Political attention to environmental issues: Analyzing policy punctuations in the Netherlands

One of the most dramatized features in Al Gore's movie The Inconvenient Truth is the effects of a rising sea-level in the Netherlands. The film is an example of how the mobilization of bias in the Netherlands resulted in sudden high levels of attention for climate change problems. We analyze agenda setting on Dutch environmental policy, using various policy issue datasets about parliamentary activities, media, and expert organizations and focusing on the interrelations between these policy venues. All datasets are coded by the same topic codebook. The findings show that interest in environmental issues is largely determined by the state of the economy, unexpected incidents, and the competition for attention with other issues in the political arena. We show that political interest in environmental issues has initially been flagging, since the environment was mostly seen as a European topic, and Europe has not been popular since the referendum on a European Constitution. However, once the climate change problem was translated to a national problem, popular attention increased enormously. We conclude that climate change framed as a European problem does not increase attention, nationalization of the problem does

The value of theoretical multiplicity for steering transitions towards sustainability

Transition management, as a theory of directing structural societal changes towards sustainable system innovations, has become a major topic in scientific research over the last years. In this paper we focus on the question how transitions towards sustainability can be steered, governed or managed, in particular by governmental actors. We suggest an approach of theoretical multiplicity, arguing that multiple theories will be needed simultaneously for dealing with the complex societal sustainability issues. Therefore, we address the steering question by theoretically comparing transition management theory to a number of related theories on societal change and intervention, such as multi-actor collaboration, network governance, configuration management, policy agenda setting, and adaptive management. We conclude that these related theories put the managerial assumptions of transition management into perspective, by adding other steering roles and leadership mechanisms to the picture. Finally we argue that new modes of steering inevitable have consequences for the actual governance institutions. New ways of governing change ask for change within governance systems itself and vice versa. Our argument for theoretical multiplicity implicates the development of multiple, potentially conflicting, governance capacitie

Strategies for Improving Semi-automated Topic Classification of Media and Parliamentary documents

Since 1995 the techniques and capacities to store new electronic data and to make it available to many persons have become a common good. As of then, different organizations, such as research institutes, universities, libraries, and private companies (Google) started to scan older documents and make them electronically available as well. This has generated a lot of new research opportunities for all kinds of academic disciplines. The use of software to analyze large datasets has become an important part of doing research in the social sciences. Most academics rely on human coded datasets, both in qualitative and quantitative research. However, with the increasing amount of datasets and the complexity of the questions scholars pose to the datasets, the quest for more efficient and effective methods is now on the agenda. One of the most common techniques of content analysis is the Boolean key-word search method. To find certain topics in a dataset, the researcher creates first a list of keywords, added with certain parameters (AND, OR etc.). All keys are usually grouped in families and the entire list of keys and groups is called the ontology. Then the keywords are searched in the dataset, retrieving all documents containing the specified keywords. The online newspaper dataset, LexisNexis, provides the user with such a Boolean search method. However, the Boolean key-word search is not always satisfying in terms of reliability and validity. For that reason social scientists rely on hand-coding. Two projects that do so are the congressional bills project (www.congressionalbills.org ) and the policy agenda-setting project (see www.policyagendas.org ). They developed a topic code book and coded various different sources, such as, the state of the union speeches, bills, newspaper articles etcetera. The continuous improving automated coding techniques, and the increasing number of agenda setting projects (in especially European countries), however, has made the use of automated coding software a feasible option and also a necessity

Vegetative propagation of the red alga Rhodochorton purpureum by means of fragments that escape digestion by herbivores

