Coal Miners and the Transformation of the USSR

A specialist on Russian local and regional government examines relations among levels of political authority within Tyumen' Oblast'. Russian-language publications and on-site interviews constitute the base of evidence. Issues examined include challenges to the region posed by dissolution of the USSR, legal and political conflicts among levels of government, relations with federal authorities in Moscow, the role of oil companies in the region, and the impact of changes introduced under President Putin.     

South Africa’s multiple faces in current climate clubs

Climate clubs emerged as a concept to revitalise the international climate change negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and mitigate the free-riding problem. The underlying idea suggests that countries committed to reducing emissions can advance a stable coalition in the form of a club with other countries. As a result, more countries would put forth targets for more ambitious emissions reductions. This article analyses South Africa’s memberships in current climate related clubs. We contextualise South African climate club governance in its wider geopolitical and national context of low-carbon development. The purpose of the analysis is to identify if and how South Africa can possibly contribute to advancing ambition for change within climate clubs. Furthermore, it advances ideas about possible design options for climate clubs that may appeal to developing countries.     

Main-streaming the climate change and green growth agenda into development visions: A narrative from selected sub-Sahara African countries

Abstract

Primary commodities continue to play a critical role in the economic development of many economies in Africa. However, the climate change phenomenon is threatening the role of these commodities through two routes. First, through its demand for a development trajectory that mitigates and adapts to climate change by following a less primary commodities-intensive development agenda, and second, climate change induced extreme weather events such as floods and drought that threaten the production of some of these commodities, Through a case study of four primary commodities-intense African economies: South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and Cameroon, this article examines the degree and intensity of the articulation of the climate change and green growth agenda in the policy documents that shape the development agendas of these countries. The findings indicate a paucity of discussions on the green growth agenda in the development visions of all the countries except South Africa. In contrast, there is a general discussion of the challenges that climate change poses to the development efforts and articulation of the need to mitigate and adapt to these challenges. The need for mitigation and adaptation is proactively articulated in the post-2007 development visions of South Africa, Nigeria and Cameroon and retrospectively discussed through complementary policy documents supporting the pre-2007 development vision of Kenya. What remains to be determined, is how these visions will be translated into specific policies and implemented in order to enable these economies to adapt to and mitigate climate change in a manner that allows them to sustainably exploit some of their primary commodities and to compete in a world that in the future will increasingly demand green products and services.     

Climate change: Double-edged sword for African trade and development

Abstract

African governments face increasing pressure from major export destinations, primarily former colonial and slave-owning countries, to be climate change compliant. This will certainly be on display at the upcoming December 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, which will seek to strengthen climate change rules agreed on in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, and adopt new protocols on global climate change regulation. Climate change is a double-edged sword: on one side it is hitting Africa's agricultural sector with increased droughts, floods, extreme frost and wildfires; and on the other, African governments are being forced to respond to stringent regulatory regimes imposed by international export destinations. Currently, the per capita greenhouse gas emissions from the highly industrialised nations – the North – is estimated to be four times that of Africa and the rest of the developing world. Twin research questions were investigated in this article: (1) to what extent does climate change impact on African trade and development, and (2) how can African governments stay on a path of sustained trade and development in this era of climate change? The article argues that Africa's survival in these times of climate change compliance rests on a shift to greater intra-African trade, as individual nations move towards cleaner and more organic technologies to become full-fledged partners in the international climate change regulatory regime.     

'Liberation' or capture: Youth in between 'hakuma', and 'home' during civil war and its aftermath in Southern Sudan

Generational tension and youth crisis have been prominent themesin recent analyses of civil conflict in Africa. Field researchin Southern Sudan in 2004–2006 suggests that the analysisdoes not fit the Sudanese war. This article examines a structuralopposition between the sphere of military/government (the ‘hakuma’)and the sphere of ‘home’. It argues that to be a‘youth’ in Southern Sudan means to inhabit the tensionsof the space between these spheres. While attempting to resistcapture by either sphere, youth have used their recruitmentby the military to invest in their home or family sphere. Theiraspiration to ‘responsibility’ illustrates not generationalrebellion, but the moral continuity in local society, also evidentin discussions of marriage.     

试论基础四国在后哥本哈根气候谈判中的立场和作用

基础四国是由中国、印度、巴西和南非四个主要发展中国家组成的气候谈判集团,鉴于其成员在发展中国家和世界上的影响力,该集团在国际气候谈判中备受关注。在构建2012年后国际气候机制的谈判中,基础四国的立场表现出了很高的协调性,但也存在一定的差异。总体而言,基础四国的出现和协调行动推动了国际气候谈判在公约框架下展开,有利于后京都气候安排的达成,但也可能促使国际气候谈判集团,特别是G77加中国的分化和重新组合。基础四国气候谈判集团出现时间尚短,其最终能够在构建后京都气候机制中发挥何种作用将取决于基础四国在应对气候变化中如何对待联合国渠道与其他渠道的关系、敦促发达国家减排的决心和能力以及是否能够保持G77加中国内部的团结性等。     

Global Warming in Asia-Pacific: Environmental Change vs. International Justice

The preponderance of evidence from reports on climate change suggests that China and East Asia will face major environmental challenges, most of them unwelcome. In the following article, Paul G. Harris, associate professor of politics at Lingnan University, Hong Kong, introduces some of the underlying ethical considerations with regard to climate change justice and equity. He explores how justice is part of the broader international politics of climate change, the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change, its 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the ongoing negotiations concerning how to implement it. The emphasis is on the more practical debates, their codification in international instruments, and the ways in which East Asian countries perceive them. Harris concludes that increasing knowledge of the uncertainty and adversity from climate change has raised awareness among East Asian countries, but concerns about justice and equity mean that worries about climate change do not translate easily into national action.     

The rise of BASIC in UN climate change negotiations

This paper assesses the role of the BASIC countries — Brazil, South Africa, India, and China — in UN climate change negotiations. The paper explores the formation and evolution of the group, and focuses on how the four major developing countries of China, India, Brazil, and South Africa have coordinated their positions and acted jointly to achieve an agreed outcome with other players in the recent UN Climate Change Conferences in Copenhagen and Cancun, based on an analysis of their country profiles and negotiation positions on a wide range of climate issues. The paper argues that the emergence of the BASIC Group is a reflection of the ongoing power shift from EU–US agreement to BASIC–US compromise in UN climate negotiations since the early 1990s. The rise of BASIC also has its roots in recent global market dynamics and further reflects the power transformation in the economic dimension of the international system.     

The EU–South Africa Strategic Partnership and global environmental governance: Towards effective multilateralism after Copenhagen?

ABSTRACT

This paper uses an analytical framework drawn from organisational studies to unpack and evaluate climate change relations under the EU–South Africa Strategic Partnership. The article finds that, while the EU and South Africa share a common purpose and high-level climate goals, many of the formal organisational structures set up under the partnership to tackle climate change and the environment are weak and have fallen into disuse. At the same time several factors outside of the strategic partnership, such as South Africa's hosting of the Durban climate change meeting, have played a significant role in promoting climate cooperation between the two partners. Therefore, while the strategic partnership creates an additional opportunity for climate cooperation, it is by no means the only or even the most important instrument in the EU's foreign policy tool box for negotiation and dialogue.     

Playing the Vertical Power Game: The Impact of Local Authorities in Cantonal Parliaments on the Financing of Special Schools

This study analyses the effect of local authorities in the Swiss cantonal parliaments on the allocation of special school costs. The empirical findings show that a higher share of local authorities in the cantonal legislature leads to a higher share of special school costs borne by the cantonal authorities. The effect is stronger for mayors compared to all members of local governments. Hence, mayors have a strong connection with their home municipality and use the political power of the accumulation of mandates for shifting undesirable costs from the local up to the cantonal level. This specific finding does not depend on the overall national constitutional framework, as the introduction of the NFA (Neuer Finanzausgleich) – in the course of which the federal state fully withdrew from financing special schools ‐ has not changed the magnitude of this effect.     

The impact of EU multi-level regionalism strategy on Bulgarian local authorities: qualitative comparative analysis among nine border areas

This article suggests a new perspective on the analysis of the EU multi-level regionalism strategy (EUMRS) by emphasizing the important role of local authorities in border areas. The EU, indeed, has been pursuing a multi-level strategy formed by three action layers corresponding to three new regional trasnational spaces: (1) the European Union itself; (2) the strategic macro-regional actions – such as the EU Strategy for the Danube Region; (3) cross-border cooperation. Particularly, the article tries to explain why local officers working for different Bulgarian municipalities perceive the EUMRS in a different way. The perception of the EUMRS represents the internalization and impact of the EUMRS among the interviewed local officers of nine borderland Bulgarian municipalities. The research is grounded on a qualitative comparative analysis to identify and explain the different combinations of causally relevant conditions linked to the specific outcome.     

In search of real justice for Africa and Africans,and her/their descendants in a world of justice,injustices and impunity

Abstract

The quest for justice by Africans and peoples of African descent, wherever they may be in the world, is arguably one of the most daunting mental, psychological, moral, legal and material challenges facing humanity in general, and the peoples of Africa in particular. It is a question of whether African peoples demand justice for the wrongs committed against Africa and its peoples over the last 500 years, or whether Africa and African peoples accept complicity in the global impunity enjoyed by the perpetrators of those injustices, and by doing so diminish the significance of contemporary enthusiasm for global justice. Centralising the question of impunity to date for horrendous crimes, gross human and peoples’ rights violations and other injustices against Africa and Africans is not meant to distract Africans in Africa and the diaspora from the quest, in the 21^st century, for a new Africa that we have a historical responsibility to build and, by doing so, to ensure that the past is not repeated. Acknowledging the wrongs of the past and making symbolic reparative actions for those wrongs are essential for ensuring that the pursuit for a better world of justice is not built on top of underlying sinkholes and on the waste dumps of past injustices. Critical breakthroughs, such as the commitment enshrined in the Constitutive Act of the African Union (2000), on crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide and the prohibition of unconstitutional change of government, must be vigorously pursued to their logical conclusion. To do so requires an understanding of where Africans, in their relationship with peoples in the rest of the world, are coming from. Smaller parts of the world have experienced similar heinous injustices with impunity, and Africa's pursuit of real justice also applies to those states and their peoples. Corrective or reparative justice is needed to clear the path for the meaningful and honest promotion of real global justice in the making of the future. It is imperative that the making of the African Renaissance confront real global justice for the sake of the past, the present and the future.     

China and Environmental Security in the Age of Consequences

Global climate change is now one of the biggest challenges facing humankind in the twenty-first century. It is occurring at a time when China's economic rise is leading to substantial environmental problems combined with escalating demands on global resources. Many commentators have warned of impending economic collapse, rising social conflicts, and large-scale public health disasters. ¹ It is not only China's modernisation drive that is at stake. The spill-over effects across borders also present security concerns at the regional and global levels. From a global security perspective, the emerging environmental crisis is generally cast in highly negative terms. Limited attention has been given to the question of whether China can adapt. In the case of climate change this is now an urgent task. On the Qinghai–Tibetan plateau climate impacts pose significant security risks for China and the Asia region. The ability to adapt is of critical importance to the future sustainability of these ecosystems as well as the millions of people they serve.     

Die Schweizer Gemeinden im Wandel: Konvergenz oder Divergenz?

Switzerland is currently going through a phase of political restructuring. The numerous reform activities at the beginning of the twenty‐first century leave almost no area of political life untouched. The reforms are particularly abundant in the 2′867 municipalities, spanning from amalgamations, intermunicipal co‐operation, New Public Management, to reforms of the political systems. Accounting for the fact that there are big socio‐economic differences between the municipalities as well as their political systems, we investigate whether the municipalities are headed for divergence or convergence as a result of these reforms. The empirical results are derived from three surveys of the local authorities conducted in 1988, 1994, and 1998. The results indicate that the communes do convergence in regard to their administrative and political structure. However, the convergence appears to be limited to the single cantons and observable only among certain types of municipalities.     

Transparency and Political Budget Cycles at municipal level

We analyze the effect of municipal financial transparency on the magnitude of political budget cycles. Our sample covers the Spanish largest municipalities in the period 1999‐2009. While the impact of transparency on the electoral cycle has been studied at the international and regional level, there is no empirical evidence of its effect at the local level. Using the financial transparency index made by Transparency International Spain, we show that municipalities with lower levels of financial transparency present an electoral cycle in total spending, whereas such an electoral impact on total spending does not appear in high transparent municipalities. Furthermore, the magnitude of cycles in capital spending and taxes does not vary among low‐transparency municipalities and high‐transparency municipalities.     

气候正义的僵局与出路——基于法哲学与经济学的跨学科考察

气候正义涉及复杂的国际法与国内法问题。传统国际法强调主权独立和互不干涉,而应对气候变化必然要求国际社会合作减排。国际合作减排的前提是各国主动放弃部分排放权利,主动承担减排义务。气候变化对整个国际社会造成了极大的危害,由于各国所处地理位置不同,各国所受的负面冲击不尽一致。有些国家必须支出巨额的调整成本以适应变化了的全球气候,而有些国家反而会因气候变化获得短期利益。根据科斯定律初始权利分配原理,气候正义不是简单的排放权的界定与转让问题,它要求运用分配正义与矫正正义原则对不公平分担减排责任的现象进行平衡处理。中国固然应当积极参与国际合作减排,但同时要坚持发展权优先的观点,与工业发达国家展开有理有节的谈判与斗争,争取最大限度地实现矫正正义。     

The Effects of Local Government Consolidation on Turnout: Evidence from a Quasi‐Experiment in Switzerland

In the last decades, municipal mergers have been one major element of local government reforms in Switzerland and beyond. In this article, we describe and analyze the political effects of this development. We use a quasi‐experimental setting to test the impact of municipal mergers on electoral participation. We find that in merged municipalities, the decrease in turnout is significantly stronger than in non‐merged municipalities. Further, the effect is more pronounced in relatively small localities. There is a temporal dimension to this effect—that is, turnout drops mainly in the first election after the first merger, but not so much after the second or third merger. Hence, the study provides a skeptical yet differentiated perspective on the democratic consequences of municipal mergers and points to further research avenues to develop a more comprehensive understanding of local government consolidation.     

Local democracy in Ukrainian cities: civic participation and responsiveness of local authorities

This article examines local democracy in Ukrainian cities from the perspective of the local population, with a focus on citizen participation and city authorities' responsiveness to the concerns of local inhabitants. It draws on a survey of 2000 urban residents in 20 Ukrainian cities with a diversity of population size, administrative status, and geographic location. Correspondence analysis is used to show how different groups of the population are distributed along the two dimensions of responsiveness of local authorities and citizen participation. A typology of four ideal-types of city residents is elaborated: “alienated,” “protesters,” “compliant,” and “interactive.” The data reveal remarkably large differences among cities: from four to six of the cities are associated with each of the four typology categories based on the clustering patterns along the two dimensions. The main policy implication of the study is that general measures for local government reform should be combined with targeted measures directed at the various types of challenges experienced in different Ukrainian cities.     

From Machine Politics to the Politics of Technocracy: Charting Changes in Governance in the Mexican Municipality1

Abstract — A typology comprising technocratic rationality versus political partisanship helps to identify several local government structures found in contemporary Mexico: political machines; autonomous-indigenous; technocratic; and modernising party governments. Case study research in over a dozen municipalities for three principal parties suggest a trend towards increasing technocratic and more administratively efficient municipal government and changing patterns of partisanship. This arises from new pressures associated with electoral opening, political alternation, new government actors, growing urban development complexity, and from federal reforms offering greater local government autonomy. However, while improved administration and technocratic governance often leads to positive outcomes, they do not necessarily imply ‘good government’.     

The Capricorn Contract

The following address was given by Colonel Stirling, Presidentof the Capricorn Africa Society at a joint meeting of the RoyalAfrican Society and the Royal Empire Society on March 7, 1957.Mr. Alan Moorehead was in the chair.