Inappropriate Government Policies Research Articles

Volatility of World Oil Prices Towards Venezuela's Economic Crisis

The drop in world oil prices, especially in 2014, caused Venezuela to experience a crisis. This is because oil is the country's main commodity and 95% of Venezuela's exports come from oil commodities. This study uses a qualitative descriptive research method. By using the theory of International Political Economy, International Organization, and Price Liberalization, the author tries to find out the causes of the decline in world oil prices and efforts to stabilize world oil prices in this case OPEC and market mechanisms. The results of this study indicate that Venezuela's financial inability to deal with falling oil prices due to inappropriate government policies such as the Venezuelan Social Program has caused Venezuela to experience an economic crisis. This then causes further impacts in the form of a humanitarian crisis, namely poverty, hunger, unemployment, crime, and an increase in the number of Venezuelan refugees. The series of crises resulted in Venezuela becoming one of the countries that failed to overcome domestic crises.

Slowdown in total factor productivity of French private companies: Between microeconomic heterogeneity and inappropriate government policies

AbstractThis article aims to find an explanation for the slowdown in the total factor productivity (TFP) of private firms on the one hand, and on the other hand, to show the need for state intervention through government policies whose impacts on TFP were verified in the literature. In this paper, we examined the relationship between different government policies and TFP growth for 78 French firms covering the period 2005 to 2019. Firstly, this study showed that TFP varies considerably over time, suggesting that microeconomic factors may have an important impact on firms' TFP. Secondly, some of the government policies were favorable to TFP growth while others were rather hindering. Indeed, the positive impact of both public infrastructure spending and public subsidies to French firms shows that an expansionary fiscal policy would allow a recovery in TFP. On the other hand, taxes on imported products, the exchange rate and cost‐competitiveness ratio, with a negative impact, show that the competitiveness policies adopted are unfavorable to the resumption of TFP growth. Thirdly, it should be noted that operating, investment and R&D subsidies were channels for the effectiveness of French government policies. Finally, by taking into account a set of macroeconomic indicators, the study confirmed the positive impact of a favorable macroeconomic environment on the recovery of TFP.

Repositioning Environmental NGOs: Either as non-Governmental or Private Sector Organizations

Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) are an organization supported by an independent community, a voluntary and non-profit association. Their activities involve voicing the community and being a third party between the government and the private sector. With environmental issues starting to change and being damaged due to inappropriate government policies, environmental NGOs play an essential role in balancing this condition. This article will discuss the position of NGOs during environmental issues that hit Indonesia observed by two environmental organizations, WALHI and KruHA, taking official information published on their websites and social media. The analysis uses discourse text analysis, deconstruction of meaning or communication messages on official information. This paper argues that not all non-profit organizations act of WALHI and KruHA are NGOs in non-profit organizations. They are outside the government and private sector, the so-called “third sector” that plays a role in the right to water and environmental sustainability. Though they are the same as non-profit NGOs, their movement mechanism is different.

Social control of government policy through the citizen lawsuit mechanism

Social control is a form of monitoring whether or not a public policy is made from the planning and implementation stages in the community. Social control aims to prevent or treat so that the government does not set deviant actions or rules that can harm the community. So it is fitting for community groups to control and supervise the policies made by the government. However, it cannot be denied that there are still many policies that are made detrimental to the community and violate the public interest. This study analyzes inappropriate government policies in the community, using the empirical juridical method with a concept approach, a case approach, and a law approach. The results of this study indicate that several violations occurred due to government policies, so total control from the community is needed that can be carried out using a citizen lawsuit mechanism. The citizen lawsuit is the suitable lawsuit model to demand the Government evaluate and improve all efforts and policies to overcome problems detrimental to the community.How to cite item: Sinaga, PHW., Wiratama, FPB., Indriati, F., Rahayu, DA., Sunarjo (2022). Social control of government policy through the citizen lawsuit mechanism. Jurnal Cakrawala Hukum, 13(2). 128-134. doi:10.26905/idjch.v13i2.7875.

Prediction of COVID-19 epidemic situation via fine-tuned IndRNN.

