Community Interest Groups Research Articles

УПРАВЛІННЯ СТЕЙКХОЛДЕРАМИ У ВОЛОНТЕРСЬКИХ ПРОЄКТАХ

The issue of the significant role of volunteering in solving social problems in modern conditions is considered. The low effectiveness of the processes of interaction of interested parties during the implementation of charitable initiatives is emphasized, which necessitates the management of stakeholders in volunteer projects. The purpose of the article is to research the processes and develop a mechanism for involving stakeholders of volunteer projects in decision-making to ensure the inclusive participation of representatives of various community interest groups. The object of the study is the process of stakeholder management in volunteer projects. The methodological basis of the research is logical methods of information processing, methods of analysis for stakeholder mapping, an abstract-logical method for formulating recommendations and conclusions. Presenting main material. The issue of involvement of interested parties in decision-making during the implementation of volunteer projects is considered. The definition and general characteristics of project stakeholders are given. The problem of low efficiency of interaction between community residents, authorities and volunteer project teams was studied. A stakeholder management mechanism for volunteer projects is proposed, which is based on the method of dividing stakeholders into groups depending on the degree of their interest and influence. Effective management of interested parties will make it possible to avoid misunderstandings and contradictions, improve the quality of the final product and contribute to the successful implementation of volunteer projects. The originality and practical significance of the study is confirmed by the possibility of using the proposed measures as a practical tool for managing stakeholders of volunteer projects. Conclusions and prospects for further research. The proposed stakeholder management mechanism of volunteer projects can be used for further improvement of co-creation processes in communities.

Coping with a crisis: business interest group coalitions in the wake of the financial crisis

The global financial crisis resulted in a re-examination of the business sector as a whole and its lobbying activity. Nevertheless, research has not analysed the impact that the global financial crisis had on the coalitions within the business interest group community. This article describes in detail how coalitions within the business interest group community have emerged in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. I focus my attention on the Swiss case because of the importance of its financial sector as well as its neo-corporatist system. The empirical approach consists of a process tracing on three policy areas: financial regulation, tax policy and corporate governance, which is elaborated through an extensive document analysis and 28 in-depth interviews. The advocacy coalition framework is used to analyse business interest groups’ beliefs. The findings suggest that different beliefs materialise, especially in the field of financial regulation and partially in tax policy.

Influence in the right-of-way: Assessing landowners’ risk decision-making in negotiating oil and gas pipeline easements

Pipeline rights-of-way (ROW) are the result of complicated easement negotiations between pipeline operators and landowners, where landowners must frequently weigh the financial benefits of lucrative contracts against the potential risk of living alongside oil and gas infrastructure projects. This study analyzes a survey of landowners both directly and proximally involved in a pipeline construction project to better understand their risk decision-making processes. We examine how landowners in a ROW understand risks across personal, property, and environment related risk domains, then compare these results to neighboring landowners. We additionally assess how landowners’ relationships to pipelines have changed due to direct positive and negative experiences with these projects. Findings suggest that landowners’ assembled knowledge of pipelines and resulting risk calculations are, in part, determined by personal exposure to pipeline development and negotiations with pipeline operators. We also find evidence of risk discounting in instances where landowners benefit from the pipeline project, or seek to justify their historical risk calculations. Results of the study reveal why landowners assume risks of proximity to pipelines. These findings can inform the practices of community interest groups engaging with landowners, as well as policymakers pursuing rulemaking to protect landowner interests.

Community building via the DTL Data Stewards Interest Group (DSIG)

This article describes the Data Stewards Interest Group (DSIG), an informal and inclusive community hub for data stewards and like-minded in the Netherlands (and abroad) to share experiences, fostering the (Dutch) national implementation of data stewardship.

Deliberative Planning Analysis: Study on Policy-Making Inhibiting Factors in Musrenbangdes

The success of the Musrenbangdes policy implementation will always be determined by various factors. Inhibiting factors are often the cause of the ineffective implementation of a policy. This research was conducted to look at the inhibiting factors in making Musrenbangdes policy which is seen in the scope of deliberative planning. This study uses a descriptive research method with a qualitative approach. The data analysis techniques used by the researchers are interactive models from Miles and Huberman. Research conducted in Pulau Rimau District, Banyuasin Regency, South Sumatra found that there were inhibiting factors in the implementation of Musrenbangdes that led to the decision-making process in deliberative planning. Some of these factors are the involvement of community interest groups that have not been fully involved or are still in the form of representatives. Determination of participant representatives in Musrenbangdes has not been seen based on age group which causes inclusiveness of public involvement to be not created. In addition, public involvement has not been seen based on socio-economic backgrounds such as education, employment, and the strategic location of activity locations. This has an impact on the deliberative planning process that has not been able to run effectively and inclusively. The involvement of interest groups, age groups, social and economic backgrounds of the community is important to consider in determining Musrenbangdes participants to create a deliberative planning process that accommodates all stakeholders.

