of the law to regulate and improve deliberation prior to direct public votes on specific policy issues. It also considers options for changes to the law and for its implementation, using the current provisions about false statements in electoral law as a starting point. The article argues that the quality of deliberation during UK referendum campaigns needs to improve and that legal regulation should be developed. There are, however, significant challenges in drafting legislation that appropriately defines and limits the use of misleading statements, and at the same time avoids excessive restriction of free speech, or an excessively political role for regulatory bodies and the courts. Given the nature of political campaigning and the challenges in reducing the use of misleading statements by political actors through legal regulation, increased deliberative opportunities for citizens are proposed as a complementary, perhaps more effective means to positively enhance deliberation in political campaigns. Whatever approach is taken, direct democracy needs to be combined effectively with representative democracy, based on a common underlying principle of the importance of deliberation, and not treated as a separate part of a state’s democracy.
Keywords: Brexit; deliberation; democracy; electoral law; false statements; plebiscite; referendum
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:2:p:268-277

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Risks and Opportunities of Direct Democracy: The Effect of Information in Colombia’s Peace Referendum
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1903
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i2.1903
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 2
Pages: 242-267
Author-Name: Juan Masullo
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Politics and International Relations, Oxford University, UK
Author-Name: Davide Morisi
Author-Workplace-Name: Collegio Carlo Alberto, Italy
Abstract: Voting decisions in high-stakes referendums can have crucial consequences for the fate of national governments and the implementation of major reforms. Prior studies have found that referendum campaigns can substantially influence their outcomes. Yet few have taken into account the fact that the effect of campaign arguments depends on a number of factors, including individual knowledge levels and the degree of uncertainty surrounding the alternatives on the ballot. In this study we investigate how political knowledge and campaign arguments stressing risks and opportunities influenced vote choice in Colombia’s 2016 peace referendum. Drawing on a nationally representative survey (Study 1) and an original experiment (Study 2), we find that stressing the opportunities that the peace deal could bring to the country, rather than the risks associated with failing to conclude it, increased the probability that Colombians voted Yes in the referendum. While highly knowledgeable voters were more likely to support the deal than those with little knowledge, we find that pro-referendum opportunity arguments reduced the gap between these two groups by increasing the likelihood of a Yes vote among those with little knowledge. These findings contribute to research on voting behavior and campaign effects in direct democracies. Additionally, by exploring the crucial issue of attitudes towards peace, our findings also have important implications for countries trying to secure citizens’ approval of high-stakes issues—such as negotiating the end of decades of war—through democratic instruments.
Keywords: attitudes towards peace; Colombia; information processing; peace agreements; political knowledge; referendum campaigns; voting behavior
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:2:p:242-267

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Perceptions of Referendums and Democracy: The Referendum Disappointment Gap
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1874
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i2.1874
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 2
Pages: 227-241
Author-Name: Shaun Bowler
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Political Science, University of California, USA
Author-Name: Todd Donovan
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Political Science, Western Washington University, USA
Abstract: We examine the gap between perceptions of seeing referendums as an important democratic principle, versus perceiving how referendums are used in practice. We term this the “referendum disappointment” gap. We find support for referendums as a democratic principle is strongest among those most disaffected from the political system, and that the disaffected are more likely to perceive they are not given a say via referendums. We also find context-specific effects. Disappointment was greater in countries with higher corruption and income inequality. We also find higher disappointment among right-populist voters, those who distrusted politicians, and among people who viewed themselves at the bottom of society. Overall, these patterns reflect disappointment with democracy among sections of society who have a sense of not being heard that conflicts with how they expect democracy should work in principle.
Keywords: democracy; direct democracy; inequality; political disaffection; populism; public opinion; referendums
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:2:p:227-241

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: A Survey Experiment on Citizens’ Preferences for ‘Vote–Centric’ vs. ‘Talk–Centric’ Democratic Innovations with Advisory vs. Binding Outcomes
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1900
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i2.1900
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 2
Pages: 213-226
Author-Name: Sebastien Rojon
Author-Workplace-Name: Sociology Department, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Author-Name: Arieke J. Rijken
Author-Workplace-Name: Sociology Department, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Author-Name: Bert Klandermans
Author-Workplace-Name: Sociology Department, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Abstract: Previous research on public support for participatory decision-making fails to distinguish between vote-centric (referendums and initiatives) and talk-centric (deliberative-style meetings) instruments, despite a deliberative turn in democratic theory suggesting that political discussion among ordinary citizens improves decision-making. In an online factorial survey experiment conducted among a sample of 960 Americans recruited on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, we compared support for the use of referendums and public meetings, arguing that attitudes towards these instruments depend on whether they are used to inform legislators or take binding decisions. Public meetings were rated considerably lower than referendums and initiatives, especially when the outcomes were binding. Contrary to expectations, we did not find a preference for binding (over advisory) referendums and individuals from referendum and initiative states, where these instruments are legally binding, expressed less support for binding participatory reforms than individuals from non-direct democratic states. Despite the many critiques of direct democracy, public debate in the US has not considered whether advisory outcomes might appease some of these concerns. The results also demonstrated that individuals expressing concerns about the inability of ordinary citizens to understand politics and about the welfare of minority groups were not as negative about participatory decision-making when legislators had the final say.
Keywords: direct democracy; deliberative democracy; democratic innovations; factorial survey experiments; participatory decision-making; public opinion; referendums; vignette experiment
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:2:p:213-226

