Articulation between Neoliberal and State-Oriented Environmental Regulation: Fisheries Privatization and Endangered Species Protection

2007 ◽  
Vol 39 (8) ◽  
pp. 1926-1942 ◽  
Author(s):  
Becky Mansfield

This paper analyzes the relationship between state-oriented and neoliberal approaches to environmental regulation by examining simultaneous efforts to protect the endangered Steller sea lion and to privatize the fishery for Alaska pollock. Because these policies were designed and implemented at the same time and for the same industry, this case offers a unique opportunity to explore in detail not transitions from one type of policy regime to another but, rather, how these different policy regimes articulate. Rather than focusing on reregulation which occurs when neoliberal restructuring shifts away from traditional regulation while simultaneously developing new, market-oriented forms of regulation, this paper focuses on a different kind of reregulation which occurs when state-oriented and market-oriented approaches must coexist. Analysis of how regulators themselves write about the conjunction of these policies reveals that the two forms of regulation can be complementary. To the extent that neoliberal restructuring has environmental benefits, these are mediated through traditional environmental protections, and although restructuring is presented as a means of mitigating the negative economic effects of state-oriented regulation, these effects are quite consistent with the goals of restructuring. Further, this analysis also reveals the power of neoliberal discourse. Despite their own statements about the complex articulation of the policies, regulators attribute benefits to privatization and problems to state-oriented regulation. This case highlights the inability of neoliberalism to subsume its outsides—alternatives are already existing—but also highlights that these outsides can themselves come to support what they seem to oppose.

2014 ◽  
Vol 71 (8) ◽  
pp. 1229-1242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul B. Conn ◽  
Devin S. Johnson ◽  
Lowell W. Fritz ◽  
Brian S. Fadely

One focus of mitigation for Steller sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus) declines in Alaska has been to restrict commercial fishery activity around sea lion rookeries and haul-outs. However, a variety of statistical hypothesis tests have failed to relate sea lion population metrics to fish and fishing variables, prompting speculation that regulations may be unwarranted. In this study, we use simulation to show that standard hypothesis tests often have overstated power to detect a relationship between Steller sea lion vital rates and fish or fishing variables. The power and utility of hypothesis tests largely depend on choosing appropriate dependent and independent variables. In particular, pup counts were the most effective for diagnosing fecundity effects, and successive ratios of adult counts were the most effective for diagnosing survival effects. Fish relative abundance was the most effective independent variable, with other choices (e.g., fishery catch) often resulting in misleading inferences. We argue that Bayes factors are best suited for characterizing the relationship between fish abundance and Steller sea lion vital rates and that existing evidence does not preclude a strong relationship between sea lion fecundity and the availability of commercially harvested fish stocks.


Author(s):  
Kent Eaton

This chapter elaborates the book’s theoretical framework by focusing on the three critical variables—structural, institutional, and coalitional—that help explain the outcome of the two types of subnational policy challenges conceptualized in Chapter 1. It argues that a subnational jurisdiction’s structural significance is critical for the ability to influence the national policy regime (the second type of policy challenge), while its institutional capacity is essential for the defense of ideologically deviant subnational policy regimes (the first type of policy challenge). The third variable, internal and external coalitional strength, matters for both types of challenges. After situating these hypotheses relative to a variety of political science literatures, the chapter then introduces the Bolivian, Ecuadorian, and Peruvian cases by focusing on the similarities that make these countries a productive site for small-N comparison. The chapter also scores each country on the dependent variable and describes the book’s data-collection methods.


Processes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 1264
Author(s):  
Meng Zeng ◽  
Lihang Liu ◽  
Fangyi Zhou ◽  
Yigui Xiao

Many studies have found that FDI can reduce the pollutant emissions of host countries. At the same time, the intensity of environmental regulation would affect the emission reduction effect of FDI in the host country. This study aims to reveal the internal mechanisms of this effect. Specifically, this paper studies the impact of FDI on technological innovation in China’s industrial sectors from the perspective of technology transactions from 2001 to 2019, and then analyzes whether the intensity of environmental regulation can promote the relationship. Results indicate that FDI promotes technological innovation through technology transactions. In addition, it finds that the intensity of environmental regulation significantly positively moderates the relationship between FDI and technological innovation, which is achieved by positively moderating the FDI–technology transaction relationship. Regional heterogeneity analysis is further conducted, and results show that in the eastern and western regions of China, FDI can stimulate technological innovation within regional industrial sectors through technology trading. Moreover, environmental regulation has a significant positive regulatory effect on the above relationship, but these effects are not supported by evidence in the central region of China.


1998 ◽  
Vol 30 (9) ◽  
pp. 1585-1602 ◽  
Author(s):  
D M W N Hitchens ◽  
J E Birnie ◽  
A McGowan ◽  
U Triebswetter ◽  
A Cottica

The authors use a method of matched-plant comparisons between food processing firms in Germany, Italy, Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland to investigate the relationship between environmental regulation and company competitiveness across the European Union. Comparative competitiveness was indicated by measures of value-added per employee, physical productivity, export share, and employment growth. The cost of water supply (public or well), effluent treatment (in-plant treatment and/or sewerage system), and disposal of sludge and packaging were also compared. Total environmental costs in Germany, Italy, and Ireland were small: usually less than 1% of turnover. Compared with the Irish firms, German companies had relatively high environmental costs as well as productivity levels. There was, however, a lack of a clear relationship between company competitiveness and the size of regulation costs: in Ireland and Italy environmental costs were similar but German firms had much higher productivity; compared with German counterparts, Italian firms had lower environmental costs but higher productivity.


1994 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 551-553 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eri TANAKA ◽  
Takahiro KIMURA ◽  
Sinpei WADA ◽  
Kisio HATAI ◽  
Seizaburou SONODA

1961 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl W. Kenyon ◽  
Dale W. Rice

2009 ◽  
Vol 41 (5) ◽  
pp. 1129-1151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lapo Calamai

This paper investigates the relationship between devolution and regional disparities by looking at the case of Italy. By integrating the relevant quantitative and qualitative evidence, it attempts to answer two questions. Did the devolutionary process exert a positive influence on regional convergence in Italy? And, if so, why have its beneficial economic effects been concentrated in the Mezzogiorno? A clear historical link between the upsurge of devolution and the reduction of spatial inequalities is identified. However, this relationship plays out in a rather indirect way, and is strongly influenced by a series of exogenous factors which are thoroughly analysed.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document