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In Burkina Faso, abortion is legally restricted and socially stigmatised, but also frequent. Unsafe abortions represent a significant public health challenge, contributing to the country's very high maternal mortality ratio. Inspired by an internationally disseminated public health framing of unsafe abortion, the country's main policy response has been to provide post-abortion care (PAC) to avert deaths from abortion complications. Drawing on ethnographic research, this article describes how Burkina Faso's PAC policy emerged at the interface of political and moral negotiations between public health professionals, national bureaucrats and international agencies and NGOs. Burkinabè decision-makers and doctors, who are often hostile to induced abortion, have been convinced that PAC is 'life-saving care' which should be delivered for ethical medical reasons. Moreover, by supporting PAC they not only demonstrate compliance with international standards but also, importantly, do not have to contend with any change in abortion legislation, which they oppose. Rights-based international NGOs, in turn, tactically focus on PAC as a 'first step' towards their broader institutional objective to secure safe abortion and abortion rights. Such negotiations between national and international actors result in widespread support for PAC but stifled debate about further legalisation of abortion.

In Burkina Faso, abortion is legally restricted and socially stigmatised, but also frequent. Unsafe abortions represent a significant public health challenge, contributing to the country's very high maternal mortality ratio. Inspired by an internationally disseminated public health framing of unsafe abortion, the country's main policy response has been to provide post-abortion care (PAC) to avert deaths from abortion complications. Drawing on ethnographic research, this article describes how Burkina Faso's PAC policy emerged at the interface of political and moral negotiations between public health professionals, national bureaucrats and international agencies and NGOs. Burkinabè decision-makers and doctors, who are often hostile to induced abortion, have been convinced that PAC is 'life-saving care' which should be delivered for ethical medical reasons. Moreover, by supporting PAC they not only demonstrate compliance with international standards but also, importantly, do not have to contend with any change in abortion legislation, which they oppose. Rights-based international NGOs, in turn, tactically focus on PAC as a 'first step' towards their broader institutional objective to secure safe abortion and abortion rights. Such negotiations between national and international actors result in widespread support for PAC but stifled debate about further legalisation of abortion.

The REDD+ scheme of the United Nations intends to offer developing countries financial incentives to reduce the rates of deforestation and forest degradation for reducing global CO2 emissions. This is combined with building carbon stocks in existing wooded ecosystems and fostering other soil, biodiversity and water conservation objectives. Successful application of REDD+ to the Xylophone Triangle of West Africa faces substantial challenges and risks to both meeting REDD+ objectives and to the local people's rights and livelihoods. The transnationality of the culturally coherent area requires collaboration of three national governments. The opportunities, however, are great to capitalize on the region's biodiversity, the well-developed traditional ecological knowledge and the use of local medicinal plants as an integral part of the agro-ecosystem. Possibilities open to, not only sequester carbon, but also to increase the resilience of the ecosystem and of independent rural livelihoods in the face of climate change and globalization.

Economists typically evaluate policies based on how such policies affect individuals' utilities. We follow this approach by taking a welfarist view of the USA's espoused policy of promoting liberty in other parts of the world. However, we take a nuanced view by investigating the type of welfare that the USA promotes. On one hand, we identify a direct value of liberty in the sense that basic human rights like freedom of speech, freedom to express one's religious beliefs, and freedom to form associations improve welfare. In this case, liberty is directly consumed. We argue that this improvement in welfare comes simply from giving people greater levels of freedom and is independent of the existence of other inputs. On the other hand, we identify an indirect value of liberty because liberty is indirectly consumed insofar as it is an input in an economy's production function and therefore affects welfare through its effect on an economy's capacity to produce goods and services. However, unlike the direct effect mentioned above, we argue that liberty alone cannot produce this indirect effect and therefore needs complementary inputs like investments in physical and human capital. We identify foreign aid as a source of information for investigating a donor's direct and indirect values of liberty. In our empirical work, our identification strategy exploits the aforementioned difference in the characteristics of the direct and indirect values of liberty to test whether the USA's foreign aid allocation is motivated by a direct value or and/or an indirect value for liberty. As a test of validity, we apply our methodology to the aid allocation of donors who, we believe, are different from the USA. These are Arab donors and Scandinavian countries (i.e., Sweden, Norway, and Denmark). We also include the UK.

