Decentralized governance and environmental change: Local institutional moderation of deforestation in Bolivia

Dozens of countries have decentralized at least part of their natural resource policies over the last two decades. Despite the length of time that these policy experiments have been in force, there is little agreement about their effectiveness. We argue that part of this ambivalence stems from three limitations of extant studies, suggesting that future studies of decentralized natural resource governance should consider a combination of 1) variation in the local institutional context, 2) the fit between the reform and other public policies, and 3) more adequate outcome measures for decentralized resource governance. After developing such an approach, we posit that varying forest conditions depend on the moderating effects that local institutions have on the socioeconomic and biophysical drivers of environmental change. Analyzing data from interviews and remotely sensed images from 30 municipalities in the Bolivian lowlands, we find that the local institutional performance affects unauthorized deforestation directly and indirectly, but detect no effects on either permitted or total deforestation. © 2006 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Individual characteristics, institutional incentives and electoral abstention in Western Europe

Abstract. This article examines the interaction between individual characteristics and institutional incentives in non–voting, with a special focus on the interaction between these two types of explanatory variables. The analysis of survey and contextual data for parliamentary elections in 15 Western European countries shows that the effect of individual resources and motivations on abstention is not constant across different countries. Conversely, the effect of institutional incentives (compulsory voting, voting facilities, electoral thresholds of representation and preference expression) on non–voting depends on the elector's level of resources and motivations. One of the four institutional incentives considered has even opposite effects for citizens with different individual characteristics. The analysis also shows that when analysing interactions it is fundamental to distinguish between magnitudes and consequences of the effects of explanatory variables. This has important implications for the interpretation of the results of logistic regression analysis.     

The diffusion of environmental management standards in Europe and in the United States: An institutional perspective

ISO 14001, released in 1996, provides the basic framework for the establishment of an Environmental Management System (EMS) that can be audited and certified. ISO is not only an acronym for the International Organization for Standardization, but is also a term that refers to its Greek meaning: equal. The main rationale for the creation of ISO 14001 was that its worldwide acceptance should facilitate international trade by harmonizing otherwise diffuse environmental management standards and by providing an internationally accepted blueprint for sustainable development, pollution prevention, and compliance assurance.However, the implementation of ISO 14001 varies significantly across the globe. A significant number of firms have adopted ISO 14001 in Western Europe and Asia. In December 1999, 52% of the 14,106 ISO 14001 certified facilities were located in Western Europe and 36% in Asia. On the contrary, very few American companies have adopted this voluntary standard. U.S. certified facilities accounted for only 4.5% of the total of ISO 14001 certified facilities in the world in December 1999.The U.S. institutional environment seems acting as a deterrent to ISO 14000 adoption as U.S. companies are fearful of the certification process which lays their performance open to public scrutiny. The opposite is true in Europe, where governments have encouraged the adoption of environmental management standards by setting up a trusted certification system and providing technical assistance to potential adopters.This paper offers a conceptual framework to analyze this variation in adoption rates. It is proposed that the regulatory, normative and cognitive aspects of a country's institutional environment greatly impact the costs and potential benefits of ISO 14001 adoption and therefore explain the differences in adoption across countries. The analysis is supported by data collected from a phone questionnaire to 140 firms in Europe and a questionnaire mailed to 152 firms in the U.S.     

A challenge for environmental governance: institutional change in a traditional common-property forest system

This article examines how the Miskito peoples of Río Plátano, Honduras have responded to agricultural expansion by migrant farmers and ranchers onto their ancestral forest lands, and considers the policy options for supporting the common-property system of the Miskito and the forests they have historically conserved. The analysis compares institutional changes in the common-property systems of three Miskito communities, each with a different history of colonization. The findings illustrate that the Miskito response to the colonists has been multifaceted, and that while the Miskito leaders have made institutional changes to strengthen their common-property system, these changes are not necessarily reflected in the daily decisions of the Miskito people. The findings suggest that policies that support indigenous rulemaking abilities, specifically policies that legitimize indigenous rights to their lands and provide the resources to apply those rights, may be vital to maintain robust common-property systems and the frontier forests in the region.     

