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Government's Ability (government + ability)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	75%

Selected Abstracts

Private borrowing during the financial revolution: Hoare's Bank and its customers, 1702,241

ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW, Issue 3 2008
PETER TEMIN
The financial revolution improved the British government's ability to borrow, and thus its ability to wage war. North and Weingast argued that it also permitted private parties to borrow more cheaply and widely. We test these inferences with evidence from a London bank. We confirm that private bank credit was cheap in the early eighteenth century, but we argue that it was not available widely. Importantly, the government reduced the usury rate in 1714, sharply reducing the circle of private clients that could be served profitably. [source]

Nigeria struggles to expand oil industry

OIL AND ENERGY TRENDS, Issue 2 2006
Article first published online: 14 FEB 200
Nigeria has recently announced a series of proposals to increase reserves and production and to expand and upgrade the refinery sector. These much-needed initiatives, however, are threatened by the mounting violence affecting the main onshore oil-producing areas of the Niger Delta. Peace needs urgently to be restored to this region if Nigeria's ambitious plans are to be realised as planned. So far, there is little sign of the government's ability to bring law and order back to this impoverished and troubled area. [source]

Water policy and environmental sustainability: the case of post-colonial Namibia

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION & DEVELOPMENT, Issue 5 2001
Joshua B. ForrestArticle first published online: 21 DEC 200
In semi-arid countries, particularly in Africa, governments have evolved water policies oriented toward ,techno-giantist,' grand-scale schemes that have generally accelerated the depletion of national water tables. In Namibia, such a techno-giantist water management strategy was utilized to reinforce the privileges of white minority farmers prior to independence, and was subsequently expanded to provide modern water facilities to the black African majority in the post-independence period. The government has pursued not only the construction of a massive new system of pipelines and boreholes, but also the development of giant dam-building and river canal schemes that are likely to result in watershed depletion over the long term. This reflects state leaders' belief in the imagery of political potency projected by the government's ability to build macro-scale water systems. However, a water supply approach focused on more micro-level extraction techniques through which aquifer recharge is prioritized is more likely to assure both local-level water access and water table sustainability. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

All Dressed Up with Nowhere to Go: The Discourse of Ecological Modernization in Alberta, Canada,

CANADIAN REVIEW OF SOCIOLOGY/REVUE CANADIENNE DE SOCIOLOGIE, Issue 1 2004
DEBRA J. DAVIDSON
Nous passons en revue la politique intégrée de gestion des ressources de l'Alberta pour mettre en lumière la compétence du gouvernement provincial pour refaçonner de manière discursive la relation entre un développement des ressources naturelles et une protection de l'environnement pour conserver sa légitimité tout en évitant une restructuration institutionnelle. Cette étude montre que la « modernisation écologique » consiste en deux volets indépendents qui ne conduisent pas nécessairement au même résultat final. Alors que des cas de réforme écologique peuvent exister, la « modernisation ecologique » decrit aussi un discours dominant qui peut faire dévier la critique en étant suffisamment ambigu pour que des écarts entre une politique énoncée et une mise en application soient difficiles à tracer. We review Alberta's integrated resource management policy to highlight the provincial government's ability to discursively reframe the relationship between natural resource development and environmental protection to maintain legitimacy while avoiding institutional restructuring. This study indicates that Ecological Modernization consists of two independent features that do not necessarily lead to the same end point. While instances of ecological reform may exist, Ecological Modernization also describes a dominant discourse that can deflect criticism, while at the same time is sufficiently ambiguous that gaps between stated policy and implementation are difficult to trace. [source]