Governing clean energy transitions in China and India: A comparative political economy analysis

China and India will have to radically transform their electric power systems in order to decouple economic growth from unsustainable resource consumption. While the majority of transition literature has focused on the diverse socio-technical factors that could enable such a transformation, more recently scholars have called for a deeper analysis of political economy factors. This paper contributes to this approach by studying how a ruling coalition's ability and willingness to promote a clean energy transition is shaped by societal pressures, vested interests, and its power and cohesiveness. In doing so, we identify central drivers and barriers to a clean energy transition in China and India

A matter of information - The influence of international bureaucracies in global climate governance networks

International bureaucracies, also called International Public Administrations (IPAs), have been identified as potentially influential actors within the global climate change regime complex. To assess how these organizations exert influence, scholars have predominantly relied on case studies, interviews and descriptive (network) statistics. This article aims to contribute to this literature with a systematic analysis that is not limited to an organization, issue or region, but applies exponential random graph models (ERGMs) to data from an original large-N survey (n=342) of participants of global climate negotiations. Our findings indicate that IPAs have a considerable potential to influence global climate policy outputs. This potential influence is associated with the information they provide to regime stakeholders.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Interconnected bureaucracies? Comparing online and offline networks during global climate negotiations

Measuring the influence of international public administrations has traditionally been conducted with ‘offline’ data, using interviews, surveys or official documents. However, an emerging strand of the literature argues that influence can also be observed ‘online’, with data based on online social networks, such as Twitter. Our contribution aims at bringing these two strands closer together. We triangulate offline data from a large-N survey with online data from Twitter to examine to what extent they provide distinct theoretical and methodological insights into the role of international public administrations in global governance. As a case study, we use the policy area of global climate governance, an issue area where the influence of international public administrations has raised increasing scholarly interest. Our findings show that international public administrations occupy potentially influential positions in both ‘offline’ and ‘online’ networks. They are more often central actors in the survey network than in Twitter network, but in both networks, they constitute the primary source of issue-specific information.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Education for sustainable development and climate change education: the potential of social network analysis based on twitter data

Education is considered as an essential tool for achieving sustainability-related goals. In this regard, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and Climate Change Education (CCE) have become prominent concepts. Central characteristics of both concepts influence the non-hierarchical network governance structure that has formed around them: (1) their international origin, (2) the conceptual ambiguity that surrounds them, and (3) the limited implementing power of international organizations, who developed these concepts. Hence, networks are essential to ESD and CCE, however, only few studies have used Social Network Analysis (SNA) techniques to analyze their governance structure. The aim of this article is to illustrate how to use SNA, based on Twitter data, as an approach to examine the governance structure that has developed around ESD and CCE. We conduct an illustrative SNA, using Twitter data during three global climate change summits (2015-2017) to examine CCE-specific debates and identify actors exerting the most influence. We find that international organizations and international treaty secretariats are most influential across all years of the analysis and moreover, are represented most often. These findings show that using SNA based on Twitter data offers promising possibilities to better understand the governance structure and processes around both concepts.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

International public administrations on Twitter: a comparison of digital authority in global climate policy

International organizations and their secretariats, called international public administrations (IPAs), have been found to hold considerable authority in world politics. This study conceptualizes and measures IPA authority in the digital sphere. It proposes the concept of digital authority to measure the authority of actors in online social networks (OSN), such as Twitter. Applying exponential random graph models (ERGMs) based on Twitter data during climate change negotiations the article compares the authority of IPAs to that of other actors. The findings show that IPAs are attributed as much authority as state actors in global climate communication networks on Twitter.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Brokering climate action: the UNFCCC secretariat between parties and non-party stakeholders