Pelatihan Penyusunan Strategi Kampanye Politik Untuk Meningkatkan Elektabilitas Kader Partai Politik Perempuan di Provinsi Aceh

The problem of the low level of women's political representation in the regional legislature has become a serious concern for the community and various interest groups in Aceh Province. Identification of this problem explains that this condition is caused by the low skills of female political cadres in designing appropriate and efficient political campaign strategies. The use of social media through the platforms Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube is an important aspect in designing a political communication strategy to increase the electability of women's political party cadres ahead of regional legislative elections. This training aims to increase the electability of female political party cadres by utilizing social media as a political campaign strategy to potential voters in the constituency. This training uses a conceptual approach, theory and practice. The results of this training show that the participants have gained knowledge and technical skills in designing political campaign strategies through social media which are expected to increase their electability to compete in the political contestation of the upcoming legislative elections.

‘Lessons in statecraft’?: Political memoirs, tax reform, and the National Taxation Summit 1985

ABSTRACT Former politicians produce political memoirs for a variety of reasons, many of which are self-serving. However, given that active politicians who aspire to emulate or at least learn from the example of their predecessors often read political memoirs, we need to understand how these books conceptualise the policy process. In this article, I argue that political memoirs are a manifestation of their author’s (mis)conceptions of the policy process itself. Adopting the Hawke Government’s Taxation Summit of 1985 as a case study, I comparatively analysed the way that six political memoirs and autobiographies account for that policy process, examining the varying significance that each author ascribes to policymaking agents, chiefly the leadership, the executive, the bureaucracy, the intra-party factions, and external community interest groups. I conclude that memoirs are conditioned by genre conventions, and by their author’s specific vantage point within the policy network.

Laboratories of Politics: There is Bottom-up Diffusion of Policy Attention in the American Federal System

A persistent question in the study of American federalism is if the states actually serve as “laboratories of democracy” for the country as a whole. I argue that political attention to policy areas can diffuse upwards, from state legislatures to Congress. National and state legislators share a party brand and can learn from policy debates in other levels. In particular, we should expect to see the diffusion of messaging legislation, or bills that were introduced without the intention of becoming law, after members of Congress observe their political effects in the states. Using an original dataset of introduced bills in all 50 state legislatures in 22 policy areas since 1991 drawn from LexisNexis, I show a positive association between changes in the number of state legislative bills introduced in 12 policy areas and the number of Congressional bills introduced in the next session, which is taken as evidence of “bottom-up” diffusion. This relationship is more prevalent between Republican state legislators and members of Congress, within state delegations, and in issue areas where the interest group community lobbies before both the states and national government. To the extent that states are laboratories for the nation, they may be political laboratories.

The 'New': Small and Rural Schools' Influence on Regional Urban Developments

Rapid urban development in small rural communities is occurring at an unprecedented pace in regional Aotearoa New Zealand. Despite this growth, rural schools are positioned at the margins of the planning process and the implications of this urbanisation trend remains unknown. This research challenges the notion of the rural-urban divide by locating rural schools as a key part of regional urban development and thus will be of interest to government officials, developers, educators, and local community interest groups. The study explores the social, economic and political impact of urban development on small and rural primary schools (N=6) in two of the fastest growing regions in the country. Interviews with school principals and focus group interviews with school boards of trustees were conducted. The findings suggest the emergence of new, complex and contested 'semi-rural' identity as an outcome of the uncertain and ever-changing demographic landscape. Varying school leadership and governance perspectives of urbanisation are placed on a spectrum, premised upon different experiences of the struggle to balance new, and often competing, parent and community aims and changing school populations. The findings contribute to theorising about the construction of rurality and its influence on the creation of a new urbanised semi-rural community identity. Findings offer the potential for knowledge sharing amongst rural schools currently or for others likely to experience rapid urbanisation in their communities in the future.

