Access to land reconsidered: The land grab,polycentric governance and Tanzania’s new wave land reform

Inspired by Ostrom’s concept of polycentric governance, this article aims to refine the analytical framework through which contemporary access to land is analysed. By drawing on extensive fieldwork and conducting a review of the existing literature on the making and implementation of Tanzania’s 1999 land reform, it challenges some of the main assumptions behind the land access and land grabbing literatures about the level at which agency is placed. Processes governing access to land are more contingent than they are most often depicted, involving actors at the local, national and international levels. National and local level actors are often more important than, in particular, the land grab literature tends to suggest. This implies that the state should be seen not merely as a site of ‘legitimate theft’, but also as one in which rights may be upheld. Based on the experience of Tanzania, the article suggests that analytical a priori assumptions about where agency is placed should be abandoned and replaced with empirical research into the relations between actors at all levels.     

Can national policy blockages accelerate the development of polycentric governance? Evidence from climate change policy in the United Kingdom

Many factors can conspire to limit the scope for policy development at the national level. In this paper, we consider whether blockages in national policy processes − resulting for example from austerity or small state political philosophies − might be overcome by the development of more polycentric governance arrangements. Drawing on evidence from three stakeholder workshops and fifteen interviews, we address this question by exploring the United Kingdom’s recent retrenchment in the area of climate change policy, and the ways in which its policy community have responded. We identify two broad strategies based on polycentric principles: ‘working with gatekeepers’ to unlock political capital and ‘collaborate to innovate’ to develop policy outputs. We then empirically examine the advantages that these actions bring, analysing coordination across overlapping sites of authority, such as those associated with international regimes, devolved administrations and civic and private initiatives that operate in conjunction with, and sometimes independently of, the state. Despite constraining political and economic factors, which are by no means unique to the UK, we find that a polycentric climate policy network can create opportunities for overcoming central government blockages. However, we also argue that the ambiguous role of the state in empowering but also in constraining such a network will determine whether a polycentric approach to climate policy and governance is genuinely additional and innovative, or whether it is merely a temporary ‘sticking plaster’ for the retreat of the state and policy retrenchment during austere times.     

北太平洋东部风暴轴的时空演变特征

本文利用欧洲中期天气预报中心(ECMWF)逐日再分析资料(ERA-40),以500 hPa位势高度滤波方差为代表,对1957年12月～2001年11月期间44年528个月北太平洋区域(30°N～60°N,120°E～120°W)月平均风暴轴的多中心数目和最强中心位置进行了客观统计,在此基础上,对北太平洋区域进行了分区,通过对比各区域风暴轴的时间演变和结构变化,重点揭示了北太平洋东部地区风暴轴的时空演变特征.主要结论如下:(1)逐月来看,北太平洋风暴轴“多中心”现象普遍存在,概率高达94.7%,最典型的分布呈2～3个中心分布;从季节上来看,春季是“多中心”现象最容易出现的季节,秋季和冬季相对较少,而4个及以上的“多中心”现象则更容易出现在夏季.(2)若把最强中心出现在160°W以东地区的北太平洋风暴轴定义为东部型风暴轴,那么从月份上来看,7月相对最容易出现东部型风暴轴,1月和2月最难;从季节上来看,夏季相对最容易出现东部型风暴轴,冬季最难;总的来看,出现东部型风暴轴的频数大约占总频数的三分之一.(3)从垂直结构上看,在北太平洋160°W以东地区,风暴轴的强度可以最强,但与斜压性密切联系的涡动向极和向上热量通量的最大值却并不是最强.(4)经验正交函数分解(EOF)分析的结果表明,在不同季节、不同区域以及是否单独考虑东部型风暴轴的情况下,风暴轴的变化虽然表现出了一定的差异,但都反映出在北太平洋东部区域风暴轴的变化特征有其独特特点,如在该区域风暴轴的主要变化模态并不一定时时与其他区域的主要变化模态一一对应.北太平洋东部区域风暴轴变化的原因和机制值得进一步深入探讨.     

The black box of power in polycentric environmental governance

Failure to address unsustainable global change is often attributed to failures in conventional environmental governance. Polycentric environmental governance—the popular alternative—involves many centres of authority interacting coherently for a common governance goal. Yet, longitudinal analysis reveals many polycentric systems are struggling to cope with the growing impacts, pace, and scope of social and environmental change. Analytic shortcomings are also beginning to appear, particularly in the treatment of power. Here we draw together diverse social science perspectives and research into a variety of cases to show how different types of power shape rule setting, issue construction, and policy implementation in polycentric governance. We delineate an important and emerging research agenda for polycentric environmental governance, integrating diverse types of power into analytical and practical models.