Government Power Research Articles

Who is satisfied with their inclusion in polycentric sustainability governance? Networks, power, and procedural justice in Swiss wetlands

AbstractSustainability governance in polycentric systems needs to ensure both effectiveness and procedural justice. Effectiveness and procedural justice are intricately linked to power dynamics in governance. To assess polycentric sustainability governance, understanding different types, sources, and effects of power is key. Here, we investigate network‐derived bonding and bridging social capital of actors as specific sources of power in polycentric sustainability governance. We ask two questions: How does bridging and bonding social capital translate into power? And: How is the power associated with satisfaction with inclusion? We relate levels of bonding and bridging social capital to power and satisfaction with inclusion in governance processes for 299 actors in 10 cases of Swiss wetlands governance. Using a Bayesian multi‐level regression model, we find that especially bonding social capital is a source of power for actors. Further, network‐derived power but also nonnetwork‐derived power by design translates into satisfaction with inclusion. Research and practice of sustainability governance need to be careful to account for power in nuanced ways, acknowledging its sources and relation to procedural justice.

A Study of the Complexities of Violence in the Horn of Africa Region

This research paper examines the complexities of conflict in the Horn of Africa, with a particular focus on Somalia. The study investigates the multifaceted political, social, and economic factors that contribute to the widespread terrorism and violence prevalent in the region. A central element of this investigation involves an in-depth analysis of the organization known as Al-Shabaab, encompassing its historical roots, current activities, and potential future implications. The paper delves into the historical context of the conflict in Somalia, identifying key events and dynamics that have shaped the current situation. The examination of political factors encompasses an assessment of governance structures, power struggles, and regional and international involvement. Additionally, the study explores social drivers, such as identity issues, religious ideologies, and communal tensions, which contribute to the perpetuation of violence. Furthermore, the research paper addresses the economic dimensions of the conflict, including the role of resources, inequalities, and economic grievances in sustaining instability. A comprehensive evaluation of Al-Shabaab's origins, objectives, and tactics elucidates its significance in the conflict landscape. In seeking potential solutions, the paper considers both short-term measures and long-term strategies to resolve the conflict. The analysis encompasses efforts by regional and international actors, examining their successes and challenges in countering the violence and addressing the root causes. The identification of best practices and lessons learned from previous endeavours inform the formulation of effective approaches for lasting peace and stability. Overall, this research paper presents a thorough examination of the conflict in the Horn of Africa, shedding light on the intricate web of factors contributing to the persistence of violence in Somalia. By elucidating the actions and motivations of Al-Shabaab, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of the conflict landscape. The proposed potential solutions aim to provide valuable insights for policymakers and stakeholders in their pursuit of sustainable peace and development in the region.

Analysis of the factors influencing the effectiveness of local government's purchase of older adults care services - a grounded theory study based on typical cases.

Population aging is a basic national condition in China at present and for a long time to come, forcing the country to accelerate the pace of building its public older adults care system. The government's purchase of older adults care services has become an effective way to make up for the lack of the family's older adults care function, to which the Chinese government attaches particular importance. The article selects 11 typical cases from the excellent case base released by the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs officials in 2022 to study the influencing factors of the effect of local government purchase of older adults care service supply. NVivo data analysis tools have significant advantages in retrieving, analyzing and coding data more efficiently and accurately, which helps to construct theoretical propositions and formulate hypotheses to be tested in qualitative research. The study intends to adopt the grounded theory approach to analyze the text with the help of NVivo12 software, to condense the practice mechanism of local governments' purchasing of older adults care services and to construct a relational model. Taking "the supply effect of local government purchasing older adults services" as the main logic line, the article summarizes the four main influencing factors of the supply effect of government purchasing older adults services: the real demand of the society, the government's power and responsibility system, the government's governance ability, and the society's acceptance ability. The sense of gain, happiness and security of the older adults group is the starting point and landing point of the older adults service policy formulation and implementation. Policy guidance and decision-making have an important impact on the quality of the supply of older adults care services and the development of the older adults care services industry. Clarifying the direction of policy guidance, reflecting the comprehensive efficiency of government governance and utilizing the professional advantages of social forces, is the key to improving the effectiveness of the government's purchase of older adults care services.

