Public Policy Agenda Research Articles

Public health policy and walking in England-analysis of the 2008 'policy window'.

BackgroundAlthough the government in England has a long-standing interest in walking promotion, this has not been accompanied by a coherent strategic plan or investment to support physical activity behaviour change. However, in 2008 the government announced its intention to invest £7 million into walking promotion. This article utilises Kingdon’s Multiple Streams framework as an organising principle through which to interrogate the reasons behind the increased emphasis on walking promotion as part of the public health policy agenda in England.MethodsThe research adopted a case study design. Data were obtained through document analysis of relevant policies and semi-structured interviews with experts in the walking sector, including both government and non-government representatives.ResultsKingdon’s Multiple Streams theory proposes that at certain points in time, ‘policy windows’ are created through the convergence of a problem, an appropriate solution, and a receptive political environment, and this policy window presents an opportunity for major policy change. The findings of this research suggest that the success of London in securing the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games was the primary trigger in the creation of a policy window for walking promotion in recent years.ConclusionsDespite previous interest in walking promotion from the health and transport sectors, it was the recent alignment with the sports agenda that led to increased political commitment. This raises concerns that the research evidence on the health benefits of physical activity and rising levels of inactivity in England, are insufficient to secure government support and investment, and that multi-sector lobbying and joined-up political action may be critical in advancing this agenda.

La construcción de una agenda de políticas públicas de género de los hombres en México: prolegómenos

<div><p>Building a public policy agenda that promotes equality and gender equity from the perspective of gender of men, involves the recognition of certain sociocultural gender problems. The aim of this paper is to show the results of the first stage of a larger project, which is an input for the creation of a public policy agenda built by stakeholders (research, services, government) in various problems experienced by the men as subjects of gender in Mexico and considered are feasible transformation through the implementation of public policies. The results of a survey of which the main issues-problems that have implications for public policies identified are presented, the agencies involved in finding solutions; the stakeholders; alliances and / or established and / or necessary to promote the establishment of the agenda and proposed public policy coalitions.</p></div>

La construcción de una agenda de políticas públicas de género de los hombres en México: prolegómenos

La construcción de una agenda de políticas públicas que promueva la igualdad y equidad entre los géneros desde la perspectiva de género de los hombres, implica el reconocimiento social de cierta problemática sociogenérica. El objetivo de esta comunicación es mostrar los resultados de la primera etapa de un proyecto más amplio, que es un insumo para la conformación de una agenda de políticas públicas construida por actores involucrados (investigación, servicios, instituciones gubernamentales) en diversos problemas vividos por los hombres como sujetos de género en México y que se considera son factibles de transformación mediante la implantación de políticas públicas.Se presentan los resultados de una encuesta en la que se identificaron los principales temas-problema que tienen implicaciones en las políticas públicas, las instancias involucradas en su solución; las y los actores involucrados; alianzas y/o coaliciones establecidas y/o necesarias para impulsar la conformación de la agenda y la propuesta de políticas públicas.

Entrepreneurship and its analysis in Colombia: A contextualized literature review.

<p>This paper presents a literature review contextualized through the different stages<br />of Colombian industrial history up to the first decade of the XXI century, when<br />an attempt is made to organize the growing interest in the topic of entrepreneurship.<br />We find a tight connection between public policy agenda setting and the definition<br />of the research agenda of the topic. We also find a dualistic approach in the<br />research of the topic, with universities and think-tanks leading the investigation on accumulative / innovative entrepreneurship, and a consultancy-bias group dedicated to the study of subsistence entrepreneurship.</p>

