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This study explores the role of the welfare state in reducing young people not being in education, employment, or training (NEET)s across 15 European countries. Using data from the Survey of Adult Skills in the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) in combination with the Social Expenditure Database, we conducted cross-national analysis to reveal whether the increase in public social spending moderates the risk of being NEET at a young adult age, especially for socially disadvantaged young people. Our results highlighted that the rise of one percentage point of public social spending per gross domestic product, including social expenditure on education, active labor market, and unemployment, is significantly associated with decreasing the odds of being NEET. Furthermore, these social expenditures appeared to lower the NEET risk given socially disadvantaged backgrounds suggesting that young people with low educational levels, whose parents have low educational attainment levels, non-immigrant families, and females are likely to benefit given the robust social protection system. These findings suggest that public social spending may be an effective investment in promoting the social involvement of young people from socially disadvantaged background.

A rich body of literature has emerged that seeks to shed further light on how concepts like globalization and internationalization shape higher education systems and their institutions. This paper examines how the rise of private higher education in various national contexts has engendered global patterns of public financial support for private institutions and particularly the various ways in which public funding is channeled to such providers. A cross-national typology of public/private higher education sectors and a system-level "map" of how public funding is directed to institutions are both used to explain why different patterns may emerge. This framework is then used to examine the policies and practices in four representative systems: England, Germany, New Zealand, and the state of Pennsylvania in the United States. The available evidence suggests that in systems with weak or newly emerging private sectors, unclear regulations and concerns about quality implies that public funding tends to be channeled into private institutions indirectly (e.g. through tax-abatements and student financial aid). In systems where private institutions play a more substantial role, public funding is channeled to privates using a mix of indirect and direct mechanisms.

Econometric estimates were used to determine the effects of publicly funded continuous vocational training and retraining in the former East Germany. Results suggest that, despite large public expenditures, no positive effects occurred in the first years after training. (SK)

Over the last two decades, scholars have investigated norms of citizenship by focussing primarily on 'dutiful' and 'engaged' norms. In the meantime, contemporary democracies have witnessed growing demands for more sustainable styles of living and increasing public support for authoritarian and populist ideas. These developments point to both a change and an expansion of conventional understandings and conceptions of what a 'good citizen' in a democratic polity ought to do. Specifically, they raise questions about whether demands for more sustainability and increasing support for populist ideas establish new facets of democratic citizenship, and if so, how they can be meaningfully incorporated into existing images of citizenship. This study provides a re-conceptualization of citizenship norms and empirically tests a new measurement instrument using original data collected in Germany in 2019. The empirical application of an expanded set of items demonstrates the existence of more variegated facets of norms of citizenship, including norms to safeguard a sustainable future and distinct populist facets emphasizing the relevance of trust in authorities and experts as well as reliance on feelings and emotions. Contemporary conceptions of citizenship thus go beyond conventional distinctions between dutiful and engaged norms of citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The usual store formats can hardly be operated economically in places with fewer than 2,500 inhabitants. In line with the spiral theory, the resulting retreat from the area offers new commercial opportunities for innovative forms of offering, such as staff-free 24/7 markets or online ordering options. At present, a wide variety of actors are experimenting with new and flexible approaches, and it does not yet seem fore-seeable which models will ultimately prevail. How can the initial experiences be systematized and what is the potential for establishment? To this end, we compare five pilot projects that use decentralized, mobile and digital formats to bring everyday goods to consumers. For the five case studies, 35 semi-structured interviews were conducted with experts and customers. Central comparative dimensions are the context of emergence and the actor constellations, the contribution to local supply, the economic viability as well as the social function of the offers. The results show that two cases are strongly subsidy-driven or depend on public support. In two other cases, the social function dominates with the involvement of socially oriented enterprises, where the approaches can rather fulfill a complementary supply function. Finally, there is also a new format that at least has the potential to be rolled out on a large scale in rural areas of Germany and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines whether citizens' political preferences toward radical right parties (RRPs) change after right-wing extremist violent attacks. It investigates this question in two ways. First, it presents a time-series study on public support for the RRP Alternative for Germany (AfD) between 2013 and 2019. Second, the article employs a quasi-experimental research design to examine the effect of a right-wing terrorist attack on citizens' attitudes toward immigrants. Both studies indicate that public support for the AfD and its programmatic core positions increased after right-wing extremist attacks. Subsequent analyses