Environmental Humanities: Voices from the Anthropocene by Serpil Oppermann and Serenella Iovino

Review of Environmental Humanities: Voices from the Anthropocene by Serpil Oppermann and Serenella Iovino, eds

The Once and Future World: Nature As It Was, As It Is, As It Could Be by J.B. MacKinnon

Review of The Once and Future World: Nature As It Was, As It Is, As It Could Be by J.B. MacKinnon

Wildlife in the Anthropocene: Conservation After Nature by Jamie Lorimer

Review of Jamie Lorimer\u27s Wildlife in the Anthropocene: Conservation After Nature

Unsustainable Oil: Facts, Counterfacts and Fictions by Jon Gordon

Review of Jon Gordon\u27s book Unsustainable Oil: Facts, Counteracts and Fictions

The Review of Economic Performance and Social Progress 2001: The Longest Decade: Canada in the 1990s

The 1990s was a long decade in Canada. It was a period of transitions and turbulence, of seismic shifts in the Canadian economy and dramatic changes in many longstanding public programs. It was also a decade in which Canadians' attitudes toward their economic future and their expectations of government seemed to evolve in new and uncharted directions. The decade began with a deep, prolonged recession yet it ended with the return of strong economic growth. The basic structure of the Canadian economy was being reshaped by forces felt around the world, such as trade liberalization, globalization and technological change. The 1990s also saw major changes in public policy. Most importantly, the basic strategy guiding macroeconomic policy shifted dramatically. Monetary authorities adopted price stability as their primary objective, producing restrictive inflation targets and high interest rates compared to many other countries. Fiscal policy was also tightened sharply, as federal and provincial governments moved aggressively to eliminate longstanding deficits, mainly through deep cuts to public expenditures. The purpose of this introduction is twofold. First, it provides a synthesis of what the editors see as the main themes that emerge from the different chapters, including a discussion of the implications for public policy and second, it provides a detailed overview of the main findings of all chapters in the volume. The chapters are written by leading experts in the field and provide more detailed views of specific dimensions of the economic and social developments of the 1990s. The chapters are organized into four sections dealing with basic concepts, the public view of economic and social trends, changes in key public policies, and the outcomes in terms of the economic, social and environmental record of the 1990s.

Canada: National-building in a federal welfare state

In Canada, three distinct models of federalism govern different social programmes: classical federalism, with programmes run exclusively by one level of government; shared costs federalism, with the federal government financially supporting provincial programmes; and joint-decision federalism, where formal approval by both levels of government is mandatory before any action can take place. Each of these models creates different decision rules, altering the mix of governments and ideologies at the bargaining table, redistributing power among those who have a seat at the table, and requiring different levels of consensus for action. The result has been three separate kinds of interactions between institutions and policy during the postwar era of welfare state expansion. As in the era of expansion, the new politics of social policy in the 'silver age' had to flow through the three distinctive institutional filters created by federal institutions, helping to explain the uneven impact of retrenchment in Canada. Exclusively federal programmes were unprotected by intergovernmental relations and fully exposed to shifts in national politics, with dramatic cuts especially in unemployment benefits. In contrast, joint-decision federalism helped protect contributory pensions from radical restructuring; while sharedcost federalism made it possible to preserve the basic model of the health care system, at least in respect of hospital, physician and diagnostic services, if not always in respect of the generosity of funding.Drei unterschiedliche Föderalismusmodelle charakterisieren Kanadas Sozialpolitik: Politikverflechtung, klassischer (dualer) Föderalismus und ‘shared costs federalism’. Jedes dieser Modelle generiert unterschiedliche Entscheidungsregeln, Akteurs- und Machtkonstellationen sowie Konsensschwellen für politisches Handeln und hat folglich sowohl die Expansion des kanadischen Wohlfahrtsstaates als auch dessen Rückbau unterschiedlich beeinflusst. Während die Politikverflechtung auf dem Gebiet der beitragsfinanzierten Renten sowohl den Programmausbau als auch den –rückbau gebremst hat, wurden die ausschließlich vom Bund regulierten Programme sowohl in der Expansionsals auch in der Konsolidierungsphase maßgeblich von den politischen Kräfteverhältnissen auf der nationalen Ebene bestimmt. Der in der Gesundheitspolitik praktizierte shared costs federalism bot in der Expansionsphase Raum für sozialpolitische Innovationen auf der Provinzebene, die einem sozialdemokratischen Gesundheitssystem Vorschub leisteten. Dieses Modell blieb in seinen Grundzügen in der Rückbauphase zwar bestehen, gleichzeitig zog sich Ottawa jedoch aus der Finanzierung des Gesundheitswesens zurück

Les politiques de multiculturalisme nuisent-elles à l’État-providence ?

