Manuel Fischer
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 3581378 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Manuel Fischer |
| PRENOMES | Manuel |
| SOBRENOME | Fischer |
| ASSINATURA | FISCHER M |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3065-0891 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 62 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 736 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 62 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2009 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 16 |
Empowering early-career researchers for science-policy engagement in biodiversity conservation
Biodiversity loss is a central dimension of the triple planetary crisis and underscores the need for stronger science-policy engagement to support transformative change. Early-career researchers (ECRs) can make important contributions at the biodiversity science-policy interface but often face barriers, including limited training, networks, time, resources, and institutional recognition. This Brief Report draws on insights from a two-day capacity…
Design matters
Blame and responsibility attribution across actor dimensions
Research shaped through context
Transdisciplinary research (TDR) targets societal challenges through equitable knowledge co-production with non-academic actors for a given case context. Frequently, results of TDR projects are harder to generalize compared to those of non-TD projects, primarily because TD projects are designed to address specific, context-dependent situations. Including context (factors, such as COVID-19, public discourse, and action resources of project actors)…
Policy Design and Governance Effectiveness
International Organizations formulate and disseminate principles of good governance for issues such as urban water governance. These principles are formulated in universal and general terms, for example, more transparency or participation, and are intended to enhance governance effectiveness. Yet, the relationship between such principles and governance effectiveness is not linear. Different combinations of principles affect governance effectivene…
Carving the transformation pathways to sustainable futures
Despite the increasing number of climate and sustainability pledges, knowledge of how to reach those targets within a given system – systems and transformation knowledge – is often lacking. Backcasting can be highly relevant for tackling this transformation gap as it starts from future targets and works backwards to uncover how they can be achieved. However, most backcasting applications tend to lack formal tools and assessments, raising concerns…
How Patterns of Democracy Impact Policy Processes
Policy process theories and institutional theories are two foundational strands in political science, both concerned with how people engage in politics. However, they differ in their focus, with policy process theories emphasizing the roles of actors, while institutional theories concentrate on the structures in which these actors are embedded. This paper bridges these two previously isolated strands, exploring how macro‐institutions influence po…
The Link Between Social-Ecological Network Fit and Outcomes
It is often claimed that the structure of networks influences outcomes in environmental governance.For example, network motifs of social-ecological fit have been linked to positive environmental outcomes, but empirical tests of this link are rare.Social-ecological network fit represents a situation in which actors involved in the governance and management of linked ecological elements coordinate.We empirically analyze how motifs of social-ecologi…
Media coverage of antimicrobial resistance in Germany and Switzerland
This article analyzes the newspaper coverage of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) between 1999 and 2021 in Germany and Switzerland through the lens of the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF). The MSF serves as an organizing framework to trace the development of AMR media coverage by focusing on key elements of the policy process: problems, solutions, problem brokers and policy entrepreneurs. The analysis produces three main findings: First, the overall…
Identifying and explaining policy preferences in Swiss water management
Policy preferences are a key element in understanding the policy process. In this article, we conceptualise policy preferences as latent constructs, which can be identified in an inductive way, based on actors’ choice of policy instruments and organisational structures. To inductively identify policy preferences, we take an approach based on principal component analysis, informed by theory on preference formation. Using water supply in Switzerlan…
Students between science and society
Purpose This study aims to explore how the boundary between science and society can be addressed to support the transformation of higher education towards sustainable development (HESD) in the sense of the whole institution approach. It analyses students’ learning experiences in self-led sustainability projects conducted outside formal curricula to highlight their potential contribution to HESD. The students’ projects are conceived as learning sp…
Empirical research on policy integration
