Justification For Policies Research Articles

A Lineage of Family Separation

Family separation is a practice rooted in U.S. history. In order to comprehensively examine the most recent execution of separating children from their parents under the Trump Administration’s “zero tolerance” policy, one must follow and understand this history. That is what this Article does. Examining the separation histories of enslaved, Indigenous, and immigrant families, it offers critical context of a reoccurring practice that has had devastating effects largely on communities of color, and across generations. By contextualizing the separation of migrant families crossing the U.S.-Mexico border under zero tolerance, this Article identifies narratives from colonial times to the present that consistently rely on racism, xenophobia, and paternalism to justify a practice that otherwise is extreme in its inhumanity. These justification narratives are juxtaposed with counter-stories that resist and challenge the separation of families, including by humanizing those impacted and articulating the profound harm it causes to children, parents, and communities. These stories have been told through first-hand narratives, Congressional testimonies, research studies, media reports, and facts and allegations in lawsuits. Narratives describing the harm caused by separating families are a powerful element of putting the practices to an end. The historical record suggests that these narratives have typically gained potency in specific socio-political contexts that rendered them compelling enough to overcome the justifications for specific family separation policies. Although these practices were brought to an end, systemic reform has been elusive. In the case of Indigenous family separation, legislation enacted to cease the practice failed to bring about substantial change, and has been diluted by persistent legal challenges. Historical family separation practices against enslaved and immigrant families have been replaced with systems that separate families for prolonged times or permanently. These include the present-day U.S. criminal legal and immigration systems, where the government separates children from their parents on a substantial scale as a collateral consequence of mass incarceration and widespread detention and deportation, with little to no scrutiny. The outrage that ended zero tolerance has not extended to these ongoing examples of family separation. In order to meaningfully address these practices, counter-stories urging the valuation of family integrity must be aligned with a societal will to challenge systems that, through racialized justifications, continue to separate mostly marginalized children from their parents.

Chinese Ports Blockade by the Nationalists Navy, Background to the 1954 Capture of the Tanker Tuapse

In 1949, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army drove Chiang Kai-shek’s followers from the mainland to the island of Taiwan, but the Chinese Nationalists did not resign themselves to defeat. Enlisting the support of its American allies, the Kuomintang tried to impose a naval blockade on the People’s Republic of China and detained foreign cargo ships on their way to the communists. The Nationalists announced the closure of the ports taken over by the CCP-led military forces, which gradually turned into an economic and military blockade of the entire China coastline. As a result, foreign and Chinese merchant ships that were carrying cargo to the PRC were shelled, destroyed, or detained by Nationalist naval ships. The notorious one was the seizure of the Soviet oil tanker Tuapse in 1954. The author, referring to the prehistory of the Tuapse detention, investigates the Nationalists’ justification of the closure policy, its goals and objectives. The paper reveals also the rules adopted by the government of the ROC Navy's interaction with foreign vessels, and touches upon the extent of the US involvement in maritime operations, using unexplored documents, and comments of senior ROC government officials.

The relationship between the market structure, the firms size and their innovative activity in the sectors of the Russian economy: Experience in industry-specific competitive analysis

A number of theoretical and applied studies have shown that there is no unambiguous relationship between the market structure, expressed in particular by the firms size, and firms innovation activity. Understanding the nature of the relationship between the market structure, the firms size and their behavior allows us to raise the level of justification for both business strategies and innovation policy, which is also relevant in the context of the digital transformation of the Russian economy. The paper is aimed at considering the problem of an influence of a market structure with due regard for the peculiarities of their industries on firms innovation activity in Russia for the period 2006–2016. This period was chosen due to the transition to a new Russian National Classifier of Economic Activities edition and the beginning of active Russian economy digitalization in 2017. The hypothesis of the study is that in Russia, under the impact of a number of events, the influence of the firms size on their innovative activity in various sectors of the economy is becoming more acute. By building pooled and panel data models it was shown, that at the studied stage of country development a positive relationship between the average firms size in the industry and their innovation activity can be observed. But some conditions for a stronger growth of innovation activity in industries with firms of smaller sizes are emerging and it indicates a change in the Russian economy structure. As a result of assessing the linkage of the innovation activity intensity and firm size, it can be concluded that there is no connection with belonging to the type of economic activity, i. e. the relationship between the share of costs for technological innovations and the size of firms in the Russian economy has no industry specifics. The further development of this study consist in a more study of the factors that determine the results obtained, the development of recommendations for the formation of a working innovation system in Russia, as well as in the field of antimonopoly regulation on the issue of entry barriers.

