Showing papers on "Government published in 2013"

The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution

Abstract: Revolution. The 1959 Rede Lecture. By C. P. Snow. Price, $1.75. Pp. 58, with notes. Cambridge University Press, 32 E. 57th St., New York, 1960. Also available in paperback edition, price, $1.25. Last year's Rede Lecture at Cambridge by C. P. Snow is now available in a slim, thoughtful, and disturbing volume entitled The Two Cultures and The Scientific Revolution. It runs a mere 58 pages of direct, insistent, pellucid prose and can be read in one hour. Since it takes so little time to courageously tackle two problems vital to scientists, and since it is modestly priced, this unimposing book may well be the greatest literary bargain of an inflated publishing age. The "two cultures" in the title are the modern culture of the scientific intellectual and the traditional culture of the literary intellectual. With a foot in each cultural camp, C. P. Snow comes uniquely armed to the fray. He states his own qualifications : "by training I was a scientist; by vocation I was a writer." More specifically, Charles Percy Snow, the scientist, won his M. A. in physics in 1928, after taking first honors in chemistry at Leicester University. He then became a research fellow at Christ College, Cambridge. During the war, he was charged with the proper placement of English scien¬ tists by the Ministry of Labor. For the last thirteen years, he has directed English Electric, Britain's largest electrical firm. On the literary side of the ledger, C. P. Snow is the famous author of a projected cycle of eleven novels known as Strangers and Brothers. His most widely read book is probably The Masters, number four in the cycle; while his latest novel, The Affair, is number eight. The series deals with the machinations in the upper-middle-class English world of education, government, and science. In effect, Snow seems set upon the commendable task of making the other practical scientists as popular as the psychia¬ trist in today's literary market. When such an awesomely equipped spokesman says, "I believe the intellectual life of the whole of western society is in¬ creasingly being split into two polar groups" and there is "between the two a gulf of mutual incomprehension" that is doing great harm, it behooves us to listen. Snow's idea that scientists comprise a unified culture requires amplification. Cer¬ tainly, the gulf between the different sciences is often as great as that between the scientists and the literati. Attendance at a meeting of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology will suffice to demon¬ strate what a Tower of Babel the natural sciences, in all their subdivisions, can create among themselves. In the field of medicine. the scientific split is manifest in the faltering dialogue between the research academicians and the private practitioners. In spite of these intragroup differences, scientists share "common attitudes, common standards and patterns of behavior, common approaches and assumptions. ... In their working, and in much of their emotional life, their atti¬ tudes are closer to other scientists than to non-scientists. .

Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS) statement

Abstract: Economic evaluations of health interventions pose a particular challenge for reporting. There is also a need to consolidate and update existing guidelines and promote their use in a user friendly manner. The Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS) statement is an attempt to consolidate and update previous health economic evaluation guidelines efforts into one current, useful reporting guidance. The primary audiences for the CHEERS statement are researchers reporting economic evaluations and the editors and peer reviewers assessing them for publication. The need for new reporting guidance was identified by a survey of medical editors. A list of possible items based on a systematic review was created. A two round, modified Delphi panel consisting of representatives from academia, clinical practice, industry, government, and the editorial community was conducted. Out of 44 candidate items, 24 items and accompanying recommendations were developed. The recommendations are contained in a user friendly, 24 item checklist. A copy of the statement, accompanying checklist, and this report can be found on the ISPOR Health Economic Evaluations Publication Guidelines Task Force website (www.ispor.org/TaskForces/ EconomicPubGuidelines.asp). We hope CHEERS will lead to better reporting, and ultimately, better health decisions. To facilitate dissemination and uptake, the CHEERS statement is being co-published across 10 health economics and medical journals. We encourage other journals and groups, to endorse CHEERS. The author team plans to review the checklist for an update in five years.