The COVID-19 pandemic is the most serious catastrophe since the Second World War. To predict the epidemic more accurately under the influence of policies, a framework based on Independently Recurrent Neural Network (IndRNN) with fine-tuning are proposed for predict the epidemic development trend of confirmed cases and deaths in the United Stated, India, Brazil, France, Russia, China, and the world to late May, 2021. The proposed framework consists of four main steps: data pre-processing, model pre-training and weight saving, the weight fine-tuning, trend predicting and validating. It is concluded that the proposed framework based on IndRNN and fine-tuning with high speed and low complexity, has great fitting and prediction performance. The applied fine-tuning strategy can effectively reduce the error by up to 20.94% and time cost. For most of the countries, the MAPEs of fine-tuned IndRNN model were less than 1.2%, the minimum MAPE and RMSE were 0.05%, and 1.17, respectively, by using Chinese deaths, during the testing phase. According to the prediction and validation results, the MAPEs of the proposed framework were less than 6.2% in most cases, and it generated lowest MAPE and RMSE values of 0.05% and 2.14, respectively, for deaths in China. Moreover, Policies that play an important role in the development of COVID-19 have been summarized. Timely and appropriate measures can greatly reduce the spread of COVID-19; untimely and inappropriate government policies, lax regulations, and insufficient public cooperation are the reasons for the aggravation of the epidemic situations. The code is available at https://github.com/zhhongsh/COVID19-Precdiction. And the prediction by IndRNN model with fine-tuning are now available online (http://47.117.160.245:8088/IndRNNPredict).

THE CONNOTATIVE MEANING OF CORONAVIRUS IMPACT EXPRESSIONS IN TEMPO ENGLISH MAGAZINE

This research focuses on analyzing coronavirus impact expressions in Tempo English magazine by using theory of connotative meaning from Leech as the grand theory and from Hook as the supporting theory. The focus is on two kinds of connotative meaning, namely, positive and negative connotative meaning. The objectivities of this research are to find out and to explain the use of negative and connotative meaning. The research is qualitative by which helps the researcher to describe the data being studied. In analyzing qualitative data, there are various kinds of methods, including qualitative content analysis. The use of a qualitative content analysis in this research is to know, to describe, and to analyze the use of connotative meaning applied in Tempo English magazine, April 14, 2020 edition. The result of this research is that Tempo English magazine uses many connotative meaning of coronavirus impact expressions. There are 15 expressions as negative connotative meaning and 12 expressions as positive connotative meaning. The findings indicates that the use negative connotative meaning of coronavirus impact expressions in Tempo English magazine are associated with threats in economy sector and associated with inappropriate government policies in an effort to prevent the spread of covid-19 as well as the impact of pandemic in many sectors. Besides, the use positive connotative meaning of coronavirus impact expressions in Tempo English magazine are associated with solutions to avoid spread of Covid-19 as well as solutions to avoid the impact of pandemic, and associated with the government’s responsibility and seriousness in dealing with preventing the spread of coronavirus as well as in dealing with the impact of coronavirus. Keywords: semantics; connotative meaning; coronavirus impact

Challenges of English Curriculum Implementation at Higher Secondary Level in Pakistan

The study was aimed to examine the challenges of English curriculum implementation at higher secondary level in Punjab. The study is quantitative in nature. The sample of the study was comprised of 429 English teachers teaching at the higher secondary level. A stratified sampling technique was used to select the sample. The data were collected through the survey research method and were analyzed by applying descriptive analysis techniques. The results of the study showed that English teachers face challenges in English curriculum implementation, such as lack of communication skill, inappropriate teacher trainings, teaching method and methodology, lack of teaching resources and aids, inappropriate assessment procedures, misalignment of the content of English textbook, insufficient institutional resources and inappropriate government policies regarding English curriculum implementation. The results of the study suggested giving motivation to English teachers by providing attractive incentives, appropriate training programs and proper supervision of curriculum implementation of English subject.

