Sustainable Cooperation Research Articles

Cooperative Solutions for Sustainable Resource Management.

/ Many environmental management issues can be defined as allocation problems, e.g., the allocation of rights to use common-pool resources or the allocation of the cost of regional resource development projects. The allocation methods developed in the area of cooperative n-person game theory are most appropriate for these problems because they focus on the conditions for engendering and sustaining the necessary cooperation among the involved stakeholders. These solution concepts seek to ensure that the allocation is based on some norm of equity and, most often, also to minimize the incentive for any player to defect from the cooperative venture. We illustrate these solution concepts with an application to a water resource project in Southern California. We argue how the rigorous mathematical nature of these solution concepts should not hinder their application to actual situations and how, with the use of heuristic rules and inexact notions of comparable worths, we can employ these concepts even in approximate fashion. We remind ourselves that the goal of such an endeavor is to convince stakeholders of the equity of a proposed solution and, in so doing, maximize the prospect of sustained cooperation. The alternative to cooperation, on the other hand, may be endless stalemate.KEY WORDS: Core; Game theory; Equity; Common-pool resources; Sustainabilityhttp://link.springer-ny.com/link/service/journals/00267/bibs/24n2p167.html

Sustainable cooperation as the challenge for a new coastal management paradigm

Coastal management is a collective action. As such, it depends for its effective implementation on the cooperation of a multitude of stakeholders, i.e. civic organizations, economic interest groups, environmental groups, governmental agencies, scientists and other individuals. Where ‘effective implementation’ implies the achievement of targeted objectives within targeted time horizons and ‘cooperation’ connotes that stakeholders elect to pursue cooperative strategies that may yield higher gains for all stakeholders instead of competitive strategies that may maximize individual benefits. Thus, the fundamental challenge of Coastal Zone Management (CZM) is to maximize the effectiveness of this management by maximizing and sustaining stakeholder cooperation. I submit that sustainable cooperation can be maximized and nurtured for its voluntariness only by a process-oriented, cooperative CZM. The alternative, outcome-oriented, normative CZM can force, directly or indirectly, cooperation but it cannot sustain it. My purpose in this paper, is to highlight arguments supporting this view as well as the analytical challenges of cooperative ICZM. Certain points are also viewed in the light of preliminary findings of a research project designed to probe these challenges.

Mapping the prospects for regional co-operation in southern Africa

This article examines the prospects for regional co-operation in southern Africa. It does this by ‘mapping’ southern Africa—that is, by revealing the extent to which five key preconditions for effective and sustainable cooperation are present. These five preconditions—each of whose inclusion is justified in the article—are: the distribution of power, sufficient homogeneity, and adequate regional orientation at economic, political and sociocultural levels. In light of each, the southern African region is explored, to determine the extent to which the precondition is satisfied in this part of the world. Finally, the article advances two key policy-related conclusions. The first is that regional co-operation among the 14 southern African countries will not come easily. The second is that co-operative arrangements that go up the spine of southern Africa appear more likely to yield success than those that cut across the region.

Sustaining co-operation for coastal sustainability

Coastal-zone sustainability policies are socially constructed. It follows that their effective implementation depends on the sustainable voluntary co-operation of stakeholders with competing interests and priorities. No form of integrated coastal-zone management can nurture such co-operation as long as the objective is to determine ‘best’ policies, derived by expert-based rational analysis, instead of seeking to identify ‘correct’ policies, ones that can draw the maximum possible stakeholder support. The latter task requires a co-operative coastal-zone management that incorporates the relevant public discourse into the policy formation process in a direct, proactive and conflict minimizing manner. Towards this end, four major challenges are examined for maximizing the stakeholders' motivation for voluntary co-operation: (1) optimism about the level of optimism; (2) agenda setting; (3) value discourse; and (4) information and empowerment.

