African legislatures remain understudied, yet democratisation, development and peacebuilding all depend on these key political institutions. This book provides an in-depth analysis of Ethiopia’s ...parliament, a country of key political and strategic importance to the whole region. In 1931, Ethiopia’s monarchical government introduced a system of parliamentary democracy with seemingly contradictory objectives; it wanted to legitimize its rule in a changing world, and also needed to provide a respectable retirement vocation (as senators and deputies) to sections of the aristocracy it ousted from power. This paradox of recognizing the parliament as essential to modern governance yet deliberately seeking weak institutions that are unable or unwilling to challenge those in power continues to haunt the parliament to this day. Ethiopia continues to struggle to maintain political stability, and the separation of power between government and parliament and a system of checks and balances are yet to substantially flourish. Drawing on extensive original data gathered from interviews and surveys, this book investigates the legal and practical status of federal representative institutions in Ethiopia from 1931 up to and including 2021. It delves into the rules and routines of parliament, its contextually and historically grounded culture of representation, and the techniques of manoeuvring executive bureaucracies. The book also aims to understand the extent of civil dis/engagement and the perceptions and role of citizens in shaping parliament, and how the mandates and functions of individual MPs are also determined by cultural and socio-economic factors such as gender, population, inequality and conflict. This book’s in-depth and original analysis will be of interest to researchers across African studies, politics, development, and governance.
Wir analysieren erstmalig die Rolle von Zukunftsthemen in Bundestagsreden zwischen 1949 und 2021 mithilfe computerlinguistischer Methoden. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass der Diskurs über Zukunftsthemen ...im Bundestag mit dem Wirtschaftswunder zwischen den 1960er und 1990er Jahren stark anstieg. Seit der globalen Finanzkrise im Jahr 2008 verlor der Bundestag an Zukunftsorientierung. Eine algorithmische Inhaltsanalyse erklärt diesen Rückgang: Jüngste Bundestagsreden beschäftigen sich mehr mit den kurzfristigen Herausforderungen multipler Krisen und weniger mit dem Setzen langfristiger Rahmenbedingungen.
For the first time, we analyse the role of future topics in Bundestag speeches between 1949 and 2021 using computational linguistic methods. The results show that the discourse on future issues in the Bundestag rose sharply in parallel with the "Wirtschaftswunder" between the 1960s and 1990s. However, since the global financial crisis of 2008, the Bundestag has lost its future focus. An algorithmic content analysis explains this phenomenon: Recent Bundestag speeches deal more with the short-term challenges of multiple crises and less with long-term frameworks. 4221 Zusammenfassung in englischer Sprache
The extant lobbying literature largely focuses on the effects of firm aggregate lobbying expenditures, suggesting that more lobbying expenditures fuel positive firm benefits. We argue the focus on ...aggregate expenditures overlooks how expenditures are targeted and the influence of those targeting the expenditures; as such, exploring such factors will both add insight to our understanding of the theoretical mechanisms underlying lobbying and clarify contradictory findings. Specifically, we argue a successful lobbying strategy consists of both the breadth of government targeted and the political connectedness of the firm. Empirical results support our contentions that lobbying breadth and political connectedness affect the benefits firms receive from lobbying, which we operationalize both using government contracts and firm economic performance. Our analyses imply that more is not always better in the case of lobbying breadth, as the benefits accrued via dispersing lobbying across more governmental entities reaches a point of diminishing returns when lobbying breadth reaches high levels. Further, political connectedness has a moderating effect on the outcomes of lobbying breadth. We conclude the article with a discussion of the theoretical and practical relevance of this research and offer avenues forward for future research.
•A refrigerating facility was experimentally tested with five low-GWP alternatives.•The results had been compared with R134a in the same operating conditions.•R290 presented an increment of COP, ...cooling capacity and compressor power consumption.•R152a and R1234yf presented a slight variation in terms of COP and cooling capacity.•R600a and R1234ze(E) presented an important reduction in cooling capacity and COP.
In 2014, the Directive 517/2014 was introduced by European Parliament to reduce the use of high-GWP greenhouse gases in the European area in order to limit global climate change in accordance with the objectives marked by the EU Research and Innovation programme Horizon 2020. These restrictions affect the large majority of artificial refrigerants among which R134a is included due to its relatively high GWP100 (1301). The widely used of R134a in the refrigeration and air conditioning fields reveals the need to identify new low-GWP alternatives. Accordingly, in this work five low-GWP R134a possible choices have been tested and compared in an identical refrigerating facility equipped with a hermetic compressor, under the same operating conditions.
The refrigerants used in this analysis are: R290 and R600a (HCs); R134a and R152a (HFCs), and finally, R1234yf and R1234ze(E) (HFOs). All of them have been assayed without changes in the facility, that is, as direct drop-ins. The results obtained from the experimental tests are presented and commented in this work from the energetic point of view.
Es geht um sehr viel Geld. Mehr als 16 Milliarden Euro haben die Menschen in Deutschland im Jahr 2019 beim Glücksspiel verloren. Nach jahrzehntelangem Ringen hat sich die Politik jetzt dazu ...entschlossen, den Glücksspielmarkt im Internet zu legalisieren - die Suchtexpert*innen sind alarmiert. Vor diesem Hintergrund untersucht Gerd Möll den Glücksspieldiskurs in verschiedenen Landesparlamenten und im Bundestag. Seine Analyse zeigt, dass »Glücksspielsucht« einerseits als medizinischer Sachverhalt präsentiert wird, andererseits aber auf moralischen Wirklichkeitsvorstellungen beruht. Das Problemmuster »Glücksspielsucht« wird dabei für unterschiedliche gesellschaftliche Interessen instrumentalisiert und legitimiert darüber hinaus ein neues Kontrollregime.
In October 2016, the White House, the European Parliament, and the UK House of Commons each issued a report outlining their visions on how to prepare society for the widespread use of artificial ...intelligence (AI). In this article, we provide a comparative assessment of these three reports in order to facilitate the design of policies favourable to the development of a ‘good AI society’. To do so, we examine how each report addresses the following three topics: (a) the development of a ‘good AI society’; (b) the role and responsibility of the government, the private sector, and the research community (including academia) in pursuing such a development; and (c) where the recommendations to support such a development may be in need of improvement. Our analysis concludes that the reports address adequately various ethical, social, and economic topics, but come short of providing an overarching political vision and long-term strategy for the development of a ‘good AI society’. In order to contribute to fill this gap, in the conclusion we suggest a two-pronged approach.
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