On mechanisms to control SiO2 etching kinetics in low-power reactive-ion etching process using CF4 + C4F8 + Ar + He plasma

This work discusses effects of gas mixing ratios and bias power (at 13.56 MHz and 2 MHz) on both gas-phase characteristics and etching kinetics of SiO2 in the CF4 + C4F8 + Ar + He plasma. The subject was the low input power regime (∼0.05 W/cm3). The substitution of C4F8 for CF4 exhibits no principal influence on electrons- and ions-related plasma parameters, produces weakly increasing F atom density as well as causes a comparable increase in the etching rate. The latter is provided by the chemical etching pathway with the nearly constant reaction probability. The substitution of Ar for He sufficiently affects plasma parameters, reduces the F atom density, but accelerates the etching process due to increasing reaction probability. Probably, the latter traces decreasing surface passivation by fluorocarbon radicals. Bias parameters do not disturb bulk plasma, but do influence the etching kinetics through the ion bombardment energy. The growth of etching rate vs. bias power mainly appears due to increasing efficiency of chemical etching pathway. The 2 MHz bias frequency produces lower etching rates in spite of higher ion bombardment energies. This effect is probably due to higher desorption rate and lower sticking probability for F atoms. It was found that most effective parameters to control etching profile are Ar/He mixing ratio and bias frequency.

Meandering rivers that anabranch in the upper Midwest (USA): Prevalence, morphological characteristics, and power regimes

Channel planform is the result of present and past hydrologic, sedimentary, and geologic conditions, and represents an adjustment of fluvial systems to these conditions. An important yet overlooked aspect of planform diversity of rivers in intensively managed agricultural landscapes of the upper Midwest (USA) is the co-occurrence of single-thread meandering and multi-thread anabranching reaches. Recent work on the role of river corridors in critical-zone dynamics of intensively managed landscapes has revealed the existence of juxtaposed meandering and anabranching reaches, yet the prevalence of anabranching reaches within meandering rivers in the upper Midwest is unknown. In addition, the morphological characteristics of these reaches and whether the stream power domain of these reaches differs from that of meandering reaches are also unclear. This paper quantifies the prevalence, planform morphology, and stream power domain of anabranching reaches along numerous lowland meandering rivers in the upper Midwest. Anabranch prevalence is explored for five representative watersheds using Google Earth aerial imagery and airborne LiDAR data. Less than 1 % of the total stream length in these watersheds (∼42,000 km) exhibits anabranching, but no watershed is devoid of anabranching reaches. Most anabranching reaches are characterized by a two-channel looping configuration, although complex anabranches with more than three channels exist at a few locations. Mean bifurcation angles (70° ± 29°) of the anabranching reaches are higher than those of braided rivers (40°-60°), with maximum angles as high as 150°, whereas mean confluence angles (60° ± 28°) fall within the range of junction angles in stream networks (45°-75°). Stream power analysis indicates that the occurrence of anabranching reaches along meandering rivers in the upper Midwest is significantly related to local increases in channel slope. The stream power domain of most anabranching reaches in the upper Midwest falls within that of meandering rivers, although some reaches have power similar to that of braided or wandering gravel-bed rivers. When considered collectively, multi-thread reaches juxtaposed with meandering reaches do not fit neatly into existing classifications of anabranching rivers.