Formal and informal sustainability reporting: an insight from a mining company’s subsidiary in Ghana

PurposeUsing a subsidiary of a multinational mining company in Ghana as a case, the purpose of this study is to examine the formal and informal forms and channels of sustainability reporting in the emerging economy’s context. Design/methodology/approachSemi-structured interviews were conducted amongst managers and employees of the mining company and members of their host community. Based on the interview themes, archival data were extracted from the 2020 Integrated Annual Report of the case company to corroborate the results from the interviews. FindingsThe authors found that most of the stakeholders from the host community interviewed were not aware and, to an extent, not interested in formal sustainability reports. In place of that, the management of the mining subsidiary uses informal channels of communication, including meetings and durbars, to verbally engage the local community and their representatives on sustainability matters. Whilst the formal sustainability reports met the internal requirements set by the parent company, the informal engagements were critical for gaining external legitimacy from the host community and other interest groups. Hence, the authors argue that mining companies and their subsidiaries, particularly in developing economies, need to consider informal forms of sustainability reporting alongside the formal channels to engage local communities to address sustainability issues and avert disruptions to their operations. Originality/valueSustainability reporting studies have focussed mainly on annual reports published in print or corporate websites, ignoring informal forms of sustainability reporting. This study sheds light on the informal forms of sustainability reporting. This is important as formal forms of sustainability reporting may be less useful for engaging local mining communities in developing economy contexts.

Photographing Moments to be Seen. Edith Amituanai’s Little Publics

The photographic work of Aotearoa New Zealand artist Edith Amituanai generates the confident self-assertion of publics that potentially shifts misperceptions of people and place for both subjects and their audiences. A belief in service, a characteristic legacy of Amituanai’s Sāmoan family background has led her to document people, particularly diverse diaspora communities, in the western suburbs of Auckland city where she also lives, and to documenting people more broadly in their neighbourhoods or personal environments. Her images have enabled largely unnoticed and hence provisional publics associated with disregarded public spaces to see themselves presented in mainstream society in art galleries, publications and social media, thereby potentially shifting the stereotypes of people and local places to aid a more complete depiction of a society beyond the dominant European settler demographic. Amituanai’s images of youth, family, cultural and interest group communities and those connected with educational institutions convey the multiple associations that connect individuals. While these associations can be aligned with Grant Kester’s concept of politically coherent communities’ or Michael Warner’s ‘counterpublics’ I argue that the people visible in Amituanai’s work or who take agency to respond to her photos are making themselves publics on their own terms, creating publics that are equal to any other public. The activation of public identity that claims shared space has occurred during the institutional exhibition of Amituanai’s images where subjects and visitors respond to photographs in demonstrations of their own agency.

The Biocultural Labels Initiative: Supporting Indigenous rights in data derived from genetic resources

