Shift In Agenda Research Articles

Fostering reflective trust between mothers and community health nurses to improve the effectiveness of health and nutrition efforts: An ethnographic study in Ghana, West Africa

As the global health agenda shifts from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the need for effective preventive health efforts has gained prominence, particularly in low-income regions with poor health and nutrition outcomes. To address needs in communities with limited access to health services and personnel, it is important to develop strategies that can improve the effectiveness of nurses as they interact with the populations they serve. We contribute to informing such strategies by explaining how mothers' “reflective trust” in community health nurses develops as a key influencer in their health-related decision-making and behavior. Between December 2012 and June 2013, our ethnographic study gathered data in three adjacent rural and semi-rural communities in Ghana's Eastern Region, using interviews with 39 nursing mothers, three focus groups – with mothers, health-workers, and community leaders – as well as 941 h of participant observation. We focused on interactions between mothers and nurses, highlighting tensions between communities' traditions and messages that nurses bring, which are often based on modern science. We also investigated how mothers come to exhibit reflective trust in the nurses to make sense of traditional and scientific knowledge on infant feeding, and integrate them into their own feeding decisions. Our findings have global implications for effectively sustaining and scaling health and nutrition efforts through community approaches.

Moving forward with early childhood care and education (ECCE) post-2015 in the Asia Pacific Region: an analysis of global and national policy goals

This paper presents a thematic analysis of documents produced during a recent ‘Regional Policy Forum on Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE)’, attended by over 200 participants including representatives from key international donor organisations and high-level officials from over 30 countries across the Asia Pacific region. The paper begins by providing a brief overview of international developments in ECCE over the past two decades, highlighting a growing argument that points to the need for a shift in policy and programming agendas away from target setting at international levels, towards the promotion and support of localized, contextually grounded approaches to supporting policies and programmes in ECCE. In an attempt to find ways of establishing empirical support for this argument, the paper explores the extent to which key messages delivered by international donor organizations and representatives at the Policy Forum can be seen to reflect the current activities and concerns of countries within the region (as expressed through individual country reports presented during the forum). Based on results of this analysis, the paper concludes with recommendations for balancing the ‘local’ and ‘international’ influence on policy making and agenda setting as countries in the Asia Pacific region move forward with provision of formalized ECCE post-2015.

The Nile and Recent Changes in Its Basin Environment: Evidences from Literature

The Nile is one of the longest rivers on the planet and an important freshwater source for the arid regions of Africa. It is also a river that is extensively affected by anthropogenic impact. This paper aims to provide an account of the social drivers that combine to cause extensive changes in the Nilotic environments. This paper is based on extensive review of literature backed up by field research. The main focus is on the lower Nile, where the effects of anthropogenic disturbances are most prominent. We argue that the Nile Basin is characterized by interrelated and compound problems of resource management, and managing this river system effectively requires shifting the focus from water related problems to a basin wide management agenda. We contend that knowledge of environmental history is important for this agenda shift, and the idea of benefit sharing can alleviate the growing stress on this extremely sensitive arid river basin.

Congenital Malformations and Consequential Epidemiology.

A call for a shift in the discipline of epidemiology, away from those aimed at identifying risk factors and toward those aimed at more directly improving health - so called consequential epidemiology. This call for epidemiologists to engage in solving the biggest public health problems has been heralded for decades by Cates and more recently by Galea [Am J Epidemiol 2013; 178; 1185-94]. In consideration of the consequential epidemiology perspective, the impacts of epidemiologic research of birth defects over the recent decades are evaluated and directions for the field are proposed. While many causal factors have been identified, the causes of the majority of birth defects remain unknown. Folic acid intake notwithstanding, primary prevention of birth defects is elusive. Meanwhile, research that identifies what improves the lives of individuals born with a birth defect and how to ensure those factors are available to all affected would have great impact. In summary, a consequentialist approach to birth defects epidemiology requires a shift in research agendas and teams, but the opportunities are wide open.