Intertidal populations of the filamentous red alga Rhodochorton purpureujn (Lightf.) Rosenv. (Nemaliales, Acrochaetiaceae) in the Northern Netherlands grow as dense velvety turfs in the understory of large fucalean algae. The small and rather constant size of the turf (1 to 1.5 mm) and the high percentage of 'decapitated' filaments suggest that the turf is continually 'shorn' by herbivores. Two grazing invertebrates were found on the turf: the gastropod Littorina littorea (L.) and the amphipod Gamrnarus salinus Spooner Differences between the 2 grazers in the size of ingested R. purpureum fragments and in the proportion of ingested fragments with intact apices were attributed to differences in their feeding mechanisms. Both species egested live R. purpureum fragments In their faecal pellets. These fragments had the capacity to regenerate into new filaments when cultured in the laboratory. In the field small tufts of R. purpureurn filaments were found on bare substratum, originating from fragments contained in sticky, detritus-rich envelopes, probably faecal pellets. Experiments in unlalgal cultures showed that the regeneratlve capacity of fragments is very high, as it proceeds over d broad range of temperature and light conditions, even in total darkness We conclude that the capacity of R. purpureum fragments to escape digestion by herbivores probably plays an important role in vegetative propagation of the species

Nothing moves a surface: vacancy mediated surface diffusion

We report scanning tunneling microscopy observations, which imply that all atoms in a close-packed copper surface move frequently, even at room temperature. Using a low density of embedded indium `tracer' atoms, we visualize the diffusive motion of surface atoms. Surprisingly, the indium atoms seem to make concerted, long jumps. Responsible for this motion is an ultra-low density of surface vacancies, diffusing rapidly within the surface. This interpretation is supported by a detailed analysis of the displacement distribution of the indium atoms, which reveals a shape characteristic for the vacancy mediated diffusion mechanism that we propose.Comment: 4 pages; for associated movie, see http://www-lion.leidenuniv.nl/sections/cm/groups/interface/projects/therm

Age of high-grade gneisses south of Grand Lake, Newfoundland

Crystalline rocks of the Steel Mountain Subzone of the Humber Zone in southwest Newfoundland give an age for granulite-grade metamorphism of 1498+9/-8 Ma, similar to ages from the Long Range inlier and northwestern Cape Breton Island. Peralkaline leucogranite was emplaced at 608 ± 4 Ma. The emplacement of anorthosite-gabbro complexes and amphibolite-grade metamorphism took place between these dates. The southern part of the Dunnage Zone (Central Gneiss Subzone), in contact with the Steel Mountain Subzone at the Long Range Fault, lacks Precambrian crystalline rocks, but was intruded by charnockitic plutons and metamorphosed to granulite facies at 460 ±10 Ma. This subzone was exhumed before 435 Ma. In the Meelpaeg Subzone of the Gander Zone, which is in contact with the Central Gneiss Subzone along the Victoria River Fault, the oldest intrusive component of a granoblastic migmatitic gneiss was emplaced at 418 ± 4 Ma. These data demonstrate that both the Long Range and Victoria River faults form major tectonic boundaries. Subzones appear to have been thrust westward in Silurian or later time. RÉSUMÉ Les roches cristallines de la sous-zone du mont Steel, dans la zone de Humber du sud-ouest de Terre-Neuve, ont donné des âges de 1498+9/-8 Ma pour le métamorphisme de haul grade, similaires à ceux de la boutonnière de Long Range et du nord de l'ile-du-Cap-Breton. Un leucogranite peralcalin s'est mis en place à 608 ± 4 Ma. L'intrusion des complexes à anorthosite-gabbro et le métamorphisme au faciès amphibolite se sont produits entre ces deux évènements. La partie sud de la zone de Dunnage (sous-zone de gneiss centrale), en contact avec la sous-zone du mont Steel a la faille de Long Range, ne contient pas de roches cristallines précambriennes mais à 616 recouped par des plutons charnockitiques et à 616 métamorphisée au faciès granulite à 460 ± 10 Ma. Cette sous-zone a été exhumge avant 435 Ma. Dans la sous-zone Mulpaeg de la zone de Gander, qui est mise en contact avec la sous-zone de gneiss centrale par la faille de la rivière Victoria, la phase intrusive la plus ancienne d'un gneiss migmatitique et granoblastique s'est mise en place à 418 ± 4 Ma. Ces données démontrent que les failles de Long Range et de la rivière Victoria sont des frontières tectoniques majeures. Les sous-zones semblent avoir subi un chevauchement vers l'ouest au plus tard au Silurien. [Traduit par le journal