Federal Government Policy Research Articles

Moderation in Australia-policy and achievements.

Alcohol has been consumed in Australia since European settlement in 1788. In 1998, approximately 60% of Australians consumed an alcoholic beverage at least once per week. The effects of alcohol on the human body are dose dependent, where the harmful effects of alcohol are generally observed only when alcohol consumption exceeds moderate consumption levels of 30 to 40 g of alcohol per day. The discovery that a J-shaped curve described the relationship between level of alcohol consumption and risk of cardiovascular disease was, however, only made in 1990-cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the western world. Thus prior to 1990, Australian public health policy focused primarily on the harmful effects of alcohol consumption and the health benefits of a moderate level of alcohol consumption have only recently been recognized in public policy. This paper chronicles changes in Australian Federal government policy on alcohol since the initial draft National health policy on alcohol in Australia was presented to the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy in 1987 to the National Drug Strategic plan for action 2001 to 2003-2004 which was launched in July last year.

Pressured from all sides: the February 1913 surrender of the northeast corner of the Tsuu T'ina Nation

The Sarcee Indian Reserve, now the Tsuu T'ina Nation, was established in 1882, near a small white settlement that in 1884 became the town of Calgary, Alberta. Pressure from the city to acquire reserve land for various purposes was incessant and eventually led to the surrender of the northeast corner in February 1913. Such land surrenders were also a common practice of the federal government in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Desires of the municipal government, the military, oilmen, homesteaders, ranchers and businessmen worked collectively, if not in concert, to ensure the Tsuu T'ina were constantly pressured. The interplay of the many stakeholders reveals the complexity of the Native/non-Native relations, and emphasizes the importance of local players, in addition to federal government policies and bureaucrats, in the dispossession of Native peoples. Moreover, the relationship between the Nation and the city is significant for what it reveals about the colonizing nature of Calgary's development and the quality of aboriginal citizenship as manifested on a day-to-day, local basis.

Emergent federal government policy on literacy in the USA

Emergent federal government policy on literacy in the USA

Comparative Study of State Tax Effort and the Role of Federal Government Policy in Shaping Revenue Relience Patterns

AbstractThe findings of a study raise many concerns regarding state and federal funding strategies and fiscal inequalities that exist in higher education in the United States.

Executive Excess v. Judicial Process: American Judicial Response to the Government's War on Terror

The federal government's policy responses to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the ensuing conduct of President Bush's war on terror have thrown American civil liberty rights into disarray. Attorney General Ashcroft and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld have trampled U.S. constitutional and international norms in their unlawful detention of hundreds of individuals and designation of enemy combatants, unlawful combatants, and material witnesses. The federal judiciary is now responding to these executive abuses. This article considers the early judicial responses to the policies effectuated by the Bush administration.

