Pub Date : 2016-07-18DOI: 10.12924/CIS2016.04010028
M. Hisschemöller
This paper addresses the question under which conditions small-scale urban agriculture (UA) initiatives can accelerate a sustainability transition of the global food system. It develops the notion of a glocal garden, a large number of likeminded local initiatives with a global impact and forms of worldwide collaboration. Taking a transition perspective, the glocal garden, producing vegetables and fruits, is a niche that has to overcome barriers to compete with the dominant food regime. Since a sustainability transition restructures (policy) sectors, institutional domains including knowledge systems, the paper explores which innovations are needed for the glocal garden to succeed. It discusses the glocal garden as an environmental, a social, an economic and a global project. As an environmental project, the glocal garden will link sustainable production of food with renewable energy production. As a social project, it will be organized into a consumers’ cooperative. As an economic project, it will strive for profit, increasing the yield in a sustainable manner. As a global project, it will enhance collaboration between local cooperatives in the North and the South, as well as with rural agriculture. Under these conditions, the glocal garden can develop into a power, able to resist a possible future food regime that splits societies, in terms of quality standards and food products, into haves and have-nots.
{"title":"Cultivating the Glocal Garden","authors":"M. Hisschemöller","doi":"10.12924/CIS2016.04010028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12924/CIS2016.04010028","url":null,"abstract":"This paper addresses the question under which conditions small-scale urban agriculture (UA) initiatives can accelerate a sustainability transition of the global food system. It develops the notion of a glocal garden, a large number of likeminded local initiatives with a global impact and forms of worldwide collaboration. Taking a transition perspective, the glocal garden, producing vegetables and fruits, is a niche that has to overcome barriers to compete with the dominant food regime. Since a sustainability transition restructures (policy) sectors, institutional domains including knowledge systems, the paper explores which innovations are needed for the glocal garden to succeed. It discusses the glocal garden as an environmental, a social, an economic and a global project. As an environmental project, the glocal garden will link sustainable production of food with renewable energy production. As a social project, it will be organized into a consumers’ cooperative. As an economic project, it will strive for profit, increasing the yield in a sustainable manner. As a global project, it will enhance collaboration between local cooperatives in the North and the South, as well as with rural agriculture. Under these conditions, the glocal garden can develop into a power, able to resist a possible future food regime that splits societies, in terms of quality standards and food products, into haves and have-nots.","PeriodicalId":9944,"journal":{"name":"Challenges in Sustainability","volume":"4 1","pages":"28-38"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2016-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66248822","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-06-21DOI: 10.12924/CIS2016.04020001
P. Fenton, Henner Busch
An increasing body of literature explores the role of transnational municipal networks (TMNs) in governing sustainable development. As associations, one key task of TMNs is to represent their members through production and dissemination of information and knowledge concerning municipal action for sustainable development. Case studies, often emphasising best practice, are used by many TMNs to fulfil this task. Nevertheless, despite strong scrutiny concerning the use of case studies in “policy mobilities” research, there have been limited attempts to quantify the ways in which TMNs present and disseminate case studies and, by doing so, generate trends of presence and absence in literature on sustainable development. Assessing patterns of representation for continents, countries, municipalities and themes across nine international case study collections published by ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability since 1991, this study responds to this research gap and identifies the presence of “usual suspects” in the ICLEI case study collections, along with notable absentees. By doing so, the study contributes to policy mobilities research and literature on TMNs, by encouraging reflection and further research concerning the representation patterns influencing which municipalities and what topics are presented in discourses on sustainable development.
