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Actor Interests (actor + interest)
Selected AbstractsThe evolution of Chinese policies and governance structures on environment, energy and climateENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND GOVERNANCE, Issue 3 2010Stephen Tsang Abstract Although a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol has not yet materialized, the 2009 Copenhagen meeting underlined the importance of China in international debates on climate and energy. This is based not only on China's current climate emissions, but also on its expected energy use and economic growth. Within China, climate issues have, like environmental pollution more generally, received increasing government and societal attention, but so has energy , topics that relate to one other but also have different priorities and actor interests behind them. However, while climate change has become more prominent, as shown in the targets included in the current five-year plan, its institutional embeddedness in relation to particularly energy issues has received limited attention. This paper aims to help shed some light on how Chinese policies and governance structures on energy, climate and environment have evolved, particularly considering the roles of national and provincial authorities. Administrative structures and policy-making processes turn out to be very complex, with a range of units and bodies at different levels with distinct responsibilities as well as inter-linkages. Moreover, tensions and conflicts can be found regarding climate change and environmental policies on the one hand, and prevailing objectives to further economic development on the other. Energy policies serve the same economic goals, with climate change being most often operationalized in terms of energy conservation. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [source] Negotiating Transparency: The Role of InstitutionsJCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 2 2004Bo Bjurulf On 30 May 2001, a new regulation on public access to EU documents was presented and was heralded in the European press as a breakthrough for transparency. We argue that a focus on institutions can cast light on the negotiation processes that led to this decision, and explain the final,for realist negotiation theory puzzling,outcome. We demonstrate the importance of institutions in EU negotiations by detailing actor interests and strategies in the transparency case, and by tracing and analysing the negotiation process that resulted in the regulation. The institutions that receive particular attention are: agenda-shaping rules, decision-making procedures and voting rules, informal norms, time tables and deadlines, and intervention by institutional actors. [source] Information source horizons and source preferences of environmental activists: A social phenomenological approachJOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 12 2007Reijo Savolainen This study focuses on the ways in which people define their source preferences in the context of seeking orienting information for nonwork purposes. The conceptual framework of the study combines ideas drawn from social phenomenology and information-seeking studies. The study utilizes Alfred Schutz's model describing the ways in which actors structure everyday knowledge into regions of decreasing relevance. It is assumed that this structuring based on the actor's interest at hand is also reflected in the ways in which an actor prefers information sources and channels. The concept of information source horizon is used to elicit articulations of source preferences. The empirical part of the study draws on interviews with 20 individuals active in environmental issues. Printed media (newspapers), the Internet, and broadcast media (radio, television) were preferred in seeking for orienting information. The major source preferences were content of information, and availability and accessibility. Usability of information sources, user characteristics such as media habits, and situational factors were mentioned less frequently as preference criteria. [source] The Political Economy of AIDS Treatment: Intellectual Property and the Transformation of Generic SupplyINTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2007Kenneth C. Shadlen This article examines the relationship between intellectual property (IP) and public health, with a focus on the extension of AIDS treatment in the developing world. While most of the literature on IP and health examines the conditions affecting poor countries' capacities to acquire essential medicines, I show the distinct,and more complicated,political economy of production and supply. IP regulations alter the structure of generic pharmaceutical sectors in the countries capable of supplying essential medicines, and changes in market structure affect actors' economic and political interests and capacities. These new constellations of interests and capacities have profound implications for the creation and maintenance of political coalitions in support of on-going drug supply. The result is that the global AIDS treatment campaign becomes marked by mismatches of interests and capacities: those actors capable of taking the economic, legal, and political steps necessary to increase the supply and availability of essential drugs have diminished interest in doing so, and those actors with an interest in expanding treatment may lack the capacities to address the problem of undersupply. By focusing centrally on actors' interests in and capacities for economic and political action, the article restores political economy to analysis of an issue-area that has been dominated by attention to international law. And by examining the fragility of the coalitions supporting the production and supply of generic drugs, the article points to the limits of transnational activist networks as enduring agents of change. [source] | ||||||||||