Public Consultation for Sustainable Development Policy Initiatives

Involving the public in government decision making regarding sustainable development is a complex and difficult problem. This article suggests that weak public consultation, occurring at the operational planning level, is in part responsible for the lack of policy innovation in this realm. A case study technique considers approaches to public consultation in the development of sustainable development policy in the Canadian province of Manitoba. Using document reviews and qualitative interviews, two specific periods of policy development are traced with the outcomes of each being measured against creative consultative approaches established in the literature. It is revealed that using more complex consultative approaches at the normative policy planning level results in a number of positive implications, including mutual education and learning, participant satisfaction, policy innovation that has broad-based support, and results that have lasting implications on consultative proceshes.     

Re-Thinking Legislative Productivity: Commemorative Legislation and Policy Gridlock

This research charts the levels of commemorative legislation passed in Congress in the postwar era and assesses the conditions generating such legislation. Utilizing a statistical model of stalemate developed by Sarah Binder, it demonstrates that conditions hypothesized to produce gridlock on salient legislation also generate (even more statistically robust) activism on commemoratives. ¹ Our joint appreciation to Paulina Burdge-Small and Michael Williams for their help in collecting the data analyzed in this paper. In addition, Dodd expresses appreciation to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars for support that aided his contributions to the paper.      

The Conservation of Biodiversity in Iran: Threats,Challenges and Hopes

Because of its diverse geological formations, climates, and soils, Iran is home to outstanding biodiversity. National conservation started in Iran over fifty years ago and today nearly 10 percent of the country is protected. However, biodiversity in Iran is threatened, with about 100 species of vertebrate fauna vulnerable or endangered. Increased population and human activity, climate change, drought, desertification, agriculture, poaching, and economic sanctions have helped create this crisis. Many of these causes can be mitigated through better planning, sustainable policies, and increased civil society and local engagement. Promoting awareness about the impacts of human practices will also be important for the long-term sustainability of Iran’s ecosystems. Iranian conservation NGOs have already taken an active role in preserving biodiversity.     

Biodiversity and Nature Conservation: Some Common Arguments and Alternative Views

Abstract

The impact of human activities on the environment is perhaps now reaching its greatest level of awareness in human history. There is concern regarding health effects of pollutants generated by industry, climate change related to burning of fossil fuels and effects of anthropogenic activities in terms of promoting the extinction of biological species. Proposals are being put forward at local, national and international levels to preserve biodiversity. It is commonly believed that human activities, if not controlled, will lead to dramatic decreases in the earth's biodiversity. In this report, temporal perspectives of biodiversity (e.g. from palaeontology) are emphasized both as reasons for conservation and as possible errors of reasoning in conservation debates. Questions and novel implications related to an integral view of humans as a part of nature are also presented in the context of related environmental issues.     

Policies for Biodiversity Conservation: The Case of Sub-Saharan Africa

Why does biodiversity conservation matter, and what can be done about it? The article discusses the options in the case of Sub-Saharan Africa, drawing on the results of a Darwin Initiative project on the ecology and economics of biodiversity conservation in the continent. It uses the case of Sub-Saharan Africa to illustrate both the consequences of biodiversity loss and the constraints within which policy-makers operate. To most people the biodiversity loss that matters is not the global extinction of species, but the effects of local change in flora and fauna on watershed protection, soil conservation, habitat, productivity and amenity. For this reason, biodiversity conservation concerns even the poorest communities. But because poverty, indebtedness, insecurity of land tenure and other social conditions affect the way in which people respond to incentives, the policy options for biodiversity conservation may be different in different parts of the world.     

