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Public Institutions (public + institution)
Selected AbstractsNew labour and reform of the English NHS: user views and attitudesHEALTH EXPECTATIONS, Issue 2 2010Andrew Wallace PhD Abstract Background, The British National Health Service has undergone significant restructuring in recent years. In England this has taken a distinctive direction where the New Labour Government has embraced and intensified the influence of market principles towards its vision of a ,modernized' NHS. This has entailed the introduction of competition and incentives for providers of NHS care and the expansion of choice for patients. Objectives, To explore how users of the NHS perceive and respond to the market reforms being implemented within the NHS. In addition, to examine the normative values held by NHS users in relation to welfare provision in the UK. Design and setting, Qualitative interviews using a quota sample of 48 recent NHS users in South East England recruited from three local health economies. Results, Some NHS users are exhibiting an ambivalent or anxious response to aspects of market reform such as patient choice, the use of targets and markets and the increasing presence of the private sector within the state healthcare sector. This has resulted in a sense that current reforms, are distracting or preventing NHS staff from delivering quality of care and fail to embody the relationships of care that are felt to sustain the NHS as a progressive public institution. Conclusion, The best way of delivering such values for patients is perceived to involve empowering frontline staffs who are deemed to embody the same values as service users, thus problematizing the current assumptions of reform frameworks that market-style incentives will necessarily gain public consent and support. [source] Winning back more than words?THE CANADIAN GEOGRAPHER/LE GEOGRAPHE CANADIEN, Issue 1 2005Power, discourse, quarrying on the Niagara Escarpment This paper explores the controversy and public hearing on the proposed extension of the largest limestone quarry in Canada, operated by Dufferin Aggregates at Milton, Ontario. The quarry constitutes an important source of construction material for the nearby Greater Toronto Area. However, the quarry is protected by the provincial Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act and located inside the UNESCO-designated Niagara Escarpment Biosphere Reserve. The proposal has therefore attracted considerable opposition from the public institution charged with its protection, the Niagara Escarpment Commission, as well as environmental groups and local residents. To make sense of the tensions, conflicts and outcome of the Dufferin case, we consult and apply several critical literatures. We see the conflict as part of a transformation of the countryside from a space of production to a space of consumption, where there is a shift in emphasis from resource extractive to scenic and ecological landscape values, and the displacement of productive classes, farmers and workers, in favour of a service class of professionals and retirees. Within this transformation, we identify a ,power geometry' of actor networks of different coalition groups that form allegiances and engage in struggles at different geographic scales. These actor networks operate within the set frames of a dominant development discourse and a popular environmentalist discourse that both include and exclude other ways of seeing and managing the escarpment. Cet article examine la controverse et l'audience publique sur l'aggrandissement projetée de la plus vaste carrière de calcaire au Canada, operée par Dufferin Aggregates à Milton, Ontario. La carrière constitue une source importante de matériaux de construction pour la région métropolitaine de Toronto. Toutefois, cette carrière est non seulement protégée par la loi du développement et de l'aménagment de l'Escarpement du Niagara, mais elle est également située dans la Réserve Biosphère désignée par l'UNESCO. Cette proposition d'aggrandissement de la carrière a donc suscité l'opposition de la Commission de l'Escarpement du Niagara, institution publique désignée pour la protection, ainsi que de certains groupes environnementaux et résidents locaux. Afin d'examiner les tensions, conflits et résultat du cas de la carrière Dufferin, nous avons consulté et appliqué plusieurs littératures critiques. Nous considérons d'abord ce conflit comme faisant partie de la transformation de la campagne d'un site de production en un site de consommation, où l'emphase passe de l'extraction d'une resource à la revalorisation aesthétique et écologique du paysage, accompagnée par le déplacement des classes productives, agriculteurs et ouvriers, en faveur de la classe de services professionnels et retraités. Émergeant de cette transformation, nous identifions une ,géométrie de pouvoir , des réseaux d'acteurs issus de différentes coalitions formant des allégeances et s'engageant dans des formes de résistances à différentes échelles géographiques. Ces réseaux d'acteurs opèrent dans les paramètres d'un discours dominant de développement et d'un discours populaire d'environnementalisme qui tout à la fois inclus et exclus d'autres façons de voir et de gérer l'escarpement. [source] The Governance of the European Union: The Potential for Multi-Level ControlEUROPEAN LAW JOURNAL, Issue 1 2002Colin Scott In its White Paper on the Governance of the European Union the European Commission has adopted a narrow