How do societies negotiate the apparently competing agendas of environmental protection and social justice? Why do some countries perform much better than others on this front? Democracy in the Woods addresses these question by examining land rights conflicts-and the fate of forest-dependent peasants-in the context of the different forest property regimes in India, Tanzania, and Mexico. These three countries are prominent in the scholarship and policy debates about national forest policies and land conflicts associated with international support for nature conservation. This unique comparative study of national forestland regimes challenges the received wisdom that redistributive policies necessarily undermine the goals of environmental protection. It shows instead that the form that national environmental protection efforts take - either inclusive (as in Mexico) or exclusive (as in Tanzania and, for the most part, in India) - depends on whether dominant political parties are compelled to create structures of political intermediation that channel peasant demands for forest and land rights into the policy process. This book offers three different tests of this theory of political origins of forestland regimes. First, it explains why it took the Indian political elites nearly sixty years to introduce meaningful reforms of the colonial-era forestland regimes. Second, it successfully explains the rather counterintuitive local outcomes of the programs for formalization of land rights in India, Tanzania, and Mexico. Third, it provides a coherent explanation of why each of these three countries proposes a significantly different distribution of the benefits of forest-based climate change mitigation programs being developed under the auspices of the United Nations. In its political analysis of the control over and the use of nature, this book opens up new avenues for reflecting on how legacies of the past and international interventions interject into domestic political processes to produce specific configurations of environmental protection and social justice. Democracy in the Woods offers a theoretically rigorous argument about why and in what specific ways politics determine the prospects of a socially just and environmentally secure world. *Included in the Studies in Comparative Energy and Environmental Politics Series

How do societies negotiate the apparently competing agendas of environmental protection and social justice? Why do some countries perform much better than others on this front? Democracy in the Woods addresses these question by examining land rights conflicts-and the fate of forest-dependent peasants-in the context of the different forest property regimes in India, Tanzania, and Mexico. These three countries are prominent in the scholarship and policy debates about national forest policies and land conflicts associated with international support for nature conservation. This unique comparative study of national forestland regimes challenges the received wisdom that redistributive policies necessarily undermine the goals of environmental protection. It shows instead that the form that national environmental protection efforts take - either inclusive (as in Mexico) or exclusive (as in Tanzania and, for the most part, in India) - depends on whether dominant political parties are compelled to create structures of political intermediation that channel peasant demands for forest and land rights into the policy process. This book offers three different tests of this theory of political origins of forestland regimes. First, it explains why it took the Indian political elites nearly sixty years to introduce meaningful reforms of the colonial-era forestland regimes. Second, it successfully explains the rather counterintuitive local outcomes of the programs for formalization of land rights in India, Tanzania, and Mexico. Third, it provides a coherent explanation of why each of these three countries proposes a significantly different distribution of the benefits of forest-based climate change mitigation programs being developed under the auspices of the United Nations. In its political analysis of the control over and the use of nature, this book opens up new avenues for reflecting on how legacies of the past and international interventions interject into domestic political processes to produce specific configurations of environmental protection and social justice. Democracy in the Woods offers a theoretically rigorous argument about why and in what specific ways politics determine the prospects of a socially just and environmentally secure world. *Included in the Studies in Comparative Energy and Environmental Politics Series

Few authors have covered the impact on federal rangelands of the political right's attempt to reverse the influence of the environmental laws passed in the 70s and 80s and the GOP's assault on federal courts and plaintiff's attorneys. Shepherd illustrates the critical role of federal courts not only in the protection of public lands and how the Bush administration has set about dismantling this court system as part of its attack on "activist" judges and plaintiff's lawyers, but the fundamental principles of democracy.

Reconnecting with the sources of decisions that affect us, and with the processes of democracy itself, is at the heart of 21st-century sustainable communities. Slow Democracy chronicles the ways in which ordinary people have mobilized to find local solutions to local problems. It invites us to bring the advantages of "slow" to our community decision making. Just as slow food encourages chefs and eaters to become more intimately involved with the production of local food, slow democracy encourages us to govern ourselves locally with processes that are inclusive, deliberative, and citizen powered. Susan Clark and Woden Teachout outline the qualities of real, local decision making and show us the range of ways that communities are breathing new life into participatory democracy around the country. We meet residents who seize back control of their municipal water systems from global corporations, parents who find unique solutions to seemingly divisive school-redistricting issues, and a host of other citizens across the nation who have designed local decision-making systems to solve the problems unique to their area in ways that work best for their communities. Though rooted in the direct participation that defined our nation's early days, slow democracy is not a romantic vision for reigniting the ways of old. Rather, the strategies outlined here are uniquely suited to 21st-century technologies and culture.If our future holds an increased focus on local food, local energy, and local economy, then surely we will need to improve our skills at local governance as well.

In the past, foreign shocks arrived to national economies mainly through trade channels, and transmissions of such shocks took time to come into effect. However, after capital globalization, shocks spread to markets almost immediately. Despite the increasing macroeconomic dangers that the situation generated at emerging markets in the South, nobody at the North was ready to acknowledge the pro-cyclicality of the financial system and the inner weakness of “decontrolled” financial innovations because they were enjoying from the “great moderation.” Monetary policy was primarily centered on price stability objectives, without considering the mounting credit and asset price booms being generated by market liquidity and the problems generated by this glut. Mainstream economists, in turn, were not majorly attracted in integrating financial factors in their models. External pressures on emerging market economies (EMEs) were not eliminated after 2008, but even increased as international capital flows augmented in relevance thereafter. Initially economic authorities accurately responded to the challenge, but unconventional monetary policies in the US began to create important spillovers in EMEs. Furthermore, in contrast to a previous surge in liquidity, funds were now transmitted to EMEs throughout the bond market. The perspective of an increase in US interest rates by the FED is generating a reversal of expectations and a sudden flight to quality. Emerging countries’ currencies began to experience higher volatility levels, and depreciation movements against a newly strong US dollar are also increasingly observed. Consequently, there are increasing doubts that the “unexpected” favorable outcome observed in most EMEs at the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) would remain.

Takes a fresh look at the history of democracy, broadening the traditional view with previously unexplored examples. This substantial reference work critically re-examines the history of democracy, from ancient history to possible directions it may take in the future. 44 chapters explore the origins of democracy and explore new - and sometimes surprising - examples from around the world. Each of the 9 parts introduces the period, followed by 3 to 7 case studies.

An introduction to Nietzsche's political thinking, which traces the development of his thinking on politics from his early writings to the mature work where he advocates aristocratic radicalism as opposed to petty European nationalism. Key ideas - the will