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What factors might explain the cross-country variations in COVID-19 public performances and what lessons can be drawn to be better-prepared for future pandemics? This study focuses on the effects of policy stringency on COVID-19 public health outcomes to gain insights into national-level state responses to COVID-19 and the conditions for their effectiveness. Using data from 136 countries comprising 91.4% of the global population, we find that more stringent policies lead to lower infection and death rates. More importantly, the negative effects of restrictive policies on infection and death rates are moderated by political trust and democracy levels, possibly through the mechanism of popular compliance with government policies. Under conditions of higher political trust and lower democracy levels, the policy effects on infection and death rates are greater. However, while the results suggest the importance of policy stringency and political trust, we should not draw the conclusion that authoritarian political systems are more conducive to policy effectiveness. When comparing the moderating effects of political trust and democracy, political trust is more important as a facilitating factor. Therefore, in addition to making scientifically-supported policies, fostering political trust should be an important goal for governments to be better prepared for future pandemics.

Social media provides ethno-racial immigrant groups—especially those who cannot vote due to factors such as lack of citizenship and limited English proficiency—the ability to mobilize and connect around collective issues. Online spaces and discussion forums have encouraged many Asian Americans to participate in public policy debates and take action on social justice issues. This form of digital group activism serves as an adaptive political empowerment strategy for the fastest-growing and largest foreign-born population in America. Asian American Connective Action in the Age of Social Media illuminates how associating online can facilitate and amplify traditional forms of political action. James Lai provides diverse case studies on contentious topics ranging from affirmative action debates to textbook controversies to emphasize the complexities, limitations, and challenges of connective action that is relevant to all racial groups. Using a detailed multi-methods approach that includes national survey data and Twitter hashtag analysis, he shows how traditional immigrants, older participants, and younger generations create online consensus and mobilize offline to foment political change. In doing so, Lai provides a nuanced glimpse into the multiple ways connective action takes shape within the Asian American community. ; https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/faculty_books/1523/thumbnail.jpg

ABSTRACT Objectives: this theoretical essay aims to present classic and contemporary fundamentals of the optimal tax theory (OTT) and to problematize its presence and possibilities in the scenario of tax policy in Brazil. Context: such objectives are located in the contemporary context that discusses tax reforms aimed at efficient and socially responsible public management. Methods: after surveying the state of knowledge of optimal taxation in Brazil, and from the perspective of economics and political law, we sought to identify secondary data on tax distribution in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries in relational analysis with data from Brazil. Results: the text draws attention to the fact that OTT is able to bring social issues to the discussion of public tax management policies in a structured way, with the perspective of inclusion and social responsibility, based on the importance of different treatment of economic agents, physical and legal, based on their needs and possibilities. Conclusion: it is concluded that, like in other countries, OTT is present in the Brazilian debate expressing as possible and necessary to advance in a tax policy that responds to the needs of public collection articulated and reconciled to social well-being through responsible management, modern and transparent.

Public innovation has received increasing attention in recent years. Experiments with new governance structures, such as New Public Management and New Public Governance, have challenged the traditional top-down, internally driven forms of innovation in the public sector and have entailed a search for new forms of open, collaborative and interactive innovation, implying a reframing of public innovation activities. However, introducing these new frames of innovation causes uncertainties in the public sector, necessitating better understanding of how public innovation can be changed to address societal needs. This paper uses materials from case studies of 21 public living labs across Europe to analyse the lessons that can be learned from public sector participation in living labs in terms of their contribution to reframing public innovation. The "frame" construct is used to analyse and provide an understanding of how participation in living labs helps public actors to reframe innovation and address public and societal needs. Three living lab framings for changing public innovation are identified (processual learning, restrained space and democratic engagement), and the degree of intensity of these framings with respect to involving stakeholders and addressing societal challenges is discussed. The paper contributes to knowledge of public sector innovation by extending previous accounts of how public innovation can be improved.