Issues of English Curriculum Implementation at Higher Secondary Level Schools in Pakistan

The study was aimed to examine the issues of English curriculum implementation at higher secondary level schools in Punjab. The study is quantitative in nature. The sample of the study was comprised of 429 English teachers teaching at higher secondary level schools. Stratified sampling technique was used to select the sample and one instrument was used for data collection named Issues of English Curriculum Implementation Questionnaire (IECIQ) comprised of 58 items developed by the researcher on a 5-point Likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The reliability of questionnaire of issues on English curriculum implementation was found .82. The instrument was also validated from 5 experts of relevant areas which assisted in refining language, clarity in items and sentence structure. The data were collected through survey research method and were analyzed by applying descriptive analysis techniques. The results of the study showed that English teachers used to face issues in English curriculum implementation at higher secondary level schools such as lack of communication skill, inappropriate teacher trainings, teaching method and methodology, multicultural society, lack of social and ethical development of students, lack of teaching resources and aids, inappropriate assessment procedures, misalignment of the content of English textbook, insufficient institutional resources, inappropriate government policies regarding English curriculum implementation and immeasurability of students learning outcomes written in English curriculum document. The results of the study suggested to give motivation to English teachers by providing attractive incentives, appropriate training programs and proper supervision of curriculum implementation of English subject.

Identification and Analysis of Barriers to Employment for Educated Women in Afghanistan

Employment is one of the things that has always been of great importance in developed and developing countries. Considering the 50% share of women in the active population of each country, it is important to pay attention to employment in this sector. For this purpose, the present study aimed to recognize and analyze the barriers to the employment of educated women in Afghanistan. Initially, considering the various sources, barriers to employment of educated women in Afghanistan were identified and classified into different groups using factor analysis. Then, by filling out 437 questionnaires in Kabul, Herat, Balkh and Kandahar provinces, the most important barriers to the employment of educated women in Afghanistan were identified and analyzed using the Logit model. The results showed that variables such as the number of people with family income, age, education, inappropriate government policies, and insecurity in society, personal social factors, general culture, mentality, and personality are among the variables that affect the employment of educated women in Afghanistan. Also, by comparing weighted elasticities, comparing the 8 variables that influence the barriers to employment of educated women in Afghanistan, it is observed in the Logit model that the variable of personal social factors has the most importance on non-employment of educated women in Afghanistan. After this variable, respectively, are the policies of inappropriate government policies and the number of people with income in the family and the least important variables are age and education.

Changes in local knowledge and its impacts on ecological resources management: The case of flyingfish culture of the Tao in Taiwan

The use of local ecological knowledge (LEK) has been advocated for coastal ecological and environmental resource management (EERM), noting that successful management on the resources has been implemented for centuries by many coastal societies based on their LEK. However, changes in LEK are observed in many instances worldwide and have caused impacts on the EERM. This study reports industry-, government- and culture-driven changes of a LEK and the impacts of the changes on the environment. Taking the Tao of Taiwan's Orchid Island as an example, the connotations and trend of their flyingfish culture are analyzed. Specifically, the five conditions for achieving effective EERM established by Dietz et al. (2003) are used as the theoretical basis to analyze the impact of LEK changes on environmental change. The findings indicated that this culture complies with the conditions proposed and proved that application of the flyingfish culture to the management of Orchid Island's marine and fishery resources has its theoretical basis and advantages. However, the flyingfish culture was found to be facing major changes which has violated the conditions for effective management of shared resources. Various external factors have contributed to the changes in the flyingfish culture. These include the impacts of inappropriate government policies, modern science and technology, education, and the market economy. Especially, inappropriate policies have reduced the integrity of the flyingfish cultural landscape, incentivized the use of motorized boats, commodified the flyingfish, and expanded the market for related products. Some suggestions for managing the changes to the culture are proposed.

English

Changes in ecosystem functions can be analyzed through changes in land use land cover (LULC) systems. This study was carried out to analyze the LULC changes and perception of local community towards land cover change in the lowlands of Bale, Southeast Ethiopia using remote sensing data, field observations and perception of local people. The results showed that cultivated land, settlement, bush land and bare land expanded by 13.81, 14.30, 12.62 and 22.3% respectively, between 1986 and 2016, whereas wood land, grassland and shrubby grassland declined by 33.82, 24.4 and 3.36% respectively. Local communities’ perceptions indicate that climatic, demographic and anthropogenic factors as well as implementation of inappropriate government policy and development interventions were major driving forces of LULC dynamics. Environmental and local livelihoods implications such as rangeland degradation, bush encroachment, soil degradation, livestock loss, biodiversity loss and poverty increase resulted from these changes. Cumulative effects contribute to rangeland degradation and poverty. Therefore, to halt the impact of LULC disturbance and its implication on the likelihood of the pastoralist, appropriate management measures and government policies have to be implemented.   Key words: Bale rangelands, remote sensing, land use/cover change, socio-economic factor.