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Salient Ballot Measures and the Millennial Vote
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1885
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i2.1885
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 2
Pages: 198-212
Author-Name: Scott J. LaCombe
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Political Science, University of Iowa, USA
Author-Name: Courtney Juelich
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Political Science, University of Iowa, USA
Abstract: We explore the relationship between ballot measures on issues salient to Millennials and their turnout in presidential and midterm elections. Both scholars and observers in the media have worried about decreasing levels of citizen participation, particularly among young voters. We demonstrate that one way to engage Millennials into traditional forms of political participation is through ballot measures that focus on issues salient to their generation (marijuana liberalization and higher education reform). We show that not only do these measures increase Millennial voting, but they erase difference in turnout levels between Millennials and older generations. This effect is primarily concentrated in low-turnout contexts such as midterm elections, indicating that these measures may be playing a similar mobilization role in midterm elections as presidential campaigns do in turnout out low-propensity voters.
Keywords: ballot measures; direct democracy; generation; Millennials; political behavior; turnout; voting
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:2:p:198-212

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: ‘Let the Citizens Fix This Mess!’ Podemos’ Claim for Participatory Democracy in Spain
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1893
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i2.1893
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 2
Pages: 187-197
Author-Name: Carlos Rico Motos
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of International Relations, Universidad Pontificia Comillas, Spain
Abstract: The declining trust in the representative institutions of liberal democracy after the 2008 economic crisis has generated a rise in appeals to substitute the representative model in favor of a participatory democracy. Although political representation has been in crisis since its very inception, for the first time the new technologies of communication based in the Web 2.0, smartphones and social media make replacing the elites’ intermediation in decision-making a real possibility. Aiming to critically address this issue, the article uses a political theory framework to analyze the role of political participation within the main models of democracy as a first step from where to question the viability and convenience of participatory democracy nowadays. Then, the article focuses on the case of Podemos in Spain, a left-wing populist party that advocates for instruments like referendums and citizen initiatives as a solution for the Spanish political crisis. Here, the article highlights the shortcomings of Podemos’s participatory proposal, mainly focused on aggregating predetermined positions instead of addressing the dynamics that undermine the quality of political debate. Finally, we conclude that dealing with the citizens’ political disaffection requires institutional innovations designed to increase the deliberative quality of our representative democracies.
Keywords: deliberative democracy; participatory democracy; Podemos; political representation; referendums; Spain
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:2:p:187-197

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Boosting Political Trust with Direct Democracy? The Case of the Finnish Citizens’ Initiative
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1811
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i2.1811
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 2
Pages: 173-186
Author-Name: Henrik Serup Christensen
Author-Workplace-Name: Social Science Research Institute—Samforsk, Åbo Akademi University, Finland
Abstract: Complementing representative democracy with direct-democratic instruments is perceived to boost levels of political trust. This was why Finland in 2012 introduced an agenda initiative, which gives citizens the right to propose legislation and thereby provides citizens a say between elections. However, it remains unclear whether involvement in such mechanisms helps restore political trust and what factors shape developments in political trust during involvement. This article contributes to this research agenda by examining how using the Finnish agenda initiative affected developments in political trust. The study uses two surveys to determine developments in political trust: a four-wave panel survey (n = 809 - 1419) and a cross-sectional survey (n = 481) where the perceived change method is used. The results suggest that using the citizens’ initiative did not necessarily cause positive developments in political trust. Nevertheless, positive developments in political trust occurred when users achieved their intended aim and/or the process was seen as fair, which shows that direct-democratic instruments can increase levels of political trust under some circumstances.
Keywords: citizens’ initiative; direct democracy; Finland; political trust
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:2:p:173-186

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: The Promise and Perils of Direct Democracy: An Introduction
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2267
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i2.2267
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 2
Pages: 169-172
Author-Name: Todd Donovan
Author-Workplace-Name: Political Science Department, Western Washington University, USA
Abstract: Direct democracy promises politics that improve links between citizens and their representatives, and satisfies popular demand for increased engagement. In practice it may fall well short, given limited citizen capacity, poor information from campaigns, and ill-designed processes. The articles here represent the opportunities that direct democracy offers for the study of these promises and perils.
Keywords: comparative politics; deliberation; direct democracy; initiatives; referendums; representation; secondary effects
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:2:p:169-172

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: What Does the Evidence Tell Us about ‘Thinking and Working Politically’ in Development Assistance?
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1904
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i2.1904
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 2
Pages: 155-168
Author-Name: Niheer Dasandi
Author-Workplace-Name: International Development Department, University of Birmingham, UK
Author-Name: Ed Laws
Author-Workplace-Name: Overseas Development Institute, UK
Author-Name: Heather Marquette
Author-Workplace-Name: International Development Department, University of Birmingham, UK
Author-Name: Mark Robinson
Author-Workplace-Name: World Resources Institute, USA
Abstract: This article provides a critical review of the evidence on ‘thinking and working politically’ (TWP) in development. Scholars and practitioners have increasingly recognised that development is a fundamentally political process, and there are concerted efforts underway to develop more politically-informed and adaptive ways of thinking and working in providing development assistance. However, while there are interesting and engaging case studies in the emerging, largely practitioner-based literature, these do not yet constitute a strong evidence base that shows these efforts can be clearly linked to more effective aid programming. Much of the evidence used so far to support these approaches is anecdotal, does not meet high standards for a robust body of evidence, is not comparative and draws on a small number of self-selected, relatively well-known success stories written primarily by programme insiders. The article discusses the factors identified in the TWP literature that are said to enable politically-informed programmes to increase aid effectiveness. It then looks at the state of the evidence on TWP in three areas: political context, sector, and organisation. The aim is to show where research efforts have been targeted so far and to provide guidance on where the field might focus next. In the final section, the article outlines some ways of testing the core assumptions of the TWP agenda more thoroughly, to provide a clearer sense of the contribution it can make to aid effectiveness.
Keywords: aid effectiveness; development assistance; donors; evidence; governance; politics; thinking and working politically;
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:2:p:155-168

