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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to discuss the potential benefits of monetary policy rules for transition economies (TEs).Design/methodology/approachThe paper discusses monetary policy rules, inflation targeting, political risk and ambiguity and monetary policy and ambiguity.FindingsIt is argued that the nominal interest rate may fail to be the appropriate instrument in such rules. One reason is the amount of non‐calculable political and economic risk inherent in TEs. These risks lead to a significant and volatile‐ambiguity premium in the interest rate over and above the normal risk premium, which makes the real equilibrium interest rate difficult to measure. Furthermore, ambiguity of the public regarding the monetary policy leads to an ambiguity premium on inflation.Originality/valueThe paper advocates a simple monetary policy rule based on a monetary aggregate like the money base minimizes the impact of ambiguity. It may therefore be the appropriate monetary policy for TEs.

Whether to a `liberal' or a `people's' democracy, the evolution of modern political systems has been consistently theorized as a `transition'. Elaborated within Marxism as the `transition to communism' and later recycled by modernization theory and comparative politics, this concept has been tightly connected to the development of macro-societal analysis. This paper argues that any attempt at writing its history should be sensitive to the deep-seated ambivalence of this concept, which has alternatively lent itself to either teleological or non-teleological interpretations. But far from matching the ready-made division between Marxist and non-Marxist political sociology, this ambivalence has always been internal to these different social scientific traditions. As a result, the same conceptual issues and tensions can be identified within the Marxist and, later, Soviet doctrine on the one hand, and Western social sciences on the other hand, from the sociology of development of the 1950s to comparative democratization in the 1980s.

This book introduces transition management as a new mode of governance for sustainable development. Transition management combines a conceptual approach on social complexity, governance and long-term structural societal change with an operational governance model to actually work towards sustainability through learning-by- doing and doing-by-learning. The basic rationale behind transition management is that we are faced with societal problems of such complexity and magnitude, that existing approaches do not suffice. Such persistent problems can be found in many areas of society: energy, mobility, agriculture, water management, but also in health care, education, construction and industry. In these areas agreement upon definitions of sustainability the best solutions is impossible to achieve so that top-down planning is impossible, while at the same time sustainability can also never be achieved solely through bottom- up innovation and liberalization: sustainable development re! quires taking into account collective goods, future needs and un certain future development. Transition management aims to deal with persistent societal problems through combining long-term envisioning, short-term experiments in a selective participatory process that supports policy integration, social learning and social innovation. It focuses on frontrunners, entrepreneurs, niche-actors and innovative individuals and organizations in general that are committed to sustainable development. More often than not, innovations that in the long-term could contribute to sustainable development are unable to break through because of for example fragmentation, lack of means and support, limited attention to external (socio-economic) factors or lack of exposure. By simultaneously raising awareness and political acceptance for sustainable development in a specific area and by developing more coherence, cooperation and strategic capabilities at the level of the innovations, a structured process of social experimentation and learning can evolve that gradually leads to fundamenta! l structures in our societal systems. The central instrument for transition management is the transition arena: a scientifically underpinned operational model for coordinating and structuring transition management processes (especially in the predevelopment phase). The transition arena is a mental, physical and institutional space for experimentation, envisioning and network-building that is legitimized by regular policy. In the transition arena, different types of innovators with various backgrounds, perspectives and ambitions are brought together and develop shared long-term perspectives and a transition agenda that increasingly will influence regular policy. This approach has been introduced into research and policy in the Netherlands in 2001 and since then successfully applied in areas of sustainable energy, mobility, agriculture and housing . It has also been adopted as a new paradigm and approach in multi-disciplinary research . This book covers offers insight into the first five years of development of theory and practice of transition management in the Netherlands. As such, it is a unique account of an innovative experiment in policy theory and practice that is highly relevant for sustainable development in the international context.

International audience ; Phase-out is rapidly gaining traction as a central part of practical efforts to address sustainability challenges. However, the way it has been conceived of in policy debates and some academic work is problematic in that it (1) tends to be narrowly focused on substitution; (2) underexposes the bidirectional relationship between phase-outs and innovation; and (3) pays insufficient attention to political challenges. To fully reap the potential of phase-out in sustainability transitions, we call for a more integrative body of scholarship. We identify three important avenues to advance this agenda: First, shifting the unit of analysis to socio-technical systems and the reconfiguration of entire regimes will help to elucidate the multiple logics underlying phase-outs. Second, deepening insights on the timing and interaction between phase-out and innovation will unveil the potential of phase-outs in accelerating transitions. Finally, engaging with issues of power, political legitimacy, and equity is required to mitigate political challenges.

