Fundamental Reform Research Articles

Development and Reform of Public Policy in the Era of Artificial Intelligence

After the development over half a century, artificial intelligence (AI) has been increasingly applied in the field of Internet and big data technology, and has been growing in leaps and bounds. With the advent of the era of AI, the rise of AI is not only a major development in the field of technology or industry, but also a fundamental and comprehensive reform in the economic, social and political fields. The resulting governance challenges require the reconstruction and innovation of the public policy framework. This paper studies the development and reform of public policy in the era of AI and puts forward relevant suggestions, providing a broader development platform for public policy in the era of AI.

Education Innovation in the Context of Globalization and Industrial Revolution 4.0: Necessities and Requirements

Entering a new phase, the stage of national construction and development in the context of deepening globalization, science and technology has progressed strongly, many cadres and party members, especially those who work in the fields of science and education, all find that in order to bring the country out of backwardness and underdevelopment, people are the decisive factor. This shows the mandatory requirement of education reform, which focuses on training and fostering high-quality human resources; "fundamental and comprehensive reform of education". This study focuses on analyzing the globalization process and its impact on education, the requirements posed for educational reform, and proposing solutions to develop education in the future.

Research helps shape Care Review findings on improving outcomes

The Independent Review of Children's Social Care has set out fundamental reforms for the care system in England. Here, a research team member explains how they gathered evidence, particularly on the role of kinship care

The Bigger the Choise, the Harder it is to Choose – About the Reform of the Electoral System for the German Bundestag

The Bundestag is the largest democratically elected parliament in the world, only the Chinese National People’s Congress is larger. At the moment, 138 more members sit in the Berlin Reichstag than the legally required size, thanks to overhang and compensatory mandates. The Federal Constitutional Court has already declared the federal electoral law unconstitutional several times. All parties agree that the German Bundestag must become smaller again. This is to be achieved by fundamental reform of the electoral law.

East Asian Varieties of Capitalism and Socio-Economic Inequality: South Korea and Hong Kong Compared

This article examines the deepening of socio-economic inequality manifested as dualisation in South Korea and deregulation in Hong Kong. It explains the extreme manifestations of inequality by reference to the nature of economic co-ordination, organised labour power and societal corporatism, and the politics of democratisation. It finds that South Korea’s legacy of state-orchestrated co-ordinated market economy favoured the retention of a manufacturing core despite globalisation. However, the neo-liberal inclinations of the state and big business groups led to the marginalisation of less privileged firms and workers. These inclinations reinforced the defensiveness of the small but strong labour organisations, preventing effective societal corporatism. These phenomena are fully understandable only with reference to the country’s conservative democratisation that divided the liberal and left political forces. The geo-political legacy also induced identity conflicts that overshadowed socio-economic issues. By contrast, Hong Kong’s liberal market economy coupled with the absence of security concern had allowed a radical de-industrialisation in the 1990s and wholesale casualisation in the 2000s. Divided by identity politics, organised labour was unable to challenge the trend. The same conflicts also led pro-China labour organisations to side with business interests in the post-1997 electoral autocracy and prevented the introduction of more fundamental reforms.

A systems analysis of work-related violence in hospitals: Stakeholders, contributory factors, and leverage points

Work-related violence in hospitals is a growing problem that has significant personal, societal, and economic costs and adversely impacts the quality of patient care. The complex and multi-factorial nature of the issue is such that it is extremely difficult to understand and manage, and interventions have had varying levels of success. Systems thinking and associated analysis methods are useful when attempting to understand and respond to complex issues; however, they have not previously been applied to work-related violence in hospital settings. This study involved the application of three systems thinking methods in conjunction with healthcare stakeholders to analyse the problem of work-related violence in hospital settings in New South Wales, Australia. The ActorMap method was used to identify the stakeholders who share the responsibility for the issue and the AcciMap method was used to identify the contributory factors which interact to create work-related violence incidents. PreventiMaps were then developed to show where interventions could be used to better prevent or mitigate work-related violence. The findings show a complex and diverse set of contributory factors beyond patients and healthcare workers and suggest that fundamental system reform is required. Nine key areas of hospital practice are proposed as the most suitable targets for intervention moving forward.

