The counterinsurgency/conservation nexus: guerrilla livelihoods and the dynamics of conflict and violence in the Virunga National Park,Democratic Republic of the Congo

The growing militarisation of nature conservation has refocused attention on the relations between counterinsurgency and conservation. This contribution analyses how these two phenomena entwine in the Virunga National Park, located in the war-ridden east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It examines how this entwinement relates to dynamics of conflict and violence, and how these dynamics shape and are shaped by the livelihood and resistance practices of local inhabitants. As it shows, a particularly important form of resistance is ‘guerrilla livelihood’ activities, or cultivation, (prohibited) fishing and logging within the boundaries of the park, which often take place under the protection of armed groups. By studying the interplay among such unauthorised exploitation of natural resources, different types of conflict, and insurgent mobilisation, it is demonstrated that strict law enforcement and joint operations of the Congolese army and park guards fuel, rather than mitigate, the dynamics feeding into armed mobilisation.     

Humanitarianism in intra-state conflict: aid inequality and local governance in government- and opposition-controlled areas in the Syrian war

This article argues that humanitarian aid in intra-state conflict plays a crucial but largely unrecognised role in shaping the preconditions for negotiations for peace and post-conflict reconstruction. Drawing on a spatial theory approach, it identifies the role of humanitarian aid as not being temporary and independent, but as forming an integral part of the daily lives of local communities and of continuously evolving structures of governance during conflict. As a result, significant imbalances in the distribution of aid between different geographical areas, as highlighted in the current Syrian war, threaten not only the immediate survival of civilians, but also their future.     

The rise and fall of a policy: policy succession and the attempted termination of ecological corridors policy in the Netherlands

In policy analysis, studies on policy termination are rare. This article offers such a study. It presents the story of how, despite attempts by the government to terminate it, Dutch nature policy on ecological corridors continued to be implemented by regional governments and in the field. A case analysis is presented that integrates theories and insights not only from the termination literature but also from the literature on implementation. The different factors identified in the literature that enable or constrain implementation and termination have served as a basis for developing possible explanations of the case study. They cannot, however, serve as generic theories with predictive power. Policy termination as well as policy implementation are highly contextual processes and the question which factors will enable or constrain policy termination and implementation can only be answered on a case by case basis.

Varieties of Limited Access Orders: The nexus between politics and economics in hybrid regimes

This article advances our understanding of differences in hybrid stability by going beyond existing regime typologies that separate the study of political institutions from the study of economic institutions. It combines the work of Douglass North, John Wallis, and Barry Weingast (NWW) on varieties of social orders with the literature on political and economic regime typologies and dynamics to understand hybrid regimes as Limited Access Orders (LAOs) that differ in the way dominant elites limit access to political and economic resources. Based on a measurement of political and economic access applied to seven post‐Soviet states, the article identifies four types of LAOs. Challenging NWW's claim, it shows that hybrid regimes can combine different degrees of political and economic access to sustain stability. Our typology allows to form theoretical expectations about the kinds of political and/or economic changes that will move different types of LAOs toward more openness or closure.     

A social-ecological approach to voluntary environmental initiatives: the case of nature-based tourism

This paper addresses the role of voluntary environmental initiatives by the tourism industry to alleviate social dilemmas for the management of natural resources. The objective is to explore whether previous findings on the determinants of voluntary action in the management of common-pool resources (CPR) also apply to a sector, such as tourism, where non-extractive uses are dominant. The paper applies the social-ecological systems framework recently developed by Ostrom (Science, 325, 419–422, 2009) to analyze qualitative data from meta-analyses of successful voluntary environmental initiatives in tourism. Results show that the determinants of voluntary action in tourism are partially consistent with previous research on CPR, finding relevant the presence of leadership, norms of behavior among members of the voluntary initiatives, shared mental modes, salience of the resource for users, and substantial productivity of the resource system in the likelihood of self-organization. However, other variables that have been shown to be relevant in non-tourism CPR situations are not supported by this analysis, such as: most variables regarding the ecological system (its size, predictability, and the mobility of its derived resource units) as well as the number of users and supportive collective choice rules that enable users to craft and enforce some of their own rules. The implications of this partial mismatch in findings are not straightforward. The paper presents a set of research questions that open a path for further research.     

Child-to-Parent Violence in Adolescents: The Perspectives of the Parents,Children, and Professionals in a Sample of Spanish Focus Group Participants

This study explored the characteristics of child-to-parent violence (CPV) in Spain based on the narrations of adolescents who perpetrate this kind of violence, their parents, and the professionals who work in this area. A qualitative design was used. Focus groups were asked about the risk factors associated with CPV, such as exposure to family violence, discipline, and psychological characteristics of the adolescents. Interviews were videotaped, transcribed, and reviewed independently by each investigator to identify and group distinct comments into categories with specific themes. Results suggest that CPV is mainly linked to exposure to marital conflict and family violence, permissive discipline, emotional disengagement in the father-child relationship, and symptoms of emotional stress and substance consumption in the children. Lastly, acts of CPV seem to be an attempt by the children to gain power in the context of family relations in which the parents display their incapacity to establish control. As several family and personal characteristics appear to be involved in CPV, it is recommended that family and individual approaches be considered for treatment.     

Perceptions and practices of monitoring and evaluation: International NGO experiences in Ethiopia

This article explores attempts by eight UK-based international NGOs currently engaged in rural development interventions in Ethiopia to employ monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems as a means of strengthening accountability and institutional learning. Premised on the conviction that such NGOs comprise loose coalitions of interest groups at different organisational levels within them, the study explores how respondents in head offices, Addis Ababa, and field offices perceive and practise M&E. It was found that perceptions of M&E vary considerably between hierarchical levels and can have a significant impact on practice. Such perceptions are also framed by individual interests and thus frequently fail to reflect the reality of M&E practice. The story that unfolds offers valuable insights into the current myths and realities of M&E among INGOs.     

Young people,family relationships and civic participation

This article examines young people’s civic participation and the extent to which this is influenced by the family. Although literature on young people’s civic participation is abundant, the role of the family in influencing this participation is largely absent. Drawing on survey data collected from 976 young people aged 13–14 in South Wales, we outline the extent and nature of civic participation and how this varies according to relationships with parents and grandparents. Our data show that relationships with mothers and grandparents are particularly important in young people’s accounts of their participation, suggesting that family is far more important in developing a propensity for engagement in civil society than is commonly understood.