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Do Countries Use Foreign Aid to Buy Geopolitical Influence? Evidence from Donor Campaigns for Temporary UN Security Council Seats
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1837
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i2.1837
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 2
Pages: 127-154
Author-Name: Bernhard Reinsberg
Author-Workplace-Name: School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow, UK
Abstract: In recent years, donor countries have increasingly used different aid allocation channels to boost aid effectiveness. One delivery channel that has grown tremendously is ‘multi-bi aid’—contributions to multilateral organizations earmarked for specific development purposes. This article examines whether donors use multi-bi aid to further their selfish goals—specifically, to garner political support for their ambition to become a temporary member of the UN Security Council. In this context, multi-bi aid is particularly beneficial to countries with limited experience as foreign aid donors; whose governance quality is weak; and which are more internationalized. Using a sample of OECD/DAC donor countries in 1995–2016, time-series cross-section analysis corroborates these arguments. The analysis draws on a new dataset of media reports proxying for donor interest in winning a temporary seat in the UN Security Council and extended data on multi-bi aid flows. The findings demonstrate that multi-bi aid may be a tool for geopolitical influence, with yet unexplored consequences for aid effectiveness.
Keywords: donor interest; earmarked funding; foreign aid; multi-bi aid; UN Security Council
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:2:p:127-154

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen? The Division of Financing in World Bank Projects and Project Performance
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1826
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i2.1826
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 2
Pages: 117-126
Author-Name: Matthew S. Winters
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Political Science, University of Illinois, USA
Abstract: The total funding envelope for World Bank projects is often divided among various state and non-state actors, each of which can have competing ideas about or interests in the project. How does the division of financing relate to overall project effectiveness? I argue that too many funding streams in a project can reduce project effectiveness by creating delays, increasing transaction costs, and blurring lines of accountability. I combine original data on the number and concentration of financial collaborators in World Bank projects with the World Bank’s ratings of project performance, looking at within-country variation across projects to explore whether or not there is evidence of reduced aid effectiveness in projects with more participants. The results suggest that projects with significant cofinancing receive somewhat worse project ratings.
Keywords: aid effectiveness; cofinancing; foreign aid; World Bank
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:2:p:117-126

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Bypassing Government: Aid Effectiveness and Malawi’s Local Development Fund
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1854
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i2.1854
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 2
Pages: 103-116
Author-Name: Michael Chasukwa
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Political and Administrative Studies, University of Malawi, Malawi
Author-Name: Dan Banik
Author-Workplace-Name: Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo, Norway
Abstract: Many practical and action-oriented international roadmaps to improve the quality of aid and its delivery and impact on development—including the Paris Declaration, Accra Agenda for Action, and Busan Partnership—emphasize a more active involvement of domestic institutions and procedures. Despite widespread agreement among both donor and recipient countries on this issue, we find that aid often tends to bypass national institutional structures. This practice is sometimes justified on grounds of high levels of political and administrative corruption and weak implementation capacity in recipient country bureaucracies. We examine how and to what extent multilateral and bilateral development agencies bypass national and local government institutions while channeling aid and the impact of such practices on aid effectiveness in Africa. Based on an empirical study of project aid and budget support provided to Malawi by the World Bank, the African Development Bank, and the German Economic Group, we argue that earmarked funding, specialized procurement arrangements, and the proliferation of Project Management Units are among the mechanisms used to circumvent the involvement of national institutions. We conclude that while such practices may achieve short-term gains by displaying successful and visible ‘donorship’, the long-term impact is more uncertain. The bypassing of local institutions results in fragmentation of aid, lack of coordination among aid industry actors, and a general weakening of policy space and domestic capacity to formulate and implement development policy.
Keywords: Africa; aid; development; institutions; Malawi; policy
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:2:p:103-116

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Aid Targeting to Fragile and Conflict-Affected States and Implications for Aid Effectiveness
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1852
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i2.1852
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 2
Pages: 93-102
Author-Name: Yiagadeesen Samy
Author-Workplace-Name: Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, Canada
Author-Name: David Carment
Author-Workplace-Name: Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, Canada
Abstract: While significant amounts of foreign aid have been allocated to the group of so-called fragile and conflict-affected states in recent years, it is not clear whether that aid is targeted to where it is most needed. This article extends recent work by Carment and Samy (2017, in press), and focuses on aid targeting in fragile states by using the Country Indicators for Foreign Policy fragility index together with sectoral aid flows from the OECD Creditor Reporting System. Specifically, it considers six country-cases from a three-fold typology of states and evaluates the performance of these countries in terms of their fragility relative to the types of aid that they have received. The article argues that aid is poorly targeted in fragile states and by considering the sectoral allocation of aid it also contributes indirectly to the related issue of aid effectiveness.
Keywords: aid effectiveness; aid targeting; conflict-affected states; foreign aid; fragile states
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:2:p:93-102