A Game-Theoretic Analysis of Class Relationships and Economic Growth with Applications to Spain and Sweden

In this paper, I try to answer two important and unsettled questions in contemporary political economy: (1) Is economic growth through cooperation between capital and labor possible without third party enforcement?; and (2) What are the effects of strong labor power on obtaining cooperation and thus economic growth? I adopt a game-theoretic framework to address these questions in this paper. The theoretical findings suggest the following: (1) Under certain political, economic, and social conditions, capitalists will find it in their interest to invest at a maximum possible level and the labor will find it in their interest to claim as small a proportion of national output as possible. Under these circumstances, high level of investment, coupled with low worker claim over the national output, will create conditions favorable to economic growth; (2) In countries where political and economic conditions are such that workers feel pretty certain about their future, the strong labor can actually initiate economic growth by voluntarily lowering their claim over the national output. I show actual examples of class war, unstable class cooperation, and a sustained class cooperation in the last section of this paper.

Regionalism, nationalism and Realpolitik in central Asia

THEMES OF DISINTEGRATION AND INTEGRATION recently have assumed new prominence in world politics. These issues are epitomised in the emerging relationships within and among the states of the former Soviet Union. During 1990-92 the pendulum swung in the direction of the centrifugal forces of nationalism, contributing to the collapse of the Soviet empire. Despite the fact that these forces have not completely receded, there is recognition that complete disintegration must be avoided lest more imbroglios result. Although the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was established to foster cooperation among post-Soviet states, in many circles it has limited credibility since it is perceived as Russian-dominated and an interlude to a return to empire. For this reason, various non-Russian republics have begun to look towards each other in attempts to resolve common dilemmas as well as move away from the orbit of Moscow. This article will investigate the forces pushing the new Central Asian statesKazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan-towards cooperation and possible integration and those that limit the chances for the emergence of a new 'Turkestan'. All of these states face a legion of daunting problems that seriously threaten their future. These include ethnic turmoil (real or potential), the need to restructure and moderise the economy, state-building from scratch, and severe environmental and public health problems. In addition, their security environment is distinctly questionable, owing in large part to uncertainty over the future policies of their northern neighbour. Alone, each of these states is weak, has an uncertain future and is ripe for exploitation by rapacious neighbours. Together, either in a more formal union or through multilateral cooperation, they could solve many of their common problems and create a more stable and secure environment. Will this be possible? Despite the numerous imperatives that make sustained cooperation an attractive option, this article will argue that multilateral cooperation among Central Asian states, let alone integration, will remain an elusive goal, at least for the foreseeable future. This can be partially explained by Realpolitik: Russia's power in the region and interest in preventing Central Asian unity. However, domestic

持続可能な国際協力の試み 前編 タイ国チェンマイ大学環境工学科との研究協力事業の例

持続可能な国際協力の試み 前編 タイ国チェンマイ大学環境工学科との研究協力事業の例

持続可能な国際協力の試み（後編） タイ国チェンマイ大学環境工学科との研究協力事業の例

持続可能な国際協力の試み（後編） タイ国チェンマイ大学環境工学科との研究協力事業の例

La politique terminologique indonésienne

This paper recalls fifty years of terminological policy in Indonesia. In a country where the choice of the future national language was resolved de facto before its independence but where the elite was mostly speaking Dutch, an Indonesian terminology was to be created in the mid-1940s. After independence the history of Indonesian terminological policy is divided into two periods. The first one (1945-1975) is marked by a defeat; the second one (since 1975) by real advances and a sustained terminological cooperation with Malaysia. But today the lack of means still holds up the terminological activity of the Indonesian language agency which is missing a significant part of the terminological production in Indonesia.

