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Publications
If you speak German, you might also want to check out this small piece on sustainable digitalization, a 3 minute intro video to sustainable digitalization, a short talk on digitalization and climate measures in companies here or even this Podcast Interview with me on “Digitalisierung: Ökokiller oder Hoffnungsträger?”.
All articles should be accessible here directly as a download (in the spirit of decentralized and distributed archiving of scientific output) or as open access articles via my Google Scholar profile. Please get in touch if this does not work.
Journal articles (peer-reviewed)
Automated extraction of discourse networks from large volumes of media data
📄 Network Science (Cambridge University Press) - Vol. 13, (e4), pp. e4
⬇️ Download paper
https://doi.org/10.1017/nws.2025.4
Replication Materials: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14713615
https://doi.org/10.1017/nws.2025.4 Replication Materials: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14713615
Understanding and tracking societal discourse around essential governance challenges of our times is crucial. One possible heuristic is to conceptualize discourse as a network of actors and policy beliefs. Here, we present an exemplary and widely applicable automated approach to extract discourse networks from large volumes of media data, as a bipartite graph of organizations and beliefs connected by stance edges. Our approach leverages various natural language processing techniques, alongside qualitative content analysis. We combine named entity recognition, named entity linking, supervised text classification informed by close reading, and a novel stance detection procedure based on large language models. We demonstrate our approach in an empirical application tracing urban sustainable transport discourse networks in the Swiss urban area of Zürich over 12 years, based on more than one million paragraphs extracted from slightly less than two million newspaper articles. We test the internal validity of our approach. Based on evaluations against manually automated data, we find support for what we call the window validity hypothesis of automated discourse network data gathering. The internal validity of automated discourse network data gathering increases if inferences are combined over sliding time windows. Our results show that when leveraging data redundancy and stance inertia through windowed aggregation, automated methods can recover basic structure and higher-level structurally descriptive metrics of discourse networks well. Our results also demonstrate the necessity of creating high-quality test sets and close reading and that efforts invested in automation should be carefully considered
Citizens ditching cars: how do assessments of SDG interactions predict a modal shift towards low-carbon urban transport choices?
📄 Environmental Research Letters - Vol. 20, (8), pp. 084029
⬇️ Download paperhttps://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ade817 Replication Materials: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14900322
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ade817 Replication Materials: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14900322
In light of climate change, urbanization and worldwide mobility trends, the requirements for transforming urban transport systems towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are twofold. First, understanding the systemic interactions underlying sustainable development as envisioned in the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is key. In the context of urban transport systems, this includes understanding what hinders or fosters reduced carbon emissions. Second, systemic knowledge must be coupled with a strong societal and political engagement. This study analyses whether citizen assessments of key SDG interactions in urban transport systems play a role in predicting individual transport mode choices. Normatively, changes in individually held systemic perspectives could encourage greater use of low-carbon transport modes in urban and peri-urban areas, which would be an essential step toward climate change mitigation. We use survey data (n = 822) to measure citizens’ perspectives on the urban transport system and their transportation habits in terms of car driving, cycling, or public transport. We use a Bayesian multilevel regression model to investigate ‘How do citizen assessments of SDG interactions influence transport mode choices?’. We find that negative citizen assessments of the influence of car-related (1) infrastructure and (2) transport affordability on reduced carbon emissions are associated with reduced frequency of car-driving. Conversely, we find that positive citizen assessments of the influence of (3) road safety for cyclists and (4) public transport affordability on reduced carbon emissions are associated with increased frequency of cycling and public transport use, respectively
The link between social-ecological network fit and outcomes: A rare empirical assessment of a prominent hypothesis
📄 Society & Natural Resources - Vol. 37, (7), pp. 1090–1107
⬇️ Download paperhttps://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2024.2335393 Replication Materials: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14960416
https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2024.2335393 Replication Materials: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14960416
It is often claimed that the structure of networks influences outcomes in environmental governance. For example, network motifs of social-ecological fit have been linked to positive environmental outcomes, but empirical tests of this link are rare. Social-ecological network fit represents a situation in which actors involved in the governance and management of linked ecological elements coordinate. We empirically analyze how motifs of social-ecological network fit are associated with actors’ outcome assessments in ten cases of Swiss wetlands governance. We combine social networks among organizational actors, networks of interrelated ecosystem management activities, and actors’ assessments of outcomes. Results show that – contrary to the prominent theoretical claim – more fit is linked to worse outcomes. Drawing on the so-called risk hypothesis, we argue that our negative findings likely highlight a complicated causal process between actors’ assessments of outcomes and their adjustment to risks through coordination in networks.
