Community and company capacity: the challenge of resource-led development in Zambia's 'New Copperbelt'

Relationships between the extractive industries, society and development are often symbolized by unfulfilled expectations and even conflict. The poor, rural, politically marginalized and indigenous communities often face the greatest impacts by the extraction of energy and non-energy minerals. This paper explores the challenge of resource-led development in Zambia’s ‘New Copperbelt’, i.e. the Northwestern Province. It demonstrates how Kansanshi, a mid-tier mining company, has struggled with various community development aspects from resettlement and compensation, hiring and employment, as well as local government interactions, to formulating a coherent corporate social responsibility (CSR) and infrastructure project strategy. Findings suggest that community capacity to hold Kansanshi and local government to account is relatively weak. Recommendations include aligning CSR strategies with district, regional and national development objectives, as well as building linkages between local civil society organizations (CSOs) and national/international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to enable communities around the mine to share experiences, lessons learned, and effective company and local government engagement strategies

Framing a ‘climate change frontier’: international news media coverage surrounding natural resource development in Greenland

News media helps shape the discourse around natural resource issues, especially rapidly emerging developments such as those taking place in the Arctic. Whilst the relationship between media and audience is complex, news media contributes towards setting the tone and expectations for the burgeoning number of stakeholders engaging with the Arctic, especially in the case of Greenland. This study undertakes a thematic analysis of English-language news media coverage surrounding natural resource development in Greenland to explore how the issue is framed. Five media frames are identified: an emerging resource frontier; the warming Arctic; high-risk activity; geopolitical Greenland; and vulnerable traditional societies. An overarching frame is present within the coverage, one which depicts Greenland as 'a climate change frontier', facing 'uncertainties in the face of rapid change'. Media portrayals of a close-knit relationship between a warming climate and a rush for natural resources in Greenland could be problematic for several reasons, namely the disparity between actual resource development taking place and an overemphasis on increased economic development following increased warming

“Google fracking:” The online information ecology of the English shale gas debate

A strong online response has marked contention on shale gas from the outset, as campaign members link across borders to share information and inform themselves about the impacts of development. In this article, we apply a post-political lens to online activity in the English shale gas debate, to determine how this complex information ecology has shaped the dynamics of protest. Using shale gas development in Lancashire, North West England, as our case study we argue that the seismic events of 2011, in combination with the Government framing of public scepticism as a matter of information deficit led to an online information divide which constrained how effectively the dominant institutional actors could engage. Between 2011 and 2017, three challenges of online information: complexity, overload and loss of gatekeepers, served to perpetuate this division. Anti-shale gas campaigners were less constrained in their activity but the substantial burden of online activism contributed towards perceptions of disempowerment, as improved information access failed to deliver policy influence. The ultimate consequence was to contribute towards the turn to direct action. Applying a post-political analysis to online activity in information-intensive issues yields valuable insights into the varied ways in which internet use may influence the expression of dissent

Can national policy blockages accelerate the development of polycentric governance? Evidence from climate change policy in the United Kingdom

Many factors can conspire to limit the scope for policy development at the national level. In this paper, we consider whether blockages in national policy processes − resulting for example from austerity or small state political philosophies − might be overcome by the development of more polycentric governance arrangements. Drawing on evidence from three stakeholder workshops and fifteen interviews, we address this question by exploring the United Kingdom’s recent retrenchment in the area of climate change policy, and the ways in which its policy community have responded. We identify two broad strategies based on polycentric principles: ‘working with gatekeepers’ to unlock political capital and ‘collaborate to innovate’ to develop policy outputs. We then empirically examine the advantages that these actions bring, analysing coordination across overlapping sites of authority, such as those associated with international regimes, devolved administrations and civic and private initiatives that operate in conjunction with, and sometimes independently of, the state. Despite constraining political and economic factors, which are by no means unique to the UK, we find that a polycentric climate policy network can create opportunities for overcoming central government blockages. However, we also argue that the ambiguous role of the state in empowering but also in constraining such a network will determine whether a polycentric approach to climate policy and governance is genuinely additional and innovative, or whether it is merely a temporary ‘sticking plaster’ for the retreat of the state and policy retrenchment during austere times

The Rare Plants of False Cape State Park, Virginia Beach City, Virginia

In 1990, the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, Division of Natural Heritage, conducted an inventory of rare plants within False Cape State Park. The goal was to provide data for the development of a management strategy to protect the Park\u27s rare plants. There are 37 plants monitored by the Division of Natural Heritage that have been recorded within the Park and 30 were observed during the 1990 inventory, including 18 previously not recorded. Extensive populations of some of these species were observed. This number of rare plants species is higher than in any other area of equal size in Virginia. This high number is attributed to the location of False Cape, the density and quality of natural communities, and the existence of some rare community types. Once the inventory of rare plants was completed, management priorities were determined by identifying the habitats in False Cape with rare species. Seven habitats were noted, ranging from the marshes of Back Bay with 13 rare plant species to the maritime forest and wet, sandy roadsides with 2 rare species each. Management recommendations were prescribed to ameliorate threats to the rare plants in these habitats. The two major recommendations were monitoring and control of populations of Phragmites communis (Cav.) Steudel in the marshes of Back Bay and the waterfowl impoundments and the monitoring of pig, horse, and deer damage to the interdunal swale flora. Despite some threats to False Cape State Park, the Park represents the most significant refuge for natural vegetation and rare plants within the Back Bay watershed and one of the most significant concentrations of rare plants within the Commonwealth

Contested net-zero target setting in a transitioning country: The case of South Korea

Many countries have set net-zero targets to achieve the Paris Agreement’s goals. However, we do not know why and how transitioning countries have set net-zero targets, given the narratives of economic growth persistent in them. We address this gap by examining the 2050 carbon neutrality target setting in South Korea and assessing its potential to foster transitioning to a carbon neutral society. We draw from Historical Institutionalism to examine the political process of the carbon neutrality agenda setting and from 20 semi-structured interviews and policy documents as material. We find that net-zero target setting was possible due to strong presidential drive with a turnover in majoritarian politics. However, the agenda setting was controversial with limited public engagement. Although the net-zero target seems radical, the institutions change incrementally due to path-dependency in a developmental state. We demonstrate that South Korea is not likely to transition to a low-carbon society in the foreseeable future as the Paris Agreement demands. The pathway is subject to political swings due to its incumbent political economy and low social acceptance. We suggest caution with net-zero declarations in countries that embrace development as they can amount to mere local political action rather than leading to genuine institutionalization

The divergence of South Korea's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) from the EU ETS: An institutional complementarity view

Emissions trading schemes (ETS) have spread across the globe to tackle climate change. However, limited attention has been given to how ETS characteristics and designs differ and why. We use the concept of institutional complementarity to explore how the EU ETS and South Korea's ETS (K-ETS) adapt to complement established political economy. The EU ETS is characterized as a market with stakeholder ownership, while the K-ETS is more regulatory in nature with government leadership. The EU ETS complements a decentralized political system with liberalized energy market, and the K-ETS became compatible with the centralized majoritarian politics and a regulated electricity market. The ETSs have evolved incrementally, and they are not likely to link in the foreseeable future due to divergence. We suggest a strong focus on “how to adapt” an ETS to its own institution rather than adopting the established blueprint model in countries with a strong regulatory style of governance

QCD strings with spinning quarks

We construct a consistent action for a massive spinning quark on the end of a QCD string that leads to pure Thomas precession of the quark's spin. The string action is modified by the addition of Grassmann degrees of freedom to the string such that the equations of motion for the quark spin follow from boundary conditions, just as do those for the quark's position.Comment: REVTeX4, 10 pages, no figure