Research on policy integration has become an important part of public policy scholarship by analyzing how policymakers create linkages between policy subsystems to deal with complex policy problems. To develop this research program further, it is crucial to know how policy integration relates to broader theoretical and methodological developments in the field of public policy studies. This article reviews the empirical literature on policy integr…
Assessing the readiness of municipalities for digital process innovation
Pre-adoption phases of innovation are understudied in the innovation literature. This article addresses pre-adoption phases of innovation by running a prospective analysis. We assess the readiness of municipalities for the adoption of a digital tool that brings about process innovation concerning stakeholder management. Through an online survey, we elicit the public managers’ attitudes and their adoption expectation towards the tool. By drawing o…
The role of actors' issue and sector specialization for policy integration in the parliamentary arena
The role of the parliamentary arena and members of parliament (MPs) therein for both mainstreaming and cross-sectoral policy integration is largely unknown. Studying the case of Switzerland, this paper analyzes the integration of the biodiversity issue into policies of 20 different policy sectors over a period of 19 years to assess how two specific actor attributes—issue and sector specialization—increase the chances of MPs of engaging in both bi…
Design paths of federal intergovernmental cooperation
Actors rarely approach institutional design choices with a blank slate but are influenced by design choices made at earlier stages. How does institutional design evolve over time and are there specific paths to deepening cooperation? We investigate the institutional design paths of subnational cooperation that are chosen to address increasingly complex and interconnected policy problems. We theorize that besides the substantive problem, earlier c…
Who Joins a Forum—And Who Does Not?—Evaluating Drivers of Forum Participation in Polycentric Governance Systems
In polycentric governance systems, decisions that influence a given policy issue are often made across a series of forums: venues where actors meet to resolve collective action problems. Here, we examine who does and does not participate in forums, and the factors driving that participation. We analyze forum participation patterns of 307 actors involved in Swiss water governance, who could participate in water governance forums. We find that the …
Where do Smart Cities grow? The spatial and socio-economic configurations of smart city development
In the last decade, a number of smart city initiatives have flourished around the world. While the literature is ripe with descriptions of those projects and pioneering cities, there is far less systematic research on why some cities are more advanced than others. As single locating entities, cities are posited to have strong geographic rootedness. Hence, spatial and socio-economic context, considered as the main stimulant of organizational innov…
Transdisciplinary research for sustainable development ‐ doing research about research
Transdisciplinary research (TDR) projects integrate several disciplines as well as non-academic actors. Researchers claim that TDR projects are key for tackling complex sustainability issues. We study the effects and the factors influencing the effects of TDR projects in transnational research for development between the global North and the global South (North-South), as well as TDR projects conducted within the global North. This article explai…
Informal Europeanization processes and domestic governance networks
The influence of the European Union on national power structures, actors' institutional opportunities, and governance networks is well established in cases of Europeanization processes unfolding in member states or associated countries for which a formal agreement is in place. This article focuses instead on Europeanization processes that are more informal and do not include formal agreements but bottom‐up dynamics. Empirically, we analyze the co…
Integrating biodiversity
The effective conservation and promotion of biodiversity requires its integration into a wide range of sectoral policies. For this to happen, the issue must receive attention across policy sectors. Yet, we know little about how attention to the issue evolves over time and across sectors. Drawing from the literature on environmental policy integration/mainstreaming and policy process theories, we develop competing hypotheses, expecting either incr…
Boundary Spanning Through Engagement of Policy Actors in Multiple Issues
Prominent current policy problems such as climate change, migration, or the financial crisis embrace a multitude of issues that are tackled within single‐ or multiple‐policy subsystems. However, interdependencies among actors that arise due to their multi‐issue engagement are often discounted when studying policy processes, including learning dynamics and alliance or trust formation among actors engaged in multiple issues. Various issues compete …
Actors in forums
Forums provide venues where different actors from the public administration sector, the interest group sector, or the research sector jointly discuss an issue of common interest. This article analyses which types of benefits are related to actors’ investing working time to forums. Actors’ dedication and work are basic predicates for forums to be able to produce outputs. The analysis of members of eight forums dealing with habitat and natural haza…
