Germany’s pioneering role in the field of renewable energies (RES) can best be observed by its world leading position in installed wind power and photovoltaics. Also its first European rank in the production of biofuels and installed solar thermal collector space is remarkable. These successes...

In analyzing regime transition as an open-ended process, the paradigmatic approach of the paper provides an alternative to teleological schemes of the transition to democracy. The process of regime transition, regardless of the regime type itself, includes several stages, such as the breakdown...

Two sets of issues are elaborated and reflected on. The first one concerns the distribution of stocks of social capital across European (EU) nations. Using the conventional proxies like trust and associational involvement on the basis of data of cross-national surveys (EVS/WVS and ESS) the main...

This discussion paper is about the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) - one of the multilateral agreements that came out of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. UNCCD is based on a conceptualization of international...

Nach einer kurzen Qualifizierung der „Verfassungspolitik“ als einer eigenständigen Kategorie der Policy-Theorie werden unterschiedliche Ausprägungen eines in der Tradition des deutschen Verfassungsstaates stehenden Konstitutionalismus herausge-arbeitet. Dies geschieht vor dem Hintergrund,...

This paper is a snapshot of the potential of Chinese environmental NGOs1 to effectively address environmental problems and needs, alone and in partnership with others. As environmental NGOs have only be on stage for the last ten years or so and as they undergo dynamic changes, a thoroughly...