Intro -- Preface -- Contents -- Notes on Contributors -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- List of Boxes -- Chapter 1: Knowledge and Craft of Urban Agendas -- 1 Urban Agendas as Planning Efforts Infused with Politics -- 2 Between Low and High Politics -- 3 Definitions and Scopes for Urban Agendas -- 4 A Changing Geography -- 5 What's Urban in National Urban Agendas? -- 6 Reframing Cities Within National Urban Agendas -- References -- Part I: The "Old" Geography: Between Continuity and Change -- Chapter 2: Urban Policies in France: Stronger Metropolises and Steering State -- 1 Introduction -- 2 1945-1980: The State as the Major Actor of Urban Planning and Regional Development -- 2.1 Urban Planning Policies: The Central State as the Orchestrator of Reconstruction and Urbanization -- 2.2 Regional Development Policies: Strengthening Regional Main Cities to Counterbalance the Economic Dominance of Paris -- 2.3 Urban Constituent Policies: The Timid Creation of Intermunicipal Cooperation Bodies -- 3 1980-2000: Decentralization Reforms and the Rise of Cities -- 3.1 Urban Planning Policies: The Invention of the "Politique de la Ville" -- 3.2 Regional Development Policies: From State-Led Projects to the Endogenous Development of Cities and Regions -- 3.3 Urban Constituent Policies: The Decentralization Reforms and Their Urban Blind Spot -- 4 2000-2022: Strategic State and Emancipated Metropolises -- 4.1 Urban Planning Policies: Place-Selling Policies and Urban Renewal -- 4.2 Regional Development Policies: The Affirmation of Metropolitan Regions and Interterritorial Competition by the State … and Their Political Backlash -- 4.3 Urban Constituent Policies: Metropolises Complete Their Affirmation Despite Signs of Recentralization -- 5 Conclusion -- References.

Wheat flour and bread have played a central role in Sudan's political economy throughout the country's post-independence history. In 2019, increasing bread prices precipitated the protests that ousted the government of Omar al-Bashir. How has Sudan's recent political transition and economic circumstances impacted distortions within the wheat value chain? What are the policy preferences of relevant stakeholders for improving the affordability of wheat products and the productivity of domestic wheat farmers? This paper addresses these questions by drawing on key informant interviews in Sudan and utilizing a political settlements approach, which captures the underlying distribution of power among elites and citizens. The post-revolution political settlement contains a much broader distribution of power shared between a civilian alliance movement and the military, each of which has distinct interests in the wheat value chain. The paper elucidates the preferences of different stakeholders to address policy distortions and discusses bottlenecks that need to be overcome for those options to be feasible. In doing so, the analysis reveals that, while the policy of subsidizing bread remains contentious, there are broader coalitions for interventions related to regulatory and monitoring reforms, improvements in domestic wheat procurement, enhanced agricultural investments, and targeted cash transfers to cushion subsidy reductions. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1; CRP2; 2 Promoting Healthy Diets and Nutrition for all; 3 Building Inclusive and Efficient Markets, Trade Systems, and Food Industry; SSSP ; DSGD; PIM ; CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)

Intro -- Contents -- Figures and Tables -- Abbreviations -- Chapter 1 Introduction: Knowledge, Power, and Networks-Elites in Transition in Modern China -- Chapter 2 Who Are Elites? Elite Distinction and Who's Who Publications in Early 20th-Century China -- Chapter 3 X-Boorman: The Biographical Dictionary of Republican China in the Digital Age -- Chapter 4 Middling Elites: Middle Managers and Bank Professionals at the Shanghai Bank of China on the Eve of the Communist Revolution -- Chapter 5 Structures of Empowerment: A Network Exploration of Women Activists' Collective Biographies in 20th-Century China -- Chapter 6 "Service to the Empire and to the Community": The British Women's Association in Shanghai, 1921-51 -- Chapter 7 Revolutionary Roads: An Integrative Analysis Utilizing a Chinese Biographical Database -- Chapter 8 Foreign Clubs with Chinese Flavor: The Rotary Club of Shanghai and the Politics of Language -- Chapter 9 The American-Returned Students: Educational Networks and New Forms of Business in Early Republican China -- Chapter 10 Navigating between Political Authorities: Chinese Rockefeller Fellows in Biology and Chemistry and Their Career Trajectories from 1949 to 1966 -- Index.

Cities are suggested as being the key level for shifts towards more sustainable modes of production and consumption. The building sector with its significant carbon footprint plays an important role in urban climate change adaptation strategies. Using the case study of Brisbane (Australia), the paper examines the place-specific contextualisation of green building transitions by analysing the co-evolution and interplay of building practices, policy making and involved actors. Drawing on theoretical approaches of Transition Studies and Evolutionary Economic Geography, we trace back and analyse policy and economic trajectories focusing on formative and hindering processes. The paper discusses ambivalent pathways and 'regime resistance' caused by local economic and political specificities. The analysis illustrates how crucial the continual support from both policy makers and industry actors can be when economic market mechanisms do not drive sustainability transitions. Regime actors can play a powerful role as 'transition detractors' and can determine the dynamics and the scope of sustainability transitions. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This collection emphasizes a cross-disciplinary approach to the problem of scale, with essays ranging in subject matter from literature to film, architecture, the plastic arts, philosophy, and scientific and political writing. Its contributors consider a variety of issues provoked by the sudden and pressing shifts in scale brought on by globalization and the era of the Anthropocene, including: the difficulties of defining the concept of scale; the challenges that shifts in scale pose to knowledge formation; the role of scale in mediating individual subjectivity and agency; the barriers to understanding objects existing in scalar realms different from our own; the role of scale in mediating the relationship between humans and the environment; and the nature of power, authority, and democracy at different social scales.--