@incollection{QuitzowBersalliLilliestametal.2023, author = {Quitzow, Rainer and Bersalli, Germ{\´a}n and Lilliestam, Johan and Prontera, Andrea}, title = {Green recovery}, series = {Handbook on European Union Climate Change Policy and Politics}, booktitle = {Handbook on European Union Climate Change Policy and Politics}, editor = {Rayner, Tim and Szulecki, Kacper and Jordan, Andrew J. and Oberth{\"u}r, Sebastian}, publisher = {Edward Elgar Publishing}, isbn = {978-1-78990-698-1}, doi = {10.4337/9781789906981.00039}, pages = {351 -- 366}, year = {2023}, abstract = {This chapter reviews how the European Union has fared in enabling a green recovery in the aftermath of the Covid-19 crisis, drawing comparisons to developments after the financial crisis. The chapter focuses on the European Commission and its evolving role in promoting decarbonisation efforts in its Member States, paying particular attention to its role in financing investments in low-carbon assets. It considers both the direct effects of green stimulus policies on decarbonisation in the EU and how these actions have shaped the capacities of the Commission as an actor in the field of climate and energy policy. The analysis reveals a significant expansion of the Commission's role compared to the period following the financial crisis. EU-level measures have provided incentives for Member States to direct large volumes of financing towards investments in climate-friendly assets. Nevertheless, the ultimate impact will largely be shaped by implementation at the national level.}, language = {en} } @article{OllierMetzNunezJimenezetal.2022, author = {Ollier, Lana and Metz, Florence and Nu{\~n}ez-Jimenez, Alejandro and Sp{\"a}th, Leonhard and Lilliestam, Johan}, title = {The European 2030 climate and energy package}, series = {Policy sciences}, volume = {55}, journal = {Policy sciences}, number = {1}, publisher = {Springer Science+Business Media LLC}, address = {New York}, issn = {0032-2687}, doi = {10.1007/s11077-022-09447-5}, pages = {161 -- 184}, year = {2022}, abstract = {The European Union's 2030 climate and energy package introduced fundamental changes compared to its 2020 predecessor. These changes included a stronger focus on the internal market and an increased emphasis on technology-neutral decarbonization while simultaneously de-emphasizing the renewables target. This article investigates whether changes in domestic policy strategies of leading member states in European climate policy preceded the observed changes in EU policy. Disaggregating strategic change into changes in different elements (goals, objectives, instrumental logic), allows us to go beyond analyzing the relative prioritization of different goals, and to analyze how policy requirements for reaching those goals were dynamically redefined over time. To this end, we introduce a new method, which based on insights from social network analysis, enables us to systematically trace those strategic chances. We find that shifts in national strategies of the investigated member states preceded the shift in EU policy. In particular, countries reframed their understanding of supply security, and pushed for the internal electricity market also as a security measure to balance fluctuating renewables. Hence, the increasing focus on markets and market integration in the European 2030 package echoed the increasingly central role of the internal market for electricity supply security in national strategies. These findings also highlight that countries dynamically redefined their goals relative to the different phases of the energy transition.}, language = {en} } @book{MeinelGalbasHageboelling2023, author = {Meinel, Christoph and Galbas, Michael and Hageb{\"o}lling, David}, title = {Digital sovereignty: insights from Germany's education sector}, number = {157}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, isbn = {978-3-86956-561-3}, issn = {1613-5652}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-59772}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-597723}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {1 -- 27}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Digital technology offers significant political, economic, and societal opportunities. At the same time, the notion of digital sovereignty has become a leitmotif in German discourse: the state's capacity to assume its responsibilities and safeguard society's - and individuals' - ability to shape the digital transformation in a self-determined way. The education sector is exemplary for the challenge faced by Germany, and indeed Europe, of harnessing the benefits of digital technology while navigating concerns around sovereignty. It encompasses education as a core public good, a rapidly growing field of business, and growing pools of highly sensitive personal data. The report describes pathways to mitigating the tension between digitalization and sovereignty at three different levels - state, economy, and individual - through the lens of concrete technical projects in the education sector: the HPI Schul-Cloud (state sovereignty), the MERLOT data spaces (economic sovereignty), and the openHPI platform (individual sovereignty).}, language = {en} } @article{HeckeFuhrWolfs2021, author = {Hecke, Steven van and Fuhr, Harald and Wolfs, Wouter}, title = {The politics of crisis management by regional and international organizations in fighting against a global pandemic}, series = {International review of administrative sciences : an international journal of comparative public administration}, volume = {87}, journal = {International review of administrative sciences : an international journal of comparative public administration}, number = {3}, publisher = {Sage}, address = {Los Angeles, Calif. [u.a.]}, issn = {0020-8523}, doi = {10.1177/0020852320984516}, pages = {672 -- 690}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Despite new challenges like climate change and digitalization, global and regional organizations recently went through turbulent times due to a lack of support from several of their member states. Next to this crisis of multilateralism, the COVID-19 pandemic now seems to question the added value of international organizations for addressing global governance issues more specifically. This article analyses this double challenge that several organizations are facing and compares their ways of managing the crisis by looking at their institutional and political context, their governance structure, and their behaviour during the pandemic until June 2020. More specifically, it will explain the different and fragmented responses of the World Health Organization, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund/World Bank. With the aim of understanding the old and new problems that these international organizations are trying to solve, this article argues that the level of autonomy vis-a-vis the member states is crucial for understanding the politics of crisis management.