River definitions reciprocally define us

AbstractThis article explores different definitions of river, and in doing so, considers how our efforts to define rivers illuminate aspects of the human condition. Through an exploration of our definitions of river, through the human imagination, in poetry, music, and human's actions, this article considers how our nature is reflected back by rivers—how we in turn are defined by rivers—such as their role in determining borders, movement, escape, the locations of cities, trade, communication, and in the shaping of cultures and societies. This article specifically highlights three definitions of river using examples predominately from North America. River as boundary, exploring how in the reaches of some river basins, rivers act not only as a border, or boundary between two nations or cultures, but also as a line of demarcation between the known and unknown landscapes and the tamed and untamed lands. The definition of river as pathway includes exploration of how the Mississippi River served as a natural highway for people escaping slavery to travel North and reach Underground Railroad routes toward freedom, while also forcibly moving hundreds of thousands of enslaved people in the United States from the Upper South to the Lower South as they were “sold down the river.” Third, this article examines how rivers have been defined as a resource through examples, such as the US government and Bonneville Power Administration's (BPA) efforts, to encourage support of large dam construction and water development projects by hiring Woody Guthrie in 1941 to write songs that would prompt public support for the water projects. Through this discussion of three river definitions, the article considers how rivers have been conceptualized over time and how those different knowledges inform our understanding and treatment of rivers. The article argues that it is vital to include knowledge from across scales, time, boundaries, and ways of knowing in order to improve the protection of rivers and their ecosystems. If we do not, we will continue to lose freshwater biodiversity, wetland and riverine habitat, and their immeasurable qualities that inspire life and imagination at a staggering rate.

Pressure anisotropy and viscous heating in weakly collisional plasma turbulence

Pressure anisotropy can strongly influence the dynamics of weakly collisional, high-beta plasmas, but its effects are missed by standard magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). Small changes to the magnetic-field strength generate large pressure-anisotropy forces, heating the plasma, driving instabilities and rearranging flows, even on scales far above the particles’ gyroscales where kinetic effects are traditionally considered most important. Here, we study the influence of pressure anisotropy on turbulent plasmas threaded by a mean magnetic field (Alfvénic turbulence). Extending previous results that were concerned with Braginskii MHD, we consider a wide range of regimes and parameters using a simplified fluid model based on drift kinetics with heat fluxes calculated using a Landau-fluid closure. We show that viscous (pressure-anisotropy) heating dissipates between a quarter (in collisionless regimes) and half (in collisional regimes) of the turbulent-cascade power injected at large scales; this does not depend strongly on either plasma beta or the ion-to-electron temperature ratio. This will in turn influence the plasma's thermodynamics by regulating energy partition between different dissipation channels (e.g. electron and ion heat). Due to the pressure anisotropy's rapid dynamic feedback onto the flows that create it – an effect we term ‘magneto-immutability’ – the viscous heating is confined to a narrow range of scales near the forcing scale, supporting a nearly conservative, MHD-like inertial-range cascade, via which the rest of the energy is transferred to small scales. Despite the simplified model, our results – including the viscous heating rate, distributions and turbulent spectra – compare favourably with recent hybrid-kinetic simulations. This is promising for the more general use of extended-fluid (or even MHD) approaches to model weakly collisional plasmas such as the intracluster medium, hot accretion flows and the solar wind.

Hybrid classical relay and advanced RISs for performance enhancement of IoT sensor networks with impaired hardware

In this paper, we propose a combination of traditional relay and advanced reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) in an Internet of things (IoT) sensor network. In particular, due to the long-range transmission from IoT sensor to receiver, a traditional relay is deployed between them. To greatly enhance the reliabilities of IoT-relay and relay-receiver communications, two RIS groups are exploited where each RIS group has multiple RISs distributed in different areas. Since the IoT, relay, and receiver are often low-cost devices, the hardware impairments (HI) are taken into account in the proposed system. We derive the closed-form expressions of average symbol error rate (SER) and capacity of the proposed hybrid RISs and relay aided IoT sensor system affected by HI and with direct IoT-relay and relay-receiver links (called as the hybrid RIS-R-HI-Wi system). Then, the performance of the hybrid RIS-R-HI-Wi system is compared with that of the relevant systems such as the hybrid RIS-R-HI system without direct links (the RIS-R-HI-Wo system), the RIS-R-ideal hardware (ID) systems with and without direct links (the RIS-R-ID-Wi and RIS-R-ID-Wo systems), and the traditional relay systems with HI and ID (the R-HI and R-ID systems). The theoretical expressions are validated through Monte-Carlo simulations. Numerical illustrations show the huge benefits of utilizing multi-RIS and relay in the hybrid RIS-R-HI-Wi system. Therefore, the performance of the RIS-R-HI-Wi system is dramatically higher than that of the RIS-R-HI-Wo and R-HI systems. Moreover, a significant performance loss caused by HI and high carrier frequencies is determined. Thus, the SER and capacity of the RIS-R-HI-Wi, RIS-R-HI-Wo, and R-HI systems are saturated in the high transmit power regime. In this circumstance, various effective methods such as reducing the distortion noises caused by the HI, using the suitable carrier frequencies, and choosing the appropriate locations of the RISs should be applied in the hybrid RIS-R-HI-Wi system for improving the performance significantly.