The changing role of NGOs in Mexican small-scale fisheries: From environmental conservation to multi-scale governance

Multi-scale governance has been widely recommended for effective marine resource management. This approach suggests collective decision-making, the devolution of some rights and responsibilities to various entities, co-production of knowledge, coupling governance and ecological scales, among other elements. Here, the elements of multi-scale governance of Mexican small-scale fisheries (SSF) and the contribution of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to this approach are described. Three management processes were selected for the analysis: (1) the development of the Fisheries Management Plan (FMP) for the swimming crab fishery; (2) the establishment of fishing refugia in the Punta San Cosme to Punta Coyote Corridor; and (3) the implementation of catch shares in the Gulf corvina fishery. The results suggest that NGOs are contributing to most of the key attributes for multi-scale fisheries governance. Given the NGOs׳ agenda shift in the Gulf of California region, from advocacy for environmental conservation to participation in sustainable management, there has been a wider promotion and acceptance of NGOs within governance related processes in fisheries management. In order to clarify alignments with other stakeholder agendas, as well as to continue building trust, NGOs need to make their governance agenda explicit. This work provides insights on how NGOs can contribute to multi-scale governance and a framework for the evaluation of management processes and the contribution of different stakeholders to multi-scale governance, which can be applied to any management process.

Statistics for Community Governance: The Yawuru Indigenous Population Survey, Western Australia

This article presents a case study of an exercise in Aboriginal community governance in Australia. It sets out the background events that led the Yawuru Native Title Holders Aboriginal Corporation in the town of Broome on Australia’s northwest coast to secure information for its own needs as an act of self-determination and essential governance, and it presents some of the key findings from that exercise. As the Indigenous rights agenda shifts from the pursuit of restitution to the management and implementation of benefits, those with proprietary rights are finding it increasingly necessary to build internal capacity for post-native title governance and community planning, including in the area of information retrieval and application. As an incorporated land-holding group, the Yawuru people of Broome are amongst the first in Australia to move in this area of information gathering, certainly in terms of the degree of local control, participation, and conceptual thinking around the logistics and rationale for such an exercise. An innovative addition has been the incorporation of survey output data into a Geographic Information System to provide for spatial analysis and a decision support mechanism for local community planning. In launching and administering the "Knowing our Community" household survey in Broome, the Yawuru have set a precedent in the acquisition and application of demographic information for internal planning and community development in the post-native title determination era.

Political regulations and social perception of natural risks: “risk society”, the Czech experience and the European context

Recently, the political and social notion of natural risks and disasters has gained increasing attention, partly as a result of high-magnitude disaster events in last decades. In this regard, the concept of social vulnerability has been incorporated into international legal frameworks and strategies of disaster risk reduction, emphasizing that the effective ways to reduce natural risks are inherently related to social action at different institutional levels. The shift in research agenda towards vulnerability assessment and social notion of natural risks seems to be less intensive in Czechia, however, which is due to epistemological traditions in geosciences and regional studies in the country. Therefore, the background aim of the study is to raise a discussion on emerging research themes for geoscientists and regionalists in the country-wide perspective through the two specific aims. First, we evaluated the success of Czech political representatives in implementing the international legal frameworks and strategies into the national and regional policies. Our results of analysis of strategic documents and legal frameworks suggest that although the issue of natural risks is well incorporated into the strategic documents and legal frameworks in Czechia, these documents do not sufficiently reflect the international agreement on the necessity of a conceptual shift towards a social vulnerability concept within disaster risk reduction. Second, we analysed social perception of natural risks in a case study of the city of Usti nad Labem in northern Czechia. On one hand, the analysis has revealed that the issue of natural risks, represents an important short-term decisive factor for local community. On the other hand, the long-term perception of natural risks, as analysed using the econometric data about the impacts of natural hazards on real estate property, has shown that the social perception of risk, during the periods between the individual disaster events and after these events is relatively weak. This may represent a significant constraint for the implementation of community-based strategies of disaster risk reduction.

