公民参与视野下西北乡村民间组织存在的问题及对策

西北乡村民间组织发展缓慢且不平衡,对政府依赖过强,自身实力弱,规范化建设不足,影响了公民参与乡村建设的水平。因此,必须建立健全相关法律法规,为西北乡村民间组织营造健康发展的环境,加强自身能力建设,同时加强政府引导监督,并逐步成立农牧民协会,提高民间组织动员公民参与的整体实力。     

公众环境行政参与的现实困境及其出路

近些年来,我国公众参与环境行政决策活动的开展取得了很大的成就,但是,在实践中也暴露出诸多的现实问题。在这些问题中,诸如公众环境行政参与能力不足、公众环境行政参与的信息匮乏以及公众环境行政参与的效力低下等问题尤其突出。因此,当务之急是需要通过组织化的公众参与来克服公众个体参与的无序性,配置公众参与过程中的信息供给制度以夯实公众参与之基础,确立公众参与的政府回应与司法救济机制以提升公众参与的有效性。     

The Methodologies of Empowerment? A Systematic Review of the Deployment of Participation in the Coastal Zone Management Literature

Participation (e.g., stakeholder involvement) has become a central concept in the practice of environmental and coastal zone management. Research has shown that the integration of participation in coastal zone management has positive ecological and social outcomes. In the literature, however, participation is often reported in an unstructured and uncritical manner. Therefore, to find out whether and how there is a useful way to structure and characterize the way the coastal zone management literature deals with participation, we have conducted a literature review. The review was conducted and the literature structured through three central dimensions of participation, namely: power, knowledge, and (visions of) nature. The article concludes that this structured approach to participation enables us to study more systematically the role of participation and might facilitate the governance and learning processes of coastal networks.     

Examining stakeholder participation and conflicts associated with large scale infrastructure projects: the case of Tema port expansion project,Ghana

ABSTRACT

Balancing economic activities with socio-environmental considerations has become a global standard for the construction of large scale infrastructure projects, including ports. In this discourse, stakeholder participation and environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA) have been stressed as important tools that can help port managers to co-create values, avoid conflicts and promote inclusive growth. Drawing on qualitative research tools and stakeholder theory, this paper explores whether and to what extent local stakeholders’ inclusion has substantial influence on addressing their socio-cultural concerns and interest. This is illustrated with a case study of an ongoing port expansion project at Ghana’s largest port of Tema. The findings suggest that although the port authority conducted an ESIA and engaged local stakeholders as part of the planning process, this did not translate into preventing the loss of valuable cultural resources of the local communities. The port authority did not place ‘value’ on cultural resources of the local communities that cannot be expressed in monetary terms. Further, lack of good faith engagement with local stakeholders led to conflicts in some cases that triggered a court action and delays. The paper concludes that stakeholder participation if not applied well, can become a ‘post-political’ tool.     

公众意见调查综合支持指数在铁路建设项目竣工环保验收中的应用

公众意见调查是铁路建设项目竣工环保验收的主要内容与重要环节。本文从所选的20项通过环境保护部验收的铁路竣工环境保护验收公众意见调查资料人手,采用公众意见调查综合支持指数研究公众对铁路项目的支持程度,将公众意见调查分为强烈支持、比较支持、一般支持和反对4个等级,研究表明,公众意见凋查综合支持指数计算结果与环境管理决策一致,公众意见调查综合支持指数可作为一种定量分析方法,为铁路竣工环保验收提供决策支持。     

农村扶贫中非政府组织的作用

在建设社会主义新农村的新阶段,农村扶贫问题却面临着新的形势,单单政府的反贫困已经不能满足当今农村扶贫的需要,扶贫越来越需要动用更多的社会力量,在这之中非政府(NGO)组织的作用不可低估。本文将从NGO在我国的发展、NGO参与扶贫的必要性、NGO参与农村扶贫的相关问题等视角对我国农村扶贫中NGO的参与进行探讨。     

Planning transport for social inclusion: An accessibility-activity participation approach

Social equity is increasingly becoming an important objective in transport planning and project evaluation. This paper provides a framework and an empirical investigation in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) examining the links between public transit accessibility and the risks of social exclusion, simply understood as the suppressed ability to conduct daily activities at normal levels. Specifically, we use a large-sample travel survey to present a new transport-geography concept termed participation deserts, neighbourhood-level clusters of lower than expected activity participation. We then use multivariate models to estimate where, and for whom, improvements in transit accessibility will effectively increase activity participation and reduce risks of transport-related social exclusion. Our results show that neighbourhoods with high concentrations of low-income and zero-car households located outside of major transit corridors are the most sensitive to having improvements in accessibility increase daily activity participation rates. We contend that transit investments providing better connections to these neighbourhoods would have the greatest benefit in terms of alleviating existing inequalities and reducing the risks of social exclusion. The ability for transport investments to liberate suppressed activity participation is not currently being predicted or valued in existing transport evaluation methodologies, but there is great potential in doing so in order to capture the social equity benefits associated with increasing transit accessibility.     

Should we all just stay home? Travel,out-of-home activities,and life satisfaction

How and why travel contributes to our life satisfaction is of considerable import for transportation policy and planning. This paper empirically examines this relationship using data from the American Time Use Survey. It finds that, controlling for relevant demographic, geographic, and temporal covariates, travel time per day is significantly and positively associated with life satisfaction. This relationship is attenuated, but still significant, when the amount of time spent participating in out-of-home activities is controlled for. Time spent bicycling is strongly associated with higher life satisfaction, though it attains significance only in some models; time spent walking is also quite positive, though it is not significant. However, both walking and bicycling are positively and significantly associated with life satisfaction when time spent on purely recreational walking and bicycling is included. Life satisfaction is positively and significantly associated with time spent traveling for the purposes of eating and drinking, religious activities, volunteering, and playing and watching sports. Travel time exhibits a strong positive relationship with life satisfaction in smaller towns and cities, but in large cities the association weakens, and for very large cities travel time may actually not be associated with life satisfaction at all. This may be due to the costs of traffic congestion, which disproportionately exists in large cities. In all, while the associations between travel and life satisfaction are clear, the causal story is complex, with the positive relationships potentially being explained by (1) travel allowing us to access destinations that make us happy, (2) the act of travel itself being fulfilling, and/or (3) intrinsically happier people being more likely to travel. In all likelihood, all three factors are at play.     

Democratization of Coastal Zone Decision Making for Indigenous Australians: Insights from Stakeholder Analysis

Community participation has become something of an orthodoxy within natural resource management. In the absence of an explicit strategy for democratization and capacity-building the notion of community participation is potentially meaningless and its application likely to mask decisions made in the interests of elite groups. This article examines the shortcomings of participatory processes in coastal resource management and seeks to identify and overcome constraints to democratization and capacity-building for Indigenous Australians. Using two coastal catchments in Central Queensland as a case study, we explore relations of power among stakeholders using Stakeholder Analysis to provide a platform for more effective deliberative participation by this group of stakeholders. Discussion of the specific barriers to participation identified by Aboriginal stakeholders will demonstrate the need to adopt notions of capacity-building that focus not only on the attributes of the individual stakeholder that might facilitate their participation, but on the characteristics also of the decision-making environment.     

公路建设项目环境管理的公众参与研究

公众参与作为公路建设项目环境管理中的重要手段,在促进交通运输行业可持续发展、提高公路建设管理水平方面发挥了极为重要的作用。通过分析公路建设项目环境管理中公众参与的现状,可发现我国公众参与环境管理存在的问题,进而提出新的公众参与模式,促进公路建设事业的可持续发展。