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State Agencies (state + agencies)
Selected AbstractsPutting the Brakes on the Rush to Spend Down End-of-Year Balances: Carryover Money in Oklahoma State AgenciesPUBLIC BUDGETING AND FINANCE, Issue 3 2006JAMES W. DOUGLAS End-of-the-year spending sprees by government agencies are viewed generally as an example of government wastefulness. Agency personnel, however, rationalize the practice as a means for protecting their budgets from inexpedient cuts. In Oklahoma, a policy has been adopted that allows agencies to carry over and reprogram year-end surpluses as long as the reprogrammed funds are spent within 16.5 months of the end of the fiscal year. Using agency theory as a theoretical lens, we show that this policy restructures the contract between the principal (legislature) and its agents (state agencies) so that their interests are better aligned, regarding end-of-the-year surpluses. [source] Devolution and Innovation: The Adoption of State Environmental Policy Innovations by Administrative AgenciesPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW, Issue 2 2004Alka Sapat Do states act as laboratories for reform? Are state administrative agencies likely to adopt policy innovations? This study analyzes the adoption of environmental policy innovations by state administrative agencies in the area of hazardous waste regulation. Four explanations are developed to explain the factors that affect innovation adoption: the severity of the problem, the importance of institutional factors, the role played by interest groups, and contextual factors. Institutional factors, such as state wealth and administrative professionalism, are important determinants of innovation adoption. State agencies are also likely to adopt innovations to deal with problems created by hazardous waste contamination. In addition, state environmental managers are not directly influenced by interest groups, and the inclusion of all stakeholders is likely to lead to greater support for new policy initiatives. Implications for practitioners are drawn based on the study's findings. [source] Local Participation in Natural Resource Monitoring: a Characterization of ApproachesCONSERVATION BIOLOGY, Issue 1 2009FINN DANIELSEN conservación; evaluación de la biodiversidad; esquemas de monitoreo; intereses locales; manejo de recursos naturales Abstract:,The monitoring of trends in the status of species or habitats is routine in developed countries, where it is funded by the state or large nongovernmental organizations and often involves large numbers of skilled amateur volunteers. Far less monitoring of natural resources takes place in developing countries, where state agencies have small budgets, there are fewer skilled professionals or amateurs, and socioeconomic conditions prevent development of a culture of volunteerism. The resulting lack of knowledge about trends in species and habitats presents a serious challenge for detecting, understanding, and reversing declines in natural resource values. International environmental agreements require signatories undertake systematic monitoring of their natural resources, but no system exists to guide the development and expansion of monitoring schemes. To help develop such a protocol, we suggest a typology of monitoring categories, defined by their degree of local participation, ranging from no local involvement with monitoring undertaken by professional researchers to an entirely local effort with monitoring undertaken by local people. We assessed the strengths and weaknesses of each monitoring category and the potential of each to be sustainable in developed or developing countries. Locally based monitoring is particularly relevant in developing countries, where it can lead to rapid decisions to solve the key threats affecting natural resources, can empower local communities to better manage their resources, and can refine sustainable-use strategies to improve local livelihoods. Nevertheless, we recognize that the accuracy and precision of the monitoring undertaken by local communities in different situations needs further study and field protocols need to be further developed to get the best from the unrealized potential of this approach. A challenge to conservation biologists is to identify and establish the monitoring system most relevant to a particular situation and to develop methods to integrate outputs from across the spectrum of monitoring schemes to produce wider indices of natural resources that capture the strengths of each. Resumen:,El monitoreo de tendencias en el estatus de especies o hábitats es rutinario en los países desarrollados, donde es financiado por el estado o por grandes organizaciones no gubernamentales y a menudo involucra a grandes números de voluntarios amateurs competentes. El monitoreo de recursos naturales es menos intenso en los países en desarrollo, donde las agencias estatales tienen presupuestos pequeños, hay menos profesionales o amateurs competentes y las condiciones socioeconómicas limitan el desarrollo de una cultura de voluntariado. La consecuente falta de conocimientos sobre las tendencias de las especies y los hábitats presenta un serio reto para la detección, entendimiento y reversión de las declinaciones de los recursos naturales. Los tratados ambientales internacionales requieren que los signatarios realicen monitoreos sistemáticos de sus recursos naturales, pero no existe un sistema para guiar el desarrollo y la expansión de los esquemas de monitoreo. Para ayudar al desarrollo de tal protocolo, sugerimos una tipología de categorías de monitoreo, definidas por el nivel de participación local, desde ningún involucramiento local con el monitoreo realizado por investigadores profesionales hasta un esfuerzo completamente local con el monitoreo llevado a cabo por habitantes locales. Evaluamos las fortalezas y debilidades de cada categoría de monitoreo, así como su sustentabilidad potencial en países desarrollados o en desarrollo. El monitoreo basado localmente es particularmente relevante en los países en desarrollo, donde puede llevar a decisiones rápidas para resolver amenazas clave sobre sus recursos naturales, puede facultar a las comunidades locales para un mejor manejo de sus recursos naturales y puede refinar las estrategias de uso sustentable para mejorar la forma de vida local. Sin embargo, reconocemos que la precisión y exactitud del monitoreo llevado a cabo por comunidades locales en situaciones diferentes requiere de mayor estudio y los protocolos de campo requieren de mayor desarrollo para obtener lo mejor del potencial de este método. Un reto para los biólogos de la conservación es la identificación y establecimiento del sistema de monitoreo más relevante para la situación particular, así como el desarrollo de métodos para integrar los resultados de una gama de esquemas de monitoreo para producir índices de recursos naturales más amplios que capturen las fortalezas de cada uno. [source] No Smoking Gun: Findings From a National Survey of Office-Based Cosmetic Surgery Adverse Event ReportingDERMATOLOGIC SURGERY, Issue 11 2003Rajesh Balkrishnan PhD Background. Because of recent press reports of adverse outcomes, office-based cosmetic surgery has come under intense scrutiny and associated legislative regulatory action. Objective. To assess the safety of office-based cosmetic surgery through a national survey of state agencies that collect information on adverse patient outcomes. Methods. Medical boards or other responsible authorities were contacted in 48 states to obtain records on adverse outcomes from cosmetic surgery procedures performed in an office-based setting. Results. Five states were able to provide complete information regarding 13 cases of adverse outcomes that resulted from office-based cosmetic surgery procedures. Thirteen states had incomplete information or were unable to provide information. The remaining states reported no adverse outcomes. Information collected by state agencies varies greatly and is inadequate to define the safety of office-based cosmetic surgery practice. Conclusions. The need to regulate physician office surgery on the basis of hospital privileges and office certification is not supported by current data. Mandatory reporting of adverse outcomes from office-based surgery is warranted to identify modifiable risk factors and to reduce the risk of adverse outcomes. [source] On the back of a motorbike: Middle-class mobility in Ho Chi Minh City, VietnamAMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Issue 1 2008ALLISON TRUITT ABSTRACT "Mobility" is a key concept in understanding processes of globalization and class formation. In this article, I examine motorbike mobility in Ho Chi Minh City and its role in reordering social stratification in urban Vietnam. In the years following trade liberalization, motorbikes emerged as exemplary symbols of purchasing power, displaying both monetized and motorized power. In response to the exponential increase in the number of motorbikes, Vietnamese state agencies inscribed streets with divisions to separate different classes of vehicles and regulate the flow of traffic. Motorbikes, I argue, elude attempts to regulate their movement precisely because they embody the very mobility promised by economic reforms. [Vietnam, traffic, commodity, circulation, public space, mobility] [source] State organisations as agencies: an identifiable and meaningful focus of research?PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION & DEVELOPMENT, Issue 2 2004Ian ThynneArticle first published online: 22 APR 200 This article addresses the designation and study of state agencies as an important component of modern governance. It recognises that the recent interest in agencies has not been accompanied by any agreement on what actually constitutes an agency. In response, it distinguishes several types of organisations as possible candidates for agency status and thereafter classifies different applications of agencies in terms of these types. Two types are singled out for attention, with relevant lines of research being suggested. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Putting the Brakes on the Rush to Spend Down End-of-Year Balances: Carryover Money in Oklahoma State AgenciesPUBLIC BUDGETING AND FINANCE, Issue 3 2006JAMES W. DOUGLAS End-of-the-year spending sprees by government agencies are viewed generally as an example of government wastefulness. Agency personnel, however, rationalize the practice as a means for protecting their budgets from inexpedient cuts. In Oklahoma, a policy has been adopted that allows agencies to carry over and reprogram year-end surpluses as long as the reprogrammed funds are spent within 16.5 months of the end of the fiscal year. Using agency theory as a theoretical lens, we show that this policy restructures the contract between the principal (legislature) and its agents (state agencies) so that their interests are better aligned, regarding end-of-the-year surpluses. [source] An Introduction to a Special Issue on Large-Scale Submerged Aquatic Vegetation Restoration Research in the Chesapeake Bay: 2003,2008RESTORATION ECOLOGY, Issue 4 2010Deborah Shafer The Chesapeake Bay is one of the world's largest estuaries. Dramatic declines in the abundance and distribution of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) in the Chesapeake Bay over the last few decades led to a series of management decisions aimed at protecting and restoring SAV populations throughout the bay. In 2003, the Chesapeake Bay Program established a goal of planting 405 ha of SAV by 2008. Realizing that such an ambitious goal would require the development of large-scale approaches to SAV restoration, a comprehensive research effort was organized, involving federal and state agencies, academia, and the private sector. This effort differs from most other SAV restoration programs due to a strong emphasis on the use of seeds rather than plants as planting stock, a decision based on the relatively low labor requirements of seeding. Much of the research has focused on the development of tools and techniques for using seeds in large-scale SAV restoration. Since this research initiative began, an average of 13.4 ha/year of SAV has been planted in the Chesapeake Bay, compared to an average rate of 3.6 ha/year during the previous 21 years (1983,2003). The costs of conducting these plantings are on a downward trend as the understanding of the limiting factors increases and as new advances are made in applied research and technology development. Although this effort was focused in the Chesapeake Bay region, the tools and techniques developed as part of this research should be widely applicable to SAV restoration efforts in other areas. [source] Zones of Exclusion: Offshore Extraction, the Contestation of Space and Physical Displacement in the Nigerian Delta and the Mexican GulfANTIPODE, Issue 3 2009Anna Zalik Abstract:, This article examines two aid interventions that manifest the merging of community development/relief and industrial security policy in the petroleum offshore of the Nigerian Niger Delta and the Mexican Gulf. In the Nigerian case, the article considers the crisis in the Warri region of Delta State in 2003, the subsequent evacuation of local residents, and the surrounding context of oil-related violence. Simmering since the 1990s, the 2003 Warri conflict displaced thousands due to competing community claims to territory that "hosts" oil installations, Shell and Chevron primarily. In Mexico, the analysis centers on the implementation of 2003 Mexican security legislation, prompted by International Maritime Organization post 9/11 security policy, that amplifies the "Zone of Exclusion" around offshore installations. To offset the loss of livelihoods resulting from the "exclusion zone", Mexican state agencies offered financing to support the conversion of the displaced small-scale fishers to fish farming. The varying forms of displacement prompted by these two "liberating" interventions reflect the socio-historical specificity of territorial relations in the Nigerian and Mexican extractive regimes. These relations constitute divergent extractive settings which have come to play contrasting roles in the global political economy of oil, one highly volatile, the other relatively stable. [source] The Development of Commodity Exchanges in the Former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and ChinaAUSTRALIAN ECONOMIC PAPERS, Issue 4 2001Anne E. Peck The virtual collapse of the centrally planned economies of the countries of the former Soviet Union (FSU) and the more gradual transition from central planning to a market-oriented economy in China were both accompanied by the opening of hundreds of exchanges trading many agricultural, resource, and other physical commodities. Although many viewed them as harbingers of full-fledged market-based economies, most of the new exchanges in fact have since closed either for lack of activity or by government intervention, a history that this paper documents. New exchanges faced numerous obstacles in sustaining interest, from developing standardised contract terms to establishing effective self-regulation and state regulatory oversight. In several countries, the transparency of transactions on exchanges attracted governments interested in collecting taxes and customs duties which only drove trade away from the exchanges or turned them into little more than state agencies. In China, regulators struggled with duplicative exchanges and products, price volatility, large speculative interest, and several manipulations and have recently reduced the number of exchanges to just three and severely limited the commodities traded. There have been some successes too, including (at least prospectively) the three remaining exchanges in China, the Budapest Commodity Exchange in Hungary, and the Poznan Commodity Exchange in Poland. For all, identifying the terms to create standardised contracts has been (and continues to be) a major challenge. [source] Migration and the Right to Social Security: Perceptions of Off-farm Migrants' Rights to Social Insurance in China's Jiangsu ProvinceCHINA AND WORLD ECONOMY, Issue 2 2007Ingrid Nielsen J08; J 61; J65 Abstract In 2001 China ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. By so doing the national government became legally bound, "to the maximum of its available resources", to achieve "progressively" full realization of the rights specified in the Covenant. Included amongst these entitlements is the "right of everyone to social security, including social insurance". This paper uses data from Jiangsu to examine the extent to which urbanites agree that previously disenfranchised migrants have the same right to social insurance as the urban population. Many urbanites fear that their existing entitlements to social protection will be diluted if social insurance coverage is extended to include new populations. Accordingly, state agencies and the media have sought to promote acceptance of a more positive view of migrant workers than has traditionally prevailed within towns and cities. We find that younger urban residents, urban residents who already have social insurance and urban residents working in the state-owned sector are more likely to agree that migrants have the same right to social insurance as the urban population. [source] | ||||||||||||||||