No abstract

The authors use a comparative politics framework, examining electoral interests, policy-maker's own normative commitments, and domestic political institutions as factors influencing Annex 1 countries' decisions on Kyoto Protocol ratification and adoption of national policies to mitigate climate change. Economic costs and electoral interests matter a great deal, even when policy-makers are morally motivated to take action on climate change. Leaders' normative commitments may carry the day under centralized institutional conditions, but these commitments can be reversed when leaders change. Electoral systems, federalism, and executive-legislative institutional configurations all influence ratification decisions and subsequent policy adoption. Although institutional configurations may facilitate or hinder government action, high levels of voter concern can trump institutional obstacles. Governments' decisions to ratify, and the reduction targets they face upon ratification, do not necessarily determine their approach to carbon emissions abatement policies: for example, ratifying countries that accept demanding targets may fail to take significant action. (c) 2007 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Why have Western donors' efforts to encourage development of Russian nongovernmental organizations~NGOs! varied dramatically in two different NGO sectors, despite similar levels of assistance? I forward a norms-based explanation for varying success in bolstering the Russian women's and soldiers' rights movements+ Where foreign assistance is employed to promote norms that are universally embraced, it is highly likely to lead to a successful NGO movement+ In contrast, when foreign assistance pursues norms that are specific to other societal contexts, it will fail to develop an NGO movement, regardless of the amount of funding foreign donors devote+ NGOs and foreign donors have succeeded by articulating a universal norm against physical harm in the cases of soldiers' rights and domestic violence, but have failed by voicing specifically Western norms of gender equality and feminism in the case of women's rights+ I wish to thank

No abstract