Political Change, State Autonomy, and Post-Neoliberalism in Ecuador, 2007–2012

Along with other progressive experiments in the region, the government of the Citizens’ Revolution has restored the state to a central position with regard to social coordination and the promotion of economic development. The open conflict created by the return of the state between 2007 and 2012 transformed power relationships, allowing civil government to expand the state’s relative autonomy and orient it toward constructing a public policy agenda associated with transcending neoliberalism. The challenge of this transition has been to modify the pattern of commodity specialization away from the primacy of primary exports. While reappropriating the surplus that comes from the income from strategic resources increases national sovereignty, it may also contribute to preserving the nation’s position in the international division of labor. The National Plan for Living Well aims at overcoming the centrality of the primary sector and of oil exports in the national economy. En convergencia con otros gobiernos progresistas de la region, el gobierno del la Revolución Ciudadana relanza el Estado al primer plano de la coordinación social y la promoción del desarrollo. El conflictivo proceso político abierto en relación a dicho retorno estatal entre 2007 y 2012 trastrocó de los factores de poder y permitió al gobierno civil ampliar la autonomía relativa del Estado y orientarlo hacia la construcción de una agenda de políticas públicas asociada con la superación del neoliberalismo. El desafio de dicha transición reside en la posibilidad de modificar el patrón de especialización productiva más allá de la centralidad de las exportaciones primarias. Aunque la estrategia estatal de reapropriación del excedente que proviene de las rentas de recursos estratégicos eleva los márgenes de soberanía nacional respecto a la determinación global, también puede contribuir a la continuidad del lugar del país en la vigente división internacional del trabajo. El Plan Nacional del Buen Vivir apunta a superar en el mediano plazo la centralidad del sector primario y de las exportaciones petroleras en la economía nacional.

La interculturalidad: ¿principio o fin de la utopía?

Interculturality, a new notion in education, is a complex web of meanings, appropriations and senses. Its origins are diverse and even contradictory, depending on the place of production of their more accurate definitions. Its uses in terms of public policy and global educational agendas are a real kaleidoscope including tensions and convergences typical of the late twentieth century multiculturalism. In the field of struggles and activism of so-called ethnic movements, this notion acquires ideological relevance to confront issues of power, exclusion and subordination. This article pretends to provide an overview about these issues, and on two specific levels. On the one hand, on the journeys of interculturality in its configuration as an object of conceptualizations and theories by experts on global and continental education. On the other hand, in the Colombian context, as a possibility to visualize the dynamics and forces that determine the focus of interculturality at a given time in history. Finally, we present some problems that we consider fundamental to overcome certain naivety in the debate over interculturality in Latin America.

MLATs and TorBrowser: Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties in Online Anonymity Technology and Domestic Surveillance

