Appropriating Vs. Budgeting: A Comparison of Municipal Fiscal Processes

Conceptual and operational differences between the municipal fiscal processes of appropriating and budgeting are examined. Examination is within the framework of Illinois practice, in which some cities prepare an operating budget while others prepare only an appropriation ordinance. The author finds that there are indeed conceptual and operational differences; budgeting is conceptually a more formal and multi-dimensional process than appropriating, and such differences are reflected in the practices of Illinois cities. However, the operational differences are generally of small magnitude. The author recommends that initiation of a budget system be accompanied by programs for infusing fiscal decision making with new concepts and skills.     

Trusting,Happy, Religious,and Giving: Explaining Volunteering in the Context of Nordic Exceptionalism

Abstract

Using data from the European Values Study, this article examines the mechanisms through which social capital facilitates volunteering in Nordic countries. Three specific mechanisms are examined as drivers of volunteering: Generalized trust, subjective well-being, and religious activity. We find that trust bridges social capital and that people volunteer more as their level of generalized and institutional trust increases. Our results also indicate that individuals with higher levels of well-being and those who attend religious services regularly are more likely to volunteer.     

Harvesting experience: A reappraisal of the U.S. Climate Change Action Plan

For mitigating climate change and adapting to whatever impacts we cannot avoid, there are no politically feasible alternatives to improvements in the U.S. Climate Change Action Plan at this time or for the foreseeable future. Yet improvements in the Action Plan have been obstructed by the diversion of attention and other resources to negotiating a binding international agreement, to developing a predictive understanding of global change, and to documenting the failure of the Action Plan to meet its short-term goal for the reduction of aggregate greenhouse gas emissions. Continuous improvements depend upon reallocating attention and other resources to the Action Plan, and more specifically, to the many small-scale policies that have already succeeded by climate change and no regrets criteria under the Action Plan. Sustaining the effort over the long term depends on harvesting experience from these small-scale successes for diffusion and adaptation elsewhere on a voluntary basis.     

U.S. Intransigence and the Climate Change Reality

This essay is a response to the U.S. decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and a rejoinder to Donald Trump’s allegations against India and China. It argues that U.S. intransigence poses a serious threat to the multilateral efforts to redress the climate change crisis.     

形而上学与权力支配--《启蒙辩证法》对马克思社会批判理论的发展与背离

启蒙使理性获得了合法性的地位,但启蒙了的理性是一种技术化的工具理性,这种理性将现实的市场关系永恒化,市场关系的奴役状态获得了永恒的合法性。这种奴役不再是外在的压迫,而是使人主动地进入到这个过程之中,并认为自己是这个过程的主体,在大众文化时代更是如此。启蒙倒退为神话,这与资本主义市场体系的全面胜利以及形而上学转化为工具理性密切相关。     

Political Science and Prediction: What's Next for U.S. Climate Change Policy?

This article analyzes how U.S. climate change politics and policy making are changing in the public, private and civil society sectors, and how such changes are likely to influence U.S. federal policies. It outlines the current status of U.S. climate change action and explores four overlapping pathways of policy change: (1) the strategic demonstration of the feasibility of climate change action; (2) the creation and expansion of markets; (3) policy diffusion and learning; and (4) the creation and promulgation of norms about the need for more aggressive climate change action. These four pathways seek to fruitfully draw from rationalist and constructivist approaches to policy analysis, without collapsing or confusing the different logics. Building on this analysis, it predicts that future federal U.S. climate policy will include six major components: (1) A national cap on GHG emissions; (2) A national market based cap‐and‐trade GHG emissions trading scheme; (3) Mandatory renewable energy portfolio standards; (4) Increased national product standards for energy efficiency; (5) Increased vehicle fleet energy efficiency standards; and (6) Increased federal incentives for research and development on energy efficiency issues and renewable energy development. In addition, expanding federal climate policy may bring about significant changes in U.S. foreign policy as U.S. international re‐engagement on climate change is likely to occur only after the development of more significant federal policy.     

Catastrophe and the Public Service: A Case Study of the Government Response to the Destruction of the World Trade Center

The destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, resulted in a rapid response by government to evacuate the area and, in subsequent days, to bring the city back to a semblance of normalcy. This article provides a case study of government action in New York City during and after the World Trade Center catastrophe. What is most striking is the skill and intensity of government's response to the emergency and the hard work, dedication, and bravery of New York City's government officials. This article presents government and public service at its finest, under some of the most difficult conditions one can imagine.     

JISB Interview: Kosova in Dependence: From Stability of Crisis to the Crisis of Stability

Abstract

Albin Kurti is the leader of Lëvizja VETËVENDOSJE! (Movement for Self-determination!) in Kosova. The movement was standing candidates for the first time in the December 2010 Kosova elections and on 28 October 2010 launched its political programme entitled ‘Development and Statebuilding: Together (it) is Possible’. David Chandler interviewed Albin Kurti at the Lëvizja VETËVENDOSJE! offices in Pristina on 2 September 2010 and it was agreed that JISB would publish Kurti's essay (updated after the elections) articulating how the movement understands the barriers to independence in Kosova today and outlining the political development of its strategy of resistance.     

Political Myths in Climate Leadership: The Case of Danish Climate and Energy Pioneership

Climate leadership is important for the transition to a low‐carbon economy, where some countries are seen as leaders because of their ambitious climate and energy policies. Climate leadership is dynamic and evolves over time to become a political myth, however, which governments use in their policy strategies. Changes in governments lead to new climate and energy strategies that affect the respective countries' leadership positions. This article links the growing literature on environmental/climate leadership and the political myth literature. Specifically, it draws on the environmental/climate leadership framework to analyse the connection between political myths and the climate and energy policy strategies of governments to understand how the changing interpretation of the political myth influences leadership. The article uses Denmark as a case study because of the consensus in the literature on it being a climate and energy policy pioneer. This article analyses how Danish governments interpret the political myth of Danish climate and energy pioneership and how their policies influence the Danish leadership position, concluding that whilst the continued reinterpretations of the political myth of leadership do not always reflect the original myth, the myth remains important for government claims to leadership.     

Policy Adoption and Policy Intensity: Emergence of Climate Adaptation Planning in U.S. States

The United States is experiencing growing impacts of climate change but currently receives a limited policy response from its national leadership. Within this policy void, many state governments are stepping up and taking action on adaptation planning. Yet we know little about why some states adopt State Adaptation Plans (SAPs), while others do not. This article investigates factors that predict the emergence of SAPs, both in terms of policy adoption and policy intensity (goal ambitiousness). Applying the diffusion of innovation theory, I consider the relative influence of internal state characteristics, regional pressures, and test for conditional effects between government ideologies and severity of the problem. The results show interesting differences between predictors that influence policy adoption and ambitiousness. States are more motivated to adopt a policy when faced with greater climate vulnerability, have more liberal citizenry, and where governments have crossed policy hurdles by previously passing mitigation plans. The intensity of policies and goal setting, moreover, is more likely to be driven by interest group politics and diffuse through policy learning or sharing information among neighboring states in Environmental Protection Agency regions. These findings support an emerging scholarship that uses more complex dependent variables in policy analysis. These variables have the potential to differentiate symbolic from substantive policies and capture finer information about predictors of importance.     

Public Attitudes toward Climate Science and Climate Policy in Federal Systems: Canada and the United States Compared1

Multilevel governance poses several challenges for the politics of climate change. On the one hand, the unequal distribution of power and interests can serve as a barrier to implementing coherent policy at a federal level. On the other, these features also enable policy leadership among sub‐federal units. In the context of wide variation in climate policy at both national and sub‐federal levels in Canada and in the United States, this paper utilizes an original data set to examine public attitudes and perceptions toward climate science and climate change policy in two federal systems. Drawing on national and provincial/state level data from telephone surveys administered in the United States and in Canada, the paper provides insight into where the public stands on the climate change issue in two of the most carbon‐intensive federal systems in the world. The paper includes the first directly comparable public opinion data on how Canadians and Americans form their opinions regarding climate matters and provides insight into the preferences of these two populations regarding climate policies at both the national and sub‐federal levels. Key findings are examined in the context of growing policy experiments at the sub‐federal level in both countries and limited national level progress in the adoption of climate change legislation.     

Silence and Catastrophe: New Reasons Why Politics Matters in the Early Years of the Twenty‐first Century

Megaprojects are systems of highly concentrated power whose footprints, or radius of effects, are without precedent in human history. Once upon a time, even under imperial conditions, most people on our planet lived and loved, worked and played within geographically limited communities. They never had to reckon with all of humanity as a factor in their daily lives. Whenever they acted recklessly within their environment, for instance, they had the option of moving on, safe in the knowledge that there was plenty of Earth and not many others. Whenever bad things happened, they happened within limits. Their effects were local. The politics of megaprojects radically alters this equation; it poses new questions about the governance of risk and the nature and limits of democratic politics. The politics of megaprojects—put simply—raises fundamental questions about the ‘life and death of democracy’.