Energy Security and Climate Change in the European Union,China and Latin American Relationships:Major Challenges and Areas of International Cooperation

The author discusses the subject in both ecological and political perspectives based on a most comprehensive,authoritative and updated bibliography.Hence,Latin America and the Caribbean(LAC) is as much diversified as there are sub-regions and regional organizations in geopolitical and geo-economical terms and often dialectic regarding energy security,climate change and LAC ties with Europeans and China and so is the tripartite relations with the rest of the world so far as energy security and climate cha...     

The Politics of Climate Change Adaptation in Development: Authority,Resource Control and State Intervention in Rural Zambia

In this article, we call for more attention to the national and local politics of climate change in developing countries, and contribute to this through a study of climate change adaptation interventions in Zambia. We show how such interventions form part of central state efforts to extend authority and control over natural resources, and how competing institutional actors such as local governments and chiefs seek to counter this. The article thereby shows how climate change adaptation is emerging as a new arena for deep-seated political and institutional struggles over issues such as authority, land control and devolution in development.     

Fast spinning into oblivion? Recent developments in money-laundering policies and offshore finance centres

This article examines the growth of money-laundering in conjunction with the associated development of offshore finance centres (OFCs) located in small places such as islands or microstates in the Caribbean and elsewhere. The phenomenal growth of OFCs since the 1960s may be seen in terms of the 'four spaces'. Three of these 'spaces-the secrecy space (confidentiality); the regulatory space; and the political space-can be used to frame an analysis of the growth of offshore finance and the emergence of a suitable environment for international money-laundering. The article then examines recent policy developments concerning money-laundering and OFCs, such as the workings of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), and the regional Task Forces such as the Caribbean Task Force. Finally, the article explores the changing way 'offshore' is being constructed as exemplified by rising onshore pressure from the OECD, G7, the EU and, most recently, the UK government, with its growing concern demonstrated by the 1998 unprecedented Home Office and FCO reviews of both British Isles and Caribbean OFCs.     

Political economy,poverty, and polycentrism in the Global Environment Facility’s Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) for Climate Change Adaptation

Climate change adaptation refers to altering infrastructure, institutions or ecosystems to respond to the impacts of climate change. Least developed countries often lack the requisite capacity to implement adaptation projects. The Global Environment Facility’s Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) is a scheme where industrialised countries have disbursed $934.5 million in voluntary contributions to support 213 adaptation projects across 51 least developed countries. But how effective are its efforts—and what sort of challenges have arisen as it implements projects? To provide some answers, this article documents the presence of four “political economy” attributes of adaptation projects—processes we have termed enclosure, exclusion, encroachment and entrenchment—cutting across economic, political, ecological and social dimensions. Based on extensive field research, we find the four processes at work simultaneously in our case studies of five LDCF projects being implemented in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, the Maldives and Vanuatu. The article concludes with a discussion of the broader implications of the political economy of adaptation for analysts, program managers and climate researchers at large. In sum, the politics of adaptation must be taken into account so that projects can maximise their efficacy and avoid marginalising those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.     

A changing world: is the UN development system ready?

This article examines five contemporary areas of development concern that have become major drivers of global transformation since the turn of the millennium: the plight of fragile states; the emergence of new powers and new development funds in a changing aid landscape; the need for developing countries to manage the growing resources at their disposal; encroachments on the political sovereignty of states; and new global challenges that demand global action, including climate change, migration, and food security. These drivers of change call for responses from the UN – and in particular its development system of some 30 organisations. The ongoing protracted debate on the future UN development agenda should take cognisance of these changes if the system is to remain relevant after 2015. But the signs are not promising that either the agenda or the UN development system are up to the task.     

The end of green gold? Comparative development options and strategies in the Eastern Caribbean banana-producing islands

Bananas were the basis of the political economy of Dominica, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent during the 40 or so years from their establishment as a crop in the 1950s to the beginning of their decline in the 1990s. Because of successive shifts in European Union policy and successful challenges within the World Trade Organization to the protectionist regime that banana production in these islands enjoyed throughout this period, these three small Eastern Caribbean countries are being pushed inexorably into the “post-banana” era. Their efforts to find a new niche within the global political economy are being led in each case by new, modernizing, labor party governments that won elections and came into office during a brief four-year period between 1997 and 2001. Each government faces the same broad development challenge, but employs different resources, leadership skills, and political style. At the same time, each can be said to be pursuing what is best described as a kind of “managerial populist” development. The range of development options faced by these islands is narrow in the extreme, but they have shown that they can still exercise some limited room to move forward into the post-banana era. Anthony Payne is professor of politics, at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom. He was the managing editor of the journalNew Political Economy from 1996 to 2005. He is the author of several books and articles on the Caribbean and on development and globalization. The most recent includeCharting Caribbean Development (University Press of Florida, 2001), co-authored with Paul Sutton;The Global Politics of Unequal Development (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005); and, as editor,Key Debates in New Political Economy (Routledge, 2006). The author would like to thank the Nuffield Foundation for supporting fieldwork in Dominica, St. Lucia, and St., Vincent in July 2004.     

