Search Results (44)

This study evaluates the link between economic voting and electoral behavior in the 2024 European Parliament (EP) elections. This study is grounded in both selective perception and economic voting theories, examining how different independent factors could interact with electoral behavior. In this regard, the research aims to achieve several research directions: (i) the evaluation of the statistical differences in voters’ turnout in 2024 EP elections by geographical regions; (ii) the analysis of the interaction between voters’ perceptions of the current or future economic situations and voter turnout; (iii) the analysis of the interaction between objective economic conditions and electoral behavior. Using both multiple linear regression and logistic models, the study highlights that voter turnout and incumbent party reelection are significantly related to voters’ perceptions of the current or future state of the national economy. The results reveal that regional differences in voter turnout are largely explained by significant differences in voters’ economic perceptions, while the decision to vote for the incumbent party is driven by future economic expectations. The empirical findings underscore the pivotal role played by subjective perceptions in shaping electoral behavior, illustrating that political attitudes and behaviors are derived from personal interpretation of the national economic situations. Beyond theoretical perspectives that highlight the link between psychological processes and voting, the paper might have several practical implications for academics or decision makers interested in the field of electoral behavior. Full article

According to conclusions agreed to in the 1995 Report of the World Summit for Social Development and the 2015 Sustainable Development Summit, seventeen sustainable development goals (SDGs) have been ratified and published as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In 2022, the 8th Environment Action Programme was legally agreed upon, following the six European Green Deal priorities. These SDGs serve as a constant reminder of the importance of globally coordinated actions in compliance with the theory of sustainable development. However, more than a constant reminder, this international agreement should become the foundation for necessary change. On 22 July 2024, the daily global average temperature reached a new record high. The EU treaties signed between 1951 and 2007 laid the foundation for the creation of EU environmental policy. However, those EU treaties, along with environmental policy, form merely a non-binding and minimum set of priorities without any sanctions imposed for illegal practices. In 2021, EU member countries adopted the European Climate Law as the first legally binding document seeking to achieve goals set by the Paris Agreement and the European Green Deal. Any further EU sustainable development policies are dependent on global cooperation as a key element of survival. With the EU’s dependent on the rest of the world for its energy, the forcing of any obligatory change will be hard to achieve. This proves the importance of the 17th SDG, agreed in 2015. Only global partnership for sustainable development can prevent further damage to our ecosystem and achieve priorities set by the EU and UN agendas. The review aims to present the connection between sustainable development (SD) goals defined by the European Commission, for which the most important aspects are the need to meet the environmental requirements to protect future needs in the long run, and to confront the shortcomings of European law-making practices, in which most crucial reforms are presented as non-binding legal acts. Finally, in 2024 members of the European Parliament established an extended list of environmental crimes to be regarded as punishable offences and replaced the Environmental Crime Directive, making criminal activities and offences potentially legally punishable; however, it is yet to be seen how this initiative will be incorporated within the national legislations of each EU member country and to what extent. Full article

This study explores the role of populist leaders as gatekeepers on social media, seeking to understand how André Ventura, president of Chega!, uses news to legitimize his political discourse. The methodology involved collecting 90 tweets containing legacy media news features, posted by Ventura on the social media platform X. These tweets cover key political events such as the resignation of Portugal’s Prime Minister, the dissolution of the Portuguese Parliament, and European elections. Quantitative analysis using Voyant Tools identified key terms related to Ventura’s ideological stance, while Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) examined how these terms support his political narrative. The findings reveal a strategic use of news to promote themes like nationalism, immigration control, corruption and social dichotomy between “us” and “them”. Ventura’s tweets leverage news headlines to enhance his persuasive appeal, acting as heuristic shortcuts to reinforce his political messages. This study highlights the relevance of understanding social media’s role in promoting populism and suggests avenues for future research, including comparative analyses of other populist leaders and the impact of these narratives on voter behavior and perceptions. Full article

This study investigated the impact of the people category of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on sustainable and conventional economic growth in Asia and the Pacific region, using a sample of 52 selected countries between 2000 and 2023. Employing two distinct models, model A1 for conventional economic growth and model A2 for sustainable economic growth, we explained the relationships between five SDG indicators: employed poverty rate, stunted children, expenditure on health, expenditure of education, and % of women MNAs on economic growth. This study employed a fixed-effect model and random-effect model to investigate the impact of the people category SDGs on traditional and sustainable economic growth. The comparative analysis of each SDG in both models revealed valuable insights. SDG 1, “employed poverty rate”, has a positive impact on economic growth in both models, while SDG 2, “percentage of stunted child”, did not significantly influence economic growth in either model. Moreover, SDG 3 and SDG 4, relating to “government’s health expenditure per capita” and “government’s Education education expenditure per capita”, respectively, exhibited a positive impact on traditional and sustainable economic growth. Conversely, SDG 5, “percentage of women members of national parliament”, displayed an insignificant impact on traditional and sustainable economic growth models. In conclusion, this study suggests that policymakers should prioritize targeted interventions to alleviate employed poverty, enhance healthcare, and boost education spending. Moreover, promoting women’s representation in national parliaments should be approached with context-specific strategies to maximize its impact on economic growth. Full article

