Shifting Winds: Explaining Variation in State Policies to Promote Small‐Scale Wind Energy

States have increasingly taken leading roles in U.S. environmental policymaking over the past two decades. As laboratories of democracy, states have developed different levels and mixes of policies to address climate change, nonpoint source pollution, alternative energy, and other challenging environmental issues. Policy scholars have sought to explain variation in state environmental policy through two primary theoretical lenses: internal determinants and regional diffusion. While our understanding of state environmental policy adoption has grown to identify which variables are most important, less is known about how these variables interact in particular states to influence policy adoption. This study examines the interactions of variables from both theories to explain how state policies for small‐scale wind energy promotion were adopted in three U.S. states. Our results highlight the nuanced role of citizen ideology, which may be important in contexts at either end of the ideological spectrum but less important in the middle—where economic development is more critical. Results also indicate that interstate competition may be over environmental as well as economic leadership. Interestingly, strength of the wind resource is not necessarily correlated with policy adoption for small‐scale wind energy promotion.     

The Economic Logic of Persistent Informality: Artisanal and Small‐Scale Mining in the Southern Philippines

This article critically evaluates existing causal explanations for the persistence of informality in artisanal and small‐scale mining (ASM). These explanations share a legalistic focus on entry barriers and political impediments that prevent or discourage the formalization of poverty‐driven ASM operators: however, they fail to fully explain cases such as that of the Philippines, where ASM is characterized by differentiation between a poverty‐driven workforce and a dominant stratum of ASM entrepreneurs. Even where limited formalization frameworks provide ASM with a degree of legal recognition, this recognition is usually restricted to these more powerful ASM interests, while excluding the workforce at large. This article therefore proposes an integrative approach to analysing informality in ASM, which complements the existing legalistic focus on entry barriers with a structuralist concern over the exploitation of informal labour. Seen from this perspective, the massive expansion of ASM in the Philippines can be seen as the product of a transition away from capital‐intensive large‐scale mining to a flexible regime of accumulation built around the exploitation of informal ASM labour. This observation highlights the need to pay more critical attention to the economic logic and the vested interests underlying the (selective) persistence of informality in the workforce.     

Environmental and Resource Degradation Associated with Small‐Scale Enterprise Clusters in the Red River Delta of Northern Vietnam

The paper reports on an empirical study of the environmental and resource degradation observed in small‐scale handicraft clusters in the Red River Delta of northern Vietnam. Most entrepreneurs in these clusters face important challenges, including depletion of natural resources, linked to acute shortages of capital and land. Such issues are identified as the main cause of overcrowding, poor working conditions and extreme environmental degradation. The study also highlights some industrial ecology practices at the enterprise level, and assesses the role played by the government in providing incentives for enterprises to invest in new technology and pollution control. Drawing from the analysis of a questionnaire survey of 56 handicraft enterprises, the study identifies the major constraints they encounter in adopting new environmentally clean technologies and engaging in environmental management. Shortage of capital and lack of knowledge about the benefits of new technologies were viewed as the most important barriers, followed by shortage of skilled workers, poor market conditions and scarcity of land appropriate for industrial production.     

Catholic Responses to Evolution, 1859–2009: Local Influences and Mid‐Scale Patterns

This article discusses Catholic responses to evolution between 1859, the year of publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, and 2009, the year in which the scientific world celebrated its 150th anniversary. Firstly, I will discuss how the Vatican initially responded to evolution in the period between 1859 and 1907, the year in which Pope Pius X issued the encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis. Secondly, I will explore the responses of Catholic authorities and intellectuals and identify the local factors that influenced their responses. Also, I will demonstrate that, gradually, Catholics have shifted towards a more lenient position concerning evolution. Thirdly, I will demonstrate that, in the end, the Vatican has complied with this pattern. In general, this article shows that not only Protestants, but Catholics too have struggled to come to terms with evolution and evolutionary theory and that local factors had an impact on these negotiations.     

Mapping Small‐scale Mineral Production Networks: The Case of Alluvial Diamonds in Ghana

In recent years, donors and certain governments have committed to formalizing artisanal and small‐scale mining (ASM) — low‐tech, labour‐intensive mineral extraction and processing. Few, however, are able to do so effectively because of a limited knowledge of how the sector operates, who it employs and where the commodities it mines are being channelled. This article argues that a radical reconceptualization of ASM will be needed if these challenges are to be overcome. As a starting point, it calls on donors and policy makers to adopt the Global Production Network (GPN) as a ‘lens’ for analysing the sector's organizational structures. Popular in geography scholarship, the GPN, though rarely used to study the intricacies of largely informal sectors such as ASM, could prove valuable here, aiding with the mapping of key production processes. In this article, the GPN is applied to Ghana's artisanal diamond mining sector, yielding valuable insights into its organization, the roles played by the different individuals who populate it, and the nature of the relationships between these individuals. Such information is key to designing more robust formalization and support strategies for ASM in Ghana; more generally, the exercise provides important lessons for other governments working to achieve similar goals.     

The Use of Small‐Angle X‐Ray Diffraction Studies for the Analysis of Structural Features in Archaeological Samples

X‐ray diffraction or scattering analysis provides a powerful non‐destructive technique capable of providing important information about the state of archaeological samples in the nanometer length scale. Small‐angle diffraction facilities are usually found at synchrotron sources, although the potential of a laboratory source is also described. Specific examples of analysis using X‐ray diffraction of historic parchment, archaeological bone, a Central Mexico style pictograph and microdiffraction of calcified tissues are used to show the scope and versatility of the technique. Diffraction data is capable of giving fundamental structural information as well as quantifying the remodelling of structures influenced by environmental factors.     

古代"守中治边"、"守在四夷"治边思想初探

“守中治边”与“守在四夷”,是古代大多数封建王朝治边思想的核心,也是制定各项边疆治策理论的基础。在封建统治者看来,“守中”之地与“四夷”之地之间有明确的划分;大多数封建王朝所追求的理想境界,是国家的腹心地区安定繁荣,在边陲地区实现“守在四夷”。本文对“守中治边”与“守在四夷”说法的由来、内涵及其产生的影响,做了初步阐述与分析。