Broad Participation Research Articles

Conflict analysis in peacebuilding: A review

ABSTRACT Studies have examined the dimensions and components of conflict analysis. However, little or no review attention has been paid to understanding the conceptual perspectives, theoretical underpinnings and methodological issues. Hence, this paper aimed at filling the gaps and answered the basic questions: Is conflict analysis a potential tool for peacebuilding? In what ways does conflict analysis influence the practice of peacebuilding? How can conflict analysis cover the limitations of peacebuilding? Using secondary data sources, this paper underscored the perspectives and theoretical discourse which underpin the context and structural dynamics of conflict analysis. It also discussed methodological issues by exposing its different levels of practical benefit. Evident examples of conflict analysis were reviewed with notable instances in Africa. This paper, therefore, found out that conflict analysis has great potential for facilitating positive value and social coherence for peacebuilding practices. On the one hand, the outcome of conflict analysis has a direct response to the implementation of peacebuilding strategies. On the other hand, conflict analysis exposes complementary problems resulting in the limitations of peacebuilding. Also, this paper contributed to knowledge by remedying the limitations of peacebuilding. It concluded that a broad participation network would guarantee insightful conflict analysis towards the enhancement of peacebuilding.

Local communities' knowledge and perception of FLEGT -VPA - insights from Ghana

As part of actions to regulate illegal logging and timber trade, with the long-term goal of improving forest governance, FLEGT-VPA has been proposed. This study assessed the local communities' knowledge and perception of FLEGT-VPA activities in Ghana. The study was conducted within three communities in the Goaso Forest District in the Ahafo Region of Ghana. A total of one hundred and five (N=105) respondents were involved by administering a structured questionnaire to obtain field data. The study results showed that most respondents were knowledgeable about FLEGT-VPA activities, of which 97% knew that forest communities' responsibility is to report any illegal forest activities to forestry authorities. Only 15% of the respondents know illicit logs could be seized or rejected on the European market. It was also ascertained that community-led forest monitoring was perceived to have the potential to improve community participation and reduce illegal forest activities. However, respondents noted that sustained implementation of the Community-led Forest monitoring could be constrained by lack of funds and non-enforcement of sanctions on forest offenders. The majority of the respondents (86%) indicated their willingness to participate in FLEGT-VPA activities through forest protection, enforcement of laws, and assistance in developing management plans. However, respondents mentioned factors such as elite capture, lack of transparency, and lack of trust between communities and forest managers that might undermine local people's willingness to support forest management. The study concludes that regardless of the perception and understanding of FLEGT-VPA activities, especially the community-led forest monitoring, the local governance structure remains vital to people's active and broad participation in forest management activities.

Smart governance strategies and their relationships with SDGs in three Latin American cities

ResumoObjetivoO objetivo deste manuscrito é identificar e analisar as decisões estratégicas, especialmente aquelas focadas na governança inteligente, que foram implementadas nas cidades de Buenos Aires (Argentina), Medellín (Colômbia) e Cidade do México (México), e como elas impactaram os Objetivos de Desenvolvimento Sustentável (ODS).Projeto/metodologia/abordagemUtilizando uma abordagem qualitativa e um escopo descritivo, este manuscrito segue uma metodologia de estudo de casos múltiplos que se baseou principalmente na análise de documentos e registros arquivísticos usando correspondência de padrões e síntese de casos cruzados como técnicas analíticas.ResultadosAs cidades observadas compartilham três características principais ao implementar estratégias de governança inteligente vinculadas ao ODS16: soluções baseadas na tecnologia para resolver problemas sociais recentes e duradouros; participação cidadã ampla, diversificada e ativa; e uma abordagem sociotécnica para governança inteligente e ODS16.Limitações/implicações da pesquisaEste artigo aponta as ligações entre governança inteligente e ODS no contexto das cidades inteligentes dos mercados emergentes. Os resultados deste estudo indicam a necessidade de promover abordagens sociotécnicas – mais do que perspectivas somente técnicas – para o alcance dos ODS16. Assim, a participação cidadã, o governo aberto e as iniciativas de cocriação são fundamentais para a promoção de instituições mais inclusivas e sólidas.Originalidade/valorA contribuição mais importante deste estudo é identificar as iniciativas estratégicas desenvolvidas por três cidades inteligentes líderes na América Latina do ponto de vista da governança inteligente e sua relação com os ODS, o que é útil porque contribui para ampliar nosso entendimento de governança inteligente a partir de experiências práticas.

