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The essay problematizes the incorporation of LGBTI rights promotion into the US and EU foreign policies. First, the paper examines the two actors' key documents, speeches, and policies devoted to the promotion of LGBTI rights abroad, the similarities and differences between the two actors' approaches, attending to the tendencies of their evolution and the ongoing development. Second, the article discusses the internal conditions in target countries that are conducive to the success and failure of international support of LGBTI rights. Finally, the study makes a critical overview of the measures that are argued to be necessary to increase the efficiency of LGBTI rights promotion in countries with most negative current trends in and/or poorest records on LGBTI rights.

International audience ; This paper analyzes the degree of return predictability (or weak-form informational efficiency) of Dow Jones Islamic and conventional size and sector-indices using the data from 1996 to 2013. Employing the automatic portmanteau and variance ratio tests for the martingale difference hypothesis of asset returns, we find that all Islamic and conventional sub-index returns have been predictable in a number of periods, consistent with the implications of the adaptive markets hypothesis. Overall, the Islamic sector-indices exhibit a higher degree of informational efficiency than the conventional ones, especially in the Consumer Goods, Consumer Services, Financials and Technology sectors. We also find that the Islamic sub-indices tend to be more efficient than the conventional ones during crisis periods.

Using an overlapping generations (OLG) model, we show how relatively small open economies can enhance their growth through educational subsidies financed via public debt and reduce their fertility rate. We show that subsidising education through public debt leads to an A-Pareto improvement of all generations. Even if a country is a net borrower in the international capital market, we show that this subsidy policy can help, under certain conditions, to improve its net borrowing position. This has strong implications for the calculation of the 3% deficit to Gross Domestic Product ratio set by the European Union because the analysis implies that public expenditures for education should be subtracted from the government deficit before applying the deficit criterion.

This article analyses whether forced displacement in the Magdalena Department (Colombia) between 2000-2010 was caused not only by the intensity of the armed conflict but also by the growth of the palm agribusiness. We find that a seven percentage point increase in the area used to produce palm per municipality caused an increase of a third of a standard deviation in the rate of forced displacement. These calculations were made on average and after controlling for armed conflict. We rationalize this finding by the fact that the development of the palm oil agribusiness caused displacement due to its land-intensive technology, increasing international prices combined with government subsidies, and the process was aided by paramilitary activities in the region.

This article integrates literature on strategic culture with literature on the domestic politics of foreign policy, illustrating how the interaction of culture and domestic political calculation can influence government foreign policy on participation in international military operations. Empirically, the article investigates the decision made by the Government of Finland to refrain from participation in the military intervention in Libya in March–April 2011. The Finnish decision-making illustrates that domestic politics, in particular the factor of election timing, can strengthen the feeling among decision-makers that they should follow the country's strategic culture. The article ends with theorization on the domestic political conditions under which decision-makers are more or less likely to deviate from strategic culture.

The present/actual work aims to analyze the history of the assortment of the human right to water and its normative consecration - an international level, and from that starting point, it is sought through the long struggle of the people and "La Pampa" Government, on the right that they get in the sharing use of the interprovincial river waters. ; El presente trabajo pretende analizar la historia del surgimiento del derecho humano al agua y su consagración normativa -a nivel internacional-, y desde ese punto de partida, se busca abordar la larga lucha del pueblo y Gobierno de la Pampa, sobre el derecho que les asiste en el uso compartido de las aguas de un río interprovincial.

Beliefs in conspiracy theories have attracted significant international media attention in recent years. This phenomenon has been studied in the US but while anecdotal evidence suggests it is also widespread among the Italian public, little evidence has been collected to assess it empirically. Using data from a 2016 survey, this pioneering study of the Italian case investigates the extent of diffusion of conspiracy theories among Italians and tests several hypotheses concerning individual determinants. The paper finds that conspiracism is indeed widely diffused in Italy. It is negatively associated with education and positively with religiosity, while no correlation is found with political trust. Beliefs in conspiracies are also related to rightwing orientation and support for the populist Five Star Movement.

This debate article discusses how topical the approach of the Critique of the Political Economy of Media/Communication is today. The paper analyses the status of this field. At the international level, there is a longer tradition in the Critical Political Economy of Media/Communication, especially in the United Kingdom and North America. Since the start of the new crisis of capitalism in 2008, the interest in Marx's works has generally increased. At the same time communicative and ideological features of societal changes' unpredictable turbulences have become evident. This contribution introduces some specific approaches. It also discusses 14 aspects of why the complex, multidimensional, open and dynamic research approach of the critique of capitalism and society that goes back Marx's theory remains relevant today.

International audience ; The development and humanitarian community has established its own school of thought on resilience in order to link its emergency actions with its medium- and long-term development strategies. Intervention contexts are becoming increasingly uncertain and complex, raising new challenges that need to be addressed. The school of thought on social and ecological system resilience can provide complementary approaches to help understand the intervention context and the multiple dimensions of challenges, as well as to develop and assess adaptation pathways. These approaches enable accounting of ecological dynamics and interactions among social groups, provide a diversity of knowledge and potential development pathways and, ultimately, support societal transformation. Collaboration between these two schools of thought would provide valuable opportunities.