Lobbying Incentives and the Pattern of Protection in Rich and Poor Countries

In seeking to explain why poor countries tend to choose policies that tax agriculture relative to manufacturing while rich countries do the opposite, archetypical parameters for a poor agrarian economy and a rich industrial one are inserted in a computable general equilibrium model to simulate the medium-term effects on income distribution of policies that distort the relative prices of tradables. The model includes a non-tradables sector and intermediate inputs, realistic features that ensure even greater skewness in the distributional effects of protection than simpler models suggest. The magnitude of the results helps explain the tendency for countries to change gradually from taxing to subsidizing agriculture relative to manufacturing as their economies develop. The paper draws out the implications of the analysis for agricultural and trade policy reform in the 1990s.(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

The Children of Atomic Bomb Survivors: A Genetic Study

Health follow-up studies of Japanese atomic bomb survivors have now been in progress for nearly 50 years, a remarkable tribute to sustained scientific cooperation between Japan and the United States since World War II. From the beginning, genetic research has received particular attention. The first population-based work in Hiroshima and Nagasaki involved a large clinical-epidemiological investigation in which all late-term pregnancy outcomes were identified (nearly 77 000 pregnancies over a five-year period, 1948 through 1953) and then studied clinically in relation to parental exposure to bomb irradiation. No differences were found (in frequencies of birth defects, stillbirths, etc), thus allaying the immediate public concern that atomic radiation might spawn an epidemic of malformed children. Identification of the Fl generation continued thereafter for nearly the entire reproductive life of the exposed population (1945 through 1985). That work was coupled with clinical examination of all offspring of exposed parents, together with children

ENCOUNTERS WITH EVIL: CHRISTIANITY AND THE RESPONSE TO SORCERY AMONG THE MAISIN OF PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Scholars writing about Melanesian societies often assume that sorcery and Christianity are incompatible. When I began my research among the Maisin of Papua New Guinea, who have long been Christians, I was a little surprised that they accepted sorcery as a reality. I was most surprised, however, that many Maisin thought Europeans shared their commonsense notions about sorcery. As proof, I was told of how European doctors at town hospitals could recognize 'village sickness' and send those inflicted with it back to be cared for by local healers (Barker 1989). Village elders also said that in the past the missionaries had taught them ways to control sorcery and the discord in the village that gave rise to it. My contention in this paper is that Maisin have good reason to think Europeans know something about sorcery, for Europeans, especially missionaries, played a major if indirect role in forming present-day attitudes towards sorcery in Maisin society. During the high period of missionary activity, between 1901 and 1950, Anglican missionaries and the Maisin collaborated against sorcerers on several occasions. Despite their agreement that sorcerers represented evil, the two parties arrived with very different notions of evil and its treatment, and so these dramatic occasions did not lead to sustained cooperation. But there was an important exception to this. In 1932, a man called Maikin travelled to the village of Wanigela, the seat of the district mission station, to detect and expose sorcerers. Maikin claimed that his amazing ability was a gift of the Christian God, although he had not been baptized. The missionary likened him to an apostle of Christ. The elder Maisin today remember him as a mixture of saviour and sorcerer. Maikin has come to epitomize for Maisin the ambiguous nature of sorcery in a Christian age. This paper examines these encounters, especially those involving Maikin. It studies how through such encounters Maisin and their missionaries gradually reshaped the Maisin's understanding of sorcery and, beyond that, the nature and justification of evil (cf . Burridge 1985; Parkin 1985). I begin by examining sorcery ideology in Maisin society at the time of my fieldwork in the early 1980s, and the stories that surrounded Maikin some fifty years after his mission to Wanigela. I then turn to the historical record to show how these memories developed as a mutual construction of the Maisin and missionaries as they, separately and together, battled the evil of sorcery. The essay concludes with some observations on the relation between the experience of sorcery and Christianity in Maisin society.

Does Cooperation Inhibit War?

The object of the paper is to explicate two opposing intuitions: the belief that peace and security will benefit from international cooperation, and the belief that this is an illusion. The proposition that sustained cooperation inhibits war is taken to rest on two assumptions, one about images and the other about interests. An unfavorable image of the adversary is presumed to promote conflictive action, and cooperation is presumed to make contenders view each other more favorably. At the same time, cooperation is presumed to create values that would be endangered by war and hence to inhibit war by making it more costly. The first part of the paper is devoted to an elaboration of this view. Then, in the second part, several limitations of this theory about the way in which cooperation relates to conflict are identified, including its narrow scope, its limited testability, and its several theoretical weaknesses. The proposition is plausible only with regard to particular contenders and particular circumstances. There is reason to believe domestic-political factors to be important for the link between international cooperation and international conflict.