Decentralization and Pro-poor Participation in Ghana: Unmasking the Barriers to Inclusive Grassroots Development

Donors have strongly advocated decentralization on the grounds that it broadens the participation of citizens in development processes, thereby increasing government responsiveness to their needs. Although there have been studies seeking to establish the veracity of this claim, they remain weak on two fronts. One, while wealth differentials affect citizen participation, these studies approach citizens as a homogenous group. Two, participation is mostly viewed narrowly—participation in elections. Drawing on empirical data from Ghana’s decentralization reform, this paper addresses these gaps by questioning how pro-poor citizen participation in decentralized development planning has been. I argue that although Ghana’s decentralization was propagated on championing pro-poor grassroots participation in governance and development, in reality, participation is elitist and has failed to reflect the voices of the poor. My findings demonstrate that the participation structures and processes used in local development planning are unfavourable to the poor in many respects. Elite and representative participation is promoted to the detriment of broad citizen participation. This exclusion is resulting in surging apathy of citizens towards the district assemblies—institutions hitherto trusted as their development champions. This paper concludes that the poor will remain voiceless despite decentralization unless the structural barriers to their participation are tackled in decentralization design and praxis.

Students’ ideas of contributing to sustainable development: a study of how ideas emerge, travel and expand through classroom microblogging and discussions

This qualitative study investigates how young students expressed, explored and expanded their ideas of how they could contribute to sustainable development. We analyse a trajectory in a Norwegian 8th grade class, focusing on the students’ emerging understanding through microblogging and talk in individual, group and whole class activities. The material analysed are logs from a microblogging tool and transcribed video recordings from two lessons. We examined the trajectory as a whole to understand how the topic was treated, we sorted students’ microblogs thematically, and we used interaction analysis to investigate talk excerpts. The results show that the students initially tended to suggest everyday actions related to reducing consumption, and that through classroom interactions about a challenging idea their understanding broadened. The combination of microblogging activities and discussions facilitated the travelling of ideas between activities and participants, prompted the students to question, elaborate and reason, supported broad participation, and helped students create links between everyday actions and wider sustainability issues.

Research on Cognition and Behavior Choice of Haze Control based on Questionnaire

The problem of haze control is a complex system problem, which requires a lot of human, material and capital investment from all walks of life, and improving the broad participation of the public is an important entry point for haze pollution control. Through questionnaire survey, chi square test and other research methods, this study carried out research on Residents' cognition and behavior choice of haze governance, explored its relevance, emphasized the necessity of multi-body participation in haze governance, and improved the public's awareness of the importance of participation in haze governance.

Cruise tourism in the context of COVID-19: Dilemmas and solutions

COVID-19 cases on international cruise ships have attracted extensive attention from the international community as well as the world's tourism and shipping industry. This virus highlighted the plight that must be faced by cruise ships in complicated times and situations such as pandemics. The comparative method is adopted to analyze the management measures taken by the “Diamond Princess”, “Costa Serena”, “Westerdam” and “Grand Princess” cruises in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and then to summarize the common dilemmas faced by these cruise ships, including defects of their internal environment, unclear health-care obligations during an epidemic, weak collaboration between the parties involved and their limited performance, and widespread infodemic and unfavorable public opinion. Given these dilemmas, measures are suggested to deal with the “cruise dilemma”, including establishing and defining isolation standards on boards, enhancing the capacity of international organizations, the international community's joint response to the pandemic, promoting cooperation between countries, building an effective mechanism for the broad participation of the whole society, and standardizing the release of information and reasonably guiding public social opinion.

Moderation and authority-building process: the dynamics of knowledge creation on history subreddits

For the last 30 years, the web has been used as a space of debate and knowledge creation, including historical knowledge. The digital space has the potential to provide a more democratic history that relies on the inclusion of different voices. However, it also raises questions about editing and authority. When attempting to understand authority relations on the web, moderation gains special prominence as it involves actions of exclusion, organisation, and establishment of norms; moderators heavily influence the content created by web users. Here, we investigate knowledge creation considering moderation bias. We address the effects of different moderation practices in history subreddits by analysing how moderators establish authority relations with other users. For that, we use a mixed-methods approach by interpreting the subreddits’ rules and performing network analysis based on the subreddits’ dialogues (2011–2020). The study indicates that the rules have become progressively extensive and stricter over the years, creating appropriate ways for posting submissions and commenting but also affecting broad participation. As central authority figures, moderators engage in processes of sharing authority, rather than shared authority, tending to dominate knowledge creation.

