Suchergebnisse

The decentralisation and despatialisation of governmental architectures within the European Union (EU) that will result from the development of eGovernment under the Lisbon Strategy could have a crucial impact on political structures and identity in Europe. eGovernment projects at the European and member state levels are professed to expand citizens' access to political institutions, increase social inclusion and enhance the efficiency of pan-European government. This essay examines the possible implications of long-term digitisation of government in the EU given the current trajectory of eGovernment discourse and its place within the broader Information Society goals. It argues that eGovernment will reconfigure several political relationships within the EU, fostering the development of a neomedieval polity similar to that first described by Hedley Bull, where government is multi-layered and overlapping and mobility among certain individuals is very high. To make the neomedieval perspective more appropriate for this digital analysis, the essay draws upon poststructuralist ideas concerning political forms and the construction of knowledge and subjectivity.

Multicriteria decision analysis is a decision support aid touted for its ability to help participants overcome bias and make holistic assessments. However, few offer empirical tests of this thesis. This research examines the use of multicriteria decision analysis to implement the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act. The Act called upon federal, regional, and local agencies to develop a connected system of parks, trails, and natural areas throughout Nevada. The partners used multicriteria decision analysis to make decisions about which parks, trails, and natural areas projects to fund. We assess the extent of political and cognitive biases among the participants when using the multicriteria decision analysis process. We find no strong evidence of strategic behavior, a finding that highlights many of the celebratory claims made about multicriteria decision analysis. However, we also note a preference for projects adjacent to high-income areas as well as the presence of cognitive biases in the assignment of scores to projects.

AbstractNew digital tools for monitoring forest‐ and land‐cover change have made it easier for civil society actors to call firms to account for deforestation. In response, companies in deforestation‐linked global value chains (GVCs) have turned to these technologies themselves. In contrast to many case analyses of technology in GVCs, which focus on how technology changes production processes, forcing governance to adapt, forest‐monitoring technologies change governance directly. Synthesising work on transaction characteristics and power relations in GVCs to address this novel situation, we argue that monitoring technologies' effects on GVCs will likely depend on their accessibility. Proprietary technologies favour large‐scale operations and already established lead firms, while open technologies could support democratization. Treating forest‐ and value‐chain information as a public good could support more inclusive, equitable and sustainable value chains.

Nous étudions d'intéressantes variations dans les taux de location touristique du comté de Hocking (Ohio, États-Unis). L'industrie des chalets avec jacuzzi est née dans les années 1970 et s'est rapidement développée depuis 1990. Nous mettons en œuvre une régression hédonique sur une base de données de 503 chalets, appartenant à 143 entreprises, pour expliquer la variation dans les taux de location et dans les revenus générés. Cette analyse est complétée par une analyse exploratoire spatiale. Nous estimons l'impact relatif lié à la proximité d'aménités environnementales, d'infrastructures et de commerces. Les taux de locations sont corrélés aux différentes caractéristiques individuelles des chalets privés. Le revenu moyen est plus élevé lorsqu'il offre un meilleur accès. En revanche, la proximité des mines représente une désaménité significative qui est cependant compensée par une plus grande couverture forestière.

The Better Cotton Imitative (BCI), the world's largest multi-stakeholder initiative (MSI) for sustainable cotton production, is a prime example of a hybrid "cooperation-compliance" model used by some MSIs to engage farmers and on-farm workers in the global South. Using a mixed methods approach, we investigate the impacts of this hybrid model on economic, environmental, and labor conditions of farmers and on-farm workers on irrigated cotton farms in Pakistan and India. In one of few cross-national comparisons of BCI impacts, we find evidence that farmers participating in BCI's "cooperation-compliance" model report (a) higher gross incomes and (b) lower input costs than comparison farmers. However, (c) BCI had no positive impacts upon labor conditions on cotton farms, as compared to conventional peers. Finally, (d) BCI's impacts are mediated by institutional and geographic differences across the study sites. We conclude that effects of MSIs are hard to generalize but can most meaningfully be understood within particular institutional designs, value chains, specific time periods, and institutional contexts.