Suchergebnisse

Defence date: 12 January 2018 ; Examining Board: Prof. Stephen Smith, European University Institute (Supervisor); Prof. Corinna Unger, European University Institute; Prof. Andrea Janku, School of Oriental and African Studies, London, Prof. Peter Gatrell, Manchester University ; Looking at the social and political transformation of China during the entire Republican era, my thesis explores the twofold adoption of the Red Cross in the country. My examination reveals that the model served reform-oriented philanthropists of the Chinese Red Cross Society to establish relief structures to improve the country's welfare system through the implementation of Western approaches. In addition, the Red Cross was of use for supporters of China's religiously-based philanthropy who reformed the faith-based mission of the Red Swastika Society to gain legitimization and to advance emergency measures. Adding to current research on the development of humanitarianism a so far marginally explored local case study, my thesis suggests that the Red Cross in China not only served reform-oriented philanthropists, but also served supporters of China's traditional philanthropy.

The purpose of this report is to help policymakers improve economic development and job creation in Cameroon's cities. The report is part of the World Bank's Technical Assistance project on Enhancing Economic Performance of African Cities, supporting clients in the Ministry of Economy, Planning and Regional Development (MINEPAT), Ministry of Urban Development (MINDHU) and the Urban Metropolitan Councils (Communauté Urbaines), particularly of Douala, Kribi and Bamenda, in the areas of: a) economic analyses and b) institutional support to strengthen their ability to plan and implement relevant reforms. This study utilized various research methodologies including (1) desk based analysis of quantitative data; (2) focus group discussions with over 120 local firms and stakeholders in Douala, Bamenda, Kribi; and (3) institutional analysis of Cameroon's decentralization framework to identify appropriate institutional mechanisms for promoting local economic development. The report highlights the importance of investing in Cameroon's cities and makes key recommendations to national and local government for the key investments and reforms needed to improve economic competitiveness and job creation.

This article elaborates on the tax policy responses in the area of direct taxation that are currently on the table at both the OECD and EU levels. The digital economy cannot be seen in isolation from the rest of the economy; it is the overall economy that is becoming increasingly digitalized. As any ring-fencing of the digital parts of the economy would seem infeasible, the fact that all the tax reform initiatives contemplated seem to be pursuing that exact objective is rather anomalous. Such a move would seem to bring little to the table other than market distortions, inequities, arbitrary taxation, tax cascading, legal uncertainties, and red tape. When it comes to fixing the broken international tax framework, there seems to be no such thing as a readily available 'quick fix'. So the real question on the table would seem to be whether we should instead consider breaking away from status quos in company taxation and proceeding to explore genuine and fundamental corporate tax reform.

The processes, taking place in our national information space, cannot but put us on guard. Most alarming they are in the sphere of TV-speaking. Now they look especially dangerous, when Ukraine is in military confrontation, combined with hybrid war with aggressive Northern neighbour.We have been experiencing a difficult period of attempts of reforms' implementation, which have been declared by the authorities (unfortunately, the majority of them are pseudo plans), especially in information sphere. Both the results of future elections and the future of our state directly depend on these reforms. ; Процеси, які відбуваються в нашому національному інформаційному просторі, не можуть не насторожувати. Особливо тривожними вони є у сфері телевізійного мовлення. І особливо небезпечними вони є тепер, коли Україна знаходиться у мілітарному протистоянні, поєднаному з гібридною війною з агресивним північним сусідом.Переживаємо складний період спроб реалізації задекларованих владою реформ (на жаль, у більшості — псевдопланів), особливо в інформаційній сфері, від чого залежать не лише результати майбутніх виборів, але й завтрашній день нашої держави.

The colonial policy of exclusion used to govern the Hill tribes of India's Northeast, or colonial Assam, was, it was claimed, a form of indirect rule. But, as we argue, it was primarily designed to instill more direct control over the tribes who lived there. The policy not only divided the Mizo Hills between its tribal and the non-tribal population, but it also showed that the region was never going to be part of any constitutional reform process during the colonial period. The article tries to analyse how the policy of exclusion became a matter of intense debate; contested by groups who challenged the arbitrary rule of the British who were exploiting it to prop up Mizo chieftains for their own ends. This policy was also contested by groups eager to be part of the constitutional reform. To counter it, the Mizo Union (MU) party was formed. Catering to the aspirations of the common people, MU worked for the establishment of district autonomy after India gained Independence.

