Explore the vast range of titles available.

Community based fishery management (CBFM) formulates various formal and informal institutions (developing community organizations, decision-making, and traditional fishing rules) for sustainable fishery management in Bangladesh. Although these rules are intended to managing fisheries for a long-term use, constraints to enforcing these rules or absence of mechanisms to address these constraints hamper fishers’ resilience. This paper aims to examine such constraints to fishers’ resilience in Langalkata Ozur Beel (local name of the fishery), Sunamganj, Bangladesh. Based on key informant interviews, this paper finds that non-participatory community based organizations and weak coordination among stakeholders appear to be enduring constraints to developing fishers’ resilience. Fishers’ resilience is largely constrained by power relations that mostly exclude fishers from the fishery management. Conflict between fishery users or with the community and the absence of interactive learning are also important constraints to fishers’ resilience. It seems that rules-in-practice fail to develop fishers’ capacity to cope and adapt to these constraints and continue their activities to maintaining the fishery.

Machines powered by artificial intelligence increasingly mediate our social, cultural, economic and political interactions. Understanding the behaviour of artificial intelligence systems is essential to our ability to control their actions, reap their benefits and minimize their harms. Here we argue that this necessitates a broad scientific research agenda to study machine behaviour that incorporates and expands upon the discipline of computer science and includes insights from across the sciences. We first outline a set of questions that are fundamental to this emerging field and then explore the technical, legal and institutional constraints on the study of machine behaviour. Understanding the behaviour of the machines powered by artificial intelligence that increasingly mediate our social, cultural, economic and political interactions is essential to our ability to control the actions of these intelligent machines, reap their benefits and minimize their harms.

Long-term mitigation scenarios developed by integrated assessment models underpin major aspects of recent IPCC reports and have been critical to identify the system transformations that are required to meet stringent climate goals. However, they have been criticized for proposing pathways that may prove challenging to implement in the real world and for failing to capture the social and institutional challenges of the transition. There is a growing interest to assess the feasibility of these scenarios, but past research has mostly focused on theoretical considerations. This paper proposes a novel and versatile multidimensional framework that allows evaluating and comparing decarbonization pathways by systematically quantifying feasibility concerns across geophysical, technological, economic, socio-cultural and institutional dimensions. This framework enables to assess the timing, disruptiveness and scale of feasibility concerns, and to identify trade-offs across different feasibility dimensions. As a first implementation of the proposed framework, we map the feasibility concerns of the IPCC 1.5 °C Special Report scenarios. We select 24 quantitative indicators and propose feasibility thresholds based on insights from an extensive analysis of the literature and empirical data. Our framework is, however, flexible and allows evaluations based on different thresholds or aggregation rules. Our analyses show that institutional constraints, which are often not accounted for in scenarios, are key drivers of feasibility concerns. Moreover, we identify a clear intertemporal trade-off, with early mitigation being more disruptive but preventing higher and persistent feasibility concerns produced by postponed mitigation action later in the century.

Important decisions that impact humans lives, livelihoods, and the natural environment are increasingly being automated. Delegating tasks to so-called automated decision-making systems (ADMS) can improve efficiency and enable new solutions. However, these benefits are coupled with ethical challenges. For example, ADMS may produce discriminatory outcomes, violate individual privacy, and undermine human self-determination. New governance mechanisms are thus needed that help organisations design and deploy ADMS in ways that are ethical, while enabling society to reap the full economic and social benefits of automation. In this article, we consider the feasibility and efficacy of ethics-based auditing (EBA) as a governance mechanism that allows organisations to validate claims made about their ADMS. Building on previous work, we define EBA as a structured process whereby an entity’s present or past behaviour is assessed for consistency with relevant principles or norms. We then offer three contributions to the existing literature. First, we provide a theoretical explanation of how EBA can contribute to good governance by promoting procedural regularity and transparency. Second, we propose seven criteria for how to design and implement EBA procedures successfully. Third, we identify and discuss the conceptual, technical, social, economic, organisational, and institutional constraints associated with EBA. We conclude that EBA should be considered an integral component of multifaced approaches to managing the ethical risks posed by ADMS.