Integration of a high finesse cryogenic build-up cavity with an ion trap

We report on the realization of a hemispherical optical cavity with a finesse of F = 13 000 and sustaining inter-cavity powers of 10 kW, which we operate in a closed-cycle cryostat vacuum system close to 4 K. This was designed and built with an integrated radio-frequency Paul trap in order to combine optical and radio-frequency trapping. The cavity provides a power build-up factor of 2300. We describe a number of aspects of the system's design and operation, including low-vibration mounting and locking and thermal effects at high powers. Thermal self-locking in the high intracavity power regime was observed to enhance passive stability below 1 kHz. Observations made over repeated cool-downs over the course of a year show a repeatable shift between the ion trap center and the cavity mode.

Fiscal decentralization in the nude: Discursive struggles and the stalling of its implementation in Jamaica

Despite an apparently promising start, the decentralization of property tax in Jamaica has never really progressed, nor yet been abandoned. Why is this? This paper adopts a discourse theory perspective to answer these questions. It primarily takes cues from a case study of the Portmore Municipality Council, which was tasked by Jamaica’s central government to implement fiscal decentralization. The initiative was intended to pave the way for further local government reforms in the country in line with new public management (NPM) principles, but something different happened. We conclude that several influential signifiers and signifieds were linked with fiscal decentralization. Mobilized in various politically motivated and overlapping discourses, these served different interests and attracted shifting groups of supporters and contenders, and gradually halted fiscal decentralization. The signifiers and signifieds pertained to NPM, participation, local and central government commitment, entrenchment,11This is the process of legally embedding local government into Jamaica’s constitution. Thereby, it is intended that local government becomes a permanent and protected feature within the Jamaican political landscape. councilors’ lack of skills, nepotism, corruption, and the need for a “fix” for decentralization to progress. They were part of a larger palette of discourses relating to central government power, globalization, and societal and economic progress. The discourses in question made it impossible to abandon fiscal decentralization entirely, because they continued to be in line with the Jamaican political elite’s professed take on NPM, and helped to attract IMF funding.

Low-carbon transition of Southeast Asian power systems – A SWOT analysis

Coal power is regarded as the most important pillar to realize the fast-growing power demand in Southeast Asia. While Southeast Asia is at the crossroads of the power systems transition, the low-carbon power infrastructure development has become a common concern. This study conducts a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis to examine the factors that influence the Southeast Asian power systems' low-carbon transition. Results show that this transition faces many constraints, including the lack of ambitious renewable energy goals, abundant fossil fuels, underdeveloped grid infrastructure, an uncompetitive power regime, high fossil fuel subsidies, insufficient financial support, and low environmental standards for the power sector. Nevertheless, opportunities exist in excellent renewable energy endowments, declining renewable energy generation costs, local governments’ consideration for energy security and technical and financial support from the international community. To promote the low-carbon transition of power systems, it is necessary to integrate renewable energy as a vital component of the post-pandemic economic recovery policy. Coal power should be phased out systematically through clean utilization, flexible renovation, and subsidy reduction. Efforts should be made to advance institutional reform, improve investment and financing mechanisms, upgrade environmental standards, facilitate regional grid connectivity, and deepen international cooperation.

