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Electronic Government (e-gov) research is mainly applied research serving a rapidly growing field of practice. Hence it is torn between academic analysis and practice demands for solutions to immediate problems. The research field has grown rapidly and now features several journals and a huge amount of conferences. Research quality is important to positively influence practice, but it takes time for a research field to settle with focus, borders, and quality standards. This paper follows up on an earlier study (Grönlund, 2004), which found quality lacking, by assessing 117 papers from two e-gov conferences, E-GOV 2005 and HICSS 2006, using rigor and relevance criteria derived from a straightforward maturity model. We find that since the last measurement, e-gov research papers on average are increasingly technically rigorous, increasingly descriptive (as opposed to analytical), increasingly product descriptions, and increasingly focus on IT rather than government, society, or individuals/citizens. Some potential explanations to the findings are discussed, and the paper concludes by discussing the issue of the nature of e-Government research - are we headed towards academic maturity or rather towards production of technical artefacts to support industry in a short-term perspective? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2000 election called attention to the need for assessing the usability of voting systems and accelerated the introduction of electronic voting systems across the United States. An expert review, usability laboratory study, and field study were conducted to assess six electronic voting systems and four vote-verification/election audit systems. Though most of the systems were evaluated favorably, there were significant differences among them in the difficulty of correcting mistakes, casting a write-in vote, or changing a vote. The differences could be traced to characteristics of the systems, such as the use of automatic advancing, mechanical navigation, and a full-face ballot. It required more time and movements to cast a ballot on some systems; the more time and movement required, the lower the satisfaction ratings. Systems also differed in the frequency with which help was needed. Most voters succeeded in casting their votes as intended, but several types of errors were found, including voting for an opposing candidate. Ballot type greatly affected performance. In addition, certain voter characteristics related to the digital divide had an impact on their voting experiences. There were noteworthy differences in voters' assessments of the verification systems; these were related to ease of use, extent of distraction, and the need for help. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of the formation and dissolution of alliances of voters aiming to increase their voting power is relatively new. The present note is a sequel to our earlier paper on this subject (see Felsenthal and Machover 2002). Since the latter's publication, we have obtained some new results which can be viewed also as a complement to some of the results obtained by Gelman (2003). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter asks: Is Digital (or electronic) Government (DG) a legitimate new field of research? If so, what aspects of government should be studied, and why? Since DG is obviously an interdisciplinary endeavor, which disciplines can or should play a role, and why? How can they interact? Is it likely that a single integrated language, research methodology, project style, and structure of research paper will evolve, and if so, what might this hybrid look like? The chapter presents a model in which government is viewed from three perspectives. First, the technological. As a processor of information, government uses the results of ICT research and development, as performed by computer scientists and human factors specialists. This begs the question: which new technologies should be designed and built, and why? Second, therefore, the normative. The idealized (or at least improved) functioning of government, which tends to be the purview of political scientists, ethicists, and legal scholars, must furnish models toward which new ICT and its deployment can strive. In turn, this begs the question: how well does newly-enabled ICT-enriched government actually do? Third, therefore, the evaluative. This involves the challenges of studying the effects of using technology on society and government itself, enterprises that tend to be the domain of some sociologists and public administration researchers, and, within government, of organization management and information systems specialists. The chapter suggests that good research in DG, and good DG research papers, should combine these three perspectives, thereby including in each study all three aspects: technological, normative, and evaluative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the concepts of ˵Ruler of Saint″ of Confucius with ˵Philosopher King″ of Plato as well as Confucius' ideology of Ratification of Names with Plato's Justice. It reveals the huge gap between the two thinkers in their seemingly similar political thoughts. The basic duty of the Ruler of Saint is to educate, while the basic duty of the Philosopher King lies in fundamental reform and the process of selecting and cultivating the successors. The concept of Ratification of Names is conservative and reactionary while the idea of justice is revolutionary and radical. Although both the two great thinkers stress on the virtue of people, one cannot jump to the conclusion that they simply replace the idea of Rule-of-Law with the idea of Rule-of-Men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over recent years there have been a number of attempts at integrated approaches being taken to water and flood risk management. Recent flooding events in Europe have triggered discussions about giving rivers back their nature (floodplains in stead of dikes). However, the emphasis tends to be on finding space for flood water in rural areas in order to protect the urban areas. The question how to deal with major floods in urban areas has not received much attention, and as yet the delivery of increased system resilience as defined by de Bruijn (2005) is a major challenge. In a resilient approach the focus is on accommodating flood waters, with concurrent impact minimalization and rapid recovery. Spatial solutions (diversification of defense levels for different land uses according to their vulnerability) may provide important opportunities to reduce flood impacts, whereas flood proofing of buildings enhances the recovery capacity of the system. In this paper it is argued that cities play an important role in driving the transition to adaptive flood management approaches across different spatial and temporal scales. Yet, at the moment there are a number of bottlenecks which have so far hampered the adoption and effective implementation of flood risk management into urban