PUBLIC POLICY: AN AMORPHOUS CONCEPT IN THE ENFORCEMENT OF ARBITRAL AWARDS

Public policy permeates the legal principles of a state and its ruling government. The justification of public policy is topical to the ethics and canons acknowledged by that state. These values are determined by the applicable political, social, economic, religious, and legal systems, which differ among states. As public policy usually best illuminates the broad area of government laws, regulations, provincial ordinances, and court decisions, the standards creating public policy alter as states develop. The motif of public policy is critical when the question of enforcement of arbitral awards suffice. There is no definite meaning of the term in the famous Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (New York Arbitration Convention) to enforce foreign arbitral awards. Hence, this paper explores and traces some contemporary trends in defense of public policy as an exception to the enforcement of arbitral awards worldwide.

Do financial constraints moderate the relationship between innovation subsidies and firms' R&D investment?

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse whether the effect of innovation subsidies on firms' R&D investment varies depending on whether the firm is suffering from financial constraints.Design/methodology/approachTo address this analysis, the authors provide a theoretical model and test their hypothesis using an econometric analysis of an unbalanced panel of 3,865 innovative Spanish firms during 2010–2017. They employ the SABI database to obtain firms' financial and economic data and incorporate firms' MORE financial rating. Specifically, the authors use the GMM-SYS technique to regress and measure the marginal effects of innovation subsidies size on firms' R&D investment and the influence of firms' financial constraints.FindingsThe results of this work indicate that financial constraints negatively moderate the effect of subsidies on R&D investment; that is, those firms that receive a subsidy and suffer financial constraints invest less in R&D projects than those which also receive the subsidy and do not suffer financial constraints. Besides, this work found that innovation subsidies alone do not significantly increase firms' R&D investment.Originality/valueFrom a neoclassical point of view, the existence of financial constraints is the justification of public innovation policies. However, due to the difficulty of measuring financial constraints, innovation literature has abandoned the analysis of this crucial variable. This work reintroduces this vital variable and analyses how it interacts with innovation subsidies on firms' R&D investment.

Territorial Cohesion of What and Why? The Challenge of Spatial Justice for EU’s Cohesion Policy

Over the past two decades, both academics and policy makers have discussed the meaning of territorial cohesion in the context of the European Union (EU). This debate on the meaning and content of territorial cohesion is becoming increasingly important in a Europe that is facing multiple crises. This article contributes to the literature on EU’s territorial cohesion policies by tracing the ways in which territorial cohesion has been defined, framed and justified as an EU policy. We analyse public speeches made by the acting commissioners for Regional Policy and inquire into the Cohesion Reports from 2004 to 2017 produced by the European Commission. In particular, we interrogate both the meaning of the concept of territorial cohesion and the justifications for pursuing territorial cohesion. We conclude with some critical remarks on the relevance of economic production-based definitions and justifications for territorial cohesion policies. Accordingly, we argue that treating macroeconomic production as an indicator of territorial cohesion harmfully consolidates a narrow understanding of societal wellbeing and development and imposes on all regions a one-dimensional economic scale to indicate their level of development.

A Review of Nudges: Definitions, Justifications, Effectiveness

In 2008, the behavioral economist Richard Thaler and the legal scholar Cass Sunstein published a book in which they advocated a novel approach to public policy based on the notion of a ‘nudge’. Roughly speaking, a nudge is an intervention in the decisional context that steers people’s decisions by acting on their cognitive biases. The notion of a nudge generated an intense debate across different disciplines and proved popular with many policy makers around the world. The present paper reviews the debate and research on nudges by focusing on three main dimensions: (1) the exact definition of nudges; (2) the justification of nudge policies, with a focus on ‘libertarian paternalism’; and (3) the effectiveness of nudges, both over time and in comparison with standard policies.

