Understanding and Analyzing Natural Hazards Governance

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Gerber
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Risk Reduction ◽  
Natural Hazards ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Conceptual Clarity ◽  
Wide Range

Governance is a complex, highly elastic term used in a wide range of settings which sometimes leads to ambiguity. As a result, defining natural hazards governance as a unique and specific construct is needed for conceptual clarity and analytic precision. At core, natural hazards governance pertains to two fundamental considerations: reducing risk and promoting resilience. While not always recognized as such in the hazards and disasters literature, risk reduction and resilience promotion are two pure public goods. But they are also highly complex public goods—amalgams of a series of distinct but interrelated public policy choices and the administrative systems that put those choices into effect. To understand better a logic for defining and assessing natural hazards governance it is essential to consider it as a set of explicitly collective choices over the production of a complex of public goods aimed at addressing hazards risk reduction and promoting resilience within or across defined political jurisdictions. Those choices create frameworks permitting a set of authoritative actions (lawful and legitimate) to be stated and executed by governmental entities, by non-governmental agents on their behalf (in some form), or for goods and services to be jointly co-produced by governmental and non-governmental actors. Those collective choices in a given setting are influenced by the institutional structure of formal public policy decision-making, which itself reflects variations in the political efficacy of community members, competing interests and incentives over policy preferences, and level of extant knowledge and understanding of critical challenges associated with given hazards. Those formal collective choices are also reflective of a broader cultural context shaping norms of behavior and conception of the relationship between communities and hazards.

scholarly journals Facilitating Sustainable Disaster Risk Reduction in Indigenous Communities: Reviving Indigenous Worldviews, Knowledge and Practices through Two-Way Partnering

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 855
Author(s):  
Tahir Ali ◽  
Petra Topaz Buergelt ◽  
Douglas Paton ◽  
James Arnold Smith ◽  
Elaine Lawurrpa Maypilama ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Grounded Theory ◽  
Risk Reduction ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Natural Hazards ◽  
Disaster Risk Reduction ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Disaster Risk ◽  
Indigenous Research ◽  
Ecological Knowledge ◽  
Community Members

The Sendai Framework of Action 2015–2030 calls for holistic Indigenous disaster risk reduction (DRR) research. Responding to this call, we synergized a holistic philosophical framework (comprising ecological systems theory, symbolic interactionism, and intersectionality) and social constructionist grounded theory and ethnography within a critical Indigenous research paradigm as a methodology for exploring how diverse individual and contextual factors influence DRR in a remote Indigenous community called Galiwinku, in the Northern Territory of Australia. Working together, Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers collected stories in local languages using conversations and yarning circles with 20 community members, as well as participant observations. The stories were interpreted and analysed using social constructivist grounded theory analysis techniques. The findings were dialogued with over 50 community members. The findings deeply resonated with the community members, validating the trustworthiness and relevance of the findings. The grounded theory that emerged identified two themes. First, local Indigenous knowledge and practices strengthen Indigenous people and reduce the risks posed by natural hazards. More specifically, deep reciprocal relationships with country and ecological knowledge, strong kinship relations, Elder’s wisdom and authority, women and men sharing power, and faith in a supreme power/God and Indigenous-led community organizations enable DRR. Second, colonizing practices weaken Indigenous people and increase the risks from natural hazards. Therefore, colonization, the imposition of Western culture, the government application of top-down approaches, infiltration in Indigenous governance systems, the use of fly-in/fly-out workers, scarcity of employment, restrictions on technical and higher education opportunities, and overcrowded housing that is culturally and climatically unsuitable undermine the DRR capability. Based on the findings, we propose a Community-Based DRR theory which proposes that facilitating sustainable Indigenous DRR in Australian Indigenous communities requires Indigenous and non-Indigenous partners to genuinely work together in two-directional and complementary ways.

scholarly journals Performance of Swiss dairy farms under provision of public goods

2013 ◽  
Vol 59 (No. 7) ◽  
pp. 300-314 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Mamardashvili ◽  
D. Schmid
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Technical Efficiency ◽  
Returns To Scale ◽  
Dairy Farms ◽  
Positive Influence ◽  
Farm Income ◽  
Mountainous Regions ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
High Level

