Policy democracy? Social and material participation in biodiesel policy-making processes in India

Following its 2003 biodiesel mission, the Indian national government released its controversial policy on biodiesel in December 2009. Viewing the policy as a set of propositions that have been progressively assembled and constituted by many voices, we study its making on the basis of 72 qualitative interviews and ethnographic fieldwork. We consider the policy-making process to constitute policy democracy if its propositions were well-articulated. A well-articulated proposition is one that has registered the voices of many different human and nonhuman entities, including those that were hitherto mute. In addition, a well-articulated proposition must have allowed the entities to challenge and recompose it. And it must not have turned the entities’ actions and voices into a repetitive singularity. Finally, a well-articulated proposition is not easily transferrable between different socio-ecological situations. We argue that the Indian government attempted to perform policy democracy, by being partially responsive to some entities’ recalcitrance. However, it failed to register crucial voices associated with biodiesel production such as those of water and CO2. It also turned many voices into repetitive singularities, discounting the different relations that allow an entity to speak in multiple voices. The policy’s propositions remained easily transferrable between diverse socio-ecological situations, ignoring the immense diversity of India’s lands, their inhabitants and their practices associated with biodiesel production. Finally, due to a severe disconnect between the various voices registered in its different propositions, we argue that the policy lacked overall consistency

Transforming innovation for decarbonisation? Insights from combining complex systems and social practice perspectives

Technological innovations seem to be among the great promises for achieving the urgent modernisation of economies towards carbon-neutrality. Ranging from fusion energy, bio-based fuels, carbon capture and storage to PV panels and so-called smart energy systems, plenty of technologies promise to reduce use or greenhouse gas emissions of carbon based energy sources. This techno-centric view disregards to a great extent that technological change affects and is affected by societal practices and norms. The present paper argues that contemporary methodological approaches informed by complex systems and social practices theories provide urgently needed insights into innovation for decarbonisation. It specifically addresses the following questions: Why are current conceptualisations of innovation narrowly framed and with what consequences? How would a framing of innovation grounded on complex systems and social practice theories improve the understanding of opportunities and challenges at stake with innovation for decarbonisation? How could this framing help uncover and deploy an important and still often neglected social innovation potential? In a nutshell, the authors advocate for research and policy agendas that are firmly grounded in social practices and take complex and dynamic interactions of energy supply and demand as departing point to seriously reflect about the transitions that are put before us

Output-based assessment of herd-level freedom from infection in endemic situations:Application of a Bayesian Hidden Markov model

International audienceCountries have implemented control programmes (CPs) for cattle diseases such as bovine viral diarrhoea virus (BVDV) that are tailored to each country-specific situation. Practical methods are needed to assess the output of these CPs in terms of the confidence of freedom from infection that is achieved. As part of the STOC free project, a Bayesian Hidden Markov model was developed, called STOC free model, to estimate the probability of infection at herd-level. In the current study, the STOC free model was applied to BVDV field data in four study regions, from CPs based on ear notch samples. The aim of this study was to estimate the probability of herd-level freedom from BVDV in regions that are not (yet) free. We additionally evaluated the sensitivity of the parameter estimates and predicted probabilities of freedom to the prior distributions for the different model parameters. First, default priors were used in the model to enable comparison of model outputs between study regions. Thereafter, country-specific priors based on expert opinion or historical data were used in the model, to study the influence of the priors on the results and to obtain country-specific estimates.The STOC free model calculates a posterior value for the model parameters (e.g. herd-level test sensitivity and specificity, probability of introduction of infection) and a predicted probability of infection. The probability of freedom from infection was computed as one minus the probability of infection. For dairy herds that were considered free from infection within their own CP, the predicted probabilities of freedom were very high for all study regions ranging from 0.98 to 1.00, regardless of the use of default or country-specific priors. The priors did have more influence on two of the model parameters, herd-level sensitivity and the probability of remaining infected, due to the low prevalence and incidence of BVDV in the study regions. The advantage of STOC free model compared to scenario tree modelling, the reference method, is that actual data from the CP can be used and estimates are easily updated when new data becomes availabl

Negative emotions about climate change are related to insomnia symptoms and mental health : Cross-sectional evidence from 25 countries

