An Institutional Analysis of Oil and Gas Sector Development and Environmental Management in the Yukon Territory

This thesis investigates the ways in which oil and gas development priorities and concern for the environment are integrated within strategic planning and management frameworks, and how associated conflict is addressed, in a case study of the Yukon. Because substantial ground-based oil and gas activity is yet to occur in the territory, a thorough understanding of the institutions and institutional arrangements set to govern future oil and gas development is a valuable tool for gauging the capacity to integrate these priorities. Therefore, this thesis employs the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework to analyze the legislation, regulations, policies, and institutions involved in this process, and to identify present and emerging conflicts. In addition, three theory-based literatures in resource and environmental management (Integrated Management, Adaptive Management, and Conflict Resolution) are identified as pertinent to this topic, and are analyzed and discussed for their applicability and utility within the case study. As development in the Yukon oil and gas sector moves toward more advanced and active stages, it can be assumed that local and regional scale conflicts will arise in response to pressures put on the environment. If the assumption proves true, then planners and decision-makers would be well advised to consider and incorporate strategic mechanisms which acknowledge and integrate multiple priorities as a means of addressing and reducing conflict. Because the oil and gas sector is currently in a formative stage in the Yukon, the present moment may be quite opportune for implementations of this sort

Preservation of Semantic Properties during the Aggregation of Abstract Argumentation Frameworks

An abstract argumentation framework can be used to model the argumentative stance of an agent at a high level of abstraction, by indicating for every pair of arguments that is being considered in a debate whether the first attacks the second. When modelling a group of agents engaged in a debate, we may wish to aggregate their individual argumentation frameworks to obtain a single such framework that reflects the consensus of the group. Even when agents disagree on many details, there may well be high-level agreement on important semantic properties, such as the acceptability of a given argument. Using techniques from social choice theory, we analyse under what circumstances such semantic properties agreed upon by the individual agents can be preserved under aggregation.Comment: In Proceedings TARK 2017, arXiv:1707.0825

The Challenge of Unifying Semantic and Syntactic Inference Restrictions

While syntactic inference restrictions don't play an important role for SAT, they are an essential reasoning technique for more expressive logics, such as first-order logic, or fragments thereof. In particular, they can result in short proofs or model representations. On the other hand, semantically guided inference systems enjoy important properties, such as the generation of solely non-redundant clauses. I discuss to what extend the two paradigms may be unifiable

Dispute Resolution Using Argumentation-Based Mediation

Mediation is a process, in which both parties agree to resolve their dispute by negotiating over alternative solutions presented by a mediator. In order to construct such solutions, mediation brings more information and knowledge, and, if possible, resources to the negotiation table. The contribution of this paper is the automated mediation machinery which does that. It presents an argumentation-based mediation approach that extends the logic-based approach to argumentation-based negotiation involving BDI agents. The paper describes the mediation algorithm. For comparison it illustrates the method with a case study used in an earlier work. It demonstrates how the computational mediator can deal with realistic situations in which the negotiating agents would otherwise fail due to lack of knowledge and/or resources.Comment: 6 page

The Contribution of Critical Theory to New Thinking on Peacekeeping: Some Lessons from MINURSO

YesThis paper sums up the findings from the first comprehensive study on the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara. This research project explores the possibilities of using a Foucualtian analysis to look at the links between peacekeeping practice and Western policies of conflict containment in the Western Sahara with a view to enhancing UN conflict resolution capabilities

Climate change policy, conflict and transformative governance

Climate change is the behemoth of our age. It defies description, is too large to comprehend, and what we do understand about it is often terrifying. This is for many, a good reason to stop thinking about it or, like Scarlett O’Hara, decide to “think about it tomorrow”. Thinking about the role of conflict in climate change policy is an even more challenging exercise, but one that this paper tries to address. Briefly I propose that climate change governance could productively utilise conflict as a transformative agent for decision making, rather than try and avoid it, or ‘solve it’ by embedding conflict resolution mechanisms within those governance frameworks.There are many points at which governance and climate change intersect, there are multiple entry and exit points, and policies need embedding from local to international levels to work. At the heart of the problem however is conflict: between states and territories, between cultures, between the ideas of rights and responsibility and between the environment and economics. But as with Scarlett O’Hara, our society is fundamentally incapable of dealing with conflict. We seek answers based on win-win solutions, and ways of engaging with each other that are diplomatic, and politically correct.Conflict as such, is feared as the blunt stone that will bludgeon and ruin negotiations and damage already fragile egos, societies and potential environmental outcomes. When societies cannot or will not change, or when the changes required necessitate unacceptable cultural compromise, disjuncture between them can develop into forums of conflict. Conflicts arising are partly explained by the fact that worldviews, perceptions of the problem, and ideas about solutions differ.I argue for the transformative potential of conflict to facilitate adaptive governance and policy around climate change and climate change adaptation.Key Points:Climate change governance could productively utilise conflict as a transformative agent for decision making, rather than try and avoid it, or ‘solve it’ by embedding conflict resolution mechanisms within governance frameworks.Climate governance frameworks should enable the conflict to become the conflict resolution process itself. This means identifying likely conflicts up front and then using them as the basis on which decisions about the most appropriate policies and planning are made, ensuring that such decisions are cognisant of and provide forums for effective ways around conflict in implementation.This process might take longer to negotiate, but will mean less likelihood of climate related policies stalling in implementation due to intractable conflict.One way of operationalising this model is to employ a three-dimensional local adaptive conflict governance framework comprising: (i) adaptive management (which includes anticipatory adaptation/foresight), (ii) communications, and (iii) reflexive practice

Methods for anticipating governance breakdown and violent conflict

In this paper, authors Sarah Bressan, Håvard Mokleiv Nygård, and Dominic Seefeldt present the evolution and state of the art of both quantitative forecasting and scenario-based foresight methods that can be applied to help prevent governance breakdown and violent conflict in Europe’s neighbourhood. In the quantitative section, they describe the different phases of conflict forecasting in political science and outline which methodological gaps EU-LISTCO’s quantitative sub-national prediction tool will address to forecast tipping points for violent conflict and governance breakdown. The qualitative section explains EU-LISTCO’s scenario-based foresight methodology for identifying potential tipping points. After comparing both approaches, the authors discuss opportunities for methodological advancements across the boundaries of quantitative forecasting and scenario-based foresight, as well as how they can inform the design of strategic policy options

Transnational Private Regulatory Governance: Ambiguities of Public Authority and Private Power

The continuing proliferation of transnational private regulatory governance challenges conceptions of legal authority, legitimacy and public regulation of economic activity. The transnational law merchant or, lex mercatoria, is a case in point in this context, as it represents a laboratory for the exploration of “private” contractual governance in a context, in which the assertion of public or private authority has itself become contentious. The ambiguity surrounding many forms of today’s contractual governance in the transnational arena echoes that of the far-reaching transformation of public regulatory governance, which has been characteristic of Western welfare states over the last few decades. What is particularly remarkable, however, is the way in which the depictions of “private instruments” and “public interests” in the post-welfare state regulatory environment have given rise to a rise in importance of social norms, self-regulation and a general anti-state affect in the assessment of judicial enforcement or administration of contractual arrangements. The paper suggests the need to short-circuit and to read in parallel the justifications offered for a contractual governance model, which prioritizes and seeks to insulate “private” arrangements from their embeddedness in regulated market contexts, on both the national and transnational level