Comparison of DOE and Army Advisory Boards: Application of a Conceptual Framework for Evaluating Public Participation in Environmental Risk Decision Making

This article is part of a growing body of literature evaluating public participation approaches and implementation efforts. It compares the characteristics and performance of citizen advisory boards established by the U.S. Department of Energy's Environmental Restoration and Waste Management Program (DOE/EM) and by the U.S. Department of Defense's Army (DoD/Army) as a major part of the public participation programs that were undertaken to help the agencies plan and implement the cleanup of their contaminated installations. We first present the elements of the Acceptability Diamond, an evaluative framework developed by the authors through extensive fieldwork on public-federal agency interactions that identify five objectives of agency–public interactions and public participation programs, and link them to existing literature. We then use the Acceptability Diamond as a basis for comparing the performance of the DOE/EM and DoD/Army advisory boards. In the early 1990s, both DOE and DoD participated in the Federal Facilities Environmental Restoration Dialogue Committee (known as the FFER Dialogue Committee) and were influenced by the Committee's recommendations on public participation. However, the Site Specific Advisory Boards (SSABs) subsequently established by DOE/EM and the Restoration Advisory Boards (RABs) subsequently established by DoD and the Army were governed by significantly different policies and management. We describe some of these key differences and compare the performance of the SSABs and RABs. The article draws on a series of research studies conducted by the authors on the DOE/EM public participation program from its inception in the early 1990s through its transition to accelerated cleanup in 2002 and also on a recently completed study of seven Army RABs.     

Environmental Assessment in the European Union: Perspectives,Past, Present and Strategic

Environmental assessment (EA) in the European Union (EU) is undergoing a period of significant transition. Following over 10 years of practice and development under Directive 85/337/EEC, the EU EA system is being subjected to legislative reform. In the light of this, this paper provides a critical examination of the past, present and future role of EA in the EU. After evaluating the legislative transposition and procedural effectiveness of the original provisions, the paper examines the extent to which recent amendments to the Directive and the proposed strategic environmental assessment (SEA) Directive will lead to improvement. The authors suggest that although the changes should overcome some of the procedural and practical problems experienced over the last 10 years, a more committed emphasis needs to be placed on fundamental areas of weakness.     

Children and Urban Regional Planning: Participation in the Public Consultation Process through Story Writing

Blue Mountains City is a unique urban area of 75 000 people, located along a narrow mountain ridge and within a world heritage national park, between 60 and 120 kilometres west of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The Blue Mountains City Council is currently developing a regional city strategy to guide development over the next 25 years. All sections of a very diverse community have been consulted in the public participation process, including children aged between six and 12 years. This paper deals with the analysis of 269 entries for a children's story-writing competition organised by the council. The children had to imagine that they were adults in 2025 and write a story about what their home and city would be like at that time. The paper discusses the complex problems of consulting with children on strategic regional planning matters, and the results from analysis of these competition entries in the light of those problems. The most important issues for the children as a whole were the impact of traffic, the impact of urban development on residential neighbourhoods, places for children to play, protection of the natural environment, for which the city is famous, and the ability to keep domestic pets. One of the most significant impressions emerging from the analysis is that children were far from optimistic about the future. Thirty-five per cent of entries had a negative tone, whereas only 24% were positive. The remaining 41% were written in a matter-of-fact narrative style that indicated neither enthusiasm nor disappointment with the future of the city. The children were more or less evenly divided on whether the future would be strongly based on advances in technology, much the same as now, or based on simpler technology than at present. The technique of story writing, despite some methodological difficulties in this particular case, was a useful tool for consultation with children of this age group.     

Truncated Decision Making and Deliberative Implementation: A Time-Based Policy Process Model for Transitional China

The time dimension has not attracted enough attention in policy process research in China, yet speed is the most distinctive feature of China’s recent development. This article, based on observations of China’s policy practices, proposes a new research perspective for understanding how the Chinese government has been able to address policy challenges in an era of rapid transition. The approach adopted by the government allows decision makers to respond quickly to serious problems with a truncated decision-making process, and then implement the decisions through a more gradual deliberative process. The article examines China’s coal-mining industry reform as an empirical case to illustrate how this governance approach has been used to achieve major policy reform, namely property rights reform for coal mines, while simultaneously maintaining stability, regulating production safety, and stimulating industrial development. The article concludes with a discussion of the broad implications of this pattern for improving the effectiveness of public policy both in and outside China.     

The Oral Tradition,Environmental Change and River Basin Management: Case Studies from Queensland and Victoria

River basin management activities are often carried out in the context of real or perceived environmental change. Views of environmental change provided by the oral tradition are compared with histories of change reconstructed from the historical documentary record for the Nogoa River, Queensland, and the Avon River, Victoria. Quite different perspectives on the nature and causes of river channel change are provided by the two types of sources. River basin managers appear to have generally adopted the views provided by the more easily accessible oral tradition, leading to management strategies that are not necessarily justifiable in the light of the documentary history.     

Environmental Justice and the Allocation Of Risk: The Case of Lead and Public Health

This paper examines conceptual and methodological issues in the analysis of environmental justice through use of the case of lead-exposure health risks. Researchers face important obstacles in measuring variable risks among population subgroups. The case of lead exposure, however, illustrates the dramatic potential where adequate data exist for identifying and correcting significant inequities in risk exposure. Despite sharp reductions in the general population's exposure to lead since the 1970s, substantial numbers of minority and low-income children continue to exhibit unacceptably high blood-lead levels due primarily to exposure to lead-based paint. Resolving environmental inequities in this and similar instances requires solid documentation of the risk and better integration of equity issues with other policy demands such as the call for cost-effective environmental policy.     

