Browsing by Author "Penker, Marianne"

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Adapting Common Rules in Geographical Indication systems: Evidence from the European Union
(2017) Quiñones-Ruiz, Xiomara F.; Forster, Hanna; Penker, Marianne; Belletti, Giovanni
"Since there is a knowledge gap in systematically understanding the amendments of collectively defined rules written down in the product specifications of protected GIs, this paper aims at answering the following questions: 1) Which types of EU GIs, namely Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) and Protected Geographical Indications (PGI)2, have been changed?, 2) Which countries are pursuing most of the amendments and when? In section 2, we present the analytical framework supporting the analysis of all 244 amendments listed on the EU DOOR website by September 29, 2016. Section 3 illustrates the procedures for GI registration and amendment while section 4 describes the statistical methods used for the analysis. Then, we present the results showing first general empirical evidence of GI amendments and then explaining the likelihood of making amendments in section 5. Sections 6 and 7 present the discussion and conclusion respectively."
Between Participation and Collective Action: From Occasional Liaisons towards Long-Term Co-Management for Urban Resilience
(2016) Schauppenlehner-Kloyber, Elisabeth; Penker, Marianne
"For resilience building, cities need to foster learning and innovation processes among all actors in order to develop transformative capacities of urban governance regimes to manage extraordinary situations as well as continuous change. A close collaboration of urban governmental actors and citizens is, therefore, of high importance. This paper explores two different discourses on urban governance: participation and self-organized collective action for the management of the commons. Both address the involvement of citizens into governance, albeit from different perspectives: on the one hand from the viewpoint of the government, selectively handing some of its power over to citizens, on the other hand from the perspective of citizens who self-organize for a collective management of urban commons. Based on experiences in the Austrian city of Korneuburg, it is argued that the collective action literature may help overcome some of the self-criticisms and shortcomings of the participation discourse. More specifically, Elinor Ostrom’s design principles for the management of the commons provide valuable input to overcome restrictions in thinking about citizen participation and to effectively design institutions for long-term urban co-management."
Can Origin Labels Re-Shape Relationships Along International Supply Chains? The Case of Café de Colombia
(2015) Quiñones-Ruiz, Xiomara F.; Penker, Marianne; Vogl, Christian R.; Samper-Gartner, Luis F.
"Origin labels, more specifically Geographical Indications (GIs), allow organised producers to define quality standards and defend their food products’ reputation while highlighting their geographical origin and value to consumers. Café de Colombia was the first non-European food product registered as Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) under EU legislation (510/2006, followed by 1151/2012). This paper aims to identify the dynamics of collective efforts and the rules of the game developed by coffee growers to protect the collective intellectual property right. Our guiding research questions are: i) to what extent can the Ostrom’s design principles explain effective collective action for GI registration and implementation? and ii) can collective action for GIs re-shape relations between supply chain actors and support producers in gaining control over origin products? We collected data using semi-structured interviews and document analysis, which we then processed in a qualitative text analysis. Results show that the principles are very helpful for understanding the internal collective action of coffee growers and also clearly show the challenges in the interaction with industrial coffee processors (e.g. international roasters, brand owners). A pure focus on the producers’ collective action for establishing and managing the origin protection does not give a full picture, since green coffee beans are roasted and commercialised abroad. The GI has already re-shaped the relationships along the supply chains, as international roasters sign the producers’ rules governing the PGI use. The commercial GI impact however, will depend on consumers’ willingness to appreciate and pay extra for high quality origin coffee as well as the readiness of international roasters or brand owners to emphasise on origin coffee, in addition to their brands of blended coffee."
Challenging Pathways to Safe Water Access in Rural Uganda: From Supply to Demand-Driven Water Governance
(2015) Naiga, Resty; Penker, Marianne; Hogl, Karl
"Uganda has experienced a major policy shift from a supply-driven to a demand-driven approach in rural water provision since 1990. The article sheds light on the rural population’s access to safe water within the changing institutional frameworks. We analysed individual and group interviews with key informants from national to community levels and relevant official documents with the ‘Social-Ecological Systems’ framework. Since the implementation of the demand-driven approach, rural safe water coverage has slightly improved but operation and maintenance of water sources pose a great challenge hampering, long-term access to safe water. The abrupt and top-down imposed policy shift has resulted in competing signals from old and new policies creating uncertainty and ambiguity about responsibilities, rules and incentives. The analysis shows the importance of taking into account the implications of national institutional disturbances on local collective action for long-term access to safe water."
From Supply to Demand Driven Water Governance: Challenging Pathways to Safe Water Access in Rural Uganda
(2012) Naiga, Resty; Penker, Marianne; Hogl, Karl
"Since 1990, Uganda has experienced a major policy shift from a supply-driven to a demand-driven approach in rural water provision. This paper looks into the critical aspects of safe water access in rural areas of Uganda within the changing policy frameworks. The qualitative text analysis of document and problem centered interviews with key informants at national, district and community levels is based on the ‘Social-ecological systems’ framework. Since the implementation of the demand-driven approach in the early 1990s, rural safe water coverage has slightly improved but maintenance of water sources still poses a great challenge. Operation and maintenance seem to be the critical challenge to sustained access to safe water in rural Uganda. The incomplete policy change and competing signals from old and new policies created uncertainty and ambiguity about responsibilities, rules and incentives. This result in a viscous circle of lack in user fees collected for maintenance and repair, unreliable water supply and missing control and sanctions resulting in further reluctance to contribute to community services. The analysis shows the importance of taking into account context and path-dependencies and points out some aspects not fully covered by the SES-framework."
Participative Multi-level Governance Schemes for Common Landscape Management in Austria: A Transaction Costs Analysis
(2011) Enengel, Barbara; Penker, Marianne; Muhar, Andreas
"European cultural landscapes are highly valued for their ecological, productive, recreational and cultural functions. Related streams of benefits, however, do stop neither at national boundaries nor at those of private properties. Therefore, multiple governance levels are involved in regulating landscape development (from the European convention on landscape development or the international Convention on Biological Diversity to local informal agreements on landscape management). A recently completed PhD thesis analysed multi-level co-management schemes in Austria that shift some effort for decision-making from public to private actors. Based on transaction cost theory, we analyse the efforts, benefits and risks of participation as perceived by the individuals involved. Two Cultural Landscape Projects of Lower Austria, two local steering groups in Natura 2000-areas in Tyrol and a LIFE-Nature Project in Salzburg served as case studies. Besides explorative interviews, a survey of participants of the analysed project teams and steering groups respectively, problem centred interviews with drop-outs, interviews with process leaders, observation and document analysis were applied and their results triangulated regarding intra- and inter-case consistency and validity. All case studies indicated a positive evaluation of the collaboration and the perceived benefit (e.g. contributing to nature protection, bringing in ones own knowledge and experiences), an adequate effort for process activities and relative low risks of participation (e.g., lacking agreements on procedures and scope for decision-making, missing implementation of decisions and dominating individuals). However, half of the active participants would not spend more time for this collaboration. The results showed a significant positive correlation between time effort and benefits and significant negative correlations between effort and risks as well as benefits and risks. A comparison of professionally involved participants and volunteers highlighted disproportional high opportunity costs of volunteers. Volunteers also tended to benefit less from their participation. Moreover the bigger part of interviewed dropouts did not have the feeling to be able to benefit from the participation and estimated significant higher risks than the active participants. Finally, we present some recommendation for more successful multi-level landscape governance."