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Foreign Aid and Climate Change Policy: What Can(’t) the Data Tell Us?
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1840
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i2.1840
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 2
Pages: 68-92
Author-Name: Daniel Yuichi Kono
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Political Science, University of California - Davis, USA
Author-Name: Gabriella R. Montinola
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Political Science, University of California - Davis, USA
Abstract: Climate-related foreign aid is on the rise, with signatories to the Paris Climate agreement pledging $100 billion annually to promote mitigation and adaptation in recipient countries. While this seems like a welcome development, we have little evidence that climate aid actually encourages recipients to adopt climate legislation. In this article, we examine the relationship between climate aid and recipient climate policy. Using multiple measures of each, we find no evidence that the former is systematically related to the latter. Although this suggests that climate aid is ineffective, this conclusion must be qualified due to the poor quality of both climate aid and climate policy data. More definitive conclusions will require more accurate coding of climate aid as well as better climate policy measures that distinguish truly consequential policies from less consequential ones.
Keywords: adaptation; climate change; climate policy; environmental policy; foreign aid; mitigation
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:2:p:68-92

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: The Impact of Foreign Aid on Maternal Mortality
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1835
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i2.1835
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 2
Pages: 53-67
Author-Name: Emmanuel Banchani
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Sociology, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada
Author-Name: Liam Swiss
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Sociology, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada
Abstract: In 2010, the G8 placed renewed focus on maternal health via the Muskoka Initiative by committing to spend an additional $5 billion on maternal, newborn, and child health before 2015. Following the end of the Millennium Development Goals and the advent of the Sustainable Development Goals, maternal health issues have continued to feature prominently on the global health agenda. Despite these substantial investments of foreign aid over the past decade, there is limited evidence on the effectiveness of foreign aid in reducing maternal mortality in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Using data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Development Indicators and the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, this study analyzes the effects of aid on maternal health in a sample of 130 LMICs from 1996 through 2015. Our results show that the effects of total foreign aid on maternal mortality are limited, but that aid allocated to the reproductive health sector and directly at maternal health is associated with significant reductions in maternal mortality. Given these targeted effects, it is important to channel more donor assistance to the promotion of reproductive health and contraceptive use among women as it serves as a tool towards the reduction of maternal mortality.
Keywords: family planning; foreign aid; maternal mortality; Muskoka Initiative; reproductive health
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:2:p:53-67

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Effects of Foreign Aid on Income through International Trade
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1830
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i2.1830
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 2
Pages: 29-52
Author-Name: Inmaculada Martinez-Zarzoso
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Economics, University of Goettingen, Germany / Institute of International Economics, University Jaume I, Spain
Abstract: This article presents a review of recent studies that estimate the trade effects of foreign aid. It also provides new results obtained using panel data techniques to estimate the direct effects of aid on international trade accounting for countries’ participation in free trade agreements, and the indirect effects that aid exerts on income through trade. A structural gravity model of trade augmented with aid and free trade agreement variables is estimated for a cross-section of 33 donor countries and 125 recipient countries over the period 1995 to 2016. In a second step, the indirect effect of aid on income is estimated using a control function approach and instrumental variable techniques. The main results indicate that development aid has a robust direct effect on donor exports (the effect on recipient exports, however, is not robust). It also has an indirect positive effect on income levels in the recipient countries. The effects are heterogeneous and vary by region.
Keywords: bilateral aid; development aid; exports; foreign aid; free trade agreements; income; international trade
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:2:p:29-52

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: A Meta-Analysis of Aid Effectiveness: Revisiting the Evidence
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1771
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i2.1771
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 2
Pages: 5-28
Author-Name: Tseday Jemaneh Mekasha
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Author-Name: Finn Tarp
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Abstract: As research on the empirical link between aid and growth continues to grow, it is time to revisit the accumulated evidence on aid effectiveness. This paper extends previous meta-analyses, noting that the availability of more data enables us to conduct a sub-group analysis by disaggregating the sample into different time horizons and assess if there are temporal shifts in aid effectiveness. The new and updated results show that the earlier reported positive evidence of aid’s impact is robust to the inclusion of more recent studies and this holds for different time horizons as well. The authenticity of the observed effect is also confirmed by results from funnel plots, regression-based tests, and a cumulative meta-analysis for publication bias.
Keywords: aid; growth; publication bias; meta-analysis
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:2:p:5-28

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Aid Impact and Effectiveness: Introduction and Overview
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2219
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i2.2219
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 2
Pages: 1-4
Author-Name: Rachel M. Gisselquist
Author-Workplace-Name: UNU-WIDER, Finland
Author-Name: Finn Tarp
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Abstract: This editorial provides an introduction to and overview of the thematic issue on “Aid Impact and Effectiveness”. The guest editors put the specific contributions of the nine articles in perspective referring to the wider literature on foreign aid and its allocation, impact, and efficiency, as well as the political and economic processes in which aid operates. They discuss the historical and present-day context for foreign aid and provide summaries of the individual articles, highlighting policy implications and future research needs.
Keywords: climate change; donors; fragile states; foreign aid; growth; impact; institutions; politics; trade
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:2:p:1-4

