Markets,Resources, Environments

Orthodox economists argue, in this country as elsewhere in the developed world, that many of the issues of environmental damage and resource use over which governments, corporations and community groups tussle could be resolved if appropriate markets for environmental goods were established. This paper argues that markets are commonly not appropriate mechanisms to resolve environmental disputes: much of the problem is to determine the effects rather than to allocate them; when the rate of discount of the future is positive, the social need is different from the sum of rational individual decisions; and markets ignore equity. Furthermore, the limits on sustainability seem to be quantitative rather than qualitative - to rest on the magnitude of resource discovery, or on the rate of improvement of environmental quality per dollar invested for example. Again, the central question concerns the data rather than a means of allocating costs and benefits. These difficulties in using market mechanisms imply that legal systems may be preferable as means of regulating environmental use.     

THE SOCIOLOGY OF THE GROWTH/NO-GROWTH DEBATE*

This theoretical analysis focuses on the properties of conservative, liberal, and radical paradigms in social science and their application to the growth/no-growth debate in environmental policy literature. We find conservatives working with an evolutionary model of society which suggests that environmental problems are imperfections to be remedied by science, technology, and the free market. Liberals recognize the benefits and costs of growth, and they articulate ways to minimize the costs through state regulation and planning. Radicals argue for state ownership of the means of production and new cultural values about growth as the only effective environmental policies. This analysis closes with a discussion of the future of the growth debate in terms of these paradigms.     

Les échelles de temps sur les marchés financiers

Modern financial modelling massively implements scaling laws to describe market fluctuations, with the use of stochastic processes in stock market price behavior equations. Scaling laws, which already existed as an implicit part of Brownian motion although notperceived at such, habe become increasingly and explicitely important, since the financial markets regulatory authorities have drawn the attention of the banking industry to the risk control issued posed by the ineffective current valuation achieved using the classical Gaussian distribution. The différent elements surrounding this debate are developed based around Mandelbrot's fractal models, which have underlined the main modelling conflicts of the behavior of stock market prices over the last forty years. I demonstrate that the root of the problem of whether scaling laws exist is the more fundemental issue of the nature of market time.     

Wildlife Management in Tanzania: State Control,Rent Seeking and Community Resistance

Despite a decade of rhetoric on community conservation, current trends in Tanzania reflect a disturbing process of reconsolidation of state control over wildlife resources and increased rent‐seeking behaviour, combined with dispossession of communities. Whereas the 1998 Wildlife Policy promoted community participation and local benefits, the subsequent policy of 2007 and the Wildlife Conservation Act of 2009 returned control over wildlife and over income from sport hunting and safari tourism to central government. These trends, which sometimes include the use of state violence and often take place in the name of ‘community‐based’ conservation, are not, however, occurring without resistance from communities. This article draws on in‐depth studies of wildlife management practices at three locations in northern Tanzania to illustrate these trends. The authors argue that this outcome is more than just the result of the neoliberalization of conservation. It reflects old patterns of state patrimony and rent seeking, combined with colonial narratives of conservation, all enhanced through neoliberal reforms of the past two decades. At the same time, much of the rhetoric of neoliberal reforms is being pushed back by the state in order to capture rent and interact with villagers in new and oppressive ways.     

The Politics of Carbon Market Design: Rethinking the Techno‐politics and Post‐politics of Climate Change

Carbon markets have provided fertile ground for research on the changing nature of political contestation. MacKenzie locates a “techno‐politics” of carbon markets that creates new possibilities for a “politics of market design”. In contrast, Swyngedouw argues carbon markets are part of a “post‐political” shift that narrows potential pathways through “depoliticisation”. This article engages with these debates by examining three recent attempts to reform the ailing European Union Emissions Trading System: restricting industrial gas offsets, backloading allowance auctions and the 2030 climate and energy package. It conceptualises the respective episodes as contests over the reach, force and priority of value determinations in climate policy, emphasising the contradictory imperatives facing states on each issue. The outcomes of contestation between industry groups and environmental organisations—real but limited reforms and a consolidation of the carbon market over alternatives—demonstrate the constraints facing technocratic campaigning and the ongoing politicisation of climate change.     