Translating New Scientific Knowledge from Public Research Institutes into Innovation

Both Open Science (OS) and Open Innovation (OI) espouse broad participation and effective collaboration in the process of converting new scientific knowledge into innovation. Despite their growing importance in enhancing the societal impact of science and innovation, the extant literature on their collaborative processes in science remains fragmented. This study therefore aims to examine the characteristics of these processes in the context of collaboration between public research institutes (PRI) and firms that seek to commercialise the former’s new scientific knowledge. Based on an empirical study of 153 PRI-firm knowledge and technology transfer collaboration through IP licensing in Singapore, we establish a firm’s prior licensing experience is negatively related to its innovation outcome. Our findings demonstrate that among firms with high levels of prior licensing experience, those having high levels of reliance on basic R&D and commercial officer resource from PRIs are more likely to report high levels of innovation outcome.

Comparative Transcriptome Analysis Reveals Coordinated Transcriptional Regulation of Central and Secondary Metabolism in the Trichomes of Cannabis Cultivars.

Cannabis is one of the few plant genera capable of producing cannabinoids, the effects of which are synergized by terpene interactions. As the biosynthesis of both metabolite classes requires the same intracellular feedstocks, this work describes the coordinated regulation of global metabolic pathways that allows for their joint copious production in vivo. To this end, a transcriptomics-based approach to characterize the glandular trichomes of five Cannabis cultivars was pursued. Besides revealing metabolic traits that enhanced and proportionated the supply of critical carbon precursors, in-depth analysis showed significantly increased gene expression of two particular enzymes to meet the huge nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) demand of secondary metabolite production. Furthermore, it led to a hypothesis that the methyl-d-erythritol 4-phosphate pathway might be utilized more than the mevalonic acid pathway in Cannabis trichomes. While both pathways were found to be activated in a modular and calibrated way that reflected their broad participation in physiological processes, the genes for hexanoate, cannabinoid, and terpene biosynthesis were, in contrast, up-regulated in an en bloc and multi-loci manner due to their specific roles in secondary metabolite production. In addition, three new terpene synthases were characterized based on both in silico and experimental assays. Altogether, the study enhances the current understanding of secondary metabolite production in Cannabis cultivars, which may assist in their characterization and development.

Conservation and Management of Agricultural Landscapes through Expert-Supported Participatory Processes: The “Declarations of Public Interest” in an Italian Province

The adoption of the European Landscape Convention by the member states of the Council of Europe emphasized the importance of raising awareness of, promoting and educating local communities in, and fostering the activism of all European citizens in the process of transforming the European landscape. The work carried out by the Landscape Observatory for Montferrat and Astigiano was to raise awareness in local communities regarding landscape protection processes that those communities could steer, as required by the Code of the Cultural and Landscape Heritage of the Italian State (2004). Consequently, for the first time, a participatory model was established in the province of Asti and the Piedmont region in Italy to support the community-driven requests for a special protection decree for some targeted areas. In this paper, the process and novel multisource methodology used for the two pilot cases are reported, where the landscape values to be protected were identified through local community involvement. Supported by the Landscape Observatory and experts, the broad participation allowed their recognition of Public Interest. These recognitions are relevant because they rely on a shared perspective of populations for the self-management of their landscapes. They represent an operational model for other local communities in the Council of Europe countries.

Review of Scandinavian leadership development programs: Open and closed customization

Leadership development programs (LDPs) have proliferated and diversified but still usually share the ambition of involving the participants’ on-the-job experiences. Yet, the dominant view hereof is crude, not acknowledging the variety of ways used to accomplish it. The Scandinavian context is illustrative for reviewing what we term ‘customization devices’ because of its tradition for LDPs with collective reflection, practice orientation, and broad participation. This review curates and synthesizes 31 studies evaluating empirical experiences with customization devices in Scandinavian university-based LDPs from no earlier than 2010. Such devices fall within three key categories, namely theories, cases, and relationships, and have three key effects: distancing from practice, dedicating to the program, and devising future action. Based on our findings, we challenge the dominant view that open enrollment programs cannot adequately mobilize participants’ experiences by theorizing the distinction between open and closed customization. The review further serves as a resource for LDP designers and instructors to carefully choose and mix customization devices that are complementary in their effects.

