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This paper has two objectives: (1) to introduce a new approach to gaining widespread support for comprehensive road pricing; and (2) to develop a detailed social welfare analysis for road pricing schemes. We first describe a new approach to garnering support for system-wide road pricing, which we refer to as an investment public-private partnership, or IP3. This approach returns a significant portion of the economic value created by road pricing back to its citizen-owners. Next, we present a social welfare framework that estimates the benefits and costs of using the IP3 approach on an urban transportation network. Policy makers typically evaluate public-private partnership (P3) projects using Value for Money (VfM) analysis. However, a P3 project's impact on overall social welfare provides a more comprehensive evaluation criterion. Apart from several theoretical studies, a detailed social welfare analysis that includes all major P3 project stakeholders is lacking. Using Fresno City's transportation system as our case study, we show that system-optimal tolling scenarios favor average users, but that government¿and consequently taxpayers¿would pay for costly tolling systems. In contrast, unlimited profit-maximizing tolls raise substantial profits for government, for the infrastructure's citizen-owners, and for the private sector, but the average user is worse off. From a social welfare perspective, one should search for a Pareto-improvement under which all major stakeholders are better off. Our estimates indicate that a mixed private and public tolling scheme offers such an improvement. A mixed scheme results in the highest social welfare among all scenarios unless the weight placed on motorists' (i.e., transportation users') welfare is very low or the weight placed on residents' welfare is very high relative to the weight of other stakeholders.

Papers selected for this special issue were among those presented at the International Workshop the desired and undesired effects of Infrastructure and Transport Policy Reforms, held in the School of Economics and Business at the Universitat de Barcelona in November 2013. The workshop was jointly organized by the research unit Governments and Markets (Universitat de Barcelona) and the Cornell Program in Infrastructure Policy (Cornell University). The main topics discussed were ownership, financing and regulation, and public-private collaboration in transport policy. This special issue addresses those issues using case studies from various sectors including as airports and aviation, ports, and infrastructure overall.

Environmental change poses risks to societies, including disrupting social and economic systems such as migration. At the same time, migration is an effective adaptation to environmental and other risks. We review novel science on interactions between migration, environmental risks and climate change. We highlight emergent findings, including how dominant flows of rural to urban migration mean that populations are exposed to new risks within destination areas and the requirement for urban sustainability. We highlight the issue of lack of mobility as a major issue limiting the effectiveness of migration as an adaptation strategy and leading to potentially trapped populations. The paper presents scenarios of future migration that show both displacement and trapped populations over the incoming decades. Papers in the special issue bring new insights from demography, human geography, political science and environmental science to this emerging field.

With this paper we draw conclusions from the contributions to this theme issue that all explored the links between environmental change, migration, and governance. We have three objectives. The first is to identify key themes emerging from each of the papers and to consider their significance. The second is to specify overarching implications of the work gathered in this theme issue. The third is to identify areas where future research would be beneficial in further enhancing understanding of the links between environmental change, migration, and governance in the context of adaptation.

With this paper we analyse and assess the role of the European Union (EU) in the governance of migration linked to environmental change. We trace the emergence of migration linked to environmental change as an issue on the EU agenda and examine both issue definition and the institutional location of EU responses. The EU is identified as a particularly significant potential actor in the broader debate about environmental change and migration, as it is the world's most developed form of regionalised supranational governance with responsibilities in the areas of both environmental and migration policy, albeit with little connection made, as yet, between the two. We show that the relationship between migration and environmental change emerged as an issue for the EU's foreign policy community before becoming part of the EU's 'Global Approach to Migration and Mobility'. We argue that there is a compelling argument for consideration of migration and environmental change in the context of adaptation and development policies, as well as broader debate and contestation of the meaning of these policies. This involves a rethink of some of the precepts and practices informing EU migration and asylum policy.

The Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) is the biggest comparative study ever of the rights and opportunities of legal immigrants in the 25 member states of the EU, Canada, Switzerland and Norway. Belgium occupies an impressive third place in the area of policy definition. On the other hand, Belgium receives one of the worst scores in Europe for the impact of these policies on the labour market and public perceptions of immigrants. The MIPEX is an initiative lead by British Council and Migration Policy Group, with Research Partners at Sheffield University and the Universite Libre de Bruxelles. The King Baudouin Foundation is the project's Belgian partner.