Why does the European Union produce biofuels? Examining consistency and plausibility in prevailing narratives with quantitative storytelling

This paper seeks to clarify the confusion created by the simultaneous use of non-equivalent policy discourses about biofuels within the EU and addresses the inconsistency between long-term goals and short-term targets. To this purpose, a novel approach, quantitative storytelling, is employed to examine the plausibility of current policy narratives. It confronts quantitative data on the production and use of biofuels at member-state (the Netherlands) and EU level against the official storytelling. Our analysis shows that in the Netherlands the actual production and use of biofuels are motivated by economic incentives and trade opportunities rather than the original policy justifications and hitting biofuel targets has become a justification in itself (the phenomenon of displacement). At EU level, the vast majority of the current (inadequate) supply of liquid biofuels still consists in first-generation biofuels, which are to be phased out. Advanced and food-waste-based biofuels are unlikely to fill the void any time soon. The analysis shows incoherence among the narratives underlying the justification of policies and those used for their implementation. It is concluded that the quality of the biofuels policy debate could be improved by acknowledging the existence and influence of untold stories and hidden justification narratives.

High-resolution land value maps reveal underestimation of conservation costs in the United States

The justification and targeting of conservation policy rests on reliable measures of public and private benefits from competing land uses. Advances in Earth system observation and modeling permit the mapping of public ecosystem services at unprecedented scales and resolutions, prompting new proposals for land protection policies and priorities. Data on private benefits from land use are not available at similar scales and resolutions, resulting in a data mismatch with unknown consequences. Here I show that private benefits from land can be quantified at large scales and high resolutions, and that doing so can have important implications for conservation policy models. I developed high-resolution estimates of fair market value of private lands in the contiguous United States by training tree-based ensemble models on 6 million land sales. The resulting estimates predict conservation cost with up to 8.5 times greater accuracy than earlier proxies. Studies using coarser cost proxies underestimate conservation costs, especially at the expensive tail of the distribution. This has led to underestimations of policy budgets by factors of up to 37.5 in recent work. More accurate cost accounting will help policy makers acknowledge the full magnitude of contemporary conservation challenges and can help improve the targeting of public ecosystem service investments.

No one should die alone on our watch

Dying alone has never been a normative event in our society. The coronavirus pandemic has precipitously created an environment of fear and panic, leading to the elimination of the dying vigil as a societal spiritual norm. Many patients have died, and continue to die, alone in their beds without their families or loved ones. Protection of healthcare workers and mitigation of legal liability are purported to be valid justifications for policies that have implemented these restrictions. Yet, historically, the death vigil has been a highly valued event, and seen as an act of community and a spiritual event, in which the person is recognised as more than just a note in the medical record. Two institutions developed policies that respect the death vigil while simultaneously remaining postured to protect healthcare workers. These institutions defied the current trend observed in many clinical environments and refused to let patients die alone.

EFFECTIVENESS OF THE ODD-EVEN NUMBER PLATE TRAFFIC POLICY BASED ON THE REGULATION OF GOVERNOR JAKARTA

The development of the number of motorized vehicles in Indonesia from 2014 until 2017 has reached 138,556,669 units, the average number of vehicles continues to increase from 6% to 9% per year. The increase in the level of congestion can be felt very significantly. The principal aims of this paper, to evaluate the justification for a national road policy by investigating the Governor of Jakarta Regulation No. 155 of 2018 of its implementations on national roads in Indonesia, especially Jakarta. By looking deeper into the contents of the Articles in Governor of Jakarta Regulation No. 155 of 2018. From this, we will know whether the effectiveness of the Law can discipline highway users with odd-even strategies. The method used in the study is a normative juridical approach to literature and this research was conducted by collecting various literature and secondary data related to the research that will be conducted. The results found that the legal provisions still needed to impose sanctions for violations of the violation of Governor Regulation No. 155 of 2018, meaning that it needs to be reconsidered by the Jakarta Regional Government to make the provisions of separate sanctions outside Article 280.