Who is satisfied with their inclusion in polycentric sustainability governance? Networks, power, and procedural justice in Swiss wetlands
📄 Policy Studies Journal: The Journal of the Policy Studies Organization - Vol. 52, (1), pp. 139–167
⬇️ Download paperhttps://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12515 Replication Materials: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8101717
https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12515 Replication Materials: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8101717
Sustainability governance in polycentric systems needs to ensure both effectiveness and procedural justice. Effectiveness and procedural justice are intricately linked to power dynamics in governance. To assess polycentric sustainability governance, understanding different types, sources, and effects of power is key. Here, we investigate network‐derived bonding and bridging social capital of actors as specific sources of power in polycentric sustainability governance. We ask two questions: How does bridging and bonding social capital translate into power? And: How is the power associated with satisfaction with inclusion? We relate levels of bonding and bridging social capital to power and satisfaction with inclusion in governance processes for 299 actors in 10 cases of Swiss wetlands governance. Using a Bayesian multi‐level regression model, we find that especially bonding social capital is a source of power for actors. Further, network‐derived power but also nonnetwork‐derived power by design translates into satisfaction with inclusion. Research and practice of sustainability governance need to be careful to account for power in nuanced ways, acknowledging its sources and relation to procedural justice.
Data-driven governance in crises: Topic modelling for the identification of refugee needs
🏛️ Proceedings of the 24th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research - pp. 1–11, ACM
⬇️ Download paperhttps://doi.org/10.1145/3598469.3598470📊 Replication Materials: https://github.com/sprenkamp/DGO_2023
https://doi.org/10.1145/3598469.3598470📊 Replication Materials: https://github.com/sprenkamp/DGO_2023
The war in Ukraine and the following refugee crisis have recently again highlighted the need for effective refugee management across European countries. Refugee management contemporarily mostly relies on top-down management approaches by governments. These often lead to suboptimal policies for refugees and highlight a need to better identify and integrate refugee needs into management. Here, we show that modern applications of Natural Language Processing (NLP) allow for the effective analysis of large text corpora linked to refugee needs, making it possible to complement top-down approaches with bottom-up knowledge centered around the current needs of the refugee population. By following a Design Science Research Methodology, we utilize 58 semi-structured stakeholder interviews within Switzerland to develop design requirements for NLP applications for refugee management. Based on the design requirements, we developed R2G – “Refugees to Government”, an application based on state-of-the-art topic modeling to identify refugee needs bottom-up through Telegram data. We evaluate R2G with a dedicated workshop held with stakeholders from the public sector and civil society. Thus, we contribute to the ongoing discourse on how to design refugee management applications and showcase how topic modeling can be utilized for data-driven governance during refugee crises.
Discourses surrounding sustainability and digitalization in Europe on Twitter over time
📄 Gaia - Vol. 32, (1), pp. 10–20
⬇️ Download paperhttps://doi.org/10.14512/gaia.32.s1.4 Replication Materials: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7555375
https://doi.org/10.14512/gaia.32.s1.4 Replication Materials: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7555375
Digitalization and sustainability transformations are contested change processes, accompanied by wide public discourse. But what concerns the public? Our analysis of the social media discourse on Twitter in the last decade reveals key discursive hubs such as smart cities and climate change, as well as blind spots such as sufficiency strategies. It also points to differences between societal and academic discourse, and where increased engagement of researchers and sustainability professionals would be needed to move forward.This study analyzes the discourses surrounding the interrelation between digitalization and sustainability in Europe on Twitter between 2010 and 2021. We identify 34,802 tweets related to the interrelation between digitalization and sustainability among 634,017 tweets discussing sustainability issues with explicit mentions of Europe. Based on a qualitative analysis of tweets, we identify the main domains discussed (and not discussed). We then sketch the development of the identified domains, as well as their relationship to each other over time, based on a quantitative analysis of their (co-)occurrences. We find that smart city and mobility were two of the most dominant and interrelated domains, particularly in the middle of the decade. In parallel, the domain of climate change has gained ever more attention since 2017 and has emerged as a discursive hub. We further develop hypotheses for how external factors and events (especially EU-level programs) likely led to increases in attention to some domains. Finally, we find that the Twitter discourse across domains mirrors common blind spots regarding sustainable digitalization discourses in its uncritical stance toward economic growth and its overreliance on efficiency in comparison to sufficiency concerns.
