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2. Mapping, Measuring, and Managing Methane: The Critical Role of a Potent Climate Pollutant
- Author:
- Deborah Gordon and Frances Reuland
- Publication Date:
- 11-2019
- Content Type:
- Research Paper
- Institution:
- Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
- Abstract:
- Earth's temperature is rising to dangerous levels. Cutting greenhouse gas emissions is increasingly urgent. Although carbon dioxide is the major greenhouse gas, short-lived climate pollutants like methane are rapidly accelerating global warming in the near term. Methane emissions are on the rise. The global growth in oil and gas production and consumption is a prime driver. A new report released today by researchers at the Watson Institute identifies a multi-pronged approach for mapping and measuring methane and provides new tools to more effectively manage this super pollutant. Under a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, authors Deborah Gordon, Watson Institute Senior Fellow, and Frances Reuland, former Brown University Researcher, assess the many ways that methane escapes from the oil and gas sector, both unintentionally and purposefully. Using a first-of-its-kind model under development, the Oil Climate Index + Gas, they estimate that oil operations are at greater risk for intentional venting and flaring of methane while gas operations pose a higher risk of inadvertent fugitive methane and accidental releases. The ability to focus detection and policymaking on the operators who bear direct emissions responsibility holds out the best prospects for methane reductions worldwide. While governments, NGOs, and companies continue to improve their methods to pinpoint and measure methane, difficulties remain. Overcoming these barriers requires: increased transparency and data collection; improved oversight through monitoring, reporting, and verification; regulations and binding agreements; research and development (R&D) and technology transfer; and financial incentives and penalties. In order to offer durable climate solutions, efforts to mitigate methane must be designed to withstand future political pressures.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Science and Technology, Pollution, Fossil Fuels, and Methane
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
3. How Do War Financing Strategies Lead to Inequality? A Brief History from the War of 1812 through the Post-9/11 Wars
- Author:
- Rosella Cappella Zielinski
- Publication Date:
- 07-2018
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
- Abstract:
- This report provides estimates for how the United States government has paid for its wars, from the War of 1812 through the current post-9/11 “Global War on Terror” (Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Operations), and addresses the relationship between war finance and inequality. The findings suggest that government borrowing to pay for wars leads to greater social inequality in the aftermath of the war. This happens when wars are paid for via general public debt versus a war bond campaign, particularly when combined with indirect taxes (such as sales, value-added, excise, and customs taxes) or a tax cut. Conversely, wars financed via bond campaigns targeted to low- and middle-income populations and direct taxes (such as income, property, and corporate taxes) result in greater social equality.
- Topic:
- International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
4. Does Compliance Pay? Social Standards and Firm-level Trade
- Author:
- Greg Distelhorst and Richard M. Locke
- Publication Date:
- 12-2016
- Content Type:
- Research Paper
- Institution:
- Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
- Abstract:
- What is the relationship between trade and social institutions in the developing world? The research literature is conflicted: importing firms may demand that trading partners observe higher labor and environmental standards, or they may penalize higher standards that raise costs. This study uses new data on retailers and manufacturers to analyze how firm-level trade responds to information about social standards. Contrary to the "race to the bottom" hypothesis, it finds that retail importers reward exporters for complying with social standards. In difference-in-differences estimates from over two thousand manufacturing establishments in 36 countries, achieving compliance is associated with a 4% [1%, 7%] average increase in annual purchasing. The effect is driven largely by the apparel industry — a longterm target of anti-sweatshop social movements — suggesting that activist campaigns can shape patterns of global trade.
- Topic:
- International Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
5. Does Citizenship Abate Class? Evidence and Reflections from Bangalore, India
- Author:
- Ebony Bertorelli, Patrick Heller, Siddharth Swaminathan, and Ashutosh Varshney
- Publication Date:
- 12-2016
- Content Type:
- Research Paper
- Institution:
- Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
- Abstract:
- Drawing on data from a large household survey in Bangalore, this paper explores the quality of urban citizenship. Addressing theories that have tied the depth of democracy to the quality and effectiveness of citizenship, we develop an index of citizenship that includes various measures and then explore the extent to which citizenship determines the quality of services and infrastructure that households enjoy. Our findings show that citizenship and access to services in Bangalore are highly differentiated, that much of what drives these differences has to do with class, but we also find clear evidence that the urban poor are somewhat better in terms of the services they receive that they would be without citizenship. Citizenship, in other words, abates the effects of class.
- Topic:
- International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
6. When Courts Plan: The Greening of Delhi's Autorickshaws
- Author:
- Atul Pokharel
- Publication Date:
- 08-2016
- Content Type:
- Research Paper
- Institution:
- Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
- Abstract:
- Implementing municipal-scale policies is challenging in megacities. Despite this, between 1986 and 2006, Delhi converted its entire public transportation network of nearly 100,000 vehicles to use Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) instead of diesel and petrol. The use of CNG is widely assumed to have been ordered by the Supreme Court of India. But this overlooks how autorickshaws, privately owned and making up three-fourths of these vehicles, came to use CNG even though the court did not order it. Using two new sources of data, I show that the conversion of autos was jointly led by the largest private manufacturer together with the city government. The court facilitated coordination between several other actors, allowed them to experiment, and monitored progress over two decades leading up to the auto conversion. After capping the total number of autos, it ultimately refrained from passing judgment on two consequential aspects of greening them: vehicle ownership and fuel type. As a result, auto owners were buffeted by decades of incremental policy experimentation. Eventually, these experiments reconfigured auto ownership as some sold their operating permits to become renters, while state institutions remained indifferent to this shadow conversion underfoot.