Since 2004, privacy-protecting, anonymous web browsers, like Tor Browser, have allowed users to hide their identities online. Law enforcement agencies (LEA) responded in contradictory ways to these technologies and tools. On the one hand, LEA have become extensive users to pursue criminals anonymously. On the other, LEAs seek to demonize the technology and break the underlying encryption, which was invented by the Navy in 1998. For example, slides Edward Snowden leaked revealed the NSA undertook a project, “Egotistical Giraffe,” to break Tor encryption and privacy protections. Tor usage significantly increased after Edward Snowden recommended its use as one of his “top tips” for whistleblowers and ordinary people to protect their privacy and anonymity online. Policymakers are becoming aware of Tor’s role in protecting online identity and anonymity, and seek to understand the role of this technology in legal cases. The documents released by Snowden reveal far greater levels of US and other government surveillance than previously known, including surveillance outside the US and across multiple country borders. This startlingly far-reaching surveillance includes online data and telecommunications, much of it culled from third party communication service providers (CSPs). It reveals that government attempts to apply pressure on CSPs now extends across US and other borders, as well. Some contend that much of this surveillance, often referred to by LEAs as “Lawful Intercept (LI), is actually “Un-”Lawful.Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties, or MLATs, are little-noticed legal instruments that enable legal pressure on CSPs worldwide, and so offer a significant vector to attempt to “break” Tor or its underlying encryption. Legal pressure on CSPs like Facebook and Google by foreign governments to locate surveillance-enabled servers in their countries, has led CSPs to seek to incorporate into MLATs the automation of remote global surveillance. Their industry groups, like the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), seek to incorporate technical standards for automated surveillance LI into MLATs, through remote “dynamic triggering.” A multi-stakeholder group, the Global Network Initiative, announced on January 28, 2015 its public policy agenda, “Data Beyond Borders: Mutual Legal Assistance in the Internet Era,” which sets forth a public policy agenda to further shape MLAT policy. Little-noticed MLATs have eroded fundamental civil liberties both abroad and in the US. Ignored largely due to a perception that MLATs primarily affect “foreign” individuals, the MLAT “devil’s bargain” is rebounding increasingly against US citizens. In this paper, we review the quiet but dramatic expansion, both in number and in scope, of MLATs in recent years. We review recent decisions, including the September 30, 2014 and 2013 Second Circuit rulings in US v. Getto, and the September 2013 First Circuit rulings in Boston College Trustees. In these cases, the executive branch is playing out a quiet struggle to maintain MLAT supremacy over the small, but increasing pushback of the judicial branch. These cases appear to have split approaches in the different circuits, and have all the earmarks of being headed to a higher court in the near future. We review how the benefits MLATs conferred in the 1970s to combat money laundering and narcotics have impacted fundamental civil liberties, to lay the groundwork for understanding their impact on surveillance and global communications networks, and internet privacy and anonymity. Representatives of Global Intelligence Agencies (“GIAs”) have asserted since Snowden’s revelations that their activities are lawful. So far, the legal basis is unclear. We demonstrate the ways little-observed but versatile MLATs contribute to a legal basis for global surveillance. We review the international silver platter doctrine and compare it with MLAT provisions, finding a close fit, which offers further clues as to a “legal” basis for mass global surveillance. In this Article, we offer a number of new contributions, including: demonstrating a new category of attack against Tor, an attack through law; demonstrating a new (MLAT) attack against Tor in this new category, completing the first global MLAT map, using the first comprehensive MLAT database. We believe we are the first to link MLATs to increased surveillance by GIAs, the first to quantify measures of the MLAT “hostility factor,” and the first to offer and analysis of MLATs’ effect on technology, i.e. anonymous network communications.

Interdependence between government levels in Brazilian health policy: the implementation of Emergency Care Units in the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

This article addresses policymaking related to Emergency Care Units (ECU) in the State of Rio de Janeiro between 2007 and 2013, duly identifying the relationships between the various levels of government in this process. It prioritized the context of policy formulation, the factors that motivated the inclusion and maintenance of ECUs on the state agenda and the process of how the policy was implemented in the state. The study was based on the literature that defines the agenda and implementation of public policies and on contributions from historic institutionalism. The research involved analysis of documents, secondary data, and 51 interviews with people in positions of authority in state and municipal governments. The priority given to ECUs in the government agenda was the result of a confluence of historical, structural, political and institutional factors, as well as the current context. The results of this study indicate the existence of interdependence between levels of government, however federal coordination problems have prejudiced the integration of the various components of emergency health care in the state.

LIETUVOS DEŠIMTMETIS EUROPOS SĄJUNGOJE: DIDELI LŪKESČIAI, MAŽI POKYČIAI?

The subject of this article is changes in Lithuania during the EU membershipperiod and the perception of them in the eyes of the elite and Lithuanian society. Therefore, in the first section the goal is to overview the main general changes in economics, society, and governance in 2004–2014 using various indicators and indexes. Although they reveal evident progress in economic convergence with the EU countries, also a higher level of tertiary education attainment, and longer healthy life years, they also show stagnation in long-term structural changes. Further, public policy development analysis states that despite the fact that after accession in 2004 there were opportunities to nationalize public policy agenda, it was still dominated by the EU related questions. Moreover, in comparison to pre-accession period, changes in public policy in Lithuania later were far lower. In the second section of the article the goal is to compare attitudes towards changes between Lithuanian elite members and Lithuanian society. Analysed data of the Lithuanian political elite survey showed that Lithuanian elite sees the biggest positive change during the period of 2004–2014 in public management and in implementing equal application of law principle. However, the article argues that Lithuanian society tends to evaluate the same changes rather differently and its attitudes are more pessimistic. Therefore, based on process tracing methodology, the authors explain how unfulfilled high economic expectations contributed to distrust of political institutions, high perception of corruption, low turnout, and migration. In addition, it is also argued that financial support of the EU stimulated state capture initiatives and corruption in Lithuania which also contributed to the pessimistic evaluations of changes by society.

Generalizing Deferred Acceptance Auctions to Allow Multiple Relinquishment Options

Introduction and the Statement of the Problem. Reallocation of spectrum from current licensees TV broadcasters to mobile uses to promote e cient use of spectrum has become a public policy agenda. The Congress authorized the FCC to conduct incentive auctions for reallocations of spectrum in the UHF band. In this paper, we focus on the design of reverse auctions where TV stations submit bids to voluntarily relinquish spectrum rights to FCC in exchange for payments. The state of the art of the design of reverse auctions is the framework given in Paul Milgrom, Lawrence Ausubel, Jon Levin, and Ilya Segal (2012) and deferred acceptance auctions proposed by Paul Milgrom and Ilya Segal (2014). In deferred acceptance auctions, each seller submits a single o er. At each round, an o er is evaluated with its scoring function. The buyer deletes the o er with the highest score. Then the set of frozen sellers (i.e., the set of sellers who will be assigned back to the band because the scores are too high) will be updated and o ers are re-evaluated. Auctions end when only o ers with the zero score remain. The payment rule is determined by the threshold price that is the maximum amount that the seller can o er to sell. When bidders are single-minded (that is, a bidder can make only one bid), then, the deferred acceptance auctions are strategy-proof, can be implemented in descending clock auctions, nearlyoptimal, group strategy-proofness, and equivalent to payas-bid auctions. But the Spectrum Act 6403(a)(2) stipulates that bidders shall have multiple relinquishment options such as going o the air, moving to the VHF band, and channel sharing. When the seller can make only one o er, the seller has to choose which auction to bid. Then the payment depends on the choice of auctions by other bidders. Therefore, the seller’s choice of auctions can depend on other sellers’ choices. Thus sincere bidding may not be an equilibrium.

Public Policy Agenda Adds Scope of Practice, Demonstration of Value

Public Policy Agenda Adds Scope of Practice, Demonstration of Value

Fixing International Finance: Between International Rule-Making and Domestic Cosmetic Compliance

International Harmonization of Financial Regulation? The Politics of Global Diffusion of the Basel Capital Accord. By Hyoung-Kyu Chey. London, UK: Routledge, 2014. 232 pp., $160 hardcover (ISBN-13: 978-0-415-81242-9). The global financial crisis of 2008–2010 revealed a number of failures and gaps in the existing international financial regulatory architecture and placed the issue of financial reforms at the center of the international public policy agenda. The crisis also refocused the attention of academia, with a number of scholarly works documenting and analyzing the plethora of “international standards” that have been introduced since the beginning of the crisis to fix these international regulatory failures. International Harmonization of Financial Regulation? by Hyoung-Kyu Chey is not one of these. On the contrary, this volume looks back at an international agreement that was negotiated long before the crisis, the Basel Accord of 1988. This Accord represents a milestone in the history of international efforts to strengthen financial stability in an age of globalization by harmonizing financial regulatory policies, but this is hardly a new area of inquiry. Nevertheless, this volume is likely to prove highly relevant for investigations of more contemporary attempts to fix the international financial architecture and for understanding how these attempts may fail in achieving their goals. The main contribution of this volume derives from two ways it differs from previous analyses of the Basel Accord: First, rather than focusing on understanding the design of international standards, the …

Putting pediatric palliative care in prime time.