Farmers’ social networks and regional spillover effects in agricultural climate change mitigation
📄 Climatic Change - Vol. 176, (2), pp. 8
⬇️ Download paperhttps://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-023-03484-6 Replication Materials: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7401318
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-023-03484-6 Replication Materials: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7401318
Climate change poses a severe threat to global agricultural production and rural livelihoods, and since agriculture itself is a significant source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, it can also play an important role in climate change mitigation. This article investigates how farmers’ social networks influence the adoption of on-farm mitigation strategies. More precisely, we use a network autocorrelation model to explore the relationship between a farmer’s own mitigation behavior and the mitigation behavior and knowledge of his fellow farmers. The analysis is based on a regional case study in Switzerland and uses data obtained from personal network interviews combined with survey and census data of 50 farmers. Half of them are members of a local collective action initiative for agricultural climate change mitigation, while the others do not participate in the initiative. We find that, on average, farmers with a larger network adopt more mitigation measures, and furthermore, mitigation adoption is linked with the level of knowledge within farmers’ networks. Indeed, the likelihood that non-members will adopt mitigation measures increases if they are closely associated with members of the collective action, suggesting a local spillover effect. It follows that strengthening knowledge exchange among farmers and supporting local farmers’ initiatives can potentially contribute to the diffusion of agricultural climate change mitigation practices.
Information exchange in governance networks—Who brokers across political divides?
📄 Governance (Oxford, England) - Vol. 35, (2), pp. 585–608
⬇️ Download paperhttps://doi.org/10.1111/gove.12601 Replication Materials: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4626528
https://doi.org/10.1111/gove.12601 Replication Materials: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4626528
The exchange of information among organizations is the lifeblood of governance networks. It is a necessary condition for successful governance. Political divides between organizations often impede information exchange. We ask which organizations are most likely to broker information across political divides. We consider survey (n = 312) evidence of technical information exchange in Swiss water governance. Bayesian exponential random graph modeling results show that scientific organizations play crucial roles for cross‐divide brokerage. To a lesser extent, this also holds for higher‐level governmental agencies. Participation in policy forums is associated with a higher likelihood of brokering across political divides. There is however no clear benefit to participating in more than two or three forums. We conclude that an active role played by scientific organizations is the most promising avenue to increase information flow across political divides. Beyond this, we suggest setting up carefully constructed exchange forums and selectively engaging moderate members of subgroups.
Socio-technical networks of infrastructure management: Network concepts and motifs for studying digitalization, decentralization, and integrated management
📄 Journal of Environmental Management - Vol. 318, (115596), pp. 115596
⬇️ Download paperhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.115596📊 Replication Materials: https://doi.org/10.25678/0006HR
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.115596📊 Replication Materials: https://doi.org/10.25678/0006HR
Networked infrastructure systems - including energy, transportation, water, and wastewater systems - provide essential services to society. Globally, these services are undergoing major transformative processes such as digitalization, decentralization, or integrated management. Such processes not only depend on technical changes in infrastructure systems but also include important social and socio-technical dimensions. In this article, we propose a socio-technical network perspective to study the ensemble of social actors and technical elements involved in an infrastructure system, and their complex relations. We conceptualize structurally explicit socio-technical networks of networked infrastructure systems based on methodological considerations from network analysis and draw on concepts from socio-technical system theories and social-ecological network studies. Based on these considerations, we suggest analytical methods to study basic network concepts such as density, reciprocity, and centrality in a socio-technical network. We illustrate socio-technical motifs, i.e., meaningful sub-structures in socio-technical networks of infrastructure management. Drawing on these, we describe how infrastructure systems can be analyzed in terms of digitalization, decentralization, and integrated management from a socio-technical network perspective. Using the example of urban wastewater systems, we illustrate an empirical application of our approach. The results of an empirical case study in Switzerland demonstrate the potential of socio-technical networks to promote a deeper understanding of complex socio-technical relations in networked infrastructure systems. We contend that such a deeper understanding could improve management practices of infrastructure systems and is becoming even more important for enabling future data-driven, decentralized, and more integrated infrastructure management.
