Why is it hard to solve environmental problems? The perils of institutional reductionism and institutional overload

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics - Many efforts to solve environmental problems arising at the international or transnational level meet with limited success or...     

Self-Injurious Thoughts and Behaviors Among Youth in an Underserved Area of the Southern United States: Exploring the Moderating Roles of Gender,Racial/Ethnic Background,and School-Level

Despite the clinical relevance of self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (SITB) among youth, little is known about the subset of youth most at-risk for SITB. This study examined the moderating roles of gender, racial/ethnic background, and school-level (and their interactions) on rates of SITB within a large (N = 2638, 52.2% female), ethnically-diverse sample of middle- and high-school youth in a relatively poor and underserved area of the Southern United States. Extending extant research in this area, findings indicated a significant interaction between gender and race for self-injurious behaviors, with African–American boys reporting higher rates than all other groups. Findings also indicated significant interactions between school-level and both gender and race for self-injurious thoughts. Whereas comparable levels of self-injurious thoughts were reported across middle- and high-schools for girls and African–American youth, the frequency of these thoughts was higher among both boys and White students in high-school (vs. middle-school). Results highlight the need for further research on SITB among diverse youth in underserved areas.     

Uncounted Votes: Informal Voting in the House of Representatives as a Marker of Political Exclusion in Australia

This article examines the implications of high levels of informal (or invalid) voting in Australian national elections using a social exclusion framework. The rate of the informal vote is an indicator of social and political exclusion with particular groups of Australians experiencing inordinate electoral disadvantage. Poorer voters, voters from non‐English speaking backgrounds and those with low education levels are especially disadvantaged by factors peculiar to the Australian voting experience. We begin by exploring the character and pattern of informal voting and then canvass the technical and socio‐economic factors which explain it. We conclude by considering proposed options for reducing informality, some of which are: the abandonment of compulsory voting, major structural change to the voting system as well as ballot re‐design, electoral education and community information initiatives.     

Centre–periphery relations in Afghanistan: Badakhshan between patrimonialism and institution-building

The article offers a review of centre–periphery relations and local politics in the Afghan province of Badakhshan from the 1980s to the post-2001 era. It maps the local powerbrokers and charts the transformations that occurred during this period, with particular reference to the impact of the central government's policies on local political alignments and relations of power. The key argument is that President Karzai's and the cabinet's behaviour towards Badakhshani politics was aimed at re-establishing a patrimonial system, rather than at institution-building as claimed. Unable or unwilling to successfully deal with established local players, Kabul resorted to sponsoring new players in local politics and facilitating their rise in order to weaken more independent powerbrokers. However, a local perception of weakness in Kabul, not least due to uncertainty over the durability of the Karzai administration, led local players, old and new, to behave with very short-term horizons, as ‘roving bandits’ rather than as ‘stationary’ ones.     

Struggling for food sovereignty in the World March of Women

This contribution focuses on how food sovereignty is being re-signified as a feminist issue by a non-peasant transnational feminist network, the World March of Women. First, we review the feminist literature on women, gender and food sovereignty and make suggestions regarding how to conceptualize the latter to better analyze women’s and feminist struggles on this terrain. Second, we highlight the variety of discourses and practices through which food sovereignty is appropriated in the different spaces and scales of the March. Third, we identify the political dynamics that underlie the uneven deployment of the project of food sovereignty among the national coordinating bodies of the March. Our conclusion stresses the role of discursive articulations and of internal and external alliances as processes through which food sovereignty is both diffused and transformed, and draws some implications for the larger scholarship on food sovereignty.     

Examining Relationships Between Legislative and Presidential Influences and Organizational Probity: Evidence from South Korean Central Government Agencies

In public management, few empirical studies have been conducted on the effects of the most influential political authorities—the legislature and the president—on government organizations, despite the theoretical and practical significance of these effects. This study tests the relationships between legislative and presidential influences and organizational probity in South Korean central government agencies, on the basis of political transaction-cost and principal–agent theories. We use three measures of legislative influence—inspectional influence (total annual days of legislative inspection), statutory influence (rules-to-laws ratio), and budgetary influence (ratio of reprogramming budget to total budget), and one measure of presidential influence (annual number of substantive meetings with the president). Then, these independent variables are linked to the organizational probity measure from audited archival data. The two-time-point panel data analysis reveals a positive link between legislative inspectional influence and probity but a negative relationship between the presidential influence measure and probity; the results support theoretical arguments for control over administrative agencies. Thus, the evidence suggests that governments should be cautious of implementing reforms that increase organizational or managerial autonomy.     

Citizen Expectations and Satisfaction in a Young Democracy: A Test of the Expectancy‐Disconfirmation Model

Citizen satisfaction with public services has been shown to depend on citizens’ expectations and their perceptions of performance. If performance exceeds expectations, satisfaction is likely; if performance falls short of expectations, dissatisfaction is likely. The existing evidence on this process covers the United States and the United Kingdom. The authors generalize the idea of expectation‐driven citizen satisfaction (the “expectancy‐disconfirmation model”) theoretically and empirically to an institutional context of limited accountability and widespread citizen distrust. Using a survey of a broad cross‐section of the general adult population in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 2014, this article finds support for the expectancy‐disconfirmation model in this very different context. The authors also test for an effect of the type of expectation using an embedded, randomized experiment but do not find evidence of a difference between normative and empirical expectations. Findings support the usefulness of the expectancy‐disconfirmation model in a wide range of contexts.     

Transnational advocacy networks in global supply chains: a study of civil society organizations’ sugar movements in Cambodia

As a contribution to the growing literature on transnational advocacy networks (TANs) in the global production networks, this article examines how civil society organizations (CSOs), which have adopted the TAN approach, influence the sugar industry in Cambodia. Due to ineffective domestic influencing strategies, the CSOs adopted the TAN approach and escalated to an international supply chain movement approach (ISCMA) aiming to influence international stakeholders at each stage of the sugar supply chain in order to leverage boomerang pressure on the sugar producing companies and the Government of Cambodia. Despite its resourceful networking strategies, the ISCMA failed to leverage significant influence on the sugar companies and the government to achieve its demands. The failure was not due to weak networks, but was in part due to the political nexus between the government and the sugar companies. This article suggests that to ensure the effectiveness of CSOs’ actions within the TAN framework in the global production networks, one should take into account the power of the government in relation to local politico-commercial elites.     

The politics of deep integration*

Abstract

Efforts to pursue ‘deep integration’—agreeing to international rules governing domestic policies to mitigate their adverse trade effects—have been pivotal to the politicization of trade policy. The contributions to this special issue focus on different political dynamics associated with recent high-profile efforts at deep integration. Collectively, they analyse the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), the Transpacific Partnership (TPP) and the Japan–European Union Economic Partnership Agreement (JEEPA) negotiations. The special issue, therefore, focuses on extreme examples of deep integration in order to illuminate new political dynamics. This introductory article introduces the concept of ‘deep integration’ and explores how it has been pursued in historical and contemporary trade negotiations. It also relates recent attempts at deep integration to the rise of populist anti-globalization movements. In light of these discussions, this article introduces the contributions to the issue. It concludes by considering whether the politics associated with TTIP and CETA in Europe represent the future of trade policy.