Monitoring and the Risk Governance of Repository Development and Staged Closure:Exploratory Engagement Activity in Three European Countries.

This report is the product of research activity within the EC Seventh Framework Programme “Monitoring Developments for Safe Repository Operation and Staged Closure” (MoDeRn) Project. This project aims to further develop understanding of the role of monitoring in staged implementation of geological disposal to a level of description that is closer to the actual implementation of monitoring. It focuses on monitoring conducted to confirm the basis of the long term safety case and on monitoring conducted to inform on options available to manage the stepwise disposal process from construction to closure (including e.g. the option of waste retrieval). This report investigates the potential of citizen stakeholder engagement in the identification of monitoring objectives and the development of monitoring strategies for geological disposal of high level waste (HLW) or spent nuclear fuel (SNF). It builds on an earlier MoDeRn report describing monitoring the safe disposal of radioactive waste as a socio-technical activity (Bergmans, Elam, Simmons and Sundqvist 2012)

Ethics of e-voting: an essay on requirements and values in Internet elections

In this paper, we investigate ethical issues involved in the development and implementation of Internet voting technology. From a phenomenological perspective, we describe how voting via the Internet mediates the relation between people and democracy. In this relation, trust plays a major role. The dynamics of trust in the relation between people and their world forms the basis for our analysis of the ethical issues involved. First, we consider established principles of voting, confirming the identity of our democracy, which function as expectations in current experiments with online voting in the Netherlands. We investigate whether and how Internet voting can meet these expectations and thereby earn trust, based on the experiments in the Netherlands. We identify major challenges, and provide a basis for ethical and political discussion on these issues, especially the changed relation between public and private. If we decide that we want to vote via the Internet, more practical matters come into play in the implementation of the technology. The choices involved here are discussed in relation to the mediating role of concrete voting technologies in the relation between citizen and state

The job creation effect of R&D expenditures

In this study we use a unique database covering 25 manufacturing and service sectors for 16 European countries over the period 1996-2005, for a total of 2,295 observations, and apply GMM-SYS panel estimations of a demand-for-labour equation augmented with technology. We find that R&D expenditures have a job-creating effect, in accordance with the previous theoretical and empirical literature discussed in the paper. Interestingly enough, the labour-friendly nature of R&D emerges in both the flow and the stock specifications. These findings provide further justification for the European Lisbon-Barcelona targets.Technological change, corporate R&D, employment, product innovation, GMMSYS

Blame and punishment? The electoral politics of extreme austerity in Greece

Can governments that introduce extreme austerity measures survive elections? Contrary to economic voting expectations, the PASOK government in Greece initially appeared to cope quite well, claiming victory in regional elections in 2010 despite widespread anti-austerity protest. In this paper, we interpret this result with the help of a post-election survey, which also covered future voting intention. The explanatory power of models based on theories of economic voting and blame attribution as well as the electoral impact of the government’s representation of the crisis as an existential threat are assessed. Our analysis challenges the interpretation of the 2010 election as an indication of support for PASOK’s austerity policies and reveals weaknesses in its support base, which help contextualise its downfall in the 2012 Parliamentary elections. The paper also underlines the importance of studying the impact of crises discourses on voting choice, particularly since blame attribution receives little support in this case

Does Fiscal Discipline towards Sub-national Governments Affect Citizens’ Well-being? Evidence on Health

This paper aims at assessing the impact of fiscal discipline towards sub-national governments on citizens’ well-being. We model fiscal discipline by considering the expectations of deficit bailouts by Central Government, and focus on a particular dimension of well-being, namely health outcomes at the regional level. We study then how bailout expectations affect the expenditure for health care policies carried out by Regional Governments: in the presence of opportunistic behaviours by local governments – induced by soft budget constraints – bailout expectations should affect only spending inefficiency, and should not have any real effects on citizens’ health. To investigate this issue, we model the efficient use of public resources for health care delivery as an input requirement frontier, and assess the effects of bailout expectations on both the structural component of health spending and its deviations from the best practice. The evidence from a sample of 15 Italian Regions observed from 1993 to 2006 highlights that bailout expectations do not significantly influence the position of the frontier, thus do not affect citizens’ health. However, they appear to exert a remarkable impact on excess spending.Intergovernmental relationships, Soft budget constraint, Bailout expectations, Health care policy, Spending efficiency

The Ruling Discourse on Proper Womanhood in the Hungarian Parliament

Starting with a debate in September 2012 on the incorporation of domestic violence as a distinct offence in Hungary’s new Criminal Code, the issue of gender and proper womanhood has regularly re-surfaced in statements made by ruling coalition MPs in parliamentary debates. Drawing on discourse analysis, this study investigates a selection of these statements in the context of the government’s current policy and public discourse. The paper argues that these discourses outline an essentialist model reflective of a dominant ideology that is traditional, Christian, patriarchal and heteronormative, which, by hinting at women’s accountability for certain social ills, also allows for a chain of associations that ultimately results in the subversion of the overall social status of women, dividing and marginalising them further and discrediting any claims or actions aimed at establishing a more egalitarian society in the country

The role of urban living labs in a smart city

In a rapidly changing socio-technical environment cities are increasingly seen as main drivers for change. Against this backdrop, this paper studies the emerging Urban Living Lab and Smart City concepts from a project based perspective, by assessing a series of five Smart City initiatives within one local city ecosystem. A conceptual and analytical framework is used to analyse the architecture, nature and outcomes of the Smart City Ghent and the role of Urban Living Labs. The results of our analysis highlight the potential for social value creation and urban transition. However, current Smart City initiatives face the challenge of evolving from demonstrators towards real sustainable value. Furthermore, Smart Cities often have a technological deterministic, project-based approach, which forecloses a sustainable, permanent and growing future for the project outcomes. ‘City-governed’ Urban Living Labs have an interesting potential to overcome some of the identified challenges