Essays on the Political Economy of Animal Welfare: Empirical Studies on Voter Behaviour and Stakeholder Participation

Animal welfare has become an important issue in the political discussion. In particular, the current agricultural housing standards no longer meet the increased social requirements. At the same time, existing literature focuses on economic analysis, i.e. the willingness to pay for different animal welfare aspects as well as the analysis of the reasons for market failure with regard to the provision of animal welfare. These analyses do not explicitly include political provision of animal welfare. In particular, the question to which extent concrete animal welfare policies are determined by lobbying or voting behaviour has not been empirically investigated yet. Therefore, the aim of this dissertation is to contribute to the research on the political economy of farm animal welfare. It addresses questions regarding animal welfare policy, considering the role of voters’ behaviour as well as the political influence of stakeholder. For both, voters as well as stakeholders, the empirical works takes into account policy beliefs. These are naive mental models of political actors with regard to the effect of specific policies on the relevant policy outcomes. At a methodical level, discrete choice models are applied to study voters’ behaviour. In particular, the corresponding contributions use probabilistic voter models as well as discrete choice experiment based willingness to pay measurements. Both approaches are combined to measure voters’ beliefs. The influence of stakeholder organizations is analysed using the social network based framework of informational lobbying as well as Bayesian estimation of exponential random graph models. The results show that the effect of animal welfare on voting behaviour is not as important as climate protection or social policy, but it is more important than water protection. Moreover, a gap between voters’ private willingness to pay for husbandry standards and their collective willingness to pay, i.e. trade-offs between animal welfare and other public goods, is identified. The combination of probabilistic voter models and willingness to pay measures reveals heterogeneous beliefs about the costs of providing animal welfare as well as other ecological goods. Furthermore, a systematic distortion of the voter beliefs has a significant influence on the preferred political provision of animal welfare. The analysis of stakeholder influence shows that especially actors of agriculture and animal production as well as animal protection organizations have strong informational lobbying influence. This structure implies that stakeholders evaluate a standardized testing and approval procedure for mass-produced livestock facilities as rather useful while the right for collective action is still evaluated as rather useless. Communication also lowers the evaluations of an animal husbandry knowledge certificate and the ban of living animal transports. The estimation results of a Bayesian exponential random graph model indicate that the influence structures are statistically robust and significant. Additionally, determinants of political communication can be identified

Taking the heterogeneity of citizens into account: flood risk communication in coastal cities – a case study of Bremen

The likely manifestations of climate change like flood hazards are prominent topics in public communication. This can be shown by media analysis and questionnaire data. However, in the case of flood risks an information gap remains resulting in misinformed citizens who probably will not perform the necessary protective actions when an emergency occurs. This paper examines more closely a newly developed approach to flood risk communication that takes the heterogeneity of citizens into account and aims to close this gap. The heterogeneity is analysed on the meso level regarding differences in residential situation as well as on the micro level with respect to risk perception and protective actions. Using the city of Bremen as a case study, empirical data from n=831 respondents were used to identify Action Types representing different states of readiness for protective actions in view of flood risks. These subpopulations can be provided with specific information to meet their heterogeneous needs for risk communication. A prototype of a computer-based information system is described that can produce and pass on such tailored information. However, such an approach to risk communication has to be complemented by meso level analysis which takes the social diversity of subpopulations into account. Social vulnerability is the crucial concept for understanding the distribution of resources and capacities among different social groups. We therefore recommend putting forums and organisations into place that can mediate between the state and its citizens

Are compliance constants ill-defined descriptors for weak interactions?

Just as the potential energy can be written as a quadratic form in internal coordinates, so it can also be expanded in terms of generalized forces. The resulting coefficients are termed compliance constants. In this article, the suitability of compliance constants as non-covalent bond strength descriptors is studied (a) for a series of weakly bound hydrogen halide–rare gas complexes applying a configuration interaction theory, (b) for a double stranded DNA 4-mer using approximate density functional methods and finally (c) for a double stranded DNA 20-mer using empirical force fields. Our results challenge earlier studies, which concluded the inappropriateness of compliance constants as soft matter descriptors. The discrepancy may be ascribed, inter alia, to the application of an oversimplified potential function in these earlier studies, assuming a central forces approximation

Social Embeddedness in Stakeholder Networks and Legislators’ Policy Preferences: The Case of German Livestock Policy

