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This is the concluding essay for a special report from The Hastings Center entitled Democracy in Crisis: Civic Learning and the Reconstruction of Common Purpose, which grew out of a project supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. This essay provides an integrative discussion of various theoretical and practical reform perspectives offered by other essays in the report. It also offers a number of recommendations. It notes that the aim of the special report is not to propose specific reform measures but, rather, to consider larger, more theoretic concerns related to political and economic questions, which are personal and structural-psychological, cultural, and institutional-at the same time. In response, this essay argues that the best relationship between the citizenry and government in a democracy is not one of deference, nor one of contestation, but one that is critically constructive, which in turn is linked to practices of civic learning. To be constructive, citizens need scientific literacy, an understanding of how government and other institutions work, critical thinking abilities, and many open and diverse forums for civic learning to offset the increasingly isolating media "bubbles" that are the only source of information for many. The essay then formulates five recommendations designed to facilitate critically constructive citizenship and civic learning. These are creating a basis for civic participation, acquiring information, talking to each other, designing institutional change, and achieving deliberation., (© 2021 The Hastings Center.)

This paper summarises and discusses some of the aspects of the Public Health White Paper, Healthy Lives, Healthy People, published for consultation at the end of 2010, and the framework of the Public Health Responsibility Deal, published in March 2011 by the UK government. Healthy Lives, Healthy People emphasises that a one-size-fits-all approach to public health improvement has been shown not to work as challenges vary from one neighbourhood to the next, and a new approach that empowers individuals to make healthy choices and gives communities the tools to address their own needs is required. It highlights the government's intention to shift power and decision making on public health matters to local authorities, with ring fenced budgets. A feature of the document that has proved controversial is the proposal to work collaboratively with business and the voluntary sector to deliver the government's ambition, through the Public Health Responsibility Deal, launched on 15 March, which comprises a series of 5 networks on food, alcohol, physical activity, health at work, and behaviour change, and the associated pledges. The initial pledges for the food network focus on salt and trans fatty acid reduction, and out-of-home calorie labelling of foods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the review process for the paper "Architecting Portfolios of Systems" in this issue one of the reviewers suggested that part of the reviewer‐author dialog be published because it clarified some issues beyond the paper itself and illustrated some different perspectives. This paper elaborates three major topics: The categorization of different types of collections of systems, the concept of requisite modeling in how we choose to model systems under development across a spectrum of rigor, and how to judge the success of research in systems engineering processes and methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Violence against women (VAW) worsened globally during the Covid‐19 pandemic lockdowns. For example, a woman in France was killed every 3 days during lockdown. At the same time in South Africa, a woman was killed every 3 h. This paper presents and analyzes the risk factors that have worsened during the Covid‐19 pandemic lockdowns and the subsequent economic consequences of mitigation policies. The purpose of this paper is twofold: (a) to conduct a critical review of international extant literature regarding government policies related to VAW since the beginning of the worldwide Covid‐19 pandemic lockdowns that began in early 2020, and (b) to suggest opportunities for nurses to influence health policy development and social norms related to VAW. Thematic synthesis of the findings present interventions that helped to mitigate VAW during Covid‐19 and is followed by a discussion of findings in relation to social determinants of health and human rights. A gender‐based policy approach that focuses on the human right to be free of all forms of violence must be a leading strategy as governments reallocate resources and rebuild economies in the wake of this pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Government interventions to address inequalities in education are common in the United Kingdom and internationally. Whilst there is a tendency for policy discourse to focus on benchmarks and indicators as measures of educational success, the inclusiveness and effectiveness of government interventions in education has been questioned. This paper uses the ecological systems perspective as a way of analysing how government interventions may, or may not, lead to real impact on young people's educational outcomes. Two case studies are presented on projects funded as part of the opportunity areas (OA) programme in England to tackle barriers to learning for young people: Ipswich 'Learning Behaviour Leads' and Norwich 'Engagement Coaches'. The research team carried out an evaluation of these projects in seven schools, using a mixed methods approach which involved interviews and reflective journals by the staff delivering the projects (n = 7), interviews with members of the school senior leadership teams (n = 7), an online survey with teachers (n = 23) and focus groups with young people involved in the projects (n = 14). The evaluation found that although there was shared understanding of the purpose and priorities of the OA programme between the macro and exosystems, there were tensions between these and the microsystem, and a lack of interconnection with the mesosystem. Whilst the projects benefited the young people involved, they fell short of the initial intentions to foster engagement amongst the most at‐risk groups, and failed to address the macro aims of fostering a pan‐system response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the influence of different aspects of gender equality or female empowerment on income inequality. A key question addressed is: Are there positive spillovers from gender equality to income equality? Using data drawn from 162 nations over the years 1985–2019, results show that nations with a long history of women's suffrage, greater representation of women in the government, lower fertility rates and better overall gender equality experienced lower income inequality, ceteris paribus. These results are largely supported in several robustness checks, including different model estimation strategies to address potential reverse‐causality issues, considering alternative measures of income inequality, and considerations of persistence and nonlinearities in the gender inequality measures. The spillovers from some dimensions