{"title":"Identifying the “Usual Suspects”: Assessing Patterns of Representation in Local Environmental Initiatives","authors":"P. Fenton, Henner Busch","doi":"10.12924/CIS2016.04020001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12924/CIS2016.04020001","url":null,"abstract":"An increasing body of literature explores the role of transnational municipal networks (TMNs) in governing sustainable development. As associations, one key task of TMNs is to represent their members through production and dissemination of information and knowledge concerning municipal action for sustainable development. Case studies, often emphasising best practice, are used by many TMNs to fulfil this task. Nevertheless, despite strong scrutiny concerning the use of case studies in “policy mobilities” research, there have been limited attempts to quantify the ways in which TMNs present and disseminate case studies and, by doing so, generate trends of presence and absence in literature on sustainable development. Assessing patterns of representation for continents, countries, municipalities and themes across nine international case study collections published by ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability since 1991, this study responds to this research gap and identifies the presence of “usual suspects” in the ICLEI case study collections, along with notable absentees. By doing so, the study contributes to policy mobilities research and literature on TMNs, by encouraging reflection and further research concerning the representation patterns influencing which municipalities and what topics are presented in discourses on sustainable development.","PeriodicalId":9944,"journal":{"name":"Challenges in Sustainability","volume":"4 1","pages":"1-14"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2016-06-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66249016","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-05-24DOI: 10.12924/CIS2016.04010020
Antonia D. Bousbaine, C. Bryant
How can research contribute more directly to promoting and leading to sustainable solutions and projects? This article suggests that one of the most important research approaches capable of achieving this is the Action Research approach. This involves the researcher taking on a number of roles when working with other actors (e.g. citizens, farmers, local elected officials, citizen associations, government representatives. . . with the specific set of actors depending upon the nature of the subject being investigated and for which solutions are sought). The roles that the researcher can play involve providing appropriate information to the other actors, providing counseling to them, organizing and animating meetings with the actors, and accompanying the whole process involving all the actors. These roles are essentially played out by the researcher when the other actors request the researcher to assume whichever roles they consider to be significant. The fundamental notion is that through this process the actors appropriate the sustainable solutions as their own, and the researcher helps them achieve this. This article is based on: a) a synthesis of pertinent research using the Action Research approach (specifically in relation to sustainable agricultural systems in periurban territories), and b) specific research undertaken by the two co-authors of the article, all in the context of periurban agricultural systems during the last 8 years, as well as on some of their publications. The necessary characteristics of Action Research and the researchers involved are identified, namely: a) patience; b) an emphasis on process; and c) an emphasis on participation on the part of multiple actors.
{"title":"Action Research: An Essential Approach for Constructing the Development of Sustainable Urban Agricultural Systems","authors":"Antonia D. Bousbaine, C. Bryant","doi":"10.12924/CIS2016.04010020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12924/CIS2016.04010020","url":null,"abstract":"How can research contribute more directly to promoting and leading to sustainable solutions and projects? This article suggests that one of the most important research approaches capable of achieving this is the Action Research approach. This involves the researcher taking on a number of roles when working with other actors (e.g. citizens, farmers, local elected officials, citizen associations, government representatives. . . with the specific set of actors depending upon the nature of the subject being investigated and for which solutions are sought). The roles that the researcher can play involve providing appropriate information to the other actors, providing counseling to them, organizing and animating meetings with the actors, and accompanying the whole process involving all the actors. These roles are essentially played out by the researcher when the other actors request the researcher to assume whichever roles they consider to be significant. The fundamental notion is that through this process the actors appropriate the sustainable solutions as their own, and the researcher helps them achieve this. This article is based on: a) a synthesis of pertinent research using the Action Research approach (specifically in relation to sustainable agricultural systems in periurban territories), and b) specific research undertaken by the two co-authors of the article, all in the context of periurban agricultural systems during the last 8 years, as well as on some of their publications. The necessary characteristics of Action Research and the researchers involved are identified, namely: a) patience; b) an emphasis on process; and c) an emphasis on participation on the part of multiple actors.","PeriodicalId":9944,"journal":{"name":"Challenges in Sustainability","volume":"4 1","pages":"20-27"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2016-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66249124","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-05-17DOI: 10.12924/CIS2016.04010010
F. Mancebo
May urban agriculture be the cornerstone that helps reconfigure more sustainable cities and if so, under which conditions? And if so, what type of urban agriculture? Such are the two issues underlying this article. Why not counteracting urban sprawl by fostering what could be called “rural sprawl†, by introducing nature and rural characteristics such as farming within the city, in its interstitial areas and wastelands? In this perspective, urban agriculture becomes a common good, bringing people together and reshaping the whole urban fabric that would eventually propose a radical remaking of the urban. Urban agriculture lends particularly well to long-lasting urban policies, especially those turning environmental “bads†—such as brownfields and wastelands—into environmental “goods†and urban amenities. Urban agriculture in interstitial abandoned urban areas may be one of cities’ main seedbeds of creative innovation. It is all about the right to decide and the power to create, renewing and deepening what Henri Lefebvre called The Right to the City.
