scholarly journals Environmental justice and REDD+ safeguards in Laos: Lessons from an authoritarian political regime

AMBIO ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabaheta Ramcilovic-Suominen ◽  
Sophia Carodenuto ◽  
Constance McDermott ◽  
Juha Hiedanpää
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Authoritarian Regime ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
External Control ◽  
Climate Mitigation ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Marginalized Communities

AbstractBalancing agendas for climate mitigation and environmental justice continues to be one of the key challenges in climate change governance mechanisms, such as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+). In this paper we apply the three-dimensional environmental justice framework as a lens to examine the REDD+ process in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Laos) and the REDD+ social safeguards. We focus particularly on challenges to justice faced by marginalized communities living in forest frontier areas under an authoritarian regime. Drawing on policy analysis and open-ended interviews across different policy levels, we explore procedural, distributional, and recognitional justice across the REDD+ policy levels in Laos. We find that REDD+ social safeguards have been applied by both donors and state actors in ways that facilitate external control. We underscore how authoritarian regime control over civil society and ethnic minority groups thwarts justice. We also highlight how this political culture and lack of inclusiveness are used by donors and project managers to implement their projects with little political debate. Further obstacles to justice relate to limitations inherent in the REDD+ instrument, including tight schedules for dealing with highly sensitive socio-political issues under social safeguards. These findings echo other research but go further in questioning the adequacy of safeguards to promote justice under a nationally driven REDD+. We highlight the importance of recognition and political context, including aspects such as power relations, self-determination and self-governance of traditional or customary structures, in shaping justice outcomes.

Nicaragua: De-democratization and Regime Crisis

2020 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salvador Martí i Puig ◽  
Macià Serra
Keyword(s):  
Authoritarian Regime ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Protest ◽  
Hybrid Regimes ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
The Government ◽  
Nicaraguan Politics ◽  
Regime Crisis

ABSTRACTThe aim of this article is to analyze three key issues in current Nicaraguan politics and in the political debate surrounding hybrid regimes: de-democratization, political protest, and the fall of presidencies. First, it analyzes the process of de-democratization that has been taking place in Nicaragua since 2000. It shows that the 2008 elections were not competitive but characteristic of an electoral authoritarian regime. Second, it reflects on the kind of regime created in Nicaragua under Daniel Ortega’s mandate, focusing on the system’s inability to process any kind of protest and dissent. Third, it examines the extent to which the protests that broke out in April 2018 may predict the early end to Ortega’s presidency, or whether Nicaragua’s political crisis may lead to negotiations between the government and the opposition.

scholarly journals SAME-SEX MARRIAGE AND THE SAME OLD CONSTITUTION*

2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (2 & 3) ◽  
pp. 2005
Author(s):  
Ronalda Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Same Sex Couples ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Do So

The Reference re Same-Sex Marriage1 is not a major opinion on the rights of same-sex couples in Canada, but it is nonetheless an important and fascinating case. There are only a few lines that are about the “rights” of same-sex couples. Did the Supreme Court of Canada “duck” the issue? Was the Court carefully gauging how much or little political capital it had and making a political decision to say as little as possible on this topic? The Court certainly displayed strategic brilliance, but it did not do so in the name of avoiding the “political” hot topic of same-sex marriage. It is factually difficult to maintain the view that the Supreme Court of Canada is loath to enter into this political debate. It has been the lead social institution in Canada in terms of responding to the claims of gays and lesbians to equality in law,2 and it has never been shy of dealing with topics simply because they involve controversial political issues.3 Rather, the Court’s brilliance lies in its minimalist and almost weary tone. This approach had the effect of taking the wind out of the sails of those opposed to same-sex marriage: the same-sex advocates definitely win the constitutional race, but they do so because according to the Supreme Court, there is no provincial constitutional headwind that can stop them. In short, provinces can complain all they want about the federal position in favour of same-sex marriage, but the wedding will go on despite and over their objections to the ceremony.

scholarly journals Emotion shapes the diffusion of moralized content in social networks

2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (28) ◽  
pp. 7313-7318 ◽  
Author(s):  
William J. Brady ◽  
Julian A. Wills ◽  
John T. Jost ◽  
Joshua A. Tucker ◽  
Jay J. Van Bavel
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Online Social Networks ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Emotional Words ◽  
Social Media Networks ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
The Social ◽  
Network Methods

