Search

Politicians and high-level officials from all over the world will meet in Copenhagen in December 2009 to reach a global agreement on climate. Mitigation policies aiming at radical cuts in emissions, starting now, deepening over time, and widening their geopolitical coverage, will require domestic and international consensus, if they are to be agreed and implemented in the months and years to come. The paper explores the drivers for adoption of mitigation policies, with a special emphasis on those arising from the International Symposium on Innovative Economic Policies for Climate Change Mitigation, held in July 2009 at the Subiaco Monastery of St Scholastica (Italy). Instead of framing climate change mitigation as a burden, these policies are meant to generate a conducive environment for innovation, profits, employment, wages, and improvement of real quality of life. An exploration of their economic and environmental effectiveness is conducted, together with a limited analysis of possible political factors influencing the decision to adopt them. In the conclusions, the need to reframe the discourse on climate change is put forth for the success of climate negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate governance is importantly based on Agency Theory and relies on extrinsic incentives to align the interests of managers, employees and shareholders. This paper argues that in view of recent corporate scandals, private governance can learn from public governance: (1) Goal-oriented intrinsic motivation of agents should be supported by fixed incomes and an extensive selection process of employees; (2) Extrinsic, but non-monetary incentives (e.g. conferring orders and titles) can be used; (3) The power of actors should be restricted by a clear division of power, appropriate rules of succession and institutionalised competition for positions in firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports about an experience concerning the implementation of a WEBGIS, a BLOG and an ontology. WEBGIS and BLOG allow to promote a spread of spatial data knowledge, to consult planning documents in the Internet, increasing transparency level of programming choices and involving different stakeholders participation. The ontology is intended as an in progress powerful tool, increasing knowledge rationality. Ontologies can help the community by defining and explicating a shared language and strengthening the efficacy of direct interactions. The case study has been applied to Marmo Platano–Melandro PIT (Territorial Integrated Projects), an area with high potentialities in the North-Western part of Basilicata Region (Italy), responsible for the accomplishment of POR (Regional Operative Program) Basilicata 2000-2006 and for the elaboration of a common and shared strategy to manage an integrated program of interventions for local development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussions about quality and equity in education around the world often focus on the disadvantaged, the students for whatever reason do not have the resources to make the most of public education, or to get an education at all. In Sweden, where there is a fairly even economic playing field, the discussion–which is not always made public–addresses another type of inequity, namely that bright and talented students are not given sufficient education, particularly in math and science, to help them reach their potential. We describe some of the historical and cultural background for this inequity, and offer a modest, but not unbiased, account of what we claim is a false dilemma involved in promoting excellence in a democratic society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, there is no single idea that holds the greatest hope for humankind as democracy, and closely following in tow, human rights. Democracy has emerged as the most pre-eminent form of governance. We also know that liberal democracy in particular has had a chequered and disturbing history of grave omissions, and turned a blind eye on grossly unjust situations such as the routinization of substantive exclusion of women and slaves from ˵citizenship″; while in England, suffrage was based on property. For its part, ˵rights″ is an especially valuable concept because it is a concept that almost everybody respects as having moral authority. It makes an inward appeal to conscience especially in the respect that most people develop inwardly to guide their own conduct and avoid infringing on other people΄s rights. This paper argues that what we need is something more than respect for the rights of others to a consideration of sui generis expressions of democracy. Just like it happened with the women΄s and the civil rights movements, the scope of democracy is being searched and expanded not at the level of the high discourse of globalization, but at the margins by the new Gandhians, the off-spring of the Mandela spirit, and from children of the soil, peace and post-development moral entrepreneurs, movements for people΄s rights and empowerment and champions of transformative politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data Mining techniques have been successfully applied to many disciplines, especially in business intelligence, medical and health related problems. This paper presents a case study using data mining predictive modeling techniques for identifying important factors associated with the making of democracy. Democracy has been a paradoxical phenomenon; it has appeared in countries that defy the theoretically proposed prerequisites such as high level of economic development, low level of illiteracy, and strong middle class among others. While other countries that have these prerequisites barely witnessed successful democratic transitions. This discrepancy between theory and empirical observation calls for an investigation of factors beyond social & economic factors associated with democratization. A predictive modeling approach will be applied to develop models using political factors, social-economic factors, degree of development, etc. to predict an index derived from the institutional and normative aspects of democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Human Dignity Principle is not the entirety of the Ethics of Human Rights. This Chapter presents other values and rights, with their legal and doctrinal bases, possessing the normative strength of ethical principles from which other rights and duties derive. In light of International Human Rights Law and other international normative documents, the following principles may be highlighted that, together with the Human Dignity Principle, may be considered as constituting the general framework of the Ethics of Human Rights: life, liberty, equality, diversity, non-discrimination, tolerance, solidarity, democracy, development and peace. The Ethics of Human Rights–and some dimensions of it in particular–are a Common Responsibility of Humankind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the democratic control of armed forces. Democracy always implicitly presumes unlimited civilian supremacy over the command of the armed forces--anything short of that defines an incomplete democracy. A vast number of authors have conducted research and defined democratic control. Huntington argues that civilian control has to do with the relative power of civilian and military group. The Czech Government views democratic control as a feedback process in the overall process management of the Czech military, and it is affected by the constitutional authorities involving the gathering and analysis of information on the status and operations of the Czech military in its principal aspects and adequate power to enforce decisions."