planning practices. As such the recent Urban Flood Management (UFM) project, which aims at the development and verification of UFM strategies and methodologies in the cities of Dordrecht, Hamburg and London, may provide relevant practical examples to address these issues. These experiences could contribute to national and European policy making, such as input for the EU Flood Directive. This paper discusses the background and challenges to the UFM project, and also shares the first insights from this international umbrella project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous arguments have been put forward regarding the need for a major change in water resources management. In particular increasing awareness of the impacts of climate change has lead to the insight that water management must be become more flexible in order to deal with uncertainties and surprise. This paper argues for a paradigm shift through the development and implementation of integrated and adaptive water management approaches. Adaptive management is defined here as a systematic process for improving management policies and practices by learning from the outcomes of implemented management strategies. Development and implementation of adaptive management approaches requires structural changes in water management regimes. Such changes are slow due the inertia inherent in prevailing regimes. Concepts for understanding water regime properties and transition processes are summarized. Emphasis is given to the role of actor platforms and processes of social learning in multi-level governance regimes. The paper concludes a strong recommendation to implement learning cycles as an integral part of water management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a conceptual solution to the complex problems of water management the concept of Integrated Water Resources Management [IWRM] has recently come to prominence. Though institutional transfer of IWRM from international to domestic arena has been widespread, this process is arguably under-researched. This paper attempts to address this problem by looking at the area of history and theory of IWRM, in particular focusing on how deeper analysis of the conceptual framework of IWRM can enhance the current understanding of the institutional transfer of IWRM. The paper consists of three parts. The first part deals with the history of the IWRM concept and its relations with other theories [e.g. integrated resource management, strategic planning]; the second part is devoted to globalization of IWRM and introduces the notion of policy transfer networks as applied to water governance; and the third part analyzes the on-going process of institutional transfer of IWRM to Guney-Dogu Anadolu Projesi [GAP] project in Turkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arising from concerns that integrated and adaptive water resources management (I/AWRM) may not be sufficiently tailored to certain kinds of complex environments, this article examines their design through a governmentality framework, positing that I/AWRM could be enhanced by increasing accountability and local appropriateness through citizen's actions that address or are situated in three types of domains — spatial units termed ‘holons', hydrological regime ‘phases' and problem-solving ‘tasks' — an exercise termed ‘domanial'. For reasons explained in the paper, the geoeconomic scope of this paper are countries as in Sub-Saharan Africa where climatic variability and widespread irrigation dominates river basins that in turn have limited capacity for well-financed administration commonly seen in Europe. The need to recognize irrigation in adaptive water management is born from the great proportion of freshwater depleted by the sector and its effects on water shortages and behaviors in other sectors. Because of these characteristics, there is a risk that in irrigated semi-arid environments, IWRM (with a regulatory emphasis on managing water use to effect water allocation between sectors in large river basin units) or adaptive versions of IWRM (emphasizing iterative refinement and wider system complexity) will not engender satisfactory outcomes. The relevance and definitions of domains are explored in the paper, as is a brief policy discussion on domanial water resources management (DWRM). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the fact that the study of influence is the central task of the historian of economic thought, there is no generally accepted theory of influence either in the social sciences or in the history of economic thought. Foundational methodological issues such as influence on what and by what means and tracing and measuring influence are the subjects of this paper. The paper is both a commentary on the present understanding of influence in the history of economic thought and a prolegomenon to a more general theory of influence in the history of economic thought. It focuses on how the ideas that make up the corpus of economics are transmitted from one economist to the other. The conclusion is that no general theory of influence for the history of economic thought is possible at the present time. A general theory may never be possible because different scholars will probably continue to interpret the term "influence" differently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the econometric issues related with spatial estimation in the context of the property tax set by Italian municipalities in 1993-2001. Using a comprehensive dataset of Italian cities, the paper finds that there are no significant differences in tax rates set by municipalities. Key words: Local property tax; Strategic interactions among governments; Yardstick competition; Spatial auto-correlation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses trust as a form of social capital, that is, as a social resource which works as a facilitating condition of successful action coordination and social cooperation. It also discusses responsibility as a special source of trust. Coleman (1988) defines social capital in terms of its function of which, roughly, the following features are required: it is a property of a social structure which helps its individual or collective members' successful action, that is, the function which is called social capital makes it easier for those actors to reach their goals (Putnam 1995). Fukuyama (1999) says that social capital is ‘an instantiated informal norm that promotes cooperation'. He does not mention social structure as Coleman does, and Coleman does not mention cooperation as Fukuyama does. These two defi- nitions may aim at a common idea, but their details disagree radically. Some social capital theorists talk about trust as a factor which exemplifies social capital, but if we believe in Coleman's structural definition, it may be dif- ficult to see how the most demanding forms of trust fit in. Fukuyama explicitly allows for trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Power is commonly defined as the control exercised by one or