Local Renewable Energy Initiatives in Germany and Japan in a Changing National Policy Environment

Our article explores the contribution of local initiatives to the creation of path dependencies for energy transition in Germany and Japan in the face of resistance from entrenched incumbents at the national level. We use a process‐tracing methodology based partly on interviews with local participants. In particular, we explore the role of local initiatives in securing “socio‐political space” for the expansion of renewable energy (RE) and in embedding themselves in “ecosystems” of public and private institutions. German energy activists were more successful than their Japanese counterparts in expanding this space and creating positive feedback in part because they were able to build horizontal networks that anchored the energy transition firmly in local communities. Although problems with grid technology have led to retrenchment in both cases, Japanese activists' reliance on vertical networks has limited their ability to weather a backlash from national government and utility actors. Our study demonstrates the interaction of political, economic/technological, and legitimation paths to energy transition and highlights the importance of the latter two.     

African states in international organisations: A comparative analysis

The active participation in international organisations (IOs) is an important condition for the ability of states to exert influence over the content of international norms and rules. Thus, this paper adopts a comparative perspective and examines how active African states are in more than 500 international negotiations and under what conditions they are likely to remain silent. This reveals that diplomatic staff capacities are an essential precondition for active participation, while incentive structures, such as the scope of interests, impact how often states take the floor. An alternative to voicing national interest is to negotiate on behalf of regional organisations or regional groups. This paper shows that especially weaker and smaller African states benefit from regional group membership and use references to them in order to increase their leverage in international negotiations and improve, thereby, their chances to exert influence over the international architecture of rules and norms.     

Not so Fair after All? Perceptions of Procedural Fairness and Satisfaction with Democracy in the Nordic Welfare States

The Nordic countries are known for their well-functioning public administrations. In indices measuring control of corruption and the quality of the rule of law, they frequently occupy top positions. However, as we demonstrate in this article, a country's top position in comparative indices does not automatically imply that citizens view the state of affairs in the same way as depicted by experts. The observation is in no way trivial: Drawing on theories of procedural fairness, we go on to show—statistically, using individual level data—that widespread public perceptions about the unfairness of civil servants may have a negative effect on the legitimacy of the political system even in so-called high-trust and “least corrupt” settings such as the Nordic ones.     

Land grabbing in post-Soviet Eurasia: the world’s largest agricultural land reserves at stake

‘Land grabbing’ in Africa by China, and other populous, high-income Asian countries such as South Korea, has received considerable attention, while land grabbing in post-Soviet Eurasia has gone largely unnoticed. However, as this article shows, foreign state and private companies are also acquiring vast areas of farmland in this region. The article first discusses the factors that make post-Soviet Eurasia such an attractive region for international investment, arguably encompassing much greater agricultural land reserves than most regions of sub-Saharan Africa or Asia. Second, in view of the use of media and web-based data in this article, the methodological limitations of researching land investments are discussed. Third, an overview is given of the processes of land accumulation and farm acquisition. Both domestic and international accumulation of land are dealt with in the domestic context of agricultural development and institutions. Furthermore, the main actors (investors) involved in land grabbing are distinguished (according to their country of origin and legal or institutional form). Fourth, the article outlines the main obstacles (and points of contention) concerning the emergence (and effectiveness/performance) of domestic, and especially international, agroholdings in the region. Some preliminary findings are presented on the possible effects of land grabbing on local populations in this region.     

Overcoming resistance to resistance in public administration: Resistance strategies of marginalized publics in citizen‐state interactions

There has been a general resistance to resistance studies in public administration (PA) research. Although previous research has documented instances of selective policy implementation by PA practitioners that put minority groups at a comparative disadvantage, we still have a limited understanding of the different ways in which these groups contest discriminatory administrative practices especially within non‐western developing countries. To address this gap, in this article, I discuss the various strategic responses the Khawaja Sira—a genderqueer group of Pakistan—employ in their interactions with the frontline police workers to contest their hyper‐surveillance and moral policing. The discussion illustrates that while Khawaja Sira mostly rely on individual acts of contestation in their interactions with police officers, the emerging leadership of the Khawaja Sira is enabling emergence of new forms of resistance based on social capital and collective protests. In addition to contributing to the limited literature on citizen perspectives and LGBT issues in PA research, the theoretical framework of resistance presented here can serve as a good template to analyze citizen responses to discriminatory frontline practice in other sociopolitical contexts as well.     