BENJAMIN SACHS INTERVIEWED BY MARTHA MINOW

BENJAMIN SACHS INTERVIEWED BY MARTHA MINOW

LAND IS AN ESSENTIAL COMPONENT OF A NATION'S EXISTENCE AND CREATIVITY

The mentality of the Georgian nation is historically democratic. Historically, Georgia was a perfectly feudal country. One quarter of Georgian territory - the mountains – lived millennia of a history under conditions of the so-called “community democracy” (non-dominant territorial community, community land ownership). Georgia, thanks to its strong Christian culture, its feudal history (and in the mountains, the so-called "community democracy"), is a typologically western country, which throughout its history has been striving for a connection with the West. The current situation in Georgia is particularly acute. The nutrition of the population of Georgia today is essentially dependent on imports, which, due to the difficult geostrategic and geopolitical situation, can be stopped at any moment. The use of agricultural land owned by a foreign citizen to prevent this danger requires the use of legal tools, which the Georgian state does not currently have. In Georgia, the form of long-term transferrable lease should be used mostly for foreigners. Land use is unregulated and unaccounted for! It is heartbreaking that in the ancient country of Georgian culture, today there is such a negligent attitude towards the land, which probably has no analogues in the modern world! The process of land transfer by the state is unsystematic and does not bring economic efficiency, social expediency or any other essential public benefit. The State has lost its main function - control over the land use. The rural community must surely regain its unconditional and inalienable right to its own estate; This means, first of all, that the common community land - pastureы, meadows, water landscapes, forestry fund lands (and more!) must be legally returned to the community for permanent and gratuitous ownership and use; this land should not be state-owned, but municipal property, and the community, which is its only legitimate owner and user, and it should be made impossible the ownership of this land, that is, fair and efficient management of rural heritage - its management, rational use, organization of other economic activities in the rural area using agricultural production or land as the main means of production without their consent. To solve the land issue, we deem it necessary: To define the main goals of land reform; To create a legislative and normative framework for fundamental agrarian reform; it is necessary to prepare and adopt a land code as soon as possible; To regulate land privatization - preparation of normative bases, by which the real content will be acquired by the principle of Article 116 of the Georgian Constitution of 1921. that "cultivation and use of land is the duty of the landowner to the public". Based on this principle, the law clearly defines the terms and conditions that must be met by the purchaser of the land. In particular, the rule of privatization of community-owned land will be established, when privatization is allowed only with the consent of the community and on the condition that the community should receive specific public benefits from the privatization. In addition, when privatizing land, it must be mandatory for the acquirer to submit land development and development plans (which must comply with the normative documents adopted by the municipality); To restore the community ownership of land - preparation of normative, institutional and technical bases, establishment of a local community in rural areas, which will be transferred to permanent ownership and gratuitous use of state-owned land within the administrative boundaries of the village; To establish a State Land Reform Commission to adopt and implement new land legislation, to carry out fundamental agrarian reform; the Commission should ensure that a national consensus is reached on reform-related issues, that the reform is properly planned and coordinated; To improve as soon as possible not only the land ownership but also the land use accounting. Solution to land issues, proper ownership of land, therefore, regulating land ownership and land use in the Georgian way, is our foremost responsibility towards each other, as well as towards our ancestors and descendants!

