Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Digital Research: Crossing Over Disciplines, Christine Borgman

Christine L. Borgman

No abstract provided.

Mainstreaming Migration In Development Agendas: South Asia, Piyasiri Wickramasekara

PIYASIRI WICKRAMASEKARA

The presentation addresses the issue of mainstreaming labour migration into development agendas of South Asian countries. Starting with definitions, it identifies tools which can be used for mainstreaming: national development plans, PRSPs, national labour migration policies, and sectoral policies, among others. It reviews the role of remittances, return migration and diaspora engagement as mechanisms for mainstreaming. It raises some contradictions and ambiguities in the regional and international discourse on the issue. finally it raises the role of migration in the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

Ombudsman And Local Governments, Gary S. Sander

Gary S Sander

The local governments in democratic countries began to acquire more importance since the scope of the public services they provide have been enlarged. In parallel with this progress, they use more public resources. This fact requires the operation of an inspection system while ensuring that the system does not damage the autonomous structure of the local governments. In all democratic countries an inspection mechanism exists over local governments. While the control of national governments over local governments in developed countries are not so strong, it is just the opposite in developing countries. The control of national government over local government …

Antropologizar El Derecho, Daniel Quiñonez

Daniel Quiñonez Oré

En este post se plantea antropologizar el Derecho; es decir, cuestionar y criticar la manera tradicional de entenderlo, superando el análisis normativo e institucional, abogando por una comprensión que tome en cuenta las distintas formas de entender la juridicidad.

Analyzing Return On Investment In Public Health: Implications And Future Directions, Glen P. Mays

Glen Mays

Return on investment (ROI) analyses of public health programs, policies, and services are being undertaken with increasing frequency to provide assessments of the value of these activities. This presentation reviews current initiatives and future directions for improving the quality of ROI studies and their application to real-world public health policy and administrative decisions.

No Longer The Sleeping Dog, The Fcpa Is Awake And Ready To Bite: Analysis Of The Increased Fcpa Enforcements, The Implications, And Recommendations For Reform, Rouzhna Nayeri

Rouzhna Nayeri

No abstract provided.

¿Fin A La Guerra De Las Drogas?, Fernando Carrión Mena Arq.

Fernando Carrión Mena

El prohibicionismo a las drogas -iniciado a en el siglo XIX- adquiere una forma bélica desde hace 43 años cuando los Estados Unidos lo diseñan para aplicarse fuera de sus fronteras, en el entendido que si se combate la oferta, la demanda desaparecerá. Para esta propuesta contó con las Naciones Unidas a nivel planetario y la OEA en el ámbito "hemisférico", convertidos en los instrumentos institucionales de aplicación internacional de su política. La guerra a las drogas se ejecuta en los lugares de producción, lo cual produce un hecho inédito de división social del territorio: el espacio donde se generan …

The Lawyer Rent-Seeker Myth And Public Policy, Teresa J. Schmid

Teresa J Schmid

ABSTRACT Two enduring fallacies in public policy are that lawyers are rent seekers who impair rather than stimulate the economy, and that there are too many of them. While lawyers may disagree with the first premise, they tacitly accept the second. These two fallacies have led leaders in both the political and professional arenas to adopt policies that impair access to justice. This study documents the negative effects of those policies and recommends courses of action to reverse those effects.

Harnessing The Power Of Public Health Systems For Injury Prevention And Control, Glen P. Mays

Glen Mays

Efforts to improve population health hinge on a vast yet diffuse constellation of government agencies, health care providers, and community organizations that assume responsibilities in implementing prevention programs and policies across the U.S. Realizing the full health and economic benefits of injury prevention and control initiatives requires mobilizing and managing these complex and heterogeneous public health delivery systems. This session will explore the emerging science of public health delivery systems and what it tells us about improving injury prevention and control amid policy and economic change.

Public Health Delivery Systems And Population Health, Glen Mays

Glen Mays

Despite high overall health expenditures, the U.S. continues to fall behind other high-income countries on many measures of population health. While health care delivery systems are now studied intensively for solutions to U.S. cost and quality problems, the nation's delivery systems for public health programs and policies are only now becoming the subject of rigorous empirical study. This presentation examines recent studies of public health delivery systems and important directions for future inquiry.

