Reply to ‘The politics of evidence: a response to Rulli and D'Odorico’

ABSTRACT

Indicators of carbon storage in forests and other land uses have gained much prominence to evaluate and endorse land-based climate change mitigation policies. The outcomes of such assessments can have direct livelihood implications for dwellers living at the forest–agriculture frontier, such as shifting cultivators or subsistence farmers. This contribution critically discusses the methodological relevance of carbon stock indicators to assess long-term emission dynamics of land uses, and furthermore addresses the ‘politics of measurement’ that can be involved in policy practice. From a complex socio-ecological systems perspective, the paper argues that carbon stock indicators provide necessary but not sufficient information to endorse land use policies with mitigation aims. While they may indicate one-off sequestration gains through vegetation and land-use change, they cannot account for permanent hidden emissions that emerge as part of the broader agrarian transitions that accompany land-use change. Over the long term, this may render related mitigation interventions ineffective, if not counterproductive. Furthermore, carbon stock estimates for future land-use scenarios sometimes draw on biased assumptions, or are constructed within histories of discrimination, through which they may further marginalize subaltern groups such as shifting cultivators. A paradigm shift is needed that includes more integrative assessment approaches.     

Diasporas and democratization in the post-communist world

If diaspora communities are socialized with democratic values in Western societies, they could be expected to be sympathetic to the democratization of their home countries. However, there is a high degree of variation in their behavior. Contrary to the predominant understanding in the literature that diasporas act in exclusively nationalist ways, this article argues that they do engage with the democratization of their home countries. Various challenges to the sovereignty of their homelands explain whether diasporas involve with procedural or liberal aspects of democratization. Drawing evidence from the activities of the Ukrainian, Serbian, Albanian and Armenian diasporas after the end of communism, I argue that unless diasporas are linked to home countries that enjoy both international legal and domestic sovereignty, they will involve only with procedural aspects of democratization. Diasporas filter international pressure to democratize post-communist societies by utilizing democratic procedures to advance unresolved nationalist goals.     

Welfare and child support: Complements,not substitutes

In most states, child support paid on behalf of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) participants is used to offset TANF and child support administrative expenditures; this policy primarily benefits taxpayers. In contrast, Wisconsin allowed most custodial parents to keep all support paid on their behalf. This policy, which treats welfare and child support as complements, was evaluated through an experimental design. This paper reports the key results of the experimental evaluation, using state administrative data to examine the effects on child support outcomes and governmental cost. We find that when custodial mothers keep all child support paid on their behalf, paternity establishment occurs more quickly, noncustodial fathers are more likely to pay support, and custodial families receive more support. These outcomes are achieved at no significant governmental cost. © 2008 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

The Effect of Ministerial Instability on Government's Mandate Fulfilment: Evidence from the Portuguese Case

Research on the fulfilment of electoral promises has been particularly fruitful over the past decades. Most of it focused on examining pledge fulfilment at the cabinet level, and little emphasis was placed on the reasons underlying the level of compliance. As a consequence, core factors in explaining pledge fulfilment have not yet been explored. One such factor might be instability in a government's internal functioning. We argue that ministerial instability is relevant for explaining a government's broken promises, and that its importance increases at the junior minister level and among the most salient ministries. Relying on data on the fulfilment of electoral promises and ministerial instability in Portugal between 1995 and 2019, backed by interviews with former ministers and junior ministers, we provide evidence that the fulfilment of electoral promises is significantly influenced by portfolio volatility, particularly at the junior ministerial level and in the most important ministries.