Distributed Generation of Electricity: The Role of Academic Research and Advice in California’s “Clean DG” Policy Network

Deregulation and the combined threats of energy crises and global warming concern nations around the world, yet these issues continue to be addressed more directly by domestic regulatory systems than by international institutions. The present analyses of the integration of distributed sources of power generation (DG) into California’s electric utility system suggests that domestic environmental dilemmas with international repercussions provide an obvious entrée for global environmental policy specialists into the practice of environmental policy-making and law. Here I review current scholarship on policy networks that illuminates the contributions that technical and policy experts can make to such networks surrounding environmental issues. I then introduce the key members of California’s “clean DG” policy network that emphasizes the role of academic experts in this influential political system, and discuss how my own research has impacted the development of the state’s DG policy. I conclude that scholars are well positioned to observe and engage domestic and international environmental policy networks, and thereby also to influence environmental politics and law.     

The animal advocacy movement in the Baltic states: links to other social justice issues and possibilities for intersectional activism

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the animal advocacy movement (AAM) in the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Taking an intersectional perspective, I examine whether and how key animal activists in the Baltics see links between animal rights and other social justice issues. I also consider how the movement communicates its messages to the general public in settings where ideas around animal justice and possibilities for animal advocacy are relatively recent and unfamiliar. This analysis contributes to debates regarding possibilities for intersectional activism and collaboration between social justice movements in the Baltics and beyond.     

Transnationality and diaspora advocacy: lessons from disaster

A number of catastrophic disasters in the last decade have raised questions about their transnational impacts and about the role of the diaspora. The 2010 Haiti earthquake, the focus of our study, provided a lens to further our understanding of evolving conceptualizations about transnationalism, transmigrants, and social capital. We hypothesize that sustained ‘intensive transnationalism’ by diaspora and linking forms of social capital between diaspora, other civil society organizations and advocacy groups, and government institutions are critical during post-disaster recovery in affected nation states and in countries to which survivors turn for refuge. We conducted 103 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with a wide range of civil society actors in South Florida, Boston, New York, Atlanta, and Washington DC between June 2010 and June 2015. We found that linking forms of social capital were more important after the earthquake than in previous disasters. Overall, the longevity and variety of Haitian diaspora advocacy work, particularly in immigration, have resulted in broader social networks and alliances, work groups, task forces, interfaith coalitions, and support groups to address complex social and policy issues.     

The Obama Administration and United States Trade Policy

For all the focus on economic issues in the wake of the crisis of 2008 the Obama administration has remained ambiguous about a central component of economic policy. As both candidate and President, Obama has sent mixed messages about trade policy. This ambiguity reflects wider uncertainty within the Democratic Party about global trading relationships and this paper explores and assesses the reasons for this uncertainty. A large part of the answer lies in the disparate sources of support for the Democrats. That is, the party has courted support from interest groups and core groups of voters that have widely divergent views about the value of trade liberalisation.     

Policy,office and votes: An experimental investigation of the dynamic aspect of party goals

Political parties face hard choices when balancing desires to influence public policy, to gain executive office and to win votes. The existing literature examining such party preferences has traditionally focused on rather static aspects of the parties, such as size, policy positions and the level of intraparty democracy. This article argues that party actors' sophisticated estimations of whether to enter into coalition can be affected by fluctuating public opinion, thereby having a more dynamic aspect. Drawing on a survey experiment on youth politicians in Norway, we test how perceived standing in the polls affects how politicians weigh up policy versus office and votes versus office. The experimental effect of perceived standings was investigated in addition to the respondents' positions within the party, as well as their parties' former governing history, political orientation and size. Results show that, in the presence of the treatment condition (party is perceived to do well in the polls), the preference for policy over office is lessened. We find no experimental effect for vote versus office. These results advance our understanding of the dynamic aspects of party goals and coalition formation.     

Specialized Domestic Violence Courts

Abstract

The multimethod study assesses the perceptions of specialized domestic violence courts' processes with victims' experiences as the central focus. Perceptions of the traditional courts and specialized domestic violence courts are compared among victims, courtroom police, attorneys, judges and victim advocates. Domestic violence education among attorneys, judges, and victim advocates is also compared. Despite the intended improvements with the specialized court model, victims report similar problems in both court models. Safety and victims support among respondents is mixed. Professionals from the specialized court receive no more domestic violence education than those from the general court. Victims' and courtroom police recommendations are presented.     

Advocacy Coalition for Historic Preservation in the U.S.: Changes in Motivations

As the policy discussions of historic preservation have become complicated in recent years, the advocacy for the use of heritage is now even more important, and the number of coalitions for promoting the economic value of heritage has been on the rise. This research provides a historical view of the development of advocacy coalition networks that actively pursue the benefits of heritage resources. Through this context, the article then examines a case study of the Wheeling National Heritage Area. The case exemplifies the framework of how coalition networks can provide the structure necessary to push preservation policy in government.     

The Defining Elements of Advocacy Coalitions: Continuing the Search for Explanations for Coordination and Coalition Structures

As the theoretical and practical interest in policy networks increases, so does the need for further research into how, and based on what rationales, actors within a policy subsystem engage in interorganizational collective action and form political coalitions. The aim of this paper is to continue the search for explanations for coordination and coalition structures in the setting of Swedish carnivore policy. Based on the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) and a previous case study within the same policy subsystem, the study investigates a set of hypotheses regarding actors' coordinating behavior and the defining elements of coalitions. The empirical analysis indicates, in support of the ACF, that perceived belief correspondence is a better predictor of coordination than perceived influence. Moreover, the explanatory power of empirical policy core beliefs in general, and normative policy core beliefs in particular, is further reinforced, while deep core beliefs seemingly do not influence coalition structure. The relevance of more shallow beliefs for coalition formation cannot be dismissed and therefore calls for additional research.     

Service Club Membership and Forms of Social Capital among Swedish Community Elites

Looking at the formation of transnational advocacy networks, this article argues that central aspects evade attention unless approached from a discursive orientation. Utilizing interviews and first-person observation from a particular example of transnational mobilization—critical of negotiations to expand the World Trade Organization's General Agreement on Trade-in-Services—the article demonstrates how an expanded focus on discourse can help research better understand: (1) the self-driving momentum within networks through which those actors involved experience a reconstituted identity and affinity to one another; (2) the role played by earlier moments of collective action in providing both an infrastructure of pre-existing relations and politicization from which the network may draw upon; (3) the often porous character of campaign activity where there is rarely one but, in fact, many overlapping networks at play as part of a much wider discursive process; and (4) the role abstract signifiers such as ‘global’—as in ‘Global Campaign for?…’—play in framing the network despite an often uneven geographic distribution to campaign activity and power within the network.     

Beyond committees: parliamentary oversight of coalition government in Britain

Abstract

A legislature’s ability to engage in oversight of the executive is believed to derive largely from its committee system. For example, powerful parliamentary committees are considered a necessary condition for the legislature to help police policy compromises between parties in multiparty government. But can other parliamentary instruments perform this role? This article suggests parliamentary questions as an alternative parliamentary vehicle for coalition parties to monitor their partners. Questions force ministers to reveal information concerning their legislative and extra-legislative activities, providing coalition members unique insights into their partners’ behaviour. In order to test our argument, we build and analyse a new dataset of parliamentary questions in the British House of Commons covering the 2010?2015 coalition. As expected, government MPs ask more questions as the divisiveness of a policy area increases. Legislatures conventionally considered weak due to the lack of strong committees may nevertheless play an important oversight role through other parliamentary devices, including helping to police the implementation of coalition agreements.