INO volume 77 issue 3 Cover and Front matter

International Organization · 2023

• Computer Science
• Computer Science
• Business

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Drivers of adoption of crop protection and soil fertility management practices among smallholder soybean farmers in Tolon district of Ghana

Heliyon · 2021 · 35 citations

• Agroforestry
• Agricultural science
• Business

Among the critical challenges affecting crop production and agricultural productivity in most developing countries are declining soil fertility and the incidence of crop pests and diseases. Hence, there have been efforts by scientists and policy-makers especially in sub-Saharan Africa to promote the uptake of agronomic and production practices that address these challenges. This study, therefore, aimed at investigating the drivers of adoption of crop protection and soil fertility (CPSF) management practices among soybean farmers in rural Ghana. The management practices investigated included application of chemical fertilizers, biofertilizers (inoculants) and herbicides. The study was motivated by the critical roles that adoption of CPSF management practices play in promoting agricultural productivity. Multivariate probit (MVP) and censored Tobit modelling were used to estimate adoption and intensity of adoption, respectively. Adoption of rhizobium inoculant and chemical fertilizer, as well as adoption of rhizobium inoculant and herbicide application, were mutually exclusive, while adoption of chemical fertilizer and herbicide were found to be complementary. Adoption intensity was higher for female farmers and increased with age, herd size, farm capital and farm size. Furthermore, institutional factors were more influential in the case of inoculant and herbicide adoption while for fertilizer adoption, farmer characteristics were the influential factors. The study recommends that policies to promote adoption should take into account the interdependence among the technologies. Also, there is the need to target farmers who cannot afford the cost of inputs with support in the form of input subsidies to reduce partial adoption.

Directions for Research on Climate and Conflict

Earth s Future · 2020 · 78 citations

• Political Science
• Political Science
• Environmental resource management

The potential links between climate and conflict are well studied, yet disagreement about the specific mechanisms and their significance for societies persists. Here, we build on assessment of the relationship between climate and organized armed conflict to define crosscutting priorities for future directions of research. They include (1) deepening insight into climate-conflict linkages and conditions under which they manifest, (2) ambitiously integrating research designs, (3) systematically exploring future risks and response options, responsive to ongoing decision-making, and (4) evaluating the effectiveness of interventions to manage climate-conflict links. The implications of this expanding scientific domain unfold in real time.

Commitment Problems and the Spread of Ethnic Conflict

Princeton University Press eBooks · 2020 · 168 citations

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Political Science

IF INTERNATIONAL POLITICS among major powers turn hideously ugly in next twenty years it will be a simple matter to use hindsight to show how this was inevitable. Frightening analogies to 1920s and 1930s can be spun out. A protracted, costly has ended with collapse of one of combatants, its economy ruined and chaotic, its people resentful and ripe for mobilization by authoritarian demagogues who can easily argue for restoring national pride by means of expansion—Weimar Russia, as some have termed it. The largely pathetic response of Western states through NATO and UN to Serbian aggression in Croatia and Bosnia has already recalled impotence and incoherence of League of Nations. And for a time major powers' reactions to the Third Balkan war produced divisions reminiscent of older alignments that might conceivably foreshadow a return to insecurity in Western Europe. Russia, France, and Britain have tended to favor Serbia while Germany and United States have leaned toward Croatia.' Continuing analogy, principle of national remains as powerful and problematic today as it was in 1920s and 1930s. No one seriously questions principle, 2 but in former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe after communism, self-determination strongly pursued would seem to imply an endless succession of irredentist and secessionist wars, state repression of minorities, ethnic cleansing, enormous numbers of refugees and attendant problems, and perhaps fertile grounds for escalation to major-power conflict. In 1930s, according to some, Chamberlain 'and company's acceptance of principle of deeply influenced their initial response to Hitler's expansionist program (Taylor 1961, 189). In responding to diverse ethnic conflicts and nationalisms to East, Western powers have been similarly torn between desire for peace and stable borders on one hand, and acceptance