Citizens’ perceptions of trust relationships in the environmental management process in North Lebanon

This research investigates how trust plays a role in environmental management in North Lebanon, which has suffered repeated episodes of armed conflict in recent times. Previous studies have shown that environmental problems have increased and that the government has been unable to address these, even during periods of relative peace. We examined trust as a factor that contributes to, or hampers, environmental management. Our analysis drew on a survey in 2011 involving 499 citizens. The results demonstrated that, according to citizens, the lack of trust between citizens, and between citizens and the public sector, is a key factor obstructing effective environmental management. The results indicate the level of correlation between how trusting people are; how citizens participate; and how people perceive government legitimacy.     

Environmental and cultural changes under Chilean neoliberalism: an ethnography of forestry and the Mapuche in Valle Elicura

Dominant development discourses often proclaim promises of economic prosperity and global inclusion, while actually disenfranchising local cultures in the Global South from their traditional environments. In Latin America, and specifically Chile, development manifests itself through neoliberal economic policies implemented in the late twentieth century, while simultaneously creating political economies ripe for foreign and corporate exploitation. Using a political ecology framework, this ethnography presents a case study of the correlation between the development of Chilean neoliberalism and the lifeways of Mapuche indigenous peoples in the town of Valle Elicura, Chile. The findings reveal that natural resource extraction and ecological devastation to local forests by large, international logging companies result in environmental, cultural, and environmental-cultural transformations for this community. The local people who more closely rely on their surrounding environments to regulate and inform their transportation networks, basic life needs, and religion, among other applications, are forced to compete for resources with foreign corporations focused on profit. However, it is this short-term focus that threatens extinction for the traditional lifeways of the Mapuche peoples and many other marginalised communities of facing the demands of development.     

Fair fracking? Ethics and environmental justice in United Kingdom shale gas policy and planning

The exploitation of shale gas resources is a significant issue of environmental justice. Uneven distributions of risks and social impacts to local site communities must be balanced against the economic benefits to gas users and developers; and unequal decision-making powers must be negotiated between local and central governments, communities and fracking site developers. These distributive and procedural elements are addressed in relation to UK policy, planning, regulatory and industry development. I adopt an explicitly normative framework of policy evaluation, addressing a research gap on the ethics of shale gas by operationalising Shrader-Frechette’s Principle of Prima Facie Political Equality. I conclude that UK fracking policy reveals inherent contradictions of environmental justice in relation to the Conservative Government’s localist and planning reform agendas. Early fracking policy protected communities from harm in the wake of seismic risk events, but these were quickly replaced with pro-industry economic stimulation and planning legislation that curtailed community empowerment in fracking decision-making, increased environmental risks to communities, transferred powers from local to central government and created the conditions of distributive injustices in the management of community benefit provisions. I argue that only by “re-localising” the scale of fracking governance can political equality be ensured and the distributive and procedural environmental injustices be ameliorated.     

Communication Practices and Political Engagement with Climate Change: A Research Agenda

In this article, we call for a refocusing of research on citizens’ political engagement with climate change. In doing so, we argue that communication practices not only help create the conditions for political engagement but they also comprise the modes of such engagement. Our argument proceeds in four steps. First, we review the literature on public engagement with climate change, concluding that there is a lack of attention to issues regarding the political. Consequently, we make the case for a refocusing of research on political engagement. Second, we explain how the notion of political subjectivity helps us to understand the relation between communication practices and engagement with the politics of climate change. Third, we discuss examples of dominant communication practices that constrain citizen political engagement by depoliticizing climate change, and alternative communication practices that have the potential to politicize. We end by outlining the many research questions that relate to the study of political engagement with climate change.     