Sword, Shield and Buoys: A History of the NATO Sub-Committee on Oceanographic Research, 1959-19731

In the late 1950s the North-Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) made a major effort to fund collaborative research between its member states. One of the first initiatives following the establishment of the alliance's Science Committee was the creation of a sub-group devoted to marine science: the Sub-committee on Oceanographic Research.This paper explores the history of this organization, charts its trajectory over the 13 years of its existence, and considers its activities in light of NATO's naval defence strategies. In particular it shows how the alliance's naval commands played a key role in the sub-committee's creation due to the importance of oceanographic research in the tracking of enemy submarines. The essay also scrutinizes the reasons behind the committee's dissolution, with a special focus on the changing landscape of scientific collaboration at NATO. The committee's fall maps onto a more profound shift in the alliance's research agenda, including the re-organization of defence research and the rise of environmentalism.

A framework for the systematic analysis of evasion in parliamentary discourse

Evasion (equivocation) has been identified as a matter of concern in political interviews, but no systematic study has been undertaken in the context of parliamentary discourse, notably Question Time, anywhere in the world. This study applies and adapts various approaches on how politicians ‘resist’ answering questions, all of which are based on political news interviews, to the study of evasion in parliamentary discourse. A comprehensive, unified framework for the analysis of evasion is described, a decision flow-chart for the framework is provided, and an illustrative example of the applied framework is given based on Australia's Question Time. It involved the classification of responses as ‘answers’, ‘intermediate responses’, and ‘evasions’ based on specific criteria. Responses which were considered evasions were further analysed to determine the levels of evasion, whether they were covert or overt in nature and the types of ‘agenda shifts’ that occurred, if any. The corpus investigated consists of Australia's House of Representatives’ Question Time transcripts, for the months of February and March 2003, on the specific issue of Iraq. The study provides empirical evidence that evasion does occur during parliamentary Question Time.

Paradox, presumption and pitfalls in conservation biology: The importance of habitat change for amphibians and reptiles

The recent shift in research attention by amphibian biologists towards the causes of “enigmatic” population declines appears paradoxical given the almost unanimous recognition that habitat change is the primary cause of population declines worldwide. Justification for this shift is given by the growing concern associated with more novel stressors, as well as a general presumption that we have a good understanding of the ecological mechanisms that underlie the effects of habitat change. We tested the validity of this presumption by conducting a global scale review of the state of research regarding the consequences of structural habitat change (fragmentation, logging, fire, native regeneration and plantations) for amphibians and reptiles. We reveal a number of serious deficiencies, namely that existing research efforts are characterised by distinct geographic and study biases (e.g. most studies are confined to North America and focus on amphibians), a lack of clear consensus regarding the consequences of many forms of habitat change with many studies reporting seemingly contradictory results, and a number of common limitations in sampling design. The recent shift in research agenda towards the study of more novel stressors, and away from a focus on structural habitat change, cannot therefore be easily explained by differences in our understanding of the threats currently facing amphibians and reptiles. If research priorities are to be dictated by differences in scientific uncertainty then our results suggest that the study of habitat change is deserving of considerably more attention.

The Influence of Personal Influence on the Study of Audiences

This article looks back at the publication of Personal Influence (Katz and Lazarsfeld 1955) to bring into focus the multistranded history of discussion and debate over the mass media audience during the twentieth century. In contrast with the heroic narrative, constructed retrospectively, that prioritizes cultural studies' approaches to audiences, the author suggests that this rich and interdisciplinary history offers many fruitful ways forward as the agenda shifts from mass media to new media audiences. Although audience research has long been characterized by struggles between critical and administrative schools of communication, and between opposed perspectives on the relation of the individual to society, Katz and Lazarsfeld's work, and subsequent work by Katz and his collaborators, suggests possibilities for convergence, or at least productive dialogue, across hitherto polarized perspectives as researchers collectively seek to understand how, in their everyday lives, people can, and could, engage with media to further democratic participation in the public sphere.