Exito Económico Y Volatilidad ¿Existen Los Almuerzos Gratis?, Francisco Carlos Ruiz Diaz

Francisco Carlos Ruiz Diaz

El crecimiento sostenido es factible, pero debe sustentarse en el sacrificio social (ahorro para promover la acumulación de capital físico, humano e innovaciones). No existen los milagros, ni los almuerzos gratis. Para crecer sostenidamente se debe transpirar. Paraguay viene experimentando algunos años en que el PIB crece a tasas elevadas. Esto es porque el país ha comenzado a producir, a escala intensiva, bienes con fuerte demanda mundial y precios elevados. Estos productos son de origen agropecuarios y la venta al extranjero se da en estado natural o con escaso valor agregado. Este hecho transformó la dinámica productiva del país dado …

Library And Information Services: Global Best Practices, Abraham Tabor Etebu

Abraham Tabor Etebu

This paper is a comprehensive report of my tour of libraries in Warsaw, Poland, to ascertain global best practices, between 6th and 10th May, 2013, sponsored my the Nigerian Library Association in collaboration with the Polish Librarians Association.

Complicaciones Del Apagón Analógico, Víctor Pavón-Villamayor

Víctor Pavón-Villamayor

No abstract provided.

Para Ser Número Uno, Guillermo Arosemena

Guillermo Arosemena

No abstract provided.

Explaining Prolonged Silences In Transitional Justice: The Disappeared In Cyprus And Spain, Iosif Kovras

Iosif Kovras

The article examines why some postconflict societies defer the recovery of those who forcibly disappeared as a result of political violence, even after a fully fledged democratic regime is consolidated. The prolonged silences in Cyprus and Spain contradict the experience of other countries such as Bosnia, Guatemala, and South Africa, where truth recovery for disappeared or missing persons was a central element of the transition to peace and democracy. Exhumations of mass graves containing the victims from the two periods of violence in Cyprus (1963–1974) and the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) was delayed up until the early 2000s. Cyprus and …

Spatial Analysis Of Dumpsites Volumes From Rural Territory Case Study: Neamt County, Romania, Florin C. Mihai, Andreea Lămășanu

Florin C MIHAI

Open dumps was the main option of the local communities in household waste management, this practice being banned after July 16, 2009. The paper examines the correlation between dumpsites volumes, population density and local geographical conditions in the context that in most rural administrative-territorial units of the county there were no facilities for waste collection. The geographical distribution of dumpsites volumes reflects the disparities between different areas of the county and on the other hand, it highlights the spaces exposed to pollution. Also, the comparative analysis between 2004 (pre-accession) and 2009 (post-accession) reflects a rudimentary waste management system in this …

The Art Of Getting In The Way: Five Years Of The Bndes Platform, Peter Spink, International Budget Partnership

International Budget Partnership

When a coalition of civil society organizations began to pry into the finances of Brazil’s powerful national development bank, it challenged the status quo and advanced the call for a more transparent, balanced, and democratic economic policy.

The short summary and full version of this case study are available in English. The short summary case study is available in French and Spanish.

LINK: http://internationalbudget.org/publications/the-art-of-getting-in-the-way-five-years-of-the-bndes-platform-2/

The Changing Paths Of The Child Care Policy And Welfare Regimes: A Comparison Among Sweden, Germany And United States, Chih-Lung Huang

Chih-lung Huang

With the economic globalization, the transformation of post industrialized, and the change of employment pattern, the women’s labor participation is still rising. This phenomenon not only affected the breadwinner model which were shaped by the welfare regime, but also caused the consequence of baby bust and ageing population. This article will explore the changing paths of welfare regimes which includes the social democracy-Sweden, the conservatism-Germany, and the liberal- the U.S.A. We try to clarify the effect of reform ideas for the changing paths of breadwinner model behind the welfare regimes, and the policy implications for the work and life balance.