The Little Osage Captive: The Tragic Saga of Lydia Carter

PUBLISHED IN 1822 AND DESCRIBING THE POIGNANT LIFE of an Osage Indian girl, The Little Osage Captive, An Authentic Narrative declared its intention promote zeal in the missionary cause and to enlighten and convert the heathen. Recommended for children and placement in schools, it described Indians, or Native Americans, as savages who needed civilizing and Christianizing.1 Yet its narrative has much offer the modern reader. Spanning the years 1817 1821, this intriguing story grew out of a ruthless struggle between neighboring divisions of the Osage and Cherokee tribes living in the region then known as Arkansaw.2 The dramatic events began in what was then the Missouri Territory before moving east Alabama Territory, Tennessee, Mississippi, and even Washington, D.C. The story would conclude back west in the newly-created Arkansas Territory (established March 2, 1819) and provides a rare glimpse of life along the lower Arkansas River more than a decade before Arkansas statehood. It offers a vivid sense, too, of the complex human consequences of the federal government's policy of removing eastern Indians territory long occupied by other native peoples. Rev. Elias Cornelius, the narrative's author, graduated from Connecticut's Yale College in September 1813 and received a ministerial license from the Congregational Church on June 4, 1816. Within a few weeks, he was appointed an agent of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), an early movement Christianize Native Americans, which operated with the support of Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists.3 As part of his ABCFM commission, Cornelius embarked on a lengthy journey in January 1817 converse with the [southern] natives and obtain their consent have schools, and other institutions, established among them, for the purpose of instructing them in Christianity, and the most useful arts of civilized life, and raise funds support these efforts.4 Twenty-three and unmarried, Cornelius would travel for twenty months and reach New Orleans before returning home. In Washington, D.C., Cornelius met with the secretary of the treasury, William H. Crawford, and a correspondence with the acting secretary of war, George Graham, and the agent for the Office of Indian Trade, Thomas L. McKenney. From these officials, Cornelius received warm assurances of friendship and cooperation and letters of introduction addressed agents of the Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Cherokee tribes.5 Arriving in Tennessee and Cherokee-occupied lands by September 1817, Cornelius spent two months at newly opened Brainerd Mission.6 This ABCFM-sponsored school had opened the previous March under superintendent Cyrus Kingsbury with help from the Cherokee agent, Col. Return Jonathan Meigs.7 They, along with Gen. Andrew Jackson, had persuaded Cherokee leaders support the school at a council meeting the previous year. As a result, Kingsbury purchased 160 acres for $500 from John McDonald (grandfather of John Ross, the future Cherokee leader) for the new school and farm. Initially called Chickamaugah after a nearby Cherokee town, the school's name was changed during its second year honor David Brainerd, a pioneer missionary New England Indians. Through Brainerd and similar schools, the ABCFM hoped the whole [Cherokee] tribe English in language, civilized in habits, and Christian in religion.8 Cornelius left Brainerd continue his journey on November 6, 1817. Traveling west on a road from Huntsville Natchez, Cornelius and his companions reached Caney Creek, at a spot two miles south of the Tennessee River in present-day Colbert County, Alabama, on November 15. Two hundred miles west of Brainerd, Caney Creek marked the eastern boundary of the Chickasaw Nation. Normally just a small stream, the creek was severely flooded from recent rains. After several futile attempts cross, the group decided make camp and try again the following day. …

The impact of the introduction of web information systems (WIS) on information policies: An analysis of the Canadian federal government policies related to WIS*

AbstractThis communication presents the results of an analysis of the Canadian federal government information policies that govern its Web information systems (WIS). The goal of this study was to better understand how the Canadian federal government has adapted its information policies to the WIS. A side‐by‐side analysis of 53 policy instruments was done. The results indicate that the Canadian federal government has crafted new instruments to take into account the WIS context. These policies build upon generic information management and information technologies policy instruments. These policy instruments have a good coverage of the tasks underlying the WIS life‐cycle. Among the many players present in the policy instruments, one of the key player is the Treasury Board Secretariat that plays an important coordination and evaluation role.

From Sickness to Health: The Twentieth-Century Development of U.S. Health Insurance

This paper explores the institutional development of health insurance in the United States. By combining a qualitative history of the development of the market with an empirical analysis of a panel of health insurance data from 1931–1955, the paper identifies a number of factors that influenced the growth of the health insurance market. While demand factors such as increasing income and improvements in medical technology certainly contributed to the growth of the market, supply side factors were also important. There is evidence that hospitals may have contributed to the growth of health insurance as a means of smoothing revenues during the Great Depression. State-level policies that allowed the Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans to operate as nonprofits also spurred market growth, as did federal government policies that promoted the link between employment and health insurance.

The Middle Years of Radio 4EB: Acting Locally, Thinking Nationally

Ethnic public radio station 4EB started life as a local political response to an urgent social problem: giving migrant communities minimal recognition of their heartland biographies — nearly 20 years late for some of them. Within five years, the station's enigmatic but steely president. Tony Manicaros, had taken the same project into the national arena. Tony and the station which had enabled his conviction of the importance of ethnic radio to Australian national identity, and therefore federal government policy, dominated the important middle years of the station, with Tony becoming an important lobbyist and instigator of reforms in federal communications policy.

