Discounting procedures for environmental (and other) projects: A comment on Kolb and Scheraga

We compare two alternative methods to discount the costs and benefits of environmental projects. These are (1) the shadow price of capital, which can be practically expressed by using the cost of capital and thus the discount rate on government bonds, and (2) the two-stage discounting procedure advocated by Kolb and Scheraga. We suggest that the two-stage approach is in many cases inconsistent with the shadow price of capital approach and will therefore lead to misallocations of resources. We further argue that the use of the cost of capital as the discount rate will be easier than the two-stage procedure, will yield results that are consistent with the shadow price of capital approach, and will be justified by the potential Pareto criterion. Finally, use of the shadow price of capital approach has a potential for achieving considerable consensus in practice as well as in theory, a result that could considerably enhance project evaluation.     

The Limits of Partnership: An Exit-Action Strategy for Local Democratic Inclusion

The challenge of enhancing the 'democratic anchorage' of partnerships has become a central concern in policy studies. Radical reform proposals designed to level the deliberative playing field include community veto powers and the appointment of neutral arbiters. Welcome as they would be, however, it is questionable whether such reforms would overcome power asymmetries in the partnership arena. A study of the local politics of social inclusion in two UK cities, Dundee and Hull, suggests that managerialism, driven by national governments, is eroding the prospects for partnership democratisation. But more significantly for the reformist agenda, public managers and community activists think in incompatible frames about the role of partnerships and in ways that are not understood by the other party. Non-communication undermines the prospects for an equitable democratic consensus. Insights from Bourdieu suggest that even in environments more favourable to equitable democratic discourse than those in Dundee and Hull, subtle manifestations of power in culture, discourse and bearing would undermine the potential for a Habermasian consensus between radically unequal actors. In a radical departure from the network governance paradigm, it is therefore argued that empowerment may depend less on enhanced network democracy than on strong independent community organisation capable of acting separately and coercively against governing institutions and elites – an exit-action strategy. These preliminary conclusions point to a substantial research agenda on the politics of the state–civil society nexus.     

Learning from Difference: The New Architecture of Experimentalist Governance in the EU

Abstract:  This article argues that current widespread characterisations of EU governance as multi-level and networked overlook the emergent architecture of the EU's public rule making. In this architecture, framework goals (such as full employment, social inclusion, 'good water status', a unified energy grid) and measures for gauging their achievement are established by joint action of the Member States and EU institutions. Lower-level units (such as national ministries or regulatory authorities and the actors with whom they collaborate) are given the freedom to advance these ends as they see fit. But in return for this autonomy, they must report regularly on their performance and participate in a peer review in which their results are compared with those pursuing other means to the same general ends. Finally, the framework goals, performance measures, and decision-making procedures themselves are periodically revised by the actors, including new participants whose views come to be seen as indispensable to full and fair deliberation. Although this architecture cannot be read off from either Treaty provisions or textbook accounts of the formal competences of EU institutions, the article traces its emergence and diffusion across a wide range of policy domains, including telecommunications, energy, drug authorisation, occupational health and safety, employment promotion, social inclusion, pensions, health care, environmental protection, food safety, maritime safety, financial services, competition policy, state aid, anti-discrimination policy and fundamental rights.     

Collective Memory from a Psychological Perspective

The study of collective memory has burgeoned in the last 20 years, so much so that one can even detect a growing resistance to what some view as the imperialistic march of memory studies across the social sciences (e.g., Berliner 2005; Fabian 1999). Yet despite its clear advance, one area that has remained on the sidelines is psychology. On the one hand, this disinterest is surprising, since memory is of central concern to psychologists. On the other hand, the relative absence of the study of collective memory within the discipline of psychology seems to suit both psychology and other disciplines of the social sciences, for reasons that will be made clear. This paper explores how psychology might step from the sidelines and contribute meaningfully to discussions of collective memory. It reviews aspects of the small literature on the psychology of collective memory and connects this work to the larger scholarly community’s interest in collective memory. The first three authors contributed equally to this paper. The order in which they are listed reflects the throw of a die.     

Similarities between terrorist networks in antiquity and present-day cyberterrorist networks

This paper analyzes the similarities between terrorist networks in Antiquity and cyberterrorist networks today. By establishing comparisons between networks from two classes of terrorists whose actions were recorded 2,000 years apart, this paper adds substance to the understanding of the superiority of networks to archetypical organizational structures (i.e., with a hierarchically-based order). By identifying three major factors, many analogies can be drawn, based on empirical statements found throughout this analysis, between cyberterrorist networks in this day and age and terrorist networks in Antiquity. Those factors are (1) similar patterns of communication, (2) similar connections and kinship webs, and (3) similar obstacles.