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: What to Expect from the 2020 Gas Package
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1747
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i1.1747
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 1
Pages: 165-169
Author-Name: Maria Olczak
Author-Workplace-Name: Florence School of Regulation, Italy
Author-Name: Andris Piebalgs
Author-Workplace-Name: Florence School of Regulation, Italy
Abstract: Gas is considered an important part of the European Union’s (EU) energy mix. Making up a quarter of the energy consumed in the EU, it is widely used by both households and industry. Gas supports the penetration of intermittent renewable electricity and is considered the cleanest of the fossil fuels but its combustion emits a considerable amount of greenhouse gases. In the fight against climate change, the EU has committed itself to the near-complete decarbonisation of the energy sector well before 2050. This will have a significant impact on the gas sector, especially in the EU, which has significant gas transportation and storage assets. This commentary examines two potential pathways that could enable the gas sector to contribute to the EU’s decarbonisation efforts while continuing to play a substantial role in the EU’s energy supply. The pathways include gas and electricity sector coupling and the substantial increase of renewable gas production. Those options, which are not mutually exclusive, provide an opportunity for the gas sector to thrive in a decarbonised energy future. In some cases, it could require changes in the EU’s gas legislation announced by the European Commission to be proposed in 2020.
Keywords: carbon capture use and storage; decarbonisation; energy; energy supply; European Union; gas; power-to-gas; renewable gas; sector coupling
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:1:p:165-169

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Following, Challenging, or Shaping: Can Third Countries Influence EU Energy Policy?
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1853
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i1.1853
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 1
Pages: 152-164
Author-Name: Benjamin Hofmann
Author-Workplace-Name: Institute of Political Science, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland
Author-Name: Torbjørg Jevnaker
Author-Workplace-Name: Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Norway / Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Norway
Author-Name: Philipp Thaler
Author-Workplace-Name: Institute of Political Science, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland
Abstract: Can non-EU member states influence the EU’s energy policy? The Europeanization of energy policy in third countries is often described as a one-directional process in which these countries essentially adopt the EU <em>energy acquis</em>. Our article questions this dominant view by exploring whether and how third countries can influence the formulation and implementation of EU energy policy. We argue that relative differences in third country influence depend on their access to relevant venues and actors of EU policy-making as well as their structural power resources. We develop a typology linking these two factors to the outsider, follower, challenger, or shaper roles that third countries assume in EU energy governance. We empirically probe our argument in three case studies representing different models of EU–third country cooperation. Our cases include a group of nine Southeast and East European countries (Energy Community), Switzerland (bilateral arrangements), and Norway (European Economic Area). The analysis shows that it is access and structural power which together define the extent to which third countries are able to influence the formulation of EU energy policy and customize its implementation to their domestic needs. We find that while the Energy Community members are followers in EU energy governance, Switzerland and Norway are shapers. Strikingly, the influence of these two non-EU members may occasionally even surpass that of smaller EU member states. This highlights that third countries are not merely downloading EU energy regulation but sometimes also succeed in uploading their own preferences. Our contribution has implications for the post-Brexit EU–UK energy relations and qualifies claims about EU regulatory hegemony in the wider region.
Keywords: Brexit; Energy Community; energy policy; European Economic Area; European Union; Europeanization; influence; Norway; Switzerland; third country
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:1:p:152-164

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Organised Interests in the Energy Sector: A Comparative Study of the Influence of Interest Groups in Czechia and Hungary
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1784
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i1.1784
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 1
Pages: 139-151
Author-Name: Brigitte Horváthová
Author-Workplace-Name: Faculty of Social Sciences, Goethe University of Frankfurt, Germany
Author-Name: Michael Dobbins
Author-Workplace-Name: Faculty of Social Sciences, Goethe University of Frankfurt, Germany
Abstract: In this article, we explore civil society mobilisation and the impact of organised interests on the energy policies of two post-communist countries—Hungary and Czechia—and specifically nuclear energy. Drawing on numerous hypotheses from the literature on organised interests, we explore how open both political systems are for civil society input and what interest group-specific and socio-economic factors mediate the influence of organised interests. Based on the preference attainment method, our case studies focus on the extent to which organised interests have succeeded bringing nuclear energy legislation in line with their preferences. We find that while both democracies are open to civil society input, policy-making is generally conducted in state-industrial circles, whereby anti-nuclear and renewable energy advocates are at best able to make minor corrections to already pre-determined policies.
Keywords: civil society; Czechia; energy policy; Hungary; interest groups; nuclear energy
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:1:p:139-151

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: The Political Economy of EU Climate and Energy Policies in Central and Eastern Europe Revisited: Shifting Coalitions and Prospects for Clean Energy Transitions
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1786
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i1.1786
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 1
Pages: 124-138
Author-Name: Stefan Ćetković
Author-Workplace-Name: Environmental and Climate Policy Chair, Bavarian School of Public Policy, Technical University of Munich, Germany
Author-Name: Aron Buzogány
Author-Workplace-Name: Institute of Forest, Environmental and Natural Resource Policy, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Austria
Abstract: The countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have commonly been regarded as climate and energy policy laggards blocking more ambitious EU decarbonization targets. Although recent literature has increasingly acknowledged the differences in national positions on energy and climate issues among these states, there has been little comprehensive evidence about their positioning on EU climate and energy policies and the domestic interests which shape government preferences. The article addresses this gap by tracing the voting behavior of six CEE countries (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania) on EU energy-related legislation in the Council of Ministers between 2007–2018. The article shows that the contestation of energy policies, particularly of climate-related legislation, in the Council of Ministers has increased over time and that these six CEE countries have indeed most often objected to the adoption of EU legislation. The CEE states do not, however, have a common regional positioning on all EU energy policies. Voting coalitions among the six CEE countries differ substantially across energy policy areas. The lack of a common regional position and changing national preferences have enabled the adoption of a relatively ambitious EU Energy and Climate Package for 2030. The differences in national voting patterns are explained by the evolving interests and the ability of key domestic political and economic actors to adapt to and explore benefits from the ever-expanding EU energy and climate policies.
Keywords: Central and Eastern Europe; Council of Ministers; domestic interests; energy transition; Energy Union; EU climate policy; EU energy; illiberalism; Visegrad states
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:1:p:124-138