Identifying agents of change for sustainable land governance
Barriers to the digital transformation of infrastructure sectors
Digital technologies can be important to policy-makers and public servants, as these technologies can increase infrastructure performance and reduce environmental impacts. For example, utilizing data from sensors in sewer systems can improve their management, which in turn may result in better surface water quality. Whether such big data from sensors is utilized is, however, not only a technical issue, but also depends on different types of socia…
The influence of co-sponsorship on MPs’ agenda-setting success
This study investigates the influence of MPs’ co-sponsorship activities on their agenda-setting success. It analyses the strategic choices open to MPs who engage in co-sponsorship, the resulting centralities in the co-sponsorship network, and the effects on the success of parliamentary proposals. MPs can develop their co-sponsorship efforts within their party family (‘bonding’) or beyond it (‘bridging’), and they can use co-sponsorship both to re…
Drivers for Policy Agreement in Nascent Subsystems
The study of public policy deals with subsystems in which actors cooperate or compete to turn their beliefs into policy solutions. Yet, most studies concern mature subsystems in which the main actors and their allies and enemies can easily be identified. This paper tackles the challenge of studying nascent subsystems, in which actors have begun to engage in politics but are uncertain about other actors’ beliefs. Actors therefore find it relativel…
Drivers of collaboration to mitigate climate change
Policy forums
Coalition Structures and Policy Change in a Consensus Democracy
This paper studies the relation between coalition structures in policy processes and policy change. While different factors such as policy images, learning processes, external events, or venue shopping are important to explain policy change, coalition structures within policy processes are often neglected. However, policy change happens as a result of negotiations and coordination among coalitions within policy processes. The paper analyzes how c…
Drivers of Collaboration in Political Decision Making
Collaboration between actors in political decision-making processes is crucial from both an actor and a process perspective.Previous studies have highlighted the role of preference similarity, power, and opportunity structures as drivers of collaboration. However, these studies have focused on single policy sectors and have therefore overlooked possible differences in effects across sectors, as well as interactions between sectors. This article i…
Interactions among Sustainable Development Goals
Developed to be interconnected by design, the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) and their 169 targets have attracted a growing scientific community committed to exploring the systemic interactions inherent to the 2030 Agenda. Understanding which SDGs influence one another (positively or negatively) is critical to prioritize and implement policies that maximize synergies between goals while navigating trade‐offs. In this way, the need for in…
Dealing with bad guys
Policy actors tend to misinterpret and distrust opponents in policy processes. This phenomenon, known as the “devil shift”, consists of the following two dimensions: actors perceive opponents as more powerful and as more evil than they really are. Analysing nine policy processes in Switzerland, this article highlights the drivers of the devil shift at two levels. On the actor level, interest groups, political parties and powerful actors suffer mo…
Boundary Spanning Through Engagement of Policy Actors in Multiple Issues
Prominent current policy problems such as climate change, migration, or the financial crisis embrace a multitude of issues that are tackled within single‐ or multiple‐policy subsystems. However, interdependencies among actors that arise due to their multi‐issue engagement are often discounted when studying policy processes, including learning dynamics and alliance or trust formation among actors engaged in multiple issues. Various issues compete …
In search of political influence
Outside lobbying is a key strategy for social movements, interest groups and political parties for mobilising public opinion through the media in order to pressure policymakers and influence the policymaking process. Relying on semi-structured interviews and newspaper content analysis in six Western European countries, this article examines the use of four outside lobbying strategies – media-related activities, informing (about) the public, mobil…
Why Are Cross‐Sectoral Forums Important to Actors? Forum Contributions to Cooperation, Learning, and Resource Distribution
Actors within an ecology of games in a polycentric governance system have to choose from a large number of forums they could participate in. This article analyzes why given types of forums are important to actors, as compared to other forums. It shows that functions of an ecology of games, such as cooperation, learning, and resource distribution, influence the importance that actors attribute to forums. The empirical analysis focuses on cross‐sec…
Institutions and coalitions in policy processes
