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Current Research Projects
The 'COMPON'
(Comparing Climate Change Policy
Networks)
project
concerns the cross-national comparison of the
institutions, ideas and interests that bring about different national policy
responses to global climate change. The COMPON study will trace the flow of
cognitive models ("facts," frames, ideas and normative evaluations) concerning
climate change between the global and national levels, and within the national
levels in the policy-formation process, for a number of countries. Our policy
network method includes the full range of organizations involved in climate
change politics (government agencies, political parties, business, union, NGO
and movement associations). The issue of climate change is diffuse in
responsibility and seemingly distant in impact, so it readily suffers from
risk-discounting. Therefore, effective policy response depends upon building
an "epistemic community" that accepts the problem as serious and worthy of
action. To generate action, this epistemic community must include more than
scientists; it must embrace an "advocacy network" composed of diverse
stakeholders in government and society. Our working hypothesis is that, as
advocated by Agenda 21, government provision of venues for direct
participation by diverse stakeholders (form business to NGOs) will result in
more effective policy response to climate change. The project will include
national cases that represent variation in advocacy networks, participatory
venues and policy outputs about climate change: Japan, China, the United
States, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, England, and Greece
(as well as others). It will also include global sources of scientific
information, in particular the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (UN-IPCC). See
our ongoing research on the Greek case....
The DEMOS'
-Democracy in Europe and the Mobilisation of Society project
focuses on forms of deliberative democracy as they are elaborated “from below”
and implemented both in the internal organization of
social movements and in experiments of participatory
decision-making. In particular, the project analyses the issue of active
democracy as it emerges in the
theorization and practices of the movements that have recently mobilized on
the issues of globalization, suggesting patterns of
“globalization from below”. First results will appear
in della Porta D. (ed.) 'Democracy
in the European Social Forums' (Routledge, 2009).
The project ‘European
Green Party Members’ set out to collect data on green party members
across Western Europe, using a ‘common core questionnaire’ mailed to random
samples of members during 2002 and 2003. It was funded by the British Academy
under its Large Research Grant programme (LRG-31746) and directed by Wolfgang
Rüdig (University of Strathclyde). Additional support was provided by the
Research Development Fund of the University of Strathclyde. The financial
support of the British Academy and the University of Strathclyde is gratefully
acknowledged. Surveys were successfully completed in 13 countries, generating
more than 6,000 completed questionnaires. Individual national surveys were
carried out under the responsibility of national researchers (for Greece:
Iosif Botetzagias). The research team is currently in the process of writing a
book analyzing our findings, set to get published by MIT Press in 2009.
Working Papers-Reports
Skouloudis A., Evangelinos K. & Moraitis St.
(2010), Corporate
Social Responsibility and the evaluation of the Greek corporate sustainability
reports 2008 [Report - in Greek]
Botetzagias Ι. (2009), The Ecologists Greens of
Greece: The 2009 party members' survey
[
First results (in
Greek]
Botetzagias
Ι. (2007b),
The Ecologists Greens of Greece: Survey of
green party's members
[ First results (in
Greek)]
Botetzagias I. (2007)
The
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Auditing Process at the Prefectural
level in Greece,
Working Paper 2007-01
(in Greek)
[a
newer version is published]
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