suggest that former voters of the mainstream right, in particular, drive this effect. These findings shed light on the determinants of radical right party support, contributing to the long-standing debate on the consequences of political violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit internationally in March 2020, governments and political incumbents received exceptionally high approval ratings. Such a sudden spike of public support in times of crisis is often explained as the 'rally 'round the flag' effect. This paper has three goals: first, to examine whether a rally effect indeed occurred; second, to analyse whether and how much it is related to (i) affectedness, i.e. the occurrence of infections on individual and aggregate level, and (ii) fear of Covid-19; and third, to examine an assumed moderating effect of partisanship. We merged individual survey data from an online survey conducted in September 2020 as part of the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES) with infection rates on the state level (Bundesländer) published by the Robert Koch Institute. We detect a striking rally effect in all partisan camps. Furthermore, we identify fear of Covid-19 as the driving mechanism while there is no evidence that affectedness is a major force behind the rally effect. Furthermore, we show that partisanship takes on a moderating role for fear of Covid-19 regarding satisfaction with government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Policy & Internet is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The current public backlash against several trade agreements has triggered a vivid discourse about the impact of top-down communication of such initiatives on public opinion. Findings from previous work on the impact of issue frames provide distinct expectations about the influence of different types of messages on people's opinion. However, little is known about the mechanisms underlying the impact of message cues on opinion formation. In this article, we shed light on one potential mechanism that mediates issue framing effects: individuals' emotional reaction. By means of a survey-embedded experiment conducted in the United States and Germany, we expose respondents to different frames about the benefits and risks of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership agreement. The results show that frames have a significant effect on public opinion, but frames that emphasize losses seem more persuasive than frames promoting the gains from the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Complementing our empirical investigation, with a causal mediation analysis we find that framing effects are indeed mediated by people's emotional responses to the frames. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy support is often measured by asking respondents to evaluate policies linked to an isolated policy goal. However, in real-world settings, policies usually have multiple implications. We study how people react when policies have negative implications for other valued goals, considering both their level of support and the certainty of their choices. Using survey experiment data collected in Germany in 2020 (N = 2233) that measures people's support for climate policies with or without information about negative implications for different societal groups, we find that people decrease their policy support and become less certain about their choices when faced with negative implications for vulnerable groups. This effect is partially moderated by people's climate change concern and their support for government assistance for such groups. We thus contribute to the understanding of people's policy decision-making, with implications for the measurement of public support and the development of effective climate policies. • People decrease their climate policy support and become less certain about their choices when faced with trade-offs. • Their reaction is partially moderated by people's climate change concern and their support for conflicting goals with negative implications for vulnerable groups. • People's support for climate policies is measured with a survey experiment to approximate real-world conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Limiting the global mean temperature increase to 1.5°C requires phasing out fossil fuel combustion almost entirely within the next three decades and replacing carbon-intensive technologies with low-carbon alternatives. Such socio-technical transitions are politically feasible only if public acceptance is sufficiently high. Here we investigate German citizens' views on the phase-out of internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) using a random forest (decision trees) classification and logistic regression model. We surveyed a demographically representative sample (N = 1,663) in 2021, finding that the majority of respondents (67%) approve of an ICEV phase-out by 2040 or hold a neutral stance. Acceptability is best predicted by the degree to which environmental problems are attributed to ICEVs, followed by respondents' willingness to abandon cars altogether or adopt electric vehicles (EVs). Our results further indicate that acceptability can be increased by providing people with information that present EVs in a more favourable, and ICEVs in a less favourable light. When the European Commission proposed to ban the sale of ICEVs by 2035, we conducted a follow-up survey to investigate whether this had influenced acceptability in Germany – with the result that it had not. In terms of concrete policies, pull measures such as public transport or electric vehicle purchase subsidies are preferred by the public over more restrictive policies such as taxes or bans. The findings of this study shed light on different dimensions of public opinion and their important implications for policymaking and the political feasibility of this socio-technical transition. Insights from this research can help policymakers in designing effective yet widely acceptable transport decarbonization policies. Overall, 45% of respondents approve of an ICEV phase-out by 2040, while 34% disapprove. Acceptability is best predicted by the degree to which environmental problems are attributed to ICEVs, as well as respondents' willingness to adopt