China's aggressive ‘periphery diplomacy’ and South Korean perspectives

In this special section, the present article reviews South Korean perspectives on China's ‘periphery diplomacy’ with a focus on Chinese behaviour with respect to the East China Sea maritime territory and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). By analysing research papers published by various Korean research institutions and academic journals, this article demonstrates that most Korean scholars hold that as long as China's growth goes on, the tensions between the US and China are likely to intensify. The article also shows that one of the primary concerns of South Korean scholars lies in the question of how South Korea should respond to changing regional orders and a rising China. The article argues that South Korea's strategic dilemma is reflected in a regional structure in which competition between two great powers has recently forced the periphery to impose bilateral ties on.     

Sustainable Colonization: Tar Sands as Resource Colonialism

Canada is one of the world’s largest petrostates, owing to large shale oil deposits, also known as tar sands, which can be found within its borders. In recent decades, as the price of crude oil has increased dramatically, corporations and the Canadian state have worked together to open the oil deposits in Northern Canada for extraction and transportation. Despite a stated commitment to environmental sustainability by the United States and Canadian governments, both have endorsed tar sands extraction and transport. Government and corporate entities have tried to reframe tar sands as “ethical oil,” yet all steps in the process involved pose tremendous ecological, social, economic, and cultural threats to First Nations communities in Canada, landowners in the Midwest and Texas, local ecosystems, and the global climate. This practice is part of a long-standing pattern of appropriating and using public and First Nations land for economic development. We argue that tar sands production on First Nations land is a practice of resource colonialism: the theft and appropriation of land belonging to indigenous people in order to access natural resources. By branding tar sands as “ethical oil” and labeling production companies as “sustainable,” the public and private sectors bound up in the extractive economy claim to provide an essential public service while misdirecting attention away from acts of colonialism that make these resources available. In this article, we examine the ways in which corporate and state entities use the discourse of sustainability as a cover for continued resource colonialism.     

The trade-ification of the food sustainability agenda

This contribution argues that the food sustainability agenda in global food governance arrangements is becoming ‘trade-ified’. It shows that international trade has become normalized in these settings not only as being compatible with, but also as a key delivery mechanism for, food system sustainability. The paper first explains the rationale for this dominant narrative, which revolves around the efficiency gains from trade. Second, it outlines two important critiques of this approach – one that stresses the need to look beyond food as an economic commodity, and one that reveals the internal flaws of trade theory – which together provide important counterpoints to this dominant narrative. Third, the paper offers three interrelated explanations for why trade continues to be presented as a key ingredient to food sustainability despite the weaknesses of the dominant approach: institutional fragmentation in global food governance; the carryover of previous normative compromises regarding trade and the environment in other governance settings; and the influence of powerful interests.     

Sustainability Reporting by Australian Universities

There is continuing debate about the consequences of climate change and an increasing emphasis placed on the disclosure of social and environmental indicators by organisations. Universities have been traditionally known as places where intellectual inquiry and advances in knowledge are paramount. Therefore, there is an expectation that universities would place much emphasis on sustainability reporting to fulfil the needs of a range of stakeholders. The objective of this study is to investigate the nature and extent of sustainability disclosures reported by Australian universities in stand‐alone sustainability reports. The findings suggest significant differences in the nature and extent of sustainability disclosures. This study has implications for policy‐makers and university administrators and is a call to senior university leaders to take up the challenge and contribute to the global conversation with regard to sustainability reporting.     

Washington's perceptions and misperceptions of Beijing's anti-access area-denial (A2-AD) ‘strategy’: implications for military escalation control and strategic stability

Washington has become increasingly concerned that Beijing's anti-access area-denial (A2-AD) capabilities will put at risk US military assets and forward forces operating in the Western Pacific region, enabling China to deter, delay and deny US intervention in future regional conflict and crisis. US defence analysts in their assessments have frequently, and often erroneously, conflated a Chinese operational capability with an underlying strategic intention that conceptualises the United States as its primary (if not sole) target. The central argument this article proffers is that US perceptions of A2-AD have been framed by specific analytical baselines that have overlooked the evolution of Chinese operational and doctrinal preferences, and over-reliant upon military material-based assessments to determine Beijing's strategic intentions, and formulate US military countervails. The article concludes that the strategic ambiguities and opacity associated with Chinese A2-AD capabilities and its ‘active defence’ concept reinforced Washington's reliance upon capacity-based assessments that in turn, exacerbated misperceptions confounded by cognitive bias of Chinese strategic intentions. The critical framing assumptions of this article draw heavily upon the ideas and rationale associated with the international relations ‘Security Dilemma’ concept.     

The Progressive Dilemma Revisited

In his book of the same title, David Marquand identified the progressive dilemma faced by many intellectuals since the beginning of the twentieth century as a question of whether it was better to work through a political party or through civil society to achieve reform. This dilemma was sharpened by the emergence of the Labour party as the main challenger to the Conservatives, because the party was so closely identified with the defence of a particular interest. This hindered the creation of the kind of broad electoral coalition that could win general elections. Throughout most of its history, Labour has failed to realise its promise and sustain reforming governments. In this article, the history of the Labour party over the past hundred years is outlined, in particular the three cycles 1931–51, 1951–79 and 1979–2010 and the divisions and recriminations that have followed each period in government. The current predicament of the party is then briefly assessed.     

Sustainability as a Measure of Success: Externally Promoted Participatory Budgeting in El Salvador 10 Years Later

This article examines the sustainability of externally promoted participatory budgeting (PB) over more than a decade and, given the results, considers the implications for participatory practice in international development. In 2009, I investigated the continued utilization of PB as introduced through a US‐financed local government development project in post‐war El Salvador. I examined all 28 project municipalities 5 years after the project ended and found limited but important PB sustainability. In 2015, I replicated the study, using the same parameters in the same 28 municipalities, more than 10 years after completion of the project. This article presents the findings of the latter study and compares them with 2009 results. PB continues to be utilized in more than half of the 28 municipalities examined—a striking example of long‐term sustainability—although there is also little continuity of use among individual municipal governments. I conclude that PB is becoming institutionalized, in part because of the initial project. This case of sustainability and institutionalization of PB may allow us to be more optimistic about the potential effects of participation in international development. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Assessing the institutionalization of private sustainability governance in a changing coffee sector

The potential of transnational private governance initiatives to constitute effective alternatives to state‐led regulation of global value chains rests on their ability to scale up and become institutionalized in a given sector. This study examines whether such institutionalization has occurred in the coffee sector, the commodity with the most widespread adoption of certified products and over 30 years’ experience of private governance, and tests hypotheses on facilitating and inhibiting conditions. It finds that while norm generation around responsible supply chain management and the organizational institutionalization of standard‐setting bodies is well advanced, the practice of internalizing social and environmental externalities through the routinized production and purchase of higher priced certified goods continues to be questioned by industry actors. Indeed, conditions that favored normative and organizational institutionalization, such as high levels of industry concentration, product differentiation, and deliberative interaction, are shown to represent barriers to the practice‐oriented institutionalization of market‐driven regulatory governance.     

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.     

Risk Factors and Drivers of Financial Sustainability in Local Government: An Empirical Study

The current international crisis in public finances has made financial sustainability a key issue for governments. Although the European Union (EU) and other international organisations have recommended governments to monitor demographic and economic variables, few studies have considered the influence of these variables on financial sustainability. This paper seeks to identify and analyse the drivers and risk factors that influence the financial sustainability of local government. The findings identify both risk factors (unemployment and population aged under 16 years) and drivers (budgetary outcome) of financial sustainability, which may constitute a useful basis for decision-taking by managers and policy-makers.