Points for practitioners
As intergovernmental bodies, international organizations require authorization by their member states. Since they also need funding for their operations, different degrees of autonomy also matter for reacting to emerging challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The potential for international organizations is limited, though through proactive and bold initiatives, they can seize the opportunity of the crisis and partly overcome institutional and political constraints.}, language = {en} } @article{EbersHochRosenkranzetal.2021, author = {Ebers, Martin and Hoch, Veronica R. S. and Rosenkranz, Frank and Ruschemeier, Hannah and Steinr{\"o}tter, Bj{\"o}rn}, title = {The European Commission's proposal for an Artificial Intelligence Act}, series = {J : multidisciplinary scientific journal}, volume = {4}, journal = {J : multidisciplinary scientific journal}, number = {4}, publisher = {MDPI}, address = {Basel}, issn = {2571-8800}, doi = {10.3390/j4040043}, pages = {589 -- 603}, year = {2021}, abstract = {On 21 April 2021, the European Commission presented its long-awaited proposal for a Regulation "laying down harmonized rules on Artificial Intelligence", the so-called "Artificial Intelligence Act" (AIA). This article takes a critical look at the proposed regulation. After an introduction (1), the paper analyzes the unclear preemptive effect of the AIA and EU competences (2), the scope of application (3), the prohibited uses of Artificial Intelligence (AI) (4), the provisions on high-risk AI systems (5), the obligations of providers and users (6), the requirements for AI systems with limited risks (7), the enforcement system (8), the relationship of the AIA with the existing legal framework (9), and the regulatory gaps (10). The last section draws some final conclusions (11).}, language = {en} } @article{BobzienKalleitner2020, author = {Bobzien, Licia and Kalleitner, Fabian}, title = {Attitudes towards European financial solidarity during the Covid-19 pandemic}, series = {European societies}, volume = {23}, journal = {European societies}, number = {Sup. 1}, publisher = {Routledge, Taylor \& Francis Group}, address = {Abingdon}, issn = {1461-6696}, doi = {10.1080/14616696.2020.1836669}, pages = {S791 -- S804}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Whilst the Covid-19 pandemic affects all European countries, the ways in which these countries are prepared for the health and subsequent economic crisis varies considerably. Financial solidarity within the European Union (EU) could mitigate some of these inequalities but depends upon the support of the citizens of individual member states for such policies. This paper studies attitudes of the Austrian population - a net-contributor to the European budget - towards financial solidarity using two waves of the Austrian Corona Panel Project collected in May and June 2020. We find that individuals (i) who are less likely to consider the Covid-19 pandemic as a national economic threat, (ii) who believe that Austria benefits from supporting other countries, and (iii) who prefer the crisis to be organized more centrally at EU-level show higher support for European financial solidarity. Using fixed effects models, we further show that perceiving economic threats and preferring central crisis management also explain attitude dynamics within individuals over time. We conclude that cost-benefit perceptions are important determinants for individual support of European financial solidarity during the Covid-19 pandemic.}, language = {en} } @article{Paasch2022, author = {Paasch, Jana}, title = {Revisiting policy preferences and capacities in the EU}, series = {Journal of common market studies : JCMS}, volume = {60}, journal = {Journal of common market studies : JCMS}, number = {3}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Oxford}, issn = {0021-9886}, doi = {10.1111/jcms.13286}, pages = {783 -- 800}, year = {2022}, abstract = {Research on multi-level implementation of EU legislation has almost exclusively focused on the national level, while little is known about the role of subnational authorities. Nevertheless, it is a prerequisite for the functioning of the European Union that all member states and their subnational authorities apply and enforce EU legislation in due time. I address this research gap and take a closer look at the legal transposition process in the German regional states. Using a novel data set comprising detailed information on about 700 subnational measures, I show that state-level variables, such as political preferences and ministerial resources, account for variation in the timing of legal transposition and repeatedly lead to subnational delay. To conclude, the paper addresses the role of subnational authorities in the EU multi-level system and points to their interest in shaping legal transposition in order to counterbalance their loss of competences to the national level.