It takes a whole society: why Hong Kong’s ICAC cannot succeed alone

PurposeTo show that establishing an anti-corruption agency (ACA), by itself, is not likely to be a successful anti-corruption strategy. Instead, a solid base of social trust, participation, and support is just as essential as creating an ACA with significant powers and resources.Design/methodology/approachThis is a historical review of the origins and development of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) of Hong Kong, and an assessment of its three-pronged approach strategy at both strategic and tactical levels.FindingsAn ACA requires broad and deep social support and participation if it is to succeed. That the ICAC remains nearly unique in developing such a base of support provides important lessons for those countries with ineffective ACAs.Originality/valueA reassessment of the ICAC after a half-century shows that the Hong Kong case, despite its familiarity, has much to teach us if we understand it in its broadest implications.

Uniformization of precedents: for a materialization of the process in Habermasian pluralist communication

This article analyzes the judiciary system’s tendency to unify multiple jurisprudences and eventual conflicts with cultural diversity. The judiciary system’s interpretation of laws is interpreted with skepticism, as they might result in derogation of the legislative prerogatives. Critics have gained strength from the actual procedure code's disposals that made compulsory judiciaries pronounce in state and national levels. The present study investigates how judicial understandings of laws could provide voices to the diversity of cases that might eventually be submitted to the Courts' analyses. The broad participation of the amicus curiae in each biding case along with the full applicability of atypical procedural agreements should be conceived as an indispensable condition to give plain social validity and maximum effectiveness to the judiciary pronunciation, especially whenever regarding the most fundamentals concepts of the democratic archetypes resembling the main ideas forecasted by the second generation of the Frankfurt Philosophical School, among whom Jürgen Habermas is considered as the field’s most influential author. The present study uses a dialect-inductive methodology to confirm the hypothesis that both state and superior Courts must analyze various juridical divergent theses so that the bindings might not lack social effectiveness, especially by using the amicus curiae's opinion thoroughly.

Exploring the Relationships between UN Sanctions and Mediation

Abstract Sanctions and mediation are often applied simultaneously by the UN, but there has been little systematic exploration of their interrelationships. Drawing on research from the Sanctions and Mediation Project (SMP), both complications and complementarities can be identified. Sanctions can complicate mediation by fostering exclusion, emboldening nonsanctioned parties, closing mediation space, undercutting mediator impartiality, and forcing premature agreements. At the same time, sanctions can complement mediation by deterring spoilers, breaking stalemates, incentivizing cooperation, modifying cost-benefit calculations, ensuring broad participation in talks, and facilitating the onset of talks. The conditions under which complementarity can be enhanced include UN Security Council unity, focus and coherence of mandates, and regional cooperation. This article concludes with policy recommendations for different institutional actors and some suggestions for future research.

Congregational singing in St. Petersburg diocese at the turn of the 19–20th centuries

In the Russian Empire at the turn of the 19th – 20th centuries, there is a great interest in the practice of congregational singing. The documents of the Russian Local Council of 1917-1918, choir congresses, reports on the activities of church brotherhoods and societies, as well as publications in the press allow to judge to what significant extent the congregational singing at divine services was organized. Definitely, the support of the higher church hierarchy played a special role, as it is demonstrated by the Decrees of the Holy Synod, issued back in 1804 and 1847. At the beginning of the 20th century a solid foundation which enabled a broad participation of the people in divine service through singing and reading church hymns in the St. Petersburg diocese, where for a long time professional church singing and author's liturgical music were actively supported and developed, as well as in other large dioceses (Moscow, Tambov, Kazan, etc.) was built. These were special church orders that dispose the clergy to new parish activities, teaching parishioners and students of parish schools church singing, publishing materials for nationwide liturgical singing (Liturgy, Vespers, Matins, Moleben, Panikhida). Priests Mikhail Dubensky, Konstantin Lorchenko, Nikolai Kurlov, as well as the Alexander - Nevsky Temperance society were active organizers and leaders of the congregational singing at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries in the St. Petersburg diocese.There is no doubt that the study of the history of the congregational singing and the accumulated rich practical experience is of high importance precisely today, when this ancient tradition, which remains a powerful means of not only uniting people in the church, but also of enlightening and educating them in the Christian faith, is reviving and expanding.

Building Stronger Democracies Through Broader Participation: Can Community Organizing Meet the Challenge?

