Policy forums: Why do they exist and what are they used for?

Policy forums are issue-based intermediary organizations where diverse types of political and societal actors repeatedly interact. Policy forums are important elements of modern governance systems as they allow actors to learn, negotiate, or build trust. They can vary in composition, size, membership logic, and other distinct features. This article lays the foundation of a theory of policy forums based on three interrelated elements: First, it discusses conditions for the formation of a forum and describes the logic of these organizations as one of an asymmetric multipartite exchange. Second, it enumerates the potential set of goals and motivations of participating actors that are fed into this exchange. Third, it proposes eight different dimensions on which policy forums differ and which affect the exchange mechanisms among actors. We claim that empirical work on policy forums should systematically take these elements into account and propose elements of a research agenda

Bidirectional Text Compression in External Memory

Bidirectional compression algorithms work by substituting repeated substrings by references that, unlike in the famous LZ77-scheme, can point to either direction. We present such an algorithm that is particularly suited for an external memory implementation. We evaluate it experimentally on large data sets of size up to 128 GiB (using only 16 GiB of RAM) and show that it is significantly faster than all known LZ77 compressors, while producing a roughly similar number of factors. We also introduce an external memory decompressor for texts compressed with any uni- or bidirectional compression scheme

Explaining decision-making structures in Swiss politics: A combination of SNA and QCA

This paper attempts to explain decision-making structures in Swiss politics. Decision-making structures describe the relations between collective actors collaborating and fighting for influence in a policy network and are defined by two main dimensions, which are power and conflict. For the explanation of decision-making structures, the paper relies on factors such as Europeanization, media presence, federalism, the pre-parliamentary phase and the referendum. I assume that these different factors interact with each other when they influence the decision-making structure. In order to assess the importance of these factors, the paper compares the 11 most important decision-making processes in Switzerland between 2001 and 2006. The analysis relies on an innovative integration of two methods. In a first step, I apply Social Network Analysis to describe the two dimensions of decision-making structures. In a second step, in order to detect the different combinations of causes which lead to different structures, the 11 cases are compared by a Qualitative-Comparative Analysis (QCA). The results suggest that all five factors are important to understand decision-making structures and that equifinality and conjunctural causation are at work

Who Prices Locally? Survey Evidence of Swiss Exporters

Survey information on Swiss exporters is used to test the hypothesis that firm-specific factors, in particular firm size, are important determinants of pricing-to-market (PTM). The survey asked exporters whether they set dif- ferent prices across markets and, if so, whether price segmentation occurred because of pricing conditions in the local market or other factors. The empirical analysis is based on a probit model that regresses a binary-choice variable of PTM on firm size and other control variables. The main empirical finding is that firm size and PTM are positively and significantly correlated. A further result is that while firms whose main export market is in the Euro area are less likely to engage in PTM, firm size plays a bigger role for them. These results are robust across different PTM classifications, regression specifications, export destinations, and industrial sectors.Pricing to markets, local currency pricing, .rm size

Four-fold structure of vortex core states in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 (Bi2212)

We present a detailed study of vortex core spectroscopy in slightly overdoped Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 using a low temperature scanning tunneling microscope. Inside the vortex core we observe a four-fold symmetric modulation of the local density of states with an energy-independent period of (4.3\pm 0.3)a0. Furthermore we demonstrate that this square modulation is related to the vortex core states which are located at ~6 meV. Since the core-state energy is proportional to the superconducting gap magnitude, our results strongly suggest the existence of a direct relation between the superconducting state and the local electronic modulations in the vortex core.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures. Submitted to Physical Review Letter

The role of actors' issue and sector specialization for policy integration in the parliamentary arena: an analysis of Swiss biodiversity policy using text as data

The role of the parliamentary arena and members of parliament (MPs) therein for both mainstreaming and cross-sectoral policy integration is largely unknown. Studying the case of Switzerland, this paper analyzes the integration of the biodiversity issue into policies of 20 different policy sectors over a period of 19 years to assess how two specific actor attributes—issue and sector specialization—increase the chances of MPs of engaging in both biodiversity mainstreaming and its cross-sectoral integration. The results based on a comprehensive collection of political documents from the parliamentary arena, and multilevel regression models show that an increase in MPs' sector specialization is associated with both a decrease in mainstreaming and a decrease in cross-sectoral integration activities. By contrast, an increase in issue specialization typically translates into biodiversity-related activity in a larger number of sectors. In the parliamentary arena, therefore, it is primarily a small group of “issue specialists” who take responsibility for the integration of crosscutting issues, such as biodiversity, into critical sectoral policies

Fracking in the UK and Switzerland: why differences in policymaking systems don’t always produce different outputs and outcomes

We address a key puzzle in policy studies: why don't major differences in political systems and policy produce major differences in policy processes, outputs, and outcomes? We show why key aspects of fracking policy are similar in the UK and Switzerland despite the UK majoritarian government being ‘all out for shale' and Switzerland's consensus democracy favouring moratoriums. We use the ‘advocacy coalition framework' and new survey data to show why differences in UK and Swiss processes are subtle. In both cases, actors cooperate and compete with each other by sharing information within and across coalition

Multi-level network dataset of ten Swiss wetlands governance cases based on qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys

The dataset of this paper originated from quantitative online surveys and qualitative expert interviews with organizational actors relevant to the governance of ten Swiss wetlands from 2019 till 2021. Multi-level networks represent the wetlands governance for each of the ten cases. The collaboration networks of actors form the first level of the multi-level networks and are connected to multiple other network levels that account for the social and ecological systems those actors are active in. 521 actors relevant to the management of the ten wetlands are included in the collaboration networks; quantitative survey data exists for 71% of them. A unique feature of the collaboration networks is that it differentiates between positive and negative forms of collaboration specified based on actors' activity areas. Therefore, the data describes not only if actors collaborate but also how and where actors collaborate. Further additional two-mode networks (actor participation in forums and involvement in other regions outside the case area) are elicited in the survey and connected to the collaboration network. Finally, the dataset also contains data on ecological system interdependencies in the form of conceptual maps derived from 34 expert interviews (3-4 experts per case). Keywords: Collaboration network; Comparative case study; Conceptual maps; Social-ecological systems (SES