Suchergebnisse

AbstractThe termination of the Entry Level Stewardship (ELS) Agri‐Environment Scheme in England provides a unique opportunity for testing and exploring the so‐called crowding‐out theory. The theory posits that payment for the provision of public goods leads to a reduction in the intrinsic motivation for their supply. Through a small qualitative case‐study in Southwest England we explore farmers' intentions to continue with 'environmental behaviours' following the cessation of ELS. Contrary to the crowding‐out theory we find that farmers will continue with longstanding 'environmental practices' that were financially rewarded by the ELS, but will pick and choose whether to continue with newly introduced practices depending on how they fit with farmers' existing cultural, economic and instrumental priorities. Moreover, we argue that the crowding‐out theory is based on a set of assumptions and simplifications that do not adequately help us interpret the relationship between farmers' motives, practices and intentions. In particular, we show that intrinsic and extrinsic motives cannot straightforwardly be separated and that definitions of what constitutes an 'environmental behaviour' are far more complex than is often assumed.

Moving forwards from an extensive literature on farmers' cooperatives, this Special Issue aims to explore the interaction and interdependence of multiple material and immaterial benefits associated with cooperation. The eight papers gathered here address a range of contexts to explore the inseparability of a set of 'more-than-economic' benefits of cooperation and consider the wider implications of doing so. Responding to their insights, this editorial reflects upon the ontological ambiguity of concepts of economy and the political potentiality of cooperative activities. In addition, we highlight three key themes raised by the papers, which emphasize the complexity of processes and values included in cooperation: Relatedness and Embeddedness; Institutions and Formalisation; Histories and Futures. Reflecting on the transformative capacities of cooperation described in this collection, we argue that valuing cooperation as a process rather than a means to fixed-ends can carry its own emancipatory potential, given the ways in which this can work to counter the compartmentalising tendencies of capitalism. However, we conclude by cautioning that the addressing of more pervasive structural impediments needs to be integrated into cooperative endeavours if such potential is to be fully realised.

Abstract
What gets displaced in war, even when people don't move? How does conflict transform and reverberate among those still there? And, what can sectarianism tell us about state power in war and in occupation? To answer, we theorize and problematize the relationship of sectarianism to the state, and explore the effects of war and occupation in everyday practice and in socio-economic and political institutions. The cases come from two Syrian Druze regions, from the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Height and from Jaramana, Damascus. In the first case, the Israeli occupation shifted the national border, and, in the second case, the war in Syria created new internal borders and checkpoints. Tracing the displacement of conflict through sectarianism allows us to think through state borders, and explore everyday life in relation to economic pressures and geopolitics. It is within these absences and presences of the state that the transformations of conflict and belonging appear.

There is a lack of published evidence which demonstrates the impacts of public engagement (PE) in science and technology policy. This might represent the failure of PE to achieve policy impacts or indicate a lack of effective procedures for discerning the uptake by policy makers of PE-derived outputs. While efforts have been made to identify and categorize different types of policy impact, research has rarely attempted to link policy impact with PE procedures, political procedures, or the connections between them. In this article, we propose a simple conceptual model to capture this information, based on semistructured interviews with both policy makers and PE practitioners. A range of criteria are identified to increase the policy impact of PE. The role of PE practitioners in realizing impacts through their interactions with policy makers in the informal "in-between" spaces of public engagement is emphasized. However, the potential contradictions between the pursuit of policy impacts and the more traditional conceptualizations of PE effectiveness are discussed. The main barrier to the identification of policy impacts from PE may lie within policy processes themselves. Political institutions have responsibility to establish formalized procedures for monitoring the uptake and use of evidence from PE in their decision-making processes.