Environmental human rights and intergenerational justice

What do the living owe those who come after them? It is a question nonsensical to some and unanswerable to others, yet tantalizing in its persistence especially among environmentalists. This article makes a new start on the topic of intergenerational justice by bringing together human rights and environmental justice arguments in a novel way that lays the groundwork for a theory of intergenerational environmental justice based in the human rights to clean air, water, and soil. Three issues foundational to such a theory are explored here. First is the broad question of whether justice is applicable to future (or past) generations in any real sense, or do such issues fall under the rubric of superogation. Second, can environmental goods properly be contained in a theory of distributive justice at all, since, superficially at least, they seem different in kind than the usual objects of justice? I will discuss them as “emergent” goods in fact central to contemporary justice distributions. Third, what is the relationship of justice to rights, and how can environmental human rights be included in justice distributions?     

Considering Knowledge Uptake within a Cycle of Transforming Data,Information, and Knowledge

Knowledge uptake, having decision makers assimilate the ideas of experts, is recognized as an important stimulus to bringing about policy change. This is particularly true in the realm of environmental policymaking, which is characterized by knowledge intensity, complexity, and multifaceted concerns. Using examples from an innovative watershed management organization, this article presents a heuristic for understanding how knowledge uptake occurs within a cycle of organizational reasoning. This cycle is driven by activities that transform data, information, and knowledge and that link specialists with decision makers. The heuristic can be used as a diagnostic tool to identify breaks in the transformation process that impede mandate fulfillment and impair capacity building. Lack of appreciation of the dynamic relationship between data, information and knowledge leads to mistimed and ineffective policy interventions that do not result in the hoped for progress in science intended to underpin policy advances.     

A Preliminary Assessment of Water Institutions in India: An Institutional Design Perspective

Water institutions in India play a crucial role in managing scarce water resources and are central to economic development and poverty alleviation. Designing appropriate institutional mechanisms to allocate scarce water and river flows has been an enormous challenge due to the complex legal, constitutional, and social issues involved. The Indian water sector has been grappling with poor performance and deterioration of public (canal and tank) irrigation systems, high extraction levels of groundwater, and related economic and environmental problems. The objective of this article is to carry out a preliminary assessment of institutional mechanisms available to manage water resources in India. The article surveys various formal and informal institutional arrangements that are used at present and their design features in order to identify those institutions related to superior performance. The analysis indicates that crafting “winning institutions” and the policy frameworks to strengthen them should take into account not only the proven criteria of institutional design but also the changing socioeconomic, political, and cultural factors.     

Presidential Party,Incumbency, and the Effects of Economic Fluctuations on House Elections, 1916–1996

There is little professional consensusregarding the effect of economic conditionson House Elections. We argue that recentwork still uses the paradigm of Party toorganize their data and tests. Given thatrecent developments in the theory ofcongress emphasize the paradigm ofIncumbency, we investigate the empiricalrelevance of that competing paradigm. Weshow that (1) Incumbency matters in a purePresidential Party Model of HouseElections, (2) Presidential Party mattersin a pure Incumbency Model, (3) Once bothParty and Incumbency are accounted for,economic conditions exert a highlysignificant and temporally stable influenceon House elections, (4) Return Rates aremore affected by economic fluctuations thanare Vote Shares, and (5) Not allPresidential Party incumbents face the samedegree of electoral accountability foreconomic fluctuations.     

Gubernatorial Use of the Item Veto for Narrative Deletion

Legislative use of narrative, such as conditions and riders, in appropriations bills has become common and has had negative consequences for the executive budget and veto, as well as for the legislative process. Some governors have used the item veto as a remedy. While they have not necessarily diminished the amount of narrative, they have achieved some protection of the executive budget and veto power. Their success depends greatly on the type of legal authority embodied in this constitutional power.     

The Same Old Song?—Stability and Change in Relationship Schemas from Adolescence to Young Adulthood

Relationship schemas are core elements of personality that guide interpersonal functioning. The aim of this study is to examine stability and change in relationship schemas across two developmental epochs—adolescence and young adulthood—in the stories that people tell about their interactions with others. Using the Core Conflictual Relationship Theme Method, relationship themes were coded from semistructured interviews conducted in adolescence and again at age 25. The sample consisted of 40 participants in a longitudinal study of adolescent and young adult psychological development. There was considerable stability in the frequency with which particular themes were expressed in the narratives of adolescents and young adults. Significant changes from adolescence to young adulthood included a decrease in the perception of others as rejecting and of the self as opposing others. Young adults saw themselves and others more positively, and used a broader repertoire of themes in their relationship narratives than they had as adolescents. The basic continuity and particular changes in relationship schemas found in this study are consistent with knowledge about the adolescent-to-young-adult transition derived from other empirical and clinical findings. Relationship schemas may be rich units of study for learning about the development of interpersonal functioning.     

Tullock's rent-seeking contest with a minimum expenditure requirement

We consider a rent-seeking contest of the kind introduced by Tullock (1980) in which two players compete for a monopoly rent. We extend the contest by requiring that if a player puts forward an effort, his expenditures must be larger than or equal to some minimum level. We show that, depending on the model parameters, the number of Nash equilibria of the extended model can be zero, one, two or four. Furthermore, it turns out that the extent of rent dissipation in a Nash equilibrium of the extended model can be larger than, equal to, or smaller than the extent of rent dissipation in the unique Nash equilibrium of the original model.     

Gerrymandering and the Voting Rights Act of 1982: A public choice analysis of turnover in the U.S. House of Representatives

The present paper uses various data sets and statistical techniques to examine the outcome of gerrymandering under the Voting Rights Act of 1982 on turnover rates in the U.S. House of Representatives, as well as the competitiveness in Party primaries for House seats. Evidence presented here suggests that political redistricting at the federal level (namely for U.S. House seats) has tended to favor incumbents in both the Party primaries and general elections. In fact, some results suggest that turnover rates (for 1988) are between 8.9 and 10.3 percentage points lower within states that engaged in such redistricting efforts. Our findings generally support the main tenets of the public choice view of legislator behavior.