Seeing Green: Lifecycles of an Arctic Agricultural Frontier☆

AbstractImaginaries of empty, verdant lands have long motivated agricultural frontier expansion. Today, climate change, food insecurity, and economic promise are invigorating new agricultural frontiers across the circumpolar north. In this article, I draw on extensive archival and ethnographic evidence to analyze mid‐twentieth‐century and recent twenty‐first‐century narratives of agricultural development in the Northwest Territories, Canada. I argue that the early frontier imaginary is relatively intact in its present lifecycle. It is not simply climactic forces that are driving an emergent northern agricultural frontier, but rather the more diffuse and structural forces of capitalism, governmental power, settler colonialism, and resistance to those forces. I also show how social, political, and infrastructural limits continue to impede agricultural development in the Northwest Territories and discuss how smallholder farmers and Indigenous communities differently situate agricultural production within their local food systems. This paper contributes to critical debates in frontiers and northern agriculture literature by foregrounding the contested space between the state‐driven and dominant public narratives underpinning frontier imaginaries, and the social, cultural, and material realities that constrain them on a Northwest Territories agricultural frontier.

Politics of climate risk management in local government: a case study of the municipality of Stavanger

The case study presented in this paper was conducted to study the politics of local-level climate risk management and discuss these politics' implications for responses to climate change and democratic deliberation. Local government plays an important role in the response to climate change, in particular with reference to coping with unwanted consequences of climate change, such as more frequent and intense extreme weather events, including torrential rain and flooding. Climate risk management is an approach that local government can adopt to deal with these unwanted consequences. To investigate the politics of local-level climate risk management, we conducted a case study of the municipality of Stavanger in Norway. In analyzing this case study, we drew on literature on the securitization of climate change, in particular, that of risk-based securitization of climate change produced by governmental power. The analysis given here is derived by applying the concept of risk logic understood as the translation of unwanted consequences of climate change into climate risk together with the actions and use of tools influenced by the discipline of risk analysis thereby entailed. Risk logic manifests in political discourse, actors, and tools. In this case study, the justification for risk logic on unwanted consequences of climate change at the local level comes from national-level laws and regulations. Moreover, climate risk management is translated into existing bureaucratic routines, organizational structures, and the activities of professionals. Risk tools play an essential role in making unwanted consequences of climate change governable and can manifest as a consequence of risk logic or can convey risk logic. The analysis implies that the securitization of climate change based on governmental power at the local level has a depoliticizing effect on the issue. Moreover, the unique characteristics of unwanted consequences of climate change fade as climate risk is seen as a risk driver to be factored into existing and well-known risks, and thereby normalizes the situation. Finally, the focus on the cause of climate change seems to diminish because safety is a function of the referent objects, and the response thereby becomes decoupled from the wider issue of global warming.

Post-Truth Politics in India’s Right-Wing Ecosystem: An Extended Critical Commentary

ABSTRACT The right-wing movement in India received an impetus in 2014 with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), capturing governmental power at the national level. Among the fundamental traits of the right-wing movement in India, as in America, is what is called post-truth. The latter is a condition where blatant lies (or half-truths) are deliberately produced and spread on a massive scale, for an ideological and political purpose. The post-truth condition has important intellectual and political implications. For example, given its commitment to claims that are without any objective basis, the right-wing movement sees society as divided into groups on the basis of subjective criteria (e.g., religion). Thus it denies the objective basis for seeing a society as class-society. It also concomitantly denies the state as class-state. A directly political implication of post-truthism is the accumulation of lies by means of the suppression of dissent. The right-wing movement, including its post-truthism, does not hang in the air, however. It has a solid political-economic foundation. This article critically discusses the post-truth character of India’s right-wing movement, and explains how it is that the overall character of India’s capitalist economy is behind this. The broader arguments of the article have wider applicability beyond India.