Our article aims to better understand the role of the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in the increasingly complex global climate governance structure. We employ an innovative approach to addressing this issue by systematically examining the climate secretariat’s relations with the main groups of actors involved in this policy domain, in particular with nonparty actors. In a first step, we use social network analysis (SNA) to examine the secretariat’s relations with nonparty and state stakeholders and to identify its position in the UNFCCC policy network. An understanding of where the climate secretariat stands in the global climate governance network and which actors it interacts with most allows us to draw preliminary conclusions about the ways in which it connects with other stakeholders to influence global climate policy outputs. In a second step, we conduct thirty-three semistructured interviews to corroborate the results of the SNA. Our findings lend support to the argument that the climate secretariat may gradually be moving from a rather neutral and instrumental stance to playing a proactive and influential role in international climate governance. It aims to increase its political influence by establishing strategic links to actors other than the formal negotiation parties.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

What do young adolescents think about taking part in longitudinal self-harm research?: findings from a school-based study

Background: Research about self-harm in adolescence is important given the high incidence in youth, and strong links to suicide and other poor outcomes. Clarifying the impact of involvement in school based self-harm studies on young adolescents is an ethical priority given heightened risk at this developmental stage. Methods: Here, 594 school-based students aged mainly 13-14 years completed a survey on self-harm at baseline and again 12-weeks later. Change in mood following completion of each survey, ratings and thoughts about participation, and responses to a mood-mitigation activity were analysed using a multi-method approach. Results: Baseline participation had no overall impact on mood. However, boys and girls reacted differently to the survey depending on self-harm status. Having a history of self-harm had a negative impact on mood for girls, but a positive impact on mood for boys. In addition, participants rated the survey in mainly positive/neutral terms, and cited benefits including personal insight and altruism. At follow-up, there was a negative impact on mood following participation, but no significant effect of gender or self-harm status. Ratings at follow-up were mainly positive/neutral. Those who had self-harmed reported more positive and fewer negative ratings than at baseline: the opposite pattern of response was found for those who had not self-harmed. Mood mitigation activities were endorsed. Conclusions: Self-harm research with youth is feasible in school settings. Most young people are happy to take part and cite important benefits. However, the impact of participation in research appears to vary according to gender, self-harm risk and method/time of assessment. The impact of repeated assessment requires clarification. Simple mood-elevation techniques may usefully help to mitigate distress

Cultivated ties and strategic communication: Do international environmental secretariats tailor information to increase their bureaucratic reputation?

The past few years have witnessed a growing interest among scholars and policy-makers in the interplay of international bureaucracies with civil society organizations, other non-profit entities, and the private sector. This article extends the state of research by investigating whether and how secretariats try to strengthen their reputation within their respective policy regimes through information provision and alliance building. Based on reputation theory, the article argues that ties cultivated with stakeholders as well as appearance and presentation of information are decisive in this regard. Methodologically, the study implements a mixed-methods design that combines a quantitative survey with social network analysis and qualitative content analysis of interviews with stakeholders within the climate and biodiversity regime. We show that the secretariats of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) maintain relationships with a wide range of state and non-state actors to enhance their reputation. Moreover, different types of actors receive different types of information from the two secretariats studied. Our findings reveal that both secretariats use their limited resources for investing strategically into networks with different types of actors (in the broader transnational policy network), either via the tailored provision of information or through strategic networking with multipliers. They also indicate that reputation does not simply depend on characteristics of bureaucracies, but also on framework conditions and different communication strategies.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

The administrative embeddedness of international environmental secretariats: Toward a global administrative space?

The concept of a global administrative space (GAS) denotes the emergence of administrative structures beyond the territory of the nation state that underpin processes of global governance. Against this backdrop, this chapter argues that an environmental GAS is emerging, which combines the development of independent administrative capacities at the international level with an increasing integration of a broad range of governmental and non-governmental organizations at different levels of government. The GAS constitutes a complex multi-level and multi-actor structure. Based on an original dataset covering issue-specific collaboration and communication flows between organizations operating in the fields of global climate and biodiversity governance, this chapter uses techniques of social network analysis to describe and analyze the structure and composition of administrative networks. It finds a relatively stable pattern of mutual interaction among international environmental bureaucracies, international organizations, national and subnational bureaucracies, research institutes and nongovernmental organizations that can be interpreted as an indicator for the emergence of a GAS in environmental governance.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio