Suchergebnisse

Abstract
As the State of Israel defined citizenship rights for its Jewish population after independence in 1948, it also began to articulate the rights of those affected by disabilities of the mind—i.e., psychiatric, cognitive, and learning disabilities—by issuing, for example, the "Law for the Management of Institutes" (1952) and the "Law for the Treatment of the Mentally Ill" (1955). Due to haphazard state-building and insufficient funding, however, this process was slow and uneven. In the meantime, people with mental and cognitive disabilities often remained vulnerable to abuse and sexual violence in domestic and institutional spaces and suffered from a lack of proper care and accommodation. Operating on the assumption that disability of the mind could be transmitted from generation to generation, some medical professionals contemplated sterilization as a way to prevent the reproduction of mental disability in the children of affected parents, but the lingering trauma caused by the Holocaust and Nazi racial hygiene hindered their plan. This article examines a 1954 case involving a cognitively disabled woman who was brought to court for neglecting her children. Due to her delinquent parenting, she was slated to undergo sterilization, but her legal incompetence raised a host of ethical questions that tested the psychiatrists' and judicial authorities' assumptions about cognitive competence, civic fitness, and reproductive autonomy. By examining contemporary press reports of the legal proceedings, their larger context, and their consequences, this article shows how the woman remained hostage to male-dominated power structures that devalued her dual status as a mother and as a cognitively impaired citizen. While this case study shows how easily overridden were the liberties and protections of those affected by disabilities of the mind, it can also be viewed as a situation that impelled the Israeli public to contemplate the rights of the cognitively disabled, foreshadowing later movements aimed at expanding the boundaries of society to include members of many degrees of ability.

When public policies are designed from scratch, with no or limited possibility of learning from past experience, decision makers rely on their creativity and lateral thinking to counterbalance cognitive biases. One of the crucial issues for both evaluators and policy makers in such situations is not only to elaborate a sound theory of the programme but also to be aware of the existence of competing theories to solve the same problem. Being able to detect such theories constitutes an essential step to avoid 'Type III errors', that is, enacting the right solution for the 'wrong' problem. Reflecting on the analysis of two programmes aimed at preventing the death of children by heatstroke, this article illustrates the implications of alternative 'accident theories' for the evaluation of safety policies.

Depuis plus de trois décennies, les institutions européennes ont à cœur d'ouvrir les marchés des services publics, qui ont toujours été gérés dans le cadre d'accords monopolistiques au sein de chaque État membre. L'internationalisation des entreprises actives dans ce secteur est un phénomène qui va redéfinir les relations entre les gouvernements nationaux et l'industrie nationale. La création d'un avantage comparé sur ces marchés apparaît dès lors comme une question déterminante au sein de chaque économie politique nationale. Si de nombreux scientifiques soulignent l'importance des stratégies mercantilistes, considérées comme le principal moyen de créer des champions nationaux, d'autres laissent entendre que le renforcement du marché et la poursuite d'objectifs industriels peuvent se renforcer mutuellement. En optant pour une analyse du marché européen du transport public au niveau des entreprises, nous espérons, avec le présent article, apporter des données empiriques au débat sur le lien entre réglementation et politique industrielle. Remarques à l'intention des praticiens Dans le présent article, nous décrivons l'évolution de treize entreprises européennes actives dans les domaines de la gestion des infrastructures et des services de transports publics. Nous essayons d'évaluer le lien entre les styles de politiques nationales et les résultats stratégiques concrets au niveau sectoriel. Les observations issues de ces études de cas intéresseront trois types de praticiens. (1) Les décideurs, qui pourront mieux comprendre l'impact de la réglementation sur les stratégies des entreprises et les compromis potentiels en rapport avec ce lien. (2) Les gestionnaires, qui pourront mieux comprendre les différentes façons d'aborder les questions réglementaires. (3) Les parties prenantes, qui découvriront les mécanismes complexes qui se cachent derrière les processus de privatisation.