of gender equality are found to be sensitive to existing income inequality. Policymakers ignoring the payoffs from gender empowerment on income distribution might be underinvesting in initiatives to empower women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studying a relatively under‐researched aspect in economics, this paper examines the nexus between corruption and academic freedom. Our main hypothesis is that greater corruption undermines academic freedom and we test this hypothesis using data for 104 nations from 2012 to 2018. Our results support the main hypothesis, and this finding also generally holds across alternative aspects of academic freedom. Another contribution of this work lies in dissecting the direct and indirect (through corruption) effects of various drivers of academic freedom. Finally, additional insights are gained by considering different dimensions of academic freedom and how they are impacted by corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there is abundant research on innovations, we know little about why and when the commercialization of highly contested innovations, such as genetically modified (GM) crops, is approved by governments. In this paper, we argue that governments' decision to approve the commercialization of GM crops is influenced by heuristics based on the decisions of other governments with which they have greater trade, the gap between country performance and aspiration, and governments' prior decisions on GM crops field trials. We further propose that the effect of these heuristics weakens when the government operates in countries with higher governance quality. Using data on approval of GM crop commercialization between 1991 and 2016, we found support for these arguments and suggest the joint effects of heuristics based on the decisions of trade partners and governance quality on governments' approval of GM crop commercialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a discussion of the economic geography of Australia. It provides a history of foreign investment in mining, and discusses several resources booms that shaped the landscape of the continent and the role of governments (state, federal and territory governments) in this process. The paper presents a chronological account of the development of the Australian mining industry, the primary activities of which are the extraction, and export of unprocessed coal, iron, minerals and increasingly natural gas. The paper analyses the industry's interaction with foreign investment and government assistance (that is, government spending in relation to the industry such as subsidies, loans and infrastructure construction, etc.). Australia's trade and foreign investment environment have long been deregulated. The Australian mining industry has benefited from this deregulation. But its most spectacular period has been the 'commodities super-cycle' of the 2000s-2010s. Overall, its contribution to exports has long typified the mining industry. The discussion herein draws attention to the applicability of the 'eclectic theory' in reference to foreign investment in mining. That is, investing mining MNEs (multinational enterprises) have three main types of 'locational advantages' in Australia: (i) volume of the availability of resources; (ii) foreign investment regulatory environment; and (iii) government assistance that benefits the mining industry's expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation has joined the mainstream in many nations as governments search for new ways to tackle challenging societal and economic problems. But Australia is seen to be lagging on innovation policy. Is this related to how governments define innovation? What do they regard as the problem they are addressing? What proposed solutions follow from this? This paper examines how Australian governments have defined innovation over four decades, signalling their policy intentions about how to make the nation more innovative. Definitions of innovation are analysed using 79 Australian (national level) policy documents published from 1976 to 2019. Close reading of these documents suggests two main definitions: innovation as technology, and innovation as culture. Topic modelling uncovers more differentiated themes, shows how definitions change over time, and demonstrates an association between definitions and political parties in government. The divergent approaches suggest a lack of coherence and continuity to policy on innovation in Australia. Points for practitioners: Innovation has expanded and broadened in its definition and governments and policymakers have paid increasing attention to it.In Australia, there are two main definitions of innovation used in policy—one related to technology and one related to culture.The technology view of innovation can be further divided into a focus on businesses or a focus on research and development (R&D).Different innovation definitions, problems, and solutions dominate at different times, with Coalition governments tending to favour business and technology over culture, and Labor governments doing the opposite.There are divergent approaches to policy on innovation in Australia which suggest a lack of coherence and consistency in policy over the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Enterprise System Engineering (ESE), an emerging practice arising in the last decades, aims to improve enterprise operational processes. Its main goal is to enable better collaboration between humans, operational processes, and technical subsystems, by using system engineering methods. However, this is challenging due to the enterprise's unique property as a system of unsynchronized arrays of systems. This property might lead to severe consequences, such as cross‐enterprise failures, lack of decision‐support information for cross‐enterprise decisions, long delays in integration tests, and unexpected emergent behavior. Existing approaches such as ESE frameworks and Systems of Systems (SOS) engineering methods do not fully address this property. This paper presents a new ESE framework named EPIC (Enterprise Processes Integrative Collaboration), that enables better coordination between unsynchronized arrays of systems within the enterprise and even further across several enterprises. This coordination contributes to cross‐enterprise operational processes effectiveness. The paper summarizes the results of two successful large‐scale implementations of EPIC in the aerospace and transportation disciplines. Results analysis of processes performance and effectiveness, confirm that EPIC leads to improvement in enterprise operational processes. Similarly, we contend that EPIC may be applicable in other disciplines in order to obtain better enterprises by improving cross‐enterprise operational processes collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering the key role that companies must play to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this paper aims to analyze the effect of the presence of two types of institutional investors (governments and pension funds) in large companies' ownership structure on the alignment of their sustainability strategy towards the 2030 Agenda as well as the moderating effect that firm