Landscapes and livelihoods changes in the north-western uplands of Cambodia: Opportunities for building resilient farming systems

Almost 1 million hectares of forest lands have been reclaimed over the last 15 years for farming. Farmer practices with intensive mono-cropping based on tillage and herbicides use have resulted in significant soil erosion and rapid land degradation. Declining land productivity with increasing frequency of drought and flood have jeopardized the farm's economy of the smallholders. Understanding the impacts of land use changes on livelihoods and ecosystem services, and exploring intervention mechanisms based on Conservation Agriculture (CA) would help sustain smallscale farming systems in the Cambodian uplands. A research study on "Landscapes and livelihood changes in the northwestern uplands of Cambodia: Impacts on ecosystem services and opportunities for building resilient farming systems" is presented aiming to (i) analyze land use changes, their proximate causes, and underlying driving forces, (ii) assess the impacts of land use changes on local livelihoods and ecosystem services at multiple scales, (iii) evaluate the capacity of alternative cropping systems based on agro-ecology principles to preserve/restore soil fertility while improving local livelihoods, and (iv) assess the potential of conservation agriculture to enhance resilience of farming systems to climate change. The study produced (i) a full illustration of land use changes and its impacts provided by the integration of different scales: spatial, temporal, disciplinary, but also methods to describe and simulate changes, (ii) a new participatory approach adapted to the context of Cambodian uplands to develop the land use and landscape plan, and (iii) resilience scenarios of each type of farming system

Delegation in Tourism Decision Making: Toward an Understanding of the Role of Social Surrogate

Tourism is often a group-based activity, but tourism decision-making research has primarily focused on individual decision making and who makes decisions in families. However, there are numerous situations in which individuals do not make decisions for themselves, effectively delegating decisions such as where to visit, stay, or eat to others in their travel party, called “social surrogates.” Unlike traditional surrogates described by prior researchers, social surrogates are not part of a formal business relationship and often participate in consumption. The purpose of this study was to investigate delegation of decisions to social surrogates and to determine which attributes lead to delegation. A nationwide web-based survey (n=404) found that decision delegation to social surrogates frequently occurred in travel environments. The study also revealed that there are two separate factors comprising decision delegation: the desire to defer a decision and the desire to make a choice (“choose”). Two structural equation models were tested. The first model found that decision-making style affected decision delegation. Additionally, results provided evidence that desire to defer decisions and desire to make a choice are not clear opposites, but are separate components of decision delegation. A second model revealed that high purchase involvement, desire to control others, relinquishing control, and propensity to make risky decisions led to the desire to choose. A desire to relinquish control led to deferring decisions, as did low purchase involvement. Decision delegation also was found to be more likely in situations in which the decision-maker felt that others had more relative experience and expertise. Decision delegation to social surrogates was found to be common in tourism. Results suggest it would be incorrect to assume that individuals make all of their decisions, so all customers may not be of equal importance to tourism marketers. Some individuals may have little to no role in choice (as they defer decisions), while others (social surrogates) may hold great influence over others (by making decisions). Results suggest that individuals may defer about half of restaurant and activity decisions in tourism. Thus, identifying who actually made the decision may be an important prerequisite to understanding tourism consumer behavior

Rethinking police accountability and transparency within the EU: reconciling national and supranational approaches

The new terrain of increasing interaction between national and supranational legal systems within the European Union presents new challenges for conventional approaches to police accountability and transparency. Each EU Member State is responsible for policing within its jurisdiction, and the EU institutions are increasingly responsible for enhancing the conduct of police cooperation between the Member States. The thesis explores the challenges of reconciling national approaches in the international sphere by conducting a critical analysis of ‘how and to what extent national legal and administrative norms on police accountability and transparency are informing the concept, design and operation of EU cross-border policing instruments’. Building on the work of Peter K. Manning, Geoffrey Marshall and David Bayley amongst others, the thesis develops a pragmatic typology of police accountability through which to view the evolution and adequacy of national and supranational approaches. The typology contains three key dimensions, namely codes, co-option and complaint. Using the typology to critique conventional approaches in the UK, Ireland and Denmark, the thesis identifies legal and procedural anomalies and challenges at both the national and supranational level since the traditional elements of police accountability were originally formulated within the confines of national legal, political, historical and cultural constraints. Employing the typology to both elucidate problems and suggest methods of internalisation, the thesis argues that the EU should follow the lead of the Member States’ legislatures by seeking to regulate a wider range of policing processes through more expansive procedural ‘codes’ which facilitate police discretion and co-option. The thesis shows that it is not sufficient for the EU to prioritise its post-Lisbon policy of ‘co-decision’ in order to remedy its democratic deficits but that it must oversee the establishment and enhancement of parliamentary committees, inspectorates and other oversight bodies in the interest of police accountability. A number of recommendations are made for police reform at both the national and supranational levels to this end. More particularly, the research indicates that additional treaty changes are needed beyond the Lisbon Treaty in order to adequately reconcile national and supranational approaches to police accountability. I am grateful to the Irish Research Council for supporting this research by the award of a Government of Ireland Research Scholarship

Looking beyond eruptions for an explanation of volcanic disasters: vulnerability in volcanic environments

A thesis submitted to the Centre for Volcanic Studies, University of Luton, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.'Natural' disasters have traditionally been viewed as the result of an extreme physical environment. A radical backlash against this dominant view, in the nineteen seventies and eighties, moved the debate to the opposite extreme and in doing so replaced physical with social determinism. Vulnerability analysis is proposed as a methodology that bridges these extremes. It takes into account individual decision making, social milieu and physical hazard when describing human habitation in areas of volcanic activity. It is argued that vulnerability should be defined in terms of universal human needs in order to avoid it simply being a measure of the chance of death and injury or losing its meaning in the uncertainty of cultural relativism. Once vulnerability is identified it is important to explore why it has come to exist. A contextual theory of vulnerability change is presented. Vulnerability to volcanic activity was explored in the area around Mt. Etna in Sicily (Italy) and Furnas volcano San Miguel in the Azores (Portugal) using a case study methodology. This included: collecting data through interviews (semistructured and structured) and field surveying, utilising census and other secondary data sources, and examining historical documents and texts. The volcanic hazard on Mt. Etna is related to regular (4-7 years) effusive lava flows which threaten property and land rather than people. Living in a European state, it is likely that a victim of Mt. Etna will have their basic needs provided for in the long-term and therefore they are not vulnerable. In contrast the irregular explosive eruptions of Furnas, last eruption 1630, not only damage property and land but also endanger lives. The limited ability of individuals to protect themselves in the event of an eruption and organisations to aid them in this means that, in spite of state insurance, many around Furnas are vulnerable. The production of vulnerability around Etna and Furnas is strongly related to the socio-economic nature of the region and wider European and global contexts. Opportunities and constraints that exist across socio-physical space encourage behaviour and forms of life which, in tum, produce various levels of vulnerability. Individuals seem to cognitively diminish their perceptions of this threat within a context of social representations of low risk. They, and society as a whole, rarely seem to engage directly with the risk itself