Despite faster-than-expected progress in clean energy technology deployment, global annual CO 2 emissions have increased from 2020 to 2023. The feasibility of limiting warming to 1.5 °C is therefore questioned. Here we present a model intercomparison study that accounts for emissions trends until 2023 and compares cost-effective scenarios to alternative scenarios with institutional, geophysical and technological feasibility constraints and enablers informed by previous literature. Our results show that the most ambitious mitigation trajectories with updated climate information still manage to limit peak warming to below 1.6 °C (‘low overshoot’) with around 50% likelihood. However, feasibility constraints, especially in the institutional dimension, decrease this maximum likelihood considerably to 5–45%. Accelerated energy demand transformation can reduce costs for staying below 2 °C but have only a limited impact on further increasing the likelihood of limiting warming to 1.6 °C. Our study helps to establish a new benchmark of mitigation scenarios that goes beyond the dominant cost-effective scenario design. The Paris Agreement requires reaching net-zero carbon emissions, but a debate exists on how fast this can be achieved. This study establishes scenarios with different feasibility constraints and finds that the institutional dimension plays a key role for determining the feasible peak temperature.

Since the abolition in China of unequal regulations and controls related to the urban labour market and rural–urban migration in recent years, attention has been paid to migrants’ settlement intentions and their integration into host cities. Settlement channels have become more diverse and more accessible to migrants, because of relaxed institutional constraints and the advanced market mechanism, which are essential to the pace and process of urbanisation, and welfare and service provisions in host cities. Using data from a survey conducted by the Institute of Population and Labor Economic of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Ningbo in 2014, this study examines migrants’ various settlement intention patterns, including traditional permanent settlement intention involving the transfer of one’s household registration (hukou) status; de facto permanent settlement intention through purchasing urban housing; and long-term temporary settlement intention and short-term temporary settlement intention not involving the transfer of one’s hukou. This paper finds that hukou status has a limited impact on permanent settlement intention, and rural migrants tend to achieve permanent settlement through more flexible channels, such as purchasing urban housing in their host cities, thereby avoiding the institutional hurdle of obtaining a local urban hukou. The paper contributes to the study of migration in China by introducing a new concept of settlement intention, de facto permanent settlement intention, which has not yet been investigated empirically in the existing literature. 自从中国近年取消与城市劳动力市场和城乡迁移相关的不平等管控以来，外来人口的定居意愿和融入所在城市受到了重视。由于宽松的制度约束和先进的市场机制，外来人口的定居渠道变得更加多样化和更容易获得，这对于城市化节奏和进程以及所迁入城市的福利和服务供应都至关重要。本研究利用中国社会科学院人口与劳动经济研究所 2014 年在宁波所做一项调查的数据，考察了外来人口的各种定居意愿模式，包括涉及迁户口的传统永久定居、通过购买城市住房实现的事实性永久定居，以及不涉及迁户口的长期临时定居和短期临时定居。本文发现，户籍身份对永久定居意愿的影响有限，农民工往往通过更灵活的渠道实现永久定居，如在其迁入城市购买城市住房，从而避免了获得当地城镇户口的制度障碍。本文引入了一个新的定居意愿概念即事实性永久定居意愿，现有研究文献对此尚未开展实证研究。由此，本文为中国的迁移研究做出了贡献。

Designing urban water systems to respond to the accelerating and unpredictable changes of the Anthropocene will require changes not only to built infrastructure and operating rules, but also to the governance arrangements responsible for investing in them. Yet, inclusion of this political‐economic feedback in dynamic models of infrastructure systems and socio‐hydrology has lagged behind operational feedback concerns. We address this gap through a dynamical systems application of the Coupled Infrastructure Systems (CIS) Framework, which provides the conceptual building blocks for analyzing social‐ecological systems through various classes of infrastructure and the flows of material and information among them. In the model, political‐economic feedback involves three decisions—infrastructure investment, rate‐setting, and short‐term demand curtailment—and each decision is constrained by institutional friction, the aggregation of decision and transaction costs associated with taking action. We apply the model to three cities in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area to compare how institutional friction interacts with a city's water resource portfolio and financial position to determine its sensitivity, or the degree to which its performance (e.g., providing sufficient supply to meet demand) changes given reductions in Colorado River water availability. We find that the slowing effect of institutional friction on investment and rate‐setting decisions can increase the sensitivity of a city's supply, but it can also promote objectives that compete with over‐response (e.g., rate burden). The effect is dependent on the initial operating capacity of the CIS and flexibility within the institutions, highlighting the need to consider political‐economic and operational feedback together when evaluating infrastructure systems. Plain Language Summary Urban water systems must grapple with accelerating social and environmental change that requires them to not only consider future infrastructure needs, but also, the configuration of decisions responsible for infrastructure investment. Unfortunately, inclusion of political‐economic feedback has lagged behind operational feedback in models that examine water systems response to changing environments. We present a modeling approach to trace the flow of water, information, and investment in a general urban water system that must make three annual decisions: infrastructure investment, rate‐setting, and short‐term demand curtailment. Each decision is influenced by costs to taking action and the flexibility involved in setting action magnitudes. We apply the model to three cities in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area to compare how these institutional constraints interact with existing infrastructure and finances to affect their sensitivity, or the degree to which their performance (e.g., providing sufficient supply to meet demand) changes given reductions in Colorado River water. We find that when institutional barriers to action increase, cities are more sensitive to supply shocks, but such barriers can benefit other objectives like rate burden. The effect is dependent on the presence of redundant supplies, demand growth, and decision‐making flexibility, highlighting the need to consider both political‐economic and operational concerns when evaluating water systems. Key Points Having sufficient supply redundancy can outweigh the negative effect of slow institutions on a city's ability to address supply shocks The supplies of cities with institutions that require more stress to act are more sensitive to shocks, but their rates are less sensitive Adding flexibility to institutions can ease the burden of large investments on ratepayers and improve the reliability of slow institutions

Palm oil is the most widely produced and consumed vegetable oil worldwide, but its production is associated with deforestation and other environmental and social problems. Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is the only internationally-recognized voluntary certification standard aimed at mitigating such problems. Many studies examine RSPO’s effects on particular outcomes in specific contexts, but a consolidated global assessment is lacking. Here, we systematically review the literature and identify 53 original studies covering RSPO effects in various countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Where data availability permits, we also conduct meta-analysis. Results reveal that RSPO can lead to environmental improvements, such as reduced peatland use and greenhouse gas emissions, but these effects are context-dependent and not consistently achieved. RSPO reduces deforestation within certified concessions, but this is largely offset by leakage to non-certified land, such that the overall effect on deforestation is insignificant. RSPO contributes to improved oil palm yields, especially for large-scale producers, and often also to higher profits and incomes. Yet, RSPO seems to exacerbate asymmetric power structures. Certification of independent smallholders remains limited due to technical and institutional constraints. While RSPO has certain positive effects in specific situations, further development of the standard and other policies are needed to make palm oil production more sustainable. Another important finding is that the methodological approaches of the original studies vary considerably. Rigorous impact studies consistently show smaller effects than less-rigorous ones, suggesting that uncontrolled confounding factors may lead to exaggerated reports about RSPO benefits.

Tobacco farming has emerged as an important concern for tobacco control advocates. Tobacco-growing countries face unique and important challenges to comprehensive, intersectoral tobacco control. These challenges stem from narratives that position tobacco as an important driver of economic growth and development, perpetuated by tobacco interests with close ties to government decision-making. While the global tobacco control movement has enshrined a commitment to alternatives to tobacco growing, there remain numerous obstacles. Tobacco growing is often situated in contexts with limited markets for other agricultural products, limited knowledge and economic resources to pursue alternatives, and/or a structure that favours industry control over the supply chain, all constraining the decision space of farmers. An evidence-informed approach is necessary to address tobacco supply, including growing, processing, manufacturing and trade, in this complex context. This paper reviews the economic, environmental and policy context of tobacco growing with an emphasis on the past decade of empirical work on the political economy of tobacco supply and introduces strategies to pursue alternatives. This analysis debunks many of the arguments used to perpetuate the narrative of tobacco’s prosperity and provides critical insights into the institutional constraints faced by government sectors in pursuing a policy of alternatives.

Interest in translational ecology (TE) - a research approach that yields useful scientific outcomes through ongoing collaboration between scientists and stakeholders - is growing among both of these groups. Translational ecology brings together participants from different cultures and with different professional incentives. We address ways to cultivate a culture of TE, such as investing time in understanding one another's decision context and incentives, and outline common entry points to translational research, such as working through boundary organizations, building place-based research programs, and being open to opportunities as they arise. We also highlight common institutional constraints on scientists and practitioners, and ways in which collaborative research can overcome these limitations, emphasizing considerations for navigating TE within current institutional frameworks, but also pointing out ways in which institutions are evolving to facilitate translational research approaches.