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Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand US federal government policy during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and the connections to graduate education. Using the multiple streams framework, the paper outlines these actions through various streams (problems, policy and political) and perspectives (defining problems, articulating options and mobilizing responses). Design/methodology/approach: The primary sources of data collected for this study were US federal government policies from March 2020 through May 2021. Policies were examined through introduction, implementation and alteration (when possible) within the specific time period of the study. The policies outlined in this paper were connected to the US Department of Education, and to a lesser extent, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and other federal agencies. Data analysis was a two-fold process. First, the individual policy was considered as a single case and second, a cross-case comparison occurred across the multiple cases. Findings: Analysing the study's data in the problem stream provides a strong indicator of how the pandemic was perceived as a challenge for US graduate education. The pandemic served as a focusing event and illuminated the connections of graduate education to key institutional functions, including research and teaching. Broadly, US federal policy actions in this area focused on giving institutions resources and flexibility to support graduate students and allow them to continue their academic work while also seeding funding and incentives to continue the movement of knowledge, activities and people in the research pipeline. Actions in the policy stream aligned with the decentralized nature of the US higher education system and allowed for choice by academic institutions within the parameters of options. Originality/value: This paper extends extant literature related to policy-making and graduate education to consider policy-making during a time of crisis. The paper offers methodological and conceptual ideas for consideration in future research.

The article is a foreword for the first issue of the journal "Croatian & Comparative Public Administration." The issue contains six papers written by 15 authors from Hungary, Brunei, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia. The papers cover topics such as decentralization, local tax autonomy, strategy implementation, service provision in intelligent public administration, equality institutions, corruption, and trust in institutions. The article highlights the comparative nature of the papers, providing new perspectives on different public administration systems. The journal has also seen growth in its ranking and aims to continue publishing high-quality papers in the field. [Extracted from the article]

In July 2021 the Chinese Government unexpectedly released what has become known colloquially as the 'Double-Reduction' policy. The policy decreed the reduction of homework pressure on students and greater control of private tutorial companies. In this paper, we set out to understand why the Chinese central government launched the 'Double-Reduction' policy in mid-2021 by using narratives to analyse the three most circulated explanations for the policy and its timing. We use data from a range of formal and informal policy texts. The three narratives, including one policy narrative dominant in the official discourse and two alternative ones, constructed the causal stories about the policy's rationale from multiple perspectives. The combination of multiple perspectives and a narrative approach helps reveal the policy event's complexity and lays a foundation for researchers interested in tracking the development trajectory of this new policy.

This paper presents an in-depth analysis of patterns and trends in the open-source software (OSS) contributions by the U.S. federal government agencies. OSS is a unique category of computer software notable for its publicly accessible source code and the rights it provides for modification and distribution for any purpose. Prompted by the Federal Source Code Policy (USCIO, 2016), Code.gov was established as a platform to facilitate the sharing of custom-developed software across various federal government agencies. This study leverages data from Code.gov, which catalogs OSS projects developed and shared by government agencies, and enhances this data with detailed development and contributor information from GitHub. By adopting a cost estimation methodology that is consistent with the U.S. national accounting framework for software investment proposed in Korkmaz et al. (2024), this research provides annual estimates of investment in OSS by government agencies for the 2009-2021 period. The findings indicate a significant investment by the federal government in OSS, with the 2021 investment estimated at around $407 million. This study not only sheds light on the government's role in fostering OSS development but also offers a valuable framework for assessing the scope and value of OSS initiatives within the public sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the Chinese government has initiated assertive centralization efforts in its approach to environmental governance. However, the efficacy of these initiatives demonstrates marked variability across different sectors. While the central-local relational framework has traditionally been employed to elucidate these disparities, its explanatory power is showing signs of strain. This paper, through policy analysis and field interviews, investigates regulatory conflicts in land use for ecological and agricultural purposes within China. The findings highlight instances of overlapping jurisdictions and discordant policy objectives among agencies responsible for delineating ecological spaces and agricultural zones. While these conflicts seem to stem from the dynamics between the central and local governments, they more accurately reflect the inherent characteristics of fragmented authoritarianism. This paper aims to expand the theory of fragmented authoritarianism by incorporating the dimension of inter-departmental competition into environmental governance, moving beyond the