Climate change adaptation and cross-sectoral policy coherence in southern Africa

To be effective, climate change adaptation needs to be mainstreamed across multiple sectors and greater policy coherence is essential. Using the cases of Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia, this paper investigates the extent of coherence in national policies across the water and agriculture sectors and to climate change adaptation goals outlined in national development plans. A two-pronged qualitative approach is applied using Qualitative Document Analysis of relevant policies and plans, combined with expert interviews from non-government actors in each country. Findings show that sector policies have differing degrees of coherence on climate change adaptation, currently being strongest in Zambia and weakest in Tanzania. We also identify that sectoral policies remain more coherent in addressing immediate-term disaster management issues of floods and droughts rather than longer-term strategies for climate adaptation. Coherence between sector and climate policies and strategies is strongest when the latter has been more recently developed. However to date, this has largely been achieved by repackaging of existing sectoral policy statements into climate policies drafted by external consultants to meet international reporting needs and not by the establishment of new connections between national sectoral planning processes. For more effective mainstreaming of climate change adaptation, governments need to actively embrace longer-term cross-sectoral planning through cross-Ministerial structures, such as initiated through Zambia’s Interim Climate Change Secretariat, to foster greater policy coherence and integrated adaptation planning

Global norms and major state behaviour: the cases of China and the United States

When do major states conform to or diverge from global behavioural norms? We argue that existing theories find it difficult to explain important aspects of this variation in behaviour and we offer instead a framework consisting of three explanatory variables: degree of ‘fit’ between global norms and dominant domestic-level norms; actor perceptions of procedural and substantive legitimacy; and actor perceptions of consequences for the global power hierarchy. We argue that the relative importance of these variables is contingent on the level of domestic salience of the issue area. When salience is high, the degree of normative fit is the primary driver of behavioural consistency; when salience is low, degree of fit becomes less important and the other two variables play a more powerful role in driving behavioural outcomes. We demonstrate how this framework helps to account for the behaviour of the two most important states in the global system, China and the United States, in five areas of central importance to the contemporary global order: the limited use of force, macroeconomic policy surveillance, the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, climate protection and financial regulation. Our argument also explains why globalization may reduce rather than increase levels of behavioural consistency with global norms

China’s Arctic policy: present and future

The article examines China’s Arctic policy features and the meaning of the first published White Paper of 2018 for the future behaviours of the PRC. The author reviews the interests of the PRC in the High North, and the political objectives and means. The article pays special attention to the origins of Chinese policy in the Arctic, including the national strategy, expert discourse and regional specifics. The author discusses the role of the Chinese public and private actors for the implementation of national achievements in the circumpolar region. The article examines Chinese interpretations of key international documents regulating activities in the Arctic, and the significance of these interpretations for the implementation of the PRC policy. The special emphasis is made of the diplomacy features and the role of the ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ power when China is interacting with different actors. The author explores the interconnection of the White Paper ‘China’s Arctic policy’ with the implementation of the ‘Arctic Silk Road’. As an outcome, the author indicates principles explaining China’s Arctic behaviours in the long-term perspective