concept of governance which focuses almost exclusively on public institutions exercising legislative and executive power (in other words institutions of government). The article suggests that a theory of multi-level control in the EU would attend to greater variety both in the available governance institutions and the techniques of control. The deployment of an analysis grounded in theories of control suggests that the European Commission is substantially holding to a long-held preference for instruments of government premised on the exercise of hierarchical power. This reform path sits uneasily with revived concerns to render the governance of the EU more democratic. Equally it inhibits the generation of more efficient governance arrangements which place greater dependence on communities, competition, and design as alternative bases of control to hierarchy. Control theory suggests that the assertion of different reform agendas and institutional structures by other actors can check the more wayward (and arguably illegitimate) tendencies within the Commission plan, whilst drawing in alternative bases of control which, when combined, may yield technically superior governance solutions. [source] The Militarization of Urban Marginality: Lessons from the Brazilian MetropolisINTERNATIONAL POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY, Issue 1 2008Loïc Wacquant This article examines the workings and effects of the penalization of poverty in urban Brazil at century's turn to uncover the deep logic of punitive containment as state strategy for the management of dispossessed and dishonored populations in the polarizing city in the age of triumphant neoliberalism. It shows how ramifying criminal violence (fed by extreme inequality and mass poverty), class and color discrimination in judicial processing, unchecked police brutality, and the catastrophic condition and chaotic operation of the carceral system combine to make the aggressive deployment of the penal apparatus in Brazil a surefire recipe for further disorder and disrespect for the law at the bottom of the urban hierarchy and steers the country into an institutional impasse. The policy of punitive containment pursued by political elites as a complement to the deregulation of the economy in the 1990s leads from the penalization to the militarization of urban marginality, under which residents of the declining favelas are treated as virtual enemies of the nation, tenuous trust in public institutions is undermined, and the spiral of violence accelerated. Brazil thus serves as a historical revelator of the full consequences of the penal disposal of the human detritus of a society swamped by social and physical insecurity. Drawing parallels between penal activity in the Brazilian and the U.S. metropolis further reveals that the neighborhoods of urban relegation wherein the marginal and stigmatized fractions of the postindustrial working class concentrate are the prime targets and proving ground upon which the neoliberal penal state is concretely being assembled, tried, and tested. Their study is therefore of urgent interest to analysts of international politics and state power at the dawn of the twenty-first century. [source] BBVA-ARIES: a forecasting and simulation model for EMUJOURNAL OF FORECASTING, Issue 5 2003Fernando C. Ballabriga Abstract This paper describes the BBVA-ARIES, a Bayesian vector autoregression (BVAR) for the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). In addition to providing EMU-wide growth and inflation forecasts, the model provides an assessment of the interactions between key EMU macroeconomic variables and external ones, such as world GDP or commodity prices. A comparison of the forecasts generated by the model and those of private analysts and public institutions reveals a very positive balance in favour of the model. For their part, the simulations allow us to assess the potential macroeconomic effects of macroeconomic developments in the EMU.,Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Ending Up in Pizza: Accountability as a Problem of Institutional Arrangement in BrazilLATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, Issue 1 2007Matthew M. Taylor ABSTRACT Brazilians often complain that investigations of corruption by public servants drag on for years or bring few legal sanctions on the perpetrators. This lack of accountability is so pervasive that a slang phrase, acabou em pizza, is often invoked when investigations are inconclusive. This article investigates the role of four Brazilian public institutions charged with keeping public servants accountable. For analysis, it breaks the accountability process into its three component stages: oversight, investigation, and sanction. Through a study of six prominent cases of corruption, it shows that the weakness of the accountability process in Brazil is due not entirely to the toothlessness of individual institutions of accountability, but also to the independence of such institutions at each of the three stages. These findings suggest that institutional arrangements influence the degree of accountability, and thereby also public trust and confidence, in Latin America's largest democracy. [source] Public Experiences of Police Violence and Corruption in Contemporary Russia: A Case of Predatory Policing?LAW & SOCIETY REVIEW, Issue 1 2008Theodore P. Gerber "Predatory policing" occurs where police officers mainly use their authority to advance their own material interests rather than to fight crime or protect the interests of elites. These practices have the potential to seriously compromise the public's trust in the police and other legal institutions, such as courts. Using data from six surveys and nine focus groups conducted in Russia, we address four empirical questions: (1) How widespread are public encounters with police violence and police corruption in Russia? (2) To what extent does exposure to these two forms of police misconduct vary by social and economic characteristics? (3) How do Russians perceive the police, the courts, and the use of violent methods by the police? (4) How, if at all, do experiences of police misconduct affect these perceptions? Our results suggest that Russia conforms to a model of predatory policing. Despite substantial differences in its law enforcement institutions and cultural norms regarding the law, Russia resembles the United States in that direct experiences of police abuse reduce confidence in the police and in the legal system more generally. The prevalence of predatory policing in Russia has undermined Russia's democratic transition, which should call attention to the indispensable role of the police and other public institutions in the success of democratic reforms. [source] Adult children and elderly parents as mobility attractions in SwedenPOPULATION, SPACE AND PLACE (PREVIOUSLY:-INT JOURNAL OF POPULATION GEOGRAPHY), Issue 4 2009Anna Pettersson Abstract The aim of this paper is to investigate the extent to which elderly parents and adult children move close (or very close) to each other and how this mobility is influenced by socioeconomic conditions, family situation, gender and age. The analyses are based on register data for the years 2001 and 2002 covering all elderly parents and their adult children residing in Sweden. For instance, our analyses show a positive relationship between, on the one hand, moving close to an adult child or an elderly parent and, on the other, the presence of other family members (e.g. siblings and grandchildren). We also found that moving very close to adult children was more common among the young-old and less common among the old-old. One interpretation is that young-old parents often move close to their adult children to have social contact or assist them, but as the parents grow older and their health weakens, care becomes increasingly important and, in the Swedish welfare state, it becomes more the responsibility of public institutions. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Laïcité and multiculturalism: the Stasi Report in context1THE BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, Issue 2 2009Murat Akan Abstract French republican universalism , expressed most strongly in the principle and practice of laïcité, and multiculturalism have constituted opposite poles on questions of citizenship and integration. The report of the Stasi Commission on laïcité on 11 December 2003 and the following legislation on the donning of religious symbols in French public schools have once again, spurred debates over the meanings and practices of laïcité. The report and the law have been interpreted in different ways. Some have presented them as a reaffirmation of a historically constituted laïcité under new circumstances, others as a divergence from the real problems of racism, unemployment and gender inequality. In this article, I offer an alternative reading by supplementing a critical reading of the report with an analysis of its historical and immediate institutional context. I evaluate the Stasi Report in its immediate context of institutional change, and in the historical context of selected developments concerning laïcité since the 1905 law separating churches and State. I argue that the Stasi Report marks a fundamental break with French republican universalism, and I show that this break occurred contemporaneously with key gestures of multiculturalism: the establishment of the French Muslim Council and the creation of Muslim high schools under contract with the French state. This double movement to narrow the boundaries of laïcité, and for the state to expand the boundaries of identity-specific, Muslim public institutions and private schooling constitutes a reorganization of the public sphere in France which qualifies as a move towards multiculturalism. [source] The Disappearance of the State from "Livable" Urban SpacesANTIPODE, Issue 5 2009Katherine B. Hankins Abstract:, This paper examines the absence of the state from the discourses and practices of "livable" urban spaces. Drawing from an ethnography of Atlantic Station, the USA's largest new urbanist infill development, we argue that "livable" urban spaces are increasingly arenas for luxury, theater, and consumption, and that the state, while an important actor in the creation of urban spaces such as Atlantic Station, has largely been made invisible. We see this in the absence of public institutions, such as schools, parks, and libraries, and in the absence of a collective political identity among Atlantic Station patrons. The disappearance of the state in the material spaces of the city suggests that the neoliberal project of individualism and consumerism is transforming the very notion of livability and the democratic possibilities of what makes urban space "livable". [source] Determinants of price mark-up tolerance for green electricity , lessons for environmental marketing strategies from a study of residential electricity customers in GermanyBUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, Issue 5 2010Torsten J. Gerpott Abstract This paper develops hypotheses on the effects of various attitudinal and perceptual variables as well as socio-demographic characteristics of residential electricity customers on an individual's willingness to pay a mark-up for electricity generated from renewable energy sources compared with the price due for electricity from conventional sources. The hypotheses are tested with data from a standardized telephone survey of 238 household electricity consumers in Germany. 53.4% of the participants are willing to pay a mark-up for green electricity. 26.1% report a price tolerance equal to a 5,10% increase in their current electricity bill. Binary logistic and ordinal regression analyses indicate that price tolerance for green electricity is particularly influenced by attitudes (1) towards environmental issues and (2) towards one's current power supplier, (3) perceptions of the evaluation of green energy by an individual's social reference groups, (4) household size and (5) current electricity bill level. The findings are used to derive suggestions for energy related informational activities of public institutions, green marketing strategies of energy companies and future consumer research regarding demand for pro-environmental goods. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [source] Corporate awakening , why (some) corporations embrace public,private partnershipsBUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, Issue 4 2005Julie LaFrance Abstract Predominantly since the 1992 Rio Summit, corporations have been increasingly pursuing partnerships with public institutions including governments, international organizations and NGOs that aim to contribute to sustainable development activities. Partnerships have become more common as corporations react to mounting pressure from corporate stakeholders, civil society and government on the responsible nature of their business practices. The corporate awakening towards a broader role of business in society and the trend of corporations embracing partnerships has led many to question the driving factors that motivate corporations to pursue partnerships. In this paper, the authors examine the underlying drivers of corporate organizational behaviour from the theoretical perspectives of both legitimacy and stakeholder needs, and discuss the challenges of gaining insight into why corporations embrace public,private partnerships. These theoretical perspectives are used to gain a deeper understanding of the corporate drivers that motivated TOTAL S.A. to approach UNESCO for cooperation on community development programmes in Myanmar. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [source] Les relations de collaboration entre le secteur public et les organismes communautaires du secteur jeunesse-enfance-famille : Entre la sous-traitance et la coconstructionCANADIAN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION/ADMINISTRATION PUBLIQUE DU CANADA, Issue 4 2008Sébastien Savard Sommaire: L'État incite les établissements publics et les organismes communautaires à développer et à augmenter la fréquence de leurs relations interorganisationnelles. L'État veut ainsi favoriser une intégration des services permettant une meilleure réponse aux besoins sociaux de la population. Cette étude propose une typologie permettant d'analyser les modèles de relation qui se mettent en place entre ces deux groupes d'acteurs. La recherche s'est intéressée aux interfaces dans le secteur des services sociaux à l'enfance, à la jeunesse et aux familles québécoises. Au total, 111 gestionnaires ont répondu à un questionnaire leur permettant d'évaluer leurs rapports en fonction de quatre dimensions proposées par Coston pour situer les relations entre l'État et les organismes du tiers secteur. Le modèle de relation rapporté par les répondants est celui de la coexistence. Quoique le modèle de relation rapporté par les organismes communautaires et par les établissements publics soit le même, une analyse plus nuancée des résultats permet de constater que les organismes communautaires se perçoivent appartenir à un système plus socio-étatique (dominé par les établissements de réseau) que les répondants des établissements publics. Abstract: The government encourages public institutions and community organizations to develop and increase the frequency of their inter-organizational relationships. In doing so, the government seeks the integration of their services in order to meet the social needs of the population more effectively. This study aims to develop a typology for analysing patterns in the relationships being established between these two groups of stakeholders. The research focused on the interfaces in the social service sector for children, youth and families in Quebec. In total, 111 managers responded to a survey that enabled them to assess their relationships on the basis of four dimensions proposed by Coston for analysing relationships between the government and third-sector organizations. The respondents identified "coexistence" as the most common type of relationships. Although the community organizations and the public institutions identified the same type of relationships, a more nuanced analysis of the survey results reveals that community organizations see themselves as part of a system that is more "socio-governmental" in nature (i.e., dominated by the institutions in the network) rather than "public." [source] | ||||||||||||||||