{"title":"Urban Agriculture, Commons and Urban Policies: Scaling up Local Innovation","authors":"F. Mancebo","doi":"10.12924/CIS2016.04010010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12924/CIS2016.04010010","url":null,"abstract":"May urban agriculture be the cornerstone that helps reconfigure more sustainable cities and if so, under which conditions? And if so, what type of urban agriculture? Such are the two issues underlying this article. Why not counteracting urban sprawl by fostering what could be called “rural sprawl†, by introducing nature and rural characteristics such as farming within the city, in its interstitial areas and wastelands? In this perspective, urban agriculture becomes a common good, bringing people together and reshaping the whole urban fabric that would eventually propose a radical remaking of the urban. Urban agriculture lends particularly well to long-lasting urban policies, especially those turning environmental “bads†—such as brownfields and wastelands—into environmental “goods†and urban amenities. Urban agriculture in interstitial abandoned urban areas may be one of cities’ main seedbeds of creative innovation. It is all about the right to decide and the power to create, renewing and deepening what Henri Lefebvre called The Right to the City.","PeriodicalId":9944,"journal":{"name":"Challenges in Sustainability","volume":"15 1","pages":"10-19"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2016-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66249058","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-04-25DOI: 10.12924/CIS2016.04010003
P. Donadieu
There are several categories of urban agriculture which need to be distinguished if we want to efficiently feed urban inhabitants with local agricultural produce while benefiting from other functions filled by urban agricultural landscapes: namely, eco-systemic functions or ecological and social functions. The second function will focus on methods to regulate unbuilt land in urban areas which have virtually no regulations and others which have strict controls preventing construction. The last will consist of possibilities to build, what I would refer to as, urban agricultural commons: in other words, tangible and intangible resources produced with farmers and gardeners for the inhabitants; for their local consumption and for the quality of the living environment, based on a political principle for common action. The concept of common is derived from the works of socioeconomist E. Ostrom (1990; [1]) and French philosophers P. Dardot et C. Laval (2014; [2]): “What is built in common†. It was applied to urban agriculture and landscape (Donadieu, 2012, 2014; [3,4]). The concept of urban agriculture has been used worldwide in the last twenty years by researchers, especially in France by A. Fleury (2005; [5]) and P. Donadieu(1998; [6]), in Mediterranean regions (Nasr and Padilla, 2004; [7]), in Asia, Africa and North and South America—all through the publications of the Resource Centres Urban Agriculture & Food Security (RUAF; [8]).