The Recommendation Clause

Article II, section 3 of the Constitution provides that the President shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient. The practical significance of the first part of the recommendation clause is evident every January, when the President addresses Congress. It also forms the basis for congressional demands for information from the President, which sometimes ignite controversies over executive privilege. But the second part of the recommendation clause, although an obscure provision, has great significance for federal lawmaking. During the Reagan presidency, Congress frequently inserted into appropriations bills specific riders prohibiting the Executive Branch or an independent regulatory agency from advocating or even studying a change in a particular policy. For example, Congress prohibited the Executive from using appropriated monies to study or propose selling the Bonneville Power Administration or the Department of Energy's uranium enrichment facilities and it prohibited the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) from expanding any funds to review agricultural marketing orders. On another occasion, without amending the Sherman Act, Congress prohibited the expenditure of appropriated funds on any activity, the purpose of which is to overturn or alter the per se prohibition on resale price maintenance in effect under Federal antitrust laws. The rider, which was enacted after the Department of Justice had filed its amicus brief in Monsanto Co. v Spray-Rite Service Corp, prevented Assistant Attorney General William F. Baxter from advocating in oral argument that the Supreme Court should adopt the rule of reason; the rider also prohibited the Antitrust Division from drafting legislation to extend the rule of reasons to resale price maintenance. I call such appropriations riders muzzling laws. More precisely, I define a muzzling law to be any legislation that impairs the Executive's ability to deploy resources to study or advocate a change in the federal government's policies on a particular issue. Muzzling laws lack the predictability of legal boilerplate. They differ in the scope of the forbidden subject matter, in the specificity with which they identify the constrained Executive Branch officers, and in the degree to which they prohibit the use of funds appropriated under other appropriations law. Despite these differences, all muzzling law implicate, and many violate, the principle of separation of powers. When Congress prohibits the President from studying or advocating a change in policy, it impairs the President's ability to perform his constitutional duty to inform Congress and make recommendations for its consideration. Part I of this Article examines the meaning of the recommendation clause. Part II argues that limiting principles for the clause cannot arise from Congress' appropriations power. Part III offers an economic rational that accounts for the prevalence of muzzling laws. Part IV argues that muzzling laws violate the recommendation clause. Part V discusses the applicability of the recommendation clause to independent regulatory agencies. Finally, Part VI speculates about judicial review of a recommendation clause challenge to a muzzling law.

Walking a Policy Tightrope: Balancing Educational Opportunity and Criminal Justice in Federal Student Financial Aid

The 1998 reauthorization of the Higher Education Act of 1965 included a provision that reverses the long-standing federal policy of increasing access to higher education. The Drug-Free Student Aid Provision denies federal financial aid to any individual who admits to having been convicted of the possession or the sale of controlled substances. The criminalization of certain offenses and the exclusion of others seem to be accompanied by an unstated racial and socioeconomic bias. The fact that people of color and individuals of a lower socioeconomic status are more likely to be convicted of the possession and sale of controlled substances means that the adoption of this public policy will disallow college access to the very individuals who benefit the most from it. I'll walk the tightrope that's been stretched for me, and though a wrinkled forehead, perplexed why, will accompany me, I'll delicately step along. For if I stop to sigh at the earth-propped stride of others, I will fall. I must balance high without a parasol to tide a faltering step, without a net below, without a balance stick to guide. (Danner, 1997, p. 87) Many American students from economically limited and urban minority communities are at risk of losing access to student financial aid. A long-ignored provision in the 1998 Amendments of the Higher Education Act of 1965 states that: A student who has been convicted of any offense under any federal or state law involving the possession or sale of a controlled substance shall not be able to receive any grant, loan, or work assistance under this title during a period beginning on the date of such conviction. ( 484, 111) This law most dramatically affects individuals who are prosecuted for drug offensesthe poor and racial minorities. Ironically, this plank of the Higher Education Amendments serves to delimit educational opportunity and access to the coagulated population in greatest need of the liberating and transforming power of higher education. The Drug-Free Student Aid Provision is an unusually complex entanglement of federal criminal policy and educational finance practices. These two disparate conceptual and practical arenas combine to create a significant threat to educational opportunity. This policy-in-practice can be analogized by the image of a tightrope. Many students who may be impacted by this policy walk the tightrope of social discrimination, neighborhood climate, and low expectations. Likewise, the marriage of educational privilege (like the voting privilege) to criminal punishment serves as a thinly plaited tightrope that may not be able to sustain the original aims or intents of either. Walk with us as we analyze this further; but step carefully. #35: IT'S A THIN LINE BETWEEN OPPORTUNITY AND DENIAL No matter how noble the intent, there are some public policies that simply fail to demonstrate the tenets of reason or logic. The 1998 Higher Education Amendments contain such a policy. Encased in this apparently benign public law is a policy that prohibits individuals from accessing federal student aid if they have ever been convicted of possessing or selling illegal drugs. The intent of the policy was to dissuade students and other citizens from engaging in the use or trade of illicit drugs while receiving aid. The reality of the program is that it removes access to one of this nation's primary mechanisms of social mobility from those individuals who may be using higher education as a means to escape the cyclical dynamic of drugs and its concomitant companions-race, poverty, and disadvantage. There is a drug distribution strategem that has centered on poor and urban communities; this is not to suggest that wealthy and suburban communities are drug-free zones (Inciardi, 1993). Hence, the new provision disproportionately impacts a segment of society that requires federal financial aid as a means of accessing higher education. The 1998 version of the Higher Education Amendments begins a reversal of the federal government's policy on increasing access to higher education. …