Strategic spatial planning (SSP) has been a key planning practice supporting spatial transformation globally. However, designing and implementing strategic spatial plans is a complex task. The process involves prioritizing planning intentions, establishing funding mechanisms and structuring governance settings, which take shape within power configurations. It is within this complexity that a participatory and integrative planning approach assume increasingly importance when addressing, strategically, societal challenges such as spatial injustice. Furthermore, a consolidated planning practice – that is the experiences in dealing with SSP are thought to influence how strategic plans are prepared and executed. Bearing in mind the influential role of preceding experiences in SSP processes as well as of participation, project promotion and policy integration, this paper synthesises the results of a literature review reflecting three decades of SSP (1990-2020) in England. England has a well-defined history of engagements with SSP. The purpose is to discuss lessons learned from looking back thirty years and debate suggestions for how to design future SSP that account for public and private interests and align cross-sectoral policies. To overcome democratic accountability constraints and steering resource management effectively, this review pleas for more cooperative central–local relationships in shaping future SSP processes in England and beyond.

Strategic spatial planning (SSP) has been a key planning practice supporting spatial transformation globally. However, designing and implementing strategic spatial plans is a complex task. The process involves prioritizing planning intentions, establishing funding mechanisms and structuring governance settings, which take shape within power configurations. It is within this complexity that a participatory and integrative planning approach assume increasingly importance when addressing, strategically, societal challenges such as spatial injustice. Furthermore, a consolidated planning practice – that is the experiences in dealing with SSP are thought to influence how strategic plans are prepared and executed. Bearing in mind the influential role of preceding experiences in SSP processes as well as of participation, project promotion and policy integration, this paper synthesises the results of a literature review reflecting three decades of SSP (1990-2020) in England. England has a well-defined history of engagements with SSP. The purpose is to discuss lessons learned from looking back thirty years and debate suggestions for how to design future SSP that account for public and private interests and align cross-sectoral policies. To overcome democratic accountability constraints and steering resource management effectively, this review pleas for more cooperative central–local relationships in shaping future SSP processes in England and beyond.

APPROVED ; The work which follows examines the process by which private actors in the digital market are redefining fundamental rights through their contractual terms and practical operation. The argument is allied to works which consider ?digital constitutionalism,? the idea that private actors in the digital market are increasingly displaying constitutional features through their contractual terms and documents. Unlike a majority of work in the area of digital constitutionalism the work does not argue that private actors setting rights based standards represents a positive development. Rather, the work argues that private actors, through their re-definition of public, normative standards are generating a body of rules and practices which have displaced democratically decided rights standards with negative consequences for individual autonomy and the Rule of Law. The work argues that this process has been enabled by three features of EU law and policy. The first is an approach of functional equivalence to laws governing the digital market. In accordance with this approach the digital market has been treated as equivalent to traditional markets and its participants are viewed as requiring no additional or supplementary protections or regulations. Of particular significance in functionally equivalent attitudes to the digital market is the Union?s deference to freedom of contract as part of an ordoliberal attitude to market regulation. While this attitude is now beginning to erode (to some extent) in the context of data protection it remains the dominant regulatory approach of the European Union in the digital market. The second feature, not unrelated to the first, is the Union?s preference for economic rather than socially orientated standards and protections in it policies as well as its secondary laws. As part of this preference, when fundamental rights cross the Rubicon from vertically enforced constitutional protections to horizontally enforceable legislative ones their content is transmuted in a manner which favours their economic over socially oriented aspects. The third feature, is what is referred to within the work as the Union?s brittle constitutionalism ? that is the Union?s hesitant and incomplete articulation of and commitment to rights enforcement. This feature is the result in part of the Union?s ambiguous and at times hostile attitude to the development of fundamental rights policy. The work examines the impact of these trends and the rise of private policy they have generated on the rights to privacy and property under the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

ABSTRACT Objective: To identify and to discuss the progress of actions for the protection, promotion and support of breastfeeding in Brazil from the perspective of the indicators proposed by the Global Breastfeeding Collective. Data source: A narrative review was conducted according to the methodological orientation of the implementation research and through a qualitative approach. Publications from the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children's Fund were selected, as well as publications from the Brazilian Ministry of Health were collected from the Virtual Health Library and from the libraries of the Department of Primary Care's portal and the Brazilian's Institute of Geography and Research. Data synthesis: Brazil has shown promising results regarding the implementation of breastfeeding protection legislation, the participation of municipalities in community breastfeeding support programs, and the continued evaluation of these programs. However, reports of breastfeeding rates have not been produced every five years and the progress of these indicators is very far from the agreed targets for 2030. There is also a need to improve the number of births in child-friendly hospitals and financial donations for breastfeeding programs. Conclusions: It is necessary to strengthen systematic monitoring of breastfeeding and following up current strategies to more effectively impact the breastfeeding rates in the country. Furthermore, it is suggested that the practice of donations is a pathway to be explored to support breastfeeding programs.