traditional binary analysis framework of central-local relations. It seeks to understand and critique its limitations from a broader perspective, emphasizing the role of departmental competition within fragmented authoritarianism. By analyzing this internal mechanism, the paper reveals a more nuanced governance landscape, essentially replacing the traditional central-local paradigm with a model that situates departmental competition within the overall context of fragmented authoritarianism. We propose two models for delineating competition among governmental institutions: the bureaucratic model and the charisma model, thereby advancing and deepening the application of fragmented authoritarianism theory in China's environmental governance. This provides new theoretical insights for understanding the current challenges and developments in China's environmental governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employing the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), this paper examines the current Chinese fiscal system and highlights its three characteristics. First, fiscal revenues are centralized at the central government while expenditures are decentralized at the local governments; second, fiscal spending focuses on public investment but is insufficient in providing social safety net and public services; and third, indirect tax accounts for a great majority of tax revenues, leading to limited progressivity of the tax system. These limitations have constrained the effectiveness of China's fiscal policies and generated many perverse impacts. With the understanding that the central government has the monetary sovereignty and does not face financing constrained and that taxes are not to raise revenues for fiscal spending but to serve other purposes, the paper calls for fiscal reforms that realign fiscal resources and spending responsibilities between the central and local governments, increase fiscal spending on social security and public services, as well as broaden personal income tax to improve the distributive effect of taxation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most stringent arable land protection system in China has not effectively prevented construction expansion from excessive occupation of arable land. In this paper, the evolutionary game theory is innovatively used to explore why arable land protection policies did not engender the desired outcomes from the perspective of multi-subject behavior. We first analyze the logic of arable land protection behavior of different participants, including the central government, local administrations and farmers. Then, a tripartite evolutionary game model is established to examine how behavioral interaction among subjects affects policy implementation. And parameter analysis is used to identify the influencing factors of subjects' behavior. Our results show that: First, the ideal strategy combination of (0,1,1) for China's arable land protection cannot be achieved, which indicates that local administrations and farmers will not spontaneously protect arable land in the absence of central government's supervision. Second, the policy effect in Shanghai has undergone a dynamic process from serious failure (2004–2013), mild failure (2013–2018) to effective control (after 2018). Local administrations and farmers are solely responsible for the deviation of policy implementation. Third, local administrations and farmers are more sensitive to the variations of arable land conversion income, political achievements and economic punishment. Thus, political and financial constraints should be imposed on them to promote the strict implementation of arable land protection policy. This paper enriches the existing study regarding arable land protection policy effect. And it is of great practical importance to regulate the subject's behavior and facilitate policy implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public policy studies typically stress policy networks and communities, interest groups and bureaucrats, and overlook the governing role of parties. This paper argues that parties should be seen as governing as well as electoral organisations and contrasts a party-centred approach with the policy community and policy network approaches. A case study comparing the development of children's services policy in England during the Labour governments (1997–2010) and the Conservative-led governments (2010–2019) provides supporting evidence for this approach. It shows how ministers as party actors sought control over the administrative state through their framing of problems, reorganisations and the active political management of the policy sector. In so doing they marginalised the professions and central government departments. They also sought to manage, rather than respond to, the extra-governmental organisations in their political environment. This paper contributes to our understanding the political-administrative relationships in identifying how parties take control of government, how public problems are defined and relate to party ideologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central government has the primary responsibility for the protection of human rights. However, several factors such as decentralisation raise questions about the role of local authorities in this area. Our paper examines this issue through an interdisciplinary approach, combining international law and political sociology. Our focus lies on the case of France, the 'homeland' of human rights: do French local elected authorities always take human rights seriously? Our research design combines qualitative and quantitative methods. After providing a background of the international legal context, this paper will present the findings on human rights local perceptions and practices of elected representatives. Human rights' perceptions of these subnational political actors strongly depend on their educational qualifications and personal commitments. The same applies to the hierarchy that they draw between fundamental freedoms, social rights, and environmental rights. By contrast, local practices in favour of human rights vary most importantly according to the local authorities' status and demographic weight, rather than their political hue. When human and financial resources are scarce, the goodwill showcased by local elected representatives is not sufficient to foster the proper implementation of human rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