}, language = {en} } @article{SchmidtWellenburg2018, author = {Schmidt-Wellenburg, Christian}, title = {Struggling over crisis}, series = {Historical Social Research}, volume = {43}, journal = {Historical Social Research}, number = {3}, publisher = {GESIS, Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences}, address = {Cologne}, issn = {0172-6404}, doi = {10.12759/hsr.43.2018.3.147-188}, pages = {147 -- 188}, year = {2018}, abstract = {If you put two economists in a room, you get two opinions, unless one of them is Lord Keynes, in which case you get three opinions." Following the premise of this quotation attributed to Winston Churchill, varying perceptions of the European crisis by academic economists and their structural homology to economists' positions in the field of economics are examined. The dataset analysed using specific multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) and hierarchical agglomerative clustering (HAC) comprises information on the careers of 480 German-speaking economists and on statements they made concerning crisis-related issues. It can be shown that the main structural differences in the composition and amount of scientific and academic capital held by economists as well as their age and degree of transnationalisation are linked to how they see the crisis: as a national sovereign debt crisis, as a European banking crisis, or as a crisis of European integration and institutions.}, language = {en} } @article{DavydchykMehlhausenPriesmeyerTkocz2017, author = {Davydchyk, Maria and Mehlhausen, Thomas and Priesmeyer-Tkocz, Weronika}, title = {The price of success, the benefit of setbacks}, series = {Futures : the journal of policy, planning and futures studies}, volume = {97}, journal = {Futures : the journal of policy, planning and futures studies}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Oxford}, issn = {0016-3287}, doi = {10.1016/j.futures.2017.06.004}, pages = {35 -- 46}, year = {2017}, abstract = {This article explores the various futures of relations between the European Union (EU) and Ukraine. After distilling two major drivers we construct a future compass in order to conceive of four futures of relations between the EU and Ukraine. Our scenarios aim to challenge deep-rooted assumptions on the EU's neighbourhood with Ukraine: How will the politico-economic challenges in the European countries influence the EU's approach towards the East? Will more EU engagement in Ukraine contribute to enduring peace? Does peace always come with stability? Which prospects does the idea of Intermarium have? Are the pivotal transformation players in Ukraine indeed oligarchs or rather small- and medium-sized entrepreneurs? After presenting our scenarios, we propose indicators to know in the years to come, along which path future relations do develop. By unearthing surprising developments we hope to provoke innovative thoughts on Eastern Europe in times of post truth societies, confrontation between states and hybrid warfare.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Hanschmann2019, author = {Hanschmann, Raffael Tino}, title = {Stalling the engine? EU climate politics after the 'Great Recession'}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-44044}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-440441}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {XXVIII, 303}, year = {2019}, abstract = {This dissertation investigates the impact of the economic and fiscal crisis starting in 2008 on EU climate policy-making. While the overall number of adopted greenhouse gas emission reduction policies declined in the crisis aftermath, EU lawmakers decided to introduce new or tighten existing regulations in some important policy domains. Existing knowledge about the crisis impact on EU legislative decision-making cannot explain these inconsistencies. In response, this study develops an actor-centred conceptual framework based on rational choice institutionalism that provides a micro-level link to explain how economic crises translate into altered policy-making patterns. The core theoretical argument draws on redistributive conflicts, arguing that tensions between 'beneficiaries' and 'losers' of a regulatory initiative intensify during economic crises and spill over to the policy domain. To test this hypothesis and using social network analysis, this study analyses policy processes in three case studies: The introduction of carbon dioxide emission limits for passenger cars, the expansion of the EU Emissions Trading System to aviation, and the introduction of a regulatory framework for biofuels. The key finding is that an economic shock causes EU policy domains to polarise politically, resulting in intensified conflict and more difficult decision-making. The results also show that this process of political polarisation roots in the industry that is the subject of the regulation, and that intergovernmental bargaining among member states becomes more important, but also more difficult in times of crisis.}, language = {en} }