Actors with joint beliefs in a decision-making process form coalitions in order to translate their goals into policy. Yet, coalitions are not formed in an institutional void, but rather institutions confer opportunities and constraints to actors. This paper studies the institutional conditions under which either coalition structures with a dominant coalition or with competing coalitions emerge. It takes into account three conditions, i.e. the deg…
Qualitative Comparative Analysis and the Study of Policy Processes
Given the increasing popularity of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) for the study of public policy and policy processes, this article offers a review of two key issues: multiple configurational causality and temporality. On the one hand, the study of multiple configurational causal relations allows researchers to deal with the extremely complex set of elements that interact in policy processes. However, this task poses the challenge of bala…
Improving network approaches to the study of complex social–ecological interdependencies
Policy integration
Collaborative Governance and the Challenges of Network-Based Research
We review the literature examining collaborative governance processes from a network perspective and evaluate the extent to which it tackles important conceptual and methodological challenges. In particular, we assess whether scholars clearly identify the boundaries of the network, define nodes and the nature of ties, and examine how they deal with missing data, account for tie strength, take tie multiplexity into account, and study networks over…
The Silent Reform of Swiss Federalism
This article examines the decision‐making process leading to the new constitutional articles on education in Switzerland. It analyzes how actors from both state levels (Confederation and cantons) could reach consensus in a process that was prone to a “joint‐decision trap”. To that end, we hypothesize which factors may be conducive to a “problem‐solving” style of policy‐making in a compulsory negotiation system. Rich empirical material from variou…
The roles actors play in policy networks
Centralities are a widely studied phenomenon in network science. In policy networks, central actors are of interest because they are assumed to control information flows, to link opposing coalitions and to directly impact decision-making. First, we study what type of actor (e.g., state authorities or interest groups) is able to occupy central positions in the highly institutionalized context of policy networks. Second, we then ask whether bonding…
The Role of Forum Membership Diversity on Institutional Externalities in Resource Governance Systems
In many resource governance systems, representatives of resource-related organizations gather in forums to discuss and develop solutions to policy problems. Forums often deal with interdependent policy problems, giving rise to institutional externalities: instances where decisions made in one forum either decrease (negative institutional externality) or increase (positive institutional externality) the rate by which current policy outputs in othe…
Why Government, Interest Groups, and Research Coordinate
Forums are organizations that facilitate coordination among actors from different societal sectors such as government, interest groups, and research. Forums can serve various purposes that we represent on two dimensions. The first dimension, sector orientation, assesses the degree to which a forum serves the needs of a specific societal sector. The second dimension, advocacy orientation, refers to the extent to which a forum is oriented toward ad…
Information exchange under uncertainty
Europeanization and the inclusive strategies of executive actors
In Europeanized policy domains, executive actors are considered especially powerful because they are directly responsible for international negotiations. However, in order to avoid failing in the ratification process, they are also highly dependent on the support of domestic, non-state actors. We argue that in Europeanized decision-making processes, state actors are not passively lobbied, but actively seek collaboration with – and support from – …
Impacts of Market Liberalization on Regulatory Network
This article looks at the reconfiguration of the regulatory actors' network, as induced by the liberalization and reregulation processes in utility sectors. It investigates the changes in governance structures and patterns of collaborative ties between actors resulting from these processes. Applying stochastic actor‐oriented modeling (SAOM) to data on the liberalization of the Swiss telecommunications sector over two decades, we test whether and …
Let's Talk Cash’
In 2004 the Swiss people accepted a new equalization scheme and a new distribution of competences between the federal state and the cantons. It was argued that the reform was successful because of the capacity of veto-players to overcome their interests and adopt a ‘problem-solving’ interaction mode. We propose a different interpretation and argue that distributive issues and the accommodation of actors' interests crucially mattered. We identify …
Metagovernance and policy forum outputs in Swiss environmental politics
Policy forums are lightly institutionalized and stable forms of governance networks that include administrative authorities, interest groups, and scientists. They are said to produce different types of outputs, from simple actor coordination to position papers and implementation documents, but their productivity has also been questioned. Metagovernance strategies can improve the capability of policy forums to produce outputs. To determine how dif…