Tertiary education attendance in Brazil varies remarkably among different population groups. In order to decrease inequalities and increase the proportion of minorities in public universities, many institutions of higher education in Brazil have implemented affirmative action policies since the 2000s. The main objective of this paper was to analyze different counterfactual affirmative action policies at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) based on simulations, measuring the proportion of minorities and the level of academic performance at this institution under each scenario. The current quota policy of 50% for students from public secondary schools, divided between four main groups (non-poor/non-minority; poor/non-minority; non-poor/minority; poor/minority), was shown to be well-designed to promote higher proportions of minorities among the student body. However, if academic performance is also taken into account, the best options would be either a quota policy of 50% divided between poor and non-poor students or a bonus policy based on a linear function of course competitiveness with an average bonus of 6%.

In public relations research, the concept of engagement is often theorized but seldom observed in practice. This research focuses on what public leaders learn when they undertake actions centered on learning by listening to society to implement governmental citizen engagement programs. Taking an inductive grounded approach to data analysis which draws on tools and methods of grounded theory as well as including a review of key concepts from public relations literature, a reflexive analysis of an action learning intervention involving the members of a provincial government was conducted. Results show that, when reflecting on interaction with stakeholders of the program, government members: increase their knowledge about both sides of the public organization-society relationship; become more sensitive to what listening is and implies, and, hence, more supportive of two-way communication; are challenged about the authenticity of the motivations behind their listening; become more aware of ways in which they work to build social capital; and, subsequently, increase their willingness to act together with society. This paper shows that reflection on the real implementation of engagement programs gives policy makers a better understanding of normative assumptions, and hence it instantiates public relations theories and concepts about engagement. By identifying acting-by-listening as integral to citizen engagement, it presents implications for the study and practice of public relations in public sector organizations.

This book looks at the interplay between criminal law and other branches of public law pursuing similar objectives (referred to as 'quasi-criminal law'). The need for clarifying the concepts and the interlink between criminal and quasi-criminal enforcement is a topic attracting a lot of discussion and debate in both academia and practice across Europe (and beyond). This volume adds to this debate by bringing to light the substantive and procedural problems stemming from the current parallel or dual use of the different enforcement systems. The collection draws on expertise from academia, practice and policy; its high-quality analysis will appeal to scholars, practitioners and policymakers alike.

Unlike almost most other studies of neoliberal universities and academic capitalism this book ethnographically explores and interprets those transformations and their contradictions empirically in the everyday practices of students, faculty members, and administrators at two public universities: NTNU in Norway and UCLA in California.Differently situated in global political economies, both are ambitious, prosperous campuses. The book refl exively examines their disturbing disputes about quality, competition, and innovation. It argues that some academic, bureaucratic, and corporate university governance practices are both unsustainable and undermining what some university students and faculty already do well: circulate interdisciplinary knowledge and its making globally across the diasporic domains of academia, society, industry, and government while addressing the world's immediate challenges: power, inequities, and sustainability.It shows the important, strategic work of domesticating, co- morphing, and meshworking at the faultlines of emerging knowledge. This book is for students, faculty, society members, and policy makers who want to engage more effectively with contemporary universities that increasingly serve as busy crossroads for sharing ideas and how to make them. It will be of interest to workers and scholars in the interdisciplinary fi elds of higher education studies, critical university studies, and critical public infrastructure studies, plus science, technology, and society studies.

This paper aims to investigate the concept, context and socio-economic consequences of fiscal competition in the integrated economic space of EMU in completion, to pinpoint the positive and negative factors at work via a case study of the Benelux countries – both founder members of the EU and pioneers of EMU – and to examine the impact on European and international regulations in the field. In particular, it will endeavour to provide a comprehensive interpretation of fiscal policy in the Benelux countries via a comparative approach and from a historical perspective. It will look at the development of respective domestic fiscal policies, driven by national interests and by membership of a Community that is subject to requirements in terms of harmonisation and taxation, but also by constant contact (and frequent clashes) with the multilateral international environment.

