When siting works, Canada-style.

Hazardous waste management poses increasing problems for Canadian provinces and American states, given the vast quantities and types of wastes generated and the virtual inability to open new storage, treatment, or disposal facilities. The Canadian experience is very similar to the American one in many respects, except for the fact that three provinces (Alberta, Manitoba, and Quebec) have devised alternative approaches to siting that appear successful in moving beyond the political gridlock so common on this issue. In each of these cases, traditional, top-down approaches to siting have been eschewed in favor of a more comprehensive approach that includes extensive public participation, economic and social compensation packages, formal partnerships between public and private organizations, and direct links between siting proposals and other aspects of waste management, including waste reduction, recycling, and export/import control.     

Whose New Normal? Framing the Economic Slowdown Under Xi Jinping

After decades of double-digit economic growth, China experienced a significant drop in GDP growth rates in the wake of the global financial crisis. For the new Chinese leadership under Xi Jinping, who had assumed power in the fall of 2012, analysts predicted a looming crisis due to the alleged decline in the regime’s performance legitimacy. This article argues against a mechanistic application of the notion of performance legitimacy. Instead, it proposes to take into account the role of ideology in mediating public perceptions of regime performance. By tracking the career of the concept of “new normal” in Chinese public discourse over a period of three years – from late 2013 to late 2016 – it shows how the economic slowdown has been framed in ways conducive to the reproduction of regime legitimacy. The findings suggest an intense process of ideological contestation and decontestation, in which the domestic reflection of foreign audiences and their recognition of the Chinese regime’s performance have gained in importance.     

边缘化的生活——中国改革过程中女民工的城市生活经历

生活在城市边缘的女民工,她们抱着不同的理想来到城市,其工作和生活状况虽各有不同,但多处于社会的下层,但她们中的一部分人不向生活低头,通过不懈努力和奋斗,找到了自己生存和发展的空间,为家庭和谐和社会稳定做出了应有的贡献。     

The politics of sustainable development: impediments to pollution prevention and policy integration in Canada

Abstract: Sustainable development has been widely hailed in Canadian environmental -policy circles, as has its related goals of promoting pollution prevention and integrating policy across sectoral, jurisdictional, and medium (e.g., air, water, land) boundaries. But such broad support has generally not served to translate sustainability into concrete policy initiatives at the federal or provincial levels. Indeed, most Canadian efforts to foster sustainability appear to be largely symbolic in nature, leaving the bulk of environmental regulatory functions highly fragmented by medium and oriented towards pollution control. In comparison with the United States, it remains much more difficult to discern prevention and integration principles being put into practice in Canada in many important areas of environmental policy. The decentralization of policy-making and the lack of policy entrepreneurship within environment ministries in Canada appear to contribute to this comparatively slower response to the challenge of sustainability. Sommaire: Dans les milieux qui formulent les politiques environnementales au Canada, on chante les louanges du développement durable; on vante aussi ses objectifs de promouvoir la prévention de la pollution et d'integrer les politiques au niveau des secteurs, des territoires administratifs et de I'ensemble des trois milieux: air, eau, terre. Cet appui généralisé n'a cependant pas permis, dans l'ensemble, de traduire la durabilité en initiatives concrètes aux niveaux fédéral et provincial. En fait, la plupart des efforts canadiens favorisant la durabilité semblent avoir un caractère largement symbolique, la plupart des fonctions de réglementation environnementale étant fortement fragmentées selon les milieux (air, eau, terre) et orientées vers le contrôle de la pollution. A l'encontre des États-Unis, on a du mal à voir pratiquer au Canada les principes de la prévention et de l'intégration dans de nombreux domaines de politique environnementale. La décentralisation de la formulation des politiques, ainsi que I'inactivité des ministères de l'environnement dans ce domaine, semble contribuer à cette plus grande lenteur face au défi de la durabilité.     

Emotional skills for entrepreneurial success: the promise of entrepreneurship education and policy

The Journal of Technology Transfer - Entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurship policies have a common goal—to spur entrepreneurial activity and its impact on individuals, organizations,...     

Voter polarisation and party responsiveness: Why parties emphasise divided issues,but remain silent on unified issues

How does voter polarisation affect party responsiveness? Previous research has shown that political parties emphasise political issues that are important to their voters. However, it is posited in this article that political parties are not equally responsive to citizen demands across all issue areas. The hypothesis is that party responsiveness varies considerably with the preference configuration of the electorate. More specifically, it is argued that party responsiveness increases with the polarisation of issues among voters. To test these theoretical expectations, party responsiveness is analysed across nine West European countries from 1982 until 2013. Data on voter attention and voter preferences with regard to specific policy issues from a variety of national election studies is combined with Comparative Manifestos Project data on parties' emphasis of these issues in their election manifestos. The findings have major implications for understanding party competition and political representation in Europe.