The head of the Caucasus Educational District (CED), K.P. Yanovskiy, epitomized the liberal minded reformers in the Russian Empire who saw the reform of pedagogy – introducing modern sciences, languages, critical thinking and emphasis on the individual – as a means to bring modernity and civilization while respecting ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity. The CED became a sort of refuge for liberal reformers among educational administrators, beyond the grasp of conservative elements in St. Petersburg. Yet under their administration, language education policies for local nationalities in the Caucasus shifted from encouraging local languages to demanding instruction in Russian, and Yanovskiy and his colleagues in the CED came to be viewed in the narratives of nationalists as instruments of russification and assimilation. Using archival sources and other contemporary materials, this article examines the intersection of reform and nationalism in the question of language pedagogy in schools in the Caucasus at a time of state-directed centralization in the Russian Empire and seeks to understand the often complex motives behind the changes in policy and their unintended consequences.

In this paper, I analyzed the investment expenditures of local municipalities in Japan in the 2000s by examining the cases of different municipalities and obtained the following results. First, merged municipalities issued Special Merger Bonds and nonmerged/depopulated municipalities issued Depopulation Bonds most. Second, in nonmerged/nondepopulated municipalities began to focus more on works funded by grants and local bonds rather than on unsubsidized works funded by Road Bonds and other types of local bonds. That is, in the past, the total value of Road Bonds was the largest of all bond totals. However, Road Bonds were replaced by School Bonds issued to supplement School Block Grants established during the decentralization reform in the 2000s. Therefore, this phenomenon is one of the outcomes of the decentralization reform. In Japan, the decentralization can increase public works for schools in cities and some select towns and villages with high financial capability indices. This could widen the gap between rich and poor municipalities. The theory of cumulative causation by Gunnar Myrdal can be attributed to this phenomenon

The Master Plan for the Reform of the State Apparatus was implemented by the Brazilian Government in 1995. Among its actions, it instituted the Policy for Staff Development in Public Administration. This action resulted in the guidelines of the public service Training Policyin Brazil. Thus, this article analyzes the main changes in the training processes at the University of Brasilia (UnB), between 1995 and 2015, in the face of the literature on strategic people management. The study is qualitative and as a data collection technique interview and documents were used, being evaluated through content and document analysis respectively. The results were classified into four models of public administration addressed in the literature. The results about the working conditions, planning, execution and control of the training policy as well as the incentives to qualification tend to have one or more public administration models adopted. Keywords: training policy; public administration models; Master Plan for the Reform of the State Apparatus; Brazil.

AbstractThe Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is a core policy of the European Union (EU), representing 40 per cent of the EU budget and a cornerstone of the integration process. Due to the path dependency that defined its evolution, it had always been a rather homogeneous and centralized policy. For the first time, the 2014–20 reform endowed Member States with the possibility to tailor the direct payments of the CAP along different fields of flexibility and thereby better address their national needs. This article examines these national choices in terms of the discontinuity they impose on the centralized policy model, showing that they reduced the policy inertia associated to the historical processes in place at the EU level, along a new national path dependency re‐shaping the CAP implementation. The flexibility introduced by the 2014–20 reform was particularly embraced by Member States that had been penalized by the 'one‐size‐fits‐all' historical archetype.

In the 1990s, efforts were launched in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in the Russian Federation to support the revival of Sakha (Yakut) language education. This interdisciplinary study examines the evolution of school-based Sakha language education in the city of Yakutsk over a 25-year period beginning with the launching of the first reforms in the 1990s. Language education reform in the capital city has been shaped by a dynamic interplay between federal, regional, and local factors. Grassroots social and cultural activism continues to play a key role in school-based language revitalization in Yakutsk, influencing how policies have been received and implemented at the local level. Local community stakeholders are working together to counteract federal education policies, which direct school resources away from minority language education. This case study shows that the Sakha (Yakut) language revival has taken root in the capital city, and it provides important evidence that civic activism continues to develop in urban areas of the republic.

