Polar opposites? NGOs, left parties and the fight for social change in Nepal

In the early 1990s, when NGOs were rising to prominence as an ostensible force for social change in Nepal, the Maoists were also beginning to organise, and denounced NGOs as agents of imperialism. The Maoists came to prominence by fighting a People’s War launched in 1996, with the intention of improving life for the poor peasant and working-class majority. But after a decade-long struggle, the Maoists became incorporated into the parliamentary system. While Nepal’s first democratic revolution in 1990 met formal, popular political demands, which were consolidated in a subsequent revolution in 2006 overthrowing the monarchy and bringing the People’s War to an end, there was little socio-economic progress for the vast majority. The argument advanced in this article is that this lack of progress relied on the interplay of two phenomena: an anti-Maoist alliance consisting of the international community, the domestic ruling elite and NGOs, and a fundamental ambiguity at the heart of the Maoists’ political theory

Distributional Preferences and the Incidence of Costs and Benefits in Climate Change Policy

Climate change, Distributional preferences, Equity, Regressivity, Stated preference, Payment vehicle, Construct validity, C35, C83, H41, Q51, Q54,

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Increases Sensitivity to Long Term Losses among Patients with Major Depressive Disorder

Background Decisions under risk and with outcomes that are delayed in time are ubiquitous in real life and can have a significant impact on the health and wealth of the decision-maker. Despite its potential relevance for real-world choices, the degree of aberrant risky and intertemporal decision-making in patients suffering from major depressive disorder (MDD) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has received little attention to date. Method We used a case-control design to compare decision-making in healthy control subjects (N=16) versus untreated depressed subjects in a current major depressive episode (N=20). In order to examine how major depressive disorder (MDD) may impact decision-making, subjects made decisions over (1) risky outcomes and (2) delayed outcomes in the domain of gains and losses using choice paradigms from neuroeconomics. In a pre-planned analysis, depressed subjects were subdivided into those with primary PTSD along with comorbid MDD (MDD+PTSD) versus those with primary MDD without PTSD (MDD-only). Choice behavior was modeled via a standard econometric model of intertemporal choice, a quasi-hyperbolic temporal discounting function, which was estimated for each subject group separately. Results Under conditions of potential gain, depressed subjects demonstrated greater discounting for gains across all time frames compared to controls. In the realm of losses, both subgroups of depressed subjects discounted more steeply than controls for short time frames. However, for delayed losses ranging from >1-10 years, MDD+PTSD subjects showed shallower discounting rates relative to MDD-only subjects, who continued to discount future losses steeply. Risk attitudes did not contribute to differences in intertemporal choice. Conclusions Depressed patients make choices that minimize current pain and maximize current reward, despite severe later consequences or lost opportunities. Anxiety associated with PTSD may serve as a partially protective factor in decision-making about long-term potential losses compared to MDD patients without PTSD