Suchergebnisse

The purpose of this article is to explore impediments of effective whistleblowing as a strategy for promoting anti-corruption practices within the South African public sector. Corruption, which violates the public service code of conduct; deters foreign investment, increases the cost of public service delivery, undermines the fight against poverty and unnecessarily burdens the criminal justice system. The article addresses the question on whether legislation on whistleblowing is adequate to encourage whistleblowing in the public sector. A review of literature determines that the effective implementation of whistleblowing legislation is largely dependent on addressing the challenges identified in the article. The quantitative research method was employed in the study to ascertain the views of employees in the public sector on whistleblowing. Empirical findings confirm the hypothesis that the protection of whistleblowers through legislation is inadequate to encourage whistleblowing. The article provides a conceptual framework for the effective achievement of the intended outcomes of whistleblowing in the public sector.

Turkey has been going through a liberalization process in its electricity market over the last decade. So far, the regulatory content of the market reforms has been in the center of attention in the literature, to the negligence of regulatory governance. However, recent studies, which applied the theoretical insights of new institutional economics to utilities regulation, have demonstrated that political endowments of the country draw the boundaries to which extent such regulatory content can be effectively implemented. In line with these studies, this paper adopts an institutional approach and attempts to identify the political endowments of Turkey in order to further analyze whether the market reforms succeeded in bringing about sufficient checks to cure the institutional problems. In other words, the paper takes a picture of the overall regulatory arena. The results show that the current regulatory structure, especially government-regulator relations, fails to meet good regulatory governance criteria. The paper also provides some policy suggestions.

This policy brief on future innovation landscapes in Europe has recently been published under the Socio-economic sciences and humanities programme of the EU's Seventh R&D Framework Programme (FP7). The document is a result of work under the FP7 INFU foresight project, which aims to analyse and discuss the evolution and diffusion of new innovation patterns in Europe and their implications for European policy. Specifically, the brief presents a range of key factors that are expected to influence the future of European innovation, as well as five potential scenarios for long-term innovation development patterns by 2025. The scenarios have been developed using standard foresight methods (expert panel, scenario development and assessment etc.) and through analysis of existing literature on new innovation patterns. Recommendations for policy makers, particularly with respect to the implications for the European Research Area under the outlined scenarios, are also presented in the report.

International audience ; This essay attempts to make more pliable three overly rigid claims persistent in the diaspora literature: that diaspora members' imaginations of the homeland are either beautifying/idealizing or unequivocally inimical; that their relations with the host country are inherently distant--they are in it but not of it; and that diasporism and (im)migrant transnationalism constitute two dictinct phenomena. It also aims at genderizing the stubbornly genderless study of diasporas. The empirical analysis compares representations of the homeland among turn-of-the-twentieth-century and present-day lower-class Polish émigrés in the United States and the United Kingdom, first-wave (1959-61) Cuban refugees in Miami and 1956 Hungarian political refugees dispersed into different West European countries, and contemporary Mexican men and women migrants in the American Southwest. On the basis of these comparative assessments the author identifies the major circumstances that shape diaspora members' portrayals of the homeland.

Since the early 1990s, studies on the transformation of the post-Mao state have increasingly approached the issue from local perspectives and attacked national-level state studies. A counterbalance to this trend, this article draws on the broader social sciences literature about the state and contends that national-level state studies will remain a valuable part of the China field, despite acknowledging local state studies' critique of national-level studies for their failure to disaggregate the "state" concept. This article proposes an analytical template that regards the Chinese Communist Party's state transformation efforts as proceeding along the two dimensions of "structure" and "modes of governance," each of which are explored from several aspects. The article is intended to provide a broad-brush portrayal of state transformation in reform-era China, including the achievements, limitations, and implications of this transformation. It also assesses the current state of China studies. (Asian Perspect/GIGA)

The development of renewable sources of energy is an important part of country's diversified energy sector, which is immune to protect from energy price fluctuation and dependence on fossil fuel. In 2014, a new stage of Common Agricultural Policy development begins. The new Common Agricultural Policy will contribute to the implementation of the European Union strategy. It should be noted that Europe 2020 strategy identifies renewable sources of energy as an important element of sustainable development allowing the European Union to improve the use of rural resources. However, this research area in Lithuania is characterized by bare survey and fragmentary approach. The paper is aiming at identifying the rational ways of the potential of utilizing the renewable sources of energy in Lithuanian rural areas, which are based on implemented research. The research is based on the analysis of scientific literature and information data, comparison, expert valuation, deduction and generalization methods.

Political theory has taken a deliberative shift in recent years placing deliberation in a privileged position. Dryzek (2000), one of its most important promoters, even states that many of the innovations that take place in the theory of politics nowadays feed from it. Dryzek's statement gives an idea of the scope and importance that deliberative theory has attained, however this does not mean that there is total agreement regarding its limits and fallibility. The reasons that have favoured this upsurge are certainly not related to the simplicity and clarity of the theory. Neither can we resort to its ability to explain the political phenomena as the cause of its expansion. Literature gathered about deliberation is anything but conclusive (Thompson, 2008; delli Carpini, 2004). This has not hindered, however, an outbreak of normative discussions and empirical studies aimed at contrasting, making more precise or studying in depth all elements related to deliberation. ; Peer reviewed

Abstract
The Turkish Republic is accepted as one of the most advanced Muslim countries in regards to the emancipation of women, according to widely produced literature about the region. Turkey's commitment to modernization is the underlying reason behind this premise. Women played a critical role as the symbols of westernization project at the center. I shed light on the women's empowerment trajectory and examine the extent to which the republic kept up with its promise of emancipating women. A critique of this project from outside sources helps decipher the codes of failing to fulfill the expectations of the female population. I first discuss how the republic rendered women the symbols of modernization and the measures it took to secure this rendering. I then examine women's empowerment in political, economic and social realms at various time intervals in history. I conclude with some of the current challenges before full emancipation of women in Turkey.