more persons over the choices, behaviours and attitudes of another or others. In this paper we focus on a different form of control, i.e., the control that a person exercises on her own choices, behaviours and attitudes. We conceptualize this different form of control by using the Millian idea of autonomy freedom. We argue that the power required for an individual to be in control of her own actions is exercised through her level of autonomy freedom. Autonomy freedom is, therefore, instrumental for an individual to have self-control over her own life. We claim that the extent of autonomy freedom significantly affects an individual's attitudes toward income inequality. More specifically, we point out, and empirically demonstrate, that individuals who enjoy high levels of autonomy freedom value income differences more than those whose degree of autonomy freedom is low [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussions of freedom, liberty, rights, and power are often extremely confusing and in fact confused because they take place in a conceptual mine- field. This paper does not claim to solve any of the deeper riddles of such discussions. Instead of this it tries to side step some of the most problematic and difficult issues by confining itself to publicly or politically provided ‘guarantees'. This seems reasonable since disputes about many legal and social policy issues related to freedom, liberty, rights, and power centre around such provisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we compare proposal power to veto power within the context of a majority-rule voting system, such as a legislature. To illustrate the issues involved, consider the following scenario: P can propose a bill, which is then enacted if a majority (M) of legislators vote in favour of the bill and V (for veto player) agrees to its passage. P could stand for the committee system in the US House of Representatives, where a committee brings a bill to the floor of the house. V would then stand for the president who can veto a bill.1 And even if the President does not veto the bill, the Supreme Court might find the bill unconstitutional. So the Supreme Court can be seen as a veto player, as well. When does the proposer have more power than the veto player? More generally, what is the outcome if there are several proposers and/or veto players? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The chapter focuses on a critical assessment of the latest declaratory policy of the Brazilian government as expressed in the 2005 Brazilian Defence Policy Document. This does not correspond to a white paper or to a national security policy but, as it results from an extensive process of political bargaining, it does express contemporary Brazilian conceptualizations of security authoritatively. We speak of ‘conceptualizations', in the plural form, since it does not express a single, or even a dominant, conception. Its appreciation sets the stage for the historical consideration of the trajectory that can explain its nature, introducing the presentation of the philosophical, ethical, and cultural contexts and issues of the Brazilian conceptualization of security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In beginning to understand the phenomenon of electronic government, it will be useful to look at the history of the World Wide Web (WWW) as it swept through U.S. government agencies. At first, the Web was used by agencies for making public paper documents available online. Quickly it became apparent that Internet technologies could be used to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of government service delivery to citizens and other government agencies, yet many technological and public policy challenges would need to be solved when working in the electronic or digital government domain - e-Government faces different challenges than eBusiness. The U.S. National Science Foundation understood the need for identifying these challenges and in response to the research community and government practitioners established a digital government research program in 1997. This chapter provides context, background, case studies, references and the history of the digital government research program in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The international community has affirmed the human right to water in a number of international treaties, declarations and other documents. Most notably, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights adopted in November 2002 a general comment on the right to water setting out international standards and obligations relating to the right to water. Based on the UN concept of water as a human right for selected Arab countries in the Middle East (Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon)1 it is analyzed if and to what extent these concepts are acknowledged. The paper aims to identify the scale of knowledge of and commitment to the UN concept in the region and is meant to identify the main areas of concern in each country regarding water as a human right. The paper summarizes the main challenges facing strategic and coordinated action towards the UN concept of water as a human right, identifies what types of processes and institutions need to be developed to meet the challenges of the concept and provides best practice examples from countries that have shown innovation. Objectives and priority ideas for activities of NGOs are recommended [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we deal with the topic of deconcentration in two Italian metropolitan areas: Rome, the capital city; and Chieti-Pescara, a medium-sized urban area. The paper reveals the particular patterns of deconcentration in those areas, exemplifying the Italian approach to deconcentration. These metropolitan areas show that deconcentration is an undesired phenomenon; enterprises choose peripheral areas for their lower costs on the real-estate market and for better accessibility; central locations are still favoured by the ICT sector and the front office functions in the tertiary sector; and deconcentration is showing an upward trend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gerrymandering - the artful and partisan manipulation of electoral districts - is a well known pathology of electoral systems, especially majoritarian ones. In this paper, we try to give theoretical and experimental answers to the following questions: 1) How much biased can the assignment of seats be under the effect of gerrymandering? 