Bureaucratic Readiness in Managing Local Level Participatory Governance: A Developing Country Context

Participatory governance in developing countries is broadly viewed as an essential prerequisite for successful implementation of public projects. However, it poses many challenges for public bureaucrats in terms of their skills and willingness to engage citizens. Despite the growing evidence of the pervasiveness of participatory governance, research to date has not explored bureaucratic readiness to adopt participatory practices. This research presents findings of a bureaucratic readiness assessment for participatory governance in Bangladesh by exploring how public bureaucrats perceive the value of participation; how they are educated to collaborate with stakeholders; and the extent to which their attitudes are amenable to enhancing participatory governance. Our findings suggest that we can classify readiness in terms of both motivational and educational factors. The study has implications for how readiness can be developed in public officials that may assist in fostering participatory governance in Bangladesh and be informative to other countries experiencing similar issues.     

社会保障的东西方比较

现代社会保障制度起源于西方 ,它的基本功能是国家从经济的角度对社会公民的生活提供安全性保护。当代西方发达国家一般都存在完善的社会保障体系。而在东亚国家经济发展和向发达国家迈进的过程中 ,现代社会保障制度发展滞后是一个普遍现象 ,其中有历史文化传统和经济发展水平等原因。东亚不会发展起西方那种多功能的社会保障制度 ,适度福利和国民自保是这个地区社会保障制度的特点。     

东北亚国家经贸合作：新形势新发展

东北亚各国政治经济形势和对外政策已经发生并正在发生一些有利于区内经贸合作的变化我国“十五”时期对外开放将进入新阶段。尤其要加强与东北亚国家的经贸合作;俄罗斯与东北亚国家外交关系有了较大发展,并把扩大经贸合作提上了议事日程;朝鲜将实施对外开放政策和进一步与韩国实现和解;蒙古新政府将继续实施“多支点”外交政策,并首先加强与东北亚国家的经济联系;日本在与东南亚国家发展经济合作的同时将扩大与东北亚国家的经贸合作。     

Analyzing decentralized resource regimes from a polycentric perspective

This article seeks to shed new light on the study of decentralized natural resource governance by applying institutional theories of polycentricity—the relationships among multiple authorities with overlapping jurisdictions. The emphasis on multi-level dynamics has not penetrated empirical studies of environmental policy reforms in non-industrial countries. On the contrary, many of today’s decentralization proponents seem to be infatuated with the local sphere, expecting that local actors are always able and willing to govern their natural resources effectively. Existing studies in this area often focus exclusively on characteristics and performance of local institutions. While we certainly do not deny the importance of local institutions, we argue that institutional arrangements operating at other governance scales—such as national government agencies, international organizations, NGOs at multiple scales, and private associations—also often have critical roles to play in natural resource governance regimes, including self-organized regimes.

When do electoral institutions trigger electoral misconduct?

Drawing on two complementary mechanisms, this article explores the question of whether electoral institutions and conditions of electoral competition create incentives to promote electoral misconduct in young or developing democracies. The first mechanism explains how majoritarian institutions like disproportional electoral systems are more likely to trigger electoral fraud than consensus electoral institutions like proportional representation. However, for this mechanism to be activated, the incumbent must feel effectively threatened by the opposition. To better understand the way this mechanism works, the electoral history of the country also needs to be taken into consideration. Democracies which have a historical record of running clean elections are less likely to experience fraud than countries with a history of electoral misconduct. I test these theoretical claims using a dataset that contains relevant information for 323 parliamentary elections in 59 new or developing democracies in the period between 1960 and 2006. The empirical analysis shows a strong and robust empirical support for the two mechanisms.