Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
FSI researchers examine the role of energy sources from regulatory, economic and societal angles. The Program on Energy and Sustainable Development (PESD) investigates how the production and consumption of energy affect human welfare and environmental quality. Professors assess natural gas and coal markets, as well as the smart energy grid and how to create effective climate policy in an imperfect world. This includes how state-owned enterprises – like oil companies – affect energy markets around the world. Regulatory barriers are examined for understanding obstacles to lowering carbon in energy services. Realistic cap and trade policies in California are studied, as is the creation of a giant coal market in China.
The increasing prospect of a communist and nationalist victory in Russia's parliamentary elections this month has fueled doubts about whether Russia's presidential election, scheduled for next June, will take place.
Even before President Boris Yeltsin's latest heart attack, the odds were only 50-50 for a democratic transfer of power, which has never occurred in Russia or the Soviet Union. There is a determination to preserve the status quo on the part of those who have prospered under Yeltsin's reign - whether Russia's new banking tycoons, gas and oil executives or the entourage of Kremlin aides that surrounds Yelstin. Re-electing Yeltsin, of course, has been their preferred strategy.
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Initially printed as "Signal Our Support for Democracy," Los Angeles Times, December 11, 1995.