internationalization and industry's sensitivity to stakeholder pressures have on the influence of these two institutional investors on business commitment to the SDGs. For a sample of 4089 multinational companies from 2015 to 2018, the results show that institutional ownership does matter for business commitment to the SDGs, but in a different way depending on the type of investor. Specifically, ownership by government favors commitment to the SDGs, while ownership by pension funds has a negative impact, which is partially corrected in the case of globalized companies as well as in those firms belonging to industries, which are highly sensitive to stakeholder pressures. These findings seem to suggest that institutional investors' support the implementation of the SDGs by the companies in which they invest is mainly driven by corporate complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A unique model of government and civil society cooperation has emerged in Ukraine since the Revolution of Dignity in 2014 and grew even more important amid the full‐scale invasion of Russia. Recent reforms and teacher professional development in Ukraine build on this model that promotes addressing national‐level challenges in equitable partnerships between government and civil society organisations (CSOs). This paper considers examples and results of their cooperation and draws on: (1) experiences in teacher education—specifically, from the EdWay national platform and the SEE Learning programme, both implemented by EdCamp Ukraine NGO (EdCamp); (2) national sociological studies—specifically, the 2018 study Teach and Learn, and the 2021 Feasibility Study on Opportunities for Social and Emotional Learning in Ukraine; (3) and data from the 2022 case study SEE Learning in Ukraine Through Teachers' Eyes: Before, During, and After the War. Experiences and study data demonstrate the need to support Ukrainian teachers in developing social and emotional skills both for self‐help and for students. These findings align with the requirements of the current New Ukrainian School reform. The authors discuss the potential education CSOs possess in addressing teacher needs for developing emotional and ethical competence and corresponding soft skills. It may be predicted that government and civil sector collaboration will continue to play an important role in the development of education in Ukraine. These expectations are supported by Ukraine's involvement in the 2023 OECD Survey on Social and Emotional Skills where EdCamp is the designated national research centre in Ukraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses activity theoretic analyses to investigate the role of governments in developing rural e‐commerce ecosystems and the effects of such ecosystems on poverty alleviation. On the basis of a case study of Longnan, one of the poorest regions in China, this paper reports and analyses the various actions taken by local governments in nurturing, supporting, and regulating the development of a local rural e‐commerce ecosystem and using this ecosystem to transform poverty alleviation. Our study articulates a model of poverty alleviation through e‐commerce. By documenting and theorizing the mechanisms underlying rural e‐commerce development and poverty alleviation through e‐commerce as well as governments' role in developing and sustaining them, this paper contributes to establishing a "theory of the solution" to the grand challenge of poverty alleviation both in China and globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, I describe a few ways in which I've ventured outside of my comfort zone and become more engaged with multidisciplinary communities, policy groups and governmental agencies, the media, and civil society. Through such efforts, I've tried to help broaden and deepen the presence of environmental sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on the problematisation of delay in state response to the event of 7/7 in the UK in 2005 as a way of understanding how emergencies are governed. It argues that the widespread political, public and organisational concern in the UK with the delayed state is one expression of a distinct logic of governing emergencies: response. Focusing on the declaration of a ‘major incident’ by the UK emergency services, the paper argues that the logic of response is expressed in the tension between acting in an ‘interval’ as a space-time of emergence and the generation of ‘intervals’ for action. As well as following how the logic of response operates in UK emergency management, the paper offers a conceptual vocabulary designed to understand the multiplicity of ways in which emergencies are governed. Emergency is conceptualised as a ‘mode of eventfulness’ (Berlant L 2011 Cruel optimism Duke University Press, London) characterised by the hope that action will make a difference as harms, damages or losses emerge. The government of emergency involves situations ‘becoming-emergency’ through particular combinations of apparatuses of emergency and logics. The concern in the UK with delay in response to 7/7 is one example of the intersection of the logic of response with a particular apparatus based on a biopolitics of survival and the promise that lives can be saved by treating emergencies as logistical challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children are presumptively regarded as incompetent to make their own medical decisions, and the responsibility for making such decisions typically falls to parents. Parental authority is not unlimited, however, and ethical guidelines identifying appropriate bounds on this authority are needed. One proposal currently gaining support is the harm threshold (HT), which asserts that the state may only legitimately intervene in parental decision-making when serious and preventable harm to children is likely. This paper considers two questions: in virtue of what underlying principle or property does the HT gain its purported justification?; and does this underlying principle or property ground the HT as its proponents conceive of it? I identify two separate grounds represented in the literature: (a) J.S. Mill's Harm Principle; and (b) the liberty interests of parents. I find that the HT is not sufficiently grounded in either of these, revealing a substantial conceptual difficulty for its advocates., (© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Background: University researchers worked with 13 children's service provider agencies to conduct a programme evaluation of parents' perceptions of the family‐centredness of service spanning 3 years (January 2015 to May 2018). Parents of Ontario children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) receiving applied behaviour analysis (ABA) programming reported outcomes of their experience of family‐centred services (FCS) using the 20‐item Measure of Processes of Care (MPOC‐20). The purpose of this paper is to report the outcomes of the quality assurance evaluation of FCS as measured by MPOC‐20 among parents of children with ASD receiving ABA services. Methods: A total of 11 490 surveys (from 21 571 potential respondents [53.3%]) were completed. Means and proportions were used to describe the demographics, service utilization and MPOC‐20 