This study explores the intricate interplay between female representation in national parliaments and government fiscal policies, with a specific focus on fossil fuel subsidies, environmental taxes, and expenditure, in the context of climate change mitigation. Using a sample of 160 countries over the period from 1997 to 2022, this empirical analysis demonstrates the positive relationship between the presence of female parliamentarians and environmentally friendly fiscal measures. While women in the parliaments reduce the amount of the subsidies granted to fossil fuels, they levy environmental taxes and increase environmental spending. The findings illustrate the pivotal role of female parliamentarians in advocating for environmental legislation and transcending political ideologies and national boundaries. Addressing potential concerns of endogeneity by employing additional control variables, omitted variables, and instrumental variable analyses, this study emphasises the robustness of the results. Notably, this study finds that a critical mass of at least 30% female representation in parliaments enhances the efficacy of environmental policy outcomes. This research highlights the multifaceted impact of gender diversity on fiscal policies related to environmental protection, offering valuable insights for policymakers and organisations committed to sustainability and gender equality. Full article

In 2014, an Irish parliament white paper called for greater addressing of sport-related concussions (SRCs) in Ireland, requesting the adoption of the Concussion in Sport Group’s (CISGs) guidelines and greater consistency in SRC return to play (RTP) management. Ten years later, it is unclear how these requests have been addressed. Recently, the United Kingdom’s government centralised guidelines to one SRC document for all grassroots sports. This study aimed to investigate all publicly available SRC guidance in Irish sports and national governing bodies (NGBs) to determine if centralised guidelines are warranted. Sport Ireland and the Irish Federation of Sports were searched for all recognised NGBs and sports in Ireland. Websites were searched for any information pertaining to SRCs and data were extracted and collated in Microsoft Excel. In total, 15 of 83 sports and/or NGBs included SRC guidance, nine of which provided RTP protocols. Various iterations of the CISGs guidance and tools were implemented. Several sports with a documented SRC risk had no guidelines present. The findings indicate disjointed and outdated guidance across Irish sport. Additionally, there are sports with a documented concussion risk that have no SRC guidance available. This study provides support for centralised guidelines to be adopted in Irish grassroots sports. Full article

Building on growing global and local calls for food systems transformation, and years of policy and legislative consultation (2009–2022), the Scottish Parliament unanimously passed transformational food systems legislation in June 2022. Built on a clear vision, clarity of purpose, a common set of outcomes, an agreed direction of travel, strong partnership working, sufficient time, and independent oversight, the Good Food Nation (GFN) (Scotland) Act is an innovative legislative framework designed to foster a healthier, fairer, and more sustainable Scottish food system for all. It places, for the first time, statutory responsibilities on the Scottish Government and relevant authorities (all Scottish local authorities and public health boards) to develop and implement national and local GFN plans, and importantly, makes provision for the establishment of a new independent, statutory Scottish Food Commission to oversee the implementation, with significant powers of oversight and scrutiny and a formal remit to make recommendations to any Scottish ministers and relevant authorities regarding issues/actions relevant to the Good Food Nation Plans. This paper outlines Scotland’s agriculture, food, and drink sector, reviews its food policy and GFN journey since the establishment of the Scottish parliament in 1999, critiques the core principles, stated outcomes, key provisions, and planned timescales of the GFN (Scotland) Act, reflects on its transformational potential, and considers unresolved concerns and remaining tensions. Full article