A política de incentivos do Ministério da Saúde para a atenção básica: uma ameaça à autonomia dos gestores municipais e ao princípio da integralidade?

Thirteen years after the Unified National Health System was implemented in Brazil, the Federal government increased the use of norms and regulations aimed at rationalizing resources and prioritizing basic care within the system. In other words, although actions and services are the responsibility of Municipal governments, the Federal government used financing to reinforce its role in determining the policy to be adopted. The first part of this article analyzes trends in health care expenditures and financing in the country and priorities and strategies for financing. The second part relates the 1996 Basic Operational Norm to the Federal government policy of transferring resources to the Municipalities, discussing the importance of the Family Health Program as part of the financing logic and the role of the Health Care Operational Norm in reinforcing rationalization and emphasizing basic care.

Bargaining Power of Smaller States in Germany's Länderfinanzausgleich 1979–90

In this paper we explore the impact of politicalfactors on redistribution across the states in theGerman Landerfinanzausgleich. From a public choiceperspective the smaller states are supposed to have ahigher influence on decisions in the secondlegislative chamber due to a lower shadow price oftheir votes, which implies a higher bargaining power.As the federal government's policy depends on amajority in the second chamber there is an incentiveto buy smaller states' votes. Controlling for GDP percapita, we find statistically significant support forour hypotheses.

"Expanding the Frontiers of Civil Rights": Michigan, 1948-1968

Although historians have devoted a great deal of attention to the development of federal government policy regarding civil rights in the quarter century following World War II, little attention has been paid to the equally important developments at the state level. Few states underwent a more dramatic transformation with regard to civil rights than Michigan did. In 1948, the Michigan Committee on Civil Rights characterized the state of civil rights in Michigan as presenting ugly picture. Twenty years later. Michigan was a leader among the states in civil rights legislation. Expanding the Frontiers of Civil Rights documents this important shift in state level policy and makes clear that civil rights in Michigan embraced not only blacks but women, the elderly, native Americans, migrant workers, and the physically handicapped. Sidney Fine's treatment of civil rights in Michigan is based on an exhaustive examination of unpublished, published, and interview sources. Fine relates civil rights developments in Michigan to civil rights actions by the federal government and other states. He focuses on the administrations of the three governors -- Democrats G. Mennen Williams (1949-1960), and John B. Swainson (1961-1962), and Republican George Romney (1963-1969) -- and the roles they played in furthering civil rights in Michigan, as well as other politicians and policymakers. Students of state history, civil rights history, and those interested in post-World War II history will find few accounts as broad ranging as this study of state civil rights legislation during the years the book covers.

Tendencias de las desigualdades urbanas y regionales en México, 1970-1996

El artículo analiza, en primer lugar, la dinámica de las desigualdades regionales del PIB total en México entre 1970-1990, intentando determinar si en la década de los noventa, caracterizada por la apertura del país al comercio internacional, existen modificaciones significativas en la organización territorial de las actividades económicas caracterizada por la preeminencia de la Ciudad de México. En segundo lugar, se estudia el crecimiento regional de la población urbana entre 1970-1995, así como su distribución por tamaño de ciudades. En tercer lugar, se revisan las políticas urbanas y regionales del gobierno federal en los años noventa, para aclarar la situación de las políticas de desconcentración de las actividades económicas y la población en el territorio nacional. Se concluye que el laissez-faire urbano implantado por los gobiernos federal y de los estados de la República, combinado con la globalización de la economía, promoverá la concentración policéntrica en dos o tres ciudades, bajo el dominio de la megalópolis del centro del país.