AbstractIn recent years, there have been calls for policy makers to do more to fight climate change. Indeed, there are growing concerns that climate could exert a serious detrimental impact on financial stability, and thus the wider economy. Empirically, a limited number of studies have highlighted the inflationary effects of climate‐related variables. This study is an attempt to contribute to this literature. More specifically, the article investigates the dynamic inflationary effect of climate in a case study of Belize. Results derived from quarterly data, over the period 1994–2019, and local linear projections suggest that inflation responds positively and significantly to temperature and rainfall shocks. Further disaggregation of inflation into its subindices reveals that this increase in inflation is mainly driven by the effect of climate on food, alcohol and tobacco, household, hospitality, and other goods and services inflation. The findings remain robust even when accounting for temperature and rainfall deviations from historical means. The results suggest that, while inflation control might not be a core element of monetary policy in Belize, policy makers should be aware that these climate‐related effects may have ramifications for the Belize economy.

For decades, scholars have argued that low and declining political trust affect citizens' support for democratic and undemocratic reform. While some theorized that low political trust induces alienation and support for non-democratic decision making, others argued that it pushes critical citizens to support reforms aimed to reinvigorate democracy. Yet, empirical tests of these expectations remained sparse and inconclusive. This paper employs panel data from the Netherlands (covering 3 waves in 3 years) to test these diverging theories simultaneously. We employ the random effects within-between (REWB) model to differentiate between the effects of structurally low and declining political trust. Our results suggest that low and declining trust both diminish support for representative democracy, enhance support for direct democratic decision making and do not affect support for authoritarianism. These findings cast doubt on the understanding of political distrust as a determinant of political alienation. Rather, they support theories of critical citizenship and stealth democracy.

AbstractFor decades, scholars have argued that low and declining political trust affect citizens' support for democratic and undemocratic reform. While some theorized that low political trust induces alienation and support for non‐democratic decision making, others argued that it pushes critical citizens to support reforms aimed to reinvigorate democracy. Yet, empirical tests of these expectations remained sparse and inconclusive. This paper employs panel data from the Netherlands (covering 3 waves in 3 years) to test these diverging theories simultaneously. We employ the random effects within‐between (REWB) model to differentiate between the effects of structurally low and declining political trust. Our results suggest that low and declining trust both diminish support for representative democracy, enhance support for direct democratic decision making and do not affect support for authoritarianism. These findings cast doubt on the understanding of political distrust as a determinant of political alienation. Rather, they support theories of critical citizenship and stealth democracy.

Using the Malmquist productivity index and panel data methods, we study the role of total human capital and its composition in the technological "catch-up" process and productivity growth via the channels of innovation and adoption of technology in a panel of 19 sub -Saharan African countries between 1960 and 2003. Our findings indicate different roles played by the composition of human capital and a follow-on consistent and significant contribution of total human capital to productivity growth. Primary and secondary school attainment (unskilled labour) contribute significantly to the adoption of technology(the main source of productivity growth in sub-Saharan Africa) whilst tertiary school attainment (skilled labour) plays a significant role in local innovation. Total human capital on the other hand, contribute more significantly to the adoption of technology and innovation. Technological "catch-up" remains a significant element in productivity growth in sub-Saharan Africa and economies with higher tertiary school attainment(skilled labour) and higher total human capital tend to contribute significantly to productivity growth through the channel of technological "catch-up". Our results rather point towards a circuitous depiction of the symbiotic characteristics of the composition of human capital in enhancing productivity growth in sub-Saharan Africa and hence efforts in scaling- up investments in human capital by governments, development partners etc should not be too concentrated on one composition of human capital.

Replication Code for: van der Meer and Ouattara, (date), "Putting 'political' back in political trust: an IRT test of the unidimensionality and cross-national equivalence of political trust measures" Quality and Quantity. Forthcoming. https://link.springer.com/journal/11135 . Abstract: Much research intro political trust—its causes, correlates and trends—builds on the twin assumptions that trust in a wide range of political institutions is ultimately an expression of (1) a singular and (2) a crossnationally equivalent underlying attitude. Yet, the widespread assumptions of unidimensionality and crossnational equivalence of political trust is at odds with the dominant conceptual understanding of political trust as a relational concept, driven by subjects, objects, and their interplay. This paper employs Rasch modelling as a direct, strict test of unidimensionality, equivalence and item hierarchy. We test the fit of the Rasch model on political trust items in seven widely used, cross-national surveys (World Values Survey, Afrobarometer, Arabbarometer, Asian Barometer, Eurobarometer, European Social Survey, and Latinobarometro), covering 161 national surveys in 119 countries across the globe. We find that the unidimensional specification of the Rasch model does not fit the standard political trust question batteries. Political trust is not cross nationally equivalent; trust in specific political institutions is more than a mere indicator of an underlying attitude. This conclusion does not impede cross-national research into political trust; rather it illustrates the need for consistent robustness checks across a range of objects of political trust. Our findings open up new venues for substantive research questions on specific objects of political trust and their relationships.