In a forcedly global system, we are facing a more and more regulated, sustainable coffee market. The International Coffee Organization is the only coffee intergovernmental organization working to face the numerous challenges of this polyhedric world, from producing fields to consuming markets. Coffee statistics, a unique table for discussion, starting from multilateral up to bilateral dialogue, involving private entities and civil society, cooperation and development projects, and the circular economy are some of the main issues for this intense year 2023. In Europe, one of the main issues for coffee contaminants is the renewal of the authorization as an active substance for glyphosate, which is a chemical widely used in herbicide products, especially in the coffee sector. The use of glyphosate is approved in the EU until 15 December 2023, subject to each product being authorized by national authorities following a safety evaluation. In July 2023, EFSA published the results of a risk assessment for the active substance glyphosate, where no critical areas of concern for the health of humans, animals, or the environment have been identified. Due Diligence: On 1 June 2023, the European Parliament agreed on its position on the Directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence (CSDDD), which requires in-scope companies to conduct due diligence on and take responsibility for human rights abuses and environmental harm throughout their global value chains. The European Coffee Federation has supported the proposal in May 2022 through a position paper, as it is an important step toward the development and promotion of more socially and environmentally sustainable and responsible coffee value chains, sustainable sourcing approaches, and the prevention of loss of biodiversity and natural resources. Deforestation EU regulation: changes to food systems are required to halt deforestation and forest degradation to slow the rate of climate change and the threat to global diversity. Henceforth, the EU deforestation regulation aims to minimize the risk of placing products and commodities on the EU market that cause deforestation and forest degradation. There is a strong need to conduct country-level assessments on the readiness to fulfill the new EU legislation, especially on how smallholder coffee farming families would be affected. To be prepared, producing countries, coffee farmers (and particularly small-holder farmers) and their producer organizations need timely information on guidelines and capacity building on regulatory due diligence. Data requirements on geo-localization and traceability need to feed a discussion on how data should be managed and by whom, as well as on data ownership. Sector-specific guidelines are required, and for the coffee sector specifically, on how to differentiate between forest and coffee agroforestry systems such that coffee farm management is not seen as deforestation. As evident, more and more issues for a sustainable coffee world are arising, impacting the whole global coffee market; traceability is becoming a pillar on which it needs to be developed, stimulating multilateral and bilateral dialogue to help all countries align their capacities to reach this important common target. Full article

The Directive 2010/63/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council has been in force for more than a decade and has brought about significant improvements and novel requirements for the welfare of animals used for scientific purposes, while safeguarding research integrity. The Directive sets clear provisions for its scope, the authorization procedures, animal welfare bodies, national committees, cost/benefit analysis, severity classification, retrospective assessment, and statistical reporting, among many others. From this perspective, indicative areas in the existing legislative texts and guidance documents, which may influence animal welfare and scientific integrity, have been identified by the authors after years of working in this field. Suggested solutions to address these areas by potential future revisions in the legislation or other actions to benefit animal welfare are discussed, with the aim to clarify and simplify them for all stakeholders involved. Full article

This article focuses on a performance titled In the Land of the Gilead, performed in 2012 by Doron Tavori and Yochai Avrahami at the Centre for Digital Art in Israel. The work was performed as a part of the exhibition Le’an (Where To?). Its title is derived from a plan suggested by Laurence Oliphant (a British colonialist bureaucrat, author, and Member of Parliament) in 1881 to settle Jews in the Gilead region east of the Jordan River. The article examines the ways in which Tavori and Avrahami re-enact Oliphant’s plan, which was never realised, as well as numerous other historical moments of Oliphant’s colonialist endeavours and those of his contemporaries, tying them to the present-day situation in the Middle East and elsewhere. The article also examines the wider contexts and curatorial strategies of the exhibition Le’an, which focused on alternative Zionist histories that challenged Zionism’s exclusive focus on the land of Israel. The article suggests that by juxtaposing nuanced and complex re-enactments of numerous and conflicting histories, the work prompts audiences to reconsider their political and national understanding of such colonial and Zionist histories, allowing these complex pasts (which are often celebrated or silenced) to be articulated as integral to contemporary national narratives. Full article

This perspective is a qualitative meta-analysis study using a critical interpretive synthesis that narrates three future and equally plausible scenarios of social and economic development in the State of Kuwait over the next 15 years. The first scenario follows what we call the ‘Sustainable Growth’ model as defined by the United Nations Development Goals and the Kuwait Vision 2035 presented by the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah. As a polar opposite, the next scenario is what we call the ‘Mismanaged Resourced-Based Autocracy’ model, a negative reflection of the worst-case scenario. The third scenario is in between these two, and we call it the ‘Equality of Outcome Between Societal Groups’ model. So as not to lay blame for past actions or point fingers, which could prove counterproductive to a consensus-building process for needed actions, we chose to use the pasts of other countries for future projections for the State of Kuwait. Our search through recent socio-economic pasts revealed that Singapore was the best fit for the first scenario, Venezuela for the second, and Lebanon for the third. All these countries became fully independent at approximately the same time as the State of Kuwait and share many other similarities. The three future projections were used as input variables to the outcome, which was a bottom-up and top-down consensus-making process regarding utilitarian action for Kuwait to be used by Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), Think-Tanks, Development Agencies, the government and the parliament. Full article