Problem Dasar Kesenjangan Digital di Asia Tenggara

Sebagai sebuah kawasan yang terintegrasi, Asia Tenggara sesungguhnya tidak terkoneksi baik secara digital. Hal itu tampak dari lebarnya kesenjangan akses digital antara Singapura sebagai negara dengan perekonomian paling maju dengan negara-negara lainnya di kawasan ini. Akibatnya, komunikasi digital tidak dapat dijalankan secara lancar hingga berdampak pada interkonektivitas kawasan. Inilah problem yang diulas dalam artikel ini dan berdasarkan hasil riset yang telah dilakukan, ditemukan bahwa kesenjangan digital di Asia Tenggara disebabkan oleh kebijakan pemerintah yang tidak tepat sasaran dan rendahnya pendapatan per kapita sebagian besar masyarakat. Kebijakan pemerintah berkorelasi dengan kegagalan para pengambil kebijakan membangun jaringan infrastruktur telekomunikasi yang memadai dan merata di semua wilayah. Sementara, rendahnya pendapatan membuat masyarakat tidak mampu membeli perangkat teknologi seperti komputer dan telepon genggam sekaligus tidak memiliki modal cukup untuk berlangganan akses internet.

Ecologically sustainable weed management: How do we get from proof-of-concept to adoption?

Weed management is a critically important activity on both agricultural and non-agricultural lands, but it is faced with a daunting set of challenges: environmental damage caused by control practices, weed resistance to herbicides, accelerated rates of weed dispersal through global trade, and greater weed impacts due to changes in climate and land use. Broad-scale use of new approaches is needed if weed management is to be successful in the coming era. We examine three approaches likely to prove useful for addressing current and future challenges from weeds: diversifying weed management strategies with multiple complementary tactics, developing crop genotypes for enhanced weed suppression, and tailoring management strategies to better accommodate variability in weed spatial distributions. In all three cases, proof-of-concept has long been demonstrated and considerable scientific innovations have been made, but uptake by farmers and land managers has been extremely limited. Impediments to employing these and other ecologically based approaches include inadequate or inappropriate government policy instruments, a lack of market mechanisms, and a paucity of social infrastructure with which to influence learning, decision-making, and actions by farmers and land managers. We offer examples of how these impediments are being addressed in different parts of the world, but note that there is no clear formula for determining which sets of policies, market mechanisms, and educational activities will be effective in various locations. Implementing new approaches for weed management will require multidisciplinary teams comprised of scientists, engineers, economists, sociologists, educators, farmers, land managers, industry personnel, policy makers, and others willing to focus on weeds within whole farming systems and land management units.

The importance of competitiveness in new internationalized and competitive environment of pharmaceutical industry.

Competitiveness is considered as a key criterion for assessing the success of countries, industries and companies. World Economic Forum defines competitiveness as the set of institutions, policies and factors that determine the level of productivity. Moreover, competitiveness can be defined as acquisition more market share, greater profitability and long-term stability and growth of these indicators thereby improving the welfare and living standards of people. Putting it in perspective, companies and industries must be well competitive in domestic and international markets in order to survive. With respect to recent competitive and dynamic environment if companies want to be successful in competition arena, they must have competitive advantage which means creating and sustaining superior performance. The strength of competition depends on both the conduct of firms and the external business environment in which they compete, the state of infrastructure, legal framework and the effectiveness of the financial system. Mostly, barriers to competition in developing countries stemming from inappropriate government policies, and anti-competitive behavior of firms are common.