On the Performance of SPAD-Based Optical Wireless Communication With ACO-OFDM

The nonlinear distortion introduced by the dead time strongly limits the throughput of the highly sensitive SPAD-based optical wireless communication (OWC) systems. Optical OFDM can be employed in the systems with SPAD arrays to improve the spectral efficiency. In this work, a theoretical performance analysis of SPAD-based OWC system with asymmetrically-clipped optical OFDM (ACO-OFDM) is presented. The impact of the SPAD nonlinearity on the system performance is investigated. In addition, the comparison of the considered scheme with DCO-OFDM is presented showing the distinct reliable operation regimes of the two schemes. In low optical power regimes, ACO-OFDM outperforms DCO-OFDM with around 4 dB power gain achieved by 16-QAM ACO-OFDM over 4-QAM DCO-OFDM. However, DCO-OFDM is in turn more preferable in high power regimes which extends the maximal tolerable received optical power by 7.4 dB.

PRACTICE OF POWER IN ILKHANATE: ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION AND SOCIAL EXCHANGE

<p><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: 'Cambria',serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;" lang="EN-US">Ilkhanate was a Mongol empire located in Persia. There were cultural changes and different forms of practice in exercising government power. However, despite the significance of understanding the practice of power in the Ilkhanate through the lens of communication theories, there is a research gap in exploring the specific dynamics of intercultural communication and social exchange theory within this context. Therefore, this study aims to fill this research gap by examining the interplay between power and communication in the Ilkhanate, mainly through the principles of intercultural communication and social exchange theory. The methodology employed in this research is a comprehensive literature study. The findings of this article highlight the inseparability of communication and power, emphasizing the role of intercultural communication in facilitating harmonious relations between diverse nations, including considerations of race, religion, and customs. Additionally, the rulers of the Ilkhanate strategically employed communication and adapted their policies to gain support from local communities, such as Persians and Arabs, particularly by catering to the Muslim population. This research contributes to understanding power practices and strategies in the Ilkhanate by elucidating their alignment with intercultural communication and social exchange theories.</span></p>

지방자치법 제28조 제1항 단서 위헌 논증

Article 117, Paragraph 1 of the Constitution stipulates, “Local governments shall deal with administrative matters pertaining to the welfare of local residents, manage properties, and may enact provisions relating to local autonomy, within the limit of Acts and subordinate statutes.” Local governments seem to be able to independently enact ordinances within the scope of the law. By the way, Article 28, Paragraph 1 of the Local Autonomy Act states, “Local governments may enact ordinances regarding their affairs within the scope of laws and regulations. However, when determining matters concerning restrictions on residents’ rights or imposition of obligations or penalties, there must be a legal delegation.” Regarding matters concerning the restriction of residents' rights or the imposition of duties, ordinances can only be enacted when delegated by law. The key argument for the argument that this provision is not unconstitutional is Article 37(2) of the Constitution. Since Article 37 Paragraph 2 of the Constitution stipulates that fundamental rights can only be restricted by law, the proviso of Article 28 Paragraph 1 of the Local Autonomy Act only confirms it. However, such an argument is not valid. Although Article 37 Paragraph 2 of the Constitution stipulates that fundamental rights cannot be restricted except in the form of law, Article 117 Paragraph 1 of the Constitution stipulates that, as an exception, local governments can voluntarily enact ‘regulations on autonomy’. is revealing This provision contradicts Article 37(2) of the Constitution, but remains in force. This is because they are norms that are in the same ranking as each other. Furthermore, Article 117, Paragraph 1 of the Constitution has the effect of excluding the application of Article 37, Paragraph 2 of the Constitution. This is the result of the principle of priority over the special law. As such, the limitation of Article 37, Paragraph 2 of the Constitution, which states that fundamental rights cannot be restricted except by law, does not apply to self-government affairs. However, the proviso of Article 28, Paragraph 1 of the Local Autonomy Act contradicts the self-governing legislative power of local governments secured by Article 117, Paragraph 1 of the Constitution. A lower law that is in conflict with a higher law cannot continue in force. Article 107(1) of the Constitution presupposes this. Therefore, the proviso of Article 28(1) of the Local Autonomy Act is unconstitutional. This cannot be justified. In the case of restriction of fundamental rights, there is a justification review process, but if the restriction of authority is recognized, it is immediately judged as unconstitutional and does not go through justification review. President Moon Jae-in's constitutional amendment stipulates the proviso to Article 28, Paragraph 1 of the Local Autonomy Act in the Constitution. President Moon Jae-in's constitutional amendment bill proclaimed that it was oriented toward local autonomy and added several constitutional provisions, but it diminished its meaning by elevating the proviso to Article 28, Paragraph 1 of the Local Autonomy Act to the constitution.