The regional parliament of Tyrol in Austria adopted the climate, energy, and resources strategy “Tyrol 2050 energy autonomous” in 2014 with the aim to become climate neutral and energy autonomous. “Use of own resources before others do, or have to do” is the main principle within this long-term strategic approach, in which the “power on demand” process is a main building block and the “power-to-hydrogen” process covers the intrinsic lack of a long-term, large-scale storage of electricity. Within this long-term strategy, the national research and development (R&D) flagship project WIVA P&G HyWest (ongoing since 2018) aims at the establishment of the first sustainable, business-case-driven, regional, green hydrogen economy in central Europe. This project is mainly based on the logistic principle and is a result of synergies between three ongoing complementary implementation projects. Among these three projects, to date, the industrial research within “MPREIS Hydrogen” resulted in the first green hydrogen economy. One hydrogen truck is operational as of January 2023 in the region of Tyrol for food distribution and related monitoring studies have been initiated. To fulfil the logistic principle as the main outcome, another two complementary projects are currently being further implemented. Full article

In this article, we contextualise, describe and analyse the last attempt at land reform in Spain—the one passed by the Autonomous Parliament of Andalusia in 1984. The Andalusians had passed their Statute of Autonomy by referendum in 1981, incorporating the mandate to carry out an agrarian reform that would boost the rural economy, generate employment and balance the agricultural structure of this region in Southern Spain, peripheral to both national and European centres of power. The Andalusian socialist government complied with this mandate, pushing the agrarian reform law through and applying a package of reform measures, which met with resistance from landowners and conservative political forces from the outset. Political, economic, legal and administrative obstacles swiftly discouraged the Andalusian socialists from persevering in the endeavour, and at the beginning of the nineties, its dismantling began. Finally, in 2011 the end of the agrarian reform was declared, and with it, the waiver of the right to consider alternative models to the liberal management of the agricultural sector. Archives and newspaper libraries, as well as administrative and legal sources, have been consulted, and the information has been examined using content analysis and cross-checked and triangulated with the specialised literature. This article hails a breakthrough in the understanding of the socio-territorial scopes of an agrarian reform little studied to date. Full article

The main objective of this research is to identify the scope of the use of EU funds for the formation of a low-carbon economy by enterprises providing energy services in Poland in 2014–2020. As a result of the identification, a model for the use of EU funds based on the following criteria was identified: the purpose of the investment, the type of fund, the type of support program, the range of support values and the form and level of funding. As a research gap has been identified due to the insufficient investigation of the use of EU funds by the largest energy companies in Poland to shape a low-carbon economy, the findings presented are novel and contribute to a better understanding of the use of EU funds by Poland’s largest energy sector companies. Data on investment projects financed by EU funds were obtained from the database of the Ministry of Funds and Regional Policy for 2014–2020, while the characteristics of the companies were obtained from industry reports, the National Court Register and the Central Statistical Office. The results showed that EU funds were important in the financing of investments by the largest energy companies to decarbonize the economy. The analysis showed that the surveyed companies were pursuing the goals of Directive 2012/27/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council for energy efficiency, primarily concerning a low-carbon economy. Most EU aid funds were used for infrastructure investments, including those related to renewable energy sources. Little use has been made of EU funds for innovation and public awareness. Full article

Bhutan’s current constitution draws upon the historical dual system of religious-civil governance under the monarchy (previously Abbot-king) embodying the Mahayana Buddhist concept of Boddhisatva-leadership. Bhutan’s democracy includes an executive-military and pluralist religious custodian role for the King who can be abdicated by parliament. It includes Gross National Happiness as spiritual core, which is non-binding law, incorporating many human rights and human values like compassion. The ban on proselytization in the secular constitution should be viewed from a geopolitical post-colonial perspective of the Christian civilization mission and India/China annexation-politics, and Asian definitions of secularism (Royal patronage of religious pluralism). Christians do experience restrictions on congregation. Hindu Nepalese-origin migrants experience(d) citizenship issues due to geopolitical context but can express religion fully. GNH-policy also has certain implementation difficulties and the GNH index indicates declining community values and spirituality in the face of modernist development. Bhutan’s constitution does not fall within the definition of theocracy. The clergy is excluded from the electoral process. The King’s authority is mainly based on moral leadership, popular uncertainty about imported democracy, and is non-absolute but larger than conventional constitutional monarchies. The constitution is more secular than Buddhist in its binding provisions and offers space for non-GNH oriented governments, also in recent practice. Preserving identity and stability is Bhutan’s aim and secularism needs to look at a group approach, apart from individualist approaches. Human rights traditions could acknowledge the cultural-religious roots that inspired them and keep human dignity alive, instead of wanting to remove it from the state altogether and making human rights the new religion. Full article