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The causes of Los Angeles' wildfires are complex and may have equally difficult and complicated solutions
No full textJanuary 2025 saw devastating wildfires across Los Angeles County with 28 deaths, thousands of structures destroyed, and damages estimated in the tens of billions of dollars. Thomas Smith looks at California’s changing history of fire regimes, which in combination with climate change, extreme fire weather, and a multitude of potential fire ignition sources, have led to greater and greater fire risk. Just as the reasons behind LA’s wildfires are complex, he writes, so are the solutions, which will require collaboration on multiple fronts between policymakers, communities, and scientists
Weather to protest: the effect of Black Lives Matter protests on the 2020 presidential election
No full textDo mass mobilizations drive social change? This paper explores this question by studying how the Black Lives Matter protests following George Floyd’s death influenced the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Using rainfall as an instrument for protest participation and complementary difference-in-differences analyses, we show that protest activity significantly increased Democratic vote share in affected counties. Our research makes three key contributions. First, we show causal evidence for the effect of one of the largest protest movements ever recorded on electoral out- comes. Second, we provide evidence of novel temporal dynamics: while protests initially triggered a conservative backlash, they ultimately generated progressive shifts in voting behavior. Third, we identify mechanisms driving these effects, showing that rather than merely mobilizing existing Democratic voters, protests substantively shifted political preferences and beliefs about racial inequality
On compulsory licensing of trade secrets to safeguard public health
No full textIn the pharmaceutical sector an increasing number of new medicines are large-molecule products, namely biologics derived from living organisms, rather than small-molecule drugs synthesised from chemicals. Unlike small-molecule medicines, which are relatively easy to manufacture, large-molecule products are less stable and harder to produce. We investigate whether the current UK legal system provides an appropriate balance between the protection provided to technology owners and the public interest in accessing medical technologies, especially in times of emergencies. At present, UK law facilitates compulsory licensing of patents but has no equivalent scheme for trade secrets. Our analysis of the legal constraints on potential reforms suggests that a mechanism for compulsory licensing of trade secrets would be compatible with UK domestic law, the European Convention on Human Rights, the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights and other international agreements, provided appropriate safeguards are put in place to balance the rights of intellectual property holders with the public interest. The article contributes a detailed framework for the compulsory licensing of trade secrets, drawing parallels with voluntary technology transfer agreements, including provisions for defining the scope of transfer, maintaining confidentiality, restricting future use, providing fair compensation and ensuring enforceability
Local developers, fragmented development and perils of governance
No full textThe incidence of land-grabbing by local developers, that leads to illegal colonies and unauthorised housing in the informal land markets of the National Capital Region, particularly in Gautam Buddha Nagar and Ghaziabad, is examined. The fieldwork reveals how developers exploit regulatory loopholes, collude with state actors, and leverage caste networks to gain control over land. This process fuels illegal colonies, marginalises lower-caste groups, and reshapes urban peripheries. The findings highlight the urgent need for governance reforms to curb speculative land dispossession and ensure equitable urban development in rapidly expanding Indian cities
Chance as a guide to life: the other principal principle
No full textWhen choosing between actions having the same two possible outcomes, we should choose the act for which the conditional chance of the preferred outcome, given its performance, is higher. This simple principle is, I argue, both a basic condition of instrumental rationality and the core of our conception of chance. To support this claim, I show that it in the presence of very weak rationality conditions on choice, the principle implies (1) a version of Lewis’s Principal Principle (and that the converse is false), (2) Stochastic Dominance, a principle endorsed by most theories of rational decision making under risk, and (3) that the evidential and causal decision values of an act, conditional on the chances, are the same. Finally, I argue that its appeal as a principle of instrumental rationality derives from the fact that securing a higher chance of a good outcome is better than securing a lower one
Critical raw materials, the net-zero transition and the 'securitization' of the trade and climate change mitigation nexus: pinpointing environmental risks and charting a new path for transnational decarbonization
No full textThe exercise of environmental ‘leverage’ via trade-related measures and trade in environmental goods offers opportunities to tackle the climate crisis and advance transnational decarbonization. Inward-looking, adversarial, and short-term national security-centred approaches, however, are disrupting the trade and climate change mitigation linkage. This article employs the race for critical raw materials and US and EU strategies to promote the net-zero transition at the domestic level as case studies to illustrate the environmental pitfalls of the ‘securitization’ of the trade and climate change mitigation nexus. The article demonstrates that the pursuit of strategic dominance in key net-zero sectors, attempts to exclude systemic rivals and reshore supply chains, opportunistic forms of friendshoring and loose agreement on regulatory means jeopardize recourse to environmental ‘leverage’ and undermine decarbonization at both national and transnational levels. This analysis casts a light on the inherent tension between national security and climate change mitigation. Taking stock of these findings, the article advocates a radically different approach to the governance of the trade and climate change mitigation nexus
Ethnic differences in intergenerational housing mobility in England and Wales
No full textHome ownership is the largest component of wealth for most households and its intergenerational transmission underpins the production and reproduction of economic inequalities across generations. Yet, little is currently known about ethnic differences in the intergenerational transmission of housing tenure. In this paper we use linked Census data covering 1971-2011 to document rates of intergenerational housing tenure mobility across ethnic groups in England and Wales. We find that while home ownership declined across all ethnic groups during this period, there were substantial differences between them. Black, Pakistani and Bangladeshi households experienced the strongest intergenerational link between parent and child housing tenure, and Black individuals had the highest rates of downward housing mobility. In contrast, those of Indian origin had homeownership rates similar to White British families, and a weaker link between parent and child housing tenure. These patterns are likely to exacerbate existing gradients in other dimensions of ethnicity-based inequality, now and in the future
Influence match: can corporate lobbying equalise political influence?
No full textSome corporations use their disproportionate lobbying power to obstruct policy. This obstructive lobbying violates most people’s claims to equal political influence. Occasionally, however, other corporations respond by using their disproportionate power to lobby in support of policy. Does this supportive lobbying violate claims to equal influence too? This paper argues that it does, using climate policy as an example. Supportive lobbying does not, in many cases, work to cancel out the influence from obstructive corporate lobbying. Moreover, supportive lobbying violates claims to equal influence even in cases where this lobbying helps equalise the distribution of influence, helps equalise the likelihood of congruence between policy and people’s policy preferences, and helps enforce claims to equal influence held by people in the supportive corporation
Revisiting the asymmetry thesis: negative and positive integration in the EU
No full textThe ‘asymmetry thesis’, articulated by Fritz Scharpf, holds that EU governance is characterised by an asymmetry between positive and negative integration. The EU has well-developed capacities for negative integration but only limited capacities for positive integration. The present paper challenges the orthodoxy that this thesis has become in EU law and political science scholarship. It argues that the asymmetry thesis no longer accurately depicts European integration, revisiting its key legal and institutional assumptions. Taking the internal market as the most likely case to test the thesis, we show that negative integration has become weaker, positive integration has gained in strength, and both developments have had an impact on the substance of EU law and policymaking, which is promoting non-economic concerns and market-correcting policies to a greater extent than it used to. These shifts, so we contend, could be even more pronounced in other areas of European integration