Old Chico’s new tricks: Neoliberalization and water sector reform in Brazil’s São Francisco River Basin

This article examines changing water governance modalities in the context of the neoliberalization of nature. Specifically, it focuses on Brazilian water sector reforms passed in 1997 that mandate decentralized and participatory decision-making at the river basin scale. Critics have suggested that rescaling, decentralization, and participatory governance mechanisms – supposedly intended to render decision-making more equitable, accessible, and relevant – can serve to legitimate, facilitate, and thus further embed processes of neoliberalization. Examining the impact of Brazil’s water sector reforms on the state–society relationship, this article presents a case study of water governance in the São Francisco River Basin and finds that the reforms – despite their neoliberalizing potential – have not significantly contributed to the neoliberalization of governance therein. Instead, water governance continues to be characterized by longstanding patterns of traditional elite control. Through an institutional and socio-natural analysis, this article describes and accounts for the continued dominance of these patterns relative to neoliberalization and explores activists’ efforts to use water sector reforms to pursue more progressive possibilities. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications for variegation and contestation in ongoing debates over neoliberal natures.     

土地资源体多级变粒度空间数据管理方法

结合资源体的概念和土地要素功能提出了土地资源体概念,将土地资源数据对象组织成土地利用资源体、土地权属资源体等不同类型的土地资源体.在土地资源体对象基础上,结合具体的土地资源管理业务需要,提出了土地资源体多级变粒度数据组织管理模式,对土地资源体横向按资源体、图库、图层集合、图层和地物等不同资源授权粒度,纵向按多级区域层次管理的方式进行管理.国家、省、市级别的土地资源管理以县为基本单位,以区域特征管理国家、省、市、县等逻辑关系,县级的土地资源时空数据按资源体、图库、图层集合、图层和地物等不同资源授权粒度来对数据进行管理.在具体的土地资源管理和业务实施时,可以根据实际的需要对位于不同位置、不同层次、不同资源体类型的土地资源体进行动态组合.     

从行政分权到跨域治理:我国地方政府治理方式变革研究

从集权到分权再到伙伴关系,从统治到治理再到跨域治理,西方发达国家地方政府治理方式呈现出螺旋式发展路径。我国的分权化改革打破了计划经济体制下地方政府被动羸弱的状态,在激发了地方政府发展经济的动力的同时,引发了"地方政府企业化"倾向,形成了分割的"行政区经济"。市场化改革在引入和整合体制外社会经济资源的同时,也导致政府与市场结合成"不受约束"的增长联盟,反而削弱了政府的权威。跨域治理理念旨在强化政府组织、市场组织和社会组织之间的资源整合,鼓励各种治理组织的参与,以共同应对跨行政区、跨部门、跨领域的公共事务。该文结合我国地方政府的实际情况,认为通过以下途径可以实现地方政府跨域治理:1)分权与赋权相结合,引进并整合体制外的社会经济资源,把决策权力向企业、社区和非营利组织转移;2)统筹协调各治理组织间的关系,促进城市政体内的权力平衡,以利益协调为基点,促使治理规则由支配性规则向共识性规则转变;3)综合运用行政化手段和市场化手段调整地方政府间关系,实现府际合作,促使地方政府由竞争型政府向合作型政府转变。     

After the 1997 financial crisis in Bangkok: The behaviour and implications of a new cohort of street vendors

After the 1997 financial crisis, many retrenched workers preferred not to return to provincial homes but remained in Bangkok to establish informal retail businesses in branded and other consumer products. In contrast to traditional street vendors, who specialized in food items primarily catering for low‐income customers, and focused on high volume, these ‘new generation’ street vendors also adopted more formal business practices. Given their greater sophistication and better education, we hypothesized that they would be more organized advocates of vendors' rights and thus more prone to conflicts with municipal authorities. Based on interviews, however, we found that new generation vendors are adaptive to location and business strategy, and prefer a low profile in dealing with officialdom. By contrast, traditional vendors remained more tied to particular spaces, are more likely to stand up for their rights to use public space and, because they expect more from government, are more prone to conflicts with municipal authorities. Our findings relate to ongoing discussion on the rights and needs of street vendors to access urban public space and the responsibilities of authorities to meet and provide for these informal sector livelihoods that make up a significant share of the national economy in Thailand, as elsewhere in the global South.     