68 Background: For patients and families at any age and stage, treating the symptoms and stress of cancer is as important as treating the disease. Palliative care has hit its stride as one of the nation’s fastest growing health care trends, with a robust evidence base, new quality standards, increasing awareness and understanding, and a related public policy agenda. This momentum positions pediatric palliative care as an essential aspect of advancing childhood cancer survivorship with high quality of life – particularly important for children given the documented symptoms, late effects and disabling conditions they experience into adulthood and across their lifetime. This oral presentation will describe pediatric palliative care’s prominent role in addressing the challenges of childhood cancer and survivorship across the continuum, providing practical clinical case study context and highlights of consumer research findings and an advocacy agenda helping address palliative care’s “identity problem” that affects access to quality care. Methods: This presentation provides practical information for integrating palliative care to benefit children and families, including lessons learned through implementation of early pediatric palliative care alongside disease-directed treatment under the Concurrent Care for Children Requirement and other initiatives. It will also identify available resources for communicating about palliative care based on consumer research from the American Cancer Society and Center to Advance Palliative Care. Results: This presentation will inform and inspire person-centered and family-focused activities to advance early integration of palliative care in research and clinical practice. It will also highlight opportunities for active involvement in the QOL national movement to improve quality cancer care. Conclusions: Audience will understand benefits of pediatric palliative care and strategies supporting its delivery through the pediatric concurrent care experience in oncology. They will also gain improved proficiency in communicating about palliative care, and will be well-positioned to engage in the QOL legislative campaign to bring palliative care everywhere as an essential element of quality care.

When local initiatives meet national public policy agenda: The dynamics of innovation in integrated care

Introduction: The increasing number of people in chronic conditions requires not only a growing number of diverse care and support services, but also a better articulation between the different providers. To reduce the fragmentation of the health care system, policy makers, professionals, and family and user-led organizations, are engaged in a permanent process of innovation and cooperation. Because the improvement of integrated care relies entirely on that collective dynamics, the latter has to be better understood. Aims: Approach integrated care schemes through their life cycle, offer an interactive model explaining the dynamics of innovation, and identify the success factors that facilitate integration work in France. Results: Comparing seven different integrated care schemes created in France over the past two decades, both for vulnerable elderly and for adults with disabilities, shows that their development follows a similar pattern – what we call the life cycle of integrated care schemes – made of three to four phases: emergence, building up, routine, and eventually disappearance. All along the process, local initiatives, usually conducted by pioneer physicians or family and user-led organizations, face national public policy agenda. Interactions occur through four key processes initiated by national-level policy makers: experimentation, assessment, conceptualization, and generalization. More specifically, these processes are meta-processes because they are fuelling schemes’ life cycles which are themselves organizational processes. Depending on the scheme you consider, the four meta-processes occured neither in the same order nor at the same pace. Hence the comparison helps us understand the factors that may restrict or facilitate the effective implementation of integration work. Finally, the in-depth study we realized on an emergent scheme devoted to the management of people with rare diseases’ care pathways, reveals the reciprocal learning and prescription process between local political entrepreneurs and policy makers working at multiple levels. Conclusions: Innovation is neither the work of a few pioneers nor the one of national policy makers, but a collective and interactive dynamics. The continuity of public funding is crucial in the process, as well as the existence of a resource project team at the national level in order to ensure equal treatment throughout the country.

Prevalence and psychiatric correlates of neighbourhood satisfaction and its impact on adolescent behaviours: UK understanding society cohort, 2011–2012