Punctuations and agendas: A new look at local government budget expenditures

AbstractPunctuated equilibrium theory (PET) is an agenda‐based theory that offers a theoretical foundation for large budget shifts. PET emphasizes that the static, incremental nature of agendas is occasionally interrupted by punctuations. These punctuations indicate shifts in priority among the agenda items, and with those agenda shifts come trade‐offs. This article expands the discussion of punctuated budgets to the level of local government by determining that local government expenditures have the characteristics espoused by the punctuated equilibrium theory. The article also determines the frequency of punctuations and the probability for future punctuations. The findings show that some budget functions and policy types are more prone to punctuations and, therefore, have a less stable agenda. The practical significance of extending PET to local government budgeting is the implication on planning, forecasting, and the agenda‐setting process. © 2003 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

Print media framing of the environmental movement in a Canadian forestry debate.

In a recent paper, it was suggested that one of the reasons behind the decline in public regard toward British Columbia's environmental movement was an increasingly negative portrayal of them by the print media. To investigate this suggestion, we undertook a content analysis of print media reporting of forestry and environmental activities in the province's most widely read newspaper, the Vancouver Sun, during 1993 and 1997. We hypothesized that if the print media did contribute to the decline in public regard toward the environmental movement, we would find increasingly negative coverage of the environmental movement over the periods studied. We also hypothesized that this would be accompanied by a decrease in the frequency of articles dealing with issues consistent with the agenda of the environmental movement. We were not able to provide support for our initial hypothesis, nor did we observe a decrease in coverage emphasizing the environmental issues. We did, however, observe an increase in coverage of articles emphasizing typically proindustry issues with many more articles written with a proforestry slant in 1997 than articles written in 1993. This suggests that there had been an agenda shift from environmentally oriented concerns in British Columbia to those associated with the forest industry. As an explanation for the agenda shift, we point to changes in the management and reporting philosophy at the Vancouver Sun, the emergence of an organized, proindustry counterframing strategy by the BC Forest Alliance, and the implementation of several government policies aimed at regulating the activities of the forest industry.

A Shift in Agenda: from Good Government to Improved Governance

A Shift in Agenda: from Good Government to Improved Governance

Substance Abuse Counselors with and without a Personal History of Chemical Dependency

The author reviews existing research on differences between substance abuse counselors that do and do not have a personal history of chemical addiction. Following extensive database searches, 16 studies were found that addressed the issue of differences based on counselor recovery status. Conclusions are made based on the literature review and the author calls for a shift in research agendas to begin exploring differences in the counseling process of recovering and non-recovering substance abuse counselors.

Changing Issue Agendas of Women Clergy

Using data from separate studies conducted in 1988–89 and 1998, we explore changes in the issue agendas of women clergy. Rosenstone and Hansen (1993) argue persuasively that mobilization often occurs due to a commitment to a particular political issue. Our data allow us to test three separate hypotheses about the evolution of women clergy's issue agendas over the course of a decade that saw an unprecedented number of women enter the ministry. Shifts in the issue agendas of women clergy suggest a model of issue agenda evolution including four possible explanations for change: public agenda shifts, changes resulting from the growing number of women clergy, or ideological stability.

Racial Attraction: Tracing the Historiographical Alliances between South Africa and the United States

Many of South Africa's leading antiapartheid social historians met at University of Witwatersrand History Workshop in July 1994 to reflect on democracy: popular precedents, practice, and culture in wake of first nonracial general election in South Africa. The event marked need of historians to participateeven if unspectacularly-in reinvention of a nation and to stake a claim in democratic moment. It also reflected professional soul-searching that has accompanied political transformation, focusing on nature of historical enterprise in academy and its relevance to whole of South African society. The gathering inJuly underlined eventual failure of the unique attempt by a minority to construct and impose a version of past fashioned according to dictates of Afrikaner nationalism. It also signified whatJeffrey Brian Peires, a history professor until his recent election to South African Parliament as an African National Congress (ANC) member, has called break-up of radical consensus that created the charmed circle of mutual admiration among antiapartheid intellectuals of 1980s. The breakup coincided with a shift in research agenda of socially relevant knowledge, from questions of resistance to questions of reconstruction.' Looking at responses to JAH questionnaire that was launched at eighty-sixth annual meeting of Organization of American Historians at Anaheim, California, in April 1993, I was immediately struck by similarly fractured state of American history. The search for relevance seems to be an overriding demand in both historical domains, each of which is apparently awestruck by pros-