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

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

Spatial Fluctuations of Loose Spin Coupling in CuMn/Co Multilayers

A detailed investigation of magnetic impurity-mediated interlayer exchange coupling observed in Cu 0.94 Mn 0.06 / Co multilayers using polarized neutron reflectometry and magnetic x-ray techniques is reported. Excellent descriptions of temperature and magnetic field dependent biquadratic coupling are obtained using a variant of the loose spin model that takes into account the distribution of the impurity Mn ions in three dimensions. Positional disorder of the magnetic impurities is shown to enhance biquadratic coupling via a new contribution J fluct 2 , leading to a temperature dependent canting of magnetic domains in the multilayer. These results provide measurable effects on RKKY coupling associated with the distribution of impurities within planes parallel to the interfaces

Robot education peers in a situated primary school study: personalisation promotes child learning

The benefit of social robots to support child learning in an educational context over an extended period of time is evaluated. Specifically, the effect of personalisation and adaptation of robot social behaviour is assessed. Two autonomous robots were embedded within two matched classrooms of a primary school for a continuous two week period without experimenter supervision to act as learning companions for the children for familiar and novel subjects. Results suggest that while children in both personalised and non-personalised conditions learned, there was increased child learning of a novel subject exhibited when interacting with a robot that personalised its behaviours, with indications that this benefit extended to other class-based performance. Additional evidence was obtained suggesting that there is increased acceptance of the personalised robot peer over a non-personalised version. These results provide the first evidence in support of peer-robot behavioural personalisation having a positive influence on learning when embedded in a learning environment for an extended period of time

Spatial Fluctuations of Loose Spin Coupling in CuMn/Co Multilayers

A detailed investigation of magnetic impurity-mediated interlayer exchange coupling observed in Cu 0.94 Mn 0.06 / Co multilayers using polarized neutron reflectometry and magnetic x-ray techniques is reported. Excellent descriptions of temperature and magnetic field dependent biquadratic coupling are obtained using a variant of the loose spin model that takes into account the distribution of the impurity Mn ions in three dimensions. Positional disorder of the magnetic impurities is shown to enhance biquadratic coupling via a new contribution J fluct 2 , leading to a temperature dependent canting of magnetic domains in the multilayer. These results provide measurable effects on RKKY coupling associated with the distribution of impurities within planes parallel to the interfaces

Spatial Fluctuations of Loose Spin Coupling in CuMn/Co Multilayers

A detailed investigation of magnetic impurity-mediated interlayer exchange coupling observed in Cu 0.94 Mn 0.06 / Co multilayers using polarized neutron reflectometry and magnetic x-ray techniques is reported. Excellent descriptions of temperature and magnetic field dependent biquadratic coupling are obtained using a variant of the loose spin model that takes into account the distribution of the impurity Mn ions in three dimensions. Positional disorder of the magnetic impurities is shown to enhance biquadratic coupling via a new contribution J fluct 2 , leading to a temperature dependent canting of magnetic domains in the multilayer. These results provide measurable effects on RKKY coupling associated with the distribution of impurities within planes parallel to the interfaces