German interests and priorities in European environmental policy

This fourth paper in the German European Policy Series studies the typical interests which shape Germany’s environmental foreign policy in Europe: victim, polluter and third-party interests as well as the state's interest in a stronger role in international politics and its interest in shaping policy within the European Union. It demonstrates that Germany’s interests are diverse and characterised by interactions between the national and European policy levels , and how the country plays a particularly active role in European and international environmental policy when different types of foreign policy interests are combined. The paper concludes that Germany will likely extend its international activities in this area, both within the European Union and beyond in global negotiations, in the medium to long term

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

Growth-Induced In-Plane Uniaxial Anisotropy in V2_{2}O3_{3}/Ni Films

We report on a strain-induced and temperature dependent uniaxial anisotropy in V$_{2}$O$_{3}$/Ni hybrid thin films, manifested through the interfacial strain and sample microstructure, and its consequences on the angular dependent magnetization reversal. X-ray diffraction and reciprocal space maps identify the in-plane crystalline axes of the V$_{2}$O$_{3}$; atomic force and scanning electron microscopy reveal oriented rips in the film microstructure. Quasi-static magnetometry and dynamic ferromagnetic resonance measurements identify a uniaxial magnetic easy axis along the rips. Comparison with films grown on sapphire without rips shows a combined contribution from strain and microstructure in the V$_{2}$O$_{3}$/Ni films. Magnetization reversal characteristics captured by angular-dependent first order reversal curve measurements indicate a strong domain wall pinning along the direction orthogonal to the rips, inducing an angular-dependent change in the reversal mechanism. The resultant anisotropy is tunable with temperature and is most pronounced at room temperature, which is beneficial for potential device applications

EU Agencies and the Energy Union: Providing Useful Information to the Commission?

The development of the energy policy of the European Union (EU) has been accompanied by organizational reforms of the EU’s energy bureaucracy. Much attention has been paid to Commission President Juncker’s reorganization of the European Commission, including how this has influenced the Energy Union initiative. The establishment of EU agencies has also expanded the EU administration and the capacity for developing new initiatives and coordinating implementation of EU legislation. However, recent research has not been sufficiently connected to policy studies on energy, climate and environment. This article analyses the extent to which two EU agencies—the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators, and the European Environmental Agency—augment the policymaking capacity of the Commission by providing information that aids its work. The article ends with a discussion of the potential implications of agencification

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

Deutsche Interessen und Prioritäten in der europäischen Umweltpolitik

Seit den 1960er-Jahren hat sich die Umweltpolitik zu einem zentralen Themenbereich nationalstaatlicher Politik entwickelt. Nahezu alle industrialisierten Länder haben seit Beginn der 1970er-Jahre nationale Umweltministerien und andere Behörden eingerichtet und eine Vielzahl von Umweltgesetzen verabschiedet.1 In Deutschland wurde der Grundstein für die heutige Umweltpolitik mit dem ersten Umweltprogramm der Bundesregierung im Jahr 1971 sowie der Gründung des Umweltbundesamtes 1974 gelegt.2 Anfänglich galt die Umweltpolitik als Teilbereich der Innenpolitik. Durch die verstärkte Wahrnehmung grenzüberschreitender Umweltbelastungen seit Anfang der 1980er-Jahre (Stichwort ,Waldsterben‘) wurde die Umweltpolitik zunehmend zu einem festen Bestandteil der Außenpolitik

Deutsche Interessen und Prioritäten in der europäischen Umweltpolitik

info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio