Investing in multi-stakeholder dialogue to address natural resource competition and conflict

How can multi-stakeholder dialogue help assess and address the roots of environmental resource competition and conflict? This article summarises the outcomes and lessons from action research in large lake systems in Uganda, Zambia, and Cambodia. Dialogues linking community groups, NGOs and government agencies have reduced local conflict, produced agreements with private investors, and influenced government priorities in ways that respond to the needs of marginalised fishing communities. The article details policy guidance in four areas: building stakeholder commitment, understanding the institutional and governance context, involving local groups in the policy reform process, and embracing adaptability in programme implementation.     

Sir Alfred Zimmern lectures Australia, 1938: a utopian on Munich?

Abstract

Professor Sir Alfred Zimmern, a highly prominent British commentator on international politics, was a notable visitor to Australia in 1938. Due to the critiques of EH Carr, Martin Wight and Hedley Bull, Zimmern became associated with the ‘utopian’ school of analysis of the inter-war period. In a stay lasting five weeks which coincided with the Munich crisis, his (now neglected) lectures and broadcasts were widely reported. Zimmern did not fully endorse the Munich agreement, which had been negotiated by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and was supported by Australian Prime Minister Joseph Lyons. He was privately critical of Australian policy-makers. Despite Bull’s claim that Zimmern was a believer in progress and thus bound to discern the growth of order in international affairs, Zimmern’s analysis of the Munich agreement emphasized the return of power politics and the dangers of war. Further examination of his 1930s writings shows that such possibilities were not inconsistent with his broader analysis of international relations.     

Measuring changes in women's empowerment and its relationship to intimate partner violence

This article uses survey data to examine changes over time in the relationship between women’s empowerment and intimate partner violence (IPV) in six Bangladeshi villages. Prior analyses using a limited set of empowerment indicators available in both 2002 and 2014 suggested a persistent positive association between empowerment and IPV. The article’s analysis, using an updated set of measures derived from extensive qualitative studies, suggests that empowerment may be shifting from a risk factor for IPV to a protective factor. The article discusses the methodological limitations posed by the shifting manifestations of empowerment and its social meanings within and across settings.     

Negotiating the review process: a CIA guide to intelligence analysis, 1970

The literature on intelligence analysis contains many references to the ‘review process’, the mechanism by which analysts’ drafts are converted into corporate products. Analysts whose drafts consistently navigate the process quickly and smoothly are regarded as star performers. Divining the practical meaning of organizational definitions of ‘good’ analysis and the personal preferences of specific senior reviewers is not easy, however. Analysts occasionally commit their understanding of reviewers’ stylistic preferences to paper, effectively providing style guides to help others. This essay presents and explains the development and implications of one such guide, which was designed to help analysts in CIA’s Office of Strategic Research in the early 1970s.     

Antifa,Street Gangs,and the Importance of Group Processes

This essay reviews David Pyrooz and James Densley’s “On Public Protest, Violence, and Street Gangs” and raises new questions about the ways in which Antifa is similar to and different from social movements; the processes by which “factions within Antifa” become gangs; and the dynamic nature of relationships and interactions between and among violent and non-violent segments. It concludes with a note about the everchanging nature of social life and importance of flexibility in the design and execution of research in capturing this reality.     

Gone with the Wind: Federalism and the Strategic Location of Air Polluters

In federal systems, both state governments and firms have incentives to strategically locate polluting facilities where the environmental and health consequences will be borne as much as possible by residents of other jurisdictions. We analyze air polluter location in the United States using a spatial point pattern model, which models where events occur in latitude and longitude. Our analyses indicate that major air polluters are significantly more likely to be located near a state's downwind border than a control group of other industrial facilities, results that are robust to a wide variety of model specifications and measurement strategies. This effect is particularly pronounced for facilities with toxic air emissions. The observed pattern of polluter location varies systematically across states and time in ways that suggest it is responsive to public policy at both the national and state levels.     

How Stable is the Condition of Family Homelessness?

Although research has documented the majority of homelessness experienced by individuals and families in the US to be transitional rather than chronic, the mechanisms by which some families successfully escape homelessness while other do not remains relatively unclear. To provide more information to this area of inquiry, this study analyzed the transitional nature of homelessness for a sample of families with school-aged children who were homeless under the McKinney-Vento definition. By conducting a survey with over 1000 homeless families with children enrolled in two public school systems in Central Florida, we find that over a quarter of families exit homelessness in less than six months. We compare these families to those that remained homeless to examine the potential importance of demographic differences and other potential barriers to securing housing. Many of the commonly assumed barriers were not significant predictors of continued homelessness; the most salient difference between the groups was income underscoring the importance of employment opportunities for families to allow them to exit homelessness.     

Early Impacts of the Affordable Care Act on Health Insurance Coverage in Medicaid Expansion and Non‐Expansion States

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) aimed to achieve nearly universal health insurance coverage in the United States through a combination of insurance market reforms, mandates, subsidies, health insurance exchanges, and Medicaid expansions, most of which took effect in 2014. This paper estimates the causal effects of the ACA on health insurance coverage in 2014 using data from the American Community Survey. We utilize difference‐in‐difference‐in‐differences models that exploit cross‐sectional variation in the intensity of treatment arising from state participation in the Medicaid expansion and local area pre‐ACA uninsured rates. This strategy allows us to identify the effects of the ACA in both Medicaid expansion and non‐expansion states. Our preferred specification suggests that, at the average pre‐treatment uninsured rate, the full ACA increased the proportion of residents with insurance by 5.9 percentage points compared to 2.8 percentage points in states that did not expand Medicaid. Private insurance expansions from the ACA were due to increases in both employer‐provided and non‐group coverage. The coverage gains from the full ACA were largest for those without a college degree, non‐whites, young adults, unmarried individuals, and those without children in the home. We find no evidence that the Medicaid expansion crowded out private coverage.