Suchergebnisse

This book shows how Chinese officials have responded to popular and international pressure, while at the same time seeking to preserve their own careers, in the context of disaster management. Using the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake as a case study, it illustrates how authoritarian regimes are creating new governance mechanisms in response to the changing global environment and what challenges they are confronted with in the process. The book examines both the immediate and long-term effects of a major disaster on China's policy, institutions, and governing practices, and seeks to explain which factors lead to hasty and poorly conceived reconstruction efforts, which in turn reproduce the very same conditions of vulnerability or expose communities to new risks. In short, it tells a "political" story of how intra-governmental interactions, state-society relations, and international engagement can shape the processes and outcomes of recovery and reconstruction

This study is based on 10 years of ethnography research in six cities in Sichuan after the Wenchuan earthquake. The author delineates local officials' dispersed clientelist endeavours seeking stable collaboration with NGOs. In contrast to the corporatism model, in which government control of NGOs is formal and from the top down, the patron–client relationship entails considerably more subjectivity, flexibility and dispersion in the exercise of state power, which may or may not result in effective implementation of the state's policy objectives. As local government officials increasingly deploy their informal authority in addition to their extensive institutional power, and as informal networks lubricate the policy process, state dominance over society becomes more pervasive, entrenched and fragmented. (J Contemp China/GIGA)

The impacts of fathers' childhood attachment representations and their parenting behavior on 5-year-old children's social competence were examined. One hundred and sixty Korean fathers cohabiting with their children (85 boys and 75 girls) answered questionnaires. The questionnaires
related to the attachment representations of their parents based on their retrospective childhood memories and their own parenting behavior as the fathers of preschoolers. In addition, the children's preschool teachers rated their levels of social competence. Structural equation modeling indicated
that the fathers' childhood attachment representations had significant indirect impacts on boys' social competence because of their own parenting behavior. There was no impact of fathers' childhood attachment representations, but fathers' parenting behavior had a significant direct impact
on their daughters' social competence.

Chapter 1: The political dimension of water management in the face of climate change -- Chapter 2: A discursive institutionalist's approach to policy process in the tradition of historical institutionalism -- Chapter 3: The linkage between climate change adaptation and water -- Chapter 4: Climate change adaptation and water management in South Korea -- Chapter 5: Climate change adaptation and water management in Germany -- Chapter 6: Policy Change and Stability in Water Management in Face of Climate Change: A Comparison of South Korea and Germany -- Chapter 7: General conclusion.

Environmental degradation is one of the most significant challenges faced by humanity, yet current global politics struggle to implement collective solutions. Previous research has suggested that the EU has a leadership role in the international climate change regime complex, which refer to a set of overlapping institutions that address different aspects of climate governance. Moreover, within these regime complexes, non-state actors have been found to have an active role. Building on the literature on regime complexes and non-state actors, we study the specific role of European non-state actors in furthering the EU's agenda in the climate change regime complex. More precisely, we focus on European youth organizations. Indeed, youth have recently embraced the global climate agenda very actively while receiving limited attention from scholars. This article is based on the analysis of a database of youth organizations active in several institutions of the climate change regime complex, interviews with European officials and European youth actors, and documentary analysis. The analysis shows that EU interactions with European youth have been slow, while the need for coordination between the two is clear. On an analytical level, we contribute to the academic debate on how governmental entities such as the EU could shape international regime complexes with the support of non-state actors.

Background:Although public-academic partnerships (PAPs) to improve the health and well-being of vulnerable populations have proliferated in public care for youth, existing literature lacks information about whether PAPs lead to public care agency leaders' use of research evidence and promote youth mental health and well-being.
Aims and objectives:The document analysis was conducted to understand PAP contexts and mechanisms leading to public care agency leaders' use of research evidence. This paper introduces US public mental health and child welfare systems, shares strategies of identifying PAPs, obtaining and conducting systematic document review of PAPs, and documents analysis findings.
Methods:This project conducted document analysis of US PAPs aiming to improve mental health and promote well-being of youth aged 12–25 years.
Findings:The 23 PAPs analysed had diverse partnership goals including implementation and dissemination of research/evaluation evidence, information sharing, and prioritising and streamlining research priorities. PAPs sustained longer than 10 years had more focused goals of programme and policy evaluations and professional training, while PAPs 10 years or newer were engaged in more diverse goals. The majority of PAPs used journal articles, presentations, and multimedia as dissemination strategies of findings. Fewer than half of the PAPs reported on use of PAP-generated evidence in subsequent decision making by public care agency leaders.
Discussion and conclusions:Further research should examine which mechanisms link partnership contexts, PAP leaders' research evidence use, and youth outcomes improvement. Future research should also examine PAPs by detailed stages of development and ask PAP leaders directly about their evidence use.

PurposeHow can governments and survivors prepare for and manage natural disasters? Post-disaster reconstruction researchers advocate that community involvement is needed to help survivors recover effectively. This study aims to propose that cooperative goals between government officials and survivors develop guanxi relationships and constructive controversy wherein survivors voice their opinions to aid disaster recovery.Design/methodology/approachThe authors adopted the critical incident technique (CIT), which has proved especially useful for studying complex issues, as well as site-intensive research for interviews and participant observation. After developing a local reputation and rapport by working in a residential resettlement area for two months, an author used the CIT to ask 118 survivors of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake to describe specific incidents when they interacted with government officials about recovery issues and then to rate survey items that measure independent and dependent variables.FindingsResults, including structural equation analyses, support the reasoning that cooperative goals between government and survivors facilitate guanxi and constructive controversy, which in turn produced effective disaster recovery, as indicated by survivors' social support, satisfaction, reduced stress and beliefs that government officials led effectively.Research limitations/implicationsThe data are self-reported and subject to biases and may not be accurate.Practical implicationsIn addition to developing theoretical understanding, the results can have important practical implications for strengthening relationships and constructive controversy between government and survivors.Social implicationsResults suggest that communities have practical ways to prepare for disasters. Structuring cooperative goals among survivors, encouraging guanxi relationships, and training in constructive controversy should promote effective recovery from natural disasters.Originality/valueThe paper develops theory and research on how leaders can promote community involvement for effective disaster management. The paper proposes that high-quality interpersonal relationships, also referred to guanxi, and the open-minded discussion of opposing ideas, labeled constructive controversy, are major components of effective community involvement. The paper adds to the literature by empirically documenting the utility of the Western-developed theory of cooperation and competition and the concept of constructive controversy for understanding the effectiveness of government leadership for disaster recovery in China.