Institutionalizing Political Monitoring as Part of Policy Design

Building upon previous work （Lancaster, 2014） which defined and theoretically situated political monitoring as an analytical concept, this essay first reiterates the importance of political monitoring to the study of institutions of governance and related policy design. The conceptualization of political monitoring builds upon the psychological notion that people change their behavior if they believe someone is watching them. Second, it discusses theoretically how and why policy design might incorporate political monitoring in order to produce specific outcomes. Third, it presents empirical evidence from several illustrative examples to demonstrate how the institutionalization of political monitoring affects policy outcomes.

An integrated assessment approach to optimal forest bioenergy production for young Scots pine stands

Background: Bioenergy is re-shaping opportunities and imperatives of forest management. This study demonstrates,through a case study in Scots pine(Pinus sylvestris L.), how forest bioenergy policies affect stand management strategies.Methods: Optimization studies were examined for 15 Scots pine stands of different initial stand densities, site types, and temperature sum regions in Finland. Stand development was model ed using the Pipe Qual stand simulator coupled with the simulation-optimization tool Opti For Bioenergy to assess three forest bioenergy policies on energy wood harvest from early thinnings.Results: The optimal solutions maximizing bare land value indicate that conventional forest management regimes remain optimal for sparse stands. Energy harvests occurred only when profitable, led to lower financial returns. A forest bioenergy policy which included compulsory energy wood harvesting was optimal for denser stands. At a higher interest rate(4 %), increasing energy wood price postponed energy wood harvesting. In addition, our results show that early thinning somewhat reduced wood quality for stands in fertile sites. For less fertile sites, the changes were insignificant.Conclusions: A constraint of profitable energy wood harvest is not rational. It is optimal to carry out the first thinning with a flexible forest bioenergy policy depending on stand density.