如果我们想要有效地为城市居民提供当地农产品，同时受益于城市农业景观所填补的其他功能，即生态系统功能或生态和社会功能，那么需要区分城市农业的几个类别。第二个功能将侧重于如何规范几乎没有规定的城市地区未建设土地和其他严格控制防止建设的土地。最后一种将包括建造的可能性，我称之为，城市农业公地:换句话说，农民和园丁为居民生产的有形和无形资源;为了他们当地的消费和生活环境的质量，基于政治原则共同行动。共同性的概念来源于社会经济学家E. Ostrom (1990;[1])和法国哲学家P. Dardot et C. Laval (2014;[2]): €œWhat是建立在common_€。将其应用于都市农业和景观(Donadieu, 2012, 2014;[3,4])。在过去的二十年里，城市农业的概念已经在世界范围内被研究人员使用，特别是在法国，A. Fleury (2005;P. Donadieu(1998;b[6])，在地中海地区(Nasr和Padilla, 2004年;b[7])，在亚洲、非洲、北美和南美——所有这些都是通过城市农业与粮食安全资源中心(RUAF;[8])。
{"title":"Building Urban Agricultural Commons: A Utopia or a Reality?","authors":"P. Donadieu","doi":"10.12924/CIS2016.04010003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12924/CIS2016.04010003","url":null,"abstract":"There are several categories of urban agriculture which need to be distinguished if we want to efficiently feed urban inhabitants with local agricultural produce while benefiting from other functions filled by urban agricultural landscapes: namely, eco-systemic functions or ecological and social functions. The second function will focus on methods to regulate unbuilt land in urban areas which have virtually no regulations and others which have strict controls preventing construction. The last will consist of possibilities to build, what I would refer to as, urban agricultural commons: in other words, tangible and intangible resources produced with farmers and gardeners for the inhabitants; for their local consumption and for the quality of the living environment, based on a political principle for common action. The concept of common is derived from the works of socioeconomist E. Ostrom (1990; [1]) and French philosophers P. Dardot et C. Laval (2014; [2]): “What is built in common†. It was applied to urban agriculture and landscape (Donadieu, 2012, 2014; [3,4]). The concept of urban agriculture has been used worldwide in the last twenty years by researchers, especially in France by A. Fleury (2005; [5]) and P. Donadieu(1998; [6]), in Mediterranean regions (Nasr and Padilla, 2004; [7]), in Asia, Africa and North and South America—all through the publications of the Resource Centres Urban Agriculture & Food Security (RUAF; [8]).","PeriodicalId":9944,"journal":{"name":"Challenges in Sustainability","volume":"4 1","pages":"3-9"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2016-04-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66248994","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-04-20DOI: 10.12924/CIS2016.04010001
F. Mancebo, S. Salles
Urban agricultural projects have been mushrooming since the end of the twentieth century, reshaping urban landscapes and even the whole urban fabric, experimenting with alternatives to the traditional urban life, sometimes creating new commons, and bringing people together. Within a city, farmers, gardeners, and their neighbors share more than just fence lines. Cities already have a huge potential for farming. Three examples can be observed in very different cities around the World: Singapore, is fully self-reliant in meat, Bamako is self-sufficient in vegetables, and in Berlin there are 80,000 community gardens on communal land and 16,000 more people are on a waiting-list [1]. And this is just the beginning; in many cities new unbuilt areas emerge in the wake of deindustrialization (derelict lands, wastelands, brownfields, etc.), or as a consequence of urban shrinking due to aging populations (as in Japan or Germany), or of emigration (as in some African mid-sized cities). These new areas are a wonderful opportunity for urban agriculture. In Detroit, thousands hectares of urban land have been given over to unemployed workers for food growing. In Britain, urban agriculture has been promoted on wastelands of 20 cities by their various councils [2]. Urban agriculture is gradually becoming a planning policy option. In Delft, the planners of the city already combine urban agriculture with several other land uses in their planning documents; in Paris, an inclusive local land development plan protects agricultural landscapes [3,4]. Urban agriculture is neither—or no more—the short-lived remnant of a rural culture nor the hipsters' latest futile craze.