Farmers provide not only agricultural products but also public goods and services. When analyzing farm performance, these different outputs should be modelled separately. In this study, we investigated Swiss dairy farms located in the plain, hill and mountainous regions for the period between 2003 and 2009. For the representation of production technology, we employed a parametric output distance function and modeled particular public goods and services as a separate output. The resulted elasticities of agricultural output coincided with the corresponding shares of this output. However, the elasticities of particular public goods and services were higher than the corresponding shares. This might be related to the fact that this output contains different kinds of direct payments, “production” of which does not require additional inputs or trade-off with other outputs. Our results showed that the level of pro ductivity in the plain region did not depend on the scale of production, but more on the improvement in the technical efficiency. However, in the hill and mountainous regions, there was potential for scale adjustments. Sample farms in these regions showed significant decreasing returns to scale, which suggests that the average farm in these subsamples could improve its productivity by scaling down its production. Our results might also be confirmation of decelerated structural change, since decreasing returns to scale might reflect an obstacle to growth. We found the wide range of the efficiency scores for Swiss farms, which indicates potentials for improvements. Among others, off-farm income as well as high level of ecological services showed significantly positive influence on the technical efficiency of Swiss farms in all three regions.  

Teachers Unions and Public Education

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-133
Author(s):  
Peter A. Swenson
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Public Education ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
The United States ◽  
Teachers Unions ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Subsequent Discussion ◽  
Policy Analysts ◽  
The Relationship

Public education is one of the most important “public goods” of a democratic society. In recent decades, public policy analysts, public intellectuals, and politicians have debated the state of public education in the United States and have argued about the sorts of public policies that might best promote the academic achievement, educational success, and political socialization of youth. Terry Moe and John Chubb have been important contributors to these debates. Their 1990 book, Politics, Markets, and America's Schools, set the terms of much subsequent discussion about the importance of school autonomy and “educational choice.” Moe's Special Interest extends these arguments through a more frontal critique of the role of teachers unions. This book represents an important contribution to public discussion of school reform. It also incorporates a distinctive perspective on the relationship between power and public policy, and between the role of states and that of markets in the provision of public goods and services. In this symposium, we feature a range of serious commentaries on the book's central arguments about educational policy and politics and on its approach to “engaged” or “applied” political science.

Teachers Unions and Public Education

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 126-129
Author(s):  
Leo Casey
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Public Education ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
The United States ◽  
Teachers Unions ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Subsequent Discussion ◽  
Policy Analysts ◽  
The Relationship

Public education is one of the most important “public goods” of a democratic society. In recent decades, public policy analysts, public intellectuals, and politicians have debated the state of public education in the United States and have argued about the sorts of public policies that might best promote the academic achievement, educational success, and political socialization of youth. Terry Moe and John Chubb have been important contributors to these debates. Their 1990 book, Politics, Markets, and America's Schools, set the terms of much subsequent discussion about the importance of school autonomy and “educational choice.” Moe's Special Interest extends these arguments through a more frontal critique of the role of teachers unions. This book represents an important contribution to public discussion of school reform. It also incorporates a distinctive perspective on the relationship between power and public policy, and between the role of states and that of markets in the provision of public goods and services. In this symposium, we feature a range of serious commentaries on the book's central arguments about educational policy and politics and on its approach to “engaged” or “applied” political science.

scholarly journals Assessing ‘good governance’:‘scientific’ measurement and political discourse

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Gregory
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
The Public ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
The Past ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
State Authority

The idea of governance – as distinct from government – has become intellectually fashionable in academic circles over the past decade or so, constituting a new conceptual paradigm that embodies ideas about the dispersal and fragmentation of formerly centralised state authority, the increasing involvement of civil society in the delivery of public goods and services, and the networked collaboration of a wide range of governmental and nongovernmental bodies in the pursuit of public purposes and the public interest.

Governance and Consent

2019 ◽  
pp. 211-250
Author(s):  
Annette Idler
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Exposure To Violence ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Appropriate Behavior ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Citizen Security ◽  
Armed Actors

Chapter 6 discusses security dynamics in contexts where violent non-state groups engage in relatively stable long-term arrangements with each other. They coexist or ally on the same territory, or one group dominates and engages in stable interactions at the margins of that territory. It demonstrates how these groups complement each other in assuming governance functions. Depending on the specific arrangement type, community members have reasonable certainty about the prevailing rules and on how to avoid exposure to violence. When locals consent to the groups as governance providers, shadow citizenship and shadow citizen security arise. In such situations, security emerges from a mutually reinforcing relationship between violent non-state groups and the community in which armed actors provide public goods and services, and define the rules of appropriate behavior, while community members socially recognize their illicit authority. If shadow citizenship extends across the borderline, the transnationality of borderlands disguises the armed actors’ illicit authority.

Teachers Unions and Public Education

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 122-123
Author(s):  
Richard M. Battistoni
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Public Education ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
The United States ◽  
Teachers Unions ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Subsequent Discussion ◽  
Policy Analysts ◽  
The Relationship

Public education is one of the most important “public goods” of a democratic society. In recent decades, public policy analysts, public intellectuals, and politicians have debated the state of public education in the United States and have argued about the sorts of public policies that might best promote the academic achievement, educational success, and political socialization of youth. Terry Moe and John Chubb have been important contributors to these debates. Their 1990 book, Politics, Markets, and America's Schools, set the terms of much subsequent discussion about the importance of school autonomy and “educational choice.” Moe's Special Interest extends these arguments through a more frontal critique of the role of teachers unions. This book represents an important contribution to public discussion of school reform. It also incorporates a distinctive perspective on the relationship between power and public policy, and between the role of states and that of markets in the provision of public goods and services. In this symposium, we feature a range of serious commentaries on the book's central arguments about educational policy and politics and on its approach to “engaged” or “applied” political science.

The Ostroms and the contestable nature of goods: beyond taxonomies and toward institutional polycentricity

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veeshan Rayamajhee ◽  
Pablo Paniagua
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Regime Shifts ◽  
Dynamic Features ◽  
Institutional Conditions ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Geographical Factors ◽  
Inherent Nature

AbstractThis paper builds on the Ostroms' oeuvre to suggest that the binary Samuelsonian taxonomy of goods – or the ‘sterile dichotomy’, as Elinor Ostrom calls it – cannot serve as a reliable guide for public policy. Using the Ostroms' insights on co-production, institutional matching, and polycentricity, we argue that the ‘inherent’ nature of goods and their specific taxonomy are not static and definitive concepts but are instead contestable and dynamic features that are institutionally contingent. We explore four crucial mechanisms and/or contexts, not altogether unrelated, whereby the nature of goods becomes contestable and malleable: namely, (1) technological and geographical factors, (2) coproduction and entrepreneurial ingenuity, (3) bundling and unbundling of services, and (4) ideologies and regime shifts. This exercise has twofold purposes. First, we generalize the notion that there is nothing ‘inherent’ in the nature of goods and services and that they are fluid, heterogeneous, and malleable concepts. Second, we contribute to the debate on the provision of public goods and the role of civil society by highlighting the need for institutional malleability and diversity adaptive to changing technology, contexts, and institutional conditions.

Teachers Unions and Public Education

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 134-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Victoria Murillo
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Public Education ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
The United States ◽  
Teachers Unions ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Subsequent Discussion ◽  
Policy Analysts ◽  
The Relationship

Public education is one of the most important “public goods” of a democratic society. In recent decades, public policy analysts, public intellectuals, and politicians have debated the state of public education in the United States and have argued about the sorts of public policies that might best promote the academic achievement, educational success, and political socialization of youth. Terry Moe and John Chubb have been important contributors to these debates. Their 1990 book, Politics, Markets, and America's Schools, set the terms of much subsequent discussion about the importance of school autonomy and “educational choice.” Moe's Special Interest extends these arguments through a more frontal critique of the role of teachers unions. This book represents an important contribution to public discussion of school reform. It also incorporates a distinctive perspective on the relationship between power and public policy, and between the role of states and that of markets in the provision of public goods and services. In this symposium, we feature a range of serious commentaries on the book's central arguments about educational policy and politics and on its approach to “engaged” or “applied” political science.

Teachers Unions and Public Education

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 124-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Frymer
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Public Education ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
The United States ◽  
Teachers Unions ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Subsequent Discussion ◽  
Policy Analysts ◽  
The Relationship

Public education is one of the most important “public goods” of a democratic society. In recent decades, public policy analysts, public intellectuals, and politicians have debated the state of public education in the United States and have argued about the sorts of public policies that might best promote the academic achievement, educational success, and political socialization of youth. Terry Moe and John Chubb have been important contributors to these debates. Their 1990 book, Politics, Markets, and America's Schools, set the terms of much subsequent discussion about the importance of school autonomy and “educational choice.” Moe's Special Interest extends these arguments through a more frontal critique of the role of teachers unions. This book represents an important contribution to public discussion of school reform. It also incorporates a distinctive perspective on the relationship between power and public policy, and between the role of states and that of markets in the provision of public goods and services. In this symposium, we feature a range of serious commentaries on the book's central arguments about educational policy and politics and on its approach to “engaged” or “applied” political science.

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