Political debate concerning moralized issues is increasingly common in online social networks. However, moral psychology has yet to incorporate the study of social networks to investigate processes by which some moral ideas spread more rapidly or broadly than others. Here, we show that the expression of moral emotion is key for the spread of moral and political ideas in online social networks, a process we call “moral contagion.” Using a large sample of social media communications about three polarizing moral/political issues (n = 563,312), we observed that the presence of moral-emotional words in messages increased their diffusion by a factor of 20% for each additional word. Furthermore, we found that moral contagion was bounded by group membership; moral-emotional language increased diffusion more strongly within liberal and conservative networks, and less between them. Our results highlight the importance of emotion in the social transmission of moral ideas and also demonstrate the utility of social network methods for studying morality. These findings offer insights into how people are exposed to moral and political ideas through social networks, thus expanding models of social influence and group polarization as people become increasingly immersed in social media networks.

scholarly journals The Relationship between Labour NGOs and Chinese Workers in an Authoritarian Regime

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anita Chan
Keyword(s):  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Southern China ◽  
Authoritarian Regime ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Collective Actions ◽  
Turn On ◽  
The Past ◽  
Chinese Workers ◽  
The Relationship

Labour NGOs have played a role, especially in southern China, in raising Chinese workers’ consciousness. This paper takes a historical perspective and argues that the relationship between labour NGOs and workers has changed in the past three decades, from one of workers’ dependency on Chinese labour NGOs and these NGOs’ dependency, in turn, on foreign NGOs in an asymmetrical relationship, to one more of partnership. More recently, some groups of workers have become cognisant of a divergence of interests between themselves and NGO advisors. The evolving relationship is analysed against the backdrop of an authoritarian political regime that necessitates all the actors to strategise in complex ways. A coordinated wave of strikes and other collective actions at Chinese Walmart stores in 2016 provides a case study.

scholarly journals Self-generated morphology in lagoon reefs

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Blakeway ◽  
Michael G Hamblin
Keyword(s):  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Coralline Algae ◽  
Single Type ◽  
External Control ◽  
Reef Growth ◽  
Ecological Process ◽  
Substrate Topography ◽  
Houtman Abrolhos Islands ◽  
Ecological Mechanisms ◽  
Reef Morphology

The three-dimensional form of a coral reef develops through interactions and feedbacks between its constituent organisms and their environment. Reef morphology therefore contains a potential wealth of ecological information, accessible if the relationships between morphology and ecology can be decoded. Traditionally, reef morphology has been attributed to external controls such as substrate topography or hydrodynamic influences. Little is known about inherent reef morphology in the absence of external control. Here we use reef growth simulations, based on observations in the cellular reefs of Western Australia’s Houtman Abrolhos Islands, to show that reef morphology is fundamentally determined by the mechanical behaviour of the reef-building organisms themselves—specifically their tendency to either remain in place or to collapse. Reef-building organisms that tend to remain in place, such as massive and encrusting corals or coralline algae, produce nodular reefs, whereas those that tend to collapse, such as branching Acropora, produce cellular reefs. The purest reef growth forms arise in sheltered lagoons dominated by a single type of reef builder, as in the branching Acropora-dominated lagoons of the Abrolhos. In these situations reef morphology can be considered a phenotype of the predominant reef building organism. The capacity to infer coral type from reef morphology can potentially be used to identify and map specific coral habitat in remotely sensed images. More generally, identifying ecological mechanisms underlying other examples of self-generated reef morphology can potentially improve our understanding of present-day reef ecology, because any ecological process capable of shaping a reef will almost invariably be an important process in real time on the living reef.

scholarly journals Understanding the Spatial Trajectories of Minority Groups: An Approach that Examines their Demographic, Cultural and Socio-economic Characteristics

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Sapiro
Keyword(s):  
Policy Development ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Measurement Techniques ◽  
National Level ◽  
Distribution Patterns ◽  
Test Bed ◽  
Political Debate