Coalition cascades: The politics of tipping points in clean energy transitions

Policy change often involves multiple policy subsystems, as in the case of clean energy transitions. We argue that trans-subsystem policy feedback is a central dynamic in policy change across subsystems. Policy in one subsystem creates benefits/costs and/or learning effects that mobilize actors for policy change in another subsystem, resulting in “coalition cascades” across interdependent subsystems. If coalition cascades lead to the resolution of coordination problems across subsystems, the system reaches a tipping point in policy change. Coalition cascades are thus the transmission belts of trans-subsystem policy feedback. We illustrate our argument in the case of California's clean energy transition. We show how early renewable energy policy spilled over into the subsystems on grid policy—leading to energy storage policy—and on transport policy—resulting in electric vehicle charging policy. The article advances our understanding of the mechanisms underpinning trans-subsystem policy change, offering a model of the politics of tipping points.     

Troubled water? Acquiescence,conflict, and the politics of place in watershed management

Controversy surrounds proposed revisions in access and recreation policy at central Massachusetts' Wachusett Reservoir, a crucial source of drinking water for metropolitan Boston. This policy conflict illuminates a broader tension between rural and exurban resource-supply areas and metropolitan areas that are committed to resource extraction and urban growth. Boston dominates the reservoir region and extracts its resources, while less powerful local residents disagree with and sometimes protest against policies detrimental or perceived to be detrimental to their interests. Despite this tension, data gathered from surveys at the reservoir, supplementary interviews, archival research, and attendance at public meetings reveal that many potential sites of acrimony are characterized by positive attempts to reclaim place rather than direct opposition to outside domination. Findings suggest that residents in the reservoir region have attached their own values to the reservoir, including both rational valuation of specific non-drinking-water benefits and non-instrumental valuation of the reservoir as an integral part of residents' lifeworlds. Although tensions persist between Boston and the Wachusett region, area residents' complex valuation of the reservoir as a space of utility and a place of everyday life suggests opportunities for consensual resource coalitions and initiatives.     

Institutions,Markets and Economic Co‐ordination: Linking Development Policy to Theory and Praxis

This article explores policy applications of ‘new institutional economics’ theory in relation to markets and economic development. It argues for application of an analytical framework which instead of looking at institutions primarily in terms of their contributions to making competitive markets work better, sees such markets as one form of institution fulfilling exchange and co‐ordination functions in an economy. A key element in this is recognition of the importance of processes of change in non‐standard market arrangements in economic development, and there are strong theoretical, practical and historical grounds for more consistent policy in this area.     

Beyond Market Logics: Payments for Ecosystem Services as Alternative Development Practices in the Global South

Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) initiatives, which provide financial incentives for management practices thought to increase the production of environmental benefits, have expanded across the global South since the late 1990s. These initiatives have thus far been conceptualized rather narrowly; by their early proponents as a novel economic instrument for more ‘rational’, effective and efficient environmental policy or by their critics as an exogenously imposed conduit of hegemonic neoliberalism. This introductory article to the special issue that follows advocates for and demonstrates a more grounded and historically situated approach for understanding the conformation and outcomes of PES in actual practice. It proposes a framework for examining individual PES initiatives as shaped by dynamic interactions between imposed structure and the development pathways and situated agency of actors in the territories in which they are implemented. It finds that certain ubiquitous components of this approach — the valuation of nature, the creation of institutions and the negotiations that inevitably surround the distribution of benefits — provide potential openings for articulation and engagement that can allow these initiatives to be contested, adapted, hybridized or more fully co-opted and captured. This framework opens a pathway for more inclusive, nuanced and grounded research on PES and on market-based environment and development policies more broadly.     

New approaches to economic development in peripheral rural regions

This paper explores new approaches to economic development in peripheral regions in the context of constraints on public expenditure, declining employment in traditional natural resource based industries, and globalisation of the economy. Three conceptual pairs ‐resource mobility and immobility; tangible and intangible factors; and global‐local interrelations — underpin three ideas about these new approaches, and their impact on differential economic performance observed in otherwise similar localities and regions. A case study is given to illustrate the role played by less mobile cultural, social and environmental assets in these strategies. However, a key feature of the cases is the importance of both local and extra‐local linkages, often at international level, whether this has to do with market or non‐market activity. The conclusions raise questions for research about the root causes of differences in economic performance between rural localities, whether local initiatives will suffice to counter further likely declines in public subventions and natural resource based employment and also about the focus of policy in such regions.     