Private sector involvement in urban governance: The case of Business Improvement Districts and Town Centre Management partnerships in England

Although it has many merits, the voluminous literature on urban governance gives scant attention to the actual involvement and positioning of business elites and businesses within Public-Private Partnerships. There is also little consensus among academics as to why the private sector become involved in such schemes. This paper begins to address these issues through a critical empirical examination of how and why the private sector is involved with three English Town Centre Management (TCM) partnerships and the Business Improvement District (BID) subsidiaries all three partnerships have recently developed. In order to do this, the empirical study is guided by a conceptual framework that foregrounds the relationship between (a) the opening up and monitoring of ‘institutional space’ by partnerships and the state, and (b) the motivations and ‘constrained agency’ of the business elites. The paper demonstrates that the positioning of the private sector is more multifarious and fractured than previous studies of urban governance have suggested. It also reveals that business elites and businesses view their participation as an ‘investment’ that needs to accrue significant financial returns and that partnership and state officials are highly selective in their choice of ‘who governs’.     

关于发展中国城市群GIS的探讨

城群GIS是适应城市群区域管治的需要,透过跨政府部门、跨行政区域的政府、企业、学术团体和公众之间的协作,共建和共享地理、人口、经济、资源等空间信息基础设施,发展多种多样的地理信息应用系统,服务于城市区域规划、环境保护、资源利用、大型基础设施建设、灾害防护方面的决策与行动。该文提出了城市群GIS概念,并探讨其功能和架构、关键技术、项目组织、系统实施问题,以期推动学术界对于跨组织、协作型城市群GIS的研究。     

矿山环境治理过程中资金运作模式探索与实践

矿山环境治理恢复基金制度之所以取代矿山地质环境治理恢复保证金制度,目的之一是通过基金的合理运营,为矿山环境治理提供长效稳定的资金保障。通过对矿山地质环境治理恢复保证金制度中的资金问题进行剖析,从基金来源、基金运营、基金投入三个方面提出矿山环境治理过程中新的商业运作模式,并从市场化角度对社会资本进入矿山复绿和综合利用进行了探索,以期对矿山环境治理恢复基金制度的建立提供一定的指导和参考。     

Collaborative Governance and Conflict Management: Lessons Learned and Good Practices from a Case Study in the Amazon Basin

Abstract

Given the linkages between natural resources and social conflicts, evidence increasingly shows that successful natural resource management requires conflict mitigation and prevention. However, there may be a gap in practice between knowing what processes and tools need to be used to manage conservation conflicts and how to actually implement them. We present learning from a practice-based case study of conflict management in the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve in the Peruvian Amazon that aimed to develop natural resource governance institutions and build stakeholder capacity, including of indigenous groups, to navigate existing conflict resolution mechanisms. Through applying good practices in conservation conflict management and collaborative governance, we generated important lessons on the practical considerations involved in collaborative conservation. These lessons, while specific to our case, could be applied to a variety of protected areas facing complex social-ecological systems dynamics and wicked problems.     

Between coercion and consent: the politics of “Cooperative Governance” at a time of “Austerity Localism” in London

At a time of “austerity localism”, this paper explores how local authorities in London, England, are simultaneously addressing the dual pressures of delivering fiscal retrenchment and of enrolling citizens in new participatory public service arrangements, asking whether “these trends pull against one another, in opposite directions, or whether they are the tough and tender dimensions of a singular process: austerian management” Drawing on empirical research into the London Borough of Lambeth’s Cooperative Council agenda, as well as Foucauldian and Gramscian critiques of participatory network governance theories and practice, this paper shows how participatory forms of governance can be folded into the logic of hierarchy and coercion through various governmental technologies of performance and agency (consent), and through tactics of administrative domination (coercion). As budget cuts continue to affect local government in England, this paper concludes that although small experiments in participatory governance may persist, the dominant mode of governance is likely to shift towards more hierarchical and coercive forms.     

An initial scoping of transitional justice for global climate governance

Geopolitical changes combined with the increasing urgency of ambitious climate action have re-opened debates about justice and international climate policy. Tensions about historical responsibility have been particularly difficult and could intensify with increased climate impacts and as developing countries face mounting pressure to take mitigation action. Climate change is not the only time humans have faced historically rooted, collective action challenges involving justice disputes. Practices and tools from transitional justice have been used in over 30 countries across a range of conflicts at the interface of historical responsibility and imperatives for collective futures. Central to this body of theory and experience is the need to reflect both backwards- and forwards-oriented elements in efforts to build social solidarity. Lessons from transitional justice theory and practice have not been systematically explored in the climate context. This article conceptually examines the potential of transitional justice practices to inform global climate governance by looking at the structural similarities and differences between the global climate regime and traditional transitional justice contexts. It then identifies a suite of common transitional justice practices and assesses their potential applicability in the climate context.

POLICY RELEVANCE

• Justice disputes, including about historical responsibility and future climate actions, are long-standing in the climate context and could intensify with increased climate impacts and broadened mitigation pressures.

• Lessons from efforts to use transitional justice mechanisms could provide insight into strategies for balancing recognition of harms rooted in the past, while creating stronger future-oriented collective action.

• Several areas of transitional justice practice including: the combination of amnesties and litigation, truth commissions, reparations and institutional change could provide useful insights for the climate context.