David Jacobs – författare

This book examines the coordination of renewable energy policies in the European Union using an innovative theoretical approach to explain national policy making. David Jacobs asks, why are national support instruments for electricity from renewable energy sources converging, even though the harmonisation of these frameworks at the European level has failed? Which causal mechanisms lead to cross-national policy similarities? And what are the implications for policy coordination in the EU? The author traces the evolution of feed-in tariffs - the most successful and most widely used support mechanism for renewable electricity - in Germany, Spain and France. He reveals increasing cross-national policy similarities in feed-in tariff design - despite the failure of harmonizing instruments at the European level. He explains these increasing policy similarities by applying policy convergence theory. Policy convergence can occur voluntarily, based on transnational communication, regulatory competition and technological innovations and these findings have important implications for European policy steering. The key to this book is the interrelation of an innovative theoretical concept (coordination of policies in the international arena via voluntary cooperation) with a very topical empirical research focus - the promotion of renewable energies in the EU. It will be essential reading for scholars and students of environmental policy, comparative politics and European studies.

This book examines the coordination of renewable energy policies in the European Union using an innovative theoretical approach to explain national policy making. David Jacobs asks, why are national support instruments for electricity from renewable energy sources converging, even though the harmonisation of these frameworks at the European level has failed? Which causal mechanisms lead to cross-national policy similarities? And what are the implications for policy coordination in the EU? The author traces the evolution of feed-in tariffs - the most successful and most widely used support mechanism for renewable electricity - in Germany, Spain and France. He reveals increasing cross-national policy similarities in feed-in tariff design - despite the failure of harmonizing instruments at the European level. He explains these increasing policy similarities by applying policy convergence theory. Policy convergence can occur voluntarily, based on transnational communication, regulatory competition and technological innovations and these findings have important implications for European policy steering. The key to this book is the interrelation of an innovative theoretical concept (coordination of policies in the international arena via voluntary cooperation) with a very topical empirical research focus - the promotion of renewable energies in the EU. It will be essential reading for scholars and students of environmental policy, comparative politics and European studies.

During the past five years there has been a reawakening of interest in the psychotherapy of patients with medical disorders characterized as psychosomatic. For three decades, psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy were used extensively to treat and study psychosomatic disorders. Early in the 1960s, interest in this approach to these conditions faded, and the ·Psychosomatic Service· in most hospitals became the ·Consultation Liaison Service· (Lipowski, 1967). The recent focus of biofeedback on psychosomatic conditions provides a new technique with which the physician or psychiatrist may treat these patients (Rickles, 1981). In addition, the successful application of biofeedback training to a variety of complaints such as those presented in this volume has heralded the addition of biofeedback to the treatment modalities used for medical complaints. Frequently, psychological factors can still be seen; for example, when biofeedback treatment may require lifestyle changes on the part of the patient, the exploration of secondary gains or resistances before the disorder can be success­ fully treated, and the establishment of rapport and empathy which is so important for truly effective biofeedback training. Aside from certain psychological dimensions that are always present in biofeed­ back training, in this case biofeedback is being used in a primarily medical setting for primarily medical complaints.