EU-US data transfers for health research remain a particularly thorny issue in view of the stringent rules of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the challenges related to US mass surveillance programs, particularly the manner in which US law enforcement and national security agencies can access personal data originating from the EU. Since the entry into force of the GDPR, evidence of impeded collaborations is increasing, particularly in the case of sharing data with US public institutions. The adoption of a new EU-US adequacy decision in July 2023 does not hold the promise for a long-lasting solution due to the risks of being challenged and invalidated – yet again – at the Court of Justice of the EU. As the research community is calling for answers, the new proposal for a European Health Data Space regulation may hold a key to solving some of the existing issues. In this paper, we critically discuss the current rules and outline a possible way forward for transfers between public bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Federation of Malaysia, the state government has a dominant role in the management and administration of local authorities as well as in allocating resources. This paper takes a bottom-up perspective to look at the dependence of the Sibu Municipal Council on the Sarawak state government and strongman. It begins by showing how the existing legal and political frameworks enable the formation of a strongman government and then addresses the state government's control over resources for local development. Then, it zooms into the local politics of Sibu, showcasing the patron–client relations between the state strongman and local business groups in Sarawak. However, it argues that the power of strongman politicians is not unchecked but constrained by the political framework. The later part of this paper features the political-economic networks of the state strongman in Johor to show that the strongman phenomenon is not particular to Sarawak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper contributes to strategic thinking about infrastructure resilience and adaptation. A technique is presented in a case study for analysing options on the timing of protection against climate change. Predetermined trigger points for responses to resilience weaknesses are discussed, showing how flowcharts can act as prompts to the need for action. The roles of national governments in improving resilience in key areas are discussed. The paper introduces the concept of a 'chain of resilience' for interdependent infrastructure systems and identifies some key questions for national governments to ask about the linkages between systems before requiring appropriate remedial actions. Practical steps for private owners and investors to increase resilience in their own infrastructure are identified. Some suggestions for tackling the increasingly important area of cyber resilience are presented. The use of actuarial techniques is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Federalism, characterized by its multifaceted, elastic, and complex nature, often presents significant analytical challenges. This paper aims to thoroughly analyze and elaborate on the theories of federalism, the elements of federations, and the status and organization of federal units. Despite the inherent ambiguity and lack of a universal definition, understanding federalism requires an in-depth examination of these components. By exploring classical and contemporary theories, this study highlights the dynamic nature of federalism and its role in shaping political structures. Additionally, the paper examines the features of federations within historical and modern political systems, providing insights into the conceptual framework and practical implications of federalism in comparative constitutional law. Through this comprehensive analysis, the paper seeks to offer a clearer understanding of the complex and evolving nature of federalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research dealt with studying the concept of federalism by defining it jurisprudentially and legally and determining the meanings of federalism according to the concept of some constitutional writers and jurists. The research dealt with identifying the most important characteristics of the legal system of federalism by stating the independence. This research paper reached a set of results, the most important of which is the right to independence of federal jurisdictions, which distinguishes this system from the system of administrative decentralization. The paper also suggested that it is necessary to create a balance between the federal authorities and the regional authorities in order to exclude the tendency to provocation or control on the part of the center or the central government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes data from 1999–2019, evidencing strategies utilized by Nigerian Subnational Governments (SNGs) for attracting inward Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). These strategies are unique for several reasons, including the fact that they highlight the evidence of paradiplomacy in Nigeria, a case study that is understudied in the paradiplomacy literature. These strategies are also a deviation from the conventional protocols for FDI mobilization in Nigeria. Drawing on Duchacek's conceptualization of these strategies as a percolation of sovereign boundaries, i.e. the idea that SNGs are permeating inter-sovereign 'sieves' designed to restrict their forays into the international plane, this paper conceptually maps and empirically assesses the varied expressions and prevalence of these strategies. Although these strategies are yet to be constitutionally challenged by the central government, they reveal a growing porosity of Nigeria's sovereign boundaries and necessitate a critical reassessment of the extant intergovernmental frameworks that govern FDI mobilization in Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits options for strengthening local governance by