Who joins a forum—and who does not?—evaluating drivers of forum participation in polycentric governance systems
📄 Public Administration Review - Vol. 82, (4), pp. 692–707
⬇️ Download paperhttps://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13427 Replication Materials: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5155159
https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13427 Replication Materials: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5155159
In polycentric governance systems, decisions that influence a given policy issue are often made across a series of forums: venues where actors meet to resolve collective action problems. Here, we examine who does and does not participate in forums, and the factors driving that participation. We analyze forum participation patterns of 307 actors involved in Swiss water governance, who could participate in water governance forums. We find that the majority of actors do not participate in any forums. Results from a Bayesian multilevel logistic regression model show that especially those concerned with a broader range of policy issues and those that have more organizational resources at their disposal are more likely to participate. To a lesser extent, this also holds for organizations that represent policy beliefs consistent with median beliefs in the system. A belief that increased cross-sectoral coordination is needed to promote more effective governance does not have a discernible impact on participation. These results question the integrative characteristics often attributed to forums in polycentric governance more generally.
Recycled text and risk communication in natural gas pipeline environmental impact assessments
📄 Energy Policy - Vol. 156, (112379), pp. 112379
⬇️ Download paperhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2021.112379 Replication Materials: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4742964
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2021.112379 Replication Materials: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4742964
Under the U.S. National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), energy infrastructure projects that are permitted by federal agencies require preparation and publication of an environmental impact assessment. However, fifty years after the passage of NEPA, agencies’ compliance behaviors, and how these behaviors might shape the risks associated with energy infrastructure, remain largely unexplored. Here, we consider how assessment documents from forty-six of the largest U.S. natural gas pipeline mega-projects address landslide risks. Using a series of text mining and content analysis methods, we evaluate the prevalence of recycled text across assessments. We find that text similarity does not correspond closely to reported risk levels – in many cases, common verbiage is used and only project-specific details (e.g., locations, numeric figures) are substituted. While such approaches likely expedite preparation of assessments and facilitate knowledge transfer between projects, we argue that common text potentially hinders clear communication of differential risks to decision-makers and the public, who may lack the technical expertise to contextualize the magnitude and severity of reported figures. In light of ongoing policy efforts to streamline lengthy and costly energy infrastructure permitting processes under NEPA, it is vital that such efforts do not undermine the risk communication requirements of the review process.
The effect of beliefs on policy instrument preferences: The case of Swiss renewable energy policy: The effect of beliefs on policy preferences
📄 Policy Studies Journal: The Journal of the Policy Studies Organization - Vol. 49, (3), pp. 757–784
This article explores how beliefs affect preferences leading to policy instrument choices of elite actors. Beliefs are general attitudes regarding a given policy field, for example toward the role of the state or the urgency of a problem. Both beliefs and preferences are central for applications of Sabatier?s Advocacy Coalition Framework, but their interrelationship has remained undertheorized. Understanding how beliefs and preferences are linked can provide important insights into policy instrument choice, while improving the comparability of studies across policy subsystems. The article compares the relative contribution of beliefs to shaping instrument choices of elite actors in the domain of Swiss renewable energy policy. Results suggest that beliefs are likely to play a prominent role in shaping instrument choice. We find that policy core beliefs translate into preferences through a process involving two main pathways. First, some policy beliefs primarily influence the preferred characteristics of the overall instrument mix. Second, some policy beliefs are primarily associated with preferences for specific instruments. Some policy beliefs are influential via both pathways. These, therefore, emerge as especially important factors shaping the policy process. Our results offer insights for policymakers into how potential future conflicts in negotiations can be attenuated.
Bottom‐up identification of subsystems in complex governance systems: Subsystems in complex governance systems
📄 Policy Studies Journal: The Journal of the Policy Studies Organization - Vol. 48, (3), pp. 782–805
⬇️ Download paperhttps://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12301📊 Replication Materials: https://doi.org/10.25678/000055
https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12301📊 Replication Materials: https://doi.org/10.25678/000055
Theories of policymaking often focus on subsystems within a larger, overarching governance system. However, subsystem identification is complicated by the complexity of governance systems, characterized by multiple, interrelated issues, multi-level interactions, and a diverse set of organizations. This study suggests an empirical, bottom-up methodology to identify subsystems. Subsystems are identified based on bundles of similar observed organizational activity. The study further suggests a set of three elementary criteria to classify individual subsystems. In order to prove the value of the methodology, subsystems are identified through cluster analysis, and subsequently classified in a study of Swiss water governance. Results suggest that Swiss water governance can be understood as a network of overlapping subsystems connected by boundary penetrating organizations, with high-conflict and quiet politics subgroups. The study shows that a principled analysis of subsystems as the interconnected, constituent parts of complex governance systems offers insights into important contextual factors shaping outcomes. Such insights are prerequisite knowledge in order to understand and navigate complex systems for researchers and practitioners alike.
Policy integration: Do laws or actors integrate issues relevant to flood risk management in Switzerland?
📄 Global Environmental Change: Human and Policy Dimensions - Vol. 61, (101945), pp. 101945
⬇️ Download paperhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.101945📊 Replication Materials: https://doi.org/10.25678/0000zz
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.101945📊 Replication Materials: https://doi.org/10.25678/0000zz
Existing research emphasizes interdependencies between social and ecological systems in climate change adaptation. Ecological systems are often complex and span several issues that are not integrated in the social governance system. In order to increase the fit between social and ecological systems, understanding factors that promote the integration of interdependent issues is crucial. In this paper, we consider 11 issues related to flood risk management, e.g., technical flood protection and habitat loss, which are typically addressed in different policy sectors but exhibit ecological, functional, or geographical interdependencies. We analyze two bases for issue integration: a) political actors connecting issues and, b) the legal framework cross-referencing issues. We propose a network method for systematic comparisons between issue integration based on actors and integration based on laws. For the case of Swiss flood risk management, we find that actor- and law-based issue integration co-vary and might be self-reinforcing. We further find that issue integration mostly rests on laws, although cases exist where actors are the main basis of integration. Results promote our understanding of potential bases for the integration of policy issues, thereby contributing knowledge about adaptive governance capacities in social-ecological systems that buffer the effects of climate change.
Co-participation in the Swiss water forum network
📄 International Journal of Water Resources Development - Vol. 35, (3), pp. 446–464
In polycentric governance systems, actors interact in different venues, such as forums which foster cross-sectoral interaction. This analysis centres on water forums in Switzerland and on actors with multiple forum memberships, creating interactions throughout the entire forum network. Findings show that the central actors in the entire water forum network are predominantly from the public administration sector, even though members from the private sector are most numerous. Despite an emphasis on the bottom-up and self-organizing character of polycentric governance systems in the literature, this analysis shows that public administration actors still play a crucial role as network managers and brokers.
Networks of Swiss water governance issues. Studying fit between media attention and organizational activity
📄 Society & Natural Resources - Vol. 32, (12), pp. 1416–1432
⬇️ Download paperhttps://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2018.1535102📊 Replication Materials: https://doi.org/10.25678/000077
https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2018.1535102📊 Replication Materials: https://doi.org/10.25678/000077
This study analyzes Swiss water governance as a network of interrelated issues. It compares how organizations reflect relations between governance issues in their activity with the way issue relations are depicted by the media (issue attention-activity fit). To do so, a media data analysis, supported by machine learning, is combined with a nation-wide survey. Prominent areas of misfit relate to the coordination between water saving measures and drought risks; the exploitation of subterranean resources and drinking water protection; and issues of micropollutants. The study demonstrates that comparing organizational activity with media attention is particularly well suited to recognize newly emerging, currently neglected areas of governance.
Connectors and coordinators in natural resource governance: insights from Swiss water supply
📄 Ecology and Society - Vol. 23, (2)
Fragmentation across scales in natural resource governance can impede coordinated action and decrease innovation capacity. Bridging actors who connect others within governance networks help to overcome this challenge. This paper analyzes two bridging positions for actors in governance networks. First, periphery connectors integrate otherwise unconnected actors and provide access to new knowledge. Second, central coordinators efficiently connect actors at the center of the network and thus facilitate coordinated action. The paper proposes a way to identify periphery connectors and central coordinators within governance networks and formulates expectations about types of actors that are likely to occupy these positions. An analysis of three actor networks in the water supply sector in Switzerland suggests that periphery coordinator positions are more likely to be occupied by organizations at higher jurisdictional levels. Central coordinator positions are more likely to be occupied by governmental actors as compared to non-governmental actors. Thus, in addressing challenges of fragmentation, higher-level governmental actors continue to play an important role, even when they delegate competences to lower-level and private actors.
