Assessing the credibility of how climate adaptation aid projects are categorised

This article presents the findings of a re-evaluation of all 5,200 aid projects that OECD donors reported for 2012 as “climate change adaptation”-related, based on the “Rio marker” classification system. The findings confirm those from the academic and grey literature that the absence of independent quality control makes the adaptation Rio marker data almost entirely unreliable. This lack of credibility impedes meaningful assessments of progress toward the mainstreaming of adaptation in development cooperation activities. It also erodes trust in international climate negotiations, given that these data are frequently used in the financial reporting of developed countries to the UNFCCC.     

An exploratory analysis of governance dynamics,institutional reforms and development: a comparative study of India and Bangladesh

Governance has become a prominent issue over the last three decades or so in the intellectual and practical domains of public administration. Significant debates have proliferated about the significance, domains and types of governance and their implications for democracy and development, particularly in developing countries. Amidst the debates on the relationship between governance and development, political settlements analysis has become quite prominent that focuses on the implications of political settlement for reforming and enforcing institutions leading towards negative/positive economic development. This article aims to examine how the interlocked relationships among the members of the dominant power coalition in the governing system help reform the institutions, distribute privileges, maintain stability and affect economic development with particular reference to India and Bangladesh.     

Acculturation Strategies and Mental Health in Gay,Lesbian, and Bisexual Youth

In this article, we examine the impact of acculturation strategies on minority stress and mental health in lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) youth in Flanders, Belgium. Building on previous identity minority studies and on the social stress model, we investigate how LGB youth acculturate within both the LGB subculture and mainstream society and how this correlates with their mental health. Our sample is taken from an online survey and represents 561 LGB youth aged 14 through 21. The four traditional acculturation strategies are represented in this population (integration, separation, marginalization, assimilation). Bisexual boys are mostly absent from separation and integration strategies; gay and lesbian youth in middle adolescence are significantly more represented in the separation strategy compared to their late adolescence counterparts. Further, our findings suggest the relevance of identification with the LGB community, especially for internalized negative attitudes toward homosexuality. LGB youth who identify with the LGB community score significantly lower on this internalized homonegativity.     

Vesting Agent-Relative Permissions in a Proxy*

We all have agent-relative permissions to give extra weight to our own well-being. If you and two strangers are drowning, and you can save either yourself or two strangers, you have an agent-relative permission to save yourself. But is it possible for you to ‘vest’ your agent-relative permissions in a third party – a ‘proxy’ – who can enact your agent-centered permissions on your behalf, thereby permitting her to do what would otherwise be impermissible? Some might think that the answer is ‘no’; it is definitive of agent-centered permissions that they apply only to the individuals ineliminably referenced in the content of that reason, which means that they lack reason-giving force for any ostensible proxy. The purpose of this paper is to (i) show that vesting agent-relative permissions is indeed possible, (ii) provide an account of how agent-relative permissions are vested by considering the structure of rights more generally, and (iii) show that we have a right to vest such permission in this way.     

Proportionality, Territorial Occupation, and Enabled Terrorism

Some collateral harms affecting enemy civilians during a war are agentially mediated – for example, the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 sparked an insurgency which killed thousands of Iraqi civilians. I call these ‘collaterally enabled harms.’ Intuitively, we ought to discount the weight that these harms receive in the ‘costs’ column of our ad bellum proportionality calculation. But I argue that an occupying military force with de facto political authority has a special obligation to provide minimal protection to the civilian population. As a result, when an occupying military force collaterally enables a harm affecting the civilian population, the weight that the harm ought to receive in the ad bellum proportionality calculation is unaffected by the fact that the harm is agentially mediated – it ought to be weighed at least as heavily as those harms that the occupying force collaterally commits directly. As a result, satisfying the ad bellum proportionality constraint in wars of territorial occupation is more difficult than it has been thought.     

IN/SECURITY

This article highlights the impact of international politics and war upon refugees' lives, asserting that the humanitarian aid that refugees receive is contingent upon interstate and intrastate politics. Indeed, the role of the state becomes contentious as it becomes the source of security as well as insecurity in the lives of refugees. This role is guided by self-interest rather than humanitarian concerns. In the Afghan case, we find that humanitarian aid has sometimes been used to perpetuate endless wars and violence in Afghanistan. This aid was also been used to portray a picture of Afghanistan pivoted on an anti-Soviet struggle through the strengthening of fundamentalist strains in Afghan thinking. The latter affected women and children negatively as different actors within the camps–the Afghan political leadership, donor agencies, and Pakistani administrative structures–manipulated particular images of the ideal family and of the role of women. Women have had to face multiple levels and layers of violence just as men have had to contend with an intensified view of masculinity that naturalizes inflicting violence upon others. Refugees have unnecessarily borne the brunt of the aftermath of regional and international politics, as they have had to contend with both direct and structural violence.     