increasing own revenues in local government jurisdictions. Using stochastic frontier and recursive structural equation methods, the paper estimates the effects of central government transfers and tax effort on own revenues in the Ghanaian local government system. Results show that contrary to some recent findings that transfers reduce own revenues for local jurisdictions in Ghana, increasing transfers to local jurisdictions increases (rather than reduces) own revenues in Ghana. Further, local government performance in public service provision was found to be critical for increasing own revenues. Making the Ghanaian local government system more sustainable thus requires increasing central government transfers and providing technical support to strengthen the relationship between available public services and own revenues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, over the last few decades, countries have become increasingly decentralized but only recently did they recognize the need for incorporating a gender dimension into such policies. As a result, the relationship between fiscal decentralization, which implies delegating fiscal powers from national to subnational governments, and gender equality remains elusive. In this paper, I study the impact of expenditure decentralization on gender equality using panel data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development -- OECD countries between 2006 and 2021. I find that decentralization of expenditure increases gender equality in these countries. My results also demonstrate that unionization, the extent of a country's integration with the rest of the world, urbanization, population growth, and the state of democracy also matter for gender equality. This suggests that these factors should also accompany expenditure decentralization if the governments of these countries want to further promote gender equality through such public policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a huge funding gap in the abandoned mines ecological restoration in China. It is of great research value to explore how PPP model can better introduce social capital into the low-profit ecological restoration of abandoned mines. Based on the innovation perspective of the central government's reward and punishment system, this paper constructs an evolutionary game model of "local government-social capital", analyzes the interaction and behavior mechanism of core stakeholders in the operation process of abandoned mines ecological restoration PPP mode, and discusses the influence of evolutionary equilibrium strategy and parameters change on evolutionary strategy under different scenarios by Matlab simulation. The research shows that the abandoned mines ecological restoration needs the support of the central government. When the local government lightly punishes the low-quality service of social capital, the central government needs to pay higher costs to promote all parties to actively participate in the operation and supervision of the PPP project. The revenue and cost of government supervision, the operating subsidy for social capital and the cost saved by social capital in providing bad service are the key factors affecting the evolution of the game between government and social capital. Punishment can effectively spur social capital to keep the contract and operate in the project, but the punishment effect will be ineffective without government supervision. Finally, some suggestions are put forward, such as establishing a long-term supervision mechanism and a reasonable income mechanism for PPP projects, increasing penalties for violations, attracting third parties to reduce supervision costs and strengthening communication between the two parties, so as to make the project take into account the economic performance of social capital and the social welfare of government departments, and achieve dual Pareto improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyze the regulations related to protecting the architecture of the traditional house in Indonesia and the challenges in related regulations. To achieve these goals, the research uses a normative legal writing method with descriptive-analytical specifications. Firstly, the findings reveal that traditional houses are part of traditional cultural expressions (TCE). Indonesia protects architectural works and TCE in the same intellectual property regime, namely copyright. Therefore, this paper examines the protection of traditional house architecture from the perspective of Copyright law, the Law on the Advancement of Culture, and the TCE Bill. The abovementioned regulations state that the architecture is a protected object unless the TCE Bill is. Second, there are some challenges, such as 1) the priority of the TCE Bill after the change of president; 2) song and music get more benefit from copyright protection rather than the other objects in the copyright regime and no implementing regulation on architecture; and 3) the TCE data collection/inventory is still not optimal yet. Therefore, Indonesia needs to think more seriously about adequate and applicable legal protection for traditional house architecture and other TCEs. The central government should encourage regional governments and related parties to continue data collection and registration of various TCEs in each region to increase the number of registered TCEs. The central government should provide a target number of registered TCEs for the local government. If the target is met, the central government will give a reward so that the local government and related parties will be more enthusiastic about collecting data and registering the TCE with DJKI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the influence of The Federalist Papers on Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. It discusses how Tocqueville's work draws heavily from the ideas presented in The Federalist Papers, particularly those of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton. The article also examines the concept of "monstrous disfiguration" as a metaphor used by the Founders to describe the imperfections within the Constitution. It highlights the tension between the North and South, with abolition being a central concern for the Founders. The text discusses the power dynamics between different regions in the United States and the role of the Senate in balancing competing interests. It emphasizes the need to protect against future forms of tyranny, even as the country abolishes slavery. The article also discusses the use of literary concepts by Jorge Luis Borges and Tocqueville to comment on political and social issues. It explores how Tocqueville's ideas on honor, social conditions, and the dangers of tyranny are influenced by the themes and characters in Don Quijote. The text argues that Tocqueville's reading of the novel provides insights into the sociopolitical implications of modern democracy and the importance of preserving individual rights. It suggests that studying The Federalist Papers and Don Quixote together provides a comprehensive understanding of Tocqueville's work and its relevance to both Anglo and Hispanic cultures. [Extracted from the article]