Mirroring the Networked Society: Government Policy, Higher Education, and Telelearning Technology in Canada

The terrain of higher education in Canada is changing in ways that are facilitated and encouraged by government policies directed at telelearning technologies. This study, a review of federal and provincial government policies relating to the use of telelearning technologies in postsecondary education, reveals several significant trends. First, telelearning policy for the postsecondary sector straddles the boundary between education and economic development policy, a shift that changes conventional educational funding criteria. Second, telelearning technologies are being implemented in ways that support other government policy goals such as greater integration and efficiency in provincial postsecondary systems and increased support for labour market needs. While the implications of these changes are not yet entirely clear, we can anticipate the need for policy processes that include greater recognition of the role of negotiation—policies and policy processes which address explicitly the facts of dissolving boundaries, new connections, and emerging organizational forms. The higher educational sector seems inadequately prepared for these challenges.

The University of Technology Supporting Innovation in Small Firms

An analysis aimed at discovering the appropriate structures for innovation and combining them in a system which maximizes the innovative capacity of a country requires the adoption of a variety of perspectives. An approach focusing on universities of technology and innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in contemporary Australia contributes another, inevitably partial view but provides a striking illustration of the complexity and variety of the interrelationships involved. The impact of recent federal government policies on industry and the role of universities is described in the context of a recent election campaign. Universities of technology are identified as particularly well suited to interaction with business and industry. This is exemplified with reference to Swinburne University of Technology Theoretical frameworks that accommodate the complex interactions are discussed. Finally, the absolute necessity of positive individual and group relationships for successful outcomes is highlighted.

Australia’s marine science and technology plan: an action plan for Australia’s Oceans Policy

Australia’s Oceans Policy (AOP) is a new Commonwealth (Federal) government policy with sweeping implications for the management of the growing and diverse marine sectors dependent on the nation’s vast marine territory. Its theme of responsible use and protection in the context of ecologically sustainable development provides an overarching and common framework with interfaces between federal and State governments at all levels while accommodating a host of pre-existing governmental regimes and jurisdictions and international treaty obligations. Primary vehicles for the implementation of the Policy will be ‘Regional Marine Plans’. The accompanying Marine Science and Technology Plan is intended as the basis for federal actions, such as priority setting for the government’s scientific and technical capacities, to help implement the AOP. Three programmes and 28 separate objectives are defined which detail specific needs in various sectoral or scientific areas. Science and technology will play a critical role in the implementation of the AOP. Rather than being seen as a service resource for the execution of user-driven AOP requirements, Australian scientific and technological knowledge, expertise and infrastructure and their strategic enhancement should be recognized collectively as a key component of the AOP itself and supported for their cumulative benefit in fulfilling the objectives of the Policy.

New Directions in Education for LIS: Knowledge Management Programs at RMIT

(LIS = Library and Information Services). The Department of Information Management and Library Studies (DIMALS) in the School of Business Information Technology at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, has undergone fundamental changes in mission and objectives since 1994. Faced with falling demand for its programs, growing competition from non-LIS departments, and changes both to the corporate strategy of the university and to federal government policies, the department had to take urgent and, at times, drastic action. The response entailed a business strategy directed at creating new products for new markets, notably in the field of knowledge management. In addition to mastering new and interdisciplinary subject areas, this required the development of a facility for the flexible delivery of courses in distance mode. This has led to design of the first knowledge management program in Australia, with a consequent shift in the job market for graduates and in the composition of the student body. Other outcomes include an enhanced role for the department within the university and the creation of new revenue streams.

A. F. Aisha Ghaus, Hafiz A. Pasha, and Zafar H. Ismail (eds) Provincial Governments and the Social Sectors in Pakistan. Lahore: Vanguard Books (Pvt.) Ltd., 1997. xi+76 pages. Hardbound. Price not given.

In Pakistan, most of the media attention and research effort directed at public finance goes into highlighting and analysing budgetary policies of the federal government. This virtually exclusive focus on the highest tier of government obscures the fact that provision of social services like health and education that directly touch the life of millions of ordinary mortals is primarily the responsibility of the provincial governments. The haze, hence generated, provides a perfect backdrop for the book under review which is devoted entirely to the study of provincial government finance with special reference to its impact on the maintenance and expansion of social services