We Too Are Governments! Decentralisation, Pandemic and Climate Change Challenges

The book discusses in detail the power and capabilities of local governments in India and how it can be leveraged for a seamless administration. Rich in examples and data from multiple states of India, the compilation carefully evalutes the role of decentralisation and its uses at present and in future. The book review presents the important concepts of decentralisation, anecdotes, ways to uplift the administration presented in the book in a nutshell. The success of managing covid-19 pandemic by various panchayats and municipalities, operating community kitchens and the strengths of these decentralised arms of government in effectively tackling climate chnage challenges along with ensuring rural -urban development are presented in a very lucid manner in the book and the same are highlighted in the review. The reviewer mentions in detail certain drawbacks of the book by citing relevant examples thus providing a critical evaluation of the compendium. The book is suited for academicians, students, researchers, and even policy makers. It is compiled in a way so that the layman can also comprehend the importance of decentralisaton and people's participation for a better nation.

The UK Infrastructure Bank and the financialization of public infrastructures amidst nationalist neoliberalism

Literature on the financialisation of infrastructure gives limited attention to public banks. Since public banks are key state institutions to enable and shape financialisation, more research is needed to show how they mediate financialisation processes amidst evolving social, political and economic pressures. To address the gap in existing literature, this article develops a case study on the UK Infrastructure Bank to examine how the bank enables financialisation whilst maintaining credibility with the United Kingdom's neoliberal-nationalist regime. The findings show that the UKIB is a centralised, technocratic institution which deploys de-risking interventions to attract private investment, including guarantees, equity shares and debt financing. Yet, these interventions enable projects which offer limited public value, such as debt financing to fuel over-investment in fibre broadband markets, or equity investments in infrastructure funds which perpetuate the dominance of short-term, extractive investment logics. To maintain credibility with the neoliberal-nationalist regime, the UKIB's governance strengthens the central government's power over its activities, allowing it to shape the post-Brexit policy agenda and target investment to specific constituencies. While the UKIB boosts the profitability of infrastructure assets for private investors, it also exposes regions to extractive logics that undermine the potential public benefits. The findings show how public banks can be used to coordinate and bolster support for financialisation, yet, the use of de-risking interventions to catalyse financialisation is often at odds with generating long-term public value.

Review of the Researches on China􀆳s Ecological Environment Governance from the Perspective of Political Economics

The issue of ecology and environment is not only a technical and economic issue, but also a political one. The literature on environmental governance from the perspective of political economy can be divided into four categories: the perspective of governance capabilities of local government, the perspective of local government competition, the perspective of “government-enterprise collusion”, and the perspective of power balance. These four types of literature generally show a change from the benevolent government hypothesis to a self-interested government, from a holistic methodology that takes local governments as the unit of analysis to an individualist methodology that takes individual officials as the object of research, a change from a focus on the superficial reasons such as the government's ability to governance and the effectiveness of the policy to deep-seated reasons such as the power structure of the pluralistic subjects of society. This paper argues that ecological environmental protection involves the interests of multiple subjects, but the imbalance in the distribution of power and the pattern of interests among the subjects, and the excessive power of local government to speak and the insufficient ability of the public to participate in society, has led to the distortion of the environmental protection system in its implementation. This is why there local government has been behind all the major environmental pollution incidents in the country in recent years, and why almost all environmental pollution problems are obvious violations of existing laws and regulations, rather than a lack of institutions. The “interest-power-institution” equilibrium perspective provides a powerful theoretical framework for a comprehensive understanding of the prevention and control of ecological damage.