The Representation of Biofuels in Political Cartoons: Ironies,Contradictions and Moral Dilemmas

Biofuels are an important component in the suite of renewable energy alternatives but their development trajectory has been fraught with controversy. This study investigated the representation of biofuels in political cartoons on the Internet. Political cartoons have relied on informative, persuasive, and performative attributes to engender critical reflection and mobilize action. We analyzed a corpus of 130 relevant cartoons obtained through Google Images which were then thematically categorized. The problems highlighted in these cartoons focused on the social injustices arising from the diversion of food sources to fuel, the environmental destruction arising from deforestation, the unfulfilled expectations for climate change mitigation, and the policy contradictions that emerged. We suggest that political cartoons’ discursive dimensions allow us to make immediate connections between the image and our cultural stores of meaning, while at the same time further elucidate the dilemmas and contradictions embedded in the public's interface with biofuels as an environmental issue.     

Untangling the proximate causes and underlying drivers of deforestation and forest degradation in Myanmar

Political transitions often trigger substantial environmental changes. In particular, deforestation can result from the complex interplay among the components of a system—actors, institutions, and existing policies—adapting to new opportunities. A dynamic conceptual map of system components is particularly useful for systems in which multiple actors, each with different worldviews and motivations, may be simultaneously trying to alter different facets of the system, unaware of the impacts on other components. In Myanmar, a global biodiversity hotspot with the largest forest area in mainland Southeast Asia, ongoing political and economic reforms are likely to change the dynamics of deforestation drivers. A fundamental conceptual map of these dynamics is therefore a prerequisite for interventions to reduce deforestation. We used a system‐dynamics approach and causal‐network analysis to determine the proximate causes and underlying drivers of forest loss and degradation in Myanmar from 1995 to 2016 and to articulate the linkages among them. Proximate causes included infrastructure development, timber extraction, and agricultural expansion. These were stimulated primarily by formal agricultural, logging, mining, and hydropower concessions and economic investment and social issues relating to civil war and land tenure. Reform of land laws, the link between natural resource extraction and civil war, and the allocation of agricultural concessions will influence the extent of future forest loss and degradation in Myanmar. The causal‐network analysis identified priority areas for policy interventions, for example, creating a public registry of land‐concession holders to deter corruption in concession allocation. We recommend application of this analytical approach to other countries, particularly those undergoing political transition, to inform policy interventions to reduce forest loss and degradation.     

高校思想政治工作创新浅论

社会进入二十一世纪,时代的发展,教育观念的转变,对高校学生的思想政治工作提出了新的机遇和挑战,新的时期,如何做好高校学生思想政治工作,这是摆在思想政治工作者面前的重要课题。笔者认为,创新,是高校思想政治工作的生命所在,既是时代发展、教育向素质教育转轨的客观要求,也是高校思想政治工作本身发展的内在动力。思想政治工作的创新是整体的,只有从思想政治工作的内容、形式和方法上全面创新,才能适应社会发展和人才成长的需要。     

论高校职工思想政治工作的策略

职工思想政治工作既是一门科学,又是一项社会实践活动,面对新形势下社会生活及职工思想所发生的变化,工会思想政治工作需与之适应,既要继承和发扬优良传统,更要大胆探索新的途径,真正体现工会思想政治工作的预见性、主动性、针对性、实效性,为社会主义现代化建设服务。     

Implementing the EU Water Framework Directive in Norway: Bridging the Gap Between Water Management Networks and Elected Councils?

To handle the challenge of complex cross-sector and multilevel coordination in the implementation of the European Union Water Framework Directive, Norway has established multilevel governance networks. Observers have pointed to a risk of such governance arrangements being dominated by experts. This article studies the highly complex multilevel governance networks of water management in Norway, and unveils the importance of political anchorage of such governance networks at local and regional levels. The study finds evidence that political anchorage matters for further network achievements. Because the water governance networks are subordinated to the hierarchy of government, they need to ‘talk to' the system of hierarchical government in order to be effective. In this regard, it seems crucial that networks are politically anchored. Furthermore, the study unveils the important role of political leadership and network managers in ensuring political anchorage.     

朋辈教育在高校思想政治工作中的应用实践

朋辈群体是影响大学生思想形成和发展的重要因素。在大学生思想政治工作中构建朋辈教育体系,通过设立班主任导生、政治导生、心理辅导员等形式,依靠朋辈群体开展学生思想政治教育工作,是做好学生教育和管理工作的一个独特而有效的切入点。