The knowledge and understanding of the environmental related problems associated with development activities has increased rapidly in recent years. Consequently, arise in adoption of appraisal tools for monitoring environmental performance is also evidenced in a number of countries. In Sub-Sahara African (SSA) region, for instance, policy and regulation reform has been intensified over the past two decades demonstrating governments' initiatives in addressing environmental, social and economic aspects of sustainability. This paper reviews the extent of contribution the policy instruments make in monitoring and evaluating environmental impacts related to the building industry in the SSA. Basing on the reviewed literature of an ongoing PhD research, it is noted that there is need for appropriate information and data on which the proposed policies are to be based. Also different building stakeholders, researchers and the public sector need to participate not only in the policy formulation but also in defining sustainability in the local context and be considered as the basis for policy formulation.

The growing evidence of the influence of urban environment on physical activity (PA) underscore the need for novel policy solutions to address the inequality, lack of space, and limited PA resources in rapidly growing Latin American cities. This study aims to better understand the PA policy process by conducting two case studies of Bogotá's Ciclovía and Curitiba's CuritibAtiva. Literature review of peer- and non-peer-reviewed documents and semi-structured interviews with stakeholders was conducted. In the cases of Ciclovía and CuritibAtiva, most policies conducive to program development and sustainability were developed outside the health sector in sports and recreation, urban planning, environment, and transportation. Both programs were developed by governments as initiatives to overcome inequalities and provide quality of life. In both programs, multisectoral policies mainly from recreation and urban planning created a window of opportunity for the development and sustainability of the programs and environments supportive of PA.

Presidents' positive role in US lawmaking is as ubiquitous as it is unclear. While a rich literature has identified many macro-level factors that constrain presidents' policymaking potential, still unanswered is Richard Neustadt's micro-level question: how can presidents influence legislation given the context and Congress they happen to inherit? Developing a game theoretic model in which the president allocates scarce 'political capital' to induce changes in legislators' behavior, we deduce two lobbying strategies that White House officials may execute and, in turn, examine their impact on the laws that result. Comparative statics analysis not only shows how presidents can best target their persuasive arsenal, but further specifies the factors that condition those efforts' effectiveness. Interestingly, results show that standard roll-call-based tests likely underestimate presidents' legislative impact. We thus conclude by reconsidering the practice and potential of presidential leadership in national policymaking. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder.]

Criminal justice expenditures have more than doubled since the 1980s, dramatically increasing costs to the public. With state and local revenue shortfalls resulting from the recent recession, the question of whether crime control can be accomplished either with fewer resources or by investing those resources in areas other than the criminal justice system is all the more relevant. Controlling Crime considers alternative ways to reduce crime that do not sacrifice public safety. Among the topics considered here are criminal justice system reform, social policy, and government policies affecting alcohol abuse, drugs, and private crime prevention. Particular attention is paid to the respective roles of both the private sector and government agencies. Through a broad conceptual framework and a careful review of the relevant literature, this volume provides insight into the important trends and patterns of some of the interventions that may be effective in reducing crime. ; https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/books/1152/thumbnail.jpg

This paper uses an unusual administrative dataset covering the universe of French hospitals to consider hospital employment: this is consistently higher in public hospitals than in not-for-profit (NFP) or private hospitals, even controlling for a number of measures of hospital output. NFP hospitals serve as a benchmark, being very similar to public hospitals, but without political influence on their hiring. Public-hospital employment is positively correlated with the local unemployment rate, whereas no such relationship is found in other hospitals. This is consistent with public hospitals providing employment in depressed areas. We appeal to the Political Science literature and calculate local political allegiance, using expert evaluations on various parties' political positions and local election results. The relationship between public-hospital employment and local unemployment is stronger the more left-wing the local municipality. This latter result holds especially when electoral races are tight, consistent with a concern for re-election.

Argumentation in favor of overcoming the long-ago-established dichotomy of qualitative and quantitative scientific research is presented in the article. Proceeding from the view of materialistic dialecticians that every scientific research must deal with a subject, the author assumes that it is impossible to conduct a quantitative research without first establishing the quality to be studied. This also concerns measuring, which is referred only to quantitative procedures in literature. By way of illustration, the author designs two instruments for measuring the successfulness of political parties the scale and the quotient of party successfulness. On the other hand, even the qualitative analysis usually involves certain quantifications. The author concludes that to achieve methodological correctness the existing dichotomy of qualitative and quantitative research should be considered as overcome and a typology of scientific research including predominantly qualitative and predominantly quantitative studies, depending on the methodological components prevailing in them, should be used.

Without denying particular dimensions of the decentralisation in Sub-Saharan countries, this paper applies standard reasoning from the fiscal federalism literature to a developing country and tests the existence of strategic interactions among local Beninese governments, called 'communes'. We first propose a two-jurisdiction model of public expenditure interactions, considering a constrained Nash equilibrium to capture the extreme poverty of some communes. We show that spillovers among jurisdictions involve strategic behaviours of local officials who have sufficient levels of fiscal resources. Second, by estimating a spatial lag model, our analysis provides evidence for the presence of strategic interactions in Benin, contingent on 'communes fiscal autonomy. Such interactions arise among communes which are geographically or ethnically close. We also highlight both an opportunistic behaviour of local governments before local elections and an effect of partisan affiliations. This African democracy appears to be as concerned as developed democracies with strategic fiscal interactions.