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Public water utilities are tasked with providing high quality, inexpensive water often sourced from watersheds representing a diverse mix of public and private land ownership. There is increasing recognition amongst water resource managers of the role that private landowners play in determining downstream water quality, but bringing together landowners with a wide variety of land management objectives under the umbrella of watershed stewardship has proven difficult. Recently, a large number of "Payment for Watershed Services" programs have aimed to engage private landowners in watershed stewardship initiatives by offering financial incentives for adopting watershed best management practices. However, a growing field of research suggests that financial incentives alone may be of limited utility to encourage widespread and long-standing behavior change, and instead understanding landowner attitudes and non-financial barriers to stewardship program enrollment has become a focus of research. This research examines a population of rural landowners representing a diversity of agricultural, forestry, recreational, and investment objectives in the Clackamas River watershed, Oregon. I designed and distributed a mail and web-based survey instrument intended to measure land uses and land ownership objectives, attitudes towards watershed stewardship programs, barriers to enrollment in stewardship programs, and preferred incentives and goals that would promote enrollment. I received 281 valid responses for a response rate of 29%. I conducted two primary analyses: one focused on relating attitudes and barriers to intent to enroll in a watershed stewardship program, and one focused on identifying how diverse landowners differ according to factors influencing enrollment in stewardship programs. I found that landowners did not report financial considerations to be a primary barrier to enrollment and expressed low interest in receiving financial incentives. Instead, landowners reported that primary barriers related to lack of trust, ecological understanding, and concerns that stewardship program enrollment would be incompatible with their land management objectives. I do not discount the potential utility of financial incentives under certain circumstances, but emphasize the importance of addressing these other considerations before incentives can make a meaningful impact. I compared how barriers to enrollment were perceived by landowners with different land management objectives relating to production, investment, and conservation. I found that landowner attitudes were differentiated from one another primarily by their use of land for production purposes; however, I found a large amount of diversity between producers and non-producers in the degree to which they considered investment and conservation objectives in their land management, and these two variables added further explanatory power to understanding fine-scale differences in how landowner typologies relate to conservation programs.

The following essay examines the image of "Barbary piracy" created by two prominent political figures, Thomas Jefferson and William Eaton, and by the American public from 1784 to 1805, and how those images shaped the policy of the American-Barbary War. Eaton‟s Orientalist approach to describing piracy and the North African population limited his views of this region, thus reducing the American conflict to the annihilation of animalistic "brutes." Jefferson‟s practical approach to describing piracy and the North African population focused on emancipating the region from the corrupting influence of greed, allowing him the necessary flexibility to solve the conflict by either by military force or with peace treaties, whichever was necessary. I will show the impact that categorizing piracy as either the result of a depraved society or as a corrupting force had on both American perceptions of the North Africa people and on the outcome of the American-Barbary War.

This thesis deals with the European Union's food self-sufficiency. The aim is to try to assess the impact of EU agricultural policies on food sovereignty of Member States and countries outside the EU. The work will evaluate the production of food self-sufficiency in the European Union and the EU for different types of production. The work will assess the impacts of agricultural policies on the Union's agricultural production and international trade. International trade can be used to ensure self-sufficiency, so it is also included in the work. The work will also focus on the restrictions under the WTO and trade between the EU and the rest of the world. In addition to assessing the impact of the policies the work will also deal with future developments.

The purpose of this thesis is to acquaint the reader with the processes and the results of the recent reforms of federalism in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. It is remarkable that in spite of their historical, geographical and cultural proximity show these federal countries substantive differences in the institutional framework as well as in the execution of the reform procedures. This thesis considers also the potential possibility to (partly) apply the knowledge and experience of these reforms within the EU framework. Despite difficult comparison of the EU with the federal countries there are certain identical elements and processes, may it be the execution of the shared competences or reallocation of the public finances. In order to better understand these deliberations and due to the modest Czech literature on federalism and federations the thesis provides also historical perspective as well as broader theoretical background.

La cessation des paiements, c’est sans aucun doute l’une des notions clés du droit des procédures collectives. Pour s’en rendre compte, il suffit de vérifier le contentieux qui en la matière est très abondant. Légalement définie au sein du premier alinéa de l’article L. 631-1 du Code de commerce comme l’impossibilité pou un débiteur de faire face à son passif exigible avec son actif disponible, cette définition, a été, à l’origine, l’œuvre d’une décision de la Cour de cassation rendue le 14 février 1978. Sous l’empire des dispositions antérieures à la loi de sauvegarde des entreprises, la cessation des paiements est un « curseur » qui sert de ligne de démarcation entre les procédures amiables et les procédures judiciaires. Un tel système a été dénoncé car il manquait cruellement de souplesse et d’efficacité dans la lutte contre les défaillances des entreprises. La loi du 26 juillet 2005, dans l’optique d’anticiper le traitement des difficultés des entreprises a mis un terme au système de « la cessation-curseur » en instituant la procédure amiable de conciliation et la procédure collective de sauvegarde. Toutefois, lorsque les « digues » que constituent les outils de l’anticipation n’ont pas pu enrayer le risque de cessation des paiements, le chef d’entreprise qui se retrouve dans une telle situation doit, dans un délai de quarante-cinq jours, demander l’ouverture d’une procédure de redressement ou de liquidation judiciaire. Lorsqu’il ouvre l’une ou l’autre de ces deux procédures, le tribunal saisi doit fixer une date de cessation des paiements. Cette date sera décisive pour la détermination de la période suspecte. De plus, l’ouverture des procédures collectives aura une incidence sur l’entreprise, elle joue sa survie, sur les créanciers dont le recouvrement de la créance est menacé, sur les fournisseurs qui craignent pour leurs relations contractuelles avec le débiteur, sur les garants qui craignent d’être appelés et sur la personne du débiteur elle-même. Sa gestion antérieure de l’entreprise sera scrutée et s’il en résulte des fautes en relation plus ou moins directe avec la cessation des paiements, il encourt des sanctions ou des actions en responsabilité. / Cessation of payments is certainly one of the key concepts in the law on collective insolvency proceedings. This can be seen by checking the litigation, which is very abundant in this matter. Legally defined in the first paragraph of Article L. 631-1 of the Commercial Code as the inability of a debtor to meet its accrued liabilities with its quick assets, this definition originated in a decision of the Court of Cassation issued on February 14, 1978. Under the provisions prior to the insolvency act, cessation of payments is a "cursor" which serves as a line of demarcation between amicable proceedings and judicial proceedings. Such a system has been criticized for being sorely lacking in flexibility and effectiveness in preventing business failures. The law of July 26, 2005, with the objective of anticipating treatment of company difficulties, put an end to the "cessation-cursor" by instituting the amicable conciliation proceeding and the collective insolvency proceeding. However, when the "barriers" formed by the anticipation tools have not been able to halt the risk of cessation of payments, the company director in such a situation must, within a period of forty-five days, request the initiation of a receivership or court-supervised liquidation proceeding. When either of these proceedings is initiated, the court must fix a date of cessation of payments. This date will be final for the determination of the suspect period. Moreover, the initiation of collective insolvency proceedings will have an effect on the enterprise fighting for survival, on the creditors whose ability to collect their debt is threatened, on the suppliers worried about their contractual relations with the debtor, on the guarantors who fear being called upon and on the debtor itself. Prior management of the enterprise will be probed and if faults more or less closely connected to the cessation of payments are revealed, sanctions or tort actions may result.

O pagamento por serviços ambientais é um instrumento econômico que tem sido utilizado para incentivar a adoção de usos da terra e/ou de recursos naturais que melhorem ou aumentem o fornecimento de serviços ambientais, tais como conservação da biodiversidade e seqüestro de carbono. Seu uso é recente e os efeitos que as mudanças de uso da terra podem trazer às rendas e ao desenvolvimento das populações-alvo ainda são poucos conhecidos. Nesta pesquisa, procurou-se avaliar, de forma prospectiva, o impacto que usos da terra capazes de fornecer maiores níveis de serviços ambientais podem ter sobre a geração de renda das unidades de produção e sobre a sustentabilidade econômica, social e ambiental da agricultura familiar, na Amazônia Brasileira. Também, foi avaliado se o nível de pagamento previsto pelo Programa Proambiente, uma política pública em implementação que pretende pagar aos agricultores por serviços ambientais fornecidos, pode facilitar a adoção desses usos da terra. Para isso, foram simulados cenários com uso da terra tradicional (sistema de \"derrubae- queima\"), utilizando-se dados coletados em pesquisa com agricultores familiares pertencentes ao Pólo de Desenvolvimento Rio Capim do Programa Proambiente, no Nordeste Paraense; e com usos da terra alternativos, como agricultura sem uso do fogo, implantação de sistemas agroflorestais, enriquecimento de capoeira, apicultura e manejo de açaizal. Através da análise de custos de oportunidade e de indicadores de sustentabilidade econômica, social e ambiental, os cenários mostraram que compensar os agricultores pelos custos de oportunidade do desmatamento evitado, do ponto de vista social e econômico, pode ser menos promissor do que propiciar condições para que os agricultores familiares realizem a transição para usos da terra alternativos que forneçam menores níveis de serviços ambientais, em comparação ao desmatamento evitado, mas sejam mais benéficos em termos econômicos e sociais, promovendo o desenvolvimento da agricultura familiar de forma mais sustentável. / Payment for environmental services is an economic instrument that has been used to encourage the adoption of land and/or natural resource uses that improve or enhance the provision of environmental services, such as biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration. Its use is recent and the effects that changes in land use can bring to income and development of the target populations are still little known. In this research, it has been assessed, in a prospective way, the impact that land uses which are capable of providing higher levels of environmental services may have on the generation of income for households and on the economic, social and environmental sustainability of family farming, in the Brazilian Amazon, and if the level of payment provided by Proambiente Program, a public policy in its implementation phase, whose goal is to pay farmers for environmental services, can facilitate the adoption of these land uses. In view of these purposes, scenarios were simulated utilizing the traditional land use (slash-and-burn agriculture), based on data collection obtained among family farmers from Northeast of Para State, as well as with alternative land uses, such as firefree fallow management, agroforestry, fallow vegetation enrichment, beekeeping and \"açai\" management. Through analysis of costs of opportunity and economic, social and environmental sustainability indicators, the scenarios showed that to compensate farmers for the opportunity cost of avoided deforestation, may be less promising from a economic and social point of view, than providing conditions for that the family farmers make the transition to alternative land uses that provide lower levels of environmental services, in comparison to avoided deforestation, but may be more beneficial in economic and social terms, given that they foster the development of family farming in a more sustainable way.