Institutions and Caribbean Economic Performance: Insights from Jamaica

We explore the impact of social institutions on economic performance in Jamaica through a reinterpretation of the plantation economic model. In its original form, the plantation model fails to develop a causal link between the plantation legacy and persistent underdevelopment. Despite its marginalization, the model remains useful for discussions on growth and development. Consequently, we offer a reappraisal using the causal insights from Kenneth Sokoloff and Stanley Engerman. We use two examples to demonstrate how inequality encourages the formation of institutions that are inconsistent with growth, and an empirical analysis to confirm the hypothesized relationship between inequality, institutions, and economic development. Since inequality is expected to influence growth indirectly, we use a structural specification, which follows William Easterly’s recent test of Sokoloff and Engerman’s argument. Our reliance on a time-series specification is unique. We demonstrate that the expectation that, on average, inequality and growth is negatively related and that institutions may compromise growth are accurate for Jamaica, the most cited Caribbean nation in the current discourse. Our results carry several policy implications, including support for the recent calls in Jamaica for political restructuring. However, both the paucity of similar studies and the importance of the implications for sustainable growth and development demand further analyses.

From authoritarianism to political democracy in Grenada: Questions for U.S. policy

Beginning as early as 1498 when Grenada had its initial contact with metropolitan forces, this island state has experienced little of the political democracy U.S. President Reagan pledged to restore to the country as part of the 1983 intervention. Yet, for the 1984 elections that followed the toppling of the remaining vestiges of the 1979–83 revolution, the United States and selected Caribbean allies attempted to amalgamate a party as an alternative to the Grenada United Labour Party (GULP) and the remaining revolutionary forces. The resulting New National Party (NNP) was electorally successful in 1984 but by 1987 defections from the Party had produced a base for the National Democratic Congress (NDC). In 1989 the NNP again divided. It was thus predictable that the 1990 elections would not return either wing of the National Party and instead would result in a coalition government led by the NDC. Chances for real political democracy in Grenada are improved but will not be easily realized in the face of severe economic crisis and a potentially weak government. The economic crisis could well promote current movements toward increased regional integration. It is important that the 1983–1984 pledge of the United States to promote democratization in Grenada be honored. W. Marvin Will is associate professor of comparative politics in the Department of Political Science at the University of Tulsa. He is past president of the Midwest Association of Latin American Studies and a founding member of the Caribbean Studies Association. Will has done extensive field research in the Caribbean and is the recipient of a 1991–92 Fulbright Research Fellowship for Caribbean Research. He is co-author of a forthcoming book on the Pacific and Caribbean Basins.     

Indicators of political development

Development implies goals and the positing of goals requires values. Economists have generally agreed that the increase of wealth (or perhaps welfare) is the proper object of economic development. Political scientists, probably happily, have no similar agreement in regard to the appropriate goal for political development. Moreover, it is doubtful that the various aspects of political change are located along a single continuum. This is an empirical question but investigation ought to begin at least with provision for an n‐dimensional space. Finally, political scientists should concentrate on political change that has too often been neglected in favour of economic and purely social change.     

Implicating ‘fisheries justice’ movements in food and climate politics

Abstract

While much debate on climate change has emerged around food, forest and land politics, the fisheries sector has only recently become more visibly implicated in these discussions. Similarly, in comparison to food and agrarian movements, fishers’ resistance to intensified mitigation efforts and resource exclusion is still significantly understudied academically, and receives little attention in political spheres. This highlights a critical gap in both food and climate politics literature, which this paper aims to present a framework for addressing. To do so, it contextualises the emergence of overlapping processes of exclusion in global fisheries, and explores the implications global food system transformations have had in the fisheries sector, and the reactions this has spurred from South African fishers. It then traces the convergence of fishers’ movements with other resource justice movements, and how this has contributed to the rise of ‘fisheries justice’. Finally, it presents four interlinked propositions – highlighting food sovereignty, resource access and conflict, climate change and mitigation, convergences between movements, and alternatives proposed by fishers – as a framework for how incorporating fisheries and fishers’ movements can broaden our understanding of transnational social movements, and expand the depth and scope of food and climate politics.     

