An Examination of Local Climate Change Policies in the Great Plains

As the United States struggles with national solutions to address climate change, state and local governments have become leaders in both mitigation and adaptation policy. Although a significant and growing body of research targets these policies, most studies have assumed common factors motivating both adaptation and mitigation policy adoption. There remains a need for more research on cities of all sizes, their adoption of specific local policies, the factors motivating those choices, and whether the influences for mitigation differ from those that motivate adaptation. The paper uses data from a new survey of over 200 local governments in eleven states of the Great Plains region, including measures distinguishing between mitigation and adaptation policies. These data are employed to test the relative influence of factors from three areas: the policy environment, the attitudes of governmental actors, and community atmosphere, in explaining observed variation in the adoption of climate change policies.     

福利国家模式、职业结构与不平等原因

福特主义工业社会向后福特主义服务经济的转变，赋予各类福利国家诸多新特征。从职业分层来看，经济服务化过程中大量专业岗位的创造及其对熟练技能的需求，使得教育以及其他社会政策，越来越成为推动阶层流动的决定力量。从收入分布来看，全球化、去管制化、去工业化与老龄化、经济服务化、城市化的叠加，使得福利国家模式普遍呈现出收入极化或不平等，中产衰退的迹象也比较明显。效率公平权衡的努力，进一步加剧了福利国家模式分化。鉴于高度现代化过程中不断出现的困难和挑战，产业均衡发展，经济政策与社会政策协调，构成稳妥推进共同富裕的重要基础。