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: The EU Emissions Trading System and Renewable Energy Policies: Friends or Foes in the European Policy Mix?
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1800
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i1.1800
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 1
Pages: 105-123
Author-Name: Marie Byskov Lindberg
Author-Workplace-Name: TIK Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo, Norway / Bavarian School of Public Policy, Technical University of Munich, Germany
Abstract: The EU’s energy transition has advanced rapidly over the last decade, with important implications for the policy landscape. Scholars have characterized the Emissions Trading System (ETS) and the Renewable Energy Directive as the most important policies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the electricity sector. However, since the early 2010s, non-governmental and industrial actors have debated whether renewable energy (RE) support and targets are compatible with the ETS. This article systematically assesses the policy preferences of five groups of non-governmental actors with respect to the role of the ETS versus RE policies in three policy processes. For most groups, preferences remain stable across the policy processes. In the electricity industry group, preferences vary from one policy process to another. During the ETS-reform, this group of actors argues that the ETS should be the main climate policy, whereas, in the Clean Energy Package-process, almost half of the utilities endorse continued RE support. This represents a shift in their line of reasoning and policy position: from asserting that RE policies ‘destroy’ the ETS, towards a position which recognizes the value of having both the ETS and RE policies as complementary instruments in the policy mix. The findings point to increasing support for RE policies, which is important for policy makers and scholars involved in designing and implementing the EU’s decarbonization policies.
Keywords: emissions trading system; energy policy; energy transition; European Union; policy mix; renewables
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:1:p:105-123

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Energy Security Concerns versus Market Harmony: The Europeanisation of Capacity Mechanisms
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1791
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i1.1791
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 1
Pages: 92-104
Author-Name: Merethe Dotterud Leiren
Author-Workplace-Name: CICERO Center for International Climate Research, Norway
Author-Name: Kacper Szulecki
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Norway
Author-Name: Tim Rayner
Author-Workplace-Name: Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East Anglia, UK
Author-Name: Catherine Banet
Author-Workplace-Name: Scandinavian Institute of Maritime Law, University of Oslo, Norway
Abstract: The impact of renewables on the energy markets–falling wholesale electricity prices and lower investment stability–are apparently creating a shortage of energy project financing, which in future could lead to power supply shortages. Governments have responded by introducing payments for capacity, alongside payments for energy being sold. The increasing use of capacity mechanisms (CMs) in the EU has created tensions between the European Commission, which encourages cross-country cooperation, and Member States that favour backup solutions such as capacity markets and strategic reserves. We seek to trace the influence of the European Commission on national capacity markets as well as learning between Member States. Focusing on the United Kingdom, France and Poland, the analysis shows that energy security concerns have been given more emphasis than the functioning of markets by Member States. Policy developments have primarily been domestically driven, but the European Commission has managed to impose certain elements, most importantly a uniform methodology to assess future supply security, as well as specific requirements for national capacity markets: interconnectors to neighbouring countries, demand side responses and continuous revision of CMs. Learning from other Member States’ experiences also play a role in policy decisions.
Keywords: capacity mechanisms; energy; electricity; Europeanisation; European Union; public policy; energy security; energy supply; state aid
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:1:p:92-104

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Policy Instrument Supply and Demand: How the Renewable Electricity Auction Took over the World
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1581
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i1.1581
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 1
Pages: 81-91
Author-Name: Oscar W Fitch-Roy
Author-Workplace-Name: Energy Policy Group, University of Exeter, UK
Author-Name: David Benson
Author-Workplace-Name: University of Exeter
Author-Name: Bridget Woodman
Author-Workplace-Name: Energy Policy Group, University of Exeter, UK
Abstract: The selection and design of renewable electricity support instruments is an important part of European Union (EU) energy policy and central to the governance of the Energy Union. In 2014, the European Commission published updated guidelines for state aid that effectively mandate the EU-wide implementation of auctions for allocating revenue support to commercial scale renewable electricity generation. This article argues that the RES auction’s rapid ascent towards dominance is explained by a coincidence of an activist interpretation of EU state aid law creating demand for knowledge about the instrument and the emergence of a ready source of supply from a burgeoning community of a RES auction specialists and experts. Knowledge gained through EU-wide implementation of auctions further adds to supply of auctions expertise among the community. The implications of positive feedback between instrument demand and the growing supply of knowledge about an instrument reinforces the importance of critical engagement between policymakers and policy experts.
Keywords: auctions; European Union; governance instruments; instrument constituencies; renewable energy; state aid
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:1:p:81-91