“We Just Think of Her as One of the Girls”: Applying a Trans Inclusion Staged Model to the Experiences of Trans Children and Youth in UK Primary and Secondary Schools

Background/Context: Throughout the past decade increasing numbers of trans children are being supported in childhood, with schools in countries across the world tasked with educating a generation of (known) trans pupils. Schools can adopt diverse approaches to inclusion or exclusion of trans pupils, with consequences for trans children’s well-being and safety at school. The literature includes extensive critique of the limitations of common approaches to trans inclusion, highlighting negative impacts on trans pupils. Purpose: This article aims to reframe and bring nuance to conversations on trans inclusion in education, drawing on primary research in the UK to make explicit different approaches to trans inclusion, their ideological underpinnings, and their implications for how trans children are welcomed in our schools. Setting: The research took place in the UK, with interviews conducted at a time of escalation of anti-trans discourse in UK courts and media. Population: This article draws on data from two qualitative research projects focusing on the experiences of trans and nonbinary children and their parents in the UK: one focusing on trans children aged 3–12 years, and the other on trans young people aged 12–18 years. Research Design: Semi-structured interviews explored trans children’s experiences in education in the UK, with a focus on trans-inclusive approaches to school culture, restrooms, and team sports. Data were analyzed against the trans inclusion staged model (TISM), a framework for distinguishing between different approaches to trans inclusion. Findings: Within the TISM we differentiate between trans-oppressive, trans-assimilationist, trans-accommodative, and trans-emancipatory approaches to educational inclusion. Interviews highlighted the harms and injustices in nonemancipatory approaches, revealing the role of cis supremacy in forcing trans pupils into positions of vulnerability. Conclusion/Recommendations: The TISM emphasizes the structural and systemic nature of trans oppression, illuminating the power imbalances embedded in nonemancipatory approaches, and acknowledging the need for fundamental reform. We recommend analysis and recognition of school practices that are trans-oppressive, trans-assimilationist, trans-accommodative, or trans-emancipatory. We call for increased recognition of cis supremacy within education and commitment to emancipatory approaches to trans inclusion, enabling progress toward equity and gender justice in our schools.

New school speech regulation as a regulatory strategy against hate speech on social media: The case of Germany's NetzDG

Germany's 2017 NetzDG law is an example of ‘new school speech regulation’ (Balkin, 2014), which restricts speech by coercing intermediaries into censoring users, rather than coercing speakers directly. It is the first such measure which specifically targets hate speech on social media, by requiring large platforms to operate complaints procedures which ensure illegal content is rapidly removed. Numerous other countries have since adopted similar regulations, indicating that states increasingly turn to new school speech regulation as a regulatory strategy to tackle hate speech on social media. This paper aims to evaluate the effectiveness of new school speech regulation in as a regulatory strategy to address online hate speech, taking NetzDG as a case study.A review of relevant empirical literature shows that many features of social media platforms actively promote or encourage hate speech. Key factors include algorithmic recommendations, which frequently promote hateful ideologies; social affordances which let users encourage or disseminate hate speech by others; anonymous, impersonal environments; and the absence of media ‘gatekeepers’. In mandating faster content deletion, NetzDG only addresses the last of these, ignoring other relevant factors. Moreover, reliance on individual user complaints to trigger platforms' obligations means hate speech will often escape deletion. Interviews with relevant civil society organisations confirm these flaws of the NetzDG model. From their perspectives, NetzDG has had little impact on the prevalence or visibility of online hate speech, and its reporting mechanisms fail to help affected communities.NetzDG represents an incremental, narrow approach to a complex sociotechnical problem which requires more fundamental regulatory reform. In this regard, it shows the limitations of censorship-based new school speech regulation. Rules which assert state authority by prescribing censorship of narrowly-defined content categories are ill-suited to large-scale, networked, algorithmically-curated social media, where other governance mechanisms influence user behaviour more than content deletion. The paper advocates a more systemic and preventive regulatory approach. Platforms should be required to take public interest considerations into account in all design and governance processes, aiming to shape platform environments to actively discourage users from posting or viewing hate speech, rather than simply deleting it afterwards.