India's evolving digital health strategy leverages innovative technologies to enhance access to healthcare services. This paper explores the key components of India's digital health transformation, including the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) and India's integration of biometric identification and digital infrastructure to improve healthcare delivery. The lessons learned from India's large-scale implementation of digital health provide valuable insights for global health markets and digital transformations in healthcare systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is known about the topic? Little is known about the state of mental health reform in Australia. This article describes the struggle to develop the systems of accountability necessary to assess national progress. What does this paper add? We provide some historical context regarding mental health reform and consider recent efforts in particular, before then describing current key opportunities. What are the implications for practitioners? Many people working in mental health are struggling to deliver quality services to Australians. This paper considers the broad policy issues which have led to this situation. This is useful for practitioners who can then better respond and participate in processes of systemic reform. Opportunities to engage now in key policy formulation are identified in the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main problem in this paper is a dispute between the government of West Nusa Tenggara Province (NTB) Indonesia, and the government of Central Lombok Regency about the fight to name the airport. This paper aims to explain that the struggle for the name of Lombok International Airport (BIL) to become Zainuddin Abdul Madjid International Airport (BIZAM) in Lombok has become a dispute between Levels 1 and 2 local governments. The form of conflict is that the NTB Level 1 local government wants an airport called BIZAM, while the Central Lombok Level 2 regional government wants BIL. This paper uses in-depth interviews, observation, and documentation methods. The results of this paper show that the conflict occurs because there are planned elements carried out by Levels 1 and 2 local governments that are indirectly affiliated with one particular religious or social group in the fight for airport naming. For this reason, this article implies that the conflict occurs solely because it wants to maintain the identity and for the sake of the self-esteem of each group or socio-religious organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elsewhere in this issue I state 'Chiropractic is the diagnosis and management of the neuromusculoskeletal system of the human body' and discuss the emergent problem of an increasing shrinkage of the constitutional framework of the discipline where current arguments continue to remove reference to subluxation from the profession's lexicon, even flagitiously mandating against teaching the idea within its natural context. In this editorial I give some examples of the good work being done to carry our profession to greatness, and balance that with some examples of wackiness from Canada and the United States of America, and once again from the usual dismal suspects in Europe. I am starting to think that Australia is one of the better places in the world to practice Conventional Chiropractic, yet offer caution that this may be about to change. Above all I hold that a Chiropractor carries spontaneous unspoken trust in what they see and feel, and conclude with a marvellous video of a Philosophy discussion about how strongly we can 'know things' from our patient's testimony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Kadim is the property of Kadim and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Somalia adopted federalism in 2004 and embarked on its implementation in 2012. This paper provides critical insights on the reception and performance of Somalia's federal project since 2012. The analysis has shown major practical challenges facing Somalia's federal structure: constitutional ambiguity and lack of consensus on federalism, difficulties regarding the formation of the federal member states and their border demarcations, the status of Mogadishu and questions concerning fiscal federalism. The paper argues these challenges as well as the general public's inadequate knowledge of federalism are pushing the nation towards decentralisation. It contends the regional politics and shifting alliances in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East are affecting Somalia's federal future, thus enforcing the 'federalism is a foreign initiative' notion. The paper suggests that a close study of Somali perceptions reveals that federalism is an externally imposed idea, which renders the weakening of the Somali state a strategic state policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I examine how an organization narratively constructs its prototypical disabled employee. Data comprise public narratives of the Government of India, the country's largest employer of disabled persons. Narratives during 2008–2016 were considered as this timespan witnessed the design of inclusive legislation that emphasized defining disabled persons and their entitlements. Findings indicate that the label of "disadvantage" was consistently