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Over the past decade, an increasing number of public organizations involved in marine governance in Europe have adapted their formal coordination structures for fisheries and marine environmental management. This study examines why the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), DG FISH of the European Commission, the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research (IMR), and the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management (SwAM) have changed their sectoral structures into organizations with a geographical focus on marine ecosystems. The study finds that the gradual convergence of formal coordination structures for fisheries and marine environmental management is driven by coercive, normative and mimetic processes of isomorphism. The structural changes reflect an organizational adaptation to a changing institutional environment and an Ecosystem Approach to Management (EAM) focusing on regional marine areas, cross-sector integration and coordination. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
The present work is a case study contributing to the major planning project “Suedlink”. It is structured as follows: first, in a theoretical part, mandatory theories of social acceptance (Wüstenhagen et al., 2007), steps of participation (Münnich, 2014), and the governance theory (Benz and Dose, 2011) are elaborated. Secondly, the relevant methods are discussed. Thirdly, in a qualitative analytical part, the information that were gathered from the expert interviews are analyzed with the use of the aforementioned theories. In the fourth place, an empirical quantitative analysis of data regarding the public acceptance towards Suedlink is presented.
In this case study, with the use of qualitative and quantitative methods, two questions are answered: first, which governance aspects were relevant for the priority use of underground cables for the construction of high voltage direct current transmission lines? For this question, intensive document analysis and different expert interviews were conducted. Secondly, the central question of the present work addresses the question whether local or/and individual factors affect the public acceptance towards SüdLink. Here, in particular, it is interesting to analyze if the priority use of underground cables affected the people’s acceptance towards SuedLink. In order to respond to both questions, an online survey was conducted among citizen initiatives, district administrators, and individuals in social media during March till July 2016. Thereafter, the data was analyzed with the use of descriptive quantitative methods. The data shows, that underground cables not necessarily increase public acceptance (see also Menges and Beyer, 2013). On the contrary, individual and local criteria were relevant for the survey respondents. For example criteria such as the quality of participation, distance between home and transmission lines, and the additional financial burden (taxes, higher prices for electricity) were important for the evaluation. In addition, survey respondents who participated in citizen initiatives were more critical against the priority use of underground cables and SuedLink in general. Likewise, residential homeowners rejected every form of transmission lines.
This article rests on the assumption of the “complexity, messiness, power relations, and contested character of the contemporary dualistic system,” which comprises great powers and “superimposed, functionally differentiated global subsystems of world society” (Cohen 2012:5). The article argues that this framework is being shaped by the current transition of global order. In turn, this raises the question how the state-led negotiation of today's order transition can be understood against the backdrop of a post-Westphalian environment. The article challenges the widespread argument pertaining to the “autonomy of transnational actors” by suggesting that the influence of nonstate actors is dependent on a particular institutional context in which the key political questions framing a social order are settled. Whereas research on international institutions and their design simply assumes that this is the case, here it is argued that unless these framing patterns are agreed upon by major powers, the respective order and its elements, that is, institutions and regimes, remain contested or deadlocked. When this happens, the political impact of non-state actors is largely neutralized or strongly weakened and their effective autonomy from great powers is minimized.
Predicting Paris: Multi-Method Approaches to Forecast the Outcomes of Global Climate Negotiations
(2016)
We examine the negotiations held under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention of Climate Change in Paris, December 2015. Prior to these negotiations, there was considerable uncertainty about whether an agreement would be reached, particularly given that the world’s leaders failed to do so in the 2009 negotiations held in Copenhagen. Amid this uncertainty, we applied three different methods to predict the outcomes: an expert survey and two negotiation simulation models, namely the Exchange Model and the Predictioneer’s Game. After the event, these predictions were assessed against the coded texts that were agreed in Paris. The evidence suggests that combining experts’ predictions to reach a collective expert prediction makes for significantly more accurate predictions than individual experts’ predictions. The differences in the performance between the two different negotiation simulation models were not statistically significant.
The current financial reporting environment, with its increasing use of accounting estimates, including fair value estimates, suggests that unethical accounting estimates may be a growing concern. This paper provides explanations and empirical evidence for why some types of accounting estimates in financial reporting may promote a form of ethical blindness. These types of ethical blindness can have an escalating effect that corrupts not only an individual or organization but also the accounting profession and the public interest it serves. Ethical blindness in the standards of professional accountants may be a factor in the extent of misreporting, and may have taken on new urgency as a result of the proposals to change the conceptual framework for financial reporting using international standards. The social consequences for users of financial statements can be huge. The acquittal of former Nortel executives on fraud charges related to accounting manipulations is viewed by many as legitimizing accounting gamesmanship. This decision illustrates that the courts may not be the best place to deal with ethical reporting issues. The courts may be relied on for only the most egregious unethical conduct and, even then, the accounting profession is ill equipped to assist the legal system in prosecuting accounting fraud unless the standards have been clarified. We argue that the problem of unethical reporting should be addressed by the accounting profession itself, preferably as a key part of the conceptual framework that supports accounting and auditing standards, and the codes of ethical conduct that underpin the professionalism of accountants.
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence regarding the selection procedures for and characteristics of senior officials in supreme audit institutions (SIAs). Design/methodology/approach - This study follows a quantitative approach using original data collected for presidential elections of SIAs in the 16 federal states in Germany. A fractional logit model is calculated to test different theoretical assumptions in relation to structural, political and individual factors. Findings - The descriptive results confirm the findings of prior research that presidential candidates are elected with very high approval rates. The main determinants are the vote share of the ruling coalition and the executive experience of the presidential candidate. Research limitations/implications - This study focuses on 16 federal states in Germany, but an international comparative perspective covering subnational levels would further augment analysis through the variance of selection procedures and electoral outcomes. Social implications - Independence of auditors is a fundamental issue for the control of the executive, but it seems that there are inevitable trade-offs therein, such as between knowledge of the auditing objects or the politicization of the election process and the independence of the auditor. Originality/value - This study provides novel empirical insights into the election and selection procedures for senior SIA officials at the subnational level, and shows that the executive exerts strong, but functionally reasonable, influence on candidate selection.
The literature on international regulatory regimes has highlighted how rival standards can create different points of convergence. Scholarly attention has also focused on how the European Union (EU) and the United States (USA) attempt to ‘export’ their environmental standards internationally. Here, we explore the effectiveness of these attempts by means of third states' decisions to ratify the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity, a multilateral environmental agreement regulating genetically modified organisms that is promoted by the EU but opposed by the USA. Our findings confirm that both rivals are able to influence the ratification decision of states, but they also suggest that these effects may have different origins. Countries relying more heavily on US markets for food exports tend to be less likely to ratify the Cartagena Protocol, while countries that have applied for EU membership are more likely to ratify the protocol.
A growing number of local energy conflicts around wind power and power-grid extensions are slowing down the deployment of the German Energiewende. In this paper, a local conflict on wind energy in the state of Baden-Württemberg is analysed in detail. In the little community of Engelsbrand, local opposition against a planned wind park was able to turn around a set of favourable a priori conditions, such as a supporting state government planning process, a local supporter group, a transparent planning process, including a majority vote pro wind energy, and a round table discussion. Distancing itself from the NIMBY-explanation (‘Not In My Back Yard’), the paper applies insights from discourse network analysis and micro-sociology in order to study the local conflict dynamics. Special attention is given to the resource mobilisation strategies of the opponents, including social networks, mass and social media use. The paper ends by drawing some general conclusions for the German Energiewende.