India's evolving tax system: its successes and challenges

The goal of this study is to critically investigate several facets of India's tax structure. Every person of the country is responsible for paying taxes. The taxation system determines the economic power of a country. Our federal tax system is divided into three levels, the Union Government, the State Governments and the Local Bodies. As the author points out, despite the fact that the Constitution clearly divides taxing authority between the national government and the state government, due to the prevalence of several types of taxes, the Indian tax system has been exceedingly complex. Various tax compliance regulations and rules, tax administration is incompetent, and several other issues. Aside from reviewing the existing literature on the subject, the purpose of this research is to track the evolution of the Indian tax system through three different periods such as taxes in ancient India, taxes during post independent India, and taxes after independent India. Although Lists 1 and 2 of the Seventh Schedule of the Indian Constitution clearly define the Union government's and states' taxing powers, these original tax provisions have undergone a number of revisions over the years as a result of essential constitutional amendments. This research article also makes an attempt to provide a description of direct taxes; together with ‘Income tax’, ‘Corporation tax’, ‘Wealth tax’, ‘Gift tax’, ‘Estate duty’, and ‘other taxes on capital and property’, and indirect taxes for example ‘Customs duties’, ‘Excise duties’, ‘Sales tax’, ‘Service tax’, ‘Value added tax (VAT)’, and ‘Goods and services tax (GST)’. Finally, the research paper discusses some of the most pressing difficulties and obstacles. According to Bird (1993), ‘Fiscal crisis has been proven to be the mother of tax reform’. However, such reforms are frequently impromptu and undertaken to fulfil instant revenue needs. In most instances, such reforms are not in the nature of systemic improvements to increase the tax system's long-term productivity. The evolution of a tax system to satisfy the needs of international competition has been one of the most fundamental reasons for recent tax reforms in many emerging and transitional countries (Rao 1992). The shift from a mostly centrally planned development strategy to market-based resource allocation has altered public perceptions of the state's role in development. The transition from a public to a private sector, heavy industry reigned supreme, the shift from an import-substituting industrialization approach to one based on market signals has prompted fundamental reforms in the tax system. In an open, export-driven economy, the tax system should not only raise the required funds for social and physical infrastructure, but it should also reduce distortions. As a result, to maintain worldwide competitiveness, the tax system must adapt to the needs of a market economy. When the right approaches are followed, revenue remains stable and growth in our economy is managed. Any tax that is not backed by law or exceeds the legislative authority's powers is unconstitutional. In 1994, this authority became the basis for levying a tax on some services, and the 88th Amendment to the Indian Constitution gave the federal government the ability to tax services. The internationalisation of economic operations as a result of increased globalisation gave another reason for reform. In light of the recent shift to introduce GST, this article examines the structure of the Indian tax system, its constitutional framework, and current system modifications.

Media policymaking and multistakeholder involvement: Matching audience, stakeholder and government expectations for public service media in Flanders

This contribution analyzes government, opposition, public service media, media stakeholders and audience views regarding the role and remit of public service media in the run-up to and their impact on the renewal of the 2021–2025 management contract between public broadcaster VRT and the Flemish Government. Results show that, despite a shifting media ecosystem and academics and government pushing for fundamental reform, audiences and most stakeholders’ views stick to a centralised, broad and multiplatform public media institution. Moreover, they expect public service media to solve ever more media and societal issues (e.g. fake news) within a shrinking budget. The case illustrates how mature, evidence-based multistakeholderism pushes public service media to meet an increasingly challenging set of expectations, hampers both public service media and government to build a well-balanced, long-term vision of public service media's role and, instead, pushes them to pursue their own agenda. Lastly, an evidence-based process also suffers from issues of validity of the data.

The National council of public trust as a mechanism for implementing deliberative democracy

