Perceptions of the Regulated Community in Environmental Policy: The View from Below

Discussions in environmental policy often focus on the highest levels of decision making and action while paying scant attention to those individuals on the front lines. Among those frequently overlooked are the individuals at regulated facilities who interact with government regulators on a frequent basis. Interviews with nearly two dozen facility personnel in Virginia yield findings that challenge common perceptions of the relationships between facility personnel and inspectors. In particular, 86 percent of facility personnel, representing a range of regulated facilities from prisons to landfills to dry cleaners, said their interactions with inspectors were positive. Approximately 70 percent of them said that they trust inspectors and provided evidence of trust in their stories. The ramifications of these findings for environmental policy could be potentially significant because facility personnel are presumed to be adversarial, if not outright hostile, and this assumption impacts the design and implementation of environmental regulations.     

Policy Changes on Canada's Rivers: Different but not Isolated

I address two questions in this article. First, how do policy changes in Canada differ from those in the United States? Second, are such changes isolated from American influence? I argue that Canadian policy changes will be more driven by subnational bureaucrats, more dependent upon fortuitous alignments of interests and institutions, and less quickly emulated by other jurisdictions than policy changes in the United States. I will also argue that policy changes in Canada are not completely isolated from those in the United States, not given the ability of ideas to cross international borders to change the framing of issues. I examine these arguments in the context of changing river management policies in British Columbia and Ontario.     

近代日本侵略性文化的历史渊源及解析

通过日本大和民族的自身特征来分析近代以来其侵略思想如何生成并演变为一种民族特性。日本岛国上产生的神话传说被统治者利用并被改造为日本的神国史,强化了神道信仰和皇道思想,再加上后来幕府时代政治理念,即武士道精神,造成了大和民族对外侵略扩张的政治文化特性。明治维新后,这一政治文化同西方列强的殖民侵略和扩张主义相结合,进而演变为国家神道信仰与资本主义天皇制政体,最后变种为天皇统治下的靖国神社思想和军国法西斯专政体制。总之,日本岛国地理环境、神道信仰、神国皇道思想、武士道精神在漫长的历史中融为一体,演变成了近代日本大和民族侵略扩张的思想文化和政治理念。     

论西部大开发的法制建设

在西部大开发战略的具体实施中 ,各种制度亟待建立和完善 ,而法制建设尤其重要。法律应当是社会需要的产物 ,西部地区经济状况的特殊性和社会发展的不平衡性 ,都要通过有针对性的法制来规范和促进。西部应当从实际出发 ,在我国宪法指导下 ,建立健全具有西部地区特色的法律制度 ,以促进西部地区的大发展。     

西部大开发与西部文化环境营造

从环境哲学的角度来看,西部大开发在人文精神、文化心智模式、文化价值评判、道德主体意识四个层面上还严重存在着与大开发要求不相适应的地方,极大地制约着西部大开发的进程。要使西部大开发达到预定目标,就必须大力营造与之相适应的文化环境。     

Community Privilege and Environmental Justice: An Agent‐Based Analysis

Several theories compete to explain observed race‐ and ethnicity‐based environmental injustice in society. This paper focuses on analyzing the extent to which firms' siting decisions based on community privilege can explain this outcome. A unique feature of this analysis is that we include analysis of both unwanted land uses (disamenity firms) and desired land uses (amenity firms). The environmental justice analysis of amenities other than green spaces is rare, but amenities are crucial components of urban areas to which environmental justice studies must attend. We use an agent‐based model to explore community outcomes when environmental disamenities choose locations based on low community privilege, and compare this with scenarios in which disamenities only seek to minimize the cost of land. We also assess differences in environmental justice outcomes when amenities choose locations in areas with high community privilege. While disamenities' focus on locating in areas with low community privilege indeed affects environmental equity, the effect of amenity location is also important, and there are powerful interaction effects. The importance of privilege‐based location is found in these simulations regardless of which social group—majority or minority—is assumed to be the privileged group. This study suggests a limitation of EJ policies and models that focus on the politics of disamenity siting without considering the politics of amenity siting.     

The "Belt and Road" Initiative:A Chinese Concept for Global Development

China's "Belt and Road" initiative is emerging as the Western-dominated world order is declining.Capitalism has intensified the rich-poor divide and power politics have led to great upheavals.Western values have caused a "value dislocation" for non-Western countries.The world is calling for new development concepts.The "Belt and Road"initiative has emerged as an answer.It embodies China's ideas on global development.First,it works for the "common prosperity" of every country,which will ease contradictions between the South and the North.Second,it emphasizes geo-economic integration that will heal the fragmentation of Eurasia.Third,it advocates linkages between people and inclusiveness to create a new kind of civilization.However,many difficulties and challenges lie ahead for the implementation of the "Belt and Road" initiative.     

Can the cultural environment affect governmental transparency on sustainability? Useful measures for policy makers and practitioners

The aim of this study is to provide useful knowledge to policy makers and practitioners on how to promote the practices of sustainability transparency in local governments, based on the influence of the cultural environment on the disclosure of governmental information on sustainability, including social, environmental and economic information. We perform a comparative analysis of the effects of four types of variables (demographic, sociological, economic and financial) on the disclosure of information on sustainability in two different contexts: Anglo-Saxon and Nordic administrative cultures. Our results show that the factors of the administrative culture context do influence practices of transparency on governmental sustainability. In the Anglo-Saxon environment, the explanatory variables are population size, dependent population and education level. For the Nordic area countries, the main variables are unemployment, dependent population, financial autonomy and debt per capita. Taking into account the study results obtained, we propose measures to facilitate the dissemination of sustainability information in each cultural environment.     

Conceptual Reflection on Responsive Environmental Governance

This article discusses the conceptual base of the term of responsive environmental governance. Theme is important, as combining the greater demand for material wealth and sustainable use of natural resources is difficult. Successful and sustainable environmental management is possible only when active local support exists, that is, when governance is responsive. The article argues that action space for citizens on eco-social dependency is called for. People’s participation in decision-making and public debate; clear responsibilities and accountability measures of duty-bearers; and clearly articulated rights of citizens make governance responsive.     

Economic transformations in Cuba: a review

After Raul Castro’s accession to the presidency of Cuba, the country has witnessed the most far-reaching process of economic reforms for more than five decades. The government has expanded the private and cooperative sectors, has passed a new foreign investment law, restructured most of its old debt and has sought to end the long-standing dispute with the USA. Yet economic performance has been poor and the country faces significant challenges and contradictions arising from the reforms. This paper analyses the macroeconomic environment and the changes introduced by the Cuban government over the period 2007–15. While successful at restoring macroeconomic equilibria, restrictive macroeconomic policies have hurt economic growth, whereas growth- and efficiency-enhancing measures are yet to produce results. Moreover, transformation of the economic model is slow because of its many internal contradictions. The paper also discusses some of the main impediments to future change.