2) How effective is compactness as a remedy against gerrymandering? Accordingly, the paper is divided into two parts. In the first one, a highly stylized combinatorial model of gerrymandering is studied; in the second one, a more realistic multiobjective graph-partitioning model is adopted and local search techniques are exploited in order to find satisfactory district designs. In a nutshell, our results for the theoretical model mean that gerrymandering is as bad as one can think of and that compactness is as good as one can think of. These conclusions are confirmed to a large extent by the experimental results obtained with the latter model on some medium-large real-life test problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European press agencies heralded the adoption of the "Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe" of 29 October 20042 as the creation of the "first European Constitution" in the history of Europe.3 In contrast, both the European Court of Justice (ECJ)4 and probably the majority of EU-lawyers5 have long been arguing that a European Constitution has come into being quite some time before 2004. In that vein, this paper starts off with the idea that, although the Constitutional Treaty of 2004 certainly is a mile-stone in European integration, it did not create an original European Constitution. Instead, the European Constitution has emerged, evolved and matured in a process, which was as early as 1978 identified as the "constitutionalization of the Treaty of Rome".6 Coined in US-American legal scholarship, the term "constitutionalisation" referred to the law-making activity of the ECJ, notably to the judicial creation of the legal principles of direct effect and supremacy of EC/EU-law.7 Meanwhile, the initial academic focus on the ECJ as a constitution-maker has given way to a broader concept of constitutionalisation. When speaking of the constitutionalisation of the Union, lawyers today mean the step-by-step transformation of the EC/EU into a political system which rests on a constitutional basis.8 In conformity with this usage, I employ the term "constitutionalisation" as a short-hand for the emergence of European constitutional law within the European legal order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ‘Convention on the Future of Europe' assembled 105 full members and 102 alternates as well as observers and a plethora of external actors from think tanks, NGOs or business lobbies. Its task was Herculean: "to consider key issues arising for the Union's future development", and at the same time to "pave the way for the next Intergovernmental Conference as broadly and openly as possible" (Laeken Declaration, 25). In terms of cleavages, arguably, it was more complex than any prior institution charged with preparing treaty change, since it included not only government representatives from member states, accession countries and prospective members, but also representatives of national parliaments, the European Parliament and the Commission. This paper addresses a basic question: how can we understand the relative success of the Convention? What were those characteristics of the Convention's proceedings that finally made it possible to reach ‘consensus' on a single text entitled ‘draft treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe'? What were the conditions and mechanisms that allowed for dealing with the hitherto most broadly formulated mandate for treaty change? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of economic regulation originally found its way into the public choice literature in Stigler's (1971) paper in the Bell Journal of Economics. The paper was a restatement of the time-honored capture theory of regulation, though unlike his precursors, Stigler formulated the capture theory as a testable economic model. He also showed several innovative ways to test the theory. Posner (1973) offered an assessment of how well the theory of economic regulation stacked up against competing theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the individual choice literature about the causes of the collective decision by legislators to delegate decision-making authority to executive agencies, and about the consequences of agency discretion. Discretion is the power or the right of deciding according to one's own judgement. If the legislature decides to delegate to the executive rather than to decide for itself, the legislature is cast as a principal, the bureau as an agent. When legislatures are bicameral and executive power is separate, the bureau is an agent with multiple principals. The first part of this paper examines what we know about why such legislatures sometimes delegate to bureaus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

William C. Frederick made it quite clear in his paper why Conceptual Foundations of Business was a book that made a difference.1 With its publication in 1961 Richard Eells and Clarence Walton provided "much food for thought" for the leaders of the corporate community, schools of business administration, and makers of public policy. The purpose of this paper is to reflect on what it was like trying to implement these and similar ideas. Would these ideas encounter a friendly or hostile environment? Would business school faculties be eager to present them to their students and to embrace and expand upon them in their research? Who would teach and research these new, multidisciplinary concepts, ideas and theories? Would an infrastructure develop to support an emerging business and society field of management study? If so, would it become an integral part of the management education establishment? Was the national accrediting agency for collegiate schools of business prepared to provide the leadership needed to meet the challenges that these ideas presented to management education. These ruminations about such issues span a period of approximately twenty years beginning around 1960. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines a set of criteria for processes that aim to attain sustainable river basin planning at the regional scale. The criteria answer to the lack of deductive methodologies for the assessment and development of participatory approaches to water planning. They are derived from the two concepts and sustainability principles participation and integration. The criteria are here explained and their use is illustrated by presentation of the results and conclusions from two case studies. The first case concerns an assessment of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD). — In what ways does the WFD support or obstruct processes for sustainable water management? The second case concerns the ongoing planning processes in Sweden that follow from the implementation of the WFD. The cases show that the criteria work well in achieving their purpose as their use resulted in practicable proposals for taking the studied planning objects closer to meeting the criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated the impact of climate change in the Aral Sea basin (Central Asia) using long term observational time series of three indicators - air temperature, precipitation, and change in river discharge. For each indicator data of approximately 200 measurement locations (hydrological and meteorological stations) were considered. Changes and trends in the data were identified using statistical methods and modeling. Missing data in individual time series were estimated using correlations between related stations. The results show that the annual