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Political Resistance (political + resistance)
Selected AbstractsClimatic influences and anthropogenic stressors: an integrated framework for streamflow management in Mediterranean-climate California, U.S.A.FRESHWATER BIOLOGY, Issue 2010THEODORE E. GRANTHAM Summary 1. In Mediterranean and other water-stressed climates, water management is critical to the conservation of freshwater ecosystems. To secure and maintain water allocations for the environment, integrated water management approaches are needed that consider ecosystem flow requirements, patterns of human water demands and the temporal and spatial dynamics of water availability. 2. Human settlements in Mediterranean climates have constructed water storage and conveyance projects at a scale and level of complexity far exceeding those in other, less seasonal climates. As a result, multiple ecological stressors associated with natural periods of flooding and drying are compounded by anthropogenic impacts resulting from water infrastructure development. 3. Despite substantial investments in freshwater ecosystem conservation, particularly in California, U.S.A., success has been limited because the scales at which river management and restoration are implemented are often discordant with the temporal and spatial scales at which ecosystem processes operate. Often, there is also strong social and political resistance to restricting water allocation to existing consumptive uses for environmental protection purposes. Furthermore, institutions rarely have the capacity to develop and implement integrated management programmes needed for freshwater ecosystem conservation. 4. We propose an integrated framework for streamflow management that explicitly considers the temporal and spatial dynamics of water supply and needs of both human and natural systems. This approach makes it possible to assess the effects of alternative management strategies to human water security and ecosystem conditions and facilitates integrated decision-making by water management institutions. 5. We illustrate the framework by applying a GIS-based hydrologic model in a Mediterranean-climate watershed in Sonoma County, California, U.S.A. The model is designed to assess the hydrologic impacts of multiple water users distributed throughout a stream network. We analyse the effects of vineyard water management on environmental flows to (i) evaluate streamflow impacts from small storage ponds designed to meet human water demands and reduce summer diversions, (ii) prioritise the placement of storage ponds to meet human water needs while optimising environmental flow benefits and (iii) examine the environmental and social consequences of flow management policies designed to regulate the timing of diversions to protect ecosystem functions. 6. Thematic implications: spatially explicit models that represent anthropogenic stressors (e.g. water diversions) and environmental flow needs are required to address persistent and growing threats to freshwater biodiversity. A coupled human,natural system approach to water management is particularly useful in Mediterranean climates, characterised by severe competition for water resources and high spatial and temporal variability in flow regimes. However, lessons learned from our analyses are applicable to other highly seasonal systems and those that are expected to have increased precipitation variability resulting from climate change. [source] Structural Traps, Politics and Monetary PolicyINTERNATIONAL FINANCE, Issue 1 2004Robert H. Dugger Structural conditions pose a challenge to monetary policy, as the example of Japan shows. In this paper we develop the concept of structural trap, where the interplay of long-term economic development incentives, politics, and demographics results in economies being unable to efficiently reallocate capital from low- to high-return uses. The resulting macroeconomic picture looks like a liquidity trap , low GDP growth and deflation despite extreme monetary easing. But the optimal policy responses are very different and mistaking them could lead to perverse results. The key difference between a liquidity trap and a structural one is the role of politics. We show how, in the Japanese case, longstanding economic incentives and protections and demographic trends have resulted in a political leadership that resists capital reallocation from older protected low-return sectors to higher-return newer ones. If the Japanese case is instructive, in a structural trap, extremely loose monetary policy perpetuates deflation and low GDP growth, because unproductive but politically important firms are allowed to survive and capital reallocation is prevented. By preventing the needed reduction in excess capacity, a structural trap condemns reflationary policies to failure by making the creation of credible inflation expectations impossible. Faced with a structural trap, an independent central bank with a price stability mandate should adopt a monetary policy stance consistent with restructuring. If political resistance is high, monetary policy decision makers will need to keep nominal rates high enough to ensure that capital reallocation takes place at an acceptable pace. [source] Psychotherapy, political resistance and intimacy: Dilemmas, possibilities and limitations, Part IIPSYCHOTHERAPY AND POLITICS INTERNATIONAL, Issue 3 2009Manuel Llorens Abstract The following paper discusses the challenges faced by psychotherapists working in Venezuela during years of political and social unrest as a way of examining psychotherapy's dilemmas when dealing with political issues. It is the second part of a two-part piece. In the first part limitations of the traditional psychotherapeutic technical recommendations in a highly polarized political setting were considered. In this second part examples of the difficulties presented in Venezuela will be shown. Reflexive psychotherapeutic alternatives to traditional technical considerations such as neutrality will be considered. The possibilities opened up by the perspectives that lead us to engage simultaneously with the personal and social aspects of life, the inclusion of the power differential in the therapeutic relationship and the potential that psychotherapy has to act as a form of resistance to unjust circumstances when thought of as a space where the intimate and the political are intertwined will be considered. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Psychotherapy, political resistance and intimacy: Dilemmas, possibilities and limitations, Part I,PSYCHOTHERAPY AND POLITICS INTERNATIONAL, Issue 2 2009Manuel Llorens Abstract The following is the first part of a two-part paper that discusses the challenges faced by psychotherapists working in Venezuela during years of political and social unrest as a way of examining psychotherapy's dilemmas when dealing with political issues. This first part will discuss limitations in the ability of traditional psychotherapeutic technical recommendations to address clinical material stemming from highly polarized political scenarios. Historical examples of how these limitations have led to abuse will be shown. The specific difficulties of traditional notions of neutrality will be questioned. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Cutback Management in the NetherlandsPUBLIC BUDGETING AND FINANCE, Issue 2 2001Dirk-Jan Kraan In this article cutback management is defined as the effort of cabinet ministers to facilitate budgetary cutback decisions through institutional change. Institutions are conceived as formal and informal rules for budgetary decision making. The article presents a sketch of the ways in which successive Dutch cabinets over the 1975,98 period attempted to cut back the expenditures of central government by institutional change and outlines the results that were achieved. The article focuses on three institutions: (1) macrobudgetary norms, (2) rules of budgetary discipline, and (3) procedures for the preparation of cutback decisions. The article identifies two kinds of effective resistance against cutbacks: (1) political resistance emanating from cabinet ministers and (2) bureaucratic resistance emanating from the administrators of executive agencies. It analyzes how the various forms of institutional change affect these forms of resistance and evaluates the results of the cutback effort. [source] | ||||||||||