used to portray the target employee. Alongside other narrative material suggesting, for example that the target employee was someone who required employment assistance, this label was supplied to external audiences to convert them into potential partners. This supply of narrative material further reinforced the portrayal of the target employee. Consistent use of this expansive label subsumed changing definitions of who is a disabled person, allowed for aggregations with diverse disadvantaged collectives, and accommodated changes in employment entitlements and ecosystem partners, thereby allowing the reading of change in stable narratives. The contributions of this paper lie in highlighting how the consistent use of an expansive label can cast narrative stability and change as complementary, and in suggesting that narrating a prototypical employee entails shaping the setting outside the employing organization toward employee categorization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revises the paradigm shift in the educational policy of the New Mexican School (in Spanish, Nueva Escuela Mexicana or NEM ), whose intention is to reverse the neoliberal orientation that prevailed since the end of the last century until the previous federal government. For this purpose, the paper explores the elements of the pedagogies from the Southern part of the continent as a theoretical and ideological referent of the new approach to education in Mexico. Subsequently, it addresses three substantial lines of the NEM : the revalorization of teachers through the Unit of the System for the Career of Teachers, the National Commission for the Continuous Improvement of Education, and the implementation of the 2022 Study plans and programs for basic education. It can be concluded that there have been many challenges for the outgoing government that must be addressed by the new one, but it is complicated to modify in a short period a change of such dimension, in addition to the fact that we don't have until now a comprehensive evaluation system to measure its achievements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Journal of Development Research is the property of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The continuous decline in the birth rate can lead to a series of social and economic problems. Accurately predicting the birth rate of a region will help national and local governments to formulate more scientifically sound development policies. This paper proposes a discrete-aware model BRP-Net based on attention mechanism and LSTM, for effectively predicting the birth rate of prefecture-level cities. BRP-Net is trained using multiple variables related to comprehensive development of prefecture-level cities, covering factors such as economy, education and population structure that can influence the birth rate. Additionally, the comprehensive data of China's prefecture-level cities exhibits strong spatiotemporal specificity. Our model leverages the advantages of attention mechanism to identify the feature correlation and temporal relationships of these multi-variable time series input data. Extensive experimental results demonstrate that the proposed BRP-Net has higher accuracy and better generalization performance compared to other mainstream methods, while being able to adapt to the spatiotemporal specificity of variables between prefecture-level cities. Using BRP-Net to achieve precise and robust prediction estimates of the birth rate in prefecture-level cities can provide more effective decision-making references for local governments to formulate more accurate and reasonable fertility encouragement policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia has been the site of major advances in the creation of public sector anticorruption commissions since 1989. However, commissions with broad jurisdiction have been limited to the six states until 2023. The federal jurisdiction lagged behind, with a series of scandals driving intensified debates from 2013. Performance issues associated with state agencies formed part of the debate. The present paper reviews this history, focusing on the intensification of research and lobbying efforts leading to the establishment of a National Anti-Corruption Commission in 2023. The paper also critiques the legislation behind the new agency, arguing it entails considerable limitations and that agency legitimacy and effectiveness will only be achieved through the inclusion of integrity issues of concern to citizens, a strong focus on prevention, and significant independence in investigations and adjudication. These lessons are of relevance to other jurisdictions facing the issue of effective institutional responses to public sector misconduct risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a build-up to the investigation of the sustainability GNU, which will be the initial one to be established in South Africa in the experience of democracy. South Africa gained its democracy in the past thirty years. South Africa was under the apartheid government for as long as until 1984, in its exit to democracy there was a bit of Government of National Unity since the apartheid regime did not exit immediately as it was supposed to hand over to the democratic government. The typology of the Government of National Unity and Government of Coalition is very complex and mostly misunderstood in the academic community and public sector. The complexity of this understanding also builds up to the fact that the very same academics as well as the public administration are being build up by the politicians too. However, there seems to be a gap in theory and research that seeks to offer a mechanism to define and measure the differences between GNU and Coalition. Principal agencies and public value theories as an addition to the GNU and Coalition theoretical foundation were adopted to clarify improvement in such. This qualitative study meticulously examines scholarly journals, books reports, policies, and government programmes. The findings are that SA has been found as not the first country that will be in GNU and must try the notion to make it work. The study concludes that there is an urgency in the building as well as tolerating GNU to realise service delivery. Afterward, the