Abstract The rise of the third sector could not guard democracies against backsliding in postsocialist Eastern Europe. The nonprofit approach deprived associational life of its conflictive and political character and the large but underfunded service sector could not effectively redress the harms of capitalist transition. This allowed antidemocratic parties and movements to push back on liberal democracy and shrink the civic space. What is a new vision of civil society that engages civic organizations in politics and transforms democracy from an elitist ideal into a popular tool for people of all ranks? Community organizing, combined with a radical analysis, is one plausible answer. The article explores the possibility, necessity, and practical challenges of transformative constituency-based organizing for advancing a more substantive democracy. The case of The City Is for All, a Hungarian grassroots housing organization, presents a particular kind of organizing that became a North Star for those who believe that poor people have a strategic place in the fight to replace autocratization with egalitarian democracy.

SPA_LOW_SKY – Creative Commitment as a Studying Environment in an Artistic Meeting Zone

With the participation of artists, schools and local residents, an artistic encounter zone is being created between a sculpture studio in Vienna's Spalowskygasse and the "Lerncampus Mariahilf". This artistic intervention, inspired by Rolf Laven, is presented as an innovative form of learning that uses the school space and employs service learning/engaged learning approaches. Based on cultural heritage and local history, methods are developed with different upcycling materials. Such an artistic encounter zone initiates a public creative dialogue. It aims to expand the circle of participants beyond already established knowledge alliances (Erasmus+ KA2 research projects Rural 3.0_Service-Learning; SLUSIK and SLIDE as well as artistic, school and student teaching-learning areas) and co-creators and to create new synergies. The project concept envisages broad participation from the field of art and cultural work, from school and university institutions as well as from social institutions. Participants are invited to take the initiative for community learning activities.

Searching for technosignatures in exoplanetary systems with current and future missions

Technosignatures refer to observational manifestations of technology that could be detected through astronomical means. Most previous searches for technosignatures have focused on searches for radio signals, but many current and future observing facilities could also constrain the prevalence of some non-radio technosignatures. This search could thus benefit from broader participation by the astronomical community, as contributions to technosignature science can also take the form of negative results that provide statistically meaningful quantitative upper limits on the presence of a signal. This paper provides a synthesis of the recommendations of the 2020 TechnoClimes workshop, which was an online event intended to develop a research agenda to prioritize and guide future theoretical and observational studies technosignatures. The paper provides a high-level overview of the use of current and future missions to detect exoplanetary technosignatures at ultraviolet, optical, or infrared wavelengths, which specifically focuses on the detectability of atmospheric technosignatures, artificial surface modifications, optical beacons, space engineering and megastructures, and interstellar flight. This overview does not derive any new quantitative detection limits but is intended to provide additional science justification for the use of current and planned observing facilities as well as to inspire astronomers conducting such observations to consider the relevance of their ongoing observations to technosignature science. This synthesis also identifies possible technology gaps with the ability of current and planned missions to search for technosignatures, which suggests the need to consider technosignature science cases in the design of future mission concepts.

Hospital Culture and Healthcare Workers' Provision of Patient-Centered Care: A Moderated Mediation Analysis

BackgroundPatient-centered care (PCC) is globally recognized as a high-quality and high-value healthcare service. It emphasizes the broad participation of patients and families in health-related decision-making and the provision of healthcare services that cater to patients' needs, preferences, and values. However, the mechanisms driving healthcare workers' provision of PCC are yet to be fully uncovered.MethodsUsing stratified random sampling, we recruited 1,612 healthcare workers from different levels of public hospitals in Hangzhou. We conducted survey interviews using questionnaires based on psychometrically sound scales. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the effects of hospital culture, self-efficacy, and achievement motivation on the perceived provision of PCC by healthcare workers and to explore the mechanisms underlying their relationships.ResultsSelf-efficacy had a positive mediating effect in the relationship between hospital culture and healthcare workers' perceived provision of PCC (β = 0.424, p < 0.001). Furthermore, the pursuit of success positively moderated the mediating role of self-efficacy (β = 0.128, p < 0.001), whereas, the avoidance of failure negatively moderated the mediating role of self-efficacy (β = -0.017, p < 0.001).ConclusionThe findings suggest that hospitals should foster patient-centered and innovative cultures and develop strategies focusing on both internal motivation (self-efficacy and achievement motivation) and external environments (hospital culture) to help and encourage healthcare workers to implement PCC. For example, hospitals could further communication skills training, enhance leadership, build team spirit, and promote collaboration among healthcare workers.