air temperature in Central Asia started to increase considerably after 1950. The time series of mean annual temperatures show trends of increasing temperatures of varying magnitude. At some stations temperature trends are affected by human activities, especially in the vicinity of larger cities. On the contrary, no trends in precipitation or an increase in the amount of precipitation could be detected in the Central Asian region. No relation between precipitation and temperature increase could be detected. Increasing temperatures accelerate the degradation of glacier fields in the Pamir and Tian Shan mountains which are a major source of river runoff in Central Asia. The reduction in glacier area and changes in precipitation patterns will alter the flow regime of the rivers — a fact that has been stated before. In this article we present an assessment of the magnitude of the expected changes based on available climate related data and provide examples of the implications of climate change on the flow regime of the river. Analysis of river runoff time series revealed that total runoff has so far changed only little. However, the shape of the hydrograph has changed, which will have strong impacts on the main water users, especially irrigated agriculture. Given the observed and expected impact of climate change in the Aral Sea Basin and the large uncertainties of predicting future river runoff the paper concludes that new water management approaches are needed that can cope with increasing variability and uncertainty in water availability and their consequences for current and future water users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water development projects often fail, which represents a poor outcome given the limited progress against the Millennium Development Goals in providing people with adequate water and sanitation services. This may not be surprising given that water management has been identified as being in the complex system domain. According to the Cynefin framework, many traditional approaches are not suitable; but it suggests an approach based on the methods of probe, sense and respond. In line with this general framework, a participatory assessment methodology has been used to explore experiences in the atoll town of Tarawa in the Republic of Kiribati. After framing the case study, information was collected providing multiple perspectives and these include narrative sources. When reviewing previous experiences, project implementations are seen as probes or disturbances to the system from which patterns of behaviour can be sensed. For this purpose, the critical factors leading to success or failure are described using network representations. These are then used to inductively sense system patterns, and the conclusions thereupon reinforce key recommendations in a recent United Nations report. Additionally, the findings in this paper feed into a larger study where Agent-based simulation and Bayesian networks are used in a participatory setting for integrated assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mandate for making decisions on allocation of freshwater resources in New Zealand has been devolved to regional councils by the Resource Management Act (RMA) enacted in 1991. The RMA promotes a sustainable management approach to integrated management of air, water and land. Growing demand for an increasingly scarce supply of sustainably allocatable water under a relatively buoyant market-led export economy based on primary production has increased competition and conflicts between different stakeholders. Regional councils have found it difficult to satisfactorily address such conflicts under the current RMA institutional framework and conflicts have escalated in regions such as Central Canterbury. As discussed in this paper, the objective of the Sustainable Groundwater Allocation Research project is to identify and address the underlying causes of these conflicts with the aim of enhancing the potential for integrated water management in New Zealand through adaptive governance. Progress to date suggests that institutional arrangements for water governance that facilitate strategic planning based on collaborative multistakeholder processes with cognitive and social learning are key ingredients in this quest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Models play a central tool in the development and implementation of management strategies. In this paper we identify four major modeling purposes that are important for understanding and managing complex socioenvironmental systems: prediction, exploratory analysis, communication and learning. Each of these purposes highlights different system characteristics, role of uncertainty, the properties of the model and its validation. We argue that uncertainty has no meaning in isolation, but only relative to a particular modeling activity and the purpose for which a model is developed (e.g., when a model is developed for predictive purposes uncertainty needs to be eliminated as much as possible, while when a model is developed for exploration uncertainty can be considered a source of creative thoughts). Here, we specifically investigate the implications different purposes have in dealing with uncertainties. We present a set of strategies modelers can use to guide their developments. In light of these concepts, the modeling activity is re-contextualized, from being a process that aims at representing objectively an external reality, to one that can only be defined according to the characteristics of the problem at hand: its level of complexity, the knowledge available, the purpose of the model and the modeling tools. We present an example from the adaptive management field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature addressing international river basin regimes has largely focused on either local institutional arrangements or international institutional arrangements. The focus has been primarily on the linkages between the national layer and the international layer but not between local and international layer. This is consistent with the dominant international relations theories that focus on inter-state relations. Consequently, there is almost no systematic study of how actors at the local layer link to international layer and vice versa. In the Rhine River Basins, both practitioners and scholars have assessed the crucial role of local actors and industries in governance of international river basin regime. However, these assessments fall short of addressing how local actors are crucial and how they are linked to the international layer. This paper investigates how institutional drivers at the local layers link to the international layer and how the linkages characterize vulnerability and adaptability of international river basin regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the first completed version of the Management and Transition Framework developed in the NeWater1 project. The framework is an interdisciplinary conceptual framework supporting