study influences the successful policy making to improve service delivery through advanced ways to uphold public responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper explores the role of accounting and accountability techniques in contributing to Australia's border industrial complex. Design/methodology/approach: We use the political thought of Behrouz Boochani to explore the role that accounting techniques play at the micro and macro level of his dialectic of alienation and freedom. Firstly, we explore the accounting and accountability techniques detailed in Boochani's No Friend but the Mountain, which gives an account of his life in Manus Prison, and the accounting techniques he experienced. Secondly, we explore the discourse of alienation created within the annual reporting of the Australian Federal Government regarding the border industrial complex. Findings: We argue that the border industrial complex requires the alienation of asylum seekers from their own humanity for capital accumulation, and that accounting and accountability techniques facilitate this form of alienation. These techniques include inventorying, logging and queuing at the micro level within Manus Prison. This alienates those trapped in the system from one another and themselves. Techniques also include annual reporting at a macro level which alienates those trapped in the system from the (White) "Australian Community". However, these techniques are resisted at every point by assertions of freedom. Originality/value: We illustrate the role of accounting in accumulation by alienation, where the unfreedom of incarcerated asylum seekers is a site of profit for vested interests. But also that this alienation is resisted at every point by refusals of alienation as assertions of freedom. Thus, this study contributes to the accounting literature by drawing from theories of alienation, and putting forward the dialectic of alienation and freedom articulated by Boochani and collaborators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Education Policy Analysis Archives / Archivos Analíticos de Políticas Educativas / Arquivos Analíticos de Políticas Educativas is the property of Educational Policy Analysis Archives & Education Review and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Although forest devolution, as a type of decentralization, is a high priority in the policy agendas of developing countries, recentralization has also occurred. In this paper, we focus on emerging recentralization within the devolution process of Collective Forest Tenure Reform (CFTR) in China's southern provinces and conceptualize this process as "recentralized forest devolution." In this paper, we update a key framework for analyzing decentralization and recentralization in governance processes based on the "policy arrangement approach." Case studies were conducted in four counties of the Fujian and Yunnan provinces by tracing governance dynamics from 2001 to 2019. Our study found that the central government has tightened upward accountability and recentralized power for environmental conservation since 2012 under the discourse of "Ecological Civilization." At the local level, recentralized forest devolution was expressed in terms of the restricted timber harvest levels for the purposes of environmental conservation. Therefore, forest devolution could be more vulnerable than expected by researchers and potentially interwoven with recentralization processes. Discourses, actors, property rights, and power are, therefore, considered to be interwoven in the complex dynamics of decentralization and recentralization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Administrative geography is concerned with the hierarchy of areas related to national and local government in a country. They form an important dataset in the country's open data provision and act as the geo-referencing backdrop for many types of geospatial data. Proprietary ontologies are built to model and represent these data with little focus on spatial semantics. Studying the quality of these ontologies and developing methods for their evaluation are needed. This paper addresses these problems by studying the spatial semantics of administrative geography data and proposes a uniform set of qualitative semantics that encapsulates the inherent spatial structure of the administrative divisions and allows for the application of spatial reasoning. Topological and proximity semantics are defined and combined into a single measure of spatial completeness and used for defining a set of competency questions to be used in the evaluation process. The significance of the novel measure of completeness and competency questions is demonstrated on four prominent real world administrative geography ontologies. It is shown how these can provide an objective measure of quality of the geospatial ontologies and gaps in their definition. The proposed approach to defining spatial completeness complements the established methods in the literature, that primarily focus on the syntactical and structural dimensions of the ontologies, and offers a novel approach to ontology evaluation in the geospatial domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to compare the impact of Australian onshore and offshore immigration detention centres (IDCs) on detainees' health and health-care events. Design/methodology/approach: It uses data extracted from the Australian Government's quarterly health reports from 2014 to 2017. These reports contain a range of data about the health and well-being of detainees, including complaints/presenting symptoms and number of appointments and hospitalisations. To compare onshore and offshore data sets, the authors calculated the rate of health events per quarter against the estimated quarterly onshore and offshore detention population. They ran a series of two-proportion z-tests for each matched quarter to calculate median z- and p-values for all quarters. These were used as an indicator as to whether the observed differences between onshore and offshore events were statistically significant. Findings: The results suggest that adults detained onshore and offshore have substantial health needs, however, almost all rates were far higher in offshore detention, with people more likely to raise a health-related complaint, access health services and be prescribed medications, often at two to three times the rate of those onshore. Originality/value: This paper adds to a modest body of literature that explains the health of people detained in Australian IDCs. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first paper to explore health service utilisation and a range of other variables found in the Australian Government's quarterly health reports. These findings bolster the evidence which suggests that detention, and particularly offshore detention is particularly harmful to health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a result of the major pressure exerted by the COVID-19 pandemic and its management on students and teachers, the EU member states and institutions face the necessity to accelerate the digitalization of education. The EU interventions in this field open the debate on whether digital education will be another subject of Europeanisation as the supranational institutions are acquiring more competences, and whether a new European policy approach was generated by the pandemic. Therefore, the paper investigates whether the COVID crisis represents a major shift in the Europeanisation of digital education in the EU. We will thus try to assess this transformation by analysing the impact of the crisis on digital education, showcasing Romania and the manner in which the national government designed its public policies against the background of the EU positions, recommendations and measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the current budget crisis in Germany, which was triggered by an attempt to increase public debt beyond the limits of the German constitution. The rejection of the Supplementary Budget 2021 of the federal government by the Constitutional Court in November 2023 requires a substantial revision of budget plans. The paper first asks why fiscal policy has moved outside the rules of the constitution. The paper then addresses the question of whether the necessary turnaround in financial policy has now been initiated. To this end, the paper explores the recent supplementary budget 2023 and the proposals for the budget 2024. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper begins by reviewing rational choice institutionalism's explanation of how political institutions incentivise patronage networks emphasising ethnic cleavage. Acknowledging the limits of rationalist institutionalism in explaining societal norm constructions and mass behaviour, the paper then adopts discursive institutionalism to analyse the social affects of institutional design. The case study of violence against Amharas deemed 'settlers' in Ethiopia's contemporary ethnic federation highlights how new cleavages create new norms and new historical narratives, influencing group dynamics. These dynamics result in group‐based mass violence when rents‐based orders and patronage networks collapse during times of institutional instability or change. Thus, precipitated by the discursive effects of hyper‐ethnicised institutional design, mass violence against Amhara in different ethnic regions in Ethiopia emerges as an unexpected outcome of regime change and democratic transition in the country. These incidents of targeted violence are not simply explained by institutions, but rather by the socio‐political climate effected by the interaction between institutions and discourse under ethnic federalism. In short, this study demonstrates how institutions go beyond incentivising or constraining elite behaviour, producing discursive markers that normalise violence during periods of institutional 'lapse', when formal provisions of social order temporarily collapse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Criminal Anarchy Acts of 1902 and 1903 are often seen as secondary in the history of American anarchism and legal history due to their limited use in court. This article focuses on the 1902 Criminal Anarchy Act of New York State, which was enacted following the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901 by alleged anarchist Leon Czolgosz. The paper delves into the international, national, and local circumstances that led to the passing of the law. It provides an analysis of the Act itself, highlighting its depoliticisation of anarchism, essentially criminalising it, and links its existence to America's legal approach to federalism. Furthermore, the article aims to uncover the repercussions of the Act: despite its limited use in court and the failed attempt to depoliticise anarchism, the Act left a significant mark on the anarchist movement in the United States. It also sparked debates on freedom of speech and ultimately contributed to the landmark Supreme Court decision in Gitlow v. New York (1925), which initiated the incorporation doctrine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the social, economic, and environmental benefits of village development during the construction and operation of a pumped-storage power station (PSPS) in China. This paper provides an innovative perspective on new energy development in the context of rural revitalization. A four-party evolutionary game model was established that included the central government, local governments, PSPSs, and villagers. The evolution and stabilization strategies used in the development process of the rural revitalization were analyzed. The results show the following: (1) The greater the strength or amount of fines and penalties, the lower the cost of supervision, making it more conducive to the central government's evolution towards strict supervision. (2) The greater the tax revenues, the more likely local governments are to evolve towards active implementation. (3) The greater the social benefits, the more likely PSPSs are to evolve toward active participation. (4) The greater the resettlement compensation fees, wages, and donations, the more likely villagers are to evolve toward positive cooperation. We then provide appropriate suggestions on how PSPSs contribute to rural revitalization. This paper is important for improving the investment decision plan of PSPSs for rural revitalization and promoting China's sustainable new energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]