TheWorld’sResponsibility

正From December 1-12,Peru’s capital Lima plays host to the 2014 UN Climate Change Conference.The conference takes place juxtaposed with a series of side events on climate issues hosted by the Chinese delegation.During these events,China tries to demonstrate the efforts the government,business and academic communities,non-governmental organizations and Chinese youth have made in combating the detrimental effects of climate change.     

The Club Rules in Global Financial Governance

Though the list of reforms following the onset of the financial crisis is long, we should resist the temptation to view the emerging regulatory framework in terms of a paradigm shift. Many key features of the system, including the privileged position of financial institutions, remain unchanged. This is not merely due to obstruction or capacity shortcomings but can be explained by considering the sources of ideas and the governance setting. Ideas and policy programmes for reform were generated by a policy community also responsible for shaping the pre‐crisis governance framework. Moreover, the ideas and preferences of these players are moulded by their transnational interactions and the club‐like mechanisms in place for determining what (and who) is to be included in discussions. These settings have produced policy programmes that helped address the immediate, ‘fast‐burning’ elements of the crisis, but have so far failed to put together a comprehensive reform programme.     

The Rise of the Resilient Local Authority?

The term resilience is increasingly being utilised within the study of public policy to depict how individuals, communities and organisations can adapt, cope, and ‘bounce back’ when faced with external shocks such as climate change, economic recession and cuts in public expenditure. In focussing on the local dimensions of the resilience debate, this article argues that the term can provide useful insights into how the challenges facing local authorities in the UK can be reformulated and reinterpreted. The article also distinguishes between resilience as ‘recovery’ and resilience as ‘transformation’, with the latter's focus on ‘bouncing forward’ from external shocks seen as offering a more radical framework within which the opportunities for local innovation and creativity can be assessed and explained. While also acknowledging some of the weaknesses of the resilience debate, the dangers of conceptual ‘stretching’, and the extent of local vulnerabilities, the article highlights a range of examples where local authorities – and crucially, local communities – have enhanced their adaptive capacity, within existing powers and responsibilities. From this viewpoint, some of the barriers to the development of resilient local government are not insurmountable, and can be overcome by ‘digging deep’ to draw upon existing resources and capabilities, promoting a strategic approach to risk, exhibiting greater ambition and imagination, and creating space for local communities to develop their own resilience.     

Poor communities as corporate stakeholders: A bottom-up research approach

Abstract

This article strives to provide an understanding of salient issues affecting the daily lives of participants from various developing communities in the country, and within the bigger picture, discuss some implications for organisations that affect or are affected by such communities. A key implication is that the process of constant connectivity and dialogue, including dissent, with communities as corporate stakeholders, may be more important in establishing trust and earning accountability, than the outcomes of well-planned corporate social responsibility campaigns. The study is based on qualitative research undertaken between 2006 and 2008 in 35 South African rural and township communities in Limpopo Province, North-West and Gauteng. A bottom-up research approach was proposed by the researchers, which, instead of evaluating the effects of corporate communication campaigns on communities, was to begin at a grassroots level with communities themselves, by exploring top-of-mind issues. From the findings it was apparent that a vicious cycle of extreme and endemic poverty was the focal area that occupied community members’ minds. This study provides a linkage between certain aspects of corporate social responsibility, normative stakeholder theory, strategic communication and stakeholder dialogue, in an attempt to provide organisations with guidelines to evaluate and respond to the challenges of poor communities, and offer a perspective on the way strategic communication with poor communities should take place.     

Structure and strategy. Two rural communities in the Kempen region of Belgium, 1850–1910

This article starts with a methodological question: By carrying out a structural analysis of a local community, is it possible to gain insight into the labor strategies of the families within that community? This structural analysis is based on the reconstruction and integration of population, labor, and income data of individual households within two villages in 19th century Belgium. Basically, this exercise is to understand two sets of correlations: (a) between social differentiation and the family cycle and (b) between shifts in the social relationship between families and generations and the survival strategies of those families. This article shows that a structural approach to labor and income strategies can reveal how and why former strategies can lose their relevance and new choices are made relating to new networks of solidarity.     

Civic Networks and Community Resilience in Brazil,Canada, Chile,and Cuba

This article explores the relationship between civil society and community resilience in coastal communities in Brazil, Canada, Chile and Cuba. In understanding the role of social capital in community development, we do not feel sufficient attention has been paid to the subtle micro-dynamics of civil network structure. Using social network analysis, we explore the link between community cohesion and resilience. Attention is given to conflicting interests that characterize these communities and how they manifest themselves in civic participation and factional affiliations. We find that organizational diversity is a necessary condition for community vitality, but organizations can become captive to factional interests. The critical factors for resilience are associated with a benign side of factions (a plurality of inclusive ties) and the presence of keystone bridging agents. Each offers hidden mechanisms for neutralizing the effects of fragmentation by providing a cohesive capability which remains latent until crises call for collective action.     

Originating lender localness and mortgage sustainability: an evaluation of delinquency and foreclosure in Indiana's mortgage revenue bond program

Originating lenders play a vital role in selecting and preparing borrowers for homeownership, directly and through partnerships with community entities. While previous research demonstrates the importance of originating lenders for mortgage access to low- and moderate-income borrowers, this analysis evaluates the influence of the originating lender, and in particular the localness of the lender, on mortgage sustainability (reduced delinquency and foreclosure). Employing data on more than 5,000 low- and moderate-income borrowers participating in Indiana's Mortgage Revenue Bond (MRB) program from 2004–2006, this analysis finds that the localness of the originating lender is significantly predictive of mortgage sustainability. After controlling for borrower, mortgage, and market characteristics, an increase in the localness of the lender is associated with a decrease in the probability of delinquency and foreclosure, particularly for higher risk (lower credit score) borrowers participating in the MRB program.     

Gated communities: The new ideal way of life in natal,Brazil

Abstract

Gated communities have been growing quickly in Brazil's urban and suburban areas since the 1980s, bringing challenges to society through their privatization of public space, conflict with planning norms, and interference with the integrated planning of the cities in which they are built. My article analyzes this phenomenon to establish a clear basis for purposeful public policies in Brazil. The analysis is based on a case study of the first three closed condominiums in Natal. It involves 31 semistructured interviews focusing on legal, urban/architectural, and segregational factors and their implications.

Federal and local governments have contributed, deliberately or unwittingly, to the development of such enclosed complexes, which have social and spatial impacts and guarantee that the upper class will remain wealthy. There also seems to be a close relationship between the spread of fortified residences and the promotion of a “culture of fear.”     

Institutionalized social skill and the rise of mediating organizations in urban governance: the case of the Cleveland Housing Network

In this paper we build on an expanding literature that attempts to understand the changing organizational and institutional dimensions of contemporary urban governance. We do so by utilizing the Cleveland Housing Network as a lens through which salient characteristics of contemporary governance become visible. Doing so enables us to highlight the distinctive challenges of the multi-institutional nature of contemporary governance arrangements and “heterarchic” governance in particular. These challenges situate mediating organizations as central components of governance arrangements. Finally, by focusing on the distinctive characteristics of the organization's leaders, we demonstrate that mediating organizations are usefully thought of as institutionalized forms of the “social skill” of institutional entrepreneurs.