Suchergebnisse

Environmental policy is one of the most regulated & one of the most Europeanised policy areas. This article analyses the concept of Europeanisation, discusses its mechanisms, the mediating factors that lead to change & its possible outcomes. It explores the relationship of specific mechanisms & mediating factors to policy convergence, inertia & divergence. The particularities of environmental policy are presented & a distinction between substantive & procedural policies is made. It is argued that a tendency to convergence of national environmental policies that goes beyond the borders of the EU & further than the "hard" mechanisms of Europeanisation can be observed. Tables, References. Adapted from the source document.

This article argues that human security discourses & initiatives are made intelligible by the politics of applying legalism to global politics. Human security projects like the International Criminal Court, the Ottawa Treaty on landmines, & coercive interventions like Kosovo are shaped, mobilised, but also limited & constrained by the wider problematic of the legal constitution of global politics. Although human security has been the justification for efforts to liberalise & humanise politics through law, it has also been associated with exceptionalistic & non-universal legal relationships that reinforce the interests of the most dominant actors in global politics. As a result, human security runs the danger of becoming an instrument of hegemony. Nonetheless, the article also argues that there are always progressive political openings in the politics of a global rule of law that can facilitate a wider conception of human security than has been pursued since the mid-1990's. References. Adapted from the source document.

Despite rapid economic growth and assiduous efforts in anti-corruption campaigns, many Asian economies continue to be plagued with rampant corruption problems; and in a number of countries, the progress towards corruption reduction has stagnated over the last decade as measured by corruption perception indices. This paper focuses on the corporate sector as the main source of corruption problems in Asia, with particular emphasis on the impact that firm accounting practices have on the level of bribery. Using a unique cross-country firm-level dataset, we examine some distinct characteristics of bribery in corporate Asia, and empirically test the relationship between firm accounting practices and bribery. Our findings suggest that better accounting practices can help reduce both the incidence of bribery activities and the amount of bribe payments, but conforming to high quality accounting standard alone will not necessarily enhance the quality of accounting practices and thus will not automatically bring down the level of bribery.

This paper uses preliminary findings from an ARC-funded Linkage grant to speculate on the requirements for producing gender analysis as a change process. Gender analysis, commonly associated with gender mainstreaming, is a methodology aimed at ensuring that all projects, programs & policies are gender-inclusive & gender-sensitive. In the Linkage study existing models of gender analysis taken from Canada & The Netherlands are being tested for their usefulness in selected agencies in South Australia & Western Australia. The goal is to design gender analysis processes appropriate to specific Australian contexts. This paper reflects on the challenges & obstacles encountered in the project to date. It focuses in particular on the importance of creating space for extended debate & discussion of the concepts & issues relevant to gender equality & social change. The authors describe this space as "somewhere in the middle.". Appendixes, References. Adapted from the source document.