Government by experiment? Global cities and the governing of climate change

Abstract: In this paper, we argue for an approach that goes beyond an institutional reading of urban climate governance to engage with the ways in which government is accomplished through social and technical practices. Central to the exercise of government in this manner, we argue, are ‘climate change experiments’– purposive interventions in urban socio-technical systems designed to respond to the imperatives of mitigating and adapting to climate change in the city. Drawing on three different concepts – of governance experiments, socio-technical experiments, and strategic experiments – we first develop a framework for understanding the nature and dynamics of urban climate change experiments. We use this conceptual analysis to frame a scoping study of the global dimensions of urban climate change experimentation in a database of 627 urban climate change experiments in 100 global cities. The analysis charts when and where these experiments occur, the relationship between the social and technical aspects of experimentation and the governance of urban climate change experimentation, including the actors involved in their governing and the extent to which new political spaces for experimentation are emerging in the contemporary city. We find that experiments serve to create new forms of political space within the city, as public and private authority blur, and are primarily enacted through forms of technical intervention in infrastructure networks, drawing attention to the importance of such sites in urban climate politics. These findings point to an emerging research agenda on urban climate change experiments that needs to engage with the diversity of experimentation in different urban contexts, how they are conducted in practice and their impacts and implications for urban governance and urban life.

Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown

Abstract: At the onset of the Great Recession, as house prices sank and joblessness soared, many commentators thought that neoliberalism itself was in its death throes. And yet it seems that - post-apocalypse - we've woken into a second nightmare more ghastly than the first: a political class still blaming government intervention, a global drive for austerity, stagflation, and exploding sovereign debt crises. The economics profession has weathered the crisis by pumping noise and confusion into our attempts to understand the unfolding disasters. Philip Mirowski argues that, as in classic studies of cognitive dissonance, neoliberal thought has become so pervasive that any countervailing evidence serves only to further convince disciples of its ultimate truth. Once neoliberalism became a Theory of Everything - a revolutionary account of self, knowledge, information, markets, and government - it could no longer be falsified by mere data from the "real" economy. In this sharp, witty and deeply informed account - taking no prisoners in his pursuit of "zombie" economists - Mirowski surveys the wreckage of what passes for economic thought, and finally provides the basis for an anti-neoliberal account of the current crisis and our future prospects.

The Entrepreneurial State

Abstract: The prevailing opinion on public spending is that the state must be cut back to make room for entrepreneurship and innovation, to prevent the public sector ‘crowding out’ the private sector. This draws on the belief that the private sector is dynamic, innovative and competitive, in contrast to the sluggish and bureaucratic public sector. The Entrepreneurial State challenges this minimalist view of economic policy. It finds that successful economies result from government doing more than just creating the right conditions for growth. Instead, government has a key role to play in developing new technologies whose potential is not yet understood by the business community. State-funded organisations can be nimble and innovative, transforming economies forever — the algorithm behind Google was funded by a public sector National Science Foundation grant. This pamphlet forces the debate to go beyond the role of the state in stimulating demand, or crudely ‘picking winners’ in industrial policy. Instead, it argues for a proactive, entrepreneurial state: a state that is able to take risks and harness the best of the private sector. It imagines the state as a catalyst, sparking the initial reaction that will cause innovation to spread.

TRECVID 2012 - An overview of the goals, tasks, data, evaluation mechanisms, and metrics

Abstract: The TREC Video Retrieval Evaluation (TRECVID) 2012 was a TREC-style video analysis and retrieval evaluation, the goal of which remains to promote progress in content-based exploitation of digital video via open, metrics-based evaluation. Over the last ten years this effort has yielded a better understanding of how systems can effectively accomplish such processing and how one can reliably benchmark their performance. TRECVID is funded by the NIST and other US government agencies. Many organizations and individuals worldwide contribute significant time and effort.

Constitutional Design for Divided Societies

Abstract: Over the past half-century, democratic constitutional design has undergone a sea change. After the Second World War, newly independent countries tended simply to copy the basic constitutional rules of their former colonial masters, without seriously considering alternatives. Today, constitution writers choose more deliberately among a wide array of constitutional models, with various advantages and disadvantages. While at first glance this appears to be a beneficial development, it has actually been a mixed blessing: Since they now have to deal with more alternatives than they can readily handle, constitution writers risk making ill-advised decisions. In my opinion, scholarly experts can be more helpful to constitution writers by formulating specific recommendations and guidelines than by overwhelming those who must make the decision with a barrage of possibilities and options. This essay presents a set of such recommendations, focusing in particular on the constitutional needs of countries with deep ethnic and other cleavages. In such deeply divided societies the interests and demands of communal groups can be accommodated only by the establishment of power sharing, and my recommendations will indicate as precisely as possible which particular power-sharing rules and institutions are optimal and why. (Such rules and institutions may be useful in less intense forms in many other societies as well.) Most experts on divided societies and constitutional engineering broadly agree that deep societal divisions pose a grave problem for democracy, and that it is therefore generally more difficult to establish and maintain democratic government in divided than in homogeneous Arend Lijphart is Research Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries (1999) and many other studies of democratic institutions, the governance of deeply divided societies, and electoral systems.

