How Welfare States Shape the Democratic Public: Policy Feedback, Participation, Voting and Attitudes

This crucial volume significantly advances the study of policy feedbacks. With contributions from many subfields and methodological approaches, it offers both sophisticated theorizing and new empirical examples that show how policies make politics in a variety of ways. Innovative research designs provide more convincing inference than ever. And the normative questions engaged about welfare performance, evaluation, participation, and accountability could not be more important or timely in this era of austerity and discord over the future of welfare states.’

Rezension zu: Inge Govaere and Hanns Ulrich (eds.): Intellectual Property, Public Policy and International Trade

The contemporary intellectual property rights (IPR) system is not a simple, smoothly working block of rules but is complex and full of ambiguities, and as many argue, imperfections. Some deficits relate on the one hand to the inherent centrality of authorship, originality and mercantilism to the ‘Western’ IP model, which leaves numerous non-Western, collaborative or folkloric modes of production outside the scope of protection. On the other hand, some imperfections stem from the way IPR are granted, whereby creators acquire a temporary monopoly over their works and thus exclude the public from having access to them. In this sense, it is often uncertain whether the existent IPR model appropriately reflects the precarious balance between private and public interests, and whether the best incentives to promote creativity and innovation - the initially stated objectives of intellectual property protection - are offered. The matter becomes still more complicated when one considers that the IPR system is not domestically contained but is globalised and strongly affected by rules at the regional and international levels. The question of whether the balance between private interests and public values is sustained within the international legal framework, epitomised by the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) of the World Trade Organization (WTO), is precisely the topic of the book reviewed here. Review of Intellectual Property, Public Policy, and International Trade, edited by Inge Govaere and Hanns Ullrich, P.I.E. Peter Lang, 2007.

European Union Trade Policy after Enlargement: Larger Crowds, Shifting Priorities and Informal Decision-Making

The article focuses on the effects of Eastern enlargement on EU trade policy-making. On interest constellation, the article makes a case that protectionist forces have been strengthened relative to liberal forces. This slight protectionist turn is mostly witnessed in the area of anti-dumping and with respect to the Doha trade round. On preference aggregation, guided by a principal–agent framework, it is argued that the growth in the number of actors (principals and interest groups) has not constrained the role of the European Commission (agent). However, it has led to an increase in informal processes and has empowered large trading nations vis-a`-vis smaller and less ‘comitology-experienced’ member states.

Applying erosion damage mapping to asses and quantify off-site effects of soil erosion in Switzerland

In order to fill existing knowledge gaps in the temporal and spatial distribution of soil erosion, its sources and causes, as well as in relation to its off-site impacts, erosion damage mapping of all visible erosion features was carried out at three study sites in Switzerland. The data illustrate that about one-quarter of the cultivated land was affected by water erosion. Observed mean annual soil loss rates are considered rather low (0.7–2.3 t/ha/y) compared to other European countries. However, substantial losses of >70 t/ha were recorded on individual plots. This paper focuses on the spatial aspects of soil erosion, by observing and comparing the study areas in a 1-year period from October 2005 to October 2006. The analyses illustrate that the sites differ considerably in average soil loss rates, but show similar patterns of off-site effects. In about one-third of the damaged plots an external source of surface runoff upslope contributed to the damage (run-on). Similarly, more than 50 per cent of the soil eroded on arable land deposited downslope on adjacent plots, roads, public/private infrastructure, etc., and 20 per cent of it reached open water bodies. Large amounts of eroded soil which deposit off-site, often related to slope depressions, are considered muddy floods and were frequently observed in Switzerland. Mapping, in conclusion, helps to sheds light on some of the important challenges of today, in particular: to comprehensively assess socioeconomic and ecological off-site effects of soil erosion, to attribute off-site impacts to on-site causes, and to raise awareness of all stakeholders involved, in order to improve ongoing discussions on policy formulation and implementation at the national and international levels.