The Emergent Politics of Geoengineering

This thesis examines the role of science in the earliest stages of the political process. It does this by studying the emergence of ‘geoengineering’ on the political agenda. The term describes a set of ideas on how to stabilize global temperature by intervening into the Earth’s natural systems, and was subject to a strong taboo in the scientific community until the mid-2000s. Yet within a decade, it has become relevant to international climate politics. To understand how this transition took place, the thesis uses mixed methods to study the causal mechanisms by which geoengineering became an object of governance. Paper I describes the internal dynamics of a scientific community that helped transform geoengineering into a distinct, salient and malleable governance object. It explains how social cohesion, brokerage and diversity acted as important mechanisms in this process. Paper II studies the role of authoritative scientific assessments in making geoengineering a normal and relevant topic for research. It shows how such assessments act as a form of de facto governance in shaping the activities of a research landscape. Paper III identifies similarities and differences in the way that different sub-areas of climate change policy are governed. It suggests that, if a problem structure is perceived to be malign, this makes it less conducive to public governance. Conversely, if a problem structure comes to be perceived as more benign, this facilitates public governance. Paper IV examines the role of problem definition and ‘institutional fit’, evaluating how geoengineering matches with the expectations of government actors. It discusses three areas where such fit is lacking, and how this makes it difficult for government officials to form a political position on geoengineering. The results of this study flow into the description of a pattern that seems to be important at many different stages of the opinion-shaping process. This pattern includes the introduction of a topic to a new audience; the audience’s heated debate around this topic; the intervention of an actor with authority; and the streamlining of the audience’s debate according to the authoritative actor’s judgement. Found at many different levels of the political process, the pattern may explain why some topics become subject to political decision making, and others do not

Political Perspectives on Geoengineering: Navigating Problem Definition and Institutional Fit

Geoengineering technologies are by definition only effective at scale, and so international policy development of some sort will be unavoidable. It is therefore important to include governability as a dimension when assessing the technologies’ feasibility and potential role in addressing climate change. The few existing studies that address this question indicate that for some technologies, policy development at the international level could be exceedingly difficult. This study provides an in-depth, theoretically informed analysis of the obstacles that policy makers face when addressing geoengineering governance. Using data in the form of negotiation proceedings, observations, and interviews with government officials from seven different countries, it argues that a significant part of the challenge lies in dissonances between problem definitions that are widely used in the geoengineering governance debate, and the structures and expectations that shape environmental policy making. These include a lack of institutional fit between the process-based differentiation of geoengineering technologies (CDR and SRM) and the international legal architecture; a lack of fit between the urgency of demanded governance action and prevalent scientific and political uncertainties; and a lack of fit between risk-risk trade-off narratives and the precautionary norms of environmental governance

Psychological needs as motivators for security and privacy actions on smartphones

Much work has been conducted to investigate the obstacles that keep users from using mitigations against security and privacy threats on smartphones. By contrast, we conducted in-depth interviews (N = 19) to explore users’ motivations for voluntarily applying security and privacy actions on smartphones. Our work focuses on analyzing intrinsic motivation in terms of psychological need fulfillment. The findings from the interview study provide first insights on the salience of basic psychological needs in the context of smartphone security and privacy. They illustrate how security and privacy actions on smartphones are motivated by a variety of psychological needs, only one of them being the need for Security. We further conducted an online survey (N = 70) in which we used questionnaires on psychological need fulfillment from the literature. The online survey is a first attempt to quantify psychological need fulfillment for security and privacy actions on smartphones. Whereas the results of the interview study indicate that Security and other needs play a role as motivators for employing security and privacy actions on smartphones, the online study does not support the need for Security as an outstanding motivator. Instead, in the online study, other needs such as Keeping the meaningful, Stimulation, Autonomy, and Competence show to be rather salient as motivators for security and privacy actions. Furthermore, the mean need fulfillment for security and privacy actions is in general rather low in the online survey. We conclude that there is scope for improvement to maximize psychological need fulfillment with security and privacy actions. In order to achieve a positive user experience with security and privacy technologies on smartphones, we suggest addressing additional psychological needs, beyond the need for Security, in the design of such technologies

Global Governance in Complex Times: Exploring New Concepts and Theories on Institutional Complexity

This article, and the special issue it introduces, seek to contribute to the emerging and much-needed dialogue between the study of global governance and the study of social complexity. We hold that, while there is wide acceptance that global governance is becoming increasingly complex, studying this complexity still faces significant challenges in terms of concepts, theory, and methodology.The article outlines why that dialogue is needed, and how the complexity sciences can help us address some of these challenges. It then introduces key questions central to such an integrated research programme, for instance: under what conditions can a global governance system be regarded as complex? Which methods can help us recognize and assess patterns of stability, iteration, and change in global governance? How can a theory-driven analysis take into account that complexity may influence spaces for political agency, i.e. that it may alter key aspects of legitimacy, accountability, transparency, technocracy, and power and ultimately the strategical options of certain actors? Finally, the article looks ahead to the special issue and summarizes how the authors contribute crucial conceptual, theoretical, and methodical ideas for addressing these and other questions

Institutional complexity and private authority in global climate governance : The cases of climate engineering, REDD+, and short-lived climate pollutants