Despite a burgeoning literature on, and widespread interest in, knowledge translation and exchange in public health, few articles provide an account of the actual experiences of knowledge brokerage organisations. The Scottish Collaboration for Public Health Research and Policy (SCPHRP) was formed in 2008 to: identify public health interventions that equitably address major health priorities; foster collaboration between public health stakeholders; and build capacity for collaborative intervention research. We describe the model used by SCPHRP and lessons learnt over three years. Intermediate evaluation of the SCPHRP model provides early indications of success in terms of achieving the organisation's aims.

Recent changes in the NHS have left many defects in the systems for the control of communicable diseases and infection and their surveillance and the management of outbreaks. Clear, explicit legislation is needed, placing the responsibilities on health authorities. New teams led by consultants need to be set up to investigate and manage outbreaks of communicable diseases of all types.

Environmental change poses risks to societies, including disrupting social and economic systems such as migration. At the same time, migration is an effective adaptation to environmental and other risks. We review novel science on interactions between migration, environmental risks and climate change. We highlight emergent findings, including how dominant flows of rural to urban migration mean that populations are exposed to new risks within destination areas and the requirement for urban sustainability. We highlight the issue of lack of mobility as a major issue limiting the effectiveness of migration as an adaptation strategy and leading to potentially trapped populations. The paper presents scenarios of future migration that show both displacement and trapped populations over the incoming decades. Papers in the special issue bring new insights from demography, human geography, political science and environmental science to this emerging field.

Comparative politics has witnessed periodic debates between proponents of contextually sensitive area studies research and others who view such work as unscientific, noncumulative, or of limited relevance for advancing broader social science knowledge. InSoutheast Asia in Political Science: Theory, Region, and Qualitative Analysis, edited by Erik Martinez Kuhonta, Dan Slater, and Tuong Vu, a group of bright, young Southeast Asianists argue that contextually sensitive research in Southeast Asia using qualitative research methods has made fundamental and lasting contributions to comparative politics. They challenge other Southeast Asianists to assert proudly the contributions that their work has made and urge the rest of the comparative politics discipline to take these contributions seriously. This symposium includes four short critical reviews ofSoutheast Asia in Political Scienceby political scientists representing diverse scholarly traditions. The reviews address both the methodological and the theoretical orientations of the book and are followed by a response from the editors.

Evidence that early years interventions can reduce inequalities has led to Scottish Government policy recommending that local areas implement initiatives to improve early child development. How best to measure the effects of these interventions is, however, unclear. We conducted a pilot study of the first UK use of the teacher-administered Early Development Instrument (EDI), an internationally validated measure of global child development now used at school entry in all children in Australia and most of Canada. The study, conducted in the primary school setting in 2011–12, was cross-sectional in design and used qualitative and quantitative methods. During phase 1 the EDI was adapted for the Scottish context. 14 teachers assessed 154 pupils, using the instrument. Focus groups and semi-structured questionnaires were used to gather feedback from teacher participants on the instrument and the process. Phase 2 collected and analysed data from 1090 pupil participants, comprising 98% of eligible school-entrants in East Lothian local authority, assessed by 68 teachers. The 104-item EDI questionnaire has five domains of child development: physical, social, emotional, language and cognitive, and communication and general knowledge. Data were analysed with SPSS (version 17.0). The psychometric properties of the EDI were assessed with Cronbach's α. Mean scores in the domains were linked to levels of deprivation and results were mapped using Geographic Information System. Phase 3 monitored subsequent dissemination and use of EDI results. The study was approved by the School of Psychological Sciences and Health Ethics Committee of the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK; the Education Authority of the relevant school district; and the Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government. In line with EDI data collection in other countries, opt-out consent was used for parents of pupils. All teachers provided written, informed consent. Children in the most deprived quintile were 2·8 times more likely than the most affluent to be developmentally vulnerable in one or more domains; however, substantial developmental vulnerability was found across all five quintiles, not only in the most deprived. The EDI was found to be user friendly and acceptable to teachers, demonstrating high levels of internal reliability. Dissemination of results created a forum for multidisciplinary discussion and raised awareness about the importance of early child development, domains of development, and how inequalities can be tackled, leading to new initiatives based on EDI data. The EDI is a robust instrument able to highlight developmental differences in children between socioeconomic groups and small-scale geographical areas. Its simplicity and usability lend themselves easily to community-wide implementation.