Emerging multinationals from mid-range economies: the influence of institutions and factor markets

Abstract: This paper revisits and extends our earlier work (in 2005) in the pages of this journal. We argue that there is a need for more fine-grained understanding of the country context along two dimensions: (1) institutional development and (2) infrastructure and factor market development. Specifically, we propose an enriched typology of emerging economies with a focus on mid-range emerging economies, which are positioned between traditional emerging economies and newly developed economies. Then we examine new multinationals from these mid-range emerging economies that have internationalized both regionally and globally. We outline directions for further research based on this typology in terms of (1) government influence, (2) resource orchestration, (3) market entry, and (4) corporate governance regarding the internationalization strategy of these emerging multinationals from mid-range economies.

Models for democracy

Abstract: Democracy can be conceptualized in different ways. Tilly (2007: 7) distinguishes between no less than four ways to define democracy: constitutional, substantive, procedural, and process-oriented. These four ways to approach our subject essentially boil down to two, however: process-oriented (procedural, constitutional) vs. substantive. In his Gettysburg address, Lincoln famously spoke of ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people’.1 His short phrase encapsulates the essence of the different theoretical perspectives of the democratic process. ‘Government of the people’ and ‘government by the people’ refer to process, ‘government for the people’ refers to substance. Scharpf (1970, 1999a: 6–20) makes the same point by distinguishing between input- and output-oriented democratic thought. From the input-oriented perspective, political decisions are legitimate because they reflect the ‘will of the people’. From the output-oriented perspective, they are legitimate because they effectively promote the common welfare of the people.

An Avalanche Is Coming. Higher Education and the Revolution Ahead

Abstract: Michael Barber, Professor, Chief Adviser to the Secretary of State for Education on School Standards (1997-2001), chief education advisor at Pearson, leading Pearson’s worldwide programme of research into education policy and the impact of its products and services on learner outcomes, London, UK. Email: krdonnelly@pearson.com Address: Institute for Public Policy Research, 4th Floor, 14 Buckingham Street, London WC2N 6DF, UK.Katelyn Donnelly, executive director at Pearson where she leads the Affordable Learning Fund, London, UK. Email: krdonnelly@pearson.com Address: Institute for Public Policy Research, 4th Floor, 14 Buckingham Street, London WC2N 6DF, UK.Saad Rizvi, Ph.D. in Economics and International Relations, Pearson’s executive director of efficacy, London, UK. Email: krdonnelly@pearson.com Address: Institute for Public Policy Research, 4th Floor, 14 Buckingham Street, London WC2N 6DF, UK.Prospects for higher education are discussed in the context of technologies and globalization sweeping over the world and affecting many of the world economy sectors. The report describes opportunities that will appear ahead of universities if they go for radical transformations in their key institutions, and analyzes the risks that may arise if such transformations lose to the challenges of the 21st century.The model of a traditional 21st century university and its functions are characterized. The authors examine the factors that can radically change the paradigm of a traditional university and points out that universities need to revise their existing business models and education patterns. Marketization of education has turned students into consumers dictating their own terms and has brought about a number of alternatives to universities for talented students. Therefore, universities need to define clearly what they can offer, differentiate themselves from competitors, and identify their target audience among potential student groups.The authors believe that universities of the future should rearrange functions performed by the existing universities. He also explains why the model of the future is more efficient than the existing one.It is supposed that the promising prospects proposed for higher education by the 21st century can only be reached if all players of the HE system, from students to the government, support the radical transformation initiative to tackle the challenges they are facing. The study defines the essential questions that all players should answer if they want a productive transformation in higher education.