村落艺术活动研究:问题意识与文化视野

村落艺术活动作为一种基本的生活文化样态,蕴含着特定地域和族群的精神旨趣及心理图式,一直以来,被作为文化人类学村落研究中的一个独特领域得到关注。村落艺术活动的研究成果由此主要呈现出人类学、民俗学和社会学色彩。不同的学科色彩体现出不同方法和视角特征,村落艺术活动相应得到不同样式和特质的文化阐释。作为一种新的视角和新的学科范式,艺术人类学基于其特有的阐释途径,能够于综合文化视野中和动态把握中对村落艺术活动做出一种具有文化诗学品性的解读和理解,从新的层面呈现出村落艺术活动的新的文化特质和文化现代性意义,并发掘和拓展了该现象值得深化的问题域。     

意大利公众参与文化遗产保护的经验与启示

意大利公众参与遗产保护已成为一种民族自觉。意大利公众参与文化遗产保护的经验主要集中在重视吸引公众参与遗产社会教育、加强公众参与遗产保护法律建设、保障公众参与遗产保护渠道等三个方面。意大利的经验启示我们,中国遗产管理也应在这三个方面加强建设。     

Case Studies in Dual Classification as Process: Childbirth,Headhunting and Circumcision in West Timor

The diverse societies of eastern Indonesia have, for some time, been recognised as important contexts for the study of dual classification. In this region the practice of dual classification is evident in a multitude of social forms. It is found in the range of conventional expressions for category distinctions as well as in the formal organisation of ceremonial contexts and structural patterns of society. This paper examines the expression of certain dual classificatory forms as they appear in three types of ritual processes in West Timorese society. My purpose is to show how this type of classification provides a vital conceptual means to both protect the well-being of participants in the conduct of the ritual processes, and at the same time, to effect symbolic and celebratory affirmations of life. I argue that in the manipulation and interaction of the dual categories it is possible to recognise a striking commonality of purpose.     

Participation and Representation in ATSIC Elections: A 10 Year Perspective

This paper examines participation and representation in ATSIC elections over the 10 year period since 1990. It attempts to identify patterns of participation and representation that seem to be emerging and what these might suggest about ATSIC's operation. By examining numbers of nominees compared to positions available, the paper suggests that ATSIC elected office has been fairly keenly and consistently sought and competed for by Indigenous people, though there may have been some slight initial reticence in the 1990 elections. By examining voter numbers and voter turnout, the paper suggests that voter participation nation-wide rose slightly from 1990 to 1996 and then largely stabilised in 1999. It also suggests that there have been significant variations from this national pattern at State and Territory levels and it explores some reasons for this. The paper also examines voter numbers and voter turnout at the ATSIC regional level since 1993 and finds that there has been much higher voter turnout in the sparsely settled regions of northern Australia and much lower voter turnout in the southern and urban areas. This is explained in terms of ATSIC program and expenditure priorities and in terms of polling place access. The final two sections of the paper examine the representation of women and Torres Strait Islanders among ATSIC elected representatives. Both are seen as significant issues which should be of some ongoing concern within ATSIC, alongside the issue of the southern/northern difference in voter participation.     

关于群众性文物工作往事与再认识

本文撰写于2011年,通过国家文物事业管理局在红安县召开座谈会,总结交流群众保护文物的情况和经验,与河北省贯彻座谈会精神,开展群众保护文物工作情况等,对开展群众保护工作提出五点再认识,指出它本质上是在文物保护工作中贯彻党的群众路线,对文物工作是带有根本性的问题.     

Geography, Space, and Science: Perspectives from Studies of Migration and Geographical Sorting

For the past four decades a significant subset of geographers have had a strong interest in using scientific methods and tools to answer questions about society and societal change. The scientific endeavor, learning and verifying new knowledge, has been at the heart of this project. Even though the discipline as a whole seems currently less interested in the classic science project, that project continues within geography and is a part of the wider social science community's attempt to provide verifiable and useful knowledge to a wide range of stakeholders. The findings from studies of migration and the life course, and segregation and geographical sorting reemphasize the very real contribution of spatial science to understanding societal change. Recent work on the geography of neighborhoods and mobility with the context of legal contestation goes beyond academic research per se to show the continuing relevance of an informed scientific approach and the contributions of geography beyond narrow disciplinary boundaries.     

Public and Private Policy Change: Pension Reform in Four Countries

This article offers a comparative, qualitative analysis of the changing nature of—and relationship between—public and private old age pensions in the United States, Canada, Britain, and Japan. Stressing the impact of institutional legacies on policy change, the article explains why these countries have taken contrasting paths toward the restructuring of public and private pension policies. The study finds that the four countries fall into two distinct clusters. On the one hand are Canada and the United States, which have essentially witnessed policy drift toward a greater reliance on private savings. On the other hand are Britain and Japan, which have reshaped their pension systems largely through legislative revision. The last section explains the differences between and within these two country clusters. The article concludes that institutional forces explain the distinctive policy patterns between the two country clusters but that it is necessary to bring in other factors (i.e., demographic aging, union density, and the role of ideas) to account for differences within each of these clusters.     

政治冲突与文化隔阂:杨名时案透视

本文引证雍正朱批奏折等资料 ,试图揭示杨名时案背后隐藏的委曲情节 ,并通过比较研究官方与民间两种不同文本系统的杨名时传记 ,对雍正蓄意制造这一冤案 ,不仅从政治角度作出解析 ,而且把它放在满汉文化冲突的背景下加以透视。