electric vehicles or give up their cars altogether. Emphasizing the advantages of electric vehicles or the adverse effects of ICEVs increases acceptability, while indicating the inevitability of an eventual phase-out does not. On average, public transport and electric vehicle purchase subsidies enjoy higher levels of public support than taxes or different permutations of ICEV bans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior studies have reported a right-leaning bias in the media's reporting of how the public thinks of political issues, raising the question: Why, and to what extent, is this the case? One reason in particular has been discussed in this regard: Journalists judge public opinion to be more right leaning than it actually is (Beckers et al. 2021; Lewis et al. 2004). This paper therefore studies to what extent journalists misjudge audience opinion. The analyses are based on large-scale representative surveys of journalists (1993/2005) and the voting-age population (1994/2005) in Germany. Results show that German journalists (mis-)judge audience opinion to be more right-leaning than the audience sees itself. The results also show that journalists judge audience opinion to be to the right of their own stances, and that journalists in federal states with a right-leaning government and in West Germany judge audience opinion to be even further to the right. Audience feedback does not push journalists' judgements of their audience towards the right, however. These results are discussed vis-à-vis research showing that there is a consistent bias in the depiction of opinions expressed by ordinary citizens, and research documenting that political elites overestimate public support for right-wing policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The welfare state regulates social policies and reallocates scarce resources. For the social legitimacy of the welfare state, it is important that the public supports the principles underlying this reallocation. This article examines the impact of different activities during the life course on public deservingness perceptions of older unemployed people. In a factorial survey experiment conducted among a random sample of individuals drawn from German administrative employment records, we examine the maximum duration of benefit receipt which is perceived as fair for older unemployed persons with different biographies. The results indicate strong public support for a nexus between previous contributions and benefit entitlements. Besides financial contributions to unemployment insurance, parenting and further training are considered to be 'lifetime achievements' which justify longer unemployment benefit receipt. We interpret these findings as an expression of a generalised form of reciprocity which guides perceptions of deservingness regarding older unemployed persons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International solidarity is indispensable for coping with global crises; however, solidarity is frequently constrained by public opinion. Past research has examined who, on the donor side, is willing to support European and international aid. However, we know less about who, on the recipient side, is perceived to deserve solidarity. The article argues that potential donors consider situational circumstances and those relational features that link them to the recipients. Using factorial survey experiments, we analyse public support for international medical and financial aid in Germany during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results show that recipient countries' situational need and control, as well as political community criteria, namely, group membership, adherence to shared values and reciprocity, played a crucial role in explaining public support for aid. Important policy implications result: on the donor side, fault-attribution frames matter; on the recipient side, honouring community norms is key to receiving aid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic startups have a considerable economic impact, which is why public support programmes for them are considered an important component of innovation and technology policy. In this context, university support programmes can be an important part of the policy toolkit by aiming to improve universities' startup environment and thus promote startup activity at those institutions. Assessing the effectiveness of these programmes is a key evaluation task inasmuch as it provides an evidence base for decision-makers and broadens the discourse on promoting startup culture at universities. This study reports on the background, methodology, and results of the evaluation of the effectiveness of a large university support programme in the academic startup sector in Germany, 'EXIST—Leverage of potentials'. This programme supports universities which have little experience in building a startup culture and startup-supportive structures. Reliable data are available for two indicators that can be employed to assess intervention effects by means of a difference-in-differences design, namely for the number of applications universities submitted and the number of grants they received in what is Germany's largest funding programme for prospective startups. The findings indicate that funding by 'EXIST—Leverage of potentials' positively affects universities' activities in the area of startup support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an empirical analysis of whether, how, and why people are active to either support or protest against the Bundeswehr. Public opinion polls consistently report high levels of trust in the military. According to the social-psychological approach of participation theory, this trust should lead to corresponding actions. However, the literature on civil–military gaps claims that the majority of people pay mere lip service to soldiers rather than actively support the armed forces. No active support despite high levels of trust? In an effort to empirically test the level and the determinants of the public's support for and protest against the military, an activity scale was included in a representative opinion poll in Germany. The analyses show that a fairly large part of the German population engages in activities that support the Bundeswehr and