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

Aktueller Stand und Entwicklungen der Pränataldiagnostik. Endbericht zum Monitoring

Spätestens seit der Befassung des zuständigen Gemeinsamen Bundesausschusses (G-BA) mit der Frage der Kostenübernahme für die seit 2012 in Deutschland verfügbaren nichtinvasiven Pränataltests (NIPT) hat sich die Diskussion über die Zukunft der Pränataldiagnostik (PND) deutlich intensiviert. Der TAB-Bericht bietet einen Überblick über den aktuellen medizinisch-technischen und gesetzlichen Stand der PND in Deutschland und fasst gesellschaftliche, politische und ethische Diskussionspunkte und Fragen zur PND zusammen. Neben den rechtlichen Grundlagen zur Anwendung vorgeburtlicher Diagnostik werden auch die Regelungen zu PND in ausgewählten europäischen Ländern dargelegt. Zudem gibt der Bericht einen Überblick über die aktuelle Beratungssituation für schwangere Frauen zu PND. Ausführlich dargestellt werden die Positionen ausgewählter gesellschaftlicher Gruppen, neben schwangeren Frauen und ihren behandelnden Ärzten und Ärztinnen etwa auch psychosoziale Beratungsstellen, Hebammen, Herstellerunternehmen oder zivilgesellschaftliche Aktivistinnen. Der Bericht zeigt die Herausforderungen einer gesellschaftlichen Auseinandersetzung über das vielschichtige Thema »Pränataldiagnostik« und liefert eine wissenschaftlich fundierte Informationsgrundlage für die Debatte in Politik und Zivilgesellschaft. Inhalt Zusammenfassung 9 1 Einleitung 25 2 Medizinisch-technische Grundlagen: Anwendungen und Entwicklungsperspektiven 37 2.1 Pränataldiagnostik – Begriffe und Verfahren 37 2.1.1 Invasive Verfahren der Pränataldiagnostik 40 2.1.2 Nichtinvasive Verfahren der Pränataldiagnostik 45 2.2 Ziele von PND 62 2.2.1 Krankheitsbilder und Behinderungen im Fokus von pränataler Diagnostik 62 2.2.2 Schwangerschaftsabbrüche bei auffälligem pränatalem Befund 70 2.3 Entwicklungsperspektiven hinsichtlich des Umfangs und der Methoden der vorgeburtlichen Diagnostik 80 2.3.1 Erweiterung des diagnostischen Umfangs 82 2.3.2 Erweiterung des Methodenspektrums 85 3 Rechtliche Regelungen in Deutschland und Europa 87 3.1 Gesetzlicher Status quo in Deutschland 87 3.1.1 Gesetze zu Durchführung und möglichen Konsequenzen von PND 87 3.1.2 Richtlinien zur Durchführung und zu möglichen Konsequenzen von PND 92 3.1.3 Gerichtsurteile im Kontext von Pränataldiagnostik 94 3.1.4 Methodenbewertungsverfahren zu NIPT des Gemeinsamen Bundesausschusses (G-BA) 96 3.2 Regelungen in europäischen Nachbarstaaten 100 3.2.1 Vereinigtes Königreich 100 3.2.2 Dänemark 105 3.2.3 Niederlande 106 3.2.4 Schweiz 110 4 Gesellschaftliche Rahmenbedingungen und ethische Herausforderungen 115 4.1 Informationsstand von Schwangeren zu Pränataldiagnostik, Beratungsangebote und -inhalte 115 4.1.1 Informationsstand von (schwangeren) Frauen zu PND 116 4.1.2 Inhalte der Beratung 118 4.1.3 Beurteilung der Beratung 120 4.2 Akteurs- und Interessengruppen im Bereich PND 125 4.2.1 Frauen 126 4.2.2 Ärztinnen und Ärzte 133 4.2.3 Psychosoziale Beratungsstellen 139 4.2.4 Hebammen 140 4.2.5 Behindertenrechtsgruppen und andere zivilgesellschaftliche Akteure 141 4.2.6 Herstellerunternehmen von NIPT 145 4.2.7 Der Gemeinsame Bundesausschuss 149 4.2.8 Bevölkerung und Öffentlichkeit 150 4.3 Gesellschaftliche Teilgruppen im Fokus der Pränataldiagnostik 155 4.3.1 Down-Syndrom im Fokus pränataler Diagnostik: gesellschaftliche Perspektiven auf und für Menschen mit Trisomie 21 156 4.3.2 Geschlechtsselektion mittels Pränataldiagnostik 161 4.4 Ethische Fragen mit Blick auf PND/NIPT 162 4.4.1 PND als gesellschaftliches Werturteil über Behinderung? 163 4.4.2 Auswirkungen von PND auf die Wahrnehmung von Schwangerschaft und Elternschaft 167 4.4.3 Genetische Informationen und einhergehende Herausforderungen 170 4.4.4 Wirtschaftlichkeitsüberlegungen zu Menschenleben 173 4.4.5 Späte Schwangerschaftsabbrüche als ethisches Problem 174 4.4.6 PND als Voraussetzung einer reproduktiven Autonomie der Schwangeren 177 4.4.7 Pränataldiagnostik und der Begriff des Risikos 180 5 Resümee und Handlungsfelder 185 5.1 Möglichkeiten, Rahmenbedingungen, Umfang und Anwendung der PND 185 5.2 Gesellschaftliche Herausforderungen im Kontext von PND 191 5.3 Handlungsfelder zur PND 194 6 Literatur 201 6.1 In Auftrag gegebenes Gutachten 201 6.2 Weitere Literatur 201 7 Anhang 231 7.1 Abbildungen 231 7.2 Tabellen 232 7.3 Abkürzungen 232 7.4 Glossar 23