Interpreting the precautionary principle

Abstract: Foreword * Part I - History and Context of the Precautionary Principle: The History and Contemporary Significance of the Precautionary Principle * The precautionary Principle in Germany - Enabling Government * Part II - Implications for Science: Editorial Introduction * Precaution, Science and the Sin of Hubris * What if? Versus If it Ain't Broke Don't Fix It * Taking Care * The Social Construction of Precaution * Part III - Implications for Management: Editorial Introduction * The Precautionary Principle and Economic Analysis * The Precautionary Principle and Moral Values * How the Media Respond to Precaution * The Regulation of Genetically Modified Organisms * the Precautionary Principle in Local Government * Part IV - The International Dimension: Editorial Introduction * The Precautionary Principle in US Environmental Law * The Introduction of Precautionary Principle in the UK * The Precautionary Principle in Australia * The Status of the Precautionary Principle in International Law * Part V - The Future: Seeping through the Pores

Legislating a Woman's Seat on the Board: Institutional Factors Driving Gender Quotas for Boards of Directors

Abstract: Ten countries have established quotas for female representation on publicly traded corporate and/or state-owned enterprise boards of directors, ranging from 33-50%, with various sanctions. Fifteen other countries have introduced non-binding gender quotas in their corporate governance codes enforcing a "comply or explain" principle. Countless other countries’ leaders and policy groups are in the process of debating, developing, and approving legislation around gender quotas in boards. Taken together, gender quota legislation significantly impacts the composition of boards of directors and thus the strategic direction of these publicly traded and state-owned enterprises. This article outlines an integrated model of three institutional factors that explain the establishment of board of directors gender quota legislation based on the premise that the country’s institutional environment co-evolves with gender corporate policies. We argue that these three key institutional factors are female labor market and gendered welfare state provisions, left-leaning political government coalitions, and path dependent policy initiatives for gender equality, both in the public realm as well as in the corporate domain. We discuss implications of our conceptual model and empirical findings for theory, practice, policy, and future research. These include the adoption and penalty design of board diversity practices into corporate practices, bottom-up approaches from firm to country-level gender board initiatives, hard versus soft regulation, the leading role of Norway and its isomorphic effects, the likelihood of engaging in decoupling, the role of business leaders, and the transnational and international reaction to board diversity initiatives.

International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD)

Abstract: The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) contributes to sustainable development by advancing policy recommendations on international trade and investment, economic policy, climate change and energy, and management of natural and social capital, as well as the enabling role of communication technologies in these areas. We report on international negotiations and disseminate knowledge gained through collaborative projects, resulting in more rigorous research, capacity building in developing countries, better networks spanning the North and the South, and better global connections among researchers, practitioners, citizens and policy-makers.IISD’s vision is better living for all—sustainably; its mission is to champion innovation, enabling societies to live sustainably. IISD is registered as a charitable organization in Canada and has 501(c)(3) status in the United States. IISD receives core operating support from the Government of Canada, provided through the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), from the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and from the Province of Manitoba. The Institute receives project funding from numerous governments inside and outside Canada, United Nations agencies, foundations and the private sector.Head Office161 Portage Avenue East, 6th Floor, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3B 0Y4 Tel: +1 (204) 958-7700 | Fax: +1 (204) 958-7710 | Website: www.iisd.orgClimate Resilience and Food Security A framework for planning and monitoring June 2013This document is an output from a project funded by the U.K. Department for International Development (DFID) for the benefit of developing countries. However, the views expressed and information contained in it are not necessarily those of or endorsed by DFID, which can accept no responsibility for such views or information or for any reliance placed on them. Acknowledgements: The research team acknowledges the helpful comments and support of its Advisory Committee, in particular Natasha Grist (ODI), Peter Bieler (SDC), Dr Fikret Berkes (Univ of Manitoba), Julie Lennox (UN ECLAC), and Mirza Castro (FAO Honduras).

Distributive Politics Around the World

Abstract: We inventory more than 150 studies of distributive politics in more than three dozen countries other than the United States. We organize existing studies under two theories: theories of democratic accountability and theories of government responsiveness. Studies that concern democratic accountability conceptualize distributive allocations as attempts by politicians to protect themselves electorally by targeting specific groups of voters. We identify four subsets: (a) studies of whether politicians target goods to core or swing voters; (b) studies of general political favoritism in targeting government goods; (c) studies of whether goods are disbursed according to the electoral cycle; and (d) studies of whether elected officials gain votes from the disbursement of government goods. We illustrate each with examples from the literature. We then discuss distributive politics as responsiveness to the median voter. This perspective entails a focus on the redistributive consequences of government policy and inve...

