Strategies of Policy Advocacy Organizations and Their Theoretical Affinities: Evidence from Q‐Methodology

Policy advocacy is an increasingly important function for many nonprofit organizations, yet their advocacy activities have largely escaped theoretical grounding. The literature on nonprofits has described how they engage in policy advocacy, without linking them to theories of policy change. The policy studies literature, on the other hand, has explained how various forms of influence result in policy change, but has largely ignored organizational perspectives on those processes. These two literatures remain largely disconnected. Drawing upon interviews with a purposive sample of policy advocacy directors at 31 nonprofit organizations, this study applies Q‐methodology to identify and describe six distinct policy advocacy strategies employed by the organizations, and their resonant theoretical views of policy processes. These findings suggest strategic approaches for nonprofits seeking to influence policy processes. They also enhance the academic literature on policy processes by adding the advocates’ views and expectations. Implications for further research are also identified.     

建国初期闵行镇归属问题研究

明代中后期,闵行镇凭借其便利的交通条件与繁荣的棉花种植业,成为上海县重要的商业市镇。近代以来,随着上海城市的发展,闵行镇与上海城区间经济联系不断密切,政治地位也日趋重要。新中国成立初期,优先发展重工业的国家政策与华东沿海地区的战略地位,使得民国时期奠定重工业基础的闵行镇备受各方重视。在国家政策、经济体制、地方利益等因素的综合作用下,闵行镇最终由江苏省上海县划归上海市。     

从“良渚全考古”到“良博全展示”——以良渚博物院2018年改陈策展为例

良渚考古工作历经八十余年,考古内涵不断丰富,考古价值不断提升,已进入到"良渚全考古"时代,是边发现、边研究、边保护、边利用、边传承的模式。2018年良渚博物院改陈,进入"良博全展示"阶段。现有的展览全面展示良渚考古成果,全面呈现良渚文化内涵,全面阐释良渚文明价值,全面解读良渚遗存信息。良渚的展示除了依靠文物本身或图文所呈现和传递的信息,还采用过程性展示、功能性展示、复原性展示、对比性展示、演变性展示、场景性展示等多种手段,多角度、全方位地解读和展示遗物,力图将良渚文物的故事讲清楚、讲明白。     

基于快递物流测度的区域流动空间特征——以江苏省为例

在信息技术推动下,流动空间作为新时期的新空间形式在带来时空压缩效应的同时不断地强化着区域城市间联系,推动着社会经济资源的城际流通。快递物流是互联网交易的虚拟流与快速交通实体流交互产生的物质流动,其代表了流动空间的虚实二元性,是研究流动空间网络特征的有效切入点。以江苏十三个城市为研究区域,以六家物流公司的网站数据为数据来源,采用权重分析法和重力模型方法建立起区域城市的快递物流水平、城市间流动空间连接度及城市快递物流总体评价等三项指标,结合区域流动空间的指标分析发现区域流动空间具有网络一体化、去中心化、扁平化、等级化及点轴式等五大特征,基于流动空间的可视化研究发现江苏省区域城市间关系显示出了一个具有等级特征的多中心扁平化点轴网络,围绕南京、苏州、徐州的都市圈一体化发展态势成为提高区域流动空间流动能力的重要突破方向。     

Smells like politics: planning and the inconvenient politics of intensive peri‐urban agriculture

Intensive farming is an increasing part of Australian agriculture, including in the multi‐functional landscapes at the edges of Australian cities. The example of intensive “broiler” poultry production reveals the tensions that arise when sites of hyper‐productivity conflict with social change in rural areas. Planning processes for intensive farming in the Australian state of Victoria are predicated on stability and consensus: on assumed static and uncontroversial ideas of agriculture, its place, and the primacy of agricultural productivity. Yet concerns about the industrialisation of agriculture are live political issues at the local level, especially in dynamic peri‐urban locations. This paper explores the emergence of a politics of place outside the bounds of planning consensus through an analysis of planning appeals and associated media relating to planning permits for intensive poultry developments in Victoria over 2011–2016. We highlight tensions that exist in relation to technical planning assessments and categorisations used to assert farming as the orthodox use of rural land, especially when new forms of farming look and feel demonstrably different. Using Mouffe's problematising of the negation of antagonism and Rancière's notion of the risks of a false consensus democracy, we argue that planning processes for intensive farming illustrate critical issues in participatory planning. While ostensibly post‐political decision‐making narrows the politics of place and food systems to decisions about policing the boundaries and buffer distances placed around intensive poultry developments, alternative representations of rural life persist. The certainty offered by code‐based planning does not negate the ongoing (if inconvenient) politics of intensive peri‐urban agriculture.     