Property Rights for Biodiversity Conservation and Development: Extractive Reserves in the Brazilian Amazon

Many of the world's most valuable biodiverse areas are successfully managed by indigenous communities, often under peculiar property rights structures. In many cases, these communities are economically disadvantaged, even by local standards. But can particular local property rights regimes which are ecologically successful also allow communities to compete productively in market economies? The extractive reserves of the Brazilian Amazon offer an opportunity for investigating the connections between property rights, conservation and development in the context of tropical forests. This article aims to analyse whether the existing property rights in these reserves — an idiosyncratic mixture of public, collective and private property rights — can support the explicit development aim of a competitive, yet sustainable, exploitation of the area's natural resources. The analysis identifies three promising development paths open to extractive reserves, but points to a fundamental contradiction between the static structure of the property rights system and the dynamic nature of two of these paths. The current design of internal property rights fails to take into account the broader economic context in which reserves must generate a viable revenue stream. If extractive reserves are expected to develop without reliance on external aid, then changes to the property rights structure both inside and outside the extractive reserves have to be explicitly considered.     

Biodiversity Conservation: The Process of Economic Assessment and Establishment of a Protected Area in Vanuatu

This article describes the framework adopted for the socio-economic assessment of protected areas intended to safeguard biodiversity. This framework, which can be described as a three-tiered approach to conservation, is applied to the process of assessment and establishment of a protected area (PA) in Vanuatu. The potential benefits that the landowners of the PA could derive from logging activities, and the subsistence values derived from the PA are considered. It appears that if the PA was to be established without the payment of any compensation, the landowners would face substantial net costs. During the research process, it was suggested that the Government of Vanuatu could take up a lease on the land to compensate the landowners for the loss of potential logging royalties. When the benefits accruing to the landowners from a lease agreement are compared with the foregone logging royalties, it is found that the net present value of a seventy-five year lease agreement is approximately equivalent to the net present value of logging royalties.     

Composite Bows from Uch-kurbu in Kyrgyzstan

The article addresses the topic of composite bows from nomadic sites in Tien Shan and Zhetysu. Horn plates from bows discovered in 2008–2009 at Uch-Kurbu on the Tosor River, the Issyk-Kul Depression (Kyrgyzstan), are described and analyzed. The original design of the wooden core of the bow and the location of horn plates thereon are reconstructed. Based on our earlier classification of weapons, these are composite bows of the Xiongnu-Xianbei period. Two subtypes are identified, based on the design of plates at the ends of the bow. Evidently, composite bows with end, medio-lateral, and medio-frontal plates were the most efficient range weapon of the period.     

Biodiversity and sectoral responsibility in the development of Swedish Forestry Policy, 1988-1993

In 1993 the Swedish parliament deregulated national forestry policy and established an environmental goal in parallel with the previous, long-standing goal of high wood production. This paper shows how the change occurred in the context of major changes in Swedish environmental policy during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Within a short time, new environmental legislation and the introduction of legal protection for small forest and agricultural habitats of high ecological value reoriented national forestry policy, away from an overriding focus on wood production to an increased awareness of nature conservation and biodiversity preservation. Reflecting a major compromise with the state, forest owners have gained greater freedom to manage their land, but must also improve environmental conditions while achieving high wood production, a policy known as 'freedom under responsibility'. The paper explains how both the parliament and industry supported increased nature conservation and biodiversity to maintain forest health and support the forestry industry, by favouring responsible resource use and not simply protection from human influence.     

National and Regional Population Trends in Kyrgyzstan, 1989-1999: Results from the Recent Census of Kyrgyzstan and 2001 Update

A specialist on population change and urbanization in the countries of the former USSR examines nationwide and regional total, urban, and rural population change in Kyrgyzstan for 1989—1999—the period between the last census of the former USSR and the first census of independent Kyrgyzstan—with selected updates to 2001. Of particular interest is the availability of oblast-level nationality data making possible the detailed investigation of changes in the regional and rural-urban populations of major nationality groups in Kyrgyzstan. A focus is on the decreasing sizes of Russian, Ukrainian, and German populations and population growth among ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: O18, R12, R23. 4 figures, 17 tables, 41 references.     