Network dynamics in natural resource governance: A case study ofSwiss landscape management: Network dynamics in natural resource governance
📄 Policy Studies Journal: The Journal of the Policy Studies Organization - Vol. 45, (2), pp. 315–336
Structural characteristics of social networks have been recognized as important factors of effective natural resource governance. However, network analyses of natural resource governance most often remain static, even though governance is an inherently dynamic process. In this article, we investigate the evolution of a social network of organizational actors involved in the governance of natural resources in a regional nature park project in Switzerland. We ask how the maturation of a governance network affects bonding social capital and centralization in the network. Applying separable temporal exponential random graph modeling (STERGM), we test two hypotheses based on the risk hypothesis by Berardo and Scholz (2010) in a longitudinal setting. Results show that network dynamics clearly follow the expected trend toward generating bonding social capital but do not imply a shift toward less hierarchical and more decentralized structures over time. We investigate how these structural processes may contribute to network effectiveness over time.
Preprints (not peer reviewed yet)
Promises and pitfalls of using LLMs to identify actor stances in political discourse
📝 Socarxiv
https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/5a3k8_v1 Replication Materials: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14795490🔗 Link
Empirical research in the social sciences is often interested in understanding actor stances; the positions that social actors take regarding normative statements in societal discourse. In automated text analysis applications, the classification task of stance detection remains challenging. Stance detection is especially difficult due to semantic challenges such as implicitness or missing context but also due to the general nature of the task. In this paper, we explore the potential of Large Language Models (LLMs) to enable stance detection in a generalized (non-domain, non-statement specific) form. Specifically, we test a variety of different general prompt chains for zero-shot stance classifications.Our evaluation data consists of textual data from a real-world empirical research project in the domain of sustainable urban transport. For 1710 German newspaper paragraphs, each containing an organizational entity, we annotated the stance of the entity toward one of five normative statements. A comparison of four publicly available LLMs show that they can improve upon existing approaches and achieve adequate performance. However, results heavily depend on the prompt chain method, LLM, and vary by statement. Our findings have implications for computational linguistics methodology and political discourse analysis, as they offer a deeper understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of LLMs in performing the complex semantic task of stance detection. We strongly emphasise the necessity of domain-specific evaluation data for evaluating LLMs and considering trade-offs between model complexity and performance.
What is digitalization policy? Domain(s), drivers and a definition from a policy integration perspective
📝 Socarxiv
This essay provides an answer to the question ``What is digitalization policy?'', through the lens of policy integration.To do so, I introduce a core distinction between naive and encompassing understandings of digitalization policy. Then, I posit that digitalization policy does not have a singular policy domain but rather distributed impacts across different policy domains. Digitalization policy is therefore always policy integration. Combining this assertion with an encompassing understanding of digitalization policy, I arrive at a modern definition of digitalization policy as any policy that targets the direct regulation of digital communication and digital infrastructure, in conjunction with the impact of such regulation on any affected policy domain(s). From this perspective, I argue that drivers of digitalization policy can be found in established groups of drivers of policy integration, based on institutions, interests or ideas. The essay suggests a blueprint for constructively approaching research on policy related to digitalization. It concludes with an illustrative application of the blueprint to an empirical example of a digitalization policymaking process in Switzerland, a policy sprint on the contribution of artificial intelligence to sustainability.
