Ruth Wiedemann, Ph.D. Candidate

ruth.wiedemann@ipw.unibe.ch

University of Bern

Country: Switzerland

About Me:

I am a half-swiss, half-german PhD canditate from the Insitute of Political Science at the University of Bern. After studying political science in Rome and Bern, I am now particluarly interested in environmental policy making in the Global South and Switzerland. Besides my reserach interests, I am very passionate about football (I play in a local team), my books and everything the Swiss landscape has to offer. 

Research Interests

Environmental Policy

Networks And Politics

Public Policy

Development

NGOs

Pesticide Policy

Behavioural Public Policy

Farmers' Pesticide Use

Social Network Analysis

Policy Effectiveness

Policy Acceptance

Countries of Interest

Uganda

Costa Rica

South Africa

Switzerland

My Research:

Pesticide regulation, and particularly regualting individual pesticide use is a highly relevant topic, which has yet to be explored by social science. With my research on effective and accepted policy instruments related to individual-pesticide use, I provide evidence and new data for practioners and scientists alike. While policy studies have largely neglected open policy questions in the Global South, practioners need innovative solutions to a real-life problem generated by farmers' pesticide use (pesticide contamination, pollution, health effects etc.). I investigate how countries like Switzerland, Costa Rica, Uganda and South Africa address pesticide-related problems and what policies are needed in these contexts to reduce individual pesticide use. I hope my project has a broader impact, raising awareness on the one side, and identifying more reserach questions on the other. I am furthermore part of an inter-disciplinary reserach project addressing the challenge of agricultural pesticides from an environmental, human health and instituional perspective (see website https://www.eawag.ch/en/department/uchem/projects/pestrop-pesticide-use-in-tropical-settings/)