{"title":"Urban Agriculture: Fostering the Urban-Rural Continuum","authors":"F. Mancebo, S. Salles","doi":"10.12924/CIS2016.04010001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12924/CIS2016.04010001","url":null,"abstract":"Urban agricultural projects have been mushrooming since the end of the twentieth century, reshaping urban landscapes and even the whole urban fabric, experimenting with alternatives to the traditional urban life, sometimes creating new commons, and bringing people together. Within a city, farmers, gardeners, and their neighbors share more than just fence lines. Cities already have a huge potential for farming. Three examples can be observed in very different cities around the World: Singapore, is fully self-reliant in meat, Bamako is self-sufficient in vegetables, and in Berlin there are 80,000 community gardens on communal land and 16,000 more people are on a waiting-list [1]. And this is just the beginning; in many cities new unbuilt areas emerge in the wake of deindustrialization (derelict lands, wastelands, brownfields, etc.), or as a consequence of urban shrinking due to aging populations (as in Japan or Germany), or of emigration (as in some African mid-sized cities). These new areas are a wonderful opportunity for urban agriculture. In Detroit, thousands hectares of urban land have been given over to unemployed workers for food growing. In Britain, urban agriculture has been promoted on wastelands of 20 cities by their various councils [2]. Urban agriculture is gradually becoming a planning policy option. In Delft, the planners of the city already combine urban agriculture with several other land uses in their planning documents; in Paris, an inclusive local land development plan protects agricultural landscapes [3,4]. Urban agriculture is neither—or no more—the short-lived remnant of a rural culture nor the hipsters' latest futile craze.","PeriodicalId":9944,"journal":{"name":"Challenges in Sustainability","volume":"1 1","pages":"1-2"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2016-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66248622","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Concerns about sustainable development are not a recent phenomenon. Societal problem-solving efforts within this realm have focused on concrete problems such as the preservation of fisheries, forests and national reserves. 'The Politics of Sustainability' has been discussed extensively in literature, particularly after the publication of the Brundtland Commission's 'Our Common Future' report in 1987 [1] emphasizing inter-generational responsibilities involving economic, environmental and social aspects. Among other areas, the authors of the report highlighted the challenge of global climate change resulting from, amongst other things, unsustainable patterns of consumption. 'The Politics of Sustainability: Philosophical Perspectives', edited by Dieter Birnhacher and May Thorseth, brings a new angle into the discussion of the politics of sustainable development: ethical considerations.
Pub Date : 2015-12-03DOI: 10.12924/CIS2015.03010016
P. Ibisch
The globe's first carbon projects were designed and implemented approximately 20 years ago following scientific insights that emissions of greenhouse gases needed to be mitigated. Visible in some of these early projects were the important aspects of social governance and local benefit sharing. The projects promised to be a panacea to environmental, social and economic problems in remote rural areas of developing countries. However, it took another decade before a wave of hundreds of carbon projects were launched. Many of the projects were offered under the mechanism of REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation, plus the role of conservation, sustainable forest management and carbon enhancement), as well as under a variety of voluntary schemes and national programs, public-private partnerships, and forestry-based investment initiatives. As decision-makers prepare the Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climatic Change in Paris (COP21), Earthscan has released a book entitled `Carbon conflicts and forest landscapes in Africa', edited by Melissa Leach and Ian Scoones. According to the editors, the focus of the book is on what happens on the ground when carbon forestry projects arrive, what types of projects work, and, equally important, what doesn’t work.