BackgroundStudies looking into neighbourhood satisfaction including prevalence, risk correlates, and impacts are very scarce. Therefore, it was aimed to provide recent evidence on prevalence and psychiatric correlates of neighbourhood satisfaction and its impact on individual behaviours and life aspects in adolescents in a national and population-based setting. MethodData were retrieved and analysed in the UK Longitudinal Household Survey in 2011–2012. Information on demographics, lifestyle factors, urbanisation level, and behavioural and emotional development was obtained by household interview. Analyses included descriptive statistics, chi-square test and usual and multi-level logistic regression modelling. ResultsOf 491 (11.2%) out of 4427 adolescents were dissatisfied with their neighbourhoods and 6.8% (n=297) were classified as having abnormal psychiatric state. Smoking status (both current and past) and alcohol status (both current and past) were associated with neighbourhood dissatisfaction but not sex, urbanisation level or country of residence. Compared to people who were classified as normal, others with borderline or abnormal mental state tended to express dissatisfaction toward their current neighbourhoods. In addition, these people reported more “troublesome” individual behaviours for about 18 types out of 24 types in total and had poor perception toward life in many aspects including family, friends, school, and even personal appearance. ConclusionOne in five adolescents were dissatisfied with their current neighbourhoods leading to worrying individual behaviours and negative impacts on life. Neighbourhood renewal strategy or place-making to facilitate self-efficacy could be considered as priority to be integrated into future public health programs and/or put onto public health policy agenda.

WHO launches the first world suicide report

In WHO's Mental Health Action Plan 2013–20, WHO member states have committed themselves to work towards the global target of reducing the rate of suicide in countries by 10% by 2020. After the World Health Assembly resolution in May 2013, and when confronted with the devastation and far-reaching effects suicide has on families, friends, and communities even long after people dear to them have died, WHO is launching its first World Suicide Report. The objective of this report is to prioritise suicide prevention in the global public-health and public-policy agendas and to raise awareness of suicide as a public-health issue... Language: en

Policing and Crime in Contemporary London

In support of the Policing European Metropolises Project and as a starting point for investigating such a complex and challenging subject as policing the global city of London, the article provides an exposition of the current agenda for policing and crime as advanced by the London Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC), which assumed responsibility for police governance in January 2012. To justify this focus, the article draws upon distinctions made in urban regime theory about governing arrangements that seek to maintain, develop, reform or transform public policy agendas in the governance of cities. It uses these to question prospects for the MOPAC Policing and Crime Plan for 2013-16 and to provoke questions for further research into the lessons that can be drawn from this case for comparisons of policing in other European metropolises. In this regard, it is argued that the concept of the ‘metropolis’ implies an understanding of contemporary urban phenomena, such as crime and policing, as social products that have an integral relationship to a ‘world urban system’ of political, economic and cultural relations.

Teleworking as a Mobility Strategy for Mexico City

Urban spatial mobility and its environmental impact have been attracting attention in academic circles, but have not yet fully permeated the urban public policy agenda. Proposals to reduce commuting (journeys to work) recommended in the relevant literature include controlling land use to cut the distance between home and the workplace, inducing modal shift, promoting concentration of service activities, time distributing work schedules, and teleworking (TW). The purpose of this article is to report some findings regarding the implementation of TW based on a survey of corporate employees that enter this work modality in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area. We provide insights as to the potential impact the adoption of TW might have on the city's commuting pattern, use of energy, and environmental pollution.

The strategic importance of information policy for the contemporary neoliberal state: The case of Open Government Data in the United Kingdom

The article analyses the role of Open Government Data policy as part of the broader public policy agenda of the UK government. A thematic analysis of interview, observational and policy documentation is presented which suggests that since 2010 the Open Government Data agenda has been used strategically by the UK's centre-right coalition government to progress a range of controversial policies, which are aimed at the continuation of the neoliberal form of state through its current crisis. Specifically, the relationship between Open Government Data policy and the neoliberal objectives of the marketisation of public services and privatisation of public assets, the leveraging of financial markets and the pharmaceutical industry, and the embedding of OGD into a broader agenda aimed at rebuilding trust in political elites are analysed. These findings are examined in relation to Braman's (2006, 2011) arguments regarding the strategic implementation of information policy by Governments in the exercising of state power, and the development of the ‘informational state’.

Selected Abstracts From the 2013 International Neuroethics Society Annual Meeting

Selected Abstracts From the 2013 International Neuroethics Society Annual Meeting