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This paper focuses on the development of a participatory planning approach for local energy sustainability. The characteristics of a complex problem were reviewed to establish that the problem of sustainable energy at a local government level is complex. In order to better manage complex problems, the literature shows that soft operational research or problem-structuring methods need to be applied, and hence these methods were used as a starting point for developing a participatory planning approach. The requirements for a planning approach were elicited, namely that the approach must be participative and inclusive, holistic, simple and transparent. In addition, the approach must include the identification and assessment of risks as part of the deliberation process, the development of a realistic action plan must be attainable at the end of the stakeholder engagement, the approach must be dynamic, and should be formalised with clear institutional arrangements. A novel participatory approach, namely EDAS&mdash ; to Explore, Design and Act for Sustainability&mdash ; was then developed, applied, and evaluated as part of a case study with a local municipality in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. The insights are relevant not only for local governments, but for any institution on a journey towards sustainability.

Η αναγνώριση του διεθνούς ρόλου των παραδιπλωµατικών πρωτοβουλιών των τοπικών αρχών, σε συνδυασµό µε το περιορισµένο ακαδηµαϊκό ενδιαφέρον της παραδιπλωµατίας για τη δικτύωση των πόλεων τις τελευταίες δεκαετίες, συνιστούν το πλαίσιο της παρούσας µελέτης, η οποία ασχολείται µε τη συµµετοχή των ελληνικών δήµων σε ευρωπαϊκά κοινωνικά δίκτυα πόλεων στη διάρκεια της προγραµµατικής περιόδου 2007- 2013. Το γενικότερο ερευνητικό συµπέρασµα της µελέτης είναι ότι η ευρωπαϊκή δικτύωση των δήµων συνεπάγεται αλλαγές σε επίπεδο δοµών, πολιτικών και διαδικασιών, ωστόσο, τα ανωτέρω αποτελέσµατα φιλτράρονται από το ενδογενές πλαίσιο νοοτροπιών, γραφειοκρατικών διαδικασιών, και οργανωτικών ελλειµµάτων της τοπικής αυτοδιοίκησης ; The recognition of the international role of the paradiplomatic initiatives of local authorities, in combination with the limited academic attention of paradiplomacy for city networking, set the framework of the present article. Its main theme is focused on the participation of the Greek municipalities in European social city networks during the programming period 2007-2013. The general research finding of the article is that the participation of Greek municipalities in European social city networks entails changes at the levels of structures, policies and procedures, but the above results are filtered by the endogenous framework of mentalities, bureaucratic procedures and organisational deficits of local government.

Community landownership in Scotland is generally understood as ownership of title to land and/or assets by a community body, linked to a defined geographic community. It is a relatively distinct category of landownership, regarded as different to public ownership of land (e.g. by government agencies and non-departmental public bodies). In contrast, the interpretation of 'community' or 'communal' ownership of land varies in other countries and is often less clearly distinguished from public ownership. Municipal ownership – a form of state ownership where the land is owned by municipal bodies (e.g. communes) at different scales, is also relevant due to the high level of community control. Communal or municipal rights to land are relatively common globally and across much of Europe, with a growing, statutory recognition of rural communities as collective owners of land. This research was commissioned to provide an overview of relevant forms of community, communal and municipal landownership in other countries, and suggest how lessons from international experiences could be applicable in Scotland.

Influential members of the disarmament community have in recent years maintained that further progress towards the international community's nominally shared goal of a world without nuclear weapons depends on recapturing the spirit and practices of cooperation that prevailed in the late 1980s and 1990s. Proponents of abolition, in this view, should focus their efforts on revitalizing the tried and tested arms control formula that was implemented following the end of the Cold War. In this article, I argue that this call to make disarmament great again reflects unwarranted nostalgia for a past that never was, fostering overconfidence in established approaches to the elimination of nuclear weapons. Far from putting the world on course to nuclear abolition, the end of the Cold War saw the legitimation of nuclear weapons as a hedge against 'future uncertainties' and entrenchment of the power structures that sustain the retention of nuclear armouries. By overselling past progress towards the elimination of nuclear arms, the nostalgic narrative of a lost abolitionist consensus is used to rationalize the existing nuclear order and delegitimize the pursuit of new approaches to elimination such as the movement to stigmatize nuclear weapons and the practice of nuclear deterrence.

