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The doctoral defence is the oral examination of the doctoral thesis. While it is a major milestone for doctoral candidates, this event is often shrouded in mystery. In this article, I explore the doctoral defence from an international perspective. I have studied the format of the defence based on written testimonies as well as the literature on this topic. From this analysis, I distinguish four main elements of the defence format: (1) timing of the defence with respect to thesis publication, (2) number of steps in the defence, (3) public or private defence, and (4) the timeline of the defence itself. I then use these building blocks of the doctoral defence format to discuss differences and similarities between the formats, and finally to categorize defence formats used internationally by analysing the format of 26 countries, 24 of which use an oral defence format. The result is a deeper understanding of the defence format, which is valuable for candidates, committee members, supervisors, and administrators, and which can also serve the current discussions within the European Union on a standard format for the doctoral defence. Ultimately, understanding the defence format removes the mystery surrounding the defence.

Football stadiums have traditionally been named after local sites (e.g. "Goodison Park," Everton FC) or regions ("Ruhrstadion," VfL Bochum). As big business takes increasing precedence in decision making in football at large (e.g. associations and leagues, regarding fixtures, media coverage, kick-off times, player transfers, etc.) and within individual football clubs (e.g. regarding kits and sponsorship), such toponyms are more and more being replaced by company or product names (e.g. "bet365 Stadium," Stoke City). In this paper, we will consider corporate renamings from the German Bundesliga, the English Premier League and the French Ligue 1 and particularly fan reactions to controversial, badly received corporate renamings. As revealed by earlier studies, in our data here we also find the discourse and practices of the fans celebrating local identification with their city or region, often with the stadiums constituting the homestead of a tradition. Where corporate stadium renamings are badly received, this discourse clashes with the discourse of big business and thus a number of tensions are revealed. More specifically, in fans' reactions to controversial corporate stadium renamings, we find a number of recurrent themes -- for example, concerning consequences to fans' identity to the club; in managing (anticipated) humorous retorts from rivals consequent from the stadium renaming; in resisting, but also feeling resigned to, financial pressures in selling the stadium name; etc. -- some of them across our three national contexts and others specific to one national context.

In the recent past, European states have adopted mandatory due diligence (MDD) laws for holding companies accountable for the environmental and human rights impacts of their supply chains. The institutionalization of the international due diligence norm into domestic legislation has, however, been highly contested. Our contribution analyzes the discursive struggles about the meaning of due diligence that have accompanied the institutionalization of MDD in Germany and France. Based on document analysis and legal analysis of laws and law proposals, we identify a state‐centric, a market‐based, and a polycentric‐governance discourse. These discourses are based on fundamentally different understandings of how the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights should be translated into hard law. By outlining these discourses and comparing the related policy preferences, we contribute with a better understanding of different ways in which MDD is institutionalized, with important consequences for the possibilities to enhance corporate accountability in global supply chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the security of energy supply in Europe is at stake, the debate on energy sources prominently took hold on the agenda of European countries. Nuclear energy is one of the issues on this agenda. However, nuclear energy is discussed quite differently in Germany and France, although the two countries both experienced strong public protest in the 1970s and are similar in size, economy, industry and culture. By comparing the two, this article analyses the reasons for the different debates on nuclear energy existent in Germany and France. It argues that stances on nuclear energy form the core of social identities that prevent members of these groups to deviate from the group norm. The relevance of certain types of identities is a function of the institutions of the political system. To change the way energy sources are discussed, it is necessary to create or make salient different group identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction industry is one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions. In view of resource scarcity, climate change, and rapid global population growth, the industry faces the urgent challenge of a sustainable transition. The renaissance of timber as a renewable, carbon-neutral construction material could pave the way for more sustainable modes of building. Taking France and Germany as examples, and based on a sociological discourse analysis, this paper reveals four different and conflicting sociotechnical imaginaries of the future built environment. The four imaginaries show specific characteristics depending on the respective national, political, and cultural contexts. Moreover, they include partially incompatible objectives and compete for discursive hegemony, and thus implementation. Scrutinizing the four competing visions and their approach to conflicts and scarcities raises profound questions about their political, technological, ecological, and social implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]