Shifting rights,property and authority in the forest frontier: ‘stakes’ for local land users and citizens

Customary land and forests are more embedded in the global economy than ever. With globally significant supplies of land and raw materials and favorable terms for foreign investors, developing countries – particularly in Africa – have become increasingly attractive trade partners and destinations for investors. Increasing competition over land is placing new pressures on vast tracts of forest and woodland, areas often considered ‘under-utilized’ by national governments despite their critical role in supporting local livelihoods. While increased demand for primary agricultural, forest and mining commodities in the context of forest tenure reforms and decentralized decision-making could create unprecedented economic opportunities for forest-dependent communities, increased ‘stakes’ over forest resources and land will undoubtedly heighten governance challenges. This is in no small part due to the political dynamics of property, and to the role of the ‘recursive constitution of property rights and authority’ in the evolution of the modern nation-state. By identifying the social ‘stakes’ associated with different pathways through which sectoral and extra-sectoral commodities shape forests, this paper provides a conceptual framework for analyzing how shifting contours of rights, property and authority in the context of forest-related trade and investment shape human well-being for affected communities and the wider citizenry of host countries. It then illustrates the use of the framework through its application to two brief case studies from southern Africa: tobacco production in Malawi and copper mining in Zambia. It is hoped that this framework will provide a meaningful contribution to growing scholarship on the political dynamics of property, and implications for rights-based approaches to agricultural investment and large-scale land acquisitions.     

Youth’s Causal Beliefs About Success: Socioeconomic Differences and Prediction of Early Career Development

Youth’s career attainment is associated with socioeconomic background, but may also be related to their beliefs about causes of success. Relationships between 17-year-olds’ socioeconomic status (SES) and causal beliefs about success, and whether these beliefs predict career attainment after completing a vocational or university degree were examined using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (n?=?997, 48.5% female). Youth with higher SES parents and those who attended higher levels of high schools were less likely to believe that success in society is due to external causes, but SES was unrelated to the belief that success is due to personal merit or ability. Youth who believe that success is due to external causes attained lower income, occupational prestige, and job autonomy, and slower increases in income over time. There were also significant indirect effects of youth’s parents’ SES and their own high school levels on career attainment through such external causal beliefs; merit beliefs, by contrast, were largely unrelated to career attainment. These results suggest that beliefs about external causes of success may uniquely contribute to the transmission and maintenance of SES across generations and over time.     

Technologies of Displacement and Children’s Right to Asylum in Sweden

Through an analysis of 100 asylum decisions and 10 interviews with 20 asylum officers at the Swedish Migration Agency this article reveals two intricate processes through which children’s rights are displaced in the Swedish asylum process; by overlooking children’s individual claims for asylum through a circle of neglect, and negating children’s best interests. The article demonstrates how the balancing act between migration control on one hand and children’s rights on the other hand plays out in the asylum process, which results in a double displacement; the children are not adult enough to be addressed as asylum seekers and not children enough to deserve qualification as bearer of children’s rights. An in-depth analysis of everyday practices at institutions applying children’s rights is essential both to understand the reproduction of discrepancies between rights on paper and rights in practice, and to explore the potential of rights to disrupt oppressive vehicles of power.     

Bäuerliche Hofübergabe unter Lebenden und (anerbenrechtliche) Nachtragserbteilung

In JBl 2010, 487–495, wurde dargelegt, dass der anerbenrechtliche Nachtragsanspruch der weichenden Geschwister (Miterben) gegen den Hofübernehmer sich nach b?uerlichem Gewohnheitsrecht beurteilt, dass also bei Wegfall der Rechtfertigung für den begünstigten übernahmspreis wegen gewinnsüchtiger Ver?u?erung des Hofes (oder von Hofliegenschaften) durch den übernehmer der Mehrerl?s auf die Miterben (weichenden Geschwister) nach dem Hofübergeber aufzuteilen ist. Der Nachtragsanspruch geh?rt also noch zum begrifflichen Umfang und Inhalt des nach b?uerlichem Gewohnheitsrecht zu bestimmenden begünstigten übernahmspreises (Wohlbestehenswertes). Die Fristen für den Nachtragsanspruch sind nach b?uerlichem Gewohnheitsrecht auf folgende Weise zu formulieren: Die Ver?u?erung des Hofes (oder von Hofliegenschaften) muss in die mit etwa 15 Jahren zu bestimmende Frist ab Hofübergabe an den Hofübernehmer fallen, die mit der Hofübergabe zu laufen beginnt. Dieser Anspruch kann nur nach Tod des Hofübergebers geltend gemacht werden, bei einer Frist für die gerichtliche Geltendmachung von 3 Jahren ab erfolgter Ver?u?erung (Einverleibung) durch den Hofübernehmer.     

Rationality and the political business cycle: The case of local government

The empirical results which have been reported support the hypotheses' implied by the model of rational political behavior set out in Section 2. In pre-election periods, local government development expenditures deviate significantly from their normal levels. The extent of deviation is approximately 20%.Consistent with the predictions of this model, it is found that incumbents not seeking re-election deviated far more in their pre-election discretionary budget expenditure than incumbents seeking re-election. The expenditure gap between the two types of incumbents is large and statistically significant. Incumbents not seeking re-election exhibit a deviation equivalent to 47% of the development budget, while those seeking re-election exhibit a 12% deviation.     

Rethinking early intervention

With Bernard Spodek, he edited Early Childhood Education: Issues and Highlights.He has written or edited more than 30 other books and contributed more than 300 articles to educational, psychological, and practitioner journals on such topics as giftedness and talent development, educational productivity, international comparisons, instruction, and parent education.     

Weakening partisanship and the higher educated in Britain

Abstract. The decline in support for traditional political parties in a number of Western democracies is often attributed to the effects of recent educational expansion and a consequent rise in cognitive mobilisation in the electorate. The thesis that support for the two major parties in Britain is lowest among the young educated is tested here, using survey data for the period 1964–1983. The analysis indicates that for only a short time in the early 1970s was there evidence of such a relationship, and that differences in major-party support which are related to age and to educational achievement have all but disappeared by the 1980s. Moreover, the findings cast serious doubt upon the validity of current operationalisations of 'cognitive mobilisation'.