How and why do institutional architectures, and the roles of private institutions therein, differ across separate areas of climate governance? Here, institutional complexity is explained in terms of the problem-structural characteristics of an issue area and the associated demand for, and supply of, private authority. These characteristics can help explain the degree of centrality of intergovernmental institutions, as well as the distribution of governance functions between these and private governance institutions. This framework is applied to three emerging areas of climate governance: reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+), short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs), and climate engineering. Conflicts over means and values, as well as over relatively and absolutely assessed goods, lead to considerable variations in the emergence and roles of private institutions across these three cases

Evaluating embodied conversational agents in multimodal interfaces

Based on cross-disciplinary approaches to Embodied Conversational Agents, evaluation methods for such human-computer interfaces are structured and presented. An introductory systematisation of evaluation topics from a conversational perspective is followed by an explanation of social-psychological phenomena studied in interaction with Embodied Conversational Agents, and how these can be used for evaluation purposes. Major evaluation concepts and appropriate assessment instruments – established and new ones – are presented, including questionnaires, annotations and log-files. An exemplary evaluation and guidelines provide hands-on information on planning and preparing such endeavours

Antipsychotic Response in the First Week Predicts Later Efficacy

Background and Aims: Time of onset of antipsychotic action is still a debated matter. We aimed to replicate and extend previous findings that early response can predict subsequent non-response. Methods: 86 acutely psychotic patients treated with haloperidol were studied. Results: A PANSS reduction = 23% at 1 week of treatment predicts response at 3 weeks, with a specificity of 84% and a sensitivity of 86%. Conclusion: Our results confirm that an early response to antipsychotic treatment accurately predicts the treatment effectiveness and extends it to a prediction performed as early as 1 week. Copyright (c) 2012 S. Karger AG, Base

NCAM1, TACR1 and NOS Genes and Temperament: A Study on Suicide Attempters and Controls

Suicide, one of the leading causes of death among young adults, seems to be plausibly modulated by both genetic and personality factors. The aim of this study was to dissect the potential association between genetics and temperament in a sample of 111 suicide attempters and 289 healthy controls. We focused on 4 genes previously investigated in association with suicide on the same sample: the nitric oxide synthase 1 and 3 (NOS1 and NOS3), the neuronal cell adhesion molecule 1 (NCAM1), and the tachykinin receptor 1 (TACR1) genes. In particular, we investigated whether a set of genetic variants in these genes (NOS1 : rs2682826, rs1353939, rs693534; NOS3 : rs2070744, rs1799983, rs891512; NCAM1 : rs2301228, rs1884, rs1245113, rs1369816, rs2196456, rs584427; TACR1 : rs3771810, rs3771825, rs726506, rs1477157) were associated with temperamental traits at the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI). No strong evidence was found for the association between TCI personality traits and the polymorphisms considered in the 4 genes, with the exception of an association between reward dependence trait and the rs2682826 SNP in NOS1 in the healthy sample. However, this result could be plausibly interpreted as a false-positive finding. In conclusion, our study did not support the thesis of a direct modulation of these genes on temperament; however, further studies on larger samples are clearly required in order to confirm our preliminary findings and to exclude any possible minor influence. Copyright (C) 2011 S. Karger AG, Base

Tyrosine Hydroxylase and DOPA Decarboxylase Gene Variants in Personality Traits

Personality influences several characteristics of normal and pathologic behaviors and it is associated with neurotransmitter systems that are under genetic control. The dopaminergic system has been proposed to play a role in the modulation of personality traits. In the present study, variants of the tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) and DOPA decarboxylase (DDC) genes (for TH: rs3842727, rs6356; for DDC: rs1451371, rs1470750, rs998850) were investigated in 111 suicide attempters and 289 healthy subjects to assess the involvement of the dopaminergic synthesis pathway in personality traits. No strong evidence was found for the associations between personality and TH or DDC in overall tests. An interaction effect of genotype and diagnosis was present, with TH and DDC SNPs having a greater effect on the respective personality dimensions in the group of suicide attempters. Because of the risk of false positives, these findings should be interpreted with highest caution. Direct replication attempts within independent groups of suicide attempters will help to resolve this question. Copyright (C) 2009 S. Karger AG, Base

Association study of suicidal behavior and affective disorders with a genetic polymorphism in ABCG1, a positional candidate on chromosome 21q22.3

The gene that codes for the ABC transporter ABCG1 is located in a chromosomal susceptibility region (21q22.3) for affective disorders. Genetic variations in ABCG1 have been associated with affective disorders in Japanese males. In this study, we investigated the distribution of a G2457A polymorphism in patients with affective disorders, suicide attempters with various psychiatric diagnoses and healthy subjects, We initially found a trend towards a modest association with affective disorders in males (p = 0.046 for allele frequencies and p = 0.046 for AA versus GG). We conducted a replication study with independent patients and controls, There was no association with affective disorders, either in the replication or in the combined group, Furthermore, we found no association with suicidal behavior, These findings do not support the hypothesis that ABCG1 is a susceptibility gene for affective disorders or suicidal behavior. Copyright (C) 2000 S. Karger AG, Basel