‘LADIES A YOUR TIME NOW!’ Erotic politics,lovers' rock and resistance in the UK

‘Lovers’ rock' is a largely overlooked genre of ‘Black British’ reggae music that emerged in London during the 1970s through Caribbean nightclubs and ‘pirate radio’ stations. Lovers’ rock was an integral part of the reggae music scene of that period. However, lovers rock became gendered as genre that appealed particularly to the romantic aspirations of black teenaged girls growing up in ‘Thatcher's Britain’. Within the political context of the dancehall scene, both lovers rock and roots reggae are seen as binary opposites of each other – lovers being ‘soft’ feminised reggae concerned with romantic love, and roots as masculinised ‘serious’ reggae concerned with black oppositional politics. Using black feminist theories on love and the erotic, this paper challenges the gendering of lovers' rock by suggesting that the genre was part of a much broader and complex political expression of love and rebellion amongst Caribbean communities in Britain. Indeed, while the gendering process is highly problematic, this paper also argues that Caribbean communities had also used the erotic and political intersection of both genres to reconfigure racist and sexist representations of their identities. As such Caribbean males and females had created their own ethic of ‘loving blackness’ as a way of restoring and validating their experiences within Britain's often hostile urban centres.     

The challenge of locating land-based climate change mitigation and adaptation politics within a social justice perspective: towards an idea of agrarian climate justice

Abstract

The global land rush and mainstream climate change narratives have broadened the ranks of state and social actors concerned about land issues, while strengthening those opposed to social justice-oriented land policies. This emerging configuration of social forces makes the need for deep social reforms through redistribution, recognition, restitution, regeneration and resistance – book-ended by the twin principles of ‘maximum land size’ (‘size ceiling’) and a ‘guaranteed minimum land access’ (‘size floor’) – both more compelling and urgent, and, at the same time, more difficult than ever before. The five deep social reforms of socially just land policy are necessarily intertwined. But the global land rush amidst deepening climate change calls attention to the linkages, especially between the pursuit of agrarian justice on the one hand and climate justice on the other. Here, the relationship is not without contradictions, and warrants increased attention as both unit of analysis and object of political action. Understanding and deepening agrarian justice imperatives in climate politics, and understanding and deepening climate justice imperatives in agrarian politics, is needed more than ever in the ongoing pursuit of alternatives.     

Taiwan in the Caribbean: a case study in state de-recognition

The rich and complex recent International Political Sociology (IPS) literature on state recognition has completely ignored the process of de-recognition. The present article uses the case study of Taiwan’s efforts to preserve its ‘diplomatic allies’ in the Caribbean in order to fill this gap. Taking advantage of the IPS development of the constitutive theory of recognition, it introduces and analyses the concept of state de-recognition while emphasizing the deep contradiction between present international law principles and the political reality of national identity building as well as the de-linking of political science and international law understandings of recognition made possible by the progress of the constitutive theory. De-recognition is perceived as resulting in a hierarchical relationship between recognized and de-recognized political entities that is arbitrary and ethically questionable as it ultimately reflects the denial of the right to self-determination of peoples.     

Westminster in small states: comparing the Caribbean and pacific experience

Small states, and those in the Caribbean and Pacific regions in particular, are among the most stubbornly and disproportionally democratic countries in the world. And yet, they are rarely studied comparatively, despite sharing seemingly obvious similarities – aside from being small island states with developing economies they also tend to share a British colonial heritage and Westminster-inspired political institutions. This omission is all the more puzzling if we consider that the group does not conform to the standard battery of explanations developed by democratization theorists. To pave the way for further research across these two regions, this article provides a synoptic comparison of the process of democratization in Caribbean and Pacific small states. We highlight important similarities and differences that stem from the interaction between formal institutions and informal practices. We conclude by reiterating the benefits for scholars of democratization by looking at these significant yet hitherto rarely compared cases.     