Cette thèse s’intéresse à l’étude de la relation entre l’ouverture financière et politique et la croissance économique dans les pays en voie de développement. En effet, réformes politiques et libéralisation économique étaient le mot d’ordre des instances financières internationales qui conditionnaient l’octroi des aides financières à l’application de certaines réformes en faveur de la démocratie, du respect des droits de l’Homme et de l’intégration à la sphère financière mondiale. Notre investigation empirique porte sur un échantillon de 108 pays en voie de développement entre 1984 et 2008 et fait appel aux techniques d’estimation de panel statiques et dynamiques et les nouveaux tests de causalité en panel hétérogène. Nos résultats, démontrent que la libéralisation financière en plus de son impact direct sur la croissance, agit positivement sur l’investissement, le commerce extérieur ainsi que la stabilité macroéconomique à travers une réduction de l’inflation. L’intégration financière favorise, aussi, le développement du secteur financier et du capital humain. Ailleurs, la démocratie, même si elle n’a pas d’impact direct significatif sur la croissance, semble influer positivement sur celle-ci de manière indirecte à travers le canal du commerce extérieur mais aussi du développement financier et la promotion du capital humain. Ailleurs, l’instabilité politique affecte négativement le développement économique de manière directe mais aussi de manière indirecte en diminuant les investissements et le commerce avec l’extérieur et en augmentant l’inflation. Finalement, nos résultats suggèrent l’existence d’une relation de causalité bidirectionnelle entre l’intégration financière et la démocratie. Cependant, la relation entre ouverture financière et stabilité politique est plus spécifique et dépend des caractéristiques régionales des pays. / The purpose of this thesis is to study the relationship between financial integration, political openness and growth in developing countries. In fact, political reforms and economic liberalization was the slogan of the international financial institutions which conditioned the granting of financial aid to the implementation of certain reforms in favor of democracy and more respect of human rights in addition to more financial integration. Our empirical investigation covers a sample of 108 developing countries between 1984 and 2008 and uses both static and dynamic panel data estimation in addition to the new causality test in heterogeneous panel. Our results show that financial liberalization positively impact growth directly and through indirect channel like Investment, trade and macroeconomic stability. It also favors financial development and promotes human capital. Even though, democracy doesn’t directly influence growth, it has an indirect positive effect on it through favoring international trade in addition to financial and human capital development. Otherwise, political instability negatively affects growth directly but also indirectly through decreasing investment and increasing inflation. Finally, our results suggest the existence of a bidirectional relationship between financial integration and democracy. In the other side, the relationship between financial integration and political stability is more specific and depend upon regionals characteristics of the country.