The article discusses the development of the mechanisms of deliberative democracy in Kazakhstan during the period of political transition on the example of the National Council of Public Trust under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The head of state, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, in his Address to the people on March 16, 2022, stated that the National Council of Public Trust “successfully fulfilled its tasks”. Thus, the National Council ceases to exist, on its basis the “National Kurultai” will be created, which makes it possible to analyze the results of the activities of the National Council from the moment it was launched until the moment it ceased to work.Kazakhstan is at a critical stage of political development. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev is pursuing a policy of fundamental political reforms aimed at building an effective democratic socially oriented society. There is a lot of work to be done to restructure the political architecture of the country. At the same time, the world political science has been considering the shortcomings of institutional democracy associated with the capitalist mode of production and the development of information technologies for several decades. Various methods for improving democracy are proposed. Deliberative democracy is one of them. It should be noted that elements of deliberative democracy are already beginning to be used in Kazakhstan in the form of the institution of the National Council of Public Trust, as well as Public Councils in various areas of public administrationThe article uses the methods of structural-functional and discursive analysis, discusses official documents, as well as potential scenarios for the development of events

Analisis Reformasi Birokrasi untuk Mewujudkan Good Governance pada Pemerintah Kabupaten Pemalang

The realization of quality services for the welfare of the community is one of the commitments to change through bureaucratic reform, in its implementation conflicts often arise due to inconsistencies. This is what happened in Pemalang Regency, on the one hand the bureaucracy is aggressively carrying out bureaucratic reform as a form of self-improvement, but on the other hand it slows down the progress of the bureaucracy due to the declining culture of service and weak employee integrity. This paper aims to determine the causes of the non-optimal results of the evaluation of bureaucratic reform along with the supporting and inhibiting factors for implementing bureaucratic reform in the Pemalang Regency Government. This paper study uses a qualitative method with case studies. Data was collected through observation, documentation and interviews. The data analysis techniques are: data collection, data reduction, data presentation, data analysis and triangulation and drawing conclusions to test the validity of the data and find objective truth. The results of the study in this paper indicate that the bureaucratic reforms carried out by the Pemalang Regency government have not shown significant signs of increasing towards a more optimal direction in an effort to realize Good Governance, there are still normative problems related to the quality and capacity of the apparatus resources. An increase in commitment and a change in mindset is needed from the leadership to all levels of employees to make fundamental changes and reforms to the government administration system to achieve good governance.

National oil companies and fossil fuel subsidy regimes in transition: The case of Indonesia

It has long been recognised that national oil companies (NOCs) offer the means for funding and delivering fuel subsidies as a politically valuable good. But what happens when the oil begins to run out? Fiscal pressures will clearly increase, but there is also evidence that net importers with NOCs are still more likely to have subsidies than those without. A key question about countries moving through this transition is therefore whether and how the role of NOCs in the subsidy regime changes as the classic logic erodes. We examine these issues in a detailed case study of Indonesia, which became a net oil importer in the early 2000s. A series of partial reforms of FFS has followed, but subsidies remain and the NOC still plays a central role in their delivery. We find that certain functions of the NOC, such as obfuscating the fiscal cost of subsidies, have eroded. But increasing fiscal pressure has not so far overcome the political lock-in of subsidies and institutional inertia in the role of the NOC. Fundamental reform remains unlikely in the short term, but separating the upstream and downstream businesses of the NOC and changing its governance could help support that reform.

Confronting our Agricultural Nonpoint Source Control Policy Problem

AbstractFederal and state agricultural and environmental agencies have spent enormous sums since the 1990s to reduce nonpoint source (NPS) water pollution from agriculture. Yet, water quality problems are pervasive, and agriculture is a major cause. The lack of progress is often attributed to insufficient funding for pollution control practices relative to the scale of the problem. However, we attribute the lack of progress to shortcomings in agricultural NPS pollution control policy. We illustrate our argument after considering nearly four decades of federal, state, and local efforts to reduce agricultural NPS pollution to the Chesapeake Bay. Additional funding for current programs, absent fundamental program reform, is unlikely to produce reductions from agriculture needed to achieve desired water quality outcomes.