that public trust in the military predicts that supportive behavior. Importantly, trust in the armed forces remains a strong predictor of citizens' activities related to the armed forces even when controlling for numerous other factors. Taken together, these findings contradict the widely shared view of a civil–military gap and instead provide empirical evidence for the social-psychological approach of participation theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As research on socio-technical transitions has repeatedly shown, positive or negative narratives can play a key role in galvanizing public support for or resistance against socio-technical transitions. In the mobility sector, many countries have recently seen some indications of beginning socio-technical change dynamics. In the case of Germany, key practices of a low-carbon transport system – such as cycling, substitution of travel through home office or 'shared mobility services' – are moving from niches to mainstream, while grassroots initiatives are successfully demanding improvements for cycling and walking. In this dynamic situation competing narratives of change begin to emerge, which claim to define what a transition towards 'sustainable' mobility should look like and how it could be accomplished. Against the backdrop of these recent discursive shifts the article highlights three key conflictual dimensions, along which competing narratives of a mobility transition in Germany, but also in other European countries, are likely going to diverge. The article suggests that research into mobility transitions should focus on the intensifying discursive struggles, in which different social groups with highly differing power will attempt to shape the broader socio-technical vision of a 'sustainable' mobility future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employing new and original survey data collected in three waves (April/May and November 2020 as well as May 2021) in Germany, this paper studies the dynamics of individual-level support for additional health care spending. A first major finding is that, so far, health care spending preferences have not radically changed during the Covid-19 pandemic, at least at the aggregate level. A more detailed analysis reveals, secondly, that individual-level support for additional spending on health care is strongly conditioned by performance perceptions and, to a lesser extent, general political trust. Citizens who regard the system as badly (well) prepared to cope with the crisis are more likely to support (oppose) additional spending. Higher levels of political trust are also positively associated with spending support, but to a lesser degree. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of these findings for policy-making and welfare state politics in the post-pandemic era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By September 2021 an estimated 32% of the global population was fully vaccinated for COVID-19 but the global distribution of vaccines was extremely unequal, with 72% or more vaccinated in the ten countries with the highest vaccination rates and less than 2% in the ten countries with the lowest vaccination rates. Given that governments need to secure public support for investments in global vaccine sharing, it is important to understand the levels and drivers of public support for international vaccine solidarity. Using a factorial experiment administered to more than 10,000 online survey respondents in Germany in 2021, we demonstrate that the majority of German citizens are against global inequalities in vaccine distribution. Respondents are supportive of substantive funding amounts, on the order of the most generous contributions provided to date, though still below amounts that are likely needed for a successful global campaign. Public preferences appear largely to be driven by intrinsic concern for the welfare of global populations though are in part explained by material considerations—particularly risks of continued health threats from a failure to vaccinate globally. Strategic considerations are of more limited importance in shaping public opinion; in particular we see no evidence for free riding on contributions by other states. Finally, drawing on an additional survey experiment, we show that there is scope to use information campaigns highlighting international health externalities to augment public support for global campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study examines public support - and its drivers - for comprehensive policy packages (i.e. bundles of coherent policy measures introduced together) aimed at improving food environments., Design: Participants completed an online survey with a choice-based conjoint experiment, where they evaluated pairs of policy packages comprising up to seven distinct food environment measures. After choosing a preferred package or opting for a single policy, participants designed their ideal policy package. Based on their choices, respondents were categorised as resistant, inclined or supportive towards policy packaging according to their frequency of opting out for single measures and the number of policies they included in their ideal package., Setting: The study was conducted in Germany via an online survey., Participants: The sample included 1200 eligible German voters, recruited based on age, gender and income quotas., Results: Based on both opt-out frequency (44·7 %) and ideal policy packaging (72·8 %) outcomes, most respondents were inclined towards policy packages. The inclusion of fiscal incentives and school-based measures in packages enhanced support, while fiscal disincentives reduced it. Key drivers of support included beliefs about the importance of diet-related issues and the role of government in regulation, while socio-demographic factors, political leaning and personal experience with diet-related disease had minimal impact., Conclusions: The results reveal public appetite for policy packages to address unhealthy food environments, contingent on package design and beliefs about the issue's severity and legitimacy of intervention. Public health advocates should design and promote policy packages aligned with public preferences, especially given anticipated opposition from commercial interests.