Interorganizational Policy Implementation: A Theoretical Perspective

During the last decade or so, there has been a virtual explosion of research on the subject of implementation. Some scholars have produced case studies of implementation success or failure in various policy sectors. I Others have aimed at producing a body of implementation theory. Of these, some have been almost exclusively theoretical, while other, mostly later, work has attempted some synthesis and integration of empirical findings into a set of general propositions.3 There have been methodological advances, comparative analyses, and studies of the effects of federal structure on implementation.4 Some analysts have tried to suggest that different categories of policy may have predictably different implementation results, while others have examined the implementability of judicial policies.5 One group of researchers has explicitly adopted a topdown perspective and has sought to find ways of structuring mandates so that implementers will have little chance to exercise discretion.6 Others, however, either have raised general criticisms of such an approach or at least have suggested conditions under which successful implementation would require substantial delegation.' Considerable progress has been achieved in carving out this research field and in developing useful knowledge on the topic of implementation; however, much remains to be done. There is, as yet, no general agreement on a predictive theory of implementation or even on what variables are most important to consider. This paper is an attempt to systematize our knowledge in an important class of implementation efforts, interorganizational implementation. Often mandates require the efforts of two or more agencies for implementation. There are today many patterns of sustained cooperation across agency lines and levels of government, a phenomenon which the growing field of interorganizational theory addresses. How do such patterns begin? Some were obviously responses to policies that

The benefits and dilemmas of an international space station

Serious recommendations have been made about the development and mutual manning of an international space station. The achievements of ESA show that such international organizations can work successfully in high technology projects, although with problems. However, other work on isolated and confined environments suggests that sustained cooperation in the unique quarters of a space station for long durations may have special inter-cultural difficulties that need to be examined before any long term commitment is made. Also, a careful look at international activities in general suggests that in spite of the fact that there are many potential benefits for cooperative activities, there are also many international obstacles. If such an effort is to be embarked upon, it is important to look candidly at the problems that can be generated from the multi-national social, economic, and cultural systems in order to do serious and direct analyses. Such a project might be strangled by unanticipated and complex problems of a socio-cultural nature.

A multidisciplinary investigation of the application of dynamic modeling to the study of telecommunications development in Canada

The potential usefulness of dynamic system models in the evaluation of the development of telecommunications has been investigated by a multidisciplinary team. A dynamic model of northwest Ontario was constructed and tested, while some work has been done towards the construction of models of individual communities within this same region. All these models are based on extensive study and field work by the multidisciplinary team. A major feature is a detailed discussion of how sustained multidisciplinary cooperation was developed during the course of the project, with a special emphasis on the informal coordination appropriate to the conduct of such work, which was on a relatively small overall scale, but involved six different disciplines in a university environment.

The Nature of Industrial Cooperation

The literature of industrial relations is replete with commentary on the desirability of cooperation and the means through which to achieve it; yet nowhere is its exact nature examined. The term cooperation carries at least three different connotations. Economists simply mean a division of labor accomplished by an exchange mechanism. Industrial relations experts with a management bias, designated as the scientists in this paper, seek techniques to make people do what they want them to do and call this cooperation. The institutionalists, so-called in this paper because of their emphasis upon history and institutional development, use the term in the special sense of free men and free groups voluntarily giving their consent to work together. As organized economic groups grow ever larger, the automatic price mechanism so dear to laissez faire economists breaks down as a means of maintaining sustained cooperation. To remove the threat of industrial conflict the scientists have sought natural laws of cooperation to replace the law of supply and demand. In contrast, the institutionalists would replace the law of markets with industrial and political common law aided by special institutional developments. This paper will examine these three approaches to industrial cooperation.