For more than three decades, European institutions have been committed to opening up the markets of public services, which were traditionally managed under monopolistic arrangements within each member state. The internationalization of firms previously operating in this sector is a phenomenon that will reshape the relationships between national governments and national industry. The creation of a comparative advantage in these markets is thus emerging as a crucial issue within each national political economy. While many scholars have emphasized the role of mercantilist strategies as the most prominent strategy for the creation of national champions, others have suggested that market-building and the pursuit of industrial goals may be self-reinforcing. Adopting a firm-level analysis of the EU market for public transport, this article adds empirical evidence to the debate on the relationship between regulation and industrial policy. Points for practitioners This article describes the evolution of 13 European firms operating in the fields of infrastructure management and public transport services. It tries to assess the linkage between national policy styles and concrete policy outcomes at the sectorial level. Three kinds of practitioners may benefit from the knowledge of these case studies. (1) Policy-makers might have a wider understanding of the impact of regulation on firms' strategies and the potential trade-offs related to this connection. (2) Managers might benefit from a deeper knowledge of the different national approaches to regulatory issues. (3) Stakeholders might increase their awareness of the complex mechanisms operating behind privatization processes.

Abstract
Since megaprojects are costly, impactful, and often contentious policymaking processes, scholars have started to look at policy narratives as instruments that actors use strategically to justify their preferences and achieve their goals. But is this really the case? Do actors always adopt a narrative to support their goals? Do they develop arguments that are consistent with their official goals and in a timely manner? This paper suggests that, when megaprojects are not salient, narratives are likely to be strategically nonused or used in a hypocritical way, as such strategies better fit the process-related goals of significant actors. Such a claim is illustrated by a case study on the construction of a new high-speed railway line and station in the city of Florence (Italy). Relying on content and discourse analysis of official documents, and experts' interviews, the paper shows that, despite favorable premises for the emergence of a battle of narratives, this never took place, as some of the proponents choose to nonuse a strategic narrative, while others occasionally publicly used arguments to jeopardize the whole project. In turn, opponents effectively developed a strategic narrative that, differently from other similar cases, mostly relied on technical arguments and emplotment. Hence, the case study generates hypotheses that could be tested in further studies on the conditions under which a coalitional dynamic emerges and the role played by policy narratives in the process.

AbstractThe National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) adopted in 2021 by the Italian government is explicitly committed to push the country towards a 'radical ecological transition' and sustainable development. However, the institutionalization of the paradigm of sustainable development, in Italy, is a story of a failure. The aim of this contribution is to investigate the hows and whys that may help explaining the failed institutionalization of the paradigm. By combining an ideational approach with a political system perspective, our empirical investigation analyses the initiatives promoted by Italian national governments, by covering a time span of over 20 years (1992–2020). Thick historical description and process tracing are used to provide an in-depth reconstruction of the process. Our results show that adverse combinations of factors of a cognitive, institutional and political nature have hindered the adoption of substantive policy outcomes, thus leading the institutionalization of the paradigm along a disjointed path.

AbstractPublic policy scholars have recently focused on the mechanisms accounting for the sustainability of major policy changes. Among the strategies by which policy entrepreneurs may try to avoid future backlash institutionalization is certainly one of the most used. Yet, it can foster ossification and eventually jeopardize policy effectiveness. Such a potential trade‐off between institutionalization and long‐term effectiveness is particularly intense in policies concerning technological innovation because the necessity to create winning coalitions can undermine the required absorption capacity needed by government to engage the innovation ecosystems. This paper explores such a trade‐off with a case study on the Italian policy for public sector's digital transformation. The case is theoretically promising because over three decades institutionalization has always represented the main overall strategy adopted by policymaker, but only the 2016 initiative emerged as a "success." In this sense, the case study can focus on the mechanisms activated by policy entrepreneurs to trigger and entrench change.