The role of government involvement in firms has received a lot of attention in the last few decades. Government involvement could result in a 'supporting hand' and a 'grabbing hand'. This paper investigates how government control influences the financial performance of Chinese listed firms. We use a panel data set of firms publicly traded on the stock exchanges of Shanghai and Shenzhen over the period 2009-2013. Our dataset includes 5501 firm-year observations. Our results suggest that government control of firms, measured by the shareholdings that are directly and indirectly controlled by the government, is negatively related with firms' financial performance. More specifically, the return on assets, the return on equity and the market-to-book ratio are, on average, 1.3%, 2.0% and 8.2% lower for government-controlled firms. Both central and local government control is undermining firm performance. These findings provide support for the 'grabbing hand' theory of the government. Our results also suggest that the negative effect of government control becomes stronger when firm profitability is higher. Firms with a poor financial performance benefit from government control, which supports the 'supporting hand' theory of the government.

Includes bibliographical references. ; 2020 Spring. ; External stakeholders are becoming increasingly involved in mine design and permitting decision-making. Yet, the systems in which mining investment decisions take place do not fully capture the importance of stakeholder influence on the success or failure of a mining venture. Conventional mine planning and permitting methods elevate technical expertise, conventional views of risk management, and financial justifications as the drivers of "objective" decision making. The rising influence of external stakeholders to mining project outcomes means that stakeholder attitudes on mining, and institutional trust, and local environmental knowledge must be integrated into the decision-making systems in more comprehensive ways. This dissertation is a compilation of three research papers which seek to answer the following research questions: 1. How can governments better integrate local communities' perceptions and concerns into mine permitting decisions? 2. What are the most important indicators of company-stakeholder conflict?3. How does stakeholder opposition affect the valuation of a mining property?This dissertation informs these questions with three research activities: A case study of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) at the Donlin Gold project in Western Alaska: The National Environmental Policy Act requires US regulators to consult local stakeholders and include their concerns in an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). At the Donlin project in Western Alaska, the Army Corps of Engineers included Alaskan Native tribes as cooperating agencies in the analysis in addition to conventional public comment meeting. This attempt at improved stakeholder involvement had some successes, but it also highlights divergent goals within NEPA and a lack of trust between local stakeholders and regulators. Tribes were able to push for examination and disclosure of some of their environmental concerns but remain frustrated with NEPA's limitations with respect to transform findings into enforceable protections.A statistical examination of the social and environmental variables as indicators of company-stakeholder conflict: Prediction of company-stakeholder conflict remains a weak point in mine design and planning. This research statistically examines a database of mining properties and develops multiple linear regression models to identify the most important indicators of mining company-stakeholder conflict. These models find that the following conditions are the strongest indicators of future conflict: the conflict history of the mining property, the conflict history in the mining region, proximity to artisanal mining, and anticipated physical and economic displacement of local people.A decision tree model which incorporates company-stakeholder conflict into a mining project's valuation: Mining investment decisions rely on a company's financial valuation of a mining project. The discounted cash flow methodology is the foundation of these valuations. This research developed a tool for capturing the financial risk associated with higher likelihoods of company-stakeholder conflict by quantifying the risk of forced project abandonment. This research presents a decision tree model for calculating the expected cost of company-stakeholder conflict. The model concludes that even moderate conflict likelihoods can reduce the net present value (NPV) of a mining project by hundreds of millions of dollars. Collectively these studies conclude that external stakeholders are undervalued by mining's present decision-making paradigms. This dissertation calls on companies and governments to place a greater emphasis on external stakeholders' perspectives on mining. It recommends that companies and governments engage these stakeholders in permitting and mine design processes such that these decisions include nuanced understandings of how a mine will affect local people and how local people will affect a mine.

