Education is widely believed to be a key to the development of individuals and society. However, it is also clear that core global political commitments aiming at universality as included in the Millenium Development Goals and the right to education can only be achieved if policy efforts start addressing systematically disadvantaged parts of society. This is the topic of the present paper on sociodemographic barriers to equity in education in Nepal. So far, many policy efforts to enhance educational opportunities are based on a one dimensional assessments of the most disadvantage population groups. They assume, for instance, that girls are generally more disadvantaged than boys or that people living in rural areas are more disadvantaged than those living in urban areas. In her paper, Ann-Kathrin Scheuermann goes further and explore s which combinations of sociodemographic attributes impede equity in education in Nepal in terms of access to education and attainment. She is able to use unique data, the Nepal Living Standards Survey 2010/11 compiled by the World Bank and the Nepalese Central Bureau of Statistics as well as qualitative participatory assessments in the field. She finds that the most influential attributes established in the literature – wealth, geography and gender – do matter, but that culture specific group characteristics are at least as relevant. Poverty remains a major barrier to equity in education. The effect of geography is two dimensional, impeding equity in both rural and urban areas, but for different reasons. In rural areas disadvantages are related to infrastructural aspects, e.g. distance to the nearest school, whereas in urban areas income generation alternatives impede educational opportunities. Gender differences have decreased with regard to access over time, but girls remain disadvantaged when it comes to higher attainment. When looking at inequity regarding geography, gender and wealth jointly, poor boys (not girls!) in urban are among the most disadvantaged. These finding s have great policy -¬‐ relevance. In order to reach the most marginalized population groups policy analysis must go beyond a one dimensional analysis of attributes but look at them in combination. Moreover, socio -¬‐ cultural barriers related to caste, religion and disability can be highly impeding factors which need to be addressed explicitly when designing policies in Nepal. More generally, policies can be tailored more effectively by identifying the most marginalized population groups in order to improve their educational opportunities and achieve universal political commitments and true equity in education.
The role of regional organizations in disaster risk management : A strategy for global resilience
(2015)
The decision to establish an Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) marked a momentous change in the history of the European Union: By introducing a common currency and a single monetary policy at the European level, the institutions and practices of economic governance in the EU were transformed. At the same time, EMU created new economic structures and actors at the heart of the international macroeconomic system – with novel and potentially far-reaching implications for policy-making in international financial institutions (IFIs).
How does the EU govern its external relations in international financial institutions? And what explains the patterns of EU unity in IFIs? The dissertation pursues both a descriptive and an explanatory goal, as reflected in the two guiding research questions. I take an encompassing view to studying the EU’s external relations. Representation of the EU in international organizations and fora is an important element, yet it is only part of a longer and more complex story: Before any common position can be communicated or represented at the international level, European actors need to decide on it in the first place. The internal aggregation and authorization of external policies and positions in a poly-centric political system is thus a vital ingredient to the governance of the EU’s external relations in IFIs.(...)
This dissertation asks three interrelated questions about economic policy coordination: (1) Why do we see persistent macroeconomic imbalances that make international coordination necessary? (2) What kind of economic policies does the European Union promote in its member states via its coordination framework, the European Semester? (3) What determines whether governments implement recommendations issued under the Semester?
The first paper argues that economic ideas, and their emphasis in media reporting, help secure public support for policies that result in external imbalances. It finds that the dominant interpretations of current account balances in Australia and Germany concur with distinct perspectives: external surpluses are seen as evidence of competitiveness in Germany, while external deficits are interpreted as evidence of attractiveness for investments in Australia. Survey experiments in both countries suggest that exposure to these diverging interpretations of the current account has a causal effect on citizens’ support for their country’s economic strategy.
The second and third papers analyse policy recommendations under the European Semester, arguably the most ambitious example of economic policy coordination worldwide. The findings show that the European Union does not use the Semester to promote a single economic model across all member states. Recommendations do not uniformly recommend more reliance on the market or the state. Rather, they tend to suggest fiscal restraint and less protection for labour market insiders, while simultaneously promoting measures that benefit vulnerable groups in society. During the second decade of EMU, recommendations have gradually become more favourable of state intervention.
The fourth paper investigates possible reasons for (non-)compliance with the Semester. It argues that recommendations are more likely to be implemented when their policy direction is in line with national governments’ economic ideology. The analysis shows that recommendations advocating less state intervention in the economy are more likely to be implemented under right-wing governments.
EU Police Cooperation (1976 - 2016). State Preferences in the Context of Differentiated Integration
(2019)
European internal security has become increasingly relevant in recent years. Various incidents across EU Member States have demonstrated the transnationalisation of terrorism and organised crime as well as the need to work together to safeguard security in a progressively borderless Europe. Governments and citizens have consistently called for a growing role of the EU and coordinating at this level. In this light, it appears striking that different cooperation initiatives continue to mushroom inside and outside the EU framework. Their parallel emergence duplicates efforts at best but can also obstruct information exchange and produce security failures. This dissertation sets out to investigate why Member States acknowledge the benefits of integration, yet advance differentiation as well.
Concretely, it studies the formation of state preferences in the still largely intergovernmental field of EU police cooperation. It asks which factors shape government positions and how they drive Member States to favour integration. In particular, the influence of cross-country interdependencies, politicisation and policy entrepreneurship might help explain processes of integration and differentiation in this policy area. Their relative importance as drivers of state preferences is studied across the institutional development of EU police cooperation between 1976 and 2016. The analysis is organised around four ‘milestones’ in the integration of this field: 1) the 1976 intergovernmental Trevi Group; 2) the 1995 Europol Convention establishing the European Police Office (Europol); (3) the 2009 Europol Council Decision establishing Europol as official EU agency; and (4) the 2016 Europol Regulation.
This dissertation finds that interdependencies in the fight against common threats mattered most as driver of state integration preferences in the early stages of European police cooperation. More recently, supranational policy entrepreneurship has emerged as key influence of pro-integration attitudes among Member States and can be expected to grow in importance. Politicisation, against it, provides windows of opportunity to this end and acts rather as amplifier of integration pressure from interdependencies and policy entrepreneurs. In sum, the asymmetrical effects of all three drivers explains the formation of diverging governmental attitudes towards integration and can thus help account for the persistence of parallel processes of differentiation and integration.