The rational design of regional regimes: contrasting Amazonian,Central African and Pan-European Forest Governance

Forests have been an important issue in world politics at least since the UNCED conference in Rio in 1992. Since then the focus of academic attention has been on global forest governance by an international forest regime complex consisting of several forest-related regimes. This strong focus leaves a research gap regarding regional regimes addressing forests as an issue area, which recently greatly gained in empirical and academic relevance. It is particularly important to understand the institutional structures on the one hand, and the policies developed within such regimes on the other. In order to obtain a better understanding of this in the forest case, the aim of this article is to analyse the institutional design of three regional forest regimes and to develop fields and hypotheses for future research. We built upon the rational design of international institutions framework developed by Koremenos et al. (Int Organ 55(4):761–799, 2001), and based our findings on content analysis of key documents as well as participant observations and expert interviews in selected occasions. The regional regimes chosen for this study were Amazonian, the Central African and pan-European forest cooperation. The results indicate that the designs of the three regimes greatly differ regarding membership, scope, control, centralisation, and flexibility. This seems to be mainly due to differing degrees of formality of the regimes (from treaty to non-treaty to hybrid regimes) as well as different power structures amongst members and regional hegemons involved. Based on our findings, future research fields for the study of regional forest-related environmental, trade, commodity, and management regime structures as well as regime policies are identified. Such insights advance our understanding of international forest governance not only by global, but by regional forest regimes as well. This is particularly true for our understanding that similar issue-specific problems, such as sustainable forest management, in terms of regime structures and regime policies may be addressed quite differently, largely depending on the preferences of regional powers and hegemons and other potential region-specific factors. We conclude by questioning a hypothesised diffusion of international institutions and propose the more precise concept of institutional osmosis instead.     

Natural Disasters and Political Participation: Evidence from the 2002 and 2013 Floods in Germany

How do natural disasters affect electoral participation? The existing social science literature offers contradictory predictions. A considerable body of research in sociology and psychology suggests that traumatic events can inspire pro-social behaviour, which might increase turnout. Yet, political science has long held that even minor changes to participation costs of low benefit activities can lead to considerable drops in civic engagement. Consequently, natural disasters should reduce electoral participation. We show how these distinct views can be jointly analysed within the Riker–Ordeshook model of voting. This paper then reports results on the impact of the 2002 and 2013 floods in Germany on turnout in federal and state elections in Saxony and Bavaria, conducted few weeks after the floods. Analysing community level turnout data, and drawing on a difference-in-differences framework, we find that flood exposure has a consistent negative effect on turnout. This indicates that the increase in the costs of voting outweighed any increase in political engagement in our case and stands in contrast to findings from developing contexts, where flood management was convincingly linked to electoral participation.     

Klausel-RL: amtswegige Klauselkontrolle im Mahnverfahren; keine Abänderung der missbräuchlichen Klausel durch das Gericht

Die Klausel-RL (RL 93/13/EWG über missbr?uchliche Klauseln in Verbrauchervertr?gen) ist dahin auszulegen, dass sie einer mitgliedstaatlichen Regelung entgegensteht, wonach ein mit einem Antrag auf Erlass eines Mahnbescheids befasstes Gericht, sofern der Verbraucher keinen Widerspruch erhebt, weder a limine noch in irgendeiner anderen Phase des Verfahrens von Amts wegen prüfen darf, ob eine Verzugszinsklausel in einem Vertrag zwischen einem Gewerbetreibenden und einem Verbraucher missbr?uchlich ist, obwohl es über die hierzu erforderlichen rechtlichen und tats?chlichen Grundlagen verfügt. Art 6 Abs 1 Klausel-RL ist dahin auszulegen, dass er einer mitgliedstaatlichen Regelung entgegensteht, wonach das nationale Gericht, wenn es die Nichtigkeit einer missbr?uchlichen Klausel in einem Vertrag zwischen einem Gewerbetreibenden und einem Verbraucher feststellt, durch Ab?nderung des Inhalts dieser Klausel den Vertrag anpassen kann.