1,720,970 research outputs found
Three faces of HELCOM - institution, organization, policy producer
No full textDespite early initiatives during the 1960s and 1970s, and continuing efforts ever since, the Baltic Sea remains in poor condition. The Helsinki Commission (HELCOM) is the governing body tasked with protecting the marine environment from further deterioration through intergovernmental collaboration between the Baltic Sea states and the EU. In 2007, HELCOM launched a new tool – the Baltic Sea Action Plan (BSAP), of which the so-called ecosystem approach is a cornerstone. However, how and why the BSAP reform was launched, and also what consequences such management reforms can have for transboundary resource management, is unknown. By using institutional theory, organizational theory and the advocacy coalition framework, in combination with content analysis of official documents derived from HELCOM, this thesis argues that the BSAP is the end result of a gradual process of change within institutional structures and actor beliefs. This thesis also shows that HELCOM's capacity to detect, process, and react in response to changes in its regulatory objective has not changed as a consequence of the BSAP. In contrast to earlier research, it seems HELCOM responds better to slow and opaque changes than to quick and visible ones. Finally, by comparing HELCOM with two other similar cases, the thesis shows that HELCOM's adaptive capacity could be improved in line with the recommendations of the ecosystem approach. This thesis illustrates the importance of studying the emergence of new tools for governing transboundary resources from several theoretical perspectives. The thesis uses an innovative quantitative content analysis and concludes that new methods might be required to enable such studies. The different perspectives used here give various explanations concerning the causes and consequences of the BSAP. In a future Baltic Sea, where environmental changes are likely to be abrupt, a multitude of understandings regarding the governance of the Baltic Sea will be crucial.At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: Submitted. Paper 3: Submitted. Paper 4: In press.</p
Institutional stability and change in the Baltic Sea : 30 years of issues, crises and solutions
No full textThe shift from a classic sector-by-sector management system to an operational ecosystem approach is perceived as the way forward towards sustainable use of marine systems. The nine states bordering the Baltic Sea as well as the European Community signed the Baltic Sea Action Plan (BSAP) in 2007, intended to provide practical means for implementing the ecosystem approach in the region. However, whether this shift towards a new governance approach also constitutes a case of institutional change remains unclear. This study evaluates institutional change over 30 years in order to understand the process of emergence of the ecosystem approach for this international institution. This study adds to the otherwise largely theoretical debate on institutional change by testing two models of institutional change – gradualist versus punctuated equilibrium – against data from the Helsinki Commission. Relying on a novel methodology involving quantitative text analyses of 574 documents this study suggests that the signing of the BSAP did not cause change in the institution, nor was it the cause of an abrupt institutional change. Overall, findings support a gradualist model of institutional change where the BSAP is layered upon preexisting institutional structures. Results also indicate that institutional change has occurred in some parts of the institution, whereas other parts remain remarkably stable. It proves that in order to intentionally change an institution it is vital that the change processes cohere at all levels of the institution. The study also underlines the mismatch between ecosystems and institutions. Given the relatively slow dynamics identified here, it is unclear whether institutions are able to adapt to rapid and unpredictable ecosystem shifts.</p
Beliefs and behavior in international policy making : longitudinal changes in the governance of the Baltic Sea
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Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Beliefs and behavior in international policy making: Explanations to longitudinal changes in the governance of the Baltic Sea
No full textPolicy change is often described as a consequence of different types of perturbations. The advocacy coalition framework (ACF) on the other hand advocates that policy changes are accomplished by changes among involved actors' beliefs and behavior. The Baltic Sea Action Plan (BSAP) with its so called ecosystem approach, signed by the countries surrounding the Baltic Sea and the European Community in 2007, is such a policy change. Yet, the causes behind the launch of the BSAP are unknown. By studying involved actors' beliefs and behavior this study shows that the BSAP was caused by a general shift in beliefs among all involved actors rather than by competing beliefs or changed actor behavior. The changed beliefs among the actors is either caused by learning processes or negotiations, however the relationship between these two remains unexplored. No coordinated behavior among the actors could be identified during the analyzed period.</p
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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