Conservation and crime convergence? Situating the 2018 London Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference

The 2018 London Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT) Conference was the fourth and biggest meeting on IWT convened at the initiative of the UK Government. Using a collaborative event ethnography, we examine the Conference as a site where key actors defined the problem of IWT as one of serious crime that needs to be addressed as such. We ask (a) how was IWT framed as serious crime, (b) how was this framing mobilized to promote particular policy responses, and (c) how did the framing and suggested responses reflect the privileging of elite voices? Answering these questions demonstrates the expanding ways in which thinking related to crime and policing are an increasingly forceful dynamic shaping conservation-related policy at the global level. We argue that the conservation-crime convergence on display at the 2018 London IWT Conference is characteristic of a conservation policy landscape that increasingly promotes and privileges responses to IWT that are based on legal and judicial reform, criminal investigations, intelligence gathering, and law enforcement technologies. Marginalized are those voices that seek to address the underlying drivers of IWT by promoting solutions rooted in sustainable livelihoods in source countries and global demand reduction. We suggest that political ecology of conservation and environmental crime would benefit from greater engagement with critical criminology, a discipline that critically interrogates the uneven power dynamics that shape ideas of crime, criminality, how they are politicized, and how they frame policy decisions. This would add further conceptual rigor to political ecological work that deconstructs conservation and environmental crime

NAFTA: Will it ever have an EU profile? Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series Vol. 7 No. 3 April 2007

[Introduction]. Based on the experiences of regionalization and integration processes, this paper identifies the main transformations North America has undergone as a result of the implementation of NAFTA. The main argument is that the operation of NAFTA has set in motion a process of regionalization in North America and gradually an increasing number of policies encompass a regional dimension. In such process, the pivotal actor is the United States, while Canada and Mexico are reactive partners who seek to defend their domestic interests as well as accommodate themselves in the regional dynamic led by the United States. The emerging regionalism in North America reflects that NAFTA has accomplished some of its goals. Nonetheless, there is an ongoing discussion with regard to the expanded agenda of the region and several proposals have been brought to the academic and political debate. In this regard, five main sections are considered to asses the regionalization of North America. The first introduces some analytical elements about the regionalization in North America; the second shows perceptions of public opinion with regard to the regional agenda; the third refers to the effects of NAFTA, while the fourth evaluates the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SSP) Summits. The fifth presents the case of alternative models for the future of NAFTA

When do interest groups contact bureaucrats rather than politicians? Evidence on fire alarms and smoke detectors from Japan

What determines whether interest groups choose to contact politicians or bureaucrats? Despite the importance of this question for policymaking, democracy, and some prominent principal-agent understandings of politics, it is relatively unexplored in the literature. We argue that government stability plays a major part in interest groups' decisions. That is, central to interest groups' decisions is their assessment of the likelihood that politicians currently in power will continue to be in the future. We deduce logical, but totally contrasting hypotheses, about how interest groups lobby under such conditions of uncertainty and then test these using a heteroskedastic probit model that we apply to a unique longitudinal survey of interest groups in Japan. We find that when it is unclear if the party controlling the government will maintain power in the future, interest groups are more likely to contact the bureaucracy. When it is believed that the party in power will retain control for a considerable period, interest groups are more inclined to contact politicians. In addition, during times of government uncertainty, interest groups that are supportive of the governing party (or parties) are more likely to contact politicians and those that are less supportive will be more likely to contact bureaucrats. © 2013 Cambridge University Press

Some Reflections on the Relationship between Politicians and Politics in Latin America after Twenty Five Years of Democracy. Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series Vol.8 No.1, January 2008

Almost three decades after democratic transition numerous political reforms have appeared. No country in the region, with the obvious exception of Cuba, has been left out of this wave of political transformations. Profound constitutional reforms, decentralization processes, and changes in the relationships between the branches of government, in electoral laws and in rules regarding political participation are just some of the transformations experienced by Latin American polities. As of 2007, the agenda of political reforms is patently open in Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela, and also important in Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Peru