Dynamics of change in internal policy advisory systems: the hybridization of advisory capacities in Germany

Recent scholarship on advisory systems has focussed on the externalization of advisory capacities and sectoral dynamics of change, whereas changes of internal policy advisory systems have not yet been approached systematically. This article proposes an analytical concept for exploring change dynamics in internal policy advisory systems by means of three logics for assessing policy advice (political salience, credibility and representativeness). The approach is illustrated by analysing changes within the internal policy advisory system of the German federal government (1990–2015). The analysis relies on three original datasets on ministerial departments, research agencies and governmental advisory bodies. We find that the internal advisory system of the German federal government is characterized by a differentiated hybridization of advisory logics, which has changed the nature of policy advice.     

The role of actors in the policy design process: introducing design coalitions to explain policy output

Policy Sciences - Despite a renaissance of policy design thinking in public policy literature and a renewed interest in agency in the policy process literature, agency in the policy design process...     

Re-spacing African drylands: territorialization,sedentarization and indigenous commodification in the Ethiopian pastoral frontier

This paper traces the re-spacing of pastoral drylands in Africa. We argue that rendering pastoral resources legible and profitable occurs both within and beyond the state. Through a multi-sited case study from Ethiopia's Somali region, we excavate different mechanisms of sedentarization, whereby processes of state territorialization and indigenous commodification become mutually entangled. Sedentarization is not imposed by the state or corporate capital, but by indigenous merchants who capture the frontier's potential resource dividend. Land appropriation in the drylands is co-produced by political claims to territory, capital investment and new technopolitics through which indigenous (pastoral, Somali) merchants and politicians become complicit with the state's project of territorialization and sedentarization in a self-governing fashion. The irony of this situation is that the (Ethiopian) state has failed to consolidate sedentarization through planned interventions. Instead, capital investment by local and transnational Somali merchants has opened up a neoliberal frontier that re-spaces drylands towards increasing sedentarization.     

Das Tierschutzverbandsklagerecht im Land Berlin

Natur und Recht - Das Tierschutzverbandsklagerecht ist ein wichtiges Instrument, um das Ungleichgewicht zwischen Tiernutzern, zuständigen Behörden und Tieren abzumildern. Zudem kann es...     

Terrorism in the textbook: a comparative analysis of terrorism discourses in Germany,India, Kenya and the United States based on school textbooks

This study traces the (geopolitical) knowledge on terrorism circulating in Germany, India, Kenya, and the United States based on an analysis of school textbooks. It contributes to the existing literature in three ways. First, it transcends the Western-centrism of International Relations by analysing discourses from the Global North and the Global South. Second, it introduces school textbooks as a crucial object of research in constructivist terrorism studies and International Relations. School textbooks indicate the (geopolitical) knowledge deemed essential in a given society, but are also widely distributed among young people. Third, I address the debate about a presumed homogenization and internationalization of terrorism discourses in recent years. Results show that all four discourses depict terrorists as evil, focus on external non-state groups as perpetrators and associate terrorism with Islam. But there are also considerable differences regarding the relative importance of terrorism as a security threat, the referent object affected and the countermeasures deemed appropriate.     

Foreign Acts of Torture and the Admissibility of Evidence: The Judgment of the House of Lords in A and Others v. Secretary of State for the Home Department (No. 2)

The author discusses, from the point of view of internationalhuman rights law, the judgment of the British House of Lordsin A and Others v. Secretary of State for the Home Department(No. 2), which held that statements obtained by torture couldnever be admissible in evidence. The judgment is concluded tobe fully consonant with international law and to provide anexcellent example for other courts faced with this highly topicalquestion.