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

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

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

Autonomous on-board data processing and instrument calibration software for the SO/PHI

The extension of on-board data processing capabilities is an attractive option to reduce telemetry for scientific instruments on deep space missions. The challenges that this presents, however, require a comprehensive software system, which operates on the limited resources a data processing unit in space allows. We implemented such a system for the Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (PHI) on-board the Solar Orbiter (SO) spacecraft. It ensures autonomous operation to handle long command-response times, easy changing of the processes after new lessons have been learned and meticulous book-keeping of all operations to ensure scientific accuracy. This contribution presents the requirements and main aspects of the software implementation, followed by an example of a task implemented in the software frame, and results from running it on SO/PHI. The presented example shows that the different parts of the software framework work well together, and that the system processes data as we expect. The flexibility of the framework makes it possible to use it as a baseline for future applications with similar needs and limitations as SO/PHI.Comment: Conference: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentatio, Software and Cyberinfrastructure for Astronomy

The second flight of the SUNRISE balloon-borne solar observatory: overview of instrument updates, the flight, the data and first results

The SUNRISE balloon-borne solar observatory, consisting of a 1~m aperture telescope that provided a stabilized image to a UV filter imager and an imaging vector polarimeter, carried out its second science flight in June 2013. It provided observations of parts of active regions at high spatial resolution, including the first high-resolution images in the Mg~{\sc ii}~k line. The obtained data are of very high quality, with the best UV images reaching the diffraction limit of the telescope at 3000~\AA\ after Multi-Frame Blind Deconvolution reconstruction accounting for phase-diversity information. Here a brief update is given of the instruments and the data reduction techniques, which includes an inversion of the polarimetric data. Mainly those aspects that evolved compared with the first flight are described. A tabular overview of the observations is given. In addition, an example time series of a part of the emerging active region NOAA AR~11768 observed relatively close to disk centre is described and discussed in some detail. The observations cover the pores in the trailing polarity of the active region, as well as the polarity inversion line where flux emergence was ongoing and a small flare-like brightening occurred in the course of the time series. The pores are found to contain magnetic field strengths ranging up to 2500~G and, while large pores are clearly darker and cooler than the quiet Sun in all layers of the photosphere, the temperature and brightness of small pores approach or even exceed those of the quiet Sun in the upper photosphere.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa