International Policy Trends Research Articles

Why New Hybrid Organizations are Formed: Historical Perspectives on Epistemic and Academic Drift.

By comparing three types of hybrid organizations—18th-century scientific academies, 19th-century institutions of higher vocational education, and 20th-century industrial research institutes—it is the purpose here to answer the question of why new hybrid organizations are continuously formed. Traditionally, and often implicitly, it is often assumed that emerging groups of potential knowledge users have their own organizational preferences and demands influencing the setup of new hybrid organizations. By applying the concepts epistemic and academic drift, it will be argued here, however, that internal organizational dynamics are just as important as changing historical conjunctures in the uses of science when understanding why new hybrid organizations are formed. Only seldom have older hybrid organizations sought to make themselves relevant to new categories of knowledge users as the original ones have been marginalized. Instead, they have tended to accede to ideals supported by traditional academic organizations with higher status in terms of knowledge management, primarily universities. Through this process, demand has been generated for the founding of new hybrid organizations rather than the transformation of existing ones. Although this study focuses on Swedish cases, it is argued that since Sweden strove consistently to implement existing international policy trends during the periods in question, the observations may be generalized to apply to other national and transnational contexts.

Effective personalised housing support for people with disabilities – case study analysis

International policy trends favour personalised approaches to housing support for people with disabilities. Previous research is inconclusive about whether these approaches are effective compared to group home support in the way they use government resources and benefit clients, partly because it does not usually consider the experiences of people who use the support. In this research we compared six new, innovative case studies of personalised housing support to previous research about group home support. We included qualitative data about client experiences, in particular regarding social networks, decision making, community service use and participation in domestic tasks. We found that client outcomes were positive in all four categories, while the financial costs to clients and government were similar to group home support. The results offer evidence that current, personalised approaches to housing support can be an effective policy option that allows people with disabilities to make choices about how to live and participate in their communities, without increasing the cost to government.

CO2 Geological Storage: International Technology and Policy Trends, and Research and Development Challenges in Japan

The IPCC published a special report on Carbon dioxide Capture and Storage (CCS) in 2005, stating that CCS is one of the promising options for mitigating carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. Among several CO2 storage options, storing CO2 in saline aquifers is the most promising because of the large storage potential, estimated at from about 2,000 Gt CO2 to more than 10,000 Gt CO2. In this article, we first describe current global trends of CCS technology development and national policies. Some CCS technologies are already in practical use in several countries and are economically viable. Close attention has been paid recently to deep saline aquifer storage, which is expected to have a large storage potential of about 2,000 Gt CO2 throughout the world. We then focus on the mechanisms of deep saline aquifer CO2 storage. In deep saline aquifer storage, chemical reactions in the water-rock-CO2 system play important roles for trapping CO2 in the aquifer formation, as well as physical trapping by overburden impermeable cap rocks and residual gas trapping mechanisms. We also stress the importance of the long-term monitoring of the storage aquifer because CO2 would be trapped stably in the formation for a long time. It is thus important to develop effective monitoring techniques for the behavior of CO2 in the aquifer. Physical as well as chemical monitoring techniques should be used for storage aquifer monitoring. We conclude this article with discussions about storage potential in Japan and some important issues related to deep saline aquifers. Deep saline formations are distributed widely in Japan, and have the potential for the geological storage of 146 Gt of CO2. It is therefore economically feasible to use deep saline formations near large emission sources such as coal-fired power plants and integrated steel works. To realize CCS in Japan, it is important to make further advances in studies on the basic physical and chemical trapping mechanisms of water-rock-CO2 system, and in studies on the geological characteristics of aquifer formations.

The donor, the father, and the imaginary constitution of the family: Parents’ constructions in the case of donor insemination

Current international policy trends in the field of medically assisted conception are moving towards increased openness of information regarding the nature of conception where donated gametes are involved. In the case of donor insemination this means that the donor is no longer anonymous, offspring have the right to access information about the donor's identity, and parents are encouraged to tell children the nature of their donor-assisted conception. Until recently, however, the practice of donor insemination has tended to create the conditions for ignoring, or erasing, the existence of the donor as the provider of the gametes. Changing policy creates numerous challenges to this erasure, and to traditional conceptualisations of the father. This research is based on analysis of the narratives of a group of 41 New Zealand couples who conceived children with the assistance of donor insemination 15–18 years prior. This article focuses on their talk about the donor. The parents’ negation of the donor supports the normative formation of ‘family’, and is in turn supported by an instrumental and de-personalising discourse in relation to the donor. A tension is created within the parents’ talk whereby donors are negated and yet simultaneously appear as persons. We explore this discursive construction, suggesting that a new framework for thinking about donated gametes and the role of the donor is influencing parents’ narrations and understandings of family. We discuss these influences and examine their implications, particularly with respect to a separation of the bio-genetic from the social-environmental.

How to combine tradition and modernity? Regulating customary land management in Ghana

While international land policy trends emphasise the importance of recognising and building on customary tenure systems in order to achieve equitable land management in developing countries, in Ghana, where customary transactions have become increasingly monetised, the equity of customary systems under the control of traditional chiefs is being questioned. At the heart of the problem are issues of authority to allocate land rights and the entitlements to the proceeds from such allocations. This paper focuses on peri-urban Ghana and examines how government has sought to regulate customary land management by chiefs over time, most recently through the piloting of Customary Land Secretariats (CLSs) through the Ghana Land Administration Project (LAP). It draws on evidence gathered from field research in peri-urban Kumasi between 2002 and 2005 and during the preparation and first stage implementation of LAP from 2004 to 2006 to discuss in turn: the land struggles in peri-urban communities in Ghana; the history, legal mandates and operations of government land agencies in relation to customary land; governmental discourse on customary land management and chieftaincy; and the piloting of CLSs under the aegis of traditional authorities, comparing the aims and conceptions of CLSs to actual processes and outcomes so far. Despite a modernising discourse in relation to land administration as a whole, implicit policy commitments to a historically constructed framework of “traditional” chiefly authority over land and to non-interference by government in chiefly affairs are not questioned in practice. The paper shows that the Ghana government has not introduced effective checks and balances on the authority of the chiefs over customary land, allowing them to transact in land in their own interests. As a result the establishment of CLSs risks entrenching unaccountable land management and it is questionable that Ghana's present approach through LAP will be able to combine tradition and modernity in an equitable way.

The Challenges of Inclusive Cross-Scale Collective Action in Watersheds

Increasing attention to watershed management is part of an international policy trend toward integrated water resource management. Integration is multidimensional—across sectors, administrative regions, ministerial portfolios and levels of hydrologic structure and socioeconomic organization. Collective action is key. Individuals need to work effectively together to share common water points; upstream land users and downstream water consumers need to manage and resolve potential conflicts over water quantity and quality, while all the industries, farming communities, urban residents and public agencies that have interests in resource use and environmental quality need to agree on development and conservation objectives and approaches at the basin level. Initiatives that seek to foster collective action in watersheds need to account for the very different interests in water and watershed management. While there may be relatively straightforward ways to foster collective action at a local scale, some forms of collective action may, in fact, be detrimental to other stakeholders. In the developing world in particular, there are often geographic pockets and social groups that are chronically disadvantaged in collective and public processes. Water-users' associations and basin authorities may exacerbate these disparities and further marginalize already poor people. New statutory institutions may intentionally or inadvertently disempower effective customary local institutions. To enable project and program designers to address these challenges better, this paper lays out a framework for assessing the potential for, and implications of, individual and collective decisions in a watershed context. The framework integrates concepts drawn from the biophysical and social sciences, including new perspectives on watershed components, poverty, and collective action. Collective action is seen as a fractal process: collective action for water management at one level of social-spatial organization can have spillover effects at lower and higher levels of social-spatial resolution. To be pro-poor, watershed-management institutions must be genuinely inclusive, deliberately recognizing the interests, perspectives and knowledge of groups that may be systematically excluded from other political and social processes. Researchers, evaluators, watershed-management practitioners and others who apply the framework should be better placed to lay the foundations for that illusive goal: pro-poor, inclusive and resource-conserving development.

Decolonising sustainability: Subverting and appropriating mythologies of social change

This essay explores some possibilities for decolonising the concept of sustainability in southern African discourses of environmental education by drawing attention to examples of the ways in which imperialist interests appear to be privileged in local expressions of selected transnational mythologies of social change. In a previous issue of this journal the author argued that southern African environmental educators should be suspicious of globalisation - pressures on nation states to integrate their economies into the international marketplace. Here it is argued that there may also be reasons to be suspicious of pressures to comply with international policy trends in environmental education, such as those reflected in publications from the World Commission on Environment and Development ( Our Common Future , 1987), the International Union for the Conservation of Nature ( Caring for the Earth , 1991), and the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development ( Agenda 21, 1992).

International policy trends in housing the elderly in developed countries

The proportion of elderly persons in the population is rising in the developed countries. Housing and related social policies are undergoing change to respond to this socio-demographic change within the context of wider changes in policy thinking with respect to housing and aging. International trends in housing policy for elderly people may be discerned despite national variations. The governments of developed countries are beginning to be more engaged in multi-sectoral planning, in decentralization of responsibilities for housing, health and support services and in cost-sharing arrangements for housing and related policies. The quality of life for elderly persons has benefitted through increased opportunities for aging in place in their own homes and through better designed residential facilities.

Health care for handicapped adolescents: International legislative and policy trends

Between 1970-1976, 45 countries enacted or made adjustments to laws on health care for the handicapped. This article explores some of the legal arrangements made to address the issue of health care for the handicapped adolescent. It reviews the legal definition of "handicapped" and analyzes the legislative support created for health care programs. Most programs are comprehensive. They focus on prevention, detection and reporting, as well as treatment and rehabilitation. Better care for disabled adolescents is one of the more important intended results of recent legislation directed to the handicapped. Rehabilitation has been increasingly recognized as a right. Prevention is an increasing focus. Legislation, however important, is only a beginning; it expresses the political will be create programs to address the issue. The challenge is to implement the law.