Regionalising resource security in the Asia-Pacific: the challenge of economic nationalism

In recent years, efforts to institutionalise resource security cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region have intensified. Soaring world prices for minerals and energy have seen a range of resource security strategies launched—through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), ASEAN Plus Three, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and the East Asia Summit—all of which aim to promote intergovernmental dialogue, policy coordination and the integration of regional resource markets. However, the practical achievements of these regional efforts have been limited, as none have advanced beyond dialogue activities to more formalised types of resource security cooperation. This article examines the dynamics of these abortive attempts to regionalise resource cooperation in the Asia-Pacific, arguing that economic nationalist resource policy preferences held by governments have acted as a major obstacle to cooperation. Through an analysis of national resource policy regimes and the outputs of recent cooperative efforts, it demonstrates how economic nationalism has encouraged inward-looking and sovereignty-conscious actions on the part of major resource players in the Asia-Pacific. As a result, intergovernmental resource cooperation has been limited to informal and voluntary ‘soft-law’ initiatives, which have not made a substantive contribution to the resource security of economies in the region.     

The Perpetuation of Regime Security in Gulf Cooperation Council States: A Multi‐Lens Approach

Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states have been engaging in diversification efforts, yet the types of efforts suggest that the primary interest is regime security. Regional foreign policy is complex; hence we propose a multi‐lens approach to analyze overlapping and complementary political, economic, and social forces. The international political economy of hydrocarbons demonstrates the similarities among GCC states, regional dynamics illustrate interstate relations and similar patterns, while economic diversification suggests individual state trajectories and comparative and competitive patterns. By outlining the contemporary context for GCC states, we argue that low oil prices, regional dependence on hydrocarbons, and trends in economic diversification efforts signal GCC states' preference to reinforce their rentier systems with alternative state revenue streams. GCC states' diversification into new markets and sectors and use of state‐owned enterprises in microcompetitions indicate a new search for alternative revenue streams and prestige, which in turn are used to assure the perpetuation of regime security. This finding sets trajectories and implications for the region, specifically economic stagnation and supplementary diversification processes.     

A Market Road to Sustainable Agriculture? Ecological Agriculture,Green Food and Organic Agriculture in China

To the extent that free markets show little concern for the existence of externalities, they are unlikely to produce optimum outcomes with regard to the protection and enhancement of the natural environment. Accordingly, the increasing emphasis on markets to deliver development in China under Deng Xiaoping and his successors has the capacity to threaten the long‐term environmental sustainability of that development. While there are good reasons to remain sceptical about the ability of market mechanisms to promote sustainable rural development in many respects, market reforms in China and the opening of the country to the outside world have nevertheless provided opportunities for farmers to engage in ecologically sensitive agriculture in the form of ‘green’ food and organic farming. Given that these forms of agriculture reduce farmers’ use of chemicals compared to conventional farming — chemicals which are costly to produce and environmentally degrading to use — they contribute to ensuring a more environmentally sustainable future for Chinese farming, post‐WTO entry, whilst providing opportunities for farmers to enrich themselves at the same time: a ‘win–win’ state of affairs. This will remain the case, however, only so long as the state is prepared to create and reinforce appropriate institutional arrangements.     

Rent,Real Estate,and Flood Mitigation in New Orleans East

This paper presents results from a study of environmental harm created in the collision of real estate speculation and the political process that governed extension of the urban frontier of New Orleans into its eastern wetlands. Near term concerns of rent‐seeking real estate capital and the contested politics of urban infrastructure expansion challenged a fragmented state charged with regulatory oversight and protection of investments in land and citizens. The paper engages theoretically the relative inattention of urban political ecology theory to rent as a way to theorize how capital flows through land, and argues for increased attention to the problem of land rent and the multiple scales of political engagement that manage ecological crisis immanent in the metabolism of nature and society under capitalism.     

THE IMPACT OF RENT CONTROLS IN NON-WALRASIAN MARKETS: AN AGENT-BASED MODELING APPROACH

ABSTRACT.  We use agent-based models to consider rent ceilings in non-Walrasian housing markets, where bargaining between landlord and tenant leads to exchange at a range of prices. In the non-Walrasian setting agents who would be extramarginal in the Walrasian setting frequently are successful in renting, and actually account for a significant share of the units rented. This has several implications. First, rent ceilings above the Walrasian equilibrium price (WEP) can affect the market outcome. Second, rent ceilings that reduce the number of units rented do not necessarily reduce total market surplus. Finally, the distributional impact of rent controls differs from the Walrasian setting.     