What shapes public support for aid delivery through international organizations (IOs)? Drawing on delegation theory, we propose that concerns about donor governments losing control over aid dampens public support for IO delivery. We theorize and provide examples of how two sets of control concerns animate public preferences: those incurred through shared decision-making in multilateral bodies and those incurred during disbursement and implementation. We hypothesize that information regarding the practice of donors earmarking contributions to IOs should mitigate these concerns and increase public support for IO delivery. Results from original survey experiments administered to nationally representative samples in the United States and Germany provide support for our argument, while open-ended responses illuminate the role of (mis)trust in IOs and governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic imbalances that characterize the world economy have unequally distributed costs and benefits. That raises the question of how countries could run long-term external surpluses and deficits without significant opposition against the policies that generate them. We show that political discourse helps to secure public support for these policies and the resulting economic outcomes. First, a content analysis of 32 000 newspaper articles finds that the dominant interpretations of current account balances in Australia and Germany concur with very distinct perspectives: external surpluses are seen as evidence of competitiveness in Germany, while external deficits are interpreted as evidence of attractiveness for investments in Australia. Second, survey experiments in both countries suggest that exposure to these diverging interpretations has a causal effect on citizens' support for their country's economic strategy. Political discourse, thus, is crucial to provide the societal foundation of national growth strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries implemented restrictions to limit the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (e.g. travel restrictions and lockdowns). One path to loosening restrictions is to do so selectively only for vaccinated individuals (e.g. by implementing vaccine passports domestically or as a prerequisite for international travel). Setting different rules based on people's vaccination status is however a contentious issue among health policy experts, government officials, and the public. Our analysis focuses on the levels and correlates of public support for the lifting of restrictions for the vaccinated in April 2021, i.e. at a time when restrictions were in place and a selective lifting of these restrictions just for the vaccinated was debated in Europe. We use representative quota samples of the populations of France (N = 1,752), Germany (N = 1,759), and Sweden (N = 1,754). We find that a slight plurality support lifting restrictions for the vaccinated in France and Germany but not in Sweden. Vaccine hesitancy emerges as strong predictor of opposition to such a policy. Additionally, individuals who are already vaccinated (in France and Germany) and who are higher in risk-seeking express more support for the lifting of restrictions for the vaccinated. We discuss implications for the debate on vaccine passports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the need for improving public confidence in vaccines. Academic gaps and redundancies on vaccinations must be identified to revise the medical curriculum for up-to-date training of medical students. This cross-sectional survey assessed the status of vaccine-related teaching in general and specific to COVID-19 in medical schools across Germany. A total of 4313 medical students completed a questionnaire comprising items on national learning goals and perceived needs for teaching on vaccinations. Mixed methods were used to analyse data quantitatively for relative frequencies (%) and correlations between teaching items and semesters (Spearman's rho), and qualitatively (content analysis). Our findings showed that 38.92% of the students were dissatisfied with teaching on vaccine-preventable diseases, but the perceived satisfaction increased in later semesters (r = 0.46, p < 0.001). Moreover, 75.84% and 68.15% of the students were dissatisfied with teaching related to vaccine scepticism and vaccine-related communication strategies, respectively. Furthermore, 63.79% reported dissatisfaction with teaching on COVID-19 disease and 72.93% with teaching on COVID-19 vaccines. A total of 79.12% stated they educated others on COVID-19 and its vaccines and 75.14% felt responsible to do so. A majority of the medical students were dissatisfied with teaching on dealing with vaccine scepticism, communication strategies and COVID-19 vaccines. We recommend practice-oriented vaccine education, especially for teaching communication skills to medical students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nuclear waste disposal represents one of the biggest socio-economic challenges of this century and probably for many centuries to come. It is a highly complex issue due to the interrelated technical, material, social, economic and political dimensions as well as the real or perceived risks involved. Distrust in technology, institutions, industry and even experts and decision-making processes are some of the reasons for opposition to nuclear waste disposal strategies. Our