Cyber Attack: A Dull Tool To Sharpen Foreign Policy, Emilio Iasiello

Emilio Iasiello

This paper examines how cyber attacks, if indeed conducted by nation states, have been unsuccessful in supporting states' foreign policy objectives. By analyzing three prominent case studies, I show that as a result of geopolitical tensions, cyber attacks were implemented to further nation state objectives in support of foreign policy considerations and failed to achieve their respective outcomes despite successful deployment against their intended targets. The three case studies, hypothetical scenarios because attribution has not been confirmed, include: (1) the October 2012 distributed denial of service attacks targeting the U.S. banking sector; (2) the 2012 Stuxnet attack against Iran; and …

Dynamics Of Civil Resistance In Oceania, Thomas Dick, Jason Mcleod, Luke Johnston

Thomas Dick

The Dynamics of Civil Resistance (DOCR), is a not-for-profit popular education and cultural development programme in Oceania. We work in collaboration with churches, human rights organisations, traditional leaders, women leaders, youth and student groups and community organisations to establish a network of indigenous educators who can resource nonviolent social movements and democratic transitions.

DOCR has developed out of programs that originated in 2005, in response to requests from Papuan human rights activists (Rayfield and Morello 2012). The purpose of the Project is to build their capacity of activists and artists working nonviolently for a just and sustainable peace in the …

Impacts Of Innovation Policy: Synthesis And Conclusions, Jakob Edler, Paul Cunningham, Abdullah Gök, Philip Shapira

Philip Shapira

This report synthesizes key findings and insights from the Compendium of Evidence on the Effectiveness of Innovation Policy Intervention Project. The Compendium compiles and appraises available evidence about the impacts of a range of innovation policies. The purpose of this report is twofold. First, it pulls together overall lessons regarding the effectiveness and impacts of the innovation support measures covered in the Compendium. Second, the report offers observations and insights about the state of evidence and its production on the effectiveness of policies in this domain, including a consideration of evaluation methods, approaches and gaps. This provides a basis for …

Institucionalização Do Sistema Partidário Ou Evolução Da Competição? Uma Proposta De Interpretação Econômica Da Volatilidade Eleitoral, Paulo S. Peres

Paulo S. Peres

O índice de volatilidade eleitoral tem sido usado como um indicador empírico do grau de institucionalização dos sistemas partidários. Tal tipo de interpretação acabou restringido seus possíveis significados a uma “leitura sociológica” do fenômeno, vinculada à teoria do desenvolvimento político. Assim, os seguidores desse tipo de abordagem interpretam a volatilidade eleitoral como evidência da instabilidade dos sistemas partidários, da baixa efetividade dos governos e da precariedade do próprio regime democrático. Contudo, esse tipo de interpretação é passível de contestação teórica e metodológica. Sob tal perspectiva, este artigo tem dois objetivos correlacionados; em primeiro lugar, discutir as anomalias lógicas, conceituais e …

Web 2.0 Spaces For Activism: Critiquing Its Novelty Through A Historical Lens Of Public Political Space, Payal Arora

Payal Arora

This paper draws parallels between the use of public leisure spaces in the city such as parks and squares, and the use of certain forms of digital networks. Similarities between these two sorts of social contexts are worth considering, particularly their political dimension. This effortsituates the current conversation about social media as sites of political mobilization into dialogue with the historical analysis of public parks as spaces that, in a similar fashion, were designed for leisure and consumption but was appropriated as sites of resistance. It brings together the literature on urban parks as centers of democracy and the literature …

Unrepentent Policy Failure: Universal Service Subsidies In Voice And Broadband, Thomas Hazlett, Scott J. Wallsten

Scott J. Wallsten

In the first half of 2013, the Universal Service Fund levied a nearly 16 percent tax on users of fixed, mobile, and VoIP communications, spending nearly $9 billion to extend networks. Yet, USF expenditures – about $110 billion (in 2013 dollars) since 1998, of which $64 billion went for telephone carrier subsidies – extend voice services to, at most, one-half of one percent of U.S. households. This generous estimate of about 600,000 residences implies a cost-per-home of $106,000, just counting the federal carrier subsidies. Entrenched interests make the program exceedingly difficult to change. These interests include hundreds of rural telephone …

The Relevance Of Firm-Size For The Informal Sector, Mohammad Amin

Mohammad Amin

Using newly collected on informal firms in 11 countries in Africa, we explore whether firm-size matters at all for the structure, conduct and performance of the firms. While firm-size is known to be an important attribute of the firms in the formal sector, it is not obvious what the relevance of firm-size is for the informal sector. Informal firms are small, many of them run alone by the owner, and have limited variation in size. Notwithstanding the limited variation in firm-size, our results show that firm-size is highly correlated with a number of firm characteristics such as job growth, labor …

Imports Of Intermediate Inputs And Country Size, Mohammad Amin, Asif Islam

Mohammad Amin

The present paper analyzes the relationship between country size and the use of imported intermediate inputs by firms in 76 developing countries. Recent evidence indicates that the use of imported inputs can have a large positive effect on productivity and growth thus motivating a better understanding of the determinants of imported inputs. Our results confirm that relative to large countries, firms in small countries are both likely to use more imported inputs and a larger share of imported inputs in their total inputs. Interestingly, adjusting for the mean level of imports of inputs and exports of goods in our sample, …

Religion And Perceptions Of Candidates' Ideologies In U.S. House Elections, Matthew L. Jacobsmeier

Matthew L. Jacobsmeier

Using data from the American National Election Studies, Poole-Rosenthal DW-Nominate scores, and data on the religious affiliations of members of the United States House of Representatives, I show that religion has important independent effects on the evaluation of candidates' ideologies. The results suggest that candidates affiliated with evangelical Christianity will tend to be seen as more conservative than ideologically similar candidates from mainline Protestant denominations. Jewish candidates, in contrast, will tend to be seen as more liberal than ideologically similar mainline Protestants. Additionally, the use of religion-based stereotypes varies with frequency of church attendance. These findings attest to the external …

Reforming The Judiciary By Election: Assessing The Role Of Candidate Demographics In Bolivia’S 2011 Judicial Elections, Miguel Centellas, Laura Suaznabar

Miguel Centellas

Since 2005 election of Evo Morales, Bolivia has been undergoing an unprecedented process of reforms aimed at increasing citizens’ direct access to political power. Among the reforms is the 2011 direct election of high court justices—a first among contemporary democracies. This paper analyzes the results of that unique election. Unlike partisan elections, candidates (who were pre-selected by the legislature) were not allowed to campaign and media coverage of candidates was highly restricted. Instead, the country’s electoral organ was charged with disseminating information about the candidates as part of its mission to educate voters about the judicial elections. Lower-than-average voter turnout …

Democracy, Dictatorship And The Cultural Transmission Of Political Values, Davide Ticchi, Thierry Verdier, Andrea Vindigni

Davide Ticchi

develop a theory of endogenous regimes transitions (with a focus on democratic consolidation), which emphasizes the role of political culture and of its interaction with political institutions. Political culture reflects the extent of individual commitment across citizens to defend democracy against a potential military coup, and it is an endogenous state variable of the model along with formal political institutions. We focus on two agencies of political socialization: the family and the state. Parents invest resources in order to transmit their own political values (commitment to democracy) to their children. The state invests resources in public indoctrination infrastructures. The model …

Examining The Extent Of Anticipatory Coronal Coarticulation: A Long-Term Average Spectrum Analysis, Alexei Kochetov, Christopher Neufeld

Alexei Kochetov

Phonetic studies of English liquids /r/ and /l/ have shown these consonants can exert strong coarticulatory effects on both adjacent and non-adjacent vowels. The current study investigated local and long-range effects of coronals /l/, /r/, and /d/ in Canadian English. Fourteen speakers were recorded reading the sentences 'We thought it might be a ram/lamb/dam/ham'. Formants F1-F3 and long-term average spectra (LTAS) of 5 vowels preceding the target consonants were calculated and compared to baseline values. The results revealed significant differences between the coronal consonants and the control (/h/) in up to 4 preceding syllables. Formant differences in non-adjacent syllables were …