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In the study of environmental policy and sustainable urban development there has been an increasing emphasis upon notions of 'the local' as a key site of intervention. However, the rationale for this is rarely stated in policy terms and has barely been addressed from a theoretical perspective. In correcting what amounts to significant lacunae in the analysis of local environmental policy, we suggest...
A little over a decade after privatization, the water supply industry in England and Wales is undergoing a period of restructuring; many water companies have withdrawn from equity markets, some have separated asset ownership from operation and maintenance, and others have made proposals to return water supply infrastructure to public control through 'mutuals' or 'customer corporations'. This paper...
EU–US (European Union–United States) interactions in relation to the regulation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have been examined in detail in recent years. To do this scholars have tended to focus on a small number of high profile processes, such as the formal complaint of the US to the World Trade Organisation regarding the regulation of GMOs in the Europe. It is important to analyse developments...
This article describes the turn to new integrative water management strategies in the Netherlands. It illustrates that some of the new and the general objectives and principles are not easily applied in practice. First, the article focuses on the development of integrative management of water and spatial development. A main policy line, the ‘Room for the River’ directive, was originally an ad hoc...
The incineration of waste is a controversial issue marked by a history of opposition from community groups and environmentalists around the globe. Opponents, particularly in the USA, have frequently adopted a discourse of environmental justice to challenge the legitimacy of incineration. In line with these broad geographies of resistance recent proposals to introduce municipal solid waste incinerators...
This paper reports the results of our research, conducted from June to August 2004, on the community-based conservation project in Mahenye, Zimbabwe. Previous studies have described this project as a model example of Zimbabwe’s CAMPFIRE program. We explore the project’s recent performance within the context of the country’s post-2000 political and economic crisis and address the implications of our...
The paper applies some of the principles of pragmatism to the environmental health crisis of arsenic pollution in the groundwater of Bangladesh. This hazard affects between 28 and 57 million people and it has been called “the largest mass poisoning of a population in history”. Such hyperbole aside, the authors consider the dysfunctional nature of central and local government in Bangladesh, which at...
This paper examines the perceived shift from police to policing in developed world countries. It focuses on the development of multi-agency policing in rural Western Australia and, using ideas from governance theory, questions whether these partnerships are leading to more inclusive policing and new forms of rural governance. Evidence is taken from the development of a Rural Crime Prevention Strategy...
In September 2005, the Pacific Islands Forum issued a finalized Pacific Plan. The overarching goal of the Plan is to “Enhance and stimulate economic growth, sustainable development, good governance and security for Pacific countries through regionalism.” In this paper we focus on the salient role of (good) governance in the Plan. Governance has become a keyword, albeit a deeply ambivalent one, in...
It is increasingly argued that we are entering into a “biotech century”, in which biotechnology promises major advances in agricultural productivity. The development of biotechnology is not a straightforward affair, however, and the advent of GMOs has led to public protest and consumer resistance. This paper draws upon a comparative Australian–UK project concerned with the role of regulation and governance...
This paper assesses the possibilities and limits of efforts to incorporate social accountability into California agricultural production through voluntary certification and labeling, in the context neoliberal governance. We argue that, in its contradictory role as market mechanism, regulatory form, and social cause, certification both resists neoliberalization of the agro-food system and reinscribes...
The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina has piqued interest in the insurance industry, and this scrutiny has led to assumptions that the industry has become unstable and unprofitable with the increased incidence of disasters in highly-insured regions of the world. This paper challenges that assumption by arguing that the insurance industry has responded by spreading risk through scaled and networked recovery...
In Xishuangbanna, southern Yunnan, Akha and Dai farmers, regarded in China as “backward”, passive recipients of state-led development, have been “getting rich” on rubber and expanding rubber cultivation into neighbouring Laos. State cash crop campaigns to raise minority farmers’ incomes inadvertently turned minority farmers into dynamic entrepreneurs. This paper builds on Vinay Gidwani’s use of development...
In this paper we explore hybridity in Australian natural resource governance, both ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ of neoliberalism. We develop an understanding of this governance regime as an assemblage of subjects, ethics, ends and techniques that constitute a hybrid of practices directed by three mentalities of government: neoliberalism, localism and ecocentrism. This three-way parentage engenders particularly...
Despite questions currently raised about the future of neoliberalism, it remains embedded within Australian agricultural policy and practice. This paper explores the strengths and limitations of mechanisms contributing to neoliberalism’s survival through a close examination of the restructuring of Australian agricultural production and governance processes under the influence of both globalising impulses...
While some non-profits have suffered under the political and economic pressures of neoliberal urban governance reform, others have emerged as important institutional players in local governance regimes. This article highlights how non-profits food banks in Chicago have commercialized in order to respond to increased demand, enhance their institutional independence from government, and reassert their...
In this paper I argue that geographies of religion are fundamental to understanding governance and social order in contemporary urban space. More specifically, I show how Foucault’s notion of governmentality characterizes regimes of power beyond the state apparatus, positing that religion and churches also produce and maintain the knowledges, truths, and social order associated with governmentality...
This paper brings together consideration of food policies and practices and of post-socialist transition to raise neglected questions about means of nurturing more sustainable food systems in the developed world. The last three decades have been marked by the growing salience of food as a political and scholarly concern. While market-based alternative food systems have been heralded for their potential...
Aquatic socio-ecological systems show pervasive cross-scale interactions and problems of fit between ecosystems and institutions. Nested bio-hydrological processes within river basins are prone to third-party impacts, and equitable/sustainable management of water resources requires adequate governance patterns that both cover relevant scalar levels and handle cross-scale interactions. This paper provides...
Costa Rica’s national payment for environmental services (PES) program has inspired a large body of research, most of which seeks to assess its impacts on deforestation and/or poverty. The specific forms of governance shaping the program, by contrast, have received much less attention. While the program, like PES in general, is commonly considered a paradigmatically neoliberal “market-based” conservation...
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