10 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables, supplementary data https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2021.118377 ; Concentrations of organophosphate esters (OPEs) plasticizers were analysed in the present study. Fifty-five fish samples belonging to three highly commercial species, European sardine (Sardina pilchardus), European anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus), and European hake (Merluccius merluccius), were taken from the Western Mediterranean Sea. OPEs were detected in all individuals, except for two hake samples, with concentrations between 0.38 and 73.4 ng/g wet weight (ww). Sardines presented the highest mean value with 20.5 ± 20.1 ng/g ww, followed by anchovies with 14.1 ± 8.91 ng/g ww and hake with 2.48 ± 1.76 ng/g ww. The lowest OPE concentrations found in hake, which is a partial predator of anchovy and sardine, and the higher δ15N values (as a proxy of trophic position), may indicate the absence of OPEs biomagnification. Eleven out of thirteen tested OPEs compounds were detected, being diphenyl cresyl phosphate (DCP) one of the most frequently detected in all the species. The highest concentration values were obtained for tris(1,3-dichloro-2-propyl) phosphate (TDClPP), trihexyl phosphate (THP), and tris(2-butoxyethyl) phosphate (TBOEP), for sardines, anchovies, and hakes, respectively. The human health risk associated with the consumption of these fish species showing that their individual consumption would not pose a considerable threat to public health regarding OPE intake ; This study has been partially funded by PELCAT project (CAT 152CAT00013, TAIS ARP059/19/00005), PELWEB project (ES-PN-2017-CTM 2017-88939-R, Spanish Government), EXPOPLAS project (PID2019-110576RB-I00), Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation) and the Generalitat de Catalunya (Consolidated Research Group Water and Soil Quality Unit 2017 SGR 1404). MEDITS data collection has been co-funded by the EU through the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) within the National Program of collection, management and use of data in the fisheries sector and support for scientific advice regarding the Common Fisheries Policy. [.] This work acknowledges the 'Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence' accreditations (Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation to IDAEA and ICM (Project CEX2018-000794-S and CEX2019-000928-S, respectively).EL-L was supported by a FPU grant (FPU1704395, Spanish Ministry of Education) ; Peer reviewed

The transition to a circular economy (CE) remains an anticipated future with alternative pathways for its fulfillment. Most research on CE is normative about technological approaches and interpretations for production and sustainable development. However, critical reviews of CE help understand that CE's emergence is constrained to current dominant goals. As a set of imagined futures, the visions of CE are produced and shared in discursive practices. We hypothesize that the existence of alternative discourses about CE originates from alignment with or divergence from current dominant goals. Green growth holds the dominant position as a goal in the European discourse about CE. In this study, we present an empirical case of an emerging CE in the region of Trøndelag in Norway. This case uses qualitative data collected through interviews with informants in the public and private sectors (profit and non-profit organizations). The analysis of these interviews involved the use of a discourse coalition framework as a method. We identified three discourse coalitions: 1) Waste as resources: a vision of better product design and waste sorting technologies making recycling more efficient. 2) Sharing economy: a vision of industrial symbiosis, and new business models for local commercial offerings in sharing, reuse, repair of products. 3) Reduction of individual consumption: a vision of individual changes in lifestyle, coupled with local services and skill acquisition/transfer for reuse and repair. The first two operate in alignment with the political goal of green growth. The third one diverges by questioning it and setting focus on individual consumption reduction. We found discursive competition in CE when the focus is on the goal underlying its enactment. From this finding, we raise the question of which kinds of technological implementation and political challenges would come from shifting CE's policy goal to reducing individual consumption. To illustrate an alternative CE that emerges from consumption reduction, we discuss its implications based on the insights from our empirical case. The main contribution of the article is to provide evidence and an example of an emerging aspect that can be integrated more prominently in CE and that requires a stance that is not based on economic growth. ; publishedVersion ; © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Institution of Chemical Engineers. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)