China’s international socialization of Caribbean state-society complexes: Trinidad and Tobago as a case study

ABSTRACT

Using the case study of Trinidad and Tobago, this article analyzes the process of reciprocal international socialization that allows Beijing to construct a cognitive and normative space conducive to a new regional order in the Caribbean which should be politically friendly, economically profitable, and socially open to its government, companies, and citizens. We argue that there has been a shift in the identity of Trinidad’s state-society complex due to the influence of China’s very visible political, economic, and social conditionalities. Their impact on political elites (which is reflected in government discourse and actions) and on the society at large (as shown by interviews with 30 Trinidadian nationals) is analyzed in order to show that Type I, ‘role playing’ socialization has been reached. However, frustration within Trinidad’s society with the domestic effects of China’s economic and social conditionalities clearly limits the potential for the evolution toward the more advanced Type II socialization exemplified, in the same region, by the Soviet-Cuban relationship. This suggests that, at least in the near future, key features of the Chinese approach incompatible with its self-proclaimed win-win nature will prevent Beijing from upgrading its status to that of a decisive socializer in the Caribbean.     

Pathway to resilience: hands and hearts for peasant livelihoods and fair relations between humans and nature

Abstract

Peasants and rural communities are on the front lines of most climate catastrophes taking place nowadays worldwide; at the same time, we have been the ones taking care of our common planet over generations. This article begins with a brief overview of the current situation of land use in the world today and links it to climate issues. It then describes some of the solutions to climate threats being negotiated between national governments and the private sector. It then highlights solutions that communities are already implementing and concludes with the reasons why systemic change is needed in order to achieve agrarian and climate justice.     

美国气候变化政策演变特征和奥巴马政府气候变化政策走向

美国气候变化政策发展大致经历了四个阶段,主要表现出如下特点：从地位上看,美国气候变化政策经历了从一般性程度上升到战略性高度的过程;从内容上看,美国气候变化政策是变化性与延续性相结合的产物;从政府首脑来看,其党派属性对气候变化政策影响重大。奥巴马政府任期内,“积极应对”将会成为美国气候政策的主旋律,但是其国内政策能否有效推进取决于多重因素的相互制衡。美国依旧会继续避免作出实质性的减排承诺,并且会继续要求发展中国家也参与到全球温室气体减排中来,只是形式将会更加间接化和多样化,同时会加强与主要发展中国家的合作力度,并有望打破小布什退出《京都议定书》造成的僵局。     

NEW GOVERNANCE ARRANGEMENTS AT THE INTERSECTION OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND FOREST POLICY: INSTITUTIONAL,POLITICAL AND REGULATORY DIMENSIONS

This article investigates emerging governance arrangements at the intersection between forest management and climate policy. The authors deploy the symposium's three‐dimensional framework to describe and evaluate developments within two distinct policy sectors (forestry/climate change adaptation and mitigation) at several levels of governance (bi‐national, national, and sub‐national) to explore the nature and operation of the emerging governance arrangements, and assessing and measuring change within these arrangements over time. Drawing on four contemporary case studies from the US and Canada, New Zealand, British Columbia and Alaska, the authors discern little evidence of a generalized, linear trend from ‘government to governance’. Instead, they conclude, across institutional, political and regulatory dimensions of governance, a more variegated and diverse picture emerges. Their analysis also lends support for the Trubek and Trubek (2007) hypothesis that emerging governance arrangements typically interact with extant ones through modalities of rivalry, complementarity and transformation.     

Who is to Blame? Agency,Causality, Responsibility and the Role of Experts in Russian Framings of Global Climate Change

This article analyses the politics of Russian climate change by pinpointing how global warming has been framed over a seven year period in a government-owned, leading daily newspaper, Rossiiskaya Gazeta, and how climate experts have intervened in such framings. Russia's climate politics is first summarised and then three framings of climate change are identified and examined. Secondly, the role that expert voices play in the framing of climate change is discussed. The article concludes with a presentation of key findings about scientists' involvement in public debate and hypotheses about the overall trajectory of Russian climate politics.     

Project oasis: A case study in jamaican development administration

This paper is concerned with development administration in practice, at the level of a particular project which was implemented in the Caribbean island of Jamaica in 1979. We are essentially concerned with the problem of the degree of fit between operational project objectives and the management of project resources, including personnel. The intent is to provide empirical evidence of some of the major difficulties encountered in the field by the development administrator, with a focus upon project organization and the managerial sub-system. We found the management of Project OASIS to be characterized by the lack of control mechanisms, weak discipline, and inadequate information flows. These problems were only exacerbated by the nature of the local policy environment. Development is in fact particularly difficult to administer. The conclusion emphasizes the need to involve the target communities directly in both development planning and in the process of implementation. It is also imperative to mobilize and maintain sufficient political concensus to attain the agreed outcomes, on the basis of a congruent ordering of values and utilities.