In a world of increasing complexity, politicians have only limited information about the relationship of policies and the outcomes. They often make use of simplified heuristics, i.e. policy beliefs. Hence, an influence opportunity for in- terest groups occurs: informational lobbying. It complements classic lobbying strategies, e.g. vote buying or campaign spending. Providing expert knowledge allows interest groups to influence legislators towards the preferred policy posi- tion. Aside from so-called "approved votes", German parliamentarians generally follow parliamentary group’s discipline. Thus, experts’ role within parliamentary groups is crucial. They deal with key issues and represent the parliamentary group in the committees. Furthermore, they work out the group’s positions on these specific issues. They are the starting point for interest groups to dissemi- nate their information and hence influence the legislators’ positions. An exemplary field of complexity is the agricultural sector. In particular, live- stock production is challenged by questions of sustainability, i.e. public expec- tations towards animal welfare, producers and consumers’ welfare as well as ecological consequences. Importance of animal welfare is demonstrated by the ongoing debate about piglet castration or husbandry system standards. This raises two questions: First, to what extend are stakeholders able to gain direct access to politicians? Second, how can they use this structure to influence policy decisions? Using a social network approach, we first investigate the structure of three networks: exchange of expert knowledge, political support and informal social ties. In particular, we put emphasis on the connection between parliamen- tary actors and other stakeholders from society, i.e. interest groups. This refers to the first question. Second, we apply a model of political exchange using infor- mation and lobbying networks. Following Henning et al. (2019), this model not only includes political exchange, but also belief updating. Moreover, it considers direct as well as indirect ties. This analysis step serves to answer the second question

molecular recognition of naphthalene diimide ligands by telomeric quadruplex dna the importance of the protonation state and mediated hydrogen bonds

How important are mediated hydrogen bonds in terms of molecular recognition? Compliance Constants (relaxed force constants) give the answer

Communicational and Lobbying Power in German Farm Animal Welfare Politics

Farm animal welfare is the main driver of nowadays criticism on German livestock sector. At the same time, non market actors more and more are key actors within animal welfare politics. Hence, we investigate political power of stakeholder organizations in German livestock policy. Our network based framework consists of two components: First, actors influence policy decisions through informational lobbying. Informational lobbying refers to providing expert knowledge in order to influence decision makers' policy beliefs. Second, the exchange of influence resources and power allows interest groups to influence the policy positions of political agents. We combine both measurements with the Banzhaf power index in order to quantify the power of both, political agents as well as interest groups. How this power affects animal welfare policy is illustrated in the field of piglet castration. Results imply that the agricultural sector as well as animal protection groups have the highest influence on beliefs and that state actors distribute most of the power to the agribusiness sector. This structures leads to a positive evaluation of surgical castration under anaesthesia. On the other hand, immunocastration is evaluated as rather useless. This implies that participatory processes decrease the procedures acceptance

Review Essay: Jo Reichertz: Die Abduktion in der qualitativen Sozialforschung. Wiesbaden 2003

Jo Reichertz' study, "Abduction in Qualitative Social Research," delivers a detailed insight into the phenomenon of "abduction", by which he exceeds the introductory nature of this on-going series of publications. Focusing of Charles Sanders PEIRCE’s perception of abduction, Reichertz extensively reevaluates the concept, conclusively deriving concrete implications for its practical application in qualitative social research. The author criticizes and dashes hopes and myths connected with the abductive procedure and, because of this, readers will find his study both instructive and disillusioning. The book is highly recommended for all those who are interested in wellfounded empirical research because it offers points of interest for newcomers as well as experts in the field of empirical methods. The book rightly restricts the possibilities for abductive procedures. "Abduction in Qualitative Social Research" is an excellent example of how austere methodology can arouse interest in a cheerful manner

Von Sinn und Unsinn der Alternativen zur betäubungslosen Ferkelkastration: Kommunikationseffekte in der deutschen Nutztierpolitik am Beispiel einer aktuellen Debatte

Kommunikation spielt eine Schlüsselrolle bei der Herausbildung sogenannter policy beliefs. Am Beispiel der wieder aktuell gewordenen Debatte um die Ferkelkastration zeigen die Autoren, wie die Kommunikationsstruktur die Einschätzung von Alternativen zur betäubungslosen Ferkelkastration beeinflusst. Basierend auf dem Modell der Belief-Bildung und Daten aus einer Stakeholderbefragung werden einflussreiche Gruppen identifiziert, die den Austausch von Wissen zur Nutztierhaltung prägen. Durch die Simulation von Kommunikationsprozessen zur Kastration unter Schmerzausschaltung, der Immunokastration und der Ebermast werden diese Effekte veranschaulicht