Institutions and Sustainability: Political Economy of Agriculture and the Environment - Essays in Honour of Konrad Hagedorn

ISBN-13: 9781402096891 / Angielski / Twarda / 2009 / 388 str.

Beckmann, Volker

Opis

From the first vague idea to use Konrad Hagedorn s 60th birthday as an inspi- tion for taking stock of his vibrant academic contributions, this joint book project has been a great pleasure for us in many ways. Pursuing Hagedorn s intellectual development, we have tried to reflect on the core questions of humanity according to Ernst Bloch Who are we?, Where do we come from? and Where are we heading? In this way, and without knowing it, Konrad Hagedorn initiated a c- lective action process he would have very much enjoyed if he had been allowed to take part in it. But it was our aim and constant motivation to surprise him with this collection of essays in his honour. Konrad Hagedorn was reared as the youngest child of a peasant family on a small farm in the remote moorland of East Frisia, Germany. During his childhood in the poverty-ridden years after the Second World War, he faced a life where humans were heavily dependent on using nature around them for their livelihoods; meanwhile, he learned about the fragility of the environment. As a boy, he - tended a one-room schoolhouse, where his great intellectual talents were first r- ognised and used for co-teaching his schoolmates. These early teaching expe- ences might have laid the foundations for his later becoming a dedicated lecturer and mentor."

Recenzje

From the reviews:

"This book is a fine collection of essays, located at the intersection between agricultural, environmental, and institutional economics. ... The book has several strong sides. First of all, it is truly interdisciplinary. Beyond economics, the contributed essays come from anthropology, comparative political science, economic sociology, and cognitive sciences. ... Overall, the book would fit very well the library of any research centre or department working on environmental, agricultural, and/or institutional economics." (Gam Aldashev and Elena Vallino, European Review of Agricultural Economics, Vol. 37 (3), 2010)

Spis treści

1. Institutions and Sustainability: Introduction and Overview.- 1.1 Introduction.- 1.2 Konrad Hagedorn’s Contributions to Institutional Analysis.- 1.2.1 The Politics of Agricultural and Environmental Relations.- 1.2.2 Developing Institutions to Govern Sustainability.- 1.2.3 Managing Common Pool Resources.- 1.2.4 The Future of Institutional Analysis.- 1.3 The Contributed Papers.- 1.3.1 Political Economy of Economic Development and Agricultural Policy.- 1.3.2 Institutions, Governance and Sustainability.- 1.3 3 Property Rights, Collective Action and Natural Resources.- 1.3.4 Challenges to Institutional Analysis Towards Sustainability.- 1.4 Looking Ahead Towards Sustainable Futures.- References.- Part I: Political Economy of Economic Development and Agricultural Policy.- 2. The Political Economy of Agricultural Reform in Transition Countries.- 2.1 Introduction.- 2.2 Why did the Communist Party Reform in China, but not in the Soviet Union?- 2.3 Causes of Differences in Grassroots Support.- 2.4. Experimentation and Reforms.- 2.5 Why were Agricultural Reforms Implemented Gradually in China, but Simultaneously in Many CEE and the CIS States?- 2.6 What are the Causes for the Differences in Land and Farm Reform Strategies?- 2.7 Concluding Comments.- References.- 3. Make Law, Not War? On the Political Economy of Violence and Appropriation.- 3.1 Hobbes and the Political Economy of Violence.- 3.2 The Economics of Violence: How Order Emerges from Predation.- 3.3 The Anthropology of Violence.- 3.4 Ethnographies of Violence and Order.- 3.5 Conclusion.- Acknowledgments.- References.- 4. A Marathon Rather than a Sprint: The Reform of the Farmers’ Pension System in Germany and its Impacts.- 4.1 Introduction.- 4.2 Reform in the 1980s: Proposals and Resistance.- 4.2.1 The First Attempt at Reform.- 4.2.2 Redefinition of the Reform Problem (1984–1987).- 4.2.3 The Second Attempt at Reform (1987–1990).- 4.3 The Agricultural Social Security Reform Law (ASRG).-4.3.1 The Decision-making Process and its Rationale.- 4.3.2 Goals and Main Features of the Reform Law.- 4.4 Effects of the Reform.- 4.4.1 Effect on Social Security.- 4.4.2 Stabilisation Effects on Costs and Contributions.- 4.4.3 Distribution Effects.- 4.5 Reform Evaluation and Perspectives.- References.- 5. Complex Policy Choices Regarding Agricultural Externalities: Efficiency, Equity and Acceptability.- 5.1 Introduction.- 5.2 Types of Agricultural Externalities.- 5.3 Complications Arising from Thresholds in the Economic Effects of Externalities.- 5.3.1 A Paretian Relevant Externality.- 5.3.2 An Infra-marginal Externality which is Paretian Relevant for Policy and Which Complicates Social Decisions.- 5.3.3 Some Externalities are Paretian Irrelevant.- 5.3.4. Further Complications.- 5.4 Adverse Selection as an Unfavourable Externality and Possible Threshold Effects.- 5.5 Environmental Externalities and Sustainability.- 5.6 Equity, Efficiency and Agricultural Externalities.- 5.7 Transaction Costs Involved in Public Regulation of Externalities.- 5.8 The Political Acceptability of Economic Policies.- 5.9 Property Rights in Agricultural Genetic Material and Externalities.- 5.10 Concluding Comments.- Acknowledgements.- References.- Part II: Institutions, Governance and Sustainability.- 6. Multi-Level Governance and Natural Resource Management: The Challenges of Complexity, Diversity, and Uncertainty.- 6.1 Introduction.- 6.2 Current Conceptions of Natural Resource Systems.- 6.3 Complexity and Uncertainty in Adaptive Systems.- 6.3.1 Differing Rates of Change.- 6.3.2 Scale Differences and Near Decomposability.- 6.3.3 Disturbance Processes.- 6.4 Implications for the Approach to Management.- 6.5 Implications for the Design of Institutional Arrangements.- 6.5.1 Recognition of Scale Diversity.- 6.5.2 Reducing Error Proneness and Promoting Learning.- 6.5.3 Recognizing the Capabilities and Limitations of Human Beings.- 6.5.4 Multiple Management Goal.- 6.5.5 Recogn

Blurb

The institutional perspective on the management of natural resources in the light of the interdisciplinary debate on sustainability is the focus of the agricultural and resource economist Konrad Hagedorn. Institutions and Sustainability reflects the latest trends in combining institutions and sustainability, summarises new conceptual developments in environmental economics and outlines new approaches towards the analysis of governance of natural resources.

The political economy of economic development and agricultural policy highlights the role of political institutions and the difficulties of reform towards sustainability. International scholars provide approaches and frameworks for analysing modes of governance in natural resource management. Empirical studies look into the role of property rights and collective action for coping with environmental problems and outline theoretical and methodological challenges of the institutional analysis for sustainability.

Contributing to the interdisciplinary debate on how to reconcile natural resource use and human needs, Institutions and Sustainability draws on debates in political sciences, development studies, sociology and environmental and resource economics.