Analyzing the EU Refugee Crisis: Humanity, Heritage and Responsibility to Protect

2015 has shaken the EU to its core. Hard upon the heels of geopolitical upheavals in Ukraine, as well as internal battles to define both Eurozone and energy governance, the refugee crisis has prompted a sober reckoning of the EU’s competence and its humanity. With an increasing number of articles and Special Issues in Politics and Governance focusing upon key aspects of the EU as both a political actor, and a source of governance, our autumn 2015 editorial looks briefly at the significance of the refugee crisis in the context of the EU’s current response and future options

Exploring the Governance and Implementation of Sustainable Development Initiatives through Blockchain Technology

Societies at large still grapple to categorize digital space as a phenomenon. At the same time, scientists and developers are searching for innovative methods to better understand how the fundamental shifts caused by digital change will affect the future of humanity over the coming decades. Interdisciplinary governance research at the intersection of technological and environmental foresight is urgently needed to minimize the risks of technological change and explore how digitalization may support, hinder or re-shape sustainability transformations. In this article, we focus on the case of ‘blockchain’ or distributed-ledger technology (DLT) to investigate how recent digital technologies may support the implementation of sustainable development initiatives. Our investigation is centered on areas of public administration and governance which will most likely see an adoption of DLT over the next two decades, such as digital identity, social service provision, and innovative climate finance. To allow for a meaningful comparison of various use cases, we propose four guiding questions that can help researchers, decision-makers and practitioners to determine whether DLT might be an appropriate choice for the sustainability-related task at hand. Moreover, we illustrate how the initial design and subsequent implementation of DLTs may support more centralized or networked modes of governance

From needs to rights-a socio-legal account of bridging moral and legal universalism via ethical pluralism

The question of the universality of human rights has much in common with the question of the universality of ethics. In the form of a multidisciplinary reflexive survey, the aim of this article is to show how human rights discourses derive from more basic principles related to basic needs. These needs are the universal grammar for moral principles, which will be distinguished from ethical norms. Ethical norms, I will argue, are rules that develop in social groups to put into effect moral principles through communicative action and therefore develop as culturally specific norms, which guide behaviour within these social groups. This will explain why ethical norms contain some universal principles, but are largely culturally specific. In order to shed some light on the universality debate, I will show how moral principles translate into ethical norms and might manifest through communicative action in human rights law. For this purpose the article develops a socio-legal account on social norm-creation that bridges moral universality and legal universality via ethical pluralism, which in effect explains why despite the universality of moral principles, the outcomes of ethical rationales can vary extremely

Editorial Governing Big Data

Abstract: 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created every day through pictures, messages, gpsdata, etc. "Big Data " is seen simultaneously as the new Philosophers Stone and Pandora's box: a source of great knowledge and power, but equally, the root of serious problems

Comparative trade performance in the 1980s: an analysis of the largest six industrial economies

Summary in GermanSIGLEAvailable from Bibliothek des Instituts fuer Weltwirtschaft, ZBW, Duesternbrook Weg 120, D-24105 Kiel / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekDEGerman

Investment and returns in relation to additional education and training overseas

Available from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DXN039930 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo

Open Access Publishing (Editorial)

The rise of open source online journals, free online courses, and other changes in the research and education environment, coined the "academic spring" by some commentators, represents an increasing trend in opening up the rules of access for research. Universities, libraries, publishers and even govern­ments are paying attention to this new movement often referred to with the acronym A2K (access to knowledge)