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Constitutionalization and Entrepreneurship: Explaining Increased EU Steering of Renewables Support Schemes
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1851
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i1.1851
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 1
Pages: 70-80
Author-Name: Elin Lerum Boasson
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Norway / CICERO—Center for International Climate Research, Norway
Abstract: This article sheds light on two under-researched issue areas: the energy policy-shaping role of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and how constitutionalization of EU state aid law gives the European Commission (Commission) increased leverage over EU policy development. EU state aid governance is embedded in the Treaty of the Functioning of the EU’s prohibition of state aid. The CJEU and the Commissions’ Directorate-General for Competition (DG Comp) have played important roles in the emergence of stronger EU steering of renewable energy support schemes after 2014. For many years, powerful member states, most notably Germany, stopped the adoption of EU rules requiring more market streamlining and European harmonization of renewables support. This primarily played out in regular EU decision-making (co-decision) related to adoption and revision of the Renewable Energy Directive. A radical shift occurred in 2014 when the Commission introduced new guidelines on state aid for environmental protection and energy, giving the Commission increased authority over development of renewables support schemes across Europe. These guidelines called for renewables investments to become more exposed to energy market pricing and introduced auctioning as the main allocation mechanism. Support schemes for renewable energy were included for the first time in the EU state aid guidelines for environmental protection in 2001. Back then, member states had ample leeway to design support schemes as they pleased. The 2014 version of the guidelines includes far more detailed requirements. While the first CJEU ruling on renewables state aid hindered the Commission to intervene, new CJEU rulings after 2008 enabled the Commission to draft more restrictive guidelines. This article concludes that constitutionalization, combined with the policy entrepreneurship of Commission officials, explains the shift in EU steering in 2014. This indicates that constitutionalization and Commission entrepreneurship should be assessed in conjunction. Constitutionalization may be particularly important in the state aid area due to the superior competence of the Commission.
Keywords: constitutionalization; Court of Justice of the European Union; European Commission; judicialization; policy entrepreneurship; renewable energy policy; state aid
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:1:p:70-80

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: EU Agencies and the Energy Union: Providing Useful Information to the Commission?
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1781
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i1.1781
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 1
Pages: 60-69
Author-Name: Torbjørg Jevnaker
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Norway / Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Norway
Author-Name: Barbara Saerbeck
Author-Workplace-Name: Federation of German Consumer Organizations, Germany / Environmental Policy Research Centre, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
Abstract: The development of the energy policy of the European Union (EU) has been accompanied by organizational reforms of the EU’s energy bureaucracy. Much attention has been paid to Commission President Juncker’s reorganization of the European Commission, including how this has influenced the Energy Union initiative. The establishment of EU agencies has also expanded the EU administration and the capacity for developing new initiatives and coordinating implementation of EU legislation. However, recent research has not been sufficiently connected to policy studies on energy, climate and environment. This article analyses the extent to which two EU agencies—the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators, and the European Environmental Agency—augment the policymaking capacity of the Commission by providing information that aids its work. The article ends with a discussion of the potential implications of agencification.
Keywords: Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators; energy policy; Energy Union; EU agencies; European Commission; European Environment Agency; expertise; information
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:1:p:60-69

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: What Drives the Participation of Renewable Energy Cooperatives in European Energy Governance?
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1782
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i1.1782
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 1
Pages: 45-59
Author-Name: Jale Tosun
Author-Workplace-Name: Institute of Political Science, Heidelberg University, Germany / Heidelberg Center for the Environment, Germany
Author-Name: Laura Zöckler
Author-Workplace-Name: Bürgerwerke eG and Heidelberger Energiegenossenschaft eG, Germany
Author-Name: Benedikt Rilling
Author-Workplace-Name: Institute for International Research on Sustainable Management and Renewable Energy, Nuertingen-Geislingen University, Germany
Abstract: What determines the willingness of renewable energy cooperatives (RECs) to strengthen their involvement in politics at the different levels of governments (local/regional, national, transnational)? We address this research question by using data from an original survey distributed to RECs in Germany. The descriptive analysis shows that the RECs are less willing to participate in energy governance at the EU/transnational level than at the national and especially the subnational level. Our analytical findings, first, show that the odds of RECs to participate in governance processes in the future are greater for those RECs that are already involved in such processes. Put differently, we find that engagement in energy governance is affected by path-dependence. Second, participation in subnational governance processes is determined by dissatisfaction with policy decisions taken at that level: the more dissatisfied the respondents, the more likely they are to exert influence in the future. For the Energy Union to realise its aim of incorporating a broader range of stakeholders, the European Commission must highlight the opportunity structure it provides for participating in governance processes.
Keywords: energy cooperatives; Energy Union; Germany; governance; renewable energy; survey data
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:1:p:45-59

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: A Big Data View of the European Energy Union: Shifting from ‘a Floating Signifier’ to an Active Driver of Decarbonisation?
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1731
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i1.1731
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 1
Pages: 28-44
Author-Name: Karoliina Isoaho
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Social Research, University of Helsinki, Finland
Author-Name: Fanni Moilanen
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Social Research, University of Helsinki, Finland
Author-Name: Arho Toikka
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Social Research, University of Helsinki, Finland
Abstract: The Energy Union, a major energy sector reform project launched by the European Commission in 2015, has substantial clean energy and climate aims. However, scholarly caution has been raised about their feasibility, especially with regards to accommodating climate objectives with other closely related yet often competing policy goals. We therefore investigated the policy priorities of the Energy Union by performing a topic modelling analysis of over 5,000 policy documents. A big data analysis confirms that decarbonisation and energy efficiency dimensions are major building blocks in the Energy Union’s agenda. Furthermore, there are signals of policy convergence in terms of climate security and climate affordability policies. However, our analysis also suggests that the Commission is not actively prescribing trajectories for renewable policy development or paying close attention to declining incumbent energy generation technologies. Overall, we find that the Energy Union is not a ‘floating signifier’ but rather has a clear and incrementally evolving decarbonisation agenda. Whether it further develops into an active driver of decarbonisation will largely be determined by the implementation phase of the project.
Keywords: clean energy transition; energy policy; energy security; European Commission; European Union; policy integration; renewable energy; sustainability; topic modelling
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:1:p:28-44