Internationally, questions of ethics and equity, especially in relation to responsible sharing of data across multiple national platforms, are creating a new range of issues for researchers in the science and innovation sectors. In many nation states, even for those that are not yet signatories to the Nagoya Protocol (Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity 2011), there is a general acknowledgement that the future sharing of biological, ecological and environmental data in support of innovation and generative economic opportunities, must address the rights of Indigenous peoples. The Biocultural (BC) Labels and Biocultural (BC) Notices are two distinct tools delivered by the Local Contexts Platform for recognizing Indigenous rights in data derived from genetic resources. The key challenge being addressed by the Biocultural Labels initiative is how to practically encode Indigenous provenance information and cultural responsibilities into research data, including digital sequence information (DSI), on genetic resources. As a digital data ethics strategy, Biocultural Labels make visible the provenance and ethics of collections; outline community expectations and consents about appropriate use of the collections; connect data to people and environments, thereby maintaining relationships to data over time and enhancing the capacity for Indigenous control of Indigenous data. Prioritizing provenance and transparency in data collected in collaboration and partnership with Indigenous peoples or on Indigenous lands and waters, the six Biocultural Labels provide a mechanism for Indigenous communities to directly integrate associated responsibilities, obligations and relationships as accompanying metadata. For example, the Provenance BC Label enables origin information, including Indigenous names and places to become metadata for data generated from Indigenous lands and/or waters; the Open to Collaboration BC Label indicates that an Indigenous community is open to future research collaborations and outreach activities that might arise from research relating to specific biodiversity data; the Consent Verified BC Label indicates that there are consent conditions in place from the Indigenous community for the data that have been generated from research; the Multiple Community BC Label recognizes that more than one community has responsibilities and interests in data about a particular species; the Research Use BC Label helps clarify that a community agrees that certain data may be used openly and without further negotiation for future research opportunities; and, the Open to Commercialization BC Label indicates that a community is open to the possibility of profit oriented opportunities arising from specific research or from specific species. The Biocultural Labels allow for cultural protocols to be digitally expressed and connected with data, travelling with it over time, by enhancing engagement with, connection to and recognition of Indigenous interests in biodiversity research. As a complementary, yet distinct mechanism, the Biocultural Notices are a tool for researchers and institutions to use and apply to data when underlying Indigenous rights or interests in collected data can and need to be identified. This mechanism helps increase researcher integrity when working with Indigenous communities, and generates transparency across the Indigenous data lifecycle. The BC Labels and Notices have been developed as a direct Ethical, Legal and Social Implications (ELSI) intervention for the equitable and ethical future use of Indigenous data. This initiative offers the possibility for substantive change in how biological data from Indigenous contexts can maintain cultural relationships and responsibilities, connecting Indigenous people and places over time with data and in the metadata and with future researchers for the cultural, ecological and commercial benefit of Indigenous peoples. With the development of these digital tools, questions about standards and appropriate metadata fields for the Labels and Notices within the Darwin Core (DwC) standard, which incorporates previously defined Dublin Core (dcterms) terms, has arisen. This is partly because both the BC Labels and the BC Notices could potentially be used at a record level in multiple ways, for instance as dcterms:rightsHolder, dcterms:accessRights and potentially dcterms:license. It is also possible, that given the absence of Indigenous interests in the larger formation of the DwC standard, that something new might need to be created that can adequately represent these purpose and use interests, and the integrity in research practice that they promote. This panel brings together the founders of the Biocultural Labels initiative with users of the Labels within researcher and institutional contexts to discuss development, uptake, scaling, standards and appropriate metadata fields for the Labels and Notices within Genomic Standards Consortium standards, and TDWG Community Interest Groups (IG) including Attribution, Darwin Core, Genomic Biodiversity, Collections Descriptions and Species Information alongside TDWG Task Groups (TG) including Vocabularies and People in Biodiversity Data.

Is this a men’s world? On the need to study descriptive representation of women in lobbying and policy advocacy

ABSTRACT How well are women represented in the world of political advocacy? Despite the important role of interest groups in modern democracies, the demographic composition of the interest group community remains a blind spot in public policy research. Based on data on over 1000 lobbyists in five European countries, we suggest that the share of women in the world of advocacy is significantly lower than in parliaments. We therefore argue that gender biases in political advocacy need to move high up on the research agenda. As key avenues for future studies, we raise the effects these imbalances have on agenda setting and political decision-making, as well as their symbolic effects on female participation and perceived legitimacy. Moreover, we call for research addressing the complex supply and demand-side factors that cause gender inequalities in lobbying to address this problem in practice.

A social capital view of an Olympic and Paralympic Games bid exploration process

ABSTRACT Research question: The purpose of this study is to examine the Olympic and Paralympic bid exploration process adopted by Calgary, Canada (‘Calgary Model’) to explore whether it provides a template on how future communities could leverage bid exploration processes to generate social capital though increased network connectivity and community ownership. In doing so, we examine the four research questions: Research Question 1: How did the Calgary Model embed community values as central to all decision-making processes? Research Question 2: How did the Calgary Model engage diverse stakeholders, particularly community interest groups, in the strategic activities? Research Question 3: How did the Calgary Model empower communities to become agents of change? Research Question 4: How did the Calgary Model provide sustained open communication towards mutual learning? Research methods: Guided by social capital theory, the researchers conducted 19 in-depth, one-on-one interviews with a sample of individuals engaged in the Calgary bid exploration process. Results and findings: The results identified ten composite themes with an overall conclusion that the process Calgary used did not sufficiently generate social capital through maximizing network connectivity and community ownership. Implications: Resulting from our data analysis we developed a conceptual social capital assessment tool and five principles to support event organizers in designing processes that help to maximize the generation of community social capital.