Book chapters
Identifying subsystems and crucial actors in water governance: Analysis of bipartite actor—issue networks
📚 Networks in Water Governance - pp. 115–143, Springer International Publishing
Reports
Wasserpolitischer Jahresrückblick 2020
📄 Aqua Gas - Issue 5/2021
Wasserpolitischer Jahresrückblick 2019
📄 Aqua Gas - Issue 5/2020
Wasserpolitischer Jahresrückblick 2018
📄 Aqua Gas - Issue 4/2020
Integration of nature protection in Swiss forest policy
📄 INTEGRATE country report - Swiss Federal Research Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape WSL
Fears of a widespread forest decline that were prevalent in the 1980s have mostly disappeared in Switzerland today. There is good reason to be optimistic about the state of nature protection in Swiss forests. Over a century of strict preservation of forest area and close to nature forestry have contributed to their high ecological value. But some problems have remained and future challenges have recently appeared on the horizon. The report describes the current system of formal and informal rules as well as instruments surrounding nature protection in Swiss forests. Is this system prepared for future challenges and how probable are reforms to it in the future? To arrive at answers to this question, a preliminary description of the current state seems necessary first. The report thus describes the various formal instruments and informal rules that have an effect on nature conservation in Swiss forests, identifies the challenges and tries to answer the question, to what extent the current integration of nature protection and forest management is prepared to deal with these challenges and whether additional reforms can be expected. Approach The report is based on an extensive literature review of journal articles as well as government reports, strategies and legal texts. To complement this approach, exploratory interviews with experts in the field, representing different stakeholder groups, were also conducted. Trying to paint the broad picture around nature protection Swiss forests, the report proceeds as follows. First, a description of forest and nature conservation in Switzerland is given, including the historical development of forest composition and silvicultural practices as well as key forest and biodiversity facts. Second, the different forest functions of Swiss forests are identified and crucially, conflicts as well as synergies between them are outlined. Third, the legal framework for forest management in Swiss forests, stretching across a wide range of legal areas, is presented. Fourth, financial instruments, which have been recently redesigned, are examined. Fifth, informational instruments, certification, monitoring and planning tools complete the picture. In a final step, an assessment of the depicted situation is carried out, outlining key exogenous factors, challenges and chances for nature protection in Switzerland. The report chooses a broad perspective in order to provide an overview and particularly to identify the need for further research and immediate action. It is thus not possible to provide an in-depth analysis of specific aspects of the integration of nature protection policy and forest policy. Relation The report also serves as the Swiss country report for the EFICENT project INTEGRATE, which analyses nature protection instruments in multifunctional forests across various countries.
Datasets
Multi-level network dataset of ten Swiss wetlands governance cases based on qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys
📄 Data in Brief
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dib.2022.108401📊 Replication Materials: https://doi.org/10.25678/0005T1🔗 Link
The dataset of this paper originated from quantitative online surveys and qualitative expert interviews with organizational actors relevant to the governance of ten Swiss wetlands from 2019 till 2021. Multi-level networks represent the wetlands governance for each of the ten cases. The collaboration networks of actors form the first level of the multi-level networks and are connected to multiple other network levels that account for the social and ecological systems those actors are active in. 521 actors relevant to the management of the ten wetlands are included in the collaboration networks; quantitative survey data exists for 71% of them. A unique feature of the collaboration networks is that it differentiates between positive and negative forms of collaboration specified based on actors' activity areas. Therefore, the data describes not only if actors collaborate but also how and where actors collaborate. Further additional two-mode networks (actor participation in forums and involvement in other regions outside the case area) are elicited in the survey and connected to the collaboration network. Finally, the dataset also contains data on ecological system interdependencies in the form of conceptual maps derived from 34 expert interviews (3-4 experts per case).
Social network data of Swiss farmers related to agricultural climate change mitigation
📄 Data in Brief
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dib.2021.106898📊 Replication Materials: https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000458053🔗 Link
We present social network data of Swiss farmers, focusing on exchange and advice relations regarding agricultural climate change mitigation. The data were generated via face-to-face interviews in 2019 using the survey software Network Canvas (https://networkcanvas.com). We interviewed 50 farmers, with 25 of these participating in a regional climate protection initiative in Switzerland as well as 25 farmers located in the same region who did not participate in the initiative. Farmers were asked to indicate the persons with whom they regularly exchanged on topics related to climate change and mitigation in agriculture. The farmers assessed the type and strength of their relationships and were asked to rate the knowledge of their contacts regarding climate change mitigation. We also collected data on the perceived influence of farmers and other persons on farming decisions. Information on farmers' adoption of climate change mitigation measures and behavioural characteristics was collected in a previous online survey. Farm characteristics were obtained from census data.