Understanding and overcoming risks to cooperation along transboundary rivers

Water Policy ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 824-843 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashok Subramanian ◽  
Bridget Brown ◽  
Aaron T. Wolf
Keyword(s):  
Risk Reduction ◽  
River Basins ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Transboundary Rivers ◽  
Equity And Access ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
International River ◽  
Made In

This study reviews the experience of cooperation in five international river basins, focusing on the perceptions of risks and opportunities by country decision makers responding to a specific prospect of cooperation, and the effects of risk reduction and opportunity enhancement on the cooperation process. We explore the following five categories of risk: Capacity and Knowledge; Accountability and Voice; Sovereignty and Autonomy; Equity and Access; and Stability and Support. We surmise that risk perception plays a key and less understood role in decision-making processes over shared rivers cooperation, and conclude that countries and third parties can best achieve sustainable cooperation when long-term investments are made in risk reduction. We also point to areas for further study to better understand the motivations for cooperation.

Third Party Mediation of International River Disputes: Lessons from the Indus River

2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 281-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neda Zawahri
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Indus River ◽  
International Rivers ◽  
History Of ◽  
Long Term Impact ◽  
International River

AbstractThird parties have been active in assisting adversarial states to navigate their international river disputes. By using the carrot and stick to facilitate compromise, mediators have also participated in the negotiations leading to the signing of treaties over international rivers. Yet, due to the nature of the issue confronting riparian states, the long-term impact of these efforts is likely to be unstable cooperation rather than cooperation. This is still an important contribution, because the absence of mediation efforts may contribute to an environment of conflict. However, since riparian states confront a relationship that involves the need to continuously manage disputes that arise as states develop their international rivers, a mediator may be more effective in facilitating cooperation if it assists developing states with a history of animosity to establish effectively designed river basin commissions and it oversees the implementation of treaties. Participating in the initial years of a treaty's implementation by coordinating the donor community to underwrite projects can minimize the potential disputes riparians confront. An effectively designed river basin commission can assist in facilitating cooperation long after the mediator has departed from the region. To demonstrate this argument, the article draws on the Indus River case, which has lived through four different phases. The Euphrates and Tigris Rivers are used to illustrate the argument's ability to explain other cases.

Rationality and risk-taking in Russia’s first Chechen War: toward a theory of cognitive realism

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-210
Author(s):  
Jason J. Morrissette
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Utility Maximization ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Adequate Explanation ◽  
Russian President ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Cognitive Realism ◽  
Made In

This article seeks to establish a better scholarly understanding of former Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s decision to launch an ill-planned, risky, and ultimately disastrous invasion of the breakaway republic of Chechnya in 1994. Examining the decision-making environment that led up to the invasion, I conclude that while neorealism provides an adequate explanation for Yeltsin’s motives in this case, the decisions that he made in pursuit of these goals do not reflect the logic of rational utility maximization commonly associated with neorealist theory. Instead, I suggest that prospect theory – based on the idea that decision-makers tend to be risk averse when confronted with choices between gains while risk acceptant when confronted with losses – offers significantly more explanatory insight in this case. Thus, the article offers further support for an alternative theoretical approach to international relations that some scholars have termed ‘cognitive realism’, incorporating neorealist motives with a more empirically accurate perspective on the decision-making processes undertaken in pursuit of these motives.

scholarly journals À propos du contrôle social de la politique énergétique

2005 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 713-736
Author(s):  
Louis Constans
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Energy Policy ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Freedom Of Choice ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Parliamentary Debates ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Time Frames ◽  
Made In

This paper attempts to clarify the basic issues underlying the discussion of citizens' participation in public decision-making on energy policy and projects. It questions the assumption that such participation is possible, and recalls that energy policy is at present, at least in the French context, an area of conflict between government and various interest groups. It warns of possible misunderstandings due to the lack of an agreed definition of participation. Three major points are made in this connection. The first is that the usual instruments of citizens' participation in decision-making (public inquiries, parliamentary debates, etc.) have, for a number of technical and institutional reasons, become largely irrelevant as regards energy matters — as indeed in several other areas of policy. The second is that decision-making on energy policy and projects really allows for very little freedom of choice on the part of decision-makers : such freedom rarely goes beyond the setting of time-frames for the achievement of goals imposed by circumstances. Finally, it is suggested that invocation of the ideals of democracy is unhelpful : what is realistically possible amounts only to a greater openness and objectivity in decision-making processes aimed at giving citizens, not an illusory power to decide themselves or to block decisions by policy-makers, but the capacity to forewarn the latter about public feelings on energy issues.

scholarly journals A gazdasági és társadalmi fejlődés elősegíti-e az emberek elégedettségének és boldogságának növekedését Kínában?

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2017/1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anett Kozjek-Gulyás
Keyword(s):  
Decision Makers ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Healthy Development ◽  
Long Term Stability ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Perspective ◽  
Level Of Satisfaction ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Made In

Whether a society is satisfied or not always provides important informationon the operation of a country, from an economic and political perspective,among others. To what extent can we speak of healthy development of thesociety? How many in this society are dissatisfied with their situation and seethe future prospects for themselves and their families hopeless? The answersto these questions can provide valuable feedback for the decision makers onthe consequences of the decisions they made in the past and are making atpresent. This study utilizes the findings of empirical research carried out inJanuary 2015 in Qinhuangdao 秦皇岛 as a starting point and aims to draw conclusions from the indicators of the level of satisfaction with the performance of the Chinese government – from the analysis of the indicators of happiness and satisfaction – to determine how much the subjective well-beingof everyday Chinese people contribute to the long-term stability of the system of government and the undisturbed operation of China’s political system.