FROM INFANTS TO ADOLESCENTS A Developmental Approach to Parenting Plans

Divorce and the resultant process of child custody decision making impact heavily on the lives of children. Increasingly, parents and professionals have realized the importance of encouraging shared responsibility in child rearing following separation and divorce. This shared responsibility must continue throughout a child's life and into young adulthood. This article introduces a comprehensive child-and family-focused model of decision making. The goal of this model is to assist professionals in their work with parents and to help parents formulate parenting plans that reflect the ever-changing developmental needs of each child and that specify how each parent will meet the particular needs of each child in the family. Through the use of educational parenting seminars and the completion of a Needs Assessment for each child, flexible parenting plans are created and positive co-parenting skills develop.     

Bericht über die Demokratie in der Schweiz

Zusammenfassung Alexis de Tocqueville hielt den Vortrag „Rapport sur la démocratie en Suisse“ am 15. Januar 1848 in der Académie des sciences morales et politiques im unmittelbaren Vorfeld der europaweiten politischen Revolutionen von 1848. ?u?erlich geht es in dem Bericht um Antoine élisée Cherbuliez’ Buch „De la démocratie en Suisse“ (Band 1 und 2, Paris 1843). Cherbuliez (1797–1869) war Anwalt und Professor für politische ?konomie und Staatsrecht in Genf. Aus einer konservativen Sichtweise hat er eine kritische Darstellung der Demokratie in der Schweiz in ihrer ganzen Breite gegeben, angefangen von den Kantonen, Institutionen, über Sitten und Moral bis zur Religion. Tocqueville geht weit über die Vorlage hinaus und entwickelt einige grunds?tzliche demokratietheoretische überlegungen. Der Vortrag besteht aus fünf Abschnitten: einer historischen Einbettung und Deutung des Wandels in der Schweiz als demokratischer Revolution, einer Skizze der Demokratie in den Kantonen, gefolgt von einer Darlegung der modernen Idee der Judikative mit einem Vergleich ihrer Realisierung in der Schweiz und New York, einer institutionellen Analyse der f?deralen Regierung der Eidgenossenschaft und einem abschlie?enden Ausblick auf anstehende Ver?nderungen. Diese Abschnitte sind redaktionell durch Abs?tze gekennzeichnet. Tocqueville unterscheidet ?ltere direkte Formen der Demokratie, die er als überbleibsel des Mittelalters bewertet, von neuen Institutionen repr?sentativer Demokratie. Die politischen Umw?lzungen in der Schweiz sind ihm ein Exempel für die These der unaufhaltsamen Durchsetzung demokratischer Verh?ltnisse. Dennoch kritisiert er das Schweizer Institutionensystem als unentschieden und ineffizient. Allerdings wird die direktdemokratisch-f?derative Verfasstheit, so Tocqueville, durch die Zentralisierung zwangsl?ufig zu repr?sentativ-bundesstaatlichen Strukturen gedr?ngt. Diese Prognosen werden schon im Frühjahr 1848 bei der Ausarbeitung einer bundesstaatlichen Verfassung der Schweiz, die im September in Kraft tritt, best?tigt.

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Summary Alexis de Tocqueville held this speech on January 15, 1848, at the Académie des sciences morales et politiques, shortly before the Europe-wide political revolutions of 1848. It is presented as a report on Cherbuliez’ book De la démocratie en Suisse (2 Vols., Paris 1843), however, Tocqueville does not merely report, but develops some fundamental considerations for democratic theory.

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Résumé Alexis de Tocqueville pronon?a ce discours devant l’Académie des sciences morales et politiques le 15 janvier 1848, peu de temps avant la vague de révolutions politiques qui traversa l’Europe en 1848. Dans ce discours qui se présente comme le compte-rendu du livre de Cherbuliez De la démocratie en Suisse (2 vol., Paris 1843), Tocqueville ne se contente cependant pas de rendre compte mais développe des considérations fondamentales pour la théorie de la démocratie.

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„Séances et travaux de l’Académie des sciences morales et politiques, 1^er semestre 1848“, S. 97–119. Unsere deutsche Erstübersetzung folgt dem Text der „Œuvre complètes Bd. XVI“, Paris 1989 (Gallimard), S. 203-220. Tocqueville hat diesen Bericht als Anhang in die 12. Auflage von “La Démocratie en Amérique“, Paris 1848, aufgenommen. Er wurde auch in der von Gustave de Beaumont edierten Werkausgabe (Bd. IX, 1866, S. 85–111) publiziert. Die hier pr?sentierte übersetzung ist ein Vorabdruck aus dem 2006 erscheinenden Band „Alexis de Tocqueville: Kleine politische Schriften“, herausgegebenvon Harald Bluhm, Akademie Verlag Berlin. Wir danken der Robert-Bosch-Stiftung für die F?rderung dieses Projektes.