- Topic:
- International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
7. Cabal City: Regime Theory and Indian Urbanization
- Author:
- Patrick Heller
- Publication Date:
- 07-2016
- Content Type:
- Research Paper
- Institution:
- Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
- Abstract:
- This paper explores the interaction of politics and business through the lens of the city. The power of business to influence politics in India would lead to a prediction that Indian cities are, in the classic sense of the term, growth machines. Yet we argue in this paper that fundamental problems of governance in India’s megacities have precluded the possibility of business coalitions exerting cohesive influence over investments policies in cities. The result has been the predominance of what we call cabals, that are expert at extracting rents from the city, but in the end fail to promote development in the sense of an institutionalized process of economic and social improvement in the city. Where there has been high growth, it has not been accompanied by the expansion of the cities’ infrastructure and overall coordination capacities. In the end, what is good for business and politicians had neither been good for capitalism in terms of dynamic accumulation nor for inclusion of middle and poorer social groups.
- Topic:
- International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
8. Flexible Governance and Perceived Fairness: Evidence from Farmer Managed Irrigation Systems in Nepal
- Author:
- Atul Pokharel
- Publication Date:
- 07-2016
- Content Type:
- Research Paper
- Institution:
- Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
- Abstract:
- What is the relationship between flexible governance and fairness? I examine this question in a new longitudinal dataset of irrigation canals in Nepal that were celebrated as paradigmatic cases of successful local governance. The prevalent explanation is that users have avoided knotty collective action problems by committing to rules and mutually monitoring compliance. These rules are understood to have been iteratively crafted over decades so as to render cooperative behavior reasonable. Embedded in a local context that is assumed to be common knowledge for users but ultimately impenetrable to outsiders, it is critical that locals discursively devise the rules and uniformly enforce them. Revisiting these cases three decades later, I first illustrate a distinction between two aspects of flexible governance: flexible rules and flexible enforcement. The former refers to changing rules over time, the latter to variations in enforcement. I document the predicted flexibility of the rules in these cases. I then show that a significant number of successes are associated with flexible enforcement. Whether flexible enforcement helps or hinders sustained collective action appears to depend on how fair users perceive the rules to be. Thus, discretionary enforcement may be related to the possibilities and limits of local governance in achieving fair outcomes, and not just for merely solving collective action problems.
- Topic:
- International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
9. Does Lean Improve Labor Standards? Management and Social Performance in the Nike Supply Chain
- Author:
- Greg Distelhorst, Jens Hainmueller, and Richard M. Locke
- Publication Date:
- 08-2015
- Content Type:
- Research Paper
- Institution:
- Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
- Abstract:
- This study tests the hypothesis that lean manufacturing improves the social performance of manufacturers in emerging markets. We analyze an intervention by Nike Inc. to promote the adoption of lean manufacturing in its apparel supply chain across eleven developing countries. Using difference-in-differences estimates from a panel of over three hundred factories, we find that lean adoption was associated with a 15 percentage point reduction in noncompliance with labor standards that primarily reflect factory wage and work hour practices. However, we find a null effect on factory health and safety standards. This pattern is consistent with a causal mechanism that links lean to improved social performance through changes in labor relations, rather than improved management systems. These findings offer evidence that capabilitybuilding interventions may reduce social harm in global supply chains.
- Topic:
- International Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
10. The Political Foundations of State Effectiveness
- Author:
- et al Miguel Centeno
- Publication Date:
- 08-2015
- Content Type:
- Research Paper
- Institution:
- Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
- Abstract:
- Starting from the assumption that the aim of development is to increase human flourishing, this paper develops an analytical perspective on how effective states are built. Modern theories of development see the state as the key agent for delivering the most critical forms of productive investment – investment in capability expanding collective goods. Accomplishing this requires bureaucratic capacity, as earlier analyses of state effectiveness have argued, but state-society relations are equally crucial. We focus on the “Sen-Ostrom” model – deliberative mechanisms to specify goals plus engagement of communities as “co-producers” of services – as the key elements of effective state society relations. Our effort to identify institutions and strategies that might lead to the efficacious engagement of the broadest possible cross-section of the populace led us to a re-engagement with left social democracy. But, resuscitating traditional models of left social democracy is not sufficient; different contexts require new conceptualizations. Patrick Heller’s “state-civil society model” and Cheol-sung Lee’s “embedded cohesiveness/political network model” gave us tools for revising, deepening and extending the basic party-union dynamics of the traditional left social democratic model. Putting the Huber-Stephens analysis of left social democracy together with the Heller and Lee models offers a promising platform for future debate on the general political logic of state-society relations
- Topic:
- International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus