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Specific Policies (specific + policy)
Selected AbstractsFood Security in Complex Emergencies: Enhancing Food System ResilienceDISASTERS, Issue 2005Prabhu Pingali This paper explores linkages between food security and crisis in different contexts, outlining the policy and institutional conditions needed to manage food security during a crisis and to rebuild the resilience of food systems in periods of relative peace. The paper reviews experiences over the past decade of countries in protracted crisis and draws lessons for national and international policy. It assesses the different alternatives on offer in fragile countries to address, for example, the disruption of institutional mechanisms and the decreasing level of support offered by international donors with respect to longer-term expectations. It proposes a Twin Track Approach to enhance food security resilience through specific policies for protracted crises that link immediate hunger relief interventions with a long-term strategy for sustainable growth. Finally, the article analyses policy options and the implications for both short- and longer-term responses vis-à-vis the three dimensions of food security: availability; access; and stability. [source] The political economy of direct legislation: direct democracy and local decision,makingECONOMIC POLICY, Issue 33 2001Lars P Feld Local and regional governments account for an important share of total government spending and, given the decentralization trend in OECD nations, this is likely to increase. How should this spending be governed? This article argues that direct democracy is best suited to organize decision,making at the state and local level. To support this, we present the main theoretical arguments on why and how referenda and initiatives affect fiscal policy outcomes. The basic argument concerns voter control. Under representative democracy, citizens only have direct control at election time. With referenda and initiatives, citizens can selectively control their representatives on specific policies whenever they deviate sufficiently from citizens' preferences. As a result, fiscal policy outcomes are likely to more closely reflect voter preferences. We empirically test this on Swiss data since Switzerland provides a ,natural laboratory' for local governance. The governance structures of Swiss cantons and localities with respect to fiscal issues range from classic parliamentary democracy to pure direct democracy, and an important part of spending and taxation is controlled at these levels. Specifically, we estimate an econometric model of fiscal behaviour using data from 1986 to 1997 for the 26 Swiss cantons, and 1990 data on 134 local communities. It is shown that mandatory referenda on fiscal issues at both levels have a dampening effect on expenditure and revenue, and at the local level also on public debt. Combining this with existing empirical evidence leads to a relatively uncontested result, namely that elements of direct democracy are associated with sounder public finances, better economic performance and higher satisfaction of citizens. [source] Fantasies of Friendship in The Faerie Queene, Book IVENGLISH LITERARY RENAISSANCE, Issue 2 2007Melissa E. Sanchez For such members of the Sidney-Essex circle as Spenser, who supported monarchy as such but were uneasy about a number of specific policies, what historians have described as a move in the 1590s away from mid-century conciliar theories generated anxiety about the status of the nobility and the future of Protestantism. The erotic relations of the 1596 edition of The Faerie Queene register such concerns about the absolutist rhetoric of the last fifteen years of Elizabeth's reign, most noticeably in the revised ending of Book III. Whereas the 1590 Book of Chastity concludes with Scudamour and Amoret merging into a hermaphroditic figure of mutual devotion, the 1596 version replaces this scene of conjugal bliss with a protracted narrative of Scudamour's despairing suspicion and Amoret's continued affliction. The nature of Amoret's loyalty, moreover, is itself complicated by the concluding cantos of Book IV, which reveal that the husband for whom she has willingly suffered was in fact the first of her assailants. The disproportion between Amoret's fidelity and Scudamour's desert in the 1596 versions of Books III and IV suggests that idealized equations of love, virtue, and suffering may have lulled Amoret into complicity in her own abuse. This revision is thus crucial to Spenser's project of fashioning a virtuous subject, for in apprehending the discrepancy between idealized narratives of mutual devotion and actual structures of unilateral sacrifice, the reader of The Faerie Queene may likewise come to recognize and resist the contradictions and inequities of late sixteenth-century political practice. [source] A Five-Country Comparative Review of Accommodation Support Policies for Older People With Intellectual DisabilityJOURNAL OF POLICY AND PRACTICE IN INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES, Issue 1 2010Christine Bigby Abstract International covenants and domestic social policies in most developed countries regard people with intellectual disability as citizens with equal rights, suggesting they should have the similar aspirations of a healthy and active old age as the general community, and an expectation of the necessary supports to achieve this. This article compares the development and implementation of accommodation support policies for people aging with intellectual disabilities in five liberal welfare states. It describes the limited development of policies in this area and suggests possible reasons why this is the case. A review of the peer reviewed and grey or unpublished advocacy and policy literature on aging policies for people with intellectual disability was conducted which covered Australia, Canada, Ireland, the UK, and the U.S. Despite consistent identification of similar broad policy issues and overarching goals, little progress has been made in the development of more specific policies or implementation strategies to address issues associated with accommodation support as people age. Policy debates have conceptualized the problem as aging in place and the shared responsibility of the aged-care and disability sectors. This may have detracted from either sector leading the development of, or taking responsibility for, formulating, implementing, and resourcing a strong policy framework. [source] Race, Region, and Representative BureaucracyPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW, Issue 5 2009Jason A. Grissom Scholars of representative bureaucracy have long been interested in the linkage between passive representation in public agencies and the pursuit of specific policies designed to benefit minority groups. Research in this area suggests that the structural characteristics of those organizations, the external political environment, and the perceptions of individual bureaucrats each help to facilitate that relationship. Work to date has not, however, sufficiently investigated the impact of region on representation behavior, which is surprising given the emphasis that it receives in the broader literature on race and politics. Drawing on that literature, this study argues that, for black bureaucrats, region of residence is an important moderator of active representation because it helps to determine the salience of race as an issue and the degree of identification with racial group interests. It tests hypotheses related to that general argument in a nationally representative sample of more than 3,000 public schools. The results suggest that black teachers produce greater benefits for black students in the South, relative to other regions. A supplementary analysis also confirms the theoretical supposition that race is a more salient issue for Southern black bureaucrats, when compared with their non-Southern counterparts. [source] Americans' Views of Health Care Costs, Access, and QualityTHE MILBANK QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2006ROBERT J. BLENDON For more than two decades, polls have shown that Americans are dissatisfied with their current health care system. However, the public's views on how to change the current system are more conflicted than often suggested by individual poll results. At the same time, Americans are both dissatisfied with the current health care system and relatively satisfied with their own health care arrangements. As a result of the conflict between these views and the public's distrust of government, there often is a wide gap between the public's support for a set of principles concerning what needs to be done about the overall problems facing the nation's health care system and their support for specific policies designed to achieve those goals. [source] The Jammed Democracy: Bolivia's Troubled Political Learning ProcessBULLETIN OF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH, Issue 2 2006Ton Salman The fact that even the moderate and broadly respected president Carlos Mesa was forced to step down in Bolivia in June 2005 suggests that the country's crisis goes beyond a conflict on specific policies. A longstanding practice of excluding large sectors of the population from all real influence in politics, despite the existence of formal democracy, has produced a crisis of belief in democracy, affecting both governing bodies and the party system. President Mesa was unable to reverse the generalised distrust of politics. This distrust, combined with persisting political stalemate, is currently tending towards societal disintegration, which makes the recovery of genuine democratic practices even more difficult. [source] Comparative Policy Brief: Status of Intellectual Disabilities in the Republic of ZambiaJOURNAL OF POLICY AND PRACTICE IN INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES, Issue 2 2008James Mung'omba Abstract, In the Republic of Zambia, an estimated 256,000 persons have some form of disability, and of these, 5.4% have intellectual disabilities. Even now, traditional beliefs about the etiology of intellectual disabilities persist and considerable stigma is attached to the presence of persons with intellectual disabilities who are often excluded from community life. Recently, antidiscrimination legislation has been enacted and there is a policy related to pupils with special educational needs. Although a range of Zambian and international nongovernmental organizations and church groups have developed services for children and their families, their impact is impeded by widespread poverty. Adults remain vulnerable, with no entitlement to social welfare benefits and very limited access either to government-led trust funds for persons with disabilities or to employment. The most striking issue is poverty (Zambia is one of the world's poorest nations) and an absence of even basic support for people with intellectual disabilities outside of families. Other key issues include a lack of useful data, no specific policy related to persons with intellectual disabilities, and limited progress in achieving education for all. [source] | ||||||||||||||||