Five Year Review: Evolving Environmental Law and Advice to Green Lawyers

Five years ago, the U.S. environmental legal market was in a state of uncertainty after the 2007–2008 financial crisis, Congress's failure to pass a comprehensive climate change bill, and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Since that time, the environmental job market has improved, and progress, particularly in addressing climate change and in facilitating renewable energy development, has been made at the state and federal levels. However, the election of President Trump in late 2016 and empowerment of a Congress hostile to environmental regulation threaten to undo many of the hard-fought environmental victories, especially at the federal level. New York State and its municipalities have the opportunity to lead—and New York environmental lawyers are ready to use creativity and innovation to tackle the complex environmental problems facing our communities and planet in this uncertain climate.     

Nexus between defence spending,economic growth and development: evidence from a disaggregated panel data analysis

Economic Change and Restructuring - This study investigates the causal effect relationship between defence spending, economic growth and development in three regions for the period 1990–2018....     

How Policy Rules Shape the Structure and Performance of Collaborative Governance Arrangements

Local food system governance increasingly occurs in collaborative venues at the local, state, and regional levels. Prominent examples of such are food policy councils (FPCs). FPCs take a systemic approach to improve local food systems by including diverse stakeholders to advise on policy development. The authors study public FPCs to understand how policies structure the stakeholder composition and goals of FPCs and how FPCs’ stakeholder composition facilitates and/or impedes performance. Data come from a content analysis of policies that mandate the structure and functions of public FPCs and interviews with FPC representatives. Findings indicate that FPCs connected to a broader array of food policy actors in their communities produce more diverse policy outputs, but this outcome is tempered by whether council members represent personal or organizational interests.     

Exploring Drivers of Innovative Technology Adoption Intention: The Case of Plug‐In Vehicles

How individuals respond to innovative technologies depends on how motivated they are by an array of internal and external factors and the informational and cost barriers they face. To better understand technology adoption decision making we (i) assess changes in intent to purchase plug‐in vehicles in response to reductions in their price and (ii) identify motivators that incline new car buyers toward plug‐ins under status quo and reduced vehicle cost scenarios. We find that individuals already inclined toward alternative vehicles have a higher interest in plug‐ins under a reduced‐cost scenario than individuals who favor conventional vehicles. We also find that individuals who shift their vehicle preference from conventional gasoline to plug‐in vehicles are motivated by material factors and fears relating to the innovative technology, whereas those shifting preferences between less to more innovative technologies are likely to be motivated by a mix of material and nonmaterial factors.     

Maternal Filicide in Turkey

Filicide occurs in every socioeconomic stratum around the world. This study was conducted to evaluate motives, psychopathological aspects, and socio-demographic factors of 74 filicide cases of women in Turkey. Mean age of mothers, most of whom committed infanticide, was 26 years, and breakdown of criminal offenses are as follows: “to get rid of unwanted babies” (24.3%), “acute psychotic-type filicide” (21.6%), “fatal child abuse and neglect” (17.6%), “to get revenge” (12.2%), “protect the lonely child from the harm and badness after suicide” (10.8%), and “pity” (9.5%) motives. Results showed that maternal filicide cannot be reduced to only mental instability or environmental factors and indicates deficiencies in the capacity of the mothers' role in connecting with their child and with parenting skills. Finally, with regard to defendants' motives, similar factors that contribute to committing maternal filicide should be considered while making an assessment of the data and determining employee risk groups.     

Assessing Policy Design and Interpretation: An Institutions‐Based Analysis in the Context of Aquaculture in Florida and Virginia,United States

Recently in the field of policy studies, there has been a renewed interest in research that connects policy design with broader governance outcomes. As opposed to past studies of policy design that have characterized policies along broad categories of variables, however, recent studies have sought to systematically assess the language of public policies and resultant outcomes. This paper contributes to the existing and emerging literature on policy design by coupling a content analysis of polices governing the aquaculture industry in two U.S. states and interviews with aquaculture community members to understand policy design and perceptions of policy legitimacy, coerciveness, and enforcement.     

Role of blogging in perceived learning and satisfaction of students

The contemporary smart concepts of education signify a heavy role of blogging tools in digital learning environments that have a substantial effect on students' learning and satisfaction. This study aims to analyze the influence of students' four perceptions about blogging that is, perception of digital technology (PDT), perceptions of teaching and learning (PTL), perceptions of previous blogging experience (PBE), and perceived usefulness of blogging (PUB) on the frequency of blogging and then assesses the impact of the frequency of blogging on perceived satisfaction as well as perceived learning of students. For this purpose, the researchers conducted a quantitative study with a positivist approach in which the data were collected from 350 students in Anhui Province, China to conduct analysis of the proposed relationships. The results of the current study suggest that there is a positive impact of PDT, PTL, PBE and PUB on the frequency of blogging. It means that the positive perceptions of students towards digital technology, teaching and learning, previous bogging experience and usefulness of blogging result in higher frequency and use of blogging activity. It further indicates that the high frequency of blogging has ultimately a positive impact on perceived satisfaction and perceived learning. The discussion and findings of the current study have useful implications for theory and practice because they provide empirical evidence and theoretical guidelines about the role of blogging in perceived learning and satisfaction.