TY - JOUR A1 - Nuesiri, Emmanuel O. T1 - Feigning Democracy BT - Performing Representation in the UN-REDD Funded Nigeria-REDD Programme JF - Conservation & society N2 - Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation plus the sustainable management of forest and enhancement of carbon stocks (REDD+) is a global climate change mitigation initiative. The United Nations REDD Programme (UN-REDD) is training governments in developing countries, including Nigeria, to implement REDD+. To protect local people, UN-REDD has developed social safeguards including a commitment to strengthen local democracy to prevent an elite capture of REDD+ benefits. This study examines local participation and representation in the UN-REDD international policy board and in the national-level design process for the Nigeria-REDD proposal, to see if practices are congruent with the UN-REDD commitment to local democracy. It is based on research in Nigeria in 2012 and 2013, and finds that local representation in the UN-REDD policy board and in Nigeria-REDD is not substantive. Participation is merely symbolic. For example, elected local government authorities, who ostensibly represent rural people, are neither present in the UN-REDD board nor were they invited to the participatory forums that vetted the Nigeria-REDD. They were excluded because they were politically weak. However, UN-REDD approved the Nigeria-REDD proposal without a strategy to include or strengthen elected local governments. The study concludes with recommendations to help the UN-REDD strengthen elected local government authority in Nigeria in support of democratic local representation. KW - REDD KW - climate change mitigation KW - UN-REDD KW - democracy KW - Nigeria KW - symbolic representation KW - local government Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.4103/cs.cs_16_106 SN - 0972-4923 SN - 0975-3133 VL - 15 IS - 4 SP - 384 EP - 399 PB - Medknow publications & media Pvt LTD CY - Mumbai ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kalkuhl, Matthias A1 - Edenhofer, Ottmar T1 - Ramsey meets Thünen BT - the impact of land taxes on economic development and land conservation JF - International tax and public finance N2 - Land taxes can increase production in the manufacturing sector and enhance land conservation at the same time, which can lead to overall macroeconomic growth. Existing research emphasizes the non-distorting properties of land taxes (when fixed factors are taxed) as well as growth-enhancing impacts (when asset portfolios are shifted to reproducible capital). This paper furthers the neoclassical perspective on land taxes by endogenizing land allocation decisions in a multi-sector growth model. Based on von Thünen’s observation, agricultural land is created from wilderness through conversion and cultivation, both of which are associated with costs. In the steady state of our general equilibrium model, land taxes not only may reduce land consumption (associated with environmental benefits) but may also affect overall economic output, while leaving wages and interest rates unaffected. When labor productivity is higher in the manufacturing than in the agricultural sector and agricultural and manufactured goods are substitutes (or the economy is open to world trade), land taxes increase aggregate economic output. There is a complex interplay of conservation policy, technological change and land taxes, depending on consumer preferences, sectoral labor productivities and openness-to-trade. Our model introduces a new perspective on land taxes in current policy debates on development, tax reforms as well as forest conservation. KW - Structural shift KW - Structural change KW - REDD KW - Henry George KW - Forest conservation KW - Sustainability KW - Johann Heinrich von Thunen Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10797-016-9403-6 SN - 0927-5940 SN - 1573-6970 VL - 24 SP - 350 EP - 380 PB - Springer CY - Dordrecht ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hickmann, Thomas A1 - Fuhr, Harald A1 - Höhne, Chris A1 - Lederer, Markus A1 - Stehle, Fee T1 - Carbon Governance Arrangements and the Nation-State: The Reconfiguration of Public Authority in Developing Countries JF - Public administration and development N2 - Several scholars concerned with global policy-making have recently pointed to a reconfiguration of authority in the area of climate politics. They have shown that various new carbon governance arrangements have emerged, which operate simultaneously at different governmental levels. However, despite the numerous descriptions and mapping exercises of these governance arrangements, we have little systematic knowledge on their workings within national jurisdictions, let alone about their impact on public-administrative systems in developing countries. Therefore, this article opens the black box of the nation-state and explores how and to what extent two different arrangements, that is, Transnational City Networks and Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, generate changes in the distribution of public authority in nation-states and their administrations. Building upon conceptual assumptions that the former is likely to lead to more decentralized, and the latter to more centralized policy-making, we provide insights from case studies in Indonesia, South Africa, Brazil, and India. In a nutshell, our analysis underscores that Transnational City Networks strengthen climate-related actions taken by cities without ultimately decentralizing climate policy-making. On the other hand, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation tends to reinforce the competencies of central governments, but apparently does not generate a recentralization of the forestry sector at large. KW - authority KW - climate politics KW - decentralization KW - developing countries KW - global south KW - public administration KW - REDD KW - transnational city networks Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/pad.1814 SN - 0271-2075 SN - 1099-162X VL - 37 SP - 331 EP - 343 PB - Wiley CY - Hoboken ER -