The Marginal Impact of ENGOs in Different Types of Democratic Systems

Conventional wisdom suggests that environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) play a major role in pushing states towards more ambitious environmental policies. However, demonstrating that this presumption is in fact true is rather difficult, because the same system structures of democracies that may create more opportunities for ENGO activities are also, on their own, conducive to better environmental policies. This leaves open the possibility that the additional (marginal) impact of ENGOs on policy making is smaller than presumed. In trying to disentangle these effects, this paper examines the influence of ENGOs contingent on key structural characteristics of democratic systems. We develop the argument that presidential systems with a plurality electoral rule per se tend to provide more environmental public goods, which induces a smaller marginal impact of ENGOs. Conversely, parliamentary systems with a proportional representation electoral rule are likely to provide fewer environmental public goods, which allows for a larger marginal impact of ENGOs. We find robust empirical support for these hypotheses in analyses that focus on the ratification behavior of 75 democracies vis-à-vis 250 international environmental agreements in 1973–2002.

Representing Afghanistan: The United States and Democracy's Imposition

There is an ongoing mission in Afghanistan; a mission driven by external political forces. At its core this mission hopes to establish peace, to protect the populace, and to install democracy. Each of these goals has remained just that, a goal, for the past eight years as the American and international mission in Afghanistan has enjoyed varied levels of commitment. Currently, the stagnant progress in Afghanistan has led the international community to become increasingly concerned about the viability of a future Afghan state. Most of these questions take root in the question over whether or not an Afghan state can function without the auspices of international terrorism. Inevitably, the normative question of what exactly that government should be arises from this base concern. In formulating a response to this question, the consensus of western society has been to install representative democracy. This answer has been a recurring theme in the post Cold War era as states such as Bosnia and Somalia bear witness to the ill effects of external democratic imposition. I hypothesize that the current mold of externally driven state-building is unlikely to result in what western actors seek it to establish: representative democracy. By primarily examining the current situation in Afghanistan, I claim that external installation of representative democracy is modally flawed in that its process mandates choice. Representative democracy by definition constitutes a government reflective of its people, or electorate. Thus, freedom of choice is necessary for a functional representative democracy. From this, one can deduce that because an essential function of democracy is choice, its implementation lies with the presence of choice. State-building is an imposition that eliminates that necessary ingredient. The two stand as polar opposites that cannot effectively collaborate. Security, governing capacity, and development have all been targeted as measurements of success in Afghanistan. The three factors are generally seen as mutually constitutive; so improved security is seen as improving governing capacity. Thus, the recent resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and a deteriorating security environment moving forward has demonstrated the inability of the Afghan government to govern. The primary reason for the Afghan government’s deficiencies is its lack of legitimacy among its constituency. Even the use of the term ‘constituency’ must be qualified because the Afghan government has often oscillated between serving the people within its territorial borders and the international community. The existence of the Afghan state is so dependent on foreign aid and intervention that it has lost policy-making and enforcing power. This is evident by the inability of Afghanistan to engage in basic sovereign state activities as maintaining a national budget, conducting elections, providing for its own national security, and deterring criminality. The Afghan state is nothing more than a shell of a government, and indicative of the failings that external state-building has with establishing democracy.

A General Schema for Optimal Monetary Policymaking: Objectives and Rules

This paper examines four equivalent methods of optimal monetary policymaking, committing to the social loss function, using discretion with the central bank long-run and short-run loss functions, and following monetary policy rules. All lead to optimal economic performance. The same performance emerges from these different policymaking methods because the central bank actually follows the same (similar) policy rules. These objectives (the social loss function, the central bank long-run and short-run loss functions) and monetary policy rules imply a complete regime for optimal policy making. The central bank long-run and short-run loss functions that produce the optimal policy with discretion differ from the social loss function. Moreover, the optimal policy rule emerges from the optimization of these different central bank loss functions.

THE ALCOHOL TREATMENT PROFILE SYSTEM: ITS DEVELOPMENT AND AN EVALUATION OF ITS CAPABILITIES

The development of the Alcohol Treatment Profile System (ATPS) was described and an evaluation of its perceived value by various States was undertaken, The ATPS is a treatment needs assessment tool based on the unification of several large national epidemiologic and treatment data sets. It was developed by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and responsibility for its creation was given to the NIAAA's Alcohol Epidemiologic Data System (AEDS). The ATPS merges county-level measures of alcohol problem prevalence (the specially constructed AEDS Alcohol Problem Indicators), indicating "need" for treatment, and treatment utilization measures (the National Drug and Alcohol Treatment Utilization Survey), indicating treatment "demand." The capabilities of the ATPS in the unique planning and policy-making settings of several States were evaluated.^

Associaçoes comunitárias do meio rural : Um estudo de caso no centro oeste de Minas Gerais

This paper examines the association in a rural mining town in Brazil. The results belong to a master dissertationin Rural Extension on membership organizations and public policies for rural areas aiming to identify the roles performed by membership organizations, the reasons that explained their formation and their relationship with policy making for rural areas in the case studied. It is a case study, for which interviews were conducted with representatives of the organizations in order to deepen into the issues related to their historical, the roles they play and how and whether they participate in development project proposals. The results revealed anup-down process of formation of rural organizations, being created as bargaining tools for achieving collective benefits, reproducing dependency relationships

Associaçoes comunitárias do meio rural : Um estudo de caso no centro oeste de Minas Gerais

This paper examines the association in a rural mining town in Brazil. The results belong to a master dissertationin Rural Extension on membership organizations and public policies for rural areas aiming to identify the roles performed by membership organizations, the reasons that explained their formation and their relationship with policy making for rural areas in the case studied. It is a case study, for which interviews were conducted with representatives of the organizations in order to deepen into the issues related to their historical, the roles they play and how and whether they participate in development project proposals. The results revealed anup-down process of formation of rural organizations, being created as bargaining tools for achieving collective benefits, reproducing dependency relationships

Associaçoes comunitárias do meio rural : Um estudo de caso no centro oeste de Minas Gerais

This paper examines the association in a rural mining town in Brazil. The results belong to a master dissertationin Rural Extension on membership organizations and public policies for rural areas aiming to identify the roles performed by membership organizations, the reasons that explained their formation and their relationship with policy making for rural areas in the case studied. It is a case study, for which interviews were conducted with representatives of the organizations in order to deepen into the issues related to their historical, the roles they play and how and whether they participate in development project proposals. The results revealed anup-down process of formation of rural organizations, being created as bargaining tools for achieving collective benefits, reproducing dependency relationships

Associaçoes comunitárias do meio rural : Um estudo de caso no centro oeste de Minas Gerais

This paper examines the association in a rural mining town in Brazil. The results belong to a master dissertationin Rural Extension on membership organizations and public policies for rural areas aiming to identify the roles performed by membership organizations, the reasons that explained their formation and their relationship with policy making for rural areas in the case studied. It is a case study, for which interviews were conducted with representatives of the organizations in order to deepen into the issues related to their historical, the roles they play and how and whether they participate in development project proposals. The results revealed anup-down process of formation of rural organizations, being created as bargaining tools for achieving collective benefits, reproducing dependency relationships

The foundation of the Mexican welfare state and social security reform in the 1990s

Before 1982 Mexico's welfare state regime was a limited conservative one that put priority on the social security of organized labor. But following the country's debt crisis in 1982, this regime changed to a hybrid liberal model. The Ernest Zedillo government (1995-2000) in particular pushed ahead with liberal reform of the social security system. This paper examines the characteristics and the policy making of the social security reforms in the 1990s. The results suggest that underlying these reforms was the restructuring of the economy and the need to cope with the cost of this restructuring. The paper also points out that one of the main factors making possible the rapid execution of the reforms were the weakened political clout of the officialist labor unions due to their steady breakdown during the 1990s and the increase in the monopolistic power of the state vis-a-vis the position of labor during the negotiations on social security reforms.

The Changing Nature of Employment and the Reform of Labor and Social Security Legislation in Post-Apartheid South Africa

This paper tries to understand the current status of South African labor market, which is changing in contradictory directions, i.e. a strengthening of the rights and protection of workers at the same time as the flexibilization of employment, in the context of the characteristics of labor and social security legislation in South Africa, as well as the nature of labor and social security reforms after democratization. We put emphasis on the corporatist nature of labor policy-making as the factor influencing the course of reforms; it is argued that the apparently contradictive changes can be explained consistently by the corporatist labor policy-making process which has been practiced notwithstanding the problem of representativeness.

Understanding long-term hunting statistics: the case of Spain (1972-2007)

Hunting is assuming a growing role in the current European forestry and agroforestry landscape. However, consistent statistical sources that provide quantitative information for policy-making, planning and management of game resources are often lacking. In addition, in many instances statistical information can be used without sufficient evaluation or criticism. Recently, the European Commission has declared the importance of high quality hunting statistics and the need to set up a common scheme in Europe for their collection, interpretation and proper use. This work aims to contribute to this current debate on hunting statistics in Europe by exploring data from the last 35 years of Spanish hunting statistics. The analysis focuses on the three major pillars underpinning hunting activity: hunters, hunting grounds and game animals. First, the study aims to provide a better understanding of official hunting statistics for use by researchers, game managers and other potential users. Second, the study highlights the major strengths and weaknesses of the statistical information that was collected. The results of the analysis indicate that official hunting statistics can be incomplete, dispersed and not always homogeneous over a long period of time. This is an issue of which one should be aware when using official hunting data for scientific or technical work. To improve statistical deficiencies associated with hunting data in Spain, our main suggestion is the adoption of a common protocol on data collection to which different regions agree. This protocol should be in accordance with future European hunting statistics and based on robust and well-informed data collection methods. Also it should expand the range of biological, ecological and economic concepts currently included to take account of the profound transformations experienced by the hunting sector in recent years. As much as possible, any future changes in the selection of hunting statistics should allow for comparisons between new variables with the previous ones.

An economic modelling approach for vulnerability assesment in irrigation farms in Spain

In the last years, vulnerability assessment has emerged as a need for policy making instead of being a pure academic exercise (Hinkel, 2010). In the current context of changing climate, increasing water scarcity threatens economic activities in many arid or semi-arid regions of the World. Climate change (CC) science and policy debates have traditionally focused on CC mitigation and impact assessment (Krysanova et al., 2010). However, even if mitigation policies are successfully enforced some climate change is still expected. Then, adaptation is strongly necessary and, for that, improved knowledge on vulnerability and adaptive capacity is required.