scores with its 7‐point Likert scales, ranging from 1 (lowest) to 7 (highest). Results: The overall provincial MPOC scores were consistent over the 3 years, ranging from very good to excellent, with Respectful and Supportive Care (n = 11 348, x¯ = 6.27, SD = 0.83) reporting the highest scale score and Providing General Information (n = 10 485, x¯ = 5.51, SD = 1.43) the lowest. Conclusion: Given the consistently high MPOC scores found in this and other programme evaluations, it is believed that health service providers have caught up to the FCS quality standards proposed 30 years ago. For this reason, the developers of MPOC are now planning a revision of the measure to address its ceiling effects and to integrate contemporary perspectives on family‐centred practice for children and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates a composable design methodology leveraging SysML to manage mission flexible product lines, and reviews the application of this methodology to a spacecraft product line. This methodology extends the SysML language with a mathematical and Boolean constraint language allowing for the capture of product line rules as an alternative to amore traditional variation tree. Finally, this paper reviews future work underway to extend this methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reviews the performance of a community-based nutrition programme in preventing and treating wasting without complications among children under age three in urban informal settlements of India. Implemented by a non-profit organization, with national (Integrated Child Development Services [ICDS]) and city-level (Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai [MCGM]) government partners, the programme screened 7,759 children between May 2014 and April 2015. During this period, the programme admitted 705 moderately wasted and 189 severely wasted children into the treatment group and 6,820 not wasted children into the prevention group. Both prevention and treatment groups received growth monitoring, referrals to public health facilities, and home-based counselling (if <6 months) by community health workers. Treatment groups received additional home-based counselling and access to medical screenings. Severely wasted children also received access to ready-to-use therapeutic food. The study assessed default rates, wasting status, and average weight gain 3 months after admission. Factors associated with growth faltering in the prevention group were explored using logistic regression. Default rates for the severely wasted, moderately wasted, and prevention group were 12.7%, 20.4%, and 22.1%, respectively. Recovery rate was 42.4% for the severely wasted and 61.3% for the moderately wasted. For the moderately wasted, mean weight gain was 2.1 g/kg/day, 95% confidence interval (CI) [1.6, 2.6], and 4.5 g/kg/day for the severely wasted, 95% CI [3.1, 5.9]. Among prevention group children, 3.6% faltered into wasting-3.2% into moderate and 0.4% into severe. The paper gives insights into ways in which ICDS and MCGM can successfully integrate large-scale community-based acute malnutrition programming., (© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

This paper historicises the recent and ongoing professionalisation of community development in the Republic of Ireland. The term professionalisation refers both to the designation and accreditation of a distinctive community work occupation and a wider set of processes that effect more strategic approaches to the planning, delivery and evaluation of community organisations. The paper reviews some tensions associated with professionalisation; tensions that closely relate to community work's reputation as a 'bottom-up' or 'participatory' strategy. It also interrogates community development's place as a strategy of government in contemporary Ireland. In so doing it reconsiders the assumed separateness and distinctiveness of the state and community sectors, arguing that the state has been centrally implicated in calling the community sector into being. In their turn community development organisations have shaped and mediated policy delivery on the ground. It is these processes of hybridisation, co-operation, antagonism and struggle that have given professionalisation its momentum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from the literature on the analytics of government, the paper discusses marketing as a form of government, elaborating and illustrating the many ways in which consumer choice is shaped, modified and directed in the market through practices and techniques of consumer marketing. The aim is to critically reflect upon and render problematic the individualistic ideas of the green consumer as a powerful market force and to provoke discussion on the conceptualization – and construction – of consumer subjectivity and social problems in marketing. Taking examples particularly from the fashion and clothing industry, the paper discusses the ways in which marketing activities come to shape consumer conduct by operating through the choice of individuals who freely pursue their needs and desires, and by working on the environment within which this freedom of choice is exercised. The paper contributes to the literature on green consumerism by systematically interrogating and elaborating on the modes and practices of marketing thought and expertise through which consumers and consumption are rendered intelligible and actionable in the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the results of research carried out in Rwanda, in February 2005, through funding from the Royal Society. It investigates the methodologies and policies in use in Rwanda to promote and ensure sustainable industrial development and examines the Government's role in providing an appropriate framework. The paper considers the situation in Rwanda, following the 1994 genocide, and the part played by the Kigali Institute of Science, Technology and Management (KIST), formed with the specific remit of training a new generation of professionals to replace those lost in 1994. Finally it recognises similarities between manufacturing in the UK and in Rwanda, demonstrating how far Rwanda has come since the genocide. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Geographers examining the spaces of government and governance, and in particular those drawing upon the writings of Michel Foucault on government and governmentality, have tended to overlook the importance of different media, technical devices and practices of self-government to specific rationalities and programmes of government. In this paper I argue that the materialities and immaterialities of many mundane media technologies, the way they articulate and translate particular programmes of government, and the way they instil practices of self-government in citizens, are important but frequently overlooked dimensions of the geographies of government. I focus on the codes of countryside conduct – The Country Code/Countryside Code – that have been published in England and Wales since 1951. I examine how the National Parks Commission, and subsequently the Countryside Commission and Countryside Agency, identified the potential strengths and limitations of using the Country Code booklet to govern the conduct of visitors to the countryside. The paper shows how the material form of the booklet and methods of distributing and promoting it were seen to matter, and examines how civil servants attempted to extend the ‘reach’ of the Code and articulate its message through a diverse range of media which entailed different kinds of performative encounters in different spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores consumer advocacy as it applies to insurance regulation based on the literature and on the author's experience as a consumer representative and member of the Board of Trustees for the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC). The NAIC, founded in 1871, is a non-profit voluntary organization of the chief insurance regulatory officials of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. One of its key objectives is to facilitate the fair and equitable treatment of consumers. Each year 13–16 consumer representatives are selected to speak for consumers at national meetings in addition to serving as year-round resources to consumers, attorneys representing consumers, regulators, and other groups. Readers of the paper are encouraged to participate more fully in the public policy process. Although the focus of this paper is on insurance and regulation in the USA, the guiding principles apply to other nations, organizations, and consumer causes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Systems Engineering development projects often fail to meet delivery expectations in terms of timescales and cost. Project plans, which set cost and deadline expectations, are produced and monitored within a reductionist paradigm, incorporating a deterministic view of cause and effect. This assumes that the cumulative activities and their corresponding durations that comprise the developed solution can be known in advance, and that monitoring and management intervention can ensure satisfactory delivery of an adequate solution, through implementation of this plan. This paper presents a case study that examines the Systems Engineering function within a Thales UK business line. The focus is the organization. The research is exploratory. It gathers evidence through participant-observation, interviews, documentation, and archival records. It considers two perspectives, a 'traditional' predominantly reductionist perspective, and a novel Complex Adaptive System (CAS) perspective. Evidence is analyzed in light of both perspectives to consider how each is able to explain the observations. Research that considers an organization as a CAS is predominately theoretical, rather than empirical. This paper contributes by viewing a systems engineering development organisation as a CAS, and considering the novel insights this perspective brings to the issue of satisfactory project delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether capital punishment, either directly or via a spillover effect, has a deterrent effect on white collar crimes. Using data on nearly 150 nations and various dimensions of capital punishment, including capital punishment for non‐violent crimes, we consider two widely prevalent white‐collar crimes—corruption and the shadow economy. Nesting the empirical analysis in the broader literature on determinants of corruption and the shadow economy, we find that capital punishment in general reduced both corruption and the shadow economy, and the deterrent effect on the shadow economy was relatively more prevalent. Adding some empirical insights to the theoretical arguments surrounding the desirability of maximal punishments, results show some trade‐off between the quantity and quality of punishment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the ways in which colonial violence is transformed and spatialised into negotiated precarities at the occupied Palestine. The notion of "negotiated precarity" is developed herein, to refer to two aspects in particular. First, to spatial compartmentalisation, which shows how the settler colonial power operates by creating precarious administrative zones, where the life of the colonised becomes prone to several flexible, negotiated uses of power. Second, negotiated precarity is used to refer to the conduct of the colonised that counters, transforms, redirects, cancels or hampers the colonial spatialisations of power. By focusing on the "negotiated precarities" in a singular West Bank village, I exemplify how the colonial governing is entwined with spatial compartments that enable several informal, indirect and ad hoc techniques of colonial violence, but also how the colonial governing is constantly mobilised, negotiated, countered and redirected in/through the everyday Palestinian spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies empirically the determinants of firm bribery activities from the perspective of ownership structure. Using data on Chinese firms obtained from the Enterprise Surveys conducted by the World Bank, we compare the bribery activities of firms with various forms of ownership. We find that compared with private and foreign firms, state‐owned firms in China are not only more likely to receive bribe requests from government officials, but are also more likely to pay bribes. Meanwhile, firms are more likely to bribe if they are extorted, or if they expect to reduce infrastructural obstacles to their business operations. Other factors such as manager experience and external audits also exhibit significant influence upon firms' bribery decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is now the world leader in public bikeshare systems ( PBS) with more bikes and stations in use than the rest of the world combined. The rapid rise of PBS as a viable urban transport option in China has taken place since Hangzhou introduced the first system in 2008 and it has been driven by the desire to address sustainability challenges. Chinese municipal governments have heavily subsidized the development of PBS to encourage non-motorized transport and offer a flexible, convenient, and low-cost mobility options to the people. As a subsidized public service, PBS in China has been constructed and operated either under a government-run ( GR) model and public-private partnership ( PPP) model. This paper analyzes the effects of these two operation models on PBS performance and concludes that GR systems have been more effective than PPP systems in achieving higher bike utilization, ridership, and population served. The paper explores the reasons for these differences and finds that the financial incentive structure under the PPP model often leads to results that have conflicts of interest between private companies and the government. GR systems, on the contrary, are much more effective than PBS systems and they are under official transport agencies that are accountable to following the government's desire to make PBS function as a viable transport option instead of a profit-making business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the Slovene experience of privatisation, which is marked by two defects: privatisation failure and failure to privatise. Definitions of privatisation failure fall into four main categories: failure in outcomes, failure in method, failure in regulation, and failure in process. The paper suggests that privatisation failure and failure to privatise are interrelated and proposes a new metric for both. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Incidences of corporate–community conflict and human rights violation associated with the activities of Canadian extractive companies (CECs) abroad have led to debates at home about the social responsibility of CECs overseas and the role of the Canadian government in corporate social responsibility (CSR). In response to these debates, the Canadian government launched the Canadian national CSR strategy to steer the CSR agenda of CECs. This paper questions and problematizes governmental discourses within the national strategies as a basis for contributing to the debate on the role of government in CSR. We show that the Canadian national CSR strategy embodies the same neoliberal tendencies as the European governmental approach to CSR. However, while the Canadian government's approach to CSR emerged with an emphasis on self‐regulation, it has now morphed into a form of enforced self‐regulation. Hence, the Canadian government adopts both collaborative and confrontation strategies in its efforts to make self‐regulation effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The concept of marketing has evolved significantly, as have its applications in various sectors, including services. Diverse opinions have been expressed for and against the use of marketing techniques in public administration. In this paper, we present a conceptual and methodological review of the main contributions made by marketing to the public sector, measuring variables and related concepts that determine public satisfaction with public services. These elements, termed key drivers of opinion, were measured by reference to the information provided by the Spanish Sociological Research Centre (CIS), and provide an alternative way to display and analyse the data of interest, through perception models and figures using multivariate factor analysis. In this study, the components or factors containing the main drivers of opinion were found to be, on the one hand, commitment to efficient service, and on the other, user convenience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the impact of disease epidemics on the worldwide prevalence of the shadow or the underground economy. The informal sector has low entry barriers and provides an easy short‐term option for the supply of goods and services during epidemics when traditional supply lines are cut or strained. Furthermore, the enforcement resources might be directed elsewhere during epidemics, lowering the expected costs of shadow operations. Using data for over 125 nations, we find that the incidence of epidemics positively and significantly contributes to the spread of the underground sector. These findings withstand a series of robustness checks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the branding of natural resources using a case study of teak. While scholars write about brands and branding as well as natural resources, few of them connect the two, let alone trace geographical and historical patterns of development. Yet studying the intersection of brands, natural resources, geography and history yields rich insights about how both brands and natural resources have come to be defined. Rejecting narrow understandings of branding, the paper instead builds a broader appreciation of this phenomenon using a Foucauldian framework that sees it as a form of government. It identifies three tools - science, violence and marketing - that inform the genesis of brands, exploring their deployment in the making of teak with reference to selected historical and geographical entanglements of the British Empire and former colonies (notably Burma as prime country of origin). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government has committed itself to a Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDR) in 2010. The government and the country face very hard choices to bring United Kingdom defence and security policy back from the brink of bankruptcy—both financial and strategic (Gow). To succeed, it must overcome the failings of the past (Chisnall, Dorman, Rees) and take a truly open and radical look at all aspects of policy and process—including the Trident independent nuclear deterrent (Allen), relations with Europe (Witney) and the importance of cyber-issues in the future security context (Fisher). It must get strategic concepts right to provide flexibility with credibility (Stone). It must deliver ‘what the military wants’: true strategic prioritisation, radical defence acquisition reform, and credible balancing of resources and commitments (Kiszley). The scale of the challenge facing the United Kingdom in—and beyond—the 2010 SDR is why The Political Quarterly convened a workshop early in 2010 involving MPs, practitioners, retired military personnel, journalists, commentators, business people and academics, and publishes these associated papers. Most of all, to overcome the failings of the past, there must be a radical move beyond the welcome first steps of the Cameron–Clegg government to introduce a National Security Council and a National Security Advisor, to reconfigure relationships within government, across departments and with Parliament to have a government figure of accountability and responsibility—a Secretary of State for Security Policy, primus inter pares with other Secretaries of State—to make sense of the questions needing to be asked and answered (Gearson and Gow). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Manuscript Type: Empirical Research Question/Issue: This paper sets out to investigate perceptions about corporate governance practices in the developing African nation of Uganda. The study employs interview and questionnaire analysis to examine the part played by a range of factors in supporting effective governance. Research Findings/Results: The findings suggest that pervasive corruption and weaknesses in underlying frameworks have hampered attempts to improve practice. The results indicate that the mere emergence of detailed governance codes in developing countries does not necessarily mean that de facto practices will improve. Theoretical Implications: The results suggest that corporate governance standards in developing countries may appear on paper to be broadly similar to those in developed countries. However, a widespread perception exists that Ugandan frameworks are not yet strong enough to support what might normally be considered to be “good” practice. Sound corporate governance is seen as being a multi-faceted notion, with a range of political and social frameworks requiring strengthening before meaningful improvements can be made. Practical Implications: The evidence indicates that attempts to improve governance standards in a particular nation require more than the simple publication of codes of best practice. Root and branch changes in a wide-range of contextual factors, including at political and cultural levels, are required to provide the conditions in which meaningful improvements in corporate governance will occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Government and public services have to not only enforce the requirements of the regulatory policies, but also have to satisfy the needs of preferences of their clients and customers. In this paper, we summarize the results of a multi-year case study conducted to assess the choices of campground users at the Shawnee National Forest (Illinois), which is managed by United States Forest Service. The results show how users’ tradeoff between location, capacity-related and pricing attributes when choosing a campground. The case study provides guidance for design and development of new services and more effective management of effective resources within the national forest. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In 1999, the Government, Department of Health in England, UK established the Infant Feeding Initiative. As part of this initiative, 79 1-year infant feeding projects were selected for funding. The funded projects specifically centred upon practice innovation and evaluation in relation to promoting breastfeeding and supporting breastfeeding women in socially excluded communities. The DH recently commissioned a comprehensive evaluation of the 79 projects (DH 2003). This paper focuses upon the evaluation of the 26 DH funded projects that specifically focused upon breastfeeding peer support schemes. The evaluation illuminated many of the challenges involved in implementing community based breastfeeding peer support schemes. Lessons learnt from the most effective projects in terms of: potential to increase breastfeeding initiation and continuation rates; uptake of the service; comprehensive evaluation; and sustainability are presented here, as a series of steps required for successful operationalization of breastfeeding peer support schemes. When these steps are followed, peer support schemes offer exciting prospects for supporting breastfeeding women and increasing breastfeeding initiation and continuation rates, while respecting diversity, ensuring inclusivity and stimulating community empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With increasing support from the international community, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have played an important role in Bangladesh since the early 1970s in providing emergency assistance to disaster victims. After observing widespread corruption and misuse of relief aid by the Bangladesh government in 1974 and subsequent years, external sources began to channellize emergency assistance to the victims through NGOs. Realizing that NGOs were usurping its authority over external disaster assistance, the government looked for opportunities to demonstrate its ability to deliver services to victims. An opportunity came in July 1998 when Bangladesh experienced a devastating flood. Using data collected from 348 households in 11 villages, this paper compares support received by the respondents from the Bangladesh government and NGOs during and immediately after the flood. Respondent opinions regarding emergency relief distribution suggest that both sources performed satisfactorily and an overwhelming majority of them thought that the government performed better than it had previously in distributing relief assistance to flood victims. Following an analysis of the survey data, this paper discusses the policy implications for future disaster assistance efforts in Bangladesh and elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper examines residential childcare workers’ perceptions of quality and how they relate to the growing performance measurement culture within social work over the last 10 years. In particular, it is concerned with examining how workers define quality services and what this means for the government's standards approach with its emphasis on tangible activities around process rather than outcomes. In addition this paper considers the prospects for developing quality in residential care and what frontline workers assess as adding to and/or subtracting from that activity. The growing performance measurement and standards culture being propagated by central government is considered in the context of workers’ perceptions and influence, particularly as it relates to the potential to maximize the quality of the service provided. In this context staff perceptions are obtained from nine children's units in two local authorities with the intention of providing research evidence to a debate very often centred on belief rather than fact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a systematic process for examining complex public policy choices that has been developed and refined over the past 50 years and is often called policy analysis. Its purpose is to assist policymakers in choosing preferred courses of action by clarifying the problem, outlining the alternative solutions and displaying tradeoffs among their consequences. In most real-world policy situations there are many possible alternatives, many uncertainties, many stakeholders and many consequences of interest. Also, there is usually no single decisionmaker and little chance of obtaining agreement on a single set of preferences among the consequences. As a result, there is no way to identify an optimal solution. Instead, policy analysis uses a variety of tools to develop relevant information and present it to the parties involved in the policymaking process in a manner that helps them come to a decision. It is a problem-oriented approach that does not presume a model structure for assessing the consequences of a policy or ranking the alternatives. The paper provides a brief history of policy analysis, describes the most important elements of the policy analysis process, provides an illustrative example of the use of the approach and suggests directions for future developments that can enrich the approach and increase the chances for successful use of the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the impact of stakeholder engagement in the form of controlling shareholders on the corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance of firms using data from 25 countries. The results show that there is a positive relation between state-controlled ownership and the CSR performance of firms, whereas the other types of controlling ownership have no impact on CSR performance. Further results show that evidence is more pronounced in countries with more stakeholder engagement. Additional analysis indicates that the change of state controlled firms leads to a change in CSR performance, but not vice versa. Taken together, this paper highlights the importance of governmental ownership in shaping firms' corporate social responsibility performance in an international context. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his highly regarded and influential Modernity and the Holocaust Zygmunt Bauman launched one of the most passionate and sustained critiques of 'bureaucratic rationality' seen within social theory for some time. In so doing he drew heavily upon the work of Max Weber for support. In this brief paper I am interested in exploring the extent to which Weber really is the anti-bureaucratic ally Bauman claims him to be. In the first part of the paper I outline the main elements of Bauman's critique of bureaucratic rationality, drawing particular attention to its reliance upon a self-consciously Weberian theoretical lexicon. In the second part of the paper I seek to indicate that, despite his claims to be following in Weber's tracks, Bauman's conclusions regarding the moral vacuity of bureaucratic conduct are the very antithesis of Weber's own. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A cybernetic perspective is used to evaluate firms with or without stakeholder participation in their information and control architecture. This approach also provides a basis for evaluating firms with more than one board or control centre as found in Japan, Europe, and labour-managed firms. Empirical evidence supports the hypothesis that multi control centres with stakeholder participation can provide competitive advantages. This hypothesis is supported by the Law of Requisite Variety and the Williamson analysis of why Multi-divisional firms provide advantages over Unitary Form firms. The opportunity to support stakeholder governance with stakeholder ownership is identified from an analysis of how corporate rights of perpetual succession permits investors to be overpaid. The public policy implications of investor overpayments are considered. Also considered is the use of cybernetic principles to introduce self-regulation as proposed by the US Vice President. Policy initiatives are identified to build a ‘stakeholder economy’ as proposed by the Leader of the Labour Party in Britain. The paper concludes that appropriate stakeholder governance could improve equity and self-governance in the private sector, the quality of democracy in the public sector, and the efficiency of both sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks whether discourse analytic approaches in social psychology have yet produced methodologies adequate to the investigation of institutional 'gaze'. Institutional language has been explored to the extent that state agencies construct members of the public by speaking about them in particular ways. This has often provided insight into the co-existence and competition of incommensurable discourses. However, studies of representation in the sense of speaking for have been notably absent form social psychology. It is argued that this aspect of discourse is a vital component in the study of contemporary governmental multi-agency strategy in the area of child protection, where recent legislation and policy aims at the co-ordination of incommensurable discourses. A methodology for studying this strategy is outlined through an account of the actor network approach in science studies, accounts of the State under the post-modern condition, and analyses of sections of interviews with social workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This editorial introduces a special issue resulting from a panel on Internet and policy organized by the Oxford Internet Institute (University of Oxford) at the 2015 International Conference on Public Policy (ICPP) held in Milan. Two main themes emerged from the panel: the challenges of high cost and low participation which many e-participation initiatives have faced; and the potential Big Data seems to hold for remedying these problems. This introduction briefly presents these themes and links them to the papers in the issue. It argues that Big Data can fix some of the problems typically encountered by e-participation initiatives: it can offer a solution to the problem of low turnout which is furthermore accessible to government bodies even if they have low levels of financial resources. However, the use of Big Data in this way is also a radically different approach to the problem of involving citizens in policymaking; and the editorial concludes by reflecting on the significance of this for the policymaking process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Insects are the most biodiverse terrestrial eukaryotic organisms on earth, representing around 75% of the world's recorded fauna. As such, they are central players in most of the major biomes of the world, notably the tropics where they display an enormous species richness and range of specialisations, although they are largely absent from high polar and marine ecosystems. Because of their abundance and diversity, they often come into direct competition with humans, as pests threatening our crops and stored products, attacking our clothes and paper products, including books, and as vectors transmitting diseases, some deadly, to ourselves, livestock, crops, and to wildlife. Meanwhile, many species are highly beneficial as pollinators and as biological control agents used to protect our crops and products. Others still are of conservation importance. For centuries, pest species have been combatted using a variety of approaches, mainly chemical during the 19th into the 21st centuries, but problems have arisen due to the evolution of insecticide resistance. Resistance has even recently evolved against such novel bio-pesticides as Bt ( Bacillus thuringiensis Berliner) toxins. This is perhaps not surprising considering the often short life cycles of many pest insects, their powers of dispersal, and ability to adapt and evolve in the face of novel ecological challenges. Humankind has responded by developing strategies, including the use of natural biological control agents. Mark Jervis was an expert on the deployment of these agents, especially parasitic Hymenoptera, in the control of insect pests, both from a theoretical and applied standpoint. Here, I briefly outline, with special reference to the UK, how cutbacks in research funding threaten the vital entomological research base, while highlighting some of the main ways pest insect populations have been, and are being, studied and controlled. Last, as Mark was a keen, long-term Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society, I also outline the role of the Society in advancing the understanding and dissemination of insect science to a national and international audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is written as a briefing document with the aim of providing support to policy-makers and government officials tackling obesity and related non-communicable diseases. It is based on a symposium Obesity and non-communicable diseases: Learning from international experiences convened by the International Association for the Study of Obesity (now the World Obesity Federation) and its policy section, the International Obesity TaskForce (now World Obesity - Policy and Prevention). The symposium discussed a wide range of proposals to tackle the consumption of unhealthy food products, including interventions in the market through fiscal policies and marketing restrictions, measures to strengthen public health legislation and measures to limit agri-food company lobbying activities. It recognized the need for government leadership and action in order to reduce preventable deaths while improving economic performance and identified a need for governments to take a systems wide approach to tackling obesity and to work with civil society, especially to monitor the drivers of disease and to hold all stakeholders accountable for progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]