A Climate of Disorder: What to do About the Obstacles to Effective Climate Politics

The emphasis on general distributive principles in the climate justice literature has left significant gaps regarding the problem of weak climate governance. The main contribution of this chapter is to show how normative theory can contribute to addressing the apparent political incapacity to respond to the threat of climate disruption. The chapter argues that a set of six underlying obstacles to effective climate change politics can serve as a framework around which ‘non-ideal’ normative theorizing about climate politics can be organized. Policies and other tactics to mediate the six obstacles are shown to raise distinct normative issues in need of deeper analysis

Equity by Design : Examining Law & Policy for Undocumented Immigrant Students through the pK-20 Pipeline

The purpose of this Equity Brief is to provide some guidance for educators with regard to the challenges around supporting undocumented students in the midst of uncertain times and continued concerns surrounding Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Many youth in the DACA Program have made the United States their home and have lived in the country the majority of their lives. Since its inception, DACA has been a source of contention for many, opponents argue that DACA has decreased the educational budget whereas others proponents of DACA focus on the educational opportunities it presents

The Politics of Smoke-Free Policies in Developing Countries: Lessons from Africa

The public health rewards of smoke-free policies are well documented. But in their enthusiasm to achieve such policies, public health advocates and policymakers frequently underestimate the political complexity of passing laws, and then implementing and enforcing them. Using 12 African countries as the focus of discussion, this research examines the basic political process for and the barriers to achieving smoke-free policies. Moreover, in addition to the obstacles, it examines why some countries have been experiencing comparatively more success in the smoke-free policy area. The findings of the research suggest strongly that the presence of a vigorous tobacco control civil society movement, some will on the part of government institutions, and active research support contribute significantly to successful smoke-free policies. It is also apparent that the emerging battle fronts in smoke-free policies are in the areas of implementation and enforcement, and while similar variables that affect the passing of new laws also condition these outcomes, there are the added distinct challenges of policy fatigue and additional resource constraints

Importance of Institutional Development for Western Balkan Countries

Western Balkan countries comprises following entities: Bosnia and Hercegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, Kosovo and Metohija, Albania and Macedonia. Even there are just four sovereign(internationaly recognised) states among those entities, number of different names (8) shows to us all fragmentation and tendencies toward further dissolution of this region to increasing number of small and weak states. Tendencies that are shown in WB region are quite different from those in other transition countries in Europe. Instead of cooperation in economic, financial and all other important fields, like Visegrad group countries did in nineties and strenghten their negotiation position compared with the EU, WB countries try to flatter to EU member states and to build their better position through deterioration of the position of other regional states. On the internal plan, all WB countries are still rely on weak institutional capacity - mechanisms that enables governments non-transparent behavior, manipulation with judicial system and judges, selective implementation of the laws, very high and resistant level of corruption in all social and economic fields, surviving of organised crime structures which are very often related to government officials at all levels of authority etc. Integration of WB countries in the EU will be very long term and difficult process as the precondition for that will be building of effective institutional mechanisms that could provide governance comparative with other transition countries and in more distant future with European mature market economies. It isimportant also to establish efficient regional cooperation and to increase level of income and competitiveness to cope with the competition from EU. Experiences from other Balkan countires should be useful for WB region - Greek's as one old member state and Romania's and Bulgaria's as candidate meber states. WB countries expect to have greater understanding of EU officials for the very serious problems that have to be resolved and it is out of question that without important support from outside WB it will be impossible to do so.

Explaining Reform Deadlocks

Countries are often slow to adjust their economic structures to new necessities although this reform reluctance is costly in terms of growth and employment. This paper analyses the relevant factors that block or foster economic reforms. Theoretical considerations show that there are at least three classes of potentially relevant factors: the objective need for reforms, political-economic issues and factors associated with limited rationality or rational ignorance. In the empirical analysis, a reform event is quantified as a significant change of the Economic Freedom of the World indicator within a five-year-period. This allows to run probit estimations for a large country panel starting in the 1970s where the probability of reform is explained by a number of proxies covering all three classes of potential factors. The results suggest that the initial extent of economic freedom and growth performance are empirically relevant factors. Furthermore, countries with an ageing population appear to behave less reform friendly. --economic policy reforms,economic freedom,reform resistance,limited rationality