International Heritage Law for Communities

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas Lixinski
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
The Common ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Blind Spots ◽  
Made In

This book critically engages the shortcomings of the field of international heritage law, seen through the lenses of the five major UNESCO treaties for the safeguarding of different types of heritage. It argues that these five treaties have, by design or in their implementation, effectively prevented local communities, who bear the brunt of the costs associated with international heritage protection, from having a say in how their heritage is managed. The exclusion of local communities often alienates them not only from international decision-making processes but also from their cultural heritage itself, ultimately meaning that systems put in place for the protection of cultural heritage contribute to its disappearance in the long term. The book adds to existing literature by looking at these UNESCO treaties not as isolated regimes, which is the common practice in the field, but rather as belonging to a discursive continuum on cultural heritage. Rather than scrutinizing the regimes themselves, the book focuses on themes that cut across the relevant UNESCO regimes, such as the use of expert rule in international heritage law, economics, and the relationship between heritage and the environment. It uses this mechanism to highlight the blind spots and unintended consequences of UNESCO treaties and how choices made in their drafting have continuing and potentially negative impacts on how we think about and safeguard heritage. The book is of interest to cultural heritage scholars and practitioners across all disciplines, as well as to international lawyers interested in the dynamics of fragmented subfields.

Geoecologic Conflicts Causes of Ecosystem Exploitation in International River Basins and Ways to Resolve them

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 114-121
Author(s):  
Zaira M. Sagova ◽  
◽  
Lidiya A. Lidiya A. Mezhova ◽  
Vadim V. Kulnev ◽  
Aleksandr M. Lugovskoy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
River Basins ◽  
International River Basins ◽  
International River

Research for a sustainable European sugar sector

2010 ◽  
pp. 487-495
Author(s):  
Martin Bruhns ◽  
Peter Glaviè ◽  
Arne Sloth Jensen ◽  
Michael Narodoslawsky ◽  
Giorgio Pezzi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sugar Industry ◽  
Research Priorities ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Sustainable Chemistry ◽  
Technology Platforms ◽  
Research Themes ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Manufacturing Applications ◽  
European Technology

The paper is based on the results of international project entitled “Towards Sustainable Sugar Industry in Europe (TOSSIE)”. 33 research topics of major importance to the sugar sector are listed and briefly described, and compared with research priorities of the European Technology Platforms: “Food for Life”, “Sustainable Chemistry”, “Biofuels”, and “Plant for the Future”. Most topics are compatible with the research themes included in the COOPERATION part of the 7th Framework Program of the EU (2007-2013). However, some topics may require long-term R&D with the time horizon of up to 15 years. The list of topics is divided into four parts: Sugar manufacturing, Applications of biotechnology and biorefinery processing, Sugarbeet breeding and growing, Horizontal issues. Apart from possible use of the list by policy- and decision makers with an interest in sugarbeet sector, the description of each research topic can be used as a starting point in setting up a research project or other R&D activities.

Soil and ecological division into districts of the Baikal region

2018 ◽  
Vol 940 (10) ◽  
pp. 54-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
I.A. Belozertseva ◽  
A.A. Sorokovoj
Keyword(s):  
Baikal Region ◽  
Soil Cover ◽  
Soil Formation ◽  
Forest Steppe ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Soil Cover Structure ◽  
Reflecting Surface ◽  
Heat And Moisture ◽  
Made In

On the basis of long-term researches of soils in the territory of Russia and Mongolia soil and ecological division into districts of the Baikal region is carried out. At division into districts the whole set of an environment of soil formation was considered. On the map of soil and ecological division into districts 13 mountain, mid-mountain, low-mountain taiga, foothill, hollow-valley, forest-steppe and steppe provinces reflecting surface device originality as the ratio of balance of heat and moisture forming a basis to zoning is shown against the background of difficult orography are allocated. In total 42 districts on lithologic-geomorphological features are allocated. In formation of distinctions of a soil cover of these provinces the leading role is played by bioclimatic factors and inside them the lithologic-geomorphological ones. In the view of structural approach of the district they are considered as territories with a certain natural change of several types of the soil cover structure caused by features of a relief and the parent rock. The map is made in the MapInfo program. It is revealed that on ill-defined width zoning of soils the vertical one which has a greater influence on soils of this region is imposed. Soils of the Baikal region are not similar to the soils located at the same latitude of the flat European territory of Russia. Zone soils of this territory are specific and original.

scholarly journals Mechanical Properties of Cement-Treated Soil Mixed with Cellulose Nanofibre

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (14) ◽  
pp. 6425
Author(s):  
Hidenori Takahashi ◽  
Shinya Omori ◽  
Hideyuki Asada ◽  
Hirofumi Fukawa ◽  
Yusuke Gotoh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mechanical Properties ◽  
Flexural Strength ◽  
Geotechnical Engineering ◽  
Strength Development ◽  
Soft Ground ◽  
Wood Cellulose ◽  
Treated Soil ◽  
Made In ◽  
Cement Treatment

Cellulose nanofibre (CNF), a material composed of ultrafine fibres of wood cellulose fibrillated to nano-order level, is expected to be widely used because of its excellent properties. However, in the field of geotechnical engineering, almost no progress has been made in the development of techniques for using CNFs. The authors have focused on the use of CNF as an additive in cement treatment for soft ground, where cement is added to solidify the ground, because CNF can reduce the problems associated with cement-treated soil. This paper presents the results of a study on the method of mixing CNF, the strength and its variation obtained by adding CNF, and the change in permeability. CNF had the effect of mixing the cement evenly and reducing the variation in the strength of the treated soil. The CNF mixture increased the strength at the initial age but reduced the strength development in the long term. The addition of CNF also increased the flexural strength, although it hardly changed the permeability.

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