the analysis of water systems and management regimes to improve the scientific understanding of system properties and to give practical guidance for the implementation of transition processes towards more adaptive systems. The framework integrates a range of concepts to develop a more coherent understanding of the complexity of water management regimes. Specific emphasis is given to adaptive capacity and learning processes. The framework has been developed in a participatory process involving a wide range of researchers from different disciplines. The framework development process made thus an important contribution to the process of integration within the project. The current version of the MTF is a combination of graphical representation and narratives and divided into three components for the usage in research or practical implementation. The framework will be tested and refined in an interactive process between case study implementation, comparative analyses and generic concept development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last few years, there has been intense political debate concerning the rightful use of coercion in the international sphere. Strong political forces have maintained that in addition to being inefficient, the current international authority, the United Nations (UN), is neither necessary nor desirable for the realization of international justice. This is seen not only in how recent efforts to improve and strengthen the UN are met with considerable resistance from powerful nations, but also by the fact that individual nations claim it rightful unilaterally to use coercion to solve conflicts in the international sphere. Though many other voices have argued that we need the UN, especially to enforce human rights internationally, there is little explanation why justice necessarily requires an international authority, rather than merely one or more just, strong nations. Therefore, current sentiment in favour of maintaining the UN is rarely supported by cogent justification that the UN is in principle necessary for international justice. From a philosophical point of view, the state of the contemporary debate is good evidence that we need to rethink the status of a distinctly international authority. In this paper, I take a first stab at this task by arguing with Kant that international justice is in principle impossible without an international and cosmopolitan authority. The proposed account can explain why due respect for human rights and mutual respect of sovereignty among internally just states is possible only through the establishment of a transnational authority. The implication of this argument is that the liberal ideal of international political obligations is non-voluntarist in nature, meaning that states do not in principle have the right to resist the establishment of an international authority to regulate their international interactions. Moreover, the justification for an international authority is not linked to the typical aggressiveness of states. Even if all states are non-aggressive, I argue, they are still obligated to establish an international authority, since its establishment is a precondition for international justice. Only an international authority can enable rightful relations among states, because only it can put the interacting parties under universal laws and therefore also have standing to rightfully solve conflicts and use coercion with regard to states' interactions. In addition, I explore Kant's arguments that justice requires international trade as well as interactions between just states and visiting, alien private individuals to be regulated by a cosmopolitan authority. Both arguments strengthen the conclusion that the liberal ideal of transnational political obligations must be non-voluntarist, even if, as Kant argues, it is prudent to pursue the establishment of this authority voluntarily. A particular advantage of the position is its promise for solving several recalcitrant problems in current international politics, such as issues concerning rightful borders, trade—including the operation of multinationals in illegitimate and aggressive states, and the rights of stateless persons. The argument defends the conclusion that coercion in the international sphere is rightful only if authorised by an international and cosmopolitan authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Criticism of the legitimacy, or better, illegitimacy, of global governance institutions (GGIs) is common. Yet, there has been little systematic theorizing on the subject. The primary objective of this paper is to provide a conceptual and structural framework for understanding and assessing judgments about the legitimacy of GGIs. GGIs include multilateral organizations such as the World Bank, World Trade Organization (WTO), and International Criminal Court (ICC), as well as various less formal transnational judicial and regulatory networks. The framework I articulate and defend falls short of a general theory of legitimacy for GGIs. We do not yet know enough about GGIs to work out a general theory. But we do know enough to work out a partial theory, one that might frame and render more productive further investigations into GGIs and their legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I want to consider some directions for transforming transnational power from a power over people's lives to something more democratic. This issue is posed concretely by the development of economic and technological globalization led by large transnational corporations that move freely around the world, new multilateral institutions like the WTO and the IMF, emerging forms of cross-border political linkages and also new global threats of violence and environmental degradation. We can observe that these contemporary developments have not been accompanied by democratic control or even accountability of new political, social, and economic institutions to the people operating within them, despite the modes of transnational communication that this globalization may introduce. The question before us, then, is whether transnational forms of social, political, and economic power can become more responsive to people's individual and collective decisions, such that the institutions can facilitate people's power to act together rather than exercising power over them. But in order to deal with the question of how this transformation might occur, we need a clearer understanding of the nature of transnational power, and even more basically of power itself. This will also entail distinguishing power from coercion, with important implications for understanding the forms that transnational democratic governance might take. These implications concern the degree to which democratic transnational power has to be exercised through coercive means or instead whether it can operate in a way more congruent with people's equal freedom and their social cooperation, rather than depending so heavily as at present on either state power or juridical supremacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I argue that Brown's willingness to employ violence to bring an end to slavery in the United States was justified for a citizen who believed his nation guilty of brutalizing and murdering innocent persons, in violation not simply of his religious convictions but also of that nation's legitimating political morality. My argument specifically addresses the problem of legal obligation and the standard liberal rejections of violent civil disobedience. These views typically define ‘civil disobedience' so as to preclude violence, relegating violent means to the aims of revolution and militant resistance. In contemporary popular language, such views must depict Brown as either a ‘terrorist' or a ‘freedom fighter,' thus disallowing his inclusion among the ranks of civilly disobedient citizens who wish to reform, rather than overthrow, existing political orders. I argue that Brown can be regarded as a civilly disobedient citizen whose recourse to violence was a reasonable response to the institutionalized oppression and daily torment of millions of innocent persons when persuasion and normal political recourse became futile. Further, I suggest that Brown's conduct was not merely permissible but was, in fact, in accordance with basic natural duties to promote justice by combating gross injustice. The state's claim to legitimacy when it comes to coercion does not always preclude a valid claim on the part of citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coercion has been conceptually connected with threats. Under the standard account of coercion, threats propose to make the victim "worse off" than his or her baseline, or where he or she was before the proposer intervened in the victim's causal nexus. This model of coercion that focuses only on the notion of threats does not go far enough to capture cases where the victim's vulnerability is taken advantage of to accomplish the coercion. In the kinds of cases I have in mind, no threats are used or needed. Clinical trials conducted in developing nations, for example, are at risk of taking advantage of the vulnerabilities of the subjects that can rise to the level of coercion. In this paper, I will consider the question whether in some instances clinical trials with vulnerable populations involve coercion that is accomplished not with threats but rather through offers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efforts to measure voter preferences and attitudes in the quadrennial U.S. presidential elections extend across the months-long campaign, starting well before the initial state-level primaries used to pick each party's nominees and continuing through the parties' political conventions and, later, the debates held between the major candidates. ABC News and The Washington Post commissioned TNS to conduct the sampling, data collection and tabulation for their pre-election polling in 2004, culminating in a 32-night tracking poll in the campaign's final weeks. This paper describes the tracking poll process and reviews methodological issues (e.g., interview day of week and number of callbacks) as well as examining the political polling issue of weighting respondents to party identification. The discussion and supporting tables/graphs show that, for the most part, these factors had surprisingly little impact on the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore the political basis of the New Deal, with special reference to agricultural programs in the South. An analysis of specific New Deal programs is largely missing from the literature. To that end, we investigate federal emergency relief efforts targeting agriculture—one of the hardest hit sectors of the economy and one of the Roosevelt administration's top priorities. Our analysis suggests that the cross-state distribution of agricultural relief was guided more by President Roosevelt's electoral strategy and by the interests of the members of key congressional agriculture committees than by objective economic need. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the changing fortunes of the smuggling operations of South Sinai Bedouin. The Bedouin are a link in the international drug traffic delivering hashish and other drugs to the inhabitants of the Nile Valley. The full-scale entry of the South Sinai Bedouin into drug smuggling began around 1950, and in less than two decades smuggling grew into a major industry. At its zenith it provided about 30% of the aggregate income of the Bedouin population. Then smuggling stopped almost overnight, for during the 15 years of Israeli occupation, from 1967 to 1982, the crossing from the Sinai Peninsula into mainland Egypt was too dangerous for the operators. During my fieldwork in South Sinai, which overlapped with the Israeli occupation, most of the Bedouin were working as migrant laborers and a handful entered the budding local tourist industry, so that the loss of income from smuggling did not cause them economic hardship. But the leaders of the smuggling gangs remained at home, and it was quite easy to meet them. They appeared to be inactive, but I soon realized that they were working hard at keeping the smuggling organizations alive: they fostered the ties with members of their former gangs and looked after their mountain retreats. They were convinced that the political and economic situation would sooner or later change, and that drug smuggling would once again become feasible. Other Bedouin too acted to forestall an uncertain future: they maintained orchards and small flocks, which at that time yielded no income, as an economic reserve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the 2001 ITANES survey data and documents a number of empirical regularities in the media usage of the Italian electorate during the 2001 electoral campaign. Voters that expose themselves predominantly to Mediaset news programs are much more prone to vote for the centre-right coalition and voters that are exposed to RAI news are substantially more likely to vote for the centre-left coalition. Multiple regression analysis shows that this polarization can be partially explained by voters' ideological leaning and opinions on policy issues and has instead much to do with evaluation of the political leaders and trust in the television channels. However, an unexplained higher propensity of Mediaset viewers to vote for Forza Italia persists. The results are used for a reflection on the quality of public deliberation in the Italian democracy. Key words: Media attitude, elections, television. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Italy, as in many other western countries, a substantial proportion of health care is financed by the public sector. The health care system has been widely reformed and a separation between purchasing and delivering the service has been enforced to mimic the structure of a competitive market in order to improve efficiency. The organization of the internal market can, however, vary among Regions. The aim of this paper is to assess the relative merits of the different forms of organization for secondary care in a context of information asymmetry. We show that both private and public hospitals can pursue objectives that are not compatible with cost minimization. In this environment the role of the purchaser and the Region is fundamental: unless they enforce hard budget constraint rules, the system might end up being a source of deficit which will ultimately undermine the reform and its long-run sustainability. Key words: Internal markets, asymmetry of information, hospital care, privatization, Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade in Italy several Independent Authorities (IAs) were created. The relevance of the delegated functions and the variety of sectors involved led lawyers to refer to a "structural redistribution of power within the Italian political-institutional system". As a parliamentary democracy, the issue at stake is the delegation of power to IAs independent from the executive branch and referring only to Parliament. Therefore, IAs are to be viewed as an alternative to the executive branch and to the bureaucracy within it. In terms of the division of powers, IAs can be considered as a kind of fourth branch, though outside any constitutional provision. The paper analyses the Italian IAs from a political economy perspective, aiming at proposing some tentative answers and at providing insights to settle a possible agenda for future research on this subject. A specific case study, the Public Works Authority (PWA), will be analyzed to offer some tentative remarks on the determinants of political decision-making about IAs. Key words: Independent Authorities, delegation, Public Work Authority, political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper verifies the effects of reforms in budget approbation rules in Italy during the 1980-2001 periods using a standard public choice model of fiscal performance and nonlinear principal component evaluation of the changes in the degree of stringency of budget rules. While the Italian reforms are evaluated relative to those carried out in other European countries, the model isolates the impact of such reforms on the country's fiscal performance. Key words: budget rules, fiscal performance, nonlinear principal components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following Havrilesky's seminal work (1995) and its extension by Maier et al. (2002) we construct a monthly index of external influences on Bank of Italy's conduct for the period 1984-1998. This paper describes the index of overall pressure on Italian monetary policy and the five sub-indexes of which it is composed. We evaluate whether Bank of Italy responded to pressure by estimating Taylor rules augmented with the pressure indexes. We conclude that in some cases external pressures did affect Bank of Italy's action. Key words: Policy; Taylor Rule; Pressures on Monetary Policy; Bank of Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A change in workplace technologies may affect the relative earnings of workers in at least two distinct ways. One is through the market for skill, the other through workers' power in relation to their employers. Increases in earnings inequality since the late 1970s in many industrial economies — and in particular, in liberal market economies like the US and UK — have been explained by many economists as a consequence of skill-biased technological change (SBTC). However, the evidence cited for SBTC can be read instead as evidence that new technologies affect the distribution of earnings not through supply and demand, but through changes in the relative power of different groups of employees. The reasons for these changes are detailed in Guy (2003) and the implications are analyzed more formally by Guy and Skott (2005) and Skott and Guy (2007). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In one of the earliest attempts to examine the effect of a priori voting power on actual political phenomena, Riker (1959) looked at changes in party affiliation in the French National Assembly in 1953-54, and used these data to test the hypothesis that deputies who switched parties were seeking thereby to increase their a priori voting power. His findings were negative, or at best inconclusive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today's emergency management environments geoinformation technologies play a vital role, but their potential has not been fully exploited. Key decision makers usually do not have direct access to Geographic Information Systems and if they receive access, complex user interfaces often hinder performance for high pressure tasks. In order to provide decision makers with direct and easy access to geoinformation in emergency situations and support group collaboration, we developed three collaborative geoinformation platforms: the Multimodal Interface Platform for Geographic Information Systems (GeoMIP), the GeoCollaborative Crisis Management platform for mobile collaboration and a web-portal for humanitarian relief logistics. The technologies developed are intelligent, multimodal (speech and gesture-based) user interfaces that allow synchronous and asynchronous collaboration between decision makers; support GIS use by mobile emergency management teams; and provide open standards-based web portal technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) exist in a semi-arid region where the overwhelming use of water is for agriculture. The water deficit that faces each can be closed either by importing food, importing water, achieving higher productivity per unit of water input, or manufacturing water by techniques such as desalination. The problem arises because of autarky in the production of water and the absence of an international trading market for water. Each country can only use the water within its borders or the water it can pilfer from its neighbor if it is an upper riparian. It is as if every country was confined to the energy it could produce within its own borders and did not have access to imported energy on an international market. Obviously, no one would countenance this policy condition for a moment - very few countries could survive in this regime - and the immediate answer would be to trade energy through an international market. But this is precisely what is not done with water. Absent an international trading market, water flowing down its natural course can create national security conflicts and sometimes wars among neighboring countries that share a common water resource, whether it be fresh water above ground in a river or below ground in an aquifer. In the context of water issues between Israel and the PA, this paper will explore problems of water pricing, the relationship between food and water security, the feasibility of an international trading market for water in the 21st century, and how such an arrangement compares in price and efficiency with the principal alternative, desalination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]