{"title":"Time for Decarbonization of Conservation and Development Projects? The Political Ecology of Carbon Projects","authors":"P. Ibisch","doi":"10.12924/CIS2015.03010016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12924/CIS2015.03010016","url":null,"abstract":"The globe's first carbon projects were designed and implemented approximately 20 years ago following scientific insights that emissions of greenhouse gases needed to be mitigated. Visible in some of these early projects were the important aspects of social governance and local benefit sharing. The projects promised to be a panacea to environmental, social and economic problems in remote rural areas of developing countries. However, it took another decade before a wave of hundreds of carbon projects were launched. Many of the projects were offered under the mechanism of REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation, plus the role of conservation, sustainable forest management and carbon enhancement), as well as under a variety of voluntary schemes and national programs, public-private partnerships, and forestry-based investment initiatives. As decision-makers prepare the Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climatic Change in Paris (COP21), Earthscan has released a book entitled `Carbon conflicts and forest landscapes in Africa', edited by Melissa Leach and Ian Scoones. According to the editors, the focus of the book is on what happens on the ground when carbon forestry projects arrive, what types of projects work, and, equally important, what doesn’t work.","PeriodicalId":9944,"journal":{"name":"Challenges in Sustainability","volume":"3 1","pages":"16-17"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2015-12-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66248437","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2015-09-30DOI: 10.12924/CIS2015.03010001
Stefan Wurster
This paper tries to identify the fiscal sustainability record of democratically and autocratically governed countries by applying various performance indicators (credit worthiness, payment defaults, national debt, foreign assets) and also to clarify what effect the characteristics of a regime have on consolidation efforts in a country. The study identifies two key findings. While in the past, democracies have clearly found it easier to preserve their credit standing and solvency and to avoid government bankruptcy, a similar advantage can no longer be detected for democracies in terms of reducing national debt and foreign debts. Why democracies, in spite of their arrangements with a sensitivity for the public good and for due process, are finding it so difficult to avoid shifting their debts to future generations, to undertake cutback measures and to provide sufficient financial foresight, can in principle be interpreted as the other side of the coin, namely highly presence-oriented interests boosted even further through the short "democracy-specific time horizon".
{"title":"Sustainability of Fiscal Policy in Democracies and Autocracies","authors":"Stefan Wurster","doi":"10.12924/CIS2015.03010001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12924/CIS2015.03010001","url":null,"abstract":"This paper tries to identify the fiscal sustainability record of democratically and autocratically governed countries by applying various performance indicators (credit worthiness, payment defaults, national debt, foreign assets) and also to clarify what effect the characteristics of a regime have on consolidation efforts in a country. The study identifies two key findings. While in the past, democracies have clearly found it easier to preserve their credit standing and solvency and to avoid government bankruptcy, a similar advantage can no longer be detected for democracies in terms of reducing national debt and foreign debts. Why democracies, in spite of their arrangements with a sensitivity for the public good and for due process, are finding it so difficult to avoid shifting their debts to future generations, to undertake cutback measures and to provide sufficient financial foresight, can in principle be interpreted as the other side of the coin, namely highly presence-oriented interests boosted even further through the short \"democracy-specific time horizon\".","PeriodicalId":9944,"journal":{"name":"Challenges in Sustainability","volume":"3 1","pages":"1-15"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2015-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66248340","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2014-10-10DOI: 10.12924/CIS2014.02010028
B. Ness, J. Monteiro
We are proud of Challenges in Sustainability's (CiS) fruitful start. A variety of quality research articles, editorials and notes have been published on a range of themes and topics, including sustainability governance [1], improved cookstoves [2,3], the potentials of 3-D printing in the global South [4], and the need for consiliences between the natural and social sciences and the humanities [5], to name just a few. Furthermore, despite the journal's short history, we are pleased with its high visibility, where numerous articles have been viewed or downloaded over 1200 times since publication. The high exposure rate and the quality of publications affirm our aspirations for stable growth and development in the future.
{"title":"Challenges in sustainability: another brick in the wall","authors":"B. Ness, J. Monteiro","doi":"10.12924/CIS2014.02010028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12924/CIS2014.02010028","url":null,"abstract":"We are proud of Challenges in Sustainability's (CiS) fruitful start. A variety of quality research articles, editorials and notes have been published on a range of themes and topics, including sustainability governance [1], improved cookstoves [2,3], the potentials of 3-D printing in the global South [4], and the need for consiliences between the natural and social sciences and the humanities [5], to name just a few. Furthermore, despite the journal's short history, we are pleased with its high visibility, where numerous articles have been viewed or downloaded over 1200 times since publication. The high exposure rate and the quality of publications affirm our aspirations for stable growth and development in the future.","PeriodicalId":9944,"journal":{"name":"Challenges in Sustainability","volume":"2 1","pages":"28-29"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2014-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66248723","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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