Dynamic state interest group systems: a new look with new data

Existing data sets on state interest group systems tend to be either cross-sectional (observations for only 1 year) or panel-style (observations of 2 years about a decade apart). In this paper, I describe a new data set based on raw counts of interest groups and organizations lobbying in the states collected by the National Institute for Money in State Politics, data which are observed annually from 2006 to 2015. After several years of careful coding, I present initial analyses of this state interest group data broken out by economic sector (based on National Center for Economic Statistics codes), support for business policies, differences between membership organizations and other organizational types, like corporations and governments. Furthermore, I also explore how the broad contours of these interest group communities shift and change over time, allowing me to see whether any type of organized interest is able to dominate their state interest group system.

The funding of interest groups in the EU: are the rich getting richer?

ABSTRACT Governmental subsidies are demand-side factors, which allow governments to ‘mould’ interest group communities. The EU is the worlds’ largest donor and has claimed to use public funds to promote the participation of organized interests in public policy. Previous studies found support for this claim and concluded that EU subsidies help to alleviate existing biases in the system of interest intermediation. In this article, we challenge these findings and argue that scholars paid too little attention to the applications for funding filed by interest groups. Using data collected from a survey of applying organizations, we consider the effect of four types of bias on the attainment of funds. Our results suggest that an organization's financial resources and its past success with applications increase the likelihood of winning a grant. These results question the redistributive aspect of EU funds and compare biases in EU funding with existing biases in the interest intermediation system.

More business as usual? Explaining business bias across issues and institutions in the European Union

ABSTRACTBusiness interest groups numerically dominate the European Union (EU) interest group communities. However, scholars note that the relative proportion of business interests varies by either the institutional venue or the policy issue. Exchange-theoretical approaches emphasize the distinct informational needs of policy-makers at different venues, hereby favoring business actors to a varying degree. Other scholars emphasize the importance of conflict and argue that containment or expansion of conflict on concrete policy issues shapes the relative presence of business interest representatives. We simultaneously test both hypotheses comparing interest group activities on seventy issues observed in the European Parliament, the European Commission and in the EU media. We find little differences between the EU venues in terms of the interests represented. Rather, the salience and scope of issues seem more important denominators for variation in business lobby activity.

Power through Collaboration: Stakeholder Influence in EU Climate and Energy Negotiations

Abstract Who gets what in high-level European Union (EU) negotiations and how? This study draws on data concerning stakeholder preferences during heated negotiations leading to the EU’s 2030 Climate and Energy Policy Framework. It tests the explanatory values of Liberal Intergovernmentalism (LI), the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), and Historical Institutionalism (HI). Large member states were key (LI). However, coordinated groups of member states, bound by specific common interests, also played crucial roles. ACF explains the 2030 Framework only if: a) the decisive coalitions consisted of the EU’s supranational institutions, the coordinated groups of member states and long-term advocacy coalitions in the interest group community; b) coalition members held comparatively similar views; and c) coalition members adjusted their strategies mutually and/or shared information. The European Commission set the agenda (HI). The analysis demonstrates that LI, HI and ACF may be used as complementary analytical tools, filling several of each other’s gaps.

Making Inference across Mobilisation and Influence Research: Comparing Top-Down and Bottom-Up Mapping of Interest Systems.

Scholars of mobilisation and policy influence employ two quite different approaches to mapping interest group systems. Those interested in research questions on mobilisation typically rely on a bottom-up mapping strategy in order to characterise the total size and composition of interest group communities. Researchers with an interest in policy influence usually rely on a top-down strategy in which the mapping of politically active organisations depends on samples of specific policies. But some scholars also use top-down data gathered for other research questions on mobilisation (and vice versa). However, it is currently unclear how valid such large-N data for different types of research questions are. We illustrate our argument by addressing these questions using unique data sets drawn from the INTEREURO project on lobbying in the European Union and the European Union’s Transparency Register. Our findings suggest that top-down and bottom-up mapping strategies lead to profoundly different maps of interest group communities.

MODEL KOMUNIKASI PARIWISATA YANG BERBASISKAN KEARIFAN LOKAL

<em>Cultural values will strengthen the attractions of a place. Viewed from the potential side, cultural values will provide benefits on social, ecological, and economic aspects. This research uses explorative method with data collection technique through in-depth interview, observation, and literature study. The results of research indicate that the elements of culture will strengthen the tourism sector if communicated well and sustainably among stakeholders in an effort to develop the object of tourism through local branding. The conclusion of this research resulted that the existence of culture applied through the display of arts and local wisdom that utilizes the beauty of natural panorama can strengthen and increase the popularity of a tourist attraction if it has established good communication between the government, capital owners, community and other interest groups.</em>