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Hard or Soft Governance? The EU’s Climate and Energy Policy Framework for 2030
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1796
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i1.1796
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 1
Pages: 17-27
Author-Name: Sebastian Oberthür
Author-Workplace-Name: Institute for European Studies, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
Abstract: This article investigates the stringency of EU climate and energy governance along the soft-hard continuum as a key determinant of its ability to achieve its ambitions. It introduces four criteria for a systematic and differentiated assessment of the bindingness/stringency of legislative instruments and governance frameworks, namely: (1) formal legal status, (2) the nature of the obligations (substantive—procedural), (3) their precision and prescriptiveness, and (4) the means for effecting accountability and effective implementation. The application of this assessment framework to the EU’s Climate and Energy Policy Framework for 2030 in comparison with the preceding 2020 Framework and the international Paris Agreement on climate change demonstrates the added value of this approach. The focus is on regulations, adopted in 2018, regarding greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy (RE), and energy efficiency as well as the surrounding framework for planning, reporting, monitoring, and enforcement. The EU’s 2030 Framework scores high on the four criteria. Despite implementing the comparatively soft Paris Agreement, it does not fall behind the stringency of the 2020 Framework, as the abandoning of binding national targets for RE is balanced by strengthened obligations to prepare national plans, long-term strategies, and regular progress reports, as well as the enhanced monitoring and supervisory powers of the European Commission. While actual delivery will not least depend on how the Commission will use its established and newly acquired powers and tools, the 2030 Framework reinforces EU interest in strengthening international climate governance under the Paris Agreement.
Keywords: bindingness; climate governance; energy governance; Energy Union; European Union; Governance Regulation; hard governance; Paris Agreement; soft governance
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:1:p:17-27

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: The Effect of European Integration on Swiss Energy Policy and Governance
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1780
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i1.1780
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 1
Pages: 6-16
Author-Name: Paul Adrianus van Baal
Author-Workplace-Name: Collège du Management, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland
Author-Name: Matthias Finger
Author-Workplace-Name: Collège du Management, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland
Abstract: The unique “Swiss way” of association with the European Union (EU) has received increasing attention in light of recent events such as Brexit as it is based on sectoral agreements without an overarching institutional framework. As such, Europeanization of Swiss domestic policy does not follow a straightforward process. We examine the external governance processes that drive the Europeanization of Swiss energy policy. Switzerland and the EU are highly interdependent in energy due to Switzerland’s geographical position but there is a relatively low level of policy alignment, as there is no formal EU-Swiss energy agreement nor has Switzerland autonomously implemented legislation equivalent to the EU energy acquis. The EU has fully liberalized the energy market and is focusing on consumer empowerment and decarbonization through the Clean Energy Package, whereas the Swiss energy sector remains only partially liberalized. Through a series of expert interviews with key stakeholders, we reconstruct the historical developments in Swiss energy policy, focusing on the relationship with, and the influence of the EU. We observe elements of each of the three ideal modes of governance—markets, hierarchies, and networks. The relative importance of these modes of coordination in governing EU-Swiss energy relations has shifted considerably over time. Gradual harmonization of EU energy markets and certain key events have driven Swiss exclusion from EU network governance processes, leading to more hierarchy. We identify the strengths and weaknesses of each mode of governance for EU-Swiss energy relations in their historical setting and discuss the implications for energy policy in Switzerland in the context of the Clean Energy Package and EU external relations in general.
Keywords: energy policy; European Union; external governance; history; network governance; power; Switzerland
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:1:p:6-16

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Title: Towards Decarbonization: Understanding EU Energy Governance
File-URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2029
File-Format: text/html
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i1.2029
Journal: Politics and Governance
Volume: 7
Year: 2019
Issue: 1
Pages: 1-5
Author-Name: Kacper Szulecki
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Norway
Author-Name: Dag Herald Claes
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Norway
Abstract: This editorial introduces the thematic issue “EU Energy Policy: Towards a Clean Energy Transition?”, nesting it in broader discussion on European Union’s (EU) energy policy. For over a decade, the EU has displayed an interest and political motivation to integrate climate policy priorities into its energy governance. However, the history of European energy governance does not start there, though political science scholarship has tended to downplay the importance of energy sector regulation. Recent years have finally seen the merging of two distinct research programs on European energy politics, and the emergence of a more inclusive and historically accurate approach to energy governance in Europe. This thematic issue follows that new paradigm. It is divided into three sections. The first investigates the EU Energy Union, its governance and decarbonization ambitions. The second section looks at the increasing overlaps between energy and competition policies, particularly the role of State Aid Guidelines in influencing energy subsidies—for renewable as well as conventional energy. Finally, the third section analyses the energy and climate policy of “new” EU members and the relationship between the EU and non-members in the energy sector.
Keywords: climate policy; decarbonization; electricity; energy policy; energy transition; European Union; governance; public policy; renewable energy; state aid
Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:1:p:1-5