Population researchers have contributed to the debate on minority group distribution and disadvantage and social cohesion by providing objective analysis. A plethora of new distribution measurement techniques have been presented in recent years, but they have not provided sufficient explanatory power of underlying trajectories to inform ongoing political debate. Indeed, a focus on trying to summarise complex situations with readily understood measures may be misplaced. This paper takes an alternative approach and asks whether a more detailed analysis of individual and environmental characteristics is necessary if researchers are to continue to provide worthwhile input to policy development. Using England and Wales as a test bed, it looks at four small sub-populations (circa 250,000 at the turn of the century) – two based on ethnic grouping: Bangladeshi and Chinese; and two based on an under-researched area of cultural background, religion: Jews and Sikhs. Despite major differences in longevity of presence in the UK, age profile, socio-economic progress, and levels of inter-marriage, there are, at a national level, parallels in the distribution patterns and trajectories for three of the groups. However, heterogeneity between and within the groups mean that at a local level, these similarities are confounded. The paper concludes that complex interactions between natural change and migration, and between suburbanisation and a desire for group congregation, mean that explanations for the trajectory of distribution require examination of data at a detailed level, beyond the scope of index-based methods. Such analyses are necessary if researchers are to effectively contribute to future policy development.

scholarly journals Marginalized Minority Groups In Europe In The Context Of The Clash Of Civilisations: The Case Of Muslims

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muserref Yardim ◽  
Erhan Tecim
Keyword(s):  
Religious Identity ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Fourth Generation ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Muslim Countries ◽  
The People ◽  
Clash Of Civilisations ◽  
European Civilization

One of the most important issues faced by the European civilization is immigrants. These immigrants are not considered to be European, can be marginalized due to national-ethnic-religious reasons, and defined in the invisible European 'other'. This attitude is not rational at all for the European civilization and it is on the agenda of many European countries on the verge of the 21st Century. With political decisions taken and practices put into effect, the existing distinction is being clarified and efforts are exerted to make the increasing contrast extant. It has become quite a common situation for many European countries that individuals, especially politicians, coming to the agenda with clearly Eurocentric rhetorics, increase their popularity and serve to exclusionary rhetorics along with such popularity. The social category which is the basic object of such an action again becomes the emigrating citizens of Muslim countries which were included in the colonization movements a few centuries before as well as the people of Muslim countries who were invited to European countries by the latter due to the labour needs. In addition to passing of at least 70 years since they were recruited as labour force, the third and fourth generation Muslims have preferred to remain as citizens in several European countries. It should be emphasized that social and political issues started at this point. It is a pleasing and rational development for harmony and coexistence that those people who were once regarded as religious minorities or Muslim minorities are beginning to have a voice. Yet, it needs emphasizing that this situation is unacceptable in most cases, national policies complicate harmonization rather than facilitating, and a considerable part of the European countries subject them to otherisation due to their different ethnic and religious identity, and most importantly they are not accepted in European countries.

scholarly journals Integration or Isolation: Black Shi'ism in the American Diaspora

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 128-141
Author(s):  
Liyakat Takim
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
African American Community ◽  
Correctional Facilities ◽  
Minority Status ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Double Minority ◽  
Twelver Shi'ism

In a country that claims to be founded on Judeo-Christian values, the experiences of minority groups such as Muslims are often relegated to the margins of discourses on religion. The sense of negligence of marginalized communities is even greater when a group is a minority within a minority, as it is relegated to a double-minority status. This article will argue that due to their double-minority status, American Shi‘is have been occupied more with safeguarding and protecting rather than disseminating their distinctive beliefs and practices. They have been more concerned with preserving than expanding their religious boundaries. The article will also demonstrate that, due to various factors, there has been an increasing number of members of the African American community accepting Twelver Shi’ism. It will further examine for the reasons for this phenomenon and highlight instances of Black Shi‘i–Sunni altercations and hostilities in American correctional facilities.

Promoting Student Success in Low-Performing Schools

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce G. Barnett
Keyword(s):  
Behavioral Problems ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
International Study ◽  
The United States ◽  
Development Programs ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Low Performing Schools ◽  
Goal Development ◽  
Large Numbers

The growing economic and employment disparities between members of different socioeconomic groups often paint a bleak future for people living in marginalized communities. These conditions are reflected in many low-performing urban schools where dropouts, behavioral problems, and poor academic performance prevail. In the United States, large numbers of adolescents have a sense of hopelessness, particularly among racial and ethnic minority groups. Despite these challenging circumstances, school leaders are well positioned to build these urban students’ hope for a bright future. Using hope theory—goal development, agency, and pathways—as a foundation, the article describes ways school leaders can become agents of hope, which is reinforced by research from an international study of leadership in low-performing schools. The article concludes by examining how leadership preparation and development programs can influence aspiring and practicing school leaders’ capacities to become agents of hope.

Advancing Environmental Justice for Marginalized Communities in India

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan P. Diduck ◽  
Kirit Patel ◽  
Aruna Kumar Malik
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Marginalized Communities
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