La diversité ethnique est parfois perçue comme un danger pour la stabilité politique. Pourtant, les immigrants, les minorités nationales et les peuples autochtones bénéficient en certains pays d’une attitude d’ouverture qui a mené à l’adoption de politiques de multiculturalisme et à la reconnaissance de certains droits en matière de langue et d’autonomie territoriale et politique. Aux yeux de certains analystes, ces mesures ne peuvent que fragiliser l’État-providence. Ayant procédé à une vérification empirique de cette thèse, les auteurs ne constatent aucune relation systématique entre l’existence de politiques de multiculturalisme dans un pays et l’érosion de son État-providence. Il apparaît plutôt que des affirmations sans autre fondement que la peur ne font pas avancer le débat sur la pertinence des politiques de multiculturalisme.Ethnic diversity is often seen as a threat to political stability. But some countries have adopted a more accommodating approach, reflected in the adoption of multiculturalism policies for immigrant groups, the acceptance of territorial autonomy and language rights for national minorities, and the recognition of land claims and self-government rights for indigenous peoples. Such “multiculturalism policies” have been criticised, however, as making it more difficult to sustain a robust welfare state. This paper examines empirically whether this effect exists. We find no evidence of a consistent relationship between the adoption of multiculturalism policies and the erosion of the welfare state. The evidence in this paper suggests that debates over the appropriateness of multiculturalism policies should not be pre-empted by unsupported fears about their impact on the welfare state

Do multiculturalism policies erode the welfare state?

The past 30 years have witnessed a dramatic change in the way Western democracies deal with ethnic minorities. In the past, ethnic diversity was often seen as a threat to political stability, and minorities were subject to a range of policies intended to assimilate or marginalize them. Today, many Western democracies have adopted a more accommodating approach. This is reflected in the widespread adoption of multiculturalism policies for immigrant groups, the acceptance of territorial autonomy and language rights for national minorities, and the recognition of land claims and self-government rights for indigenous peoples. We refer to these policies as 'multiculturalism policies' or MCPs. The adoption of MCPs has been controversial, for two reasons. The first is a philosophical critique, which argues that MCPs are inherently inconsistent with basic liberal-democratic principles. Since the mid-1990s, however, this philosophical debate has been supplemented by a second argument: namely, that MCPs make it more difficult to sustain a robust Welfare State (hereafter WS). Critics worry that such policies erode the interpersonal trust, social solidarity and political coalitions that sustain a strongly redistributive WS. This paper reviews the reasons why critics believe that MCPs weaken political support for redistribution, and then examines empirically whether the adoption of MCPs has, in fact, been associated with erosion of the WS. This examination involves two steps: we develop a taxonomy of MCPs and classify Western democracies as 'strong', 'modest' or 'weak' in their level of MCPs. We then examine whether the strength of MCPs is associated with the erosion of the WS during the 1980s and 1990s. The evolution of the WS is measured through change in four indicators: social spending as a percentage of GDP; the redistributive impact of taxes and transfers; levels of child poverty; and the level of income inequality. We find no evidence of a consistent relationship between the adoption of MCPs and the erosion of the WS. Our analysis has limits, and we hope it stimulates further research. Nevertheless, the preliminary evidence presented here is clear: the case advanced by critics of MCPs is not supported. The growing ethnic diversity of Western societies has generated pressures for the construction of new and more inclusive forms of citizenship and national identity. The evidence in this paper suggests that debates over the appropriateness of multiculturalism policies as one response to this diversity should not be preempted by unsupported fears about their impact on the WS

The Review of Economic Performance and Social Progress 2001: The Longest Decade: Canada in the 1990s

In this chapter, Pierre Fortin provides a critique of the conduct of Canadian monetary policy in the 1990s, a critique that he developed throughout the decade. While not denying that the US economic slowdown in the early 1990s reduced growth in Canada, Fortin lays the blame for the inferior economic performance of the Canadian economy relative to the U.S. economy squarely on the back of the Bank of Canada, and dismisses structural explanations of the recession as lacking an empirical basis.Monetary Policy, Inflation, Inflation Reduction, Inflation Policy, Growth, Recession, Well-being, Wellbeing, Well Being, Unemployment, NAIRU, Phillips Curve, Canada

The Review of Economic Performance and Social Progress 2001: The Longest Decade: Canada in the 1990s

In this chapter, Jim Stanford agrees that measures were needed to eliminate the deficit. But he argues that Paul Martin's program spending cuts were larger than necessary and caused real pain in many areas of Canadian life. He shows that a strategy in which program spending was frozen in nominal terms, but not cut, would have produced more growth and employment and still yielded almost the same deficit by 1999 (although slightly higher debt levels) as the program-cutting path actually followed.Deficit, Debt, Program Spending, Expenditure, Fiscal Policy, Growth, Unemployment, Deficit Reduction, Canada