Legal and Judicial System Transformation in Transition Economy: The Macedonian Case

Economic growth and poverty reduction are highly dependent on the well-functioning legal and judicial institutions. Experience in transition countries suggests that the legal transition and economic performance go hand in hand in advancing results. The transition from socialism to capitalism in the Republic of North Macedonia has required fundamental reforms of legal and judicial institutions. The paper analyses the experience of the country in the legal and judicial institutions transformation, a long-term process that still has active and ongoing reforms. Despite the adoption of the structural preconditions for judicial independence (legal framework, judicial councils, and academies), political intervention, corruption and influence in judicial decisions are common and legal uncertainty remains. The authors explore the effects that the legal and judicial institutions’ transformation has on Macedonian economic development by drawing data from official sources/reports. The conclusions suggest that creating a well-defined judiciary system with enforcement ability should be a priority for the executive branch of the Macedonian government to achieve improved economic performance and functional market economy.

Issues of Practising Lesson Study for Learning Community in Vietnam

It has been around 15 years since the commencement of lesson study for the learning community (LSLC) in Vietnam. It started at several pilot schools in Bac Giang province, and today it is practised all over the country. While some pilot schools emerged with high-quality practices, the speed of actual changes in the practices still remains slow. This is because, as the author has found, the following conceptions persist among the policymakers, school leaders and teachers: (a) LSLC requires changing teaching techniques; (b) LSLC is a lesson demonstration, and (c) LSLC is a one-day event. This article addresses these conceptions and argues that LSLC should be considered a fundamental, long-term, and holistic school reform approach based on democratic principles and excellence. To overcome these limitations, it is critical for the practitioners, researchers and policymakers to have networks to share their experiences, be informed about the practices and theories, and research into LSLC more deeply – to even learn from the practitioners and researchers in other countries too.

Investigation of Systems and Various Aspects of Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) for Outsourcing the Armed Forces

Introduction: Heath is one of the most important issues discussed in all organizations including the arm forces. This study aims to provide a suitable substrate for outsourcing health, safety and environment (HSE) activities in the armed forces, by identifying the various aspects of outsourcing HSE, and reviewing the existing systems related to HSE.
 Methods: This documentary research was conducted among the arm forces in 1397-1400. In this study data were extracted using the keywords of the documents searched in the databases. Raw data were provided to experts in the form of questionnaires. Questionnaires were developed by Delphi method and an expert panel.
 Results: Results of the questionnaire on different aspects of HSE outsourcing by the panel of experts showed that 17 subsets in 3 areas of health (6 items), safety (6 items) and environment (5 items) are conceivable for outsourcing (military force use external organizations or individual to meet their necessary needs). After developing the systems evaluation questionnaire (A set of laws, regulations, bylaws, instructions, and directives that are developed to address standards of a particular subject, job, or profession), 14 instructions/bylaws related to 10 requirements (what should be observed in systems related to the armed forces) were evaluated, and the results showed that on average, 39% of the systems cover the requirements, 29% need to be reformed, and 32% of the requirements require major reforms.
 Conclusion: Findings of this study indicated that the use of systems in a country cannot fully meet the requirements of the armed forces, and requires some fundamental reforms. Also, not all aspects of HSE can be outsourced, and some requirements need to be considered before outsourcing.

A certain gamble: Institutional change, leader turnover, and their effect on rivalry termination

Previous research shows that leader turnover and change in a leader's winning coalition are associated with rivalry termination. However, this research often conflates change in leadership or winning coalition with more fundamental reform of the institutions governing the state. This article argues that only changes in a rival's governing institutions should lead to rivalry termination. Changes in leader preferences may lead to conciliatory policies, but provide no certainty regarding the sincerity or longevity of these policies. Fundamental changes to the institutions of a state alter the menu of policy options available to the leadership and are difficult to undo. Institutional reform in Rival A makes the leadership of Rival B more willing to undertake potentially risky cooperative action, leading to rivalry termination. I test this argument in a dataset of rivalry terminations spanning 1919–2010, finding that institutional reform in one rival leads to an increase in the likelihood of rivalry termination regardless of the issues of contention. Irregular leader turnover and change in a state's winning coalition have no effect. Further, in a break with previous research, I find that any institutional reform—toward autocracy, toward democracy or laterally—is associated with an increased likelihood of rivalry termination.