TWO THEORIES OF ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION

2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Hasnas
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Regulation ◽  
Market Failure ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Alternative Methods ◽  
Evolutionary Development ◽  
Environmental Legislation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Public Policy Analysis ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Over Exploitation

The over-exploitation of commonly-held resources is typically analyzed as an instance of market failure that calls for legislation to internalize the social costs that private activities impose on the environment. In this article, I argue that to the extent that this analysis ignores the regulatory effect of the common law, it is unsound. In The Tragedy of the Commons, Garret Hardin points out that there are two solutions to the tragedy: privatize the resource or restrict access to it. Environmental legislation is a means restricting access to the commons. The evolutionary development of common law is a means of privatizing the commons. These represent alternative methods of environmental regulation. Proper public policy analysis requires a comparative assessment of the efficacy of these methods for resolving any particular environmental problem. In many, if not most cases, such an assessment will show common law regulation to be superior to environmental legislation.

Staking out an inshore commons: Pound-netting in Gilded Age America

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-15
Author(s):  
David Ress
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Fish Species ◽  
Gilded Age ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Important Food ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Over Exploitation ◽  
Specific Part

Controversy over the expansion of pound netting in the largest US fisheries of the late nineteenth century marked an early conflict between those who considered fisheries a commons and those who sought to establish property rights in a fishery. Pound-netters physically staked out a specific part of the sea for their exclusive use, and their conception of their property rights resulted in significant overfishing of important food – and oil – fish species. Here, just as with the commons that many economists argue inevitably result in over-exploitation of a resource, regulation was rebuffed and the fisheries collapsed.

scholarly journals Privatizing the Commons: Protest and the Moral Economy of National Resources in Jordan

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (S29) ◽  
pp. 113-137
Author(s):  
Matthew Lacouture
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Cross Section ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
Arab Uprisings ◽  
Food Riots ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Phosphate Mines

AbstractThis article interrogates the social impact of one aspect of structural adjustment in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan: privatization. In the mid-2000s, King Abdullah II privatized Jordan's minerals industry as part of the regime's accelerated neoliberal project. While many of these privatizations elicited responses ranging from general approval to ambivalence, the opaque and seemingly corrupt sale of the Jordan Phosphate Mines Company (JPMC) in 2006 was understood differently, as an illegitimate appropriation of Jordan's national resources and, by extension, an abrogation of the state's (re-) distributive obligations. Based on interviews with activists, I argue that a diverse cross-section of social movement constituencies – spanning labour and non-labour movements (and factions within and across those movements) – perceived such illegitimate privatizations as a moral violation, which, in turn, informed transgressive activist practices and discourses targeting the neoliberal state. This moral violation shaped the rise and interaction of labour and non-labour social movements in Jordan's “Arab uprisings”, peaking in 2011–2013. While Jordan's uprisings were largely demobilized after 2013, protests in 2018 and 2019 demonstrate the continued relevance of this discourse. In this way, the 2011–2013 wave of protests – and their current reverberations – differ qualitatively from Jordan's earlier wave of “food riots” in 1989 (and throughout the 1990s), which I characterize as primarily restorative in nature.

Why do firms oppose entry-deterring policies? Environmental regulation and entry deterrence

2014 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Espínola-Arredondo ◽  
Félix Muñoz-García
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Regulation ◽  
Entry Deterrence ◽  
Social Planner ◽  
Policy Regimes ◽  
Incumbent Firm ◽  
The Social ◽  
Emission Fees

AbstractThis paper investigates the design of environmental regulation under different regimes: flexible and inflexible policies. We analyze under which settings strict emission fees can be used as an entry-deterring tool, and become socially optimal. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the incentives of the social planner and the incumbent firm are aligned regarding policy regimes ifentry can be easily deterred by setting a stringent regulation. Their incentives, however, can bemisaligned when entry becomes more costly to deter, leading the incumbent to actually preferenvironmental policies that attract entry.

scholarly journals A political ontology of seeds

Focaal ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 (69) ◽  
pp. 45-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elise Demeulenaere
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Seed Production ◽  
Regulation System ◽  
Political Ontology ◽  
Agricultural Modernization ◽  
Scientific Paradigms ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Breeding Practices

This article follows the trajectory of a French farmers' movement that contests the seed production and regulation system set in place during agricultural modernization. It focuses on the creativity of the movement, which ranges from semantic innovations (such as “peasant seeds”) to the reinvention of onfarm breeding practices based on new scientific paradigms, and includes new alliances with the social movements defending the commons. The trajectory of the movement is shaped by its encounters—with scientists, other international seed contestations, and other social movements—and by the productive frictions they create. This in-depth reframing of the activities connected to seeds contributes to building a counternarrative about farmers and seeds that reopens spaces for contestation. In this counternarrative, “peasant seeds” play a central and subversive role in the sense that they question the ontological assumptions of present seed laws.

scholarly journals Concept of the development of nature and society in the works of P. Teilhard de Chardin and comparison of his views with the ideas of globalization of Z. Bauman

2021 ◽  
pp. 67-74
Author(s):  
Egor Sergeevich Shushakov
Keyword(s):  
Social Development ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Evolutionary Development ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Key Characteristics ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Nature And Society ◽  
Physical Phenomena ◽  
The Universe

The object of this research is the concept of evolutionary development of the universe of P. Teilhard de Chardin and the concept of “liquid” reality” of Z. Bauman. The subject is the methodology of P. Teilhard de Chardin and his idea of the future of social development, as well as Z. Bauman’s description of the key characteristics of globalization. Emphasis is placed on the methodology of P. Teilhard de Chardin (interaction of tangential and radial energies), as within the framework his concept, the social, biological and physical phenomena do not have fundamental differences and abide the general universal laws. In broad outlines, the article reconstructs the idea of P. Teilhard de Chardin on social development and the theses of Z. Bauman about the key characteristics of modern globalization. The novelty of the research lies in the attempt to present the methodology of P. Teilhard de Chardin as acceptable for modern science and highlight its predictive power; as well as in comparative analysis of the ideas of Z. Bauman and P. Teilhard de Chardin on the processes of global social integration. The following conclusions are made: both scholars advance the idea on the progressing polarization of society; 2) globalization in their works correlates with the process of individualization of social actors, and defense of own identity.

scholarly journals Warranty and Good Lordship in Twelfth Century England

1987 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 437-503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul R. Hyams
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Legal Context ◽  
The Social ◽  
English Law

This paper starts from charters. It may even be regarded as an attempt to trace and explain the rise and development of express warranty clauses in English private documents, an exercise in diplomatic. The main stimulus behind the investigation is, however, something quite different: the challenge of understanding English law before the advent of a common law. I want my explanations to be consistent not merely with the social relations that produced the charters, but also with the mental terms in which they were thought out and interpreted, their legal context.

The commons institution of Antarctica: a roadmap to governance of mankind resources

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paschalis Arvanitidis ◽  
Aikaterini Almyriotou
Keyword(s):  
Outer Space ◽  
Governance Structure ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Global Commons ◽  
Multiple Resources ◽  
Governance Regime ◽  
The Social ◽  
Common Resource ◽  
The Commons ◽  
The Antarctic

Purpose This paper aims to draw on Ostrom’s commons theory to analyse the governance regime of Antarctic as a commons institution. Antarctic is a peculiar territorial space on Earth, which due to its unique characteristics constitutes a global common resource that very much resembles outer space resources. On these grounds, the paper highlights successful, and less successful, arrangements developed in the Antarctic commons to be considered as a blueprint or roadmap towards the governance of outer space resources as a commons. Design/methodology/approach The paper uses first, the social-ecological system (SES) framework to outline the characteristics of Antarctic as a commons institution, and second, Ostrom’s design principles to assess the commons institution of Antarctic. The Antarctic commons institution is used next, as an analogy to reflect on the challenges outer space global resource face and the way it could be managed. Findings The paper concludes that Antarctic enjoys a functional, credible and successful commons institution that should reinforce the twofold governance structure it exhibits. Similar cases of global common resources, such as these of outer space, that seek to establish a similar commons institution should take into account issues related the benefits spectrum and the credible commitment of actors to engage in different levels of the governance regime. What matters is not necessarily the form of the regime but rather how the commons as an institution functions, whether it fulfils the needs and interests of the driving actors and, on these grounds, how credible these arrangements are in the eyes of the committed members. Research limitations/implications Both Antarctica and outer space are rather unique cases and domains of multiple resources. Practical implications The paper provides an analogy to consider sustainable appropriation of global resources (“global commons”) for peace and prosperity to all. Originality/value The paper is original, in the sense that according to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no published work has identified Antarctic as a commons institution or has used the aforementioned methodologies to analyse Antarctica as a commons and to employ their findings in providing directions for the design of appropriate governance frameworks for other resources that exhibit the characteristics of global commons, such as these of the outer space.

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