Ein Vergleich von single- und multi-issue Umweltorganisationen in der Klimapolitik.
The following dissertation examines, from an organizational point of view, processes of differentiation in the field of business management. It investigates whether these processes of differentiation, which indicate a shift away from the Fordian mass production towards a more flexible quality production, can also be observed amongst environmental associations. Besides, it looks into what kind of consequences such processes of differentiation would have on the effectiveness of environmental organizations. Two subfields of environmental politics are used to check the correctness of the assumption: the politics concerning the global warming and the German domestic debate about an ecological tax reform. Especially the international negotiations over the global warming that took place between 1995 and 1997 and the decision-making processes concerning an ecological tax reform since the elections in 1994 are discussed. The results of this investigations confirm the conjecture that, on the part of environmental organizations, a differentiation has occured between specialized organizations (single-issue organizations) and organizations with a more general thematic orientation (multi-issue organizations). Furthermore, the two types seem to be faced with characteristic dilemmas. While single-issue organizations display a degree of expertise that at least equals that of civil servants in the same sphere, multi-issue organizations are typically a lot more well-known. Therefore, single-issue organizations focus on lobbying whereas multi-issue organizations concentrate on public relations.
Fazit: Internationale Umweltpolitik durch Verhandlungen und Verträge
Internationale Umweltregime stellen neben internationalen Organisationen die wichtigste Form der internationalen Zusammenarbeit zum Schutz der Umwelt dar. Sie sind stets darauf gerichtet, das Verhalten von Akteuren durch die Setzung von Normen in eine umweltvertraglichere Richtung zu lenken. In der Regel beruhen sie auf einem volkerrechtlich verbindlichen Ubereinkommen. Daruber hinaus umfassen sie jedoch auch einen andauernden Verhandlungsprozes, der es den beteiligten Akteuren erlaubt, die geschaffenen Normen weiterzuentwickeln, die Normumsetzung zu uberwachen und auftretende Konflikte zu bearbeiten. Durch die Verbindung verhaltenslenkender Normen mit einem andauernden Verhandlungsprozes werden sie zu in sich abgeschlossenen, weitgehend selbstandigen Steuerungsinstitutionen, die trotz aller Veranderungen im Detail langfristig Bestand haben und deshalb den Eindruck hoher Stabilitat vermitteln. Trotz des gemeinsamen Grundschemas unterscheiden sich internationale Umweltregime in vielfaltiger Weise voneinander.
What is an epidemic? AIDS in historical perspective.
Like the previous essay, this chapter was a product of the academic world's collective response to AIDS. More generally, however, I was intrigued by the challenge of trying to define and describe an epidemic. We have come to use the term so casually and metaphorically that I felt the logical way to think about the root meaning of epidemic was to see it historically, to create an ideal-typical picture of an epidemic based on repetitive patterns of past events. And in the following pages I have tried to abstract and present the narrative structure of an epidemic as historically experienced. In some ways our generation's encounter with AIDS fits nicely into the dramaturgic pattern I suggest; in other ways recent events have evolved so rapidly that it does not. Within the space of a decade America's perception of AIDS as an acute, epidemic phenomenon has shifted subtly but inexorably: the social identity of this novel ailment has shifted into that of chronic and intractable illness, more akin to tuberculosis than cholera, leukemia than plague. In either guise, however, experience with AIDS has precisely reflected the varied realities that constitute the world's health care system as well as the social-structural and attitudinal factors that have interacted to create patterns of social response to the disease.