Suchergebnisse

The article of record as published may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09592318.1404771 ; This article is the latest in a series of published articles systematically examining Afghan Presidential and legislative elections. Structural problems including fraud, ethno-linguistic block voting, and the Single Non-Transferable Vote have had significant impacts on the development of Afghan democratic elections. The challenge now facing the current Afghan government and future elections is the daunting task of uniting the Afghan people while not repeating the electoral mistakes of the past. The tricky balancing act of fostering an overarching national identity without being perceived as privileging particular identities requires strong leadership and a willingness to challenge traditional ethnic, linguistic, and religious norms when need be. Karzai and Ghani Administrations have seriously failed relative to this dynamic.

The article of record as published may be found at https://doi.org/10.1080/09592318.2018.1546273 ; Includes supplementary material ; This article systematically assesses the 2014 Afghanistan Presidential Election, the first transfer of power from President Hamid Karzai to an elected successor, using provincial voting data as well as explicit data from polling centers. The analysis finds unusual voting results in the April election, where no candidate received 50%+1 votes required by the Afghan constitution, versus the voting results realized for the June 'runoff election.' As in other Afghan voting analyses, this article finds voting based on ethno-linguistic preferences, and interestingly found Dr. Ashraf Ghani receiving almost all the swing votes in the runoff election even though the other leading candidate from the April elec- tion all endorsed Dr. Abdullah Abdullah. More importantly, however, the research presented here clearly finds extremely strange voting patterns. For example, the polling data center analysis finds 606 polling places where Ghani received all 600 votes and Abdullah received none and another 900 polling centers that gave virtually all its votes to Ghani. These results in combination with other analyses raise the very real possibility that the election results were illegitimate. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of the research to future Afghan elections and their processes as well as to the long- standing conflict in the country.

The US agricultural system relies on healthy soil for economic and environmental stability. The federal government established soil conservation efforts following the Dust Bowl, and state and local entities later developed legal tools to supplement soil conservation. These efforts, however, are insufficient to protect the nation's soil in the face of a changing climate. Conservation techniques are available that could substantially mitigate the effects of climate change, but the federal government lacks the tools to encourage their uniform adoption. The rigidity of prior state efforts, moreover, has disabled some landowners from adapting conservation lands to modern challenges. This Note recommends that US conservationists utilize environmental personhood--a legal tool already adopted by other nations--to implement and enforce new conservation techniques that could both mitigate climate change and protect the nation's soil from its adverse effects.

AbstractIn China, urban middle class mobilization against potential pollution risk has become increasingly common. This article examines this phenomenon through a detailed case study of a 2009 anti‐waste incinerator campaign in the Panyu District of Guangzhou, which culminated in a sizeable public protest and government U‐turn. This episode revealed tension between the narrow, state‐centered regulatory model fixated on end‐of‐pipe pollution control, and a much broader decentered approach advocated – and practiced – by project opponents, which incorporated public consultation and much greater emphasis on upstream waste reduction and sorting. In the process, the Panyu campaign progressed beyond a case of "regulation by escalation," whereby beneficial regulations are belatedly enforced following populist pressure. Instead, it transformed into an open dialogue between a plurality of actors, including citizens, journalists, experts, and officials, about what regulation should constitute and who should determine acceptable levels of risk. By focusing on the processes through which regulatory issues emerged and changed during the Panyu campaign, this article highlights the regulatory dynamism of environmental mobilization in a context of regulatory uncertainty, and campaigns against "locally unwanted land uses" more broadly.