A Three‐Stage Adoption Process for Social Media Use in Government

Abstract: Social media applications are slowly diffusing across all levels of government. The organizational dynamics underlying adoption and use decisions follow a process similar to that for previous waves of new information and communication technologies. The authors suggest that the organizational diffusion of these types of new information and communication technologies, initially aimed at individual use and available through markets, including social media applications, follows a three-stage process. First, agencies experiment informally with social media outside of accepted technology use policies. Next, order evolves from the first chaotic stage as government organizations recognize the need to draft norms and regulations. Finally, organizational institutions evolve that clearly outline appropriate behavior, types of interactions, and new modes of communication that subsequently are formalized in social media strategies and policies. For each of the stages, the authors provide examples and a set of propositions to guide future research.

Local E‐Government in the United States: Transformation or Incremental Change?

Abstract: In this article, the authors address the recent trajectory of local e-government in the United States and compare it with the predictions of early e-government writings, using empirical data from two nationwide surveys of e-government among American local governments. The authors find that local e-government has not produced the results that those writings predicted. Instead, its development has largely been incremental, and local e-government is mainly about delivering information and services online, followed by a few transactions and limited interactivity. Local e-government is also mainly one way, from government to citizens, and there is little or no evidence that it is transformative in any way. This disparity between early predictions and actual results is partly attributable to the incremental nature of American public administration. Other reasons include a lack of attention by early writers to the history of information technology in government and the influence of technological determinism on those writings.

Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting in China: Symbol or Substance?

Abstract: This study focuses on how and why firms strategically respond to government signals regarding appropriate corporate activity. We integrate institutional theory and research on corporate political strategy to develop a political dependence model that explains (a) how different types of dependency on the government lead firms to issue corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports and (b) how the risk of governmental monitoring affects the extent to which CSR reports are symbolic or substantive. First, we examine how firm characteristics reflecting dependence on the government — including private versus state ownership, executives serving on political councils, political legacy, and financial resources — affect the likelihood of firms issuing CSR reports. Second, we focus on the symbolic nature of CSR reporting and how variance in the risk of government monitoring through channels such as bureaucratic embeddedness and local government institutional development influences the extent to which CSR communications are symbolically decoupled from substantive CSR activities. Our database includes all CSR reports issued by the approximately 1,600 publicly listed Chinese firms between 2006 and 2009. Our hypotheses are generally supported. The political perspective we develop contributes to organizational theory by showing (a) the importance of government signaling as a mechanism of political influence, (b) how different types of dependency on the government expose firms to different types of legitimacy pressures, and (c) that firms face a decoupling risk which leads them to be more likely to enact substantive actions in situations where they are likely to be monitored.

Sovereign Default, Domestic Banks and Financial Institutions

Abstract: We present a model of sovereign debt in which, contrary to conventional wisdom, government defaults are costly because they destroy the balance sheets of domestic banks. In our model, better financial institutions allow banks to be more leveraged, thereby making them more vulnerable to sovereign defaults. Our predictions: government defaults should lead to declines in private credit, and these declines should be larger in countries where financial institutions are more developed and banks hold more government bonds. In these same countries, government defaults should be less likely. Using a large panel of countries, we find evidence consistent with these predictions.

Understanding the Complex Dynamics of Transparency

Abstract: This article contributes to the growing body of literature on government transparency by developing a model for studying the construction of transparency in interactions between governments and stakeholders. Building on theories about complex decision making, a heuristic model is developed that consists of a strategic, a cognitive, and an institutional perspective. To test the model's value, it is applied to two empirical cases: Dutch schools and the Council of the European Union. Applying the model to the school case provides insights into the connection between the introduction of transparency and the transformation in arrangements for safeguarding school quality. The case of the Council of the European Union highlights the role of transparency in the transformation of the council from a supranational to an intergovernmental body. The article concludes that the heuristic model, together with in-depth, longitudinal case studies, helps us understand government transparency in relation to broader transformations in the public sector.