The purpose of this study is to explore a federal turnaround policy under a mayoral-controlled Northeastern school district that began in 2013. The study utilizes discourse and document analysis and interviews, as well as a life history methodology to explore the perspectives of educators, local politicians, and community activists from Black and Latinx communities, as well as other minoritized populations, within the jurisdiction of the school district. The framework for this study draws on a critical analysis of educational policy studies and utilizes Sandra Stein's (2004) Culture of Education Policy framework to highlight discourses and language used to frame individuals and groups. This study analyzes a forced leadership change and focuses on a particular elementary school as a result of the implementation of a turnaround policy, and offers some implications for educational policy, reform, and leadership practices.

Bek, Nahit ; Kara, Mustafa, (Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart Üniversitesi Biga İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi Kamu Yönetimi Bölümü) ; The purpose of this study is to determine the kinds of problems the parties likely to be affected by thermal power plant projects encounter in participation in EIA processes in the case of the city of Çanakkale in Turkey and present directive data to policy makers on the national and local level in overcoming those problems. The scope of the study includes the EIA processes of 18 planned thermal power plants in the city of Çanakkale. The study was limited to the EIA processes of CENAL thermal power plant in the District of Biga besides Çan 2 and 18 Mart thermal power plants in the District of Çan. Data collection was conducted through interview method and the data were analyzed through content analysis. A semi-structured interview form consisting of 9 items was used as interview method and it was administered to 18 participants. MAXQDA Analytics Pro 18 trial version was used in data analysis. The findings revealed the problems reported by the participants. The results indicate that the question marks in participants' minds regarding the projects weren't overcome; they think they weren't provided with accurate information about the projects due to concerns over confidentiality; they had reservations over the projects and those reservations weren't completely overcome by project owners; the opinions of local residents were only partically taken into serious consideration by officials and selection of the site for projects was wrong. It was further found that the parties other than government and firm officials couldn't exert any influence on decisions regarding the projects ; Bu araştırmada, ilk olarak Türkiye'de, Çanakkale ili örneğinde, termik santral projelerinin ÇED süreçlerine projelerden etkilenmesi muhtemel tarafların katılımlarında ne gibi sorunlarla karşılaşıldığının belirlenmesi, ikinci olarak ta ÇED süreçlerine tarafların katılımları konusunda karşılaşılan sorunların giderilmesi noktasında merkezi ve yerel düzeydeki karar vericilere yol gösterici veriler sunulması amaçlanmıştır. Kapsama Çanakkale ilinde yapımı planlanan 18 termik santral projesine ilişkin ÇED süreçleri girmekle birlikte, araştırma Biga İlçesi'ndeki CENAL ve Çan İlçesi'ndeki Çan 2 ve 18 Mart termik santralleri ÇED süreçleriyle sınırlandırılmıştır. Veriler görüşme yöntemiyle toplanmış ve içerik analizi ile çözümlenmiştir. Görüşmelerde 9 sorudan oluşan yarı yapılandırılmış görüşme formları kullanılmış ve toplamda 18 kişi ile görüşülmüştür. Veri analizinde MAXQDA Analytics Pro 18 Programının deneme sürümü kullanılmıştır. Sonuçta, incelenen ÇED süreçlerine katılım konusunda yaşanan sorunlar projeler hakkında akıllardaki soru işaretlerinin ortadan kaldırılamaması, gizlilik gibi gerekçelerle doğru bilgilendirme yapılmaması, yöre sakinlerinin çekincelerinin proje sahiplerince giderilememesi, yöre sakinlerinin görüşlerinin yetkililerce kısmen önemsenmesi ve yöre sakinlerince projelerin yer seçiminin doğru olmadığı şeklinde sıralanmaktadır. Diğer yandan, devlet ve firma yetkilileri dışındaki tarafların projeler hakkında alınan kararlar üzerinde herhangi bir etkilerinin bulunmadığı anlaşılmıştır.