Embedding the 'new economy' in Europe: a study in the institutional specificities of knowledge-based growth

Aspirations for a 'new economy' currently feature prominently in the economic policy debate within the EU. So pronounced is elite interest in the 'new economy' that the issue of knowledge-based growth dominated the Special European Council organized for Lisbon in May 2000. However, the Presidential Conclusions to that Council failed to address the question of whether the European economy is institutionally compatible with knowledge-based growth. The 'new economy' is currently most developed within the United States, and the institutional specificities of the American high-tech sector suggest that it may be impossible simply to import the 'new economy' into Europe. The EU may lack both the labour market and the capital market conditions necessary for successfully embedding the 'new economy' in Europe.     

The politics of institutional reform in Italy

This article reviews the recent Italian debate on possible constitutional and institutional reforms aimed at improving governmental decision‐making capacity. In the first section, the post‐war institutional developments are briefly discussed to show how the present problems have emerged. Various reform proposals affecting the electoral system, Parliament and government are then analysed, together with the political pre‐conditions and consequences linked to their possible adoption. With reference to these political considerations, the various kinds of reform are evaluated in terms of their capacity to achieve their goals and of their acceptability to the political parties.     

The boundary conditions for regulation: Welfare systems,state traditions,and the varied governance of work safety in Europe

Studies of the relationship between the welfare and regulatory state have hitherto either focused on the latter displacing the former, or presented regulation as an alternative means for achieving welfare goals. Little is known, however, about their varied mutual interactions. This article addresses that gap by examining the coevolution of workers' compensation and occupational safety regulation in Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. Drawing on an extensive international analysis of primary documents, secondary literature, and interviews with regulator, insurance, business, and labor representatives, the article identifies strikingly varied but stable national preferences for: (a) the use of financial versus regulatory instruments and (b) the allocation of regulatory responsibilities between state and nonstate actors. The article presents a novel explanation of that variation as dependent on the relative coherence of interactions between the particular cost‐control logics of welfare provision and wider norms and traditions of state action in each country.     

The congressional foundations of agency performance

When Congress delegates a policy mandate to a regulatory agency, Congress acts as a principal, choosing the institutional arrangements, or the ‘rules of the game’ for agency decision making. Individuals in the agency, acting as agents, take the rules of the game as given and do the best they can within these institutional arrangements. In this paper we develop a simple model that relates the congressional choice of institutional arrangements to two underlying environmental factors — uncertainty and conflict. We suggest that uncertainty and conflict of interest lead Congress, in delegating, to prescribe a greater scope of permissable regulatory activity, a wider array of regulatory instruments, and more confining regulatory procedures. Increased scope and stronger instruments tend to broaden the overall discretionary authority of the agency, while more confining procedures tend to narrow it. We conjecture that with increased uncertainty or conflict the narrowing tendency more than offsets the broadening tendency, for a net decrease in the agency's overall discretionary authority. Lastly, we argue that the performance of a regulatory agency in fulfilling its mandate is determined in large measure by the foundations Congress constructs for the implementation of delegated authority.     

The institutional dimension of election design

The traditional approach to election design focuses solely on the best method to aggregate the preferences of the voters. But elections are run by institutions, and the interests of the institution may not be reflected in the preferences of the voter. In this comment I discuss how institutional considerations come into play in election design in three areas: political representation, corporate voting, and judging in competitions. As an illustration of this institutional approach I appraise the method by which the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences selects the nominees and winners of the Oscars.     

The liberal character of ethological governance

This paper examines the liberal government of ‘character’ from the perspective offered by those practices, strategies and techniques I term ‘ethological governance’. Ethological governance is neither an ideology nor a tradition of thought, but denotes an orientation to human conduct that is organized by an explicit concern with character and its formation. The paper argues that ethological governance, especially in its Anglo-American strain, subscribes to a developmental notion of human conduct (i.e. character) and serves as a standard for liberal government by judging the responsible exercise of freedom. To this end, the paper examines how ethological governance establishes a context of government that harnesses character as a tool for social and political transformation in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by (1) explaining how character establishes a normative scale against which the capacity for individuals to practise their freedom is measured and (2) offering a symptomatic reading of those aspects of John Stuart Mill's work that deal with ethology in order to show how character indexes the judicious limits of government and serves as a basic test of citizenly competence.     

Policy preferences and ministerial structures: Immigrant integration governance in Western Europe, 1997–2017

This article tests an often‐stated assumption in the “machinery of government” literature: that government parties’ issue and policy preferences affect the ministerial structure. Using a new Dataset on Immigrant Integration Governance (DIIG) that documents the ministerial structure of immigrant integration in 16 Western European countries during 1997–2017, the analysis finds that divergence and change characterize the ministerial structure. The analysis finds that right‐oriented governments are more inclined to couple integration with immigration and justice than are left‐oriented governments, indicating different policy preferences. However, it does not find that governments with radical parties are more inclined to signal “integration” in ministerial titles. The study's comparative approach challenges the generalizability of existing knowledge on drivers of ministerial changes. Additionally, it fills a gap in current immigrant integration literature: the study of the horizontal governance structure.     

The many faces of EU committee governance

Committees linking national administrations and the EU level play a crucial role at all stages of the EU policy process. The literature tends to portray this group system as a coherent mass, characterised by expert-oriented ‘deliberative supranationalism’, a term developed through studies of comitology (implementation) committees. This article builds on survey data of 218 national officials in 14 member states who have attended EU committee meetings. These groups exhibit important common features: expert knowledge rather than country size plays a pivotal role in the decision making process; across types of committee, participants evoke multiple allegiances and identities. In spite of loyalty to national institutions, there is also a sense of belonging to the committees as such, though with significant variation among types of committee. Council and comitology groups are strongly intergovernmental, while Commission committees seem more multi-faceted. The primary aim here is to give an empirical account, but the main observations are interpreted from an institutional and organisational perspective.     

区域治理:地区主义视角下的治理模式

冷战结束以来国际社会所发生的一系列重大变革似乎预示着一个治理社会的来临 ,治理被成功地运用于国际关系的实际操作领域。区域治理则是治理模式与地区主义进程的巧妙结合 ,而欧洲联盟通常被认为是区域治理的一个成功模式。本文分析了地区主义与区域治理的互动关系 ,介绍了欧盟的治理模式 ,并以此为基础 ,展望了未来区域治理的发展趋势     

The diversity of reproductive trajectories and institutional interactions

"This article presents results from research carried out between 1989 and 1991 in a rural region in the state of Morelos [Mexico], beginning from an analysis centered in the interactions between health agents and women.... Using both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, several reproductive trajectories were identified and analyzed, allowing an assessment, on the one hand, of the intensity of women's interactions with health institutions, their community, and their partner and, on the other hand, a characterization of the social trajectories of women as a fundamental factor in their integration with the biomedical system." (SUMMARY IN ENG)     

The Moralization of the Markets in Europe

Nothing effects modern society more than the decisions made in the market place, especially (but not only) the judgments of consumers. The designation of market relations in modern societies as the “moralization of the markets” represents a novel stage in the social evolution of markets. Market theories still widely in use today emerged in a society that no longer exists. Today, growing affluence, greater knowledge, and hi-speed communication among consumers builds into the marketplace notions of fairness, solidarity, environment, health, and political considerations imbued with a long-term perspective that can disrupt short-term pursuits of the best buy. Importantly, such social goals, individual apprehensions, and models of consumer conduct become inscribed in products and services offered in the marketplace, as well as in the rules and regulations that govern market relations.