Strategies for Enhancing Linkage in the Agricultural Innovation Transfer Sub-system in South-Eastern Nigeria

The study examined professionals' perception on strategies for enhancing linkage in the agricultural innovation transfer sub- system in South Eastern Nigeria. Two hundred and ten (210) extension professionals from the public and private/ NGOs actors in the innovation transfer sub-system were used as sample. Data were collected by use of set of questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive statistics, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Pearson correlation coefficient. The findings showed that the respondents opted to forging effective linkages among actors in the sector. Overall use of liaison committee, free access to annual report, magazine, and bulletin, joint use of facilities were perceived appropriate. They accepted the adoption of allocating staff time to linkage activities, allocating operating fund to linkage, building linkage responsibilities into job descriptions and others. The major linkage constraining variables were inadequate sources of fund, poor government commitment to extension, low mobility of professionals, inappropriate government policy , poor training opportunities for professionals and others. The study recommends that regulatory mechanisms, policies and framework that could stimulate and enhance linkages among agencies in the sub-system should be put in place.

Pendekatan Komunitas dan Komunikasi Sosial pada Pengembangan Sistem Penyediaan Air Minum (SPAM) (Community and Social Communication Approaches on Development of Water Supply System)

The government of Indonesia is obliged to provide continuous supply of drinking water in good quality to the people so that they can live well and productive. Under the framework of local autonomy regime, all physical development efforts, including sufficing drinking water, done at local level must be the responsibility of the local government together with civil society. Therefore, local community is expected to actively involve in the formulation of drinking water development program. Community-based and social communication approaches oriented toward local empowerment are chosen as primary strategy to achieve the development of water supply system. Social communication approach occurs in the form of social advocacy in the policy-making processes so that the policy becomes more sensitive to the needs of the local people. It is expected that by doing so the policy will be supportive to the need of local people. This article is to analyze the development of drinking water supply systems managed by government and NGOs as well as with local people. Some of them are not sustainable in terms of its policy processes continuity. The study reveals that such situation occurs due to less participation or support of local citizens and inappropriate local government policy supporting toward the program. This paper intends to elaborate more on the topics of community and social communication approaches relating to the development of water supply system.

Soil erosion in developing countries: a socio-economic appraisal

Soil erosion is the single most important environmental degradation problem in the developing world. Despite the plethora of literature that exists on the incidence, causes and impacts of soil erosion, a concrete understanding of this complex problem is lacking. This paper examines the soil erosion problem in developing countries in order to understand the complex inter-relationships between population pressure, poverty and environmental-institutional dynamics. Two recent theoretical developments, namely Boserup's theory on population pressure, poverty and soil erosion and Lopez's theory on environmental and institutional dynamics have been reviewed. The analysis reveals that negative impacts of technical change, inappropriate government policies and poor institutions are largely responsible for the continued soil erosion in developing countries. On the other hand, potential for market-based approaches to mitigate the problem is also low due to the negative externalities involved. A deeper appreciation of institutional and environmental dynamics and policy reforms to strengthen weak institutions may help mitigate the problem.

Institutionalizing children and adolescents in private psychiatric hospitals.

Admissions of children and adolescents to private psychiatric hospitals have been increasing more and more rapidly in recent years. However, the increasing use of inpatient treatment is not consistent with current theory and research about the mental health needs of children and adolescents; often inpatient treatment cannot be justified on the basis of the admitting diagnosis. Hospitalization has an array of negative effects and is less effective in terms of treatment outcome and cost when compared with community-based alternatives. High rates of admissions continue because of changes in the juvenile justice law, insurance practices, lack of legal protection for youths and children, inappropriate government policy, and the growth and practices of for-profit hospitals. Implications for social policy and social work practice are discussed.

Change, the State and Deforestation: The Algerian Example

This work focuses on the role of the state in deforestation in Algeria. The forests were severely exploited by the French in colonial times. In the wake of independence, a massive effort for reafforestation was undertaken, and had some success. In the 1970s and 1980s though, inappropriate government policies, fast-rising pressure on forest lands and administrative inefficiency led to widespread deforestation. As the country is embroiled in political turmoil, and the population is fighting for survival under increasingly difficult conditions, the concept of salvaging the forests is being completely lost from sight. At the present rate of deforestation, Algeria's forests could be totally depleted within the next few decades.

The extraction of rattan-like lianas in the new world tropics: a possible prototype for sustainable forest management

The tropical forests of the Americas contain great biological diversity yet they are being rapidly destroyed by population pressure, injudicious logging, and inappropriate government policies. In this article we explain how the extraction of rattan-like lianas could represent a sustainable system of forest management in which smallholder incomes are increased while relieving deforestation pressures.