Morality Policy and Individual-Level Political Behavior; The Case of Legislative Voting on Lesbian and Gay Issues

Researchers using the morality politics framework have focused on aggregate-level analysis, largely ignoring the behavior of individuals wlthin political institutions. My research fills this gap by examining legislative voting behavior on lesbian and gay issues in the U. S. House ofRepresentatives. The theory of morality politics is used to extract a number of hypotheses concerning legislative voting behavior. The morality politics framework suggests that legislative voting on lesbian and gay issues will be driven by partisanship, ideology, religious beliefs, constituency opinion, and perhaps interest groups. The results of multiple regression analysis demonstrate that while the morality politics model does a good Job of explaining legislative voting behavior, some revisions may be in order. Based on my findings I argue that actually there may be two forms of morality politics, euch ofwhich is dependent on how the issue is framed. The dominant issue frame, moreover, may impact the ability of opposing interest groups to influence decisionmakers in thepolicy process.     

From Private Consultation to Public Crusade: Assessing Eisenhower's Legislative Strategies on Foreign Policy

Even though nationally televised addresses provide the president the opportunity to speak directly to the American people and are a potentially powerful tool for influencing public opinion, scholars have little understanding of the people the president speaks to when he delivers televised addresses. This study examines the audience for televised presidential addresses. Specifically, it looks at the size of the audience for televised addresses, the differences between people who watch televised addresses and those who do not watch, and explains why some people watch the addresses while others do not. To answer these questions I use a unique set of national opinion surveys conducted by Richard Wirthlin, who served as Ronald Reagan's pollster throughout Reagan's years as president. I find that even though televised addresses are given on network television, the president is not assured a large television audience. Moreover, I find that there is a difference between people who watch televised addresses and those who do not, and that the demographic characteristics, personal concerns, and especially the political participation of a person explain why people watch or do not watch televised addresses.     

Admiralty Law and Neutrality Policy in the 1790s: An Example of Judicial, Legislative, and Executive Cooperation

The subject of admiralty law may have lost much of its luster over the years, but during the first decades of the nation's existence this branch of the law provided a vehicle for establishing foreign policy principles that helped protect the new nation. The admiralty cases that reached the U.S. Supreme Court in the mid-1790s were important to administration policy in the realm of foreign affairs and to the Court's own development as an independent arm of the national government.     

Interethnic Tensions in Kyrgyzstan: A Political Geographic Perspective

Two U.S. geographers review an array of intertwining political geographic issues that provide context and set the stage for deadly armed conflict between groups of ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in the southern Kyrgyzstan city of Osh in June 2010. Applying a disaggregated and localized approach to understanding the ambiguous and complex factors underlying the current instability in Kyrgyzstan, they focus on: the role of north-south political competition; the country's uneasy economic relationship with its western neighbor, Uzbekistan; widespread official corruption and the penetration of organized crime into government structures; as well as broader geopolitical issues. The latter include Tashkent's policy toward the Uzbek diaspora, perceived threats from international terrorism/Islamist fundamentalism, the potential for the export of a "color revolution" to Uzbekistan, the presence of U.S. and Russian military forces in Central Asia, and the relative ineffectiveness of regional security structures such as the Collective Security Treaty Organization.     

Sustained Organizational Influence: American Legislative Exchange Council and the Diffusion of Anti‐Sanctuary Policy

Building upon existing literature, we offer a particular model of network policy diffusion—which we call sustained organizational influence. Sustained organizational influence necessitates an institutional focus across a broad range of issues and across a long period of time. Sustaining organizations are well‐financed, and exert their influence on legislators through benefits, shared ideological interests, and time‐saving opportunities. Sustaining organizations' centralized nature makes legislators' jobs easier by providing legislators with ready‐made model legislation. We argue that sustaining organizations uniquely contribute to policy diffusion in the U.S. states. We evaluate this model with a case study of state‐level immigration sanctuary policy making and the role that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) played in disseminating model legislation. Through quantitative text analysis and several negative binomial state‐level regression models, we demonstrate that ALEC has exerted an overwhelming influence on the introduction of anti‐sanctuary legislative proposals in the U.S. states over the past 7 years consistent with our particular model of network policy diffusion. Implications are discussed.