Material,Political, and Biopolitical Dimensions of “Waste” in California Water Law

California's state constitution prohibits the “wasteful” use of water; however, waste is subjective and context dependent. This paper considers political, biopolitical, and material dimensions of waste, focusing on the role of legal processes and institutions. The paper examines a case involving legal accusations of “waste and unreasonable use” of water by the Imperial Irrigation District in Imperial County, California. The determination that water was being “wasted” justified the transfer of water from agricultural to urban areas. However, defining these flows of water as a waste neglected water's complexity and relationality, and the enclosure of a “paracommons” threatens to bring about negative environmental and public health consequences. The paper shows that the project of discursively labeling certain material resource flows as waste and re‐allocating these resources to correct this moral and economic failure relies upon legal processes, and carries political and biopolitical implications.     

Common Property Resource Institutions and Forest Management in Latin America

This article focuses on how common property resource (CPR) institutions managing forest resources in Latin America have responded to change, a subject relatively ignored in the English-language literature. It examines in particular the evidence surrounding the popular view that CPR institutions must inevitably break down in the face of economic and demographic pressures—an extension of the `tragedy of the commons' thesis. The evidence shows that there have been a number of both positive and negative experiences. The negative experiences include the obvious vulnerability of Amerindian informal institutions to the individualistic incentive structures of market forces. The apparent incompatibility between the market and `gift' economy leads to a questioning of the current donor emphasis on market-orientated natural forest management among indigenous groups that have received little exposure to market forces, and alternative approaches are suggested. However, many indigenous and other groups have responded positively to market pressures and there is ample evidence that, given an appropriate policy environment, community-based natural forest management can still be regarded as a `great white hope' for forest conservation, especially considering the largely negative environmental and equity impacts of individualized resource privatization, as in the Brazilian Amazon. However, CPR institutions have generally faced an unsupportive policy environment; it is therefore over-simplistic for those in favour of privatization of property rights to ascribe their erosion to commercial or demographic pressures per se.     

Quenching the Thirst: The Cost of Water in Fragile Environments

Public policy has often addressed the problems of water supply and sanitation from the supply side to the neglect of demand side aspects in developing countries like India. This policy has not only rendered a large number of projects financially unviable but has also resulted in inadequate coverage of aspects such as population and ecological unsustainability. This article, based on household level information from six villages in a water scarce region of India (Rajasthan state), examines inter- and intra-village variations in water use and the costs, direct and indirect, involved in obtaining water. It also estimates households' willingness and ability to pay for water, using the contingent valuation method (CVM). Using qualitative as well as quantitative methods, it is argued that it is the failure of government policy and of institutions which has led to severe water shortages in harsh environments rather than supply or financial bottlenecks per se. While the estimates of price elasticity of water use indicate the feasibility of water pricing in the rural areas, the willingness to pay estimates question the general assumption that rural households are willing to pay 5 per cent of their income/expenditure for water. Various economic and extra economic factors such as household income, low opportunity costs of women and children, and attitudes towards female labour and public goods are vital in influencing the households' willingness to pay for water.     

The “Commons” Versus the “Commodity”: Alter‐globalization,Anti‐privatization and the Human Right to Water in the Global South

Abstract: In response to the growth of private sector involvement in water supply management globally, anti‐privatization campaigns for a human right to water have emerged in recent years. Simultaneously, alter‐globalization activists have promoted alternative water governance models through North‐South red‐green alliances between organized labour, environmental groups, women's groups, and indigenous groups. In this paper, I explore these distinct (albeit overlapping) responses to water privatization. I first present a generic conceptual model of market environmentalist reforms, and explore the contribution of this framework to debates over ‘neoliberalizing nature’. This conceptual framework is applied to the case of anti‐privatization activism to elucidate the limitations of the human right to water as a conceptual counterpoint to privatization, and as an activist strategy. In contrast, I argue that alter‐globalization strategies—centred on concepts of the commons—are more conceptually coherent, and also more successful as activist strategies. The paper concludes with a reiteration of the need for greater conceptual precision in our analyses of neoliberalization, for both academics and activists.     

An economic assessment of informal recreation policy in the Scottish countryside

Countryside recreation policy in Scotland is currently delivered through numerous ad hoc arrangements. This paper assesses the economic effectiveness of these arrangements using cost‐benefit analysis. The benefits associated with recreation enhancements are measured using the contingent valuation method, while the costs are assessed through a survey of public and voluntary section expenditure on informal recreation. The analysis demonstrates that recreation policies are generally economically efficient in that they target enhancement programmes that are shown to generate high economic benefits. The exception to this is related to investments in visitor centres. The paper concludes that the cost‐benefit methodology adopted in this research can provide useful information for the strategic analysis of countryside recreation policy.