Connectors and coordinators in natural resource governance
Angst, M., A. Widmer, M. Fischer, and K. Ingold. 2018. Connectors and coordinators in natural resource governance: insights from Swiss water supply. Ecology and Society 23(2):1. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-10030-230201
Power and Conflict in the Swiss Political Elite
Since Kriesi's (1980) pioneering work no study has attempted to provide an overall picture of power configuration among the Swiss political elite. To fill this gap we aggregate recent network analyses carried out in various policy domains. Based on meta‐hypotheses regarding the likely effects of the contextual changes that have taken place during the last thirty years, we compare the structure of the Swiss political elite existing in the 1970s to…
The Silent Reform of Swiss Federalism
This article examines the decision‐making process leading to the new constitutional articles on education in Switzerland. It analyzes how actors from both state levels (Confederation and cantons) could reach consensus in a process that was prone to a “joint‐decision trap”. To that end, we hypothesize which factors may be conducive to a “problem‐solving” style of policy‐making in a compulsory negotiation system. Rich empirical material from variou…
Social Network Analysis and Qualitative Comparative Analysis
By switching the level of analysis and aggregating data from the micro-level of individual cases to the macro-level, quantitative data can be analysed within a more case-based approach. This paper presents such an approach in two steps: In a first step, it discusses the combination of Social Network Analysis (SNA) and Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) in a sequential mixed-methods research design. In such a design, quantitative social networ…
Impacts of Market Liberalization on Regulatory Network
This article looks at the reconfiguration of the regulatory actors' network, as induced by the liberalization and reregulation processes in utility sectors. It investigates the changes in governance structures and patterns of collaborative ties between actors resulting from these processes. Applying stochastic actor‐oriented modeling (SAOM) to data on the liberalization of the Swiss telecommunications sector over two decades, we test whether and …
Let's Talk Cash’
In 2004 the Swiss people accepted a new equalization scheme and a new distribution of competences between the federal state and the cantons. It was argued that the reform was successful because of the capacity of veto-players to overcome their interests and adopt a ‘problem-solving’ interaction mode. We propose a different interpretation and argue that distributive issues and the accommodation of actors' interests crucially mattered. We identify …
Drivers of collaboration to mitigate climate change
Europeanization and the inclusive strategies of executive actors
In Europeanized policy domains, executive actors are considered especially powerful because they are directly responsible for international negotiations. However, in order to avoid failing in the ratification process, they are also highly dependent on the support of domestic, non-state actors. We argue that in Europeanized decision-making processes, state actors are not passively lobbied, but actively seek collaboration with – and support from – …
The Europeanization of Swiss Decision‐Making Processes
Europeanization has been at the core of two research projects on decision-making processes in Switzerland that we carried out over the last decade. Interestingly enough, Europeanization was initially not supposed to be the central focus of these projects: The first was broader in scope, as it dealt with the effects of globalization and internationalization,1 and the second was agnostic with respect to Europeanization – it looked at the characteri…
Coalition Structures and Policy Change in a Consensus Democracy
This paper studies the relation between coalition structures in policy processes and policy change. While different factors such as policy images, learning processes, external events, or venue shopping are important to explain policy change, coalition structures within policy processes are often neglected. However, policy change happens as a result of negotiations and coordination among coalitions within policy processes. The paper analyzes how c…
Europeanization in Parliament and in the Press
Europeanization challenges national democratic systems. As part and parcel of the broader internationalization of politics, Europeanization is associated with a shift from policymaking within majoritarian, elected representative bodies towards technocratic decisions among non-majoritarian and non-elected bodies (Kohler-Koch and Rittberger 2008, Lavenex 2013). It is thus said to weaken the influence of citizens and parliaments on the making of pol…
Unpacking reputational power
Policy forums
In search of political influence
Outside lobbying is a key strategy for social movements, interest groups and political parties for mobilising public opinion through the media in order to pressure policymakers and influence the policymaking process. Relying on semi-structured interviews and newspaper content analysis in six Western European countries, this article examines the use of four outside lobbying strategies – media-related activities, informing (about) the public, mobil…
