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Political Objectives (political + objective)
Selected AbstractsPolitical ergonomics, macroergonomic battlesHUMAN FACTORS AND ERGONOMICS IN MANUFACTURING & SERVICE INDUSTRIES, Issue 5 2008Leszek Pacholski Humanocentric-oriented social and technological systems have to be perceived as the main source of technological advancement. This source it so attractive that from the point of view of acquisition possibilities it captures the attention of not only business people but also political incumbents who (according to Buchanan's theory) want to satisfy their particular interests. A characteristic feature of social and technological systems is their competitive market position. Taking over these systems by political lobbies with the legitimate usage of intended violence is an example of a contemporary macroergonomic battle. Both of Clausewitz's objectives of war are present: a political objective that is forcing the community that makes up the system to fulfill the politically determined will of the party taking over, and a military objective consisting of an attempt of the moral, social, or even physical destruction of the system leader and its direct coworkers. This article presents a specific example: a case study of a macroergonomic battle fought with a big industrial enterprise. This study serves as a starting point for general methodological premises pertaining to an effective strategy of fighting a macroergonomic battle. The essence of this strategy is learning three so-called exogenic levers of occasional acquisition. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] THE USE OF CONTRACT BY GOVERNMENT AND ITS AGENTSECONOMIC AFFAIRS, Issue 1 2009Martin Ricketts Given that the provision of a service is being controlled by the state, the decision whether to contract out that service provision to the private sector is essentially a business decision. A number of economic advantages and disadvantages need to be offset against each other. Governments are poorly placed to make such decisions and it is no surprise that PPPs are often inefficient and steered by political objectives. [source] Vested Interests in Addiction Research and Policy Alcohol policies out of context: drinks industry supplanting government role in alcohol policies in sub-Saharan AfricaADDICTION, Issue 1 2010Øystein Bakke ABSTRACT Background In this paper, we describe an analysis of alcohol policy initiatives sponsored by alcohol producer SABMiller and the International Center on Alcohol Policies, an alcohol industry-funded organization. In a number of sub-Saharan countries these bodies have promoted a ,partnership' role with governments to design national alcohol policies. Methodology A comparison was conducted of four draft National Alcohol Policy documents from Lesotho, Malawi, Uganda and Botswana using case study methods. Findings The comparison indicated that the four drafts are almost identical in wording and structure and that they are likely to originate from the same source. Conclusions The processes and the draft policy documents reviewed provide insights into the methods, as well as the strategic and political objectives of the multi-national drinks industry. This initiative reflects the industry's preferred version of a national alcohol policy. The industry policy vision ignores, or chooses selectively from, the international evidence base on alcohol prevention developed by independent alcohol researchers and disregards or minimizes a public health approach to alcohol problems. The policies reviewed maintain a narrow focus on the economic benefits from the trade in alcohol. In terms of alcohol problems (and their remediation) the documents focus upon individual drinkers, ignoring effective environmental interventions. The proposed policies serve the industry's interests at the expense of public health by attempting to enshrine ,active participation of all levels of the beverage alcohol industry as a key partner in the policy formulation and implementation process'. [source] Tensions between Scottish National Policies for onshore wind energy and local dissatisfaction , insights from regulation theoryENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND GOVERNANCE, Issue 5 2007Karen Parkhill Abstract Although best described as a ,meta' theory addressing the endurance of capitalism, regulation theory can successfully be used to explore not only the economic dimensions, but also the political, socio-cultural and environmental dimensions of particular developmental strategies. Thus, it offers a framework for embedding abstract debates about social attitudes to new technologies within debates about ,real regulation' , the economic, social and cultural relationships operating through particular places. This paper uses regulation theory and qualitative, interview-based data to analyse Scotland's drive for onshore wind energy. This approach teases out how responses to wind farms are bound up with wider debates about how rural spaces are, and should be, regulated; the tensions within and between national political objectives, local political objectives and local communities' dissatisfaction; and the connections between local actors and more formal dimensions of renewable energy policy. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [source] The creation of neo,liberal corporate bias in transnational medicines control: The Industrial shaping and interest dynamics of the European regulatory stateEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 1 2001GRAHAM LEWIS Drawing on the political theories of corporatism, neo,liberalism and pluralism, and on comparative empirical research in Brussels, Germany, Sweden and the UK, this article conceptualises the nature of Europeanised medicines regulation. It argues that a marketisation of regulation has been established in the European Union as a result of competition between national regulatory agencies for ,regulatory business' from the pharmaceutical industry. In the pharmaceuticals sector the Europeanised regulatory state is a product of three key factors: (a) the European Commission's commitment to an ,efficiency' regime which would meet the political objectives of a single European market and the commercial agendas of transnational pharmaceutical companies, (b) the endemic corporate bias associated with medicines regulation in the most influential member states, and (c) the considerable success of neo,liberal politics across a number of major member states, including Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom. [source] A Political Theory of Economic StatecraftFOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS, Issue 4 2008Jean-Marc F. Blanchard When can economic sanctions and incentives achieve important political objectives? Why do they often fail? We propose a political theory of economic statecraft, arguing that the success of economic statecraft does not depend on the magnitude of its economic effect. Instead, it succeeds when the economic pain or gain it engenders translates into political costs or opportunities. We argue that the political effects of economic signals will depend on a variety of international and domestic political factors, the most important of which is the target state's level of stateness, comprised of three components: autonomy, capacity, and legitimacy. When economic statecraft motivates key domestic coalitions to push for policy change, high stateness enables target state leaders to resist their calls and defy the sender. Conversely, when economic statecraft convinces target leaders that they ought to comply with the sender's demands, high stateness enable them to overcome domestic opposition to compromise. To evaluate the usefulness of our theory, we employ a plausibility probe, testing our approach against three leading alternatives (the realist, economic liberal, and domestic conditionalist approaches) with case studies of Western economic incentives to Hungary and Romania after the Cold War and Indian sanctions against Nepal in the late 1980s. [source] SOCIAL CAPITAL, DEVELOPMENT, AND INDIGENOUS POLITICS IN ECUADORIAN AMAZONIA,GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW, Issue 3 2003THOMAS PERREAULT ABSTRACT. This article examines the formation of social capital,defined as the norms of trust and reciprocity integral to social relations,and the ways in which it may help rural people's organizations gain access to rights and resources. The formation of social capital must be viewed within the context of the symbolic systems, or cultural capital, that imbues social relations with meaning. The concept of social capital provides a valuable conceptual framework for analyzing the multiscale processes of environmental management, rural development, and resource conflicts with which many rural social movements are involved. The role played by social capital is illustrated through a detailed case study of an indigenous political and cultural organization in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The organizational history of a lowland Quichua federation and the successes and problems it has had in managing development projects and achieving political objectives provide insight into the importance of social capital in the development of the region. [source] Terrorism as a StrategyGOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION, Issue 3 2007Lawrence Freedman In this article I discuss terrorism as a problem in the study of strategy rather than strategy as a problem in the study of terrorism. There is a developing literature now asserting that terrorist activity should be evaluated as strategy, so that dealing with the phenomenon requires not only denouncing it for its warped morality and inhumanity but also understanding motives and methods, treating it as purposive and instrumental and not just wicked. In this article I take it for granted that terrorism is strategic activity; my question is, what does this type of activity tell us about strategy? The case is interesting because terrorism is strategically generally demanding and prone to failure. Certainly when used on its own it is a poor support for political objectives, and may be counter-productive even when used with other methods. By looking at strategy at the fringes it is possible to illuminate aspects of strategic activity that have a wider application. [source] Political consumerism between individual choice and collective action: social movements, role mobilization and signallingINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSUMER STUDIES, Issue 5 2006Boris HolzerArticle first published online: 9 AUG 200 Abstract The notion of political consumerism has two implications. First, consumers wield some kind of power that they can use to effect social change through the marketplace. Second, political consumerism refers to and somehow combines the rationalities of two subsystems, politics and the economy. Yet regarding their everyday, individualized shopping decisions, consumers do not appear to command a great deal of power. What kind of influence, then, can individual economic decisions have on producers? Is that influence robust enough to attribute power to consumers? And if consumers do indeed have power, how can we conceive the implied translation of political concerns into the monetary logic of the economy? An answer to those questions needs to take into account the societal context of political consumerism. This paper analyses how political consumerism relates to the functional differentiation of modern society and how social movements are fundamental to understanding it. Through what I shall call role mobilization, social movements turn the role sets of their supporters into transmission belts for political objectives, and by authoritatively communicating those objectives, they provide signals to producers, who otherwise would not know a great deal about their consumers' preferences. [source] | |||||||||||||