contribution analyses the dynamics of trust and distrust in Germany over the evolution of the search for a nuclear waste repository site in the last 40 years, identifies major turning points and explores the main factors that shaped trust/distrust relations over time. Site selection conflicts have often provoked 'confidence gaps' and site selection policies depend heavily on relationships based on mutual recognition and trust. We select key factors considered necessary to build trust in institutions and siting selection procedures and review recent changes in the institutional setting, including the establishment of a National Civil Society Board and the attempt to design more participatory procedures. Twenty-one stakeholders and experts were asked to rate some of the identified factors necessary for building trust and whether the measures carried out so far are sufficient to enhance trust in the relevant institutions and procedures and increase public confidence. Without a trust-building process for the siting, development and operation of a risky asset, a short-term attenuation of long-lasting conflicts is unlikely. The legacy of the past still plays an inhibiting role. In addition to expert judgement, evidence was derived from document analysis and participatory observation in the works of the German 'Commission on the Storage of High-level Radioactive Waste' and of the 'National Civil Society Board' as well as of events of regulator and operator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Moderne Staat is the property of Verlag Barbara Budrich GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Food waste is a major challenge in affluent societies around the globe. Based on theories of protest and a mixed methods design combining qualitative, experimental, and survey research, we study the motives for, frequency of, and public support for dumpster diving in Germany. We find that dumpster diving as an unconventional daily protest action is related to more general protest against capitalist societies. It is motivated by both altruistic and egoistic concerns. The perceived legitimacy of violence and self-identity explain the frequency of dumpster diving. A factorial survey experiment with activists and the general public reveals strong similarities between the views of activists and those of other citizens in strong support of dumpster diving. This study demonstrates the usefulness of combining different empirical methods to study food activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon taxes are frequently advocated as a means of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, yet their political feasibility remains a challenge. To enhance their political appeal, carbon tax proponents have proposed revenue recycling as a means of alleviating public concern with this instrument's visible costs. Analyzing data from identical survey‐experiments administered in the United States, Canada, and Germany, we examine the extent to which returning revenues to the public has the potential to broaden the political acceptability of carbon taxes across ideological and national contexts. While public opinion is sensitive to the cost attributes of carbon taxes, we find that in some cases, opposition to carbon taxes can be offset by a reduction in income taxes. However, these effects tend to be modest in size, limited to some ideological groups, and varied across countries. Moreover, we demonstrate that fairness perceptions are a crucial mechanism linking revenue recycling to carbon tax support in all countries examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Germany aims to become climate-neutral by 2045. In order to achieve this ambitious goal, an all-encompassing transformation of the economy is necessary. In addition to the energy transition towards, at best, a complete supply of renewable energies, the promotion of green innovations is of central importance for the transformation. Furthermore, the pricing of CO₂ is emphasized as a central instrument of climate policy. However, carbon management strategies also play an important role. Finally, the carbon dividend should ensure social justice and create public support. The question arises as to whether the planned and implemented measures can actually make the green transformation a success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During COVID-19, various public institutions tried to shape citizens' behaviour to slow the spread of the pandemic. How did their authority affect citizens' support of public measures taken to combat the spread of COVID-19? The article makes two contributions. First, it presents a novel conceptualisation of authority as a source heuristic. Second, it analyses the authority of four types of public institutions (health ministries, universities, public health agencies, the WHO) in two countries (Germany and the UK), drawing on novel data from a survey experiment conducted in May 2020. On average, institutional endorsements seem to have mattered little. However, there is an observable polarisation effect where citizens who ascribe much expertise to public institutions support COVID-19 measures more than the control group. Furthermore, those who ascribe little expertise support them less than the control group. Finally, neither perception of biases nor exposure to institutions in public debates seems consistently to affect their authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Germany in 2016, over 722,000 people applied for asylum. That is, in a single year close to three-quarters of a million people were displaced. The struggles displaced people face are numerous. For host communities trying to provide them water and wastewater services, the challenges are also numerous. To account for increased users, utility managers may need to expand the capacity of their systems temporarily, if not permanently. The financial burden of these expansions is largely shouldered by the hosting community. If a community is opposed to such expansion, it can adversely impact a project's schedule, resources, and budget. Hence, it is critical for utility managers to understand the hosting community's public support for proposed expansion plans. As such, there is a need to evaluate what factors influence public support in displacement situations. To address this need, this study uses place attachment theory to assess what personal beliefs, demographic factors, and geographic parameters are associated with public support. Enabling this study is data gathered through a survey distributed to all 16 German States in 2016 (n=416). Multinomial logistic analysis revealed three key drivers of public support: trust in the utility provider, willingness to participate in utility decisions, and willingness to provide utilities to those who cannot pay. The findings suggest that utility managers should build trust with the host community and foster participation to increase public support. In addition, this work shows how, in displacement scenarios, public support can be explained with place attachment theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments all over the world support innovation activities in private companies with several different programs. Typical measures are R&D subsidies, consulting services, incubator facilities, opportunities for networking, and subsidized loans. From an economic perspective, public support for innovations may help to compensate for market failure. But government support encounters the risk of being neither effective nor efficient. Furthermore, the ability of a company to successfully apply for public innovation support programs depends on the amount of administrative resources it already is equipped with, i.e. its size and its existing relationships with research institutions. In this paper, we look at public support for private companies in one specific German region, the Ruhr area. We use a sample of 74 companies, all of which engage in R&D activities and have already filed patents. Our findings show that firms need a minimum company size to be able to successfully apply for public innovation support. Furthermore, we show that an existing cooperation with research institutions makes access to public support measures easier. We also find that public innovation support indeed improves the patent position of companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Przegląd Europejski is the property of University of Warsaw and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

While interest groups are often seen as transmission belts of public preferences, little is known as to how they might transmit such preferences. This paper argues that the provision of information is one mechanism through which advocates represent their constituents' interests and analyses who informs policymakers about these preferences and when actors are more likely to do so. The study relies on a new dataset containing information on the arguments advocates made in public hearings that were held on 34 specific policy issues in Germany. The results reveal that the amount of information on public preferences an actor provides is determined by actor type, its public support and position on the issue. Interestingly, information on public preferences is predominantly used by status-quo defenders. This paper contributes to our understanding of interest groups as transmission belts and their potential to enhance governments' ability to respond to public preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this article is to analyze the development of public support for the TTIP agreement in Europe and to identify the main factors causing the growing skepticism with the treaty. The first part of the article describes the state of TTIP negotiations since their beginning in 2013 until today, while the second part focuses on the analysis of the public support for the agreement using the Eurobarometer public opinion survey. The final part of the article analyses the TTIP debate in Germany -- one of the most TTIP skeptic countries in Europe. In this part, we examine the key factors driving the public debate in Germany and study the positions towards TTIP in key stakeholders' groups -- general public, political parties and interest groups. The article shows that the cautious German disapproval of TTIP has evolved into a broad social opposition within a short period. Some of the stakeholders, who had initially voiced skepticism but supported the agreement in principal, have become outright opponents of the treaty. They do not see the possibility to improve some of the controversial provisions of the treaty during the negotiations process as real. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Familienforschung (ZzF) is the property of University of Bamberg Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)