Responses to the Clean Power Plan: Factors Influencing State Decision‐Making

In 2015, President Obama introduced the Clean Power Plan (CPP), a federal plan aimed at reducing the production of carbon pollution from power plants. In response, some used legal action to try and stop the plan, while others supported the plan and proceeded with plans for its implementation. This research investigates responses taken by state government in terms of legal remedies and planning for implementation, and what explains those responses. Findings suggest that partisanship plays a key role. Specifically, the partisanship of the attorney general is correlated with the legal response, and the governor with implementation planning. Coals, and perhaps renewables, also seem to play a role, even controlling for partisanship. There is only weak evidence for the effect of policy experience and none for the estimated cost of the policy. The article concludes by discussing the implications of these results for the future of climate policy in the United States.     

The Role of Scientific Excellence in the Changing Meaning of Maize in Mexico

Making policy is giving a meaning to objects. This perspective on policy making gained importance in the 1990s with the emergence of discursive approaches. In this article, we use the concepts of Hajer's discourse coalition approach to shed light on the evolving meaning of maize in Mexican society. Specifically, we trace a parallel between the evolution of biotechnology policy and discourses on maize over a 25‐year period. The article argues that until recently, the protection against biotechnological manipulations enjoyed by maize has been bolstered by a discourse granting the plant a special status in the country's history. However, the emergence of a new discourse grounded on the practice of scientific excellence is now challenging the old perspectives, and also finding support among government officials. As a result, the Mexican policies granting maize special protection is changing, and this policy change will likely trigger changes in the symbolic meaning of maize.     

Emphasis Framing and the Role of Perceived Knowledge: A Survey Experiment

The relationship between emphasis framing and public opinion has received considerable attention in political science, psychology, and mass communication studies. However, what moderating role perceived knowledge plays in influencing emphasis framing remains unsettled. We explore this relationship using a survey‐experiment embedded within a large‐N, nationally representative survey that allows us to test two specific hypotheses. First, we empirically test whether an emphasis frame influences policy support. Second, we test the moderating effect of perceived knowledge. We test the emphasis framing effects of the name given to a “hot‐button” political issue, while controlling for other survey treatments. Furthermore, we evaluate the degree to which perceived knowledge of the issue moderates the relationship between the emphasis frame and support for hydraulic fracturing. We find support both for the role emphasis framing plays and for perceived knowledge as a moderator.     

“出兵-撤兵”与俄罗斯在叙利亚地缘政治目标的实现

叙利亚危机爆发后第五年,俄罗斯正式出兵叙利亚,成为打击“伊斯兰国”的重要力量。通过军事行动,俄罗斯成功阻止了恐怖活动的进一步蔓延、提升了自身国际影响力、在困境中绝处逢生。当前,中东地区矛盾依旧纷繁复杂,多方势力持续深度博弈,俄罗斯两次宣布从叙利亚撤出部队,展现了其军事-外交联动运用的“巧实力”,获得了战略红利、实现了部分既定地缘政治目标。然而,俄罗斯长期介入叙利亚与美国及西方展开地缘博弈,对其国家振兴无疑是一个沉重的负担,尤其是叙利亚持续动荡的局势及域外大国的深度介入,使俄罗斯虽两次宣布撤兵,却从未真正撤出,围绕叙利亚及中东地区主导权和国际话语权的争夺还将在各大国间反复上演。随着普京开启其第四个总统任期,俄罗斯在解决叙利亚危机、破除西方制裁、振兴国家经济等问题上依然面临严峻挑战,这需要普京和俄罗斯精英阶层寻求解决问题的“新思路”。     

西北少数民族地区生态环境法律保护研究

西北少数民族地区在全国可持续发展的大格局中占有举足轻重的地位。这个独特区域的生态环境却极为脆弱。由于在经济发展中缺少相应法律对生态环境的有效保护,导致西北少数民族地区的经济发展与生态环境的保护出现许多矛盾,由此引发的民族关系、人与自然的矛盾、社会发展和经济发展等问题逐渐突现。本文从可持续发展的角度出发,对该地区现有的生态环境保护法律资源进行了细致的梳理,分析了两北少数民族地区生态环境保护法律立法和执法方面的不足,有针对性地提出了西北少数民族地区生态环境保护法治化的基本思路。     

Kazakhstan＇s energy policy： Its evolution and tendencies

As a young sovereign state, Kazakhstan tries to conduct policy that makes it an equal partner among other countries of the world community. Rich deposits of oil and natural gas in the country and the Caspian Sea attract the interests of energy consuming states. At the same time, the landlocked position and weak infrastructure lead a more active foreign policy based on the energy factor. This paper is an attempt to study the development of energy policy of Kazakhstan focusing on the country＇s relations with Russia, China, the USA and the European Union. The complex geopolitical environment and relatively small, young economy of Kazakhstan emerge as the main reasons for conducting multi-vector and balanced foreign policy. The author defines peculiarities and tendencies of possible future developments with respect to Kazakhstan＇s place in the energy sphere.     

Cost–benefit analysis: New foundations on shifting sand

New Foundations of Cost–Benefit Analysis, by Matthew Adler and Eric Posner, represents the most ambitious and credible effort to date to build a solid theoretical defense of the use of cost–benefit analysis (CBA) in evaluating government regulation. In this review, three cost–benefit “skeptics” offer their reactions to this ambitious and important book. We note its virtues – its humility, its scrupulousness, its open‐mindedness. We also explore its vices. If preferences are to be “laundered,” is it intellectually defensible to remove the bad but not consider adding the good? Does Adler's and Posner's welfarism really play the limited role they suppose, or does it risk “crowding out” other important deontological and distributional values? If CBA is merely a decision procedure that provides an imperfect proxy of welfare – the moral criterion we really care about – how do we know that the proxy it provides in practice will actually be accurate enough to be useful? Isn't this at bottom an empirical question that cannot be answered by this thoroughly theoretical book? If CBA is no more than an imperfect proxy for welfare, then alternative imperfect decision procedures may perform better in the real world.     

The Political Viability of Carbon Pricing: Policy Design and Framing in British Columbia and California

The adoption of climate policies with visible, substantial costs for households is uncommon because of expected political backlash, but British Columbia's carbon tax and California's cap‐and‐trade program imposed such costs and still survived vigorous opposition. To explain these outcomes, this article tests hypotheses concerning policy design, framing, energy prices, and elections. It conducts universalizing and variation‐finding comparisons across three subcases in the two jurisdictions and uses primary sources to carry out process tracing involving mechanisms of public opinion and elite position‐taking. The article finds strong support for the timing of independent energy price changes, exogenous causes of election results, reducing the visibility of carbon pricing, and using public‐benefit justifications, as well as some support for making concessions to voters. By contrast, the effects of the use of revenue, industry exemptions/compensations, and making polluters pay are not uniform, because the effects of revenue use depend on how it is embedded in coalition building efforts and a middle path between exempting or compensating industry and burdening it appears to be more effective than pursuing just one or the other approach.     

The Contribution of Open Government to Prosperity of Society

The study finds that open government does not only have effect on economic prosperity, but on social capital and environment through the mechanisms of Rule of Law and Control of Corruption. The role of Rule of Law and Control of Corruption are emphasized in this study, because of their significance in mediating open government and prosperity. Unless mechanisms like regulation formulation, law enforcement and control of corruption are not put into practice; open government itself will not be a driving force to a prosperous society.