Experimental investigation of carbon dioxide trapping due to capillary retention in saline aquifers

Capillary trapping is a physical mechanism by which carbon dioxide (CO₂) is naturally immobilized in the pore spaces of aquifer rocks during geologic carbon sequestration operations, and thus a key aspect of estimating geologic storage potential. Here, we studied capillary trapping of supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO₂), and the effect of initial scCO₂ saturation and flow rate on the storage/trapping potential of Berea sandstone. We performed two‐phase, scCO₂‐brine displacements in two samples, each subject to four sequential drainage–imbibition core‐flooding cycles to quantify end‐point saturations of scCO₂ with the aid of micro‐ and macro‐computed tomography imaging. From these experiments, we found that between 51% and 75% of the initial CO₂ injected can be left behind after the brine injection. We also observed that the initial scCO₂ saturation influenced the residual scCO₂ saturation to a greater extent than the rate of brine injection under the experimental conditions examined. In spite of differences in the experimental conditions tested, as well as those reported in the literature, initial and residual saturations were found to follow a consistent relationship.     

Traditions and transitions: teenagers' perceptions of parading in Belfast

The purpose of this article is to explore and illuminate teenagers' experiences of, and attitudes to, parades in Belfast. The research draws on responses from 125 teenagers located in interface areas (areas where Catholics and Protestants live side by side but apart) to government supported attempts to rebrand Orangefest (traditional parade associated with Protestant/Unionist/Loyalist community) and St Patrick's Day (traditional parade associated with Catholic/Nationalist/Republican community) as all-inclusive community events. For the most part, young people access these parades in pre-existing, single identity peer groups and view these parades as either inclusive or exclusive calling into question the extent to which Belfast's city centre can be viewed as shared space.     

Reaching across: institutional barriers to cross‐ethnic parties in post‐conflict societies and the case of Northern Ireland

This paper investigates the paradox in post‐conflict societies of continued marginality of cross‐ethnic parties despite significant convergence in public attitudes and identities. In so doing, it examines the argument that parties that attempt to reach across the divide are constrained by consocational institutions designed to accommodate rival identities in such environments. The paper explores this puzzle in the context of Northern Ireland, drawing upon qualitative evidence from elite interviews and focus groups collected in 2012 and 2013. It concludes that cross‐community parties operating in the region do encounter formal institutional barriers, but that such barriers only partially explain the phenomenon and an interplay between formal and informal constraints underlies their position of relatively limited electoral success.     

Geography and Global Change Science: Relationships Necessary,Absent, and Possible

Initiated by geoscientists, the growing debate about the Anthropocene, ‘planetary boundaries’ and global ‘tipping points’ is a significant opportunity for geographers to reconfigure two things: one is the internal relationships among their discipline's many and varied perspectives (topical, philosophical, and methodological) on the real; the other the discipline's actual and perceived contributions to important issues in the wider society. Yet, without concerted effort and struggle, the opportunity is likely to be used in a ‘safe’ and rather predictable way by only a sub‐set of human‐environment geographers. The socio‐environmental challenges of a post‐Holocene world invite old narratives about Geography's holistic intellectual contributions to be reprised in the present. These narratives speak well to many geoscientists, social scientists, and decision‐makers outside Geography. However, they risk perpetuating an emaciated conception of reality wherein Earth systems and social systems are seen as knowable and manageable if the ‘right’ ensemble of expertise is achieved. I argue that we need to get out from under the shadow of these long‐standing narratives. Using suggestive examples, I make the case for forms of inquiry across the human‐physical ‘divide’ that eschew ontological monism and that serve to reveal the many legitimate cognitive, moral, and aesthetic framings of Earth present and future. Geography is unusual in that the potential for these forms of inquiry to become normalised is high compared with other subjects. This potential will only be taken advantage of if certain human‐environment geographers unaccustomed to engaging the world of geoscience and environmental policy change their modus operandi.