Natural Resource Production and the Risk of Conflict Recurrence

Do different types of natural resources have varying impacts on the risk of conflict recurrence? Using a classification of high-value natural resources according to their lootability and obstructability, this article develops a framework bridging research on natural resources and conflict recurrence. I find evidence for the destabilizing character of easily lootable resources that is coherent across different conflict data. Non-lootable resources show little robust effects at first sight; but when introducing a measure of obstructability, the analysis uncovers varying effects of obstructable and non-obstructable resources that interact with the mode of conflict termination. Overall, the results underline the importance of attending to the lootability and obstructability dimension of natural resources when researching post-conflict risks in resource endowed states.     

Confrontation and co‐operation in the Indian Ocean

The end of the Cold War has created new dangers and opportunities. The formation of an Indian Ocean Rim trading bloc has the potential to benefit some of the poorest people in the world. Regional maritime co‐operation could provide the catalyst for alleviating poverty on the Indian Ocean Rim by giving a spurt to incomes and employment from the seas.     

Horses for courses: China's accommodative approach to food standard‐setting in response to the internationalization of regulation

This paper examines the evolution of China's food standard‐setting procedures from both domestic and international perspectives, particularly in the context of the internationalization of regulation. After the reform and opening‐up in 1978, state actors and leading enterprises monopolized the process of national food standard setting. With further participation in the global economy in the 21st century, China has become familiar with the international standard‐setting procedures and has modeled its domestic policymaking on these practices. This has resulted in a more transparent, inclusive, scientific, pluralized, and consensus‐based form of decisionmaking. By contrast, the standards of the strategic industries have been harmonized to the standards of international counterparts through a top‐down and authoritarian approach. This paper argues that China uses an accommodative approach, trichotomizing suitable standards and decisionmaking procedures in terms of inclusiveness and transparency, which suits the developmental needs of the domestic market, food export markets, and strategic industries.     

Is the U.S. Congress an Insurmountable Obstacle to Any “Far‐Sighted Conception of Budgeting”?

In recent years, Congress has recurrently failed to meet its minimum responsibilities in federal budgeting. This article analyzes whether it is possible to repair this problem, using concepts popularized by Allen Schick in his influential article “The Road to PPB.” His article compared the PPB reform effort to the history of budget process reforms that started with the design of the executive budget. It publicized a logical sequence of budget process improvements that started with control and then advanced through management and planning. The article did not substantially address the role of Congress, but eight years after it was published, Congress reasserted its constitutional role in the budget process. Its record of performance since then has ranged from mixed to dysfunctional. The Congress has been criticized for budgetary delays, micromanagement, myopia, procrastination, indiscipline, and an inability to prioritize intelligently. If these faults are set in stone, then an integrated system of budgeting, as described in “The Road to PPB” and related work, is unattainable. On the other hand, if reform of Congressional budgeting is politically feasible, improvements to that system can utilize the unique contributions that a legislature can make to a good system of budgeting.     

Political economy,poverty, and polycentrism in the Global Environment Facility’s Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) for Climate Change Adaptation

Climate change adaptation refers to altering infrastructure, institutions or ecosystems to respond to the impacts of climate change. Least developed countries often lack the requisite capacity to implement adaptation projects. The Global Environment Facility’s Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) is a scheme where industrialised countries have disbursed $934.5 million in voluntary contributions to support 213 adaptation projects across 51 least developed countries. But how effective are its efforts—and what sort of challenges have arisen as it implements projects? To provide some answers, this article documents the presence of four “political economy” attributes of adaptation projects—processes we have termed enclosure, exclusion, encroachment and entrenchment—cutting across economic, political, ecological and social dimensions. Based on extensive field research, we find the four processes at work simultaneously in our case studies of five LDCF projects being implemented in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, the Maldives and Vanuatu. The article concludes with a discussion of the broader implications of the political economy of adaptation for analysts, program managers and climate researchers at large. In sum, the politics of adaptation must be taken into account so that projects can maximise their efficacy and avoid marginalising those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.