Cette thèse porte sur le procédé de passerelle entre la conciliation et la sauvegarde, dans une approche comparative droit français, droit OHADA. Le procédé de passerelle permet au chef d’entreprise d’élaborer un plan de redressement dans le cadre de la conciliation, avant de le faire adopter lors d’une sauvegarde accélérée. La présente thèse se subdivise en deux parties. Dans la première partie, un diagnostic est posé pour comprendre les raisons de l’adoption de ce mécanisme de traitement des difficultés des entreprises en droit français, et celles qui pourraient ou non justifier sa reconnaissance en droit OHADA. Il ressort de cette partie que, dans les droits français et OHADA, la rigidité du régime de la cessation des paiements ainsi que l’unanimité obligatoire de l’accord de conciliation constituent un handicap au redressement des entreprises, car le principe d’unanimité donne un droit de véto à chaque créancier. Le procédé de passerelle permet de passer outre l’opposition des créanciers minoritaires qui utilisent ce droit de véto pour faire adopter le projet de redressement du chef d’entreprise par vote majoritaire sur le terrain judiciaire. Dans la deuxième partie, une étude prospective est menée ; le procédé de plan pré-négocié joue un rôle à la fois préventif et curatif : il permet, d’une part, la libre négociation, entre un débiteur et ses créanciers, d’un plan conventionnel de restructuration et, d’autre part, l’anticipation de l’intervention du tribunal pour optimiser l’actif et maîtriser le passif. Le procédé de passerelle est adopté en droit français ; la présente thèse propose une étude de son régime juridique. Il n’est pas reconnu pour le moment en droit OHADA ; son applicabilité y est analysée. Pour l’amélioration de la prévention et du traitement des difficultés des entreprises dans les droits français et OHADA, des pistes sont proposées. Il en est ainsi notamment, d’un côté, de l’adoption des comités de créanciers dans la procédure de conciliation française et, de l’autre, de la reconnaissance du mécanisme de plan pré-négocié, de la réforme du régime de la cessation des paiements et de la spécialisation des tribunaux connaissant des contentieux régis par l’AUPC en droit OHADA. La présente étude, en plus d’apporter une contribution scientifique à l’étude des nouvelles procédures de sauvegarde accélérée en droit français, vise à lancer le débat sur l’opportunité de l’adoption du procédé de passerelle en droit OHADA. L’organisation de la cession pré-arrangée dans le cadre du mandat ad hoc en droit français et l’opportunité de l’adoption d’une telle cession en droit OHADA sont des problématiques qui pourraient faire l’objet d’une recherche. / This thesis focuses on the bridging process between conciliation and safeguarding, in a comparative French law approach, OHADA law. The gateway method allows the entrepreneur to develop a recovery plan in the context of conciliation, before adopting it during an accelerated backup. This thesis is divided into two parts. In the first part, a diagnosis is made to understand the reasons of the adoption of this mechanism of treatment of the difficulties of the companies in French law, and those which could or could not justify its recognition in OHADA law. It appears from this section that, in the French and OHADA laws, the rigidity of the system of cessation of payments and the compulsory unanimity of the conciliation agreement constitute a handicap to the recovery of the undertakings, since the principle of unanimity a veto right to each creditor. The gateway process makes it possible to override the opposition of the minority creditors who use this right of veto to get the project of recovery of the head of enterprise adopted by majority vote on the legal ground. In the second part, a prospective study is conducted; The pre-negotiated plan process plays both a preventive and curative role : it allows, on the one hand, the free negotiation, between a debtor and its creditors, of a conventional restructuring plan and, on the other hand, the anticipation of court intervention to optimize assets and control liabilities. The gateway method is adopted in French law; this thesis proposes a study of its legal regime. He is not recognized for the moment in OHADA law ; its applicability is analyzed. For the improvement of the prevention and the treatment of the difficulties of the companies in the French rights and OHADA, tracks are proposed. This is notably the case, on the one hand, of the adoption of the creditor committees in the French conciliation procedure and, on the other, of the recognition of the pre-negotiated plan mechanism, of the reform of the cessation of payments and specialization of courts dealing with disputes governed by the AUPC under OHADA law. This study, in addition to making a scientific contribution to the study of new accelerated safeguard procedures in French law, aims to launch the debate on the appropriateness of the adoption of the OHADA gateway process. The organization of the pre-arranged assignment under the ad hoc mandate in French law and the advisability of adopting such an assignment in OHADA law are issues that could be the subject of research.

A tese trata da política econômica internacional desenvolvida pelo govêrno brasileiro, composta pela política de comércio exterior, a política cambial e tarifária, e o balanço de pagamentos, que constituem pilares fundamentais da política de estabilização do PAEG. A política econômica externa, além de contribuir para a estabilidade e o equilíbrio das contas externas, tentou criar as condições para realização de um novo modelo de crescimento, baseado na promoção de exportações e na abertura da economia aos fluxos de comércio e de investimento. A cooperação financeira internacional e a resolução do endividamento externo passaram a ser considerados questões estratégicas para o êxito deste novo modelo. Sem o aval e os recursos do FMI e dos organismos multilaterais dificilmente o plano de estabilização teria sobrevivido. / This dissertation is about the international economic policy developed by the Brazilian Government. It includes the external trade policy, the exchange rate policy and tariffs trade as well as the balance of payments, that were the basic points of the economic stabilization policy that was carried on during the PAEG – Plano de Ação Econômica do Governo. The external economic policy has helped to reach the goal of the Brazilian economy stabilization as well as has created the conditions for the launching of a new economic growth model, based upon the exports and the opening of the country to the international investment flows. The questions concerning the international finance cooperation and the solution of the external debt problem were considered to be strategic issues for achieving the success of this new economic model. The stabilization program would not be succeeded without the help from the IMF and other multilateral agencies.