Climate change threatens mental health via increasing exposure to the social and economic disruptions created by extreme weather and large-scale climatic events, as well as through the anxiety associated with recognising the existential threat posed by the climate crisis. Considering the growing levels of climate change awareness across the world, negative emotions like anxiety and worry about climate-related risks are a potentially pervasive conduit for the adverse impacts of climate change on mental health. In this study, we examined how negative climate-related emotions relate to sleep and mental health among a diverse non-representative sample of individuals recruited from 25 countries, as well as a Norwegian nationally-representative sample. Overall, we found that negative climate-related emotions are positively associated with insomnia symptoms and negatively related to self-rated mental health in most countries. Our findings suggest that climate-related psychological stressors are significantly linked with mental health in many countries and draw attention to the need for cross-disciplinary research aimed at achieving rigorous empirical assessments of the unique challenge posed to mental health by negative emotional responses to climate change.Peer reviewe

Climate anxiety, wellbeing and pro-environmental action : correlates of negative emotional responses to climate change in 32 countries

Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The AuthorsThis study explored the correlates of climate anxiety in a diverse range of national contexts. We analysed cross-sectional data gathered in 32 countries (N = 12,246). Our results show that climate anxiety is positively related to rate of exposure to information about climate change impacts, the amount of attention people pay to climate change information, and perceived descriptive norms about emotional responding to climate change. Climate anxiety was also positively linked to pro-environmental behaviours and negatively linked to mental wellbeing. Notably, climate anxiety had a significant inverse association with mental wellbeing in 31 out of 32 countries. In contrast, it had a significant association with pro-environmental behaviour in 24 countries, and with environmental activism in 12 countries. Our findings highlight contextual boundaries to engagement in environmental action as an antidote to climate anxiety, and the broad international significance of considering negative climate-related emotions as a plausible threat to wellbeing.Peer reviewe

Meanings and Multiplicity: Assessing early diagnostics for Alzheimer's disease

This thesis studies, from a science and technology studies perspective, what responsible innovation for early diagnostics for Alzheimer’s disease would entail. To understand the social and cultural implications of early diagnostics for Alzheimer’s disease the multiple meanings of early diagnostics for Alzheimer’s disease are traced and analysed in a number of settings. The study focusses on how co-existence of these meanings in particular settings – Alzheimer cafes, HTA committees, newspaper articles and funding schemes for Alzheimer research - depends on what is at stake in these settings. The thesis also argues that the interplay and articulations of multiple meanings can be considered as technology assessments ‘in the wild’. Reflections on the notion of responsible innovation in this context leads to an approach summarized as ‘the benefit of the doubt’ including an urge for sensitivity and awareness of the fringes, the need for balancing acts, and humility

Towards sustainable innovation: analysing and dealing with systemic problems in innovation systems

Technological Innovation System (TIS) perspective became a popular tool to analyse and understand the diffusion of particular, mostly renewable, technologies and their contribution to sustainability transitions. The core of the current TIS studies comprise of the analyses of the emergent structural configuration (actors, networks, technology, institutions) and major processes (functions) that support the development of innovations. The approach is used to identify system problems and propose systemic policy and instruments to address them. The approach and the related empirical studies, however, suffer from a number of flaws. This thesis aims to contribute to the TIS literature by addressing four specific gaps. Firstly, it conceptualises and empirically underpins the notion of the system problems and systemic instruments. Secondly, it argues that the use of both concepts in combination with a coupled structural and functional analysis enhances and specifies the policy advice. Thirdly, the thesis demonstrates how the national delimitation of the system and a lack of explicit recognition of the spatial context in which innovations and transitions occur, impacts the definition of the problems and the related policy advice. Fourthly, it goes beyond the focus on emerging technological systems by studying problems of and policy for less developed, juvenile system. Its overall objective is to contribute to sustainable innovation through the definition and identification of systemic problems and instruments in renewable energy innovation systems that are in various stages of development and of differing geographical delimitation. Two empirical domains: aquatic biomass and offshore wind are used to illustrate the theoretical claims

Strategies of Successful Anti-Dam Movements: Evidence from Myanmar and Thailand

Scholars are rarely able to examine anti-dam movements that result in project suspensions or cancellations since these cases are rare empirically. Yet, they are central to understanding how anti-dam movements can succeed. This paper analyzes the movements against Myanmar’s Myitsone Dam and Thailand’s Kaeng Suea Ten Dam. Likely the most successful anti-dam movements in Southeast Asia in recent years, they achieved suspension over 6 and 37 years, respectively. The research is based on 60 semistructured interviews carried out over a period of 8 months. Leveraging thinking from both the constructionist and structural schools within the field of social movement studies, it is found that the framing of the Myitsone Dam as a project threatening the national cultural heritage of Myanmar (in combination with political change in the country in 2010/2011) largely explains the movement’s success. Meanwhile, the set of sophisticated tactics (including inter alia demonstrations, Thai Baan research, 24/7 monitoring of the dam site, and spiritual activities) was decisive for the efficacy of the movement against Thailand’s Kaeng Suea Ten Dam