Institutions and coalitions in policy processes
Actors with joint beliefs in a decision-making process form coalitions in order to translate their goals into policy. Yet, coalitions are not formed in an institutional void, but rather institutions confer opportunities and constraints to actors. This paper studies the institutional conditions under which either coalition structures with a dominant coalition or with competing coalitions emerge. It takes into account three conditions, i.e. the deg…
Qualitative Comparative Analysis and the Study of Policy Processes
Given the increasing popularity of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) for the study of public policy and policy processes, this article offers a review of two key issues: multiple configurational causality and temporality. On the one hand, the study of multiple configurational causal relations allows researchers to deal with the extremely complex set of elements that interact in policy processes. However, this task poses the challenge of bala…
Drivers of Collaboration in Political Decision Making
Collaboration between actors in political decision-making processes is crucial from both an actor and a process perspective.Previous studies have highlighted the role of preference similarity, power, and opportunity structures as drivers of collaboration. However, these studies have focused on single policy sectors and have therefore overlooked possible differences in effects across sectors, as well as interactions between sectors. This article i…
Fracking in the UK and Switzerland
We address a key puzzle in policy studies: why don't major differences in political systems and policy produce major differences in policy processes, outputs, and outcomes? We show why key aspects of fracking policy are similar in the UK and Switzerland despite the UK majoritarian government being ‘all out for shale' and Switzerland's consensus democracy favouring moratoriums. We use the ‘advocacy coalition framework' and new survey data to show …
Dealing with bad guys
Policy actors tend to misinterpret and distrust opponents in policy processes. This phenomenon, known as the “devil shift”, consists of the following two dimensions: actors perceive opponents as more powerful and as more evil than they really are. Analysing nine policy processes in Switzerland, this article highlights the drivers of the devil shift at two levels. On the actor level, interest groups, political parties and powerful actors suffer mo…
Information exchange under uncertainty
Drivers for Policy Agreement in Nascent Subsystems
The study of public policy deals with subsystems in which actors cooperate or compete to turn their beliefs into policy solutions. Yet, most studies concern mature subsystems in which the main actors and their allies and enemies can easily be identified. This paper tackles the challenge of studying nascent subsystems, in which actors have begun to engage in politics but are uncertain about other actors’ beliefs. Actors therefore find it relativel…
Metagovernance and policy forum outputs in Swiss environmental politics
Policy forums are lightly institutionalized and stable forms of governance networks that include administrative authorities, interest groups, and scientists. They are said to produce different types of outputs, from simple actor coordination to position papers and implementation documents, but their productivity has also been questioned. Metagovernance strategies can improve the capability of policy forums to produce outputs. To determine how dif…
Identifying Drivers of China's Provincial Wastewater Reuse Outcomes Using Qualitative Comparative Analysis
In water‐scarce regions of China, wastewater reuse is increasingly considered as a potential component of China's future water resource management strategy. Currently, the percentage of wastewater reuse varies substantially across Chinese provinces, but conditions leading to a high rate of wastewater reuse have not been elucidated clearly. In this work, we use fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to identify the drivers of high and …
How MPs ties to interest groups matter for legislative co-sponsorship
Why Government, Interest Groups, and Research Coordinate
Forums are organizations that facilitate coordination among actors from different societal sectors such as government, interest groups, and research. Forums can serve various purposes that we represent on two dimensions. The first dimension, sector orientation, assesses the degree to which a forum serves the needs of a specific societal sector. The second dimension, advocacy orientation, refers to the extent to which a forum is oriented toward ad…
Connectors and coordinators in natural resource governance
Angst, M., A. Widmer, M. Fischer, and K. Ingold. 2018. Connectors and coordinators in natural resource governance: insights from Swiss water supply. Ecology and Society 23(2):1. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-10030-230201
Political science (47 obras) · Economics (38 obras) · Computer Science (33 obras) · Business (26 obras) · Politics (26 obras) · Sociology (23 obras) · Policy Transfer and Learning (22 obras) · Law (21 obras) · Public Administration (20 obras) · Corporate governance (17 obras)