Umwelt- und Entwicklungspolitik als internationales Politikfeld zur Lösung und Steuerung einer globalen Umwelt- und Entwicklungskrise konstituiert sich über die interdependenten Handlungsfelder Umweltschutz (Ökologie), wirtschaftliche Entwicklung (Ökonomie) und soziale Gerechtigkeit (Soziales). Die unterschiedlichen Problemstellungen und Zielsetzungen in den verschiedenen Handlungsfeldern der Umwelt- und Entwicklungspolitik werden unter dem Leitbild Nachhaltige Entwicklung als konvergierende Steuerungsaufgaben mit integrierenden Lösungsansätzen konzipiert, die synergistische Effekte zwischen den Handlungsfeldern gewährleisten sollen. Die Praxis der Umwelt- und Entwicklungspolitik ist dagegen durch vielfältige Widersprüche, divergierende Interessen und Zielkonflikte hinsichtlich der unterschiedlichen Handlungsfelder sowie durch kontroverse Ideologien und ambivalente Auswirkungen von Maßnahmen geprägt. Am Beispiel waldbezogener deutscher Entwicklungszusammenarbeit in den Partnerländern Indonesien, Kamerun und der Demokratischen Republik Kongo untersucht dieser Artikel Diskrepanzen zwischen diskursiver Rahmung und praktischer Umsetzung der Umwelt- und Entwicklungspolitik mit einem Fokus auf unterschiedliche Gewichtungen ökologischer, ökonomischer und sozialer Zielsetzungen. Unter dieser Perspektive werden Konzeptionen, Fördermittel, Programme, Organisationen und Instrumente der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit analysiert. Zur Konzeptualisierung unterschiedlicher Ansätze in der Umwelt- und Entwicklungspolitik werden die Mindsets 'Governance', 'Wettbewerb' und 'Empowerment' unterschieden, die als diskursiv differenzierte Wahrnehmungs-, Bewertungs- und Handlungsmuster zwischen Diskurs und Praxis vermitteln. Sie können auch für eine reflexive und deliberative Gestaltung der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit genutzt werden.

Agro-industries have the potential to make a substantial contribution to sustainable energy supply in Africa, including energy access in rural areas. This paper focuses on the drivers and barriers to wider use of cogeneration from sugarcane bagasse in Malawi as there is a potential for the technology to enable access to electricity in rural areas. This paper gives an overview of the policy landscape for the energy sector and the sugar industry in Malawi. The research involved site visits, focus group discussions, and individual semi-structured interviews with participants from key government departments, businesses, research institutes and international agencies. This paper found that energy sector reform, the proposed feed-in tariff for renewable energy, and risk are the key issues for investment in this area.

Interdependence between first and second moments of producer and consumer wheat prices in Slovenia is assessed, in light of the recent major historical events that the country has undergone, as well as the recent rumours of cartel agreements between millers causing a decline in farm-gate prices, while leaving consumer prices untouched. A threshold vector error correction and multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity model with exogenous variables is applied. Results indicate that price-level adjustments mainly favour retailers by increasing their marketing margins. Important second-moment interactions are also identified. Increases in international wheat stocks reduce producer prices, while higher interest rates increase their instability. ; the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-KBBE- 2010-4) under grant agreement number 265601. ; Postprint (author's final draft)

International audience ; Cette contribution démontre que les efforts en faveur de la circulation du principe de transparence de la finance climat induisent des effets ambivalents, dans la mesure où s'ils favorisent la précision de ses modalités d'application, en apportant une réponse aux défis techniques de la transparence de la finance climat, voire au-delà de la finance climat, ils aboutissent également à déplacer le centre de gravité de la gouvernance dans ce domaine, du régime climat entendu au sens strict vers un complexe de régimes au périmètre moins défini, sous-estimant peut-être les enjeux politiques et sociaux de cette question, ce qui est de nature à soulever des interrogations en termes de légitimité et de responsabilité (accountability).

International audience ; L'enquête auprès des protecteurs des animaux permet de montrer à quel point l'adhésion à cette cause prolonge des sensibilités que les militants doivent à des expériences affectives bien antérieures à leur engagement. Bien plus encore, au sein des organisations qui accueillent lesdits militants, la protection animale est associée à des registres émotionnels bien distincts qui contribuent au (re)façonnage de leurs dispositions affectives préalables. Toutefois afin de répondre au mieux au cadrage de cette section thématique, cette communication s'appliquera à centrer l'analyse sur la distance variable qui sépare ces formes d'engagement des formes plus spécifiquement politiques. En effet, les registres émotionnels de la protection animale tendent à se rapprocher des pratiques de la politique conventionnelle que sous certaines conditions qui sont ici analysées.

Requestor: European Commission Question number: EFSA-Q-2015-00433 Correspondence: GMO@efsa.europa.eu ; International audience ; This document provides guidance for the risk assessment under Regulation (EC) No 1829/2003 of the unintended, adventitious or technically unavoidable presence in food and feed of low level of genetically modified plant material intended for markets other than in the European Union. In this context, the presence at low level is defined to be maximum 0.9% of genetically modified plant material per ingredient. This guidance is intended to assist applicants by indicating which scientific requirements of Annex II of Regulation (EU) No 503/2013 are considered necessary for the risk assessment of the presence at low levels of genetically modified plant material in food and feed.