In this case study, we document challenges to reform implementation posed by line staff, supervisors, and managers during a large‐scale realignment of the Kansas Department of Corrections (KDOC) in which they sought to replace a traditional approach of "risk containment" focused on surveillance and incarceration with a new model of "risk reduction" focused on service delivery and reintegration. We draw on interviews, observations, and archival research to document the staff's discursive challenges to the rollout of the new policy. More specifically, we describe how varying challenges to the reforms—"denial," "dismissal," and "defiance"—reflect actors' positions within the organization, the local contexts in which they operate, and more general frames of interpretation of the long‐term orientation of the KDOC. We integrate these perspectives to contribute to the ongoing expansion of conventional models of penal change that highlight the role of actors and local social and institutional context as moderators of the gap between "law on the books" and "law in action."

The rising terrorist threats in the region have compelled Morocco to enhance the protection of its vast territory, long borders, 34 million citizens and over 10 million visitors per year. Morocco's comprehensive security strategy combines a wide range of policies which link the improvement of the socio-economic situation to the capacity to anticipate the risk of terrorism and the operational aspects of the strategy. Security governance and the modernisation of the security forces, religious reform and the promotion of moderate Islam, the involvement of civil society, and close international cooperation, including religious diplomacy, are all key to preventing terrorism and countering extremism. Reforms to improve human security and to lift vulnerable groups out of poverty and exclusion have contributed to enhancing sustainable security. An example for many, Morocco still has a few big challenges ahead, especially to provide quality education, both to 'immunise' the minds of the youth against extremism and to create jobs so that hope can be restored to an overwhelmingly young population.

In common with most decisions of the Supreme Court, the judgment in R. (on the application of Carmichael) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2016] UKSC 58 tells two stories: a short version and a long version. This article outlines both. The short story is the immediate impact of the decision: the application of the high-bar 'manifestly without reasonable foundation test', a distinction drawn on 'transparent medical need', and the lack of regard given to international obligations under the UNCRPD and the UNCRC. The long story is how this decision fits into the 'cut-and-devolve' approach to welfare reform in the UK, where local authorities are left to mitigate the effects of centrally determined benefit reductions without adequate support. After outlining the basis of the decision and its likely effects, this article argues that the decision does little to square this key structural circle at the heart of the UK government's welfare reform agenda.

In July 2015 Greece was on the verge of a default. The negotiations for a third assistance programme floundered after the Greeks rejected the conditions attached to it. Faced with the risk of bankruptcy, the Greek government was obliged to sit down again at the negotiating table and to accept the conditions put forward by the Euro countries. The backbone of this assistance consists of the provision by the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) of EUR 86 billion over three years. In this context the sustainability of the Greek debt is ensured by a series of far reaching economic reforms. However, in the view of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) this reform package is not able to ensure the sustainability of the debt and a debt restructuring is thereby needed. Unfortunately, the no-bail out clause contained in the TFEU does not permit such a route. To overcome this problem a viable approach would be to resort to the mechanism of debt swaps.

This article utilizes a neoinstitutionalist framework to argue that
while Germany's anticorruption infrastructure remains strong, resilient pathdependent
tendencies often make it difficult to reform. The article analyzes
three specific areas: the state's attitude to regulating German business, meeting
international anticorruption commitments, and doing justice to the rising
transparency agenda. High-profile examples of corruption in multinational
businesses prompted significant changes to these companies' compliance
regimes. This critical juncture, however, did not prompt reform across much
of the Mittelstand. Germany's preparedness to fulfill international commitments,
meanwhile, has been strongly dependent on correspondence with the
internal logic of German politics and law. Where this was not so and in the
absence of any critical junctures, change has been infrequent. Finally, the rise
of an international transparency agenda has not fit with the logics of German
public life, and change has been minimal. Thus, despite a strong anticorruption
record, German elites would benefit from proactively thinking about
where corruption lurks and what could be done.