Immigrant integration policies when regions decide ‘who comes in’: the case of Canadian provinces

ABSTRACT Using the Canadian case, this paper explores immigrant integration policies when Rokkan and non-Rokkan regions have immigrant selection capacities. By systematically documenting integration policies of all Canadian regions and by describing elites’ justifications for such policies between 2010 and 2018, we demonstrate that every region – including Quebec, which has a distinct language and culture – primarily focuses on economic immigrant integration. We show that regional elites justify these policies as part of their regional economic development strategies and that regional immigrant selection capacity is not considered as a cure-all solution for the contemporary challenges facing regions.

A methodological approach to evaluating the effectiveness of regional industrial policy

Subject. The article addresses the industrial policy in the face of the need to modernize and digitize industries; the role of regional industrial policy as a link between the Federal industrial policy and individual enterprise’s development strategy. Objectives. We focus on developing a methodology for assessing the effectiveness of the State industrial policy implementation in the regions of the Russian Federation, and the practical recommendations for its improvement. Methods. We employ general scientific methods of abstraction, the formal and dialectical logic, deduction and induction, analysis and synthesis, empirical analysis of data, comparative and structural methods of analysis, economic and statistical analysis of data, logical and systems approaches. Results. The paper provides the theoretical justification of industrial policy, considers its distinctive features. We devised a methodology to assess the effectiveness of regional industrial policy, which rests on the multicriteria approach and takes into account the current realities of competitive industrial development. The said methodology enables to compare the industrial development of territories both among themselves and in a dynamic perspective. The analysis of effectiveness of industrial policy implementation in the subjects of the Ural Federal District established that a growing number of federal entities are enhancing their positions in comparison with the average Russian level. Conclusions. The instruments of the Ural’s industrial policy implementation shall be targeted at structural changes in the economy, the increase in the innovative component of production, the introduction of advanced production technologies.

Domesticating Competitive Common Sense: Nation Branding Discourses, Policy-makers and Promotional Consultants in Korea

ABSTRACT Why has the practice of nation branding and its competitive imaginary become common sense in Korea? This article retraces the domestication, in Korea, of nation branding into an unquestioned policy imperative and of a competitive common sense. It shows how, in Korea, nation branding emerged as a policy solution to four national urgencies in the post-democratisation political economic context. It was adopted in conjunction by the state and the chaebol to resolve obstacles to capital accumulation. Korean policy-makers hired promotional consultants to participate in agenda -making processes. However, these consultants were not hired by the Korean government to design Korea's branding policies. Their power was essentially cultural. Their discourses provided policy justification and functioned as a governing device to exhort citizens to accept global competition as an unquestionable social reality and the pro-capital reforms that are (supposedly) needed to cope with competition.

Multiculturalism and vulnerability in the 21st century: Reviewing recent debates and a way forward

AbstractThe death of multiculturalism has been pronounced many times. In spite of this, this political program has proven resilient and the fact of cultural diversity remains inescapable in most liberal democracies. Still, with the rise of the far right, the migrant crises in the United States and Europe and with social movements pushing the boundaries of multicultural theory, it is high time to review multiculturalism, a movement of the late 20th century, and see where it is headed in the 21st century. This article has two objectives. First, after reviewing three debates—anti‐essentialists versus multiculturalism, interculturalism versus multiculturalism and multiculturalism versus the welfare state—I argue that the normative core of multiculturalism is still viable. Second, I argue that multiculturalism remains unable to contribute to some of the most pressing issues of the 21st century and point to a novel approach to the justification of multicultural policies. This justification relies on the concept of vulnerability, a concept that plays an important but undertheorized role in current multicultural theories.

Financing a Green New Deal

The Great Depression galvanized the New Deal in the United States to recover the economy, relieve the poor and unemployed, and reform the financial backbone of the country. Today, the impending adverse effects of climate change have governments proposing analogous Green New Deals. Recently in Energy Research & Social Science, Galvin and Healy critically examine the economic viability and wide-spanning societal, monetary, and environmental implications of the US Green New Deal proposals.

The Obama Administration and the Prospects for a Democratic Presidency in a Post-9/11 World

This contribution to a tenth anniversary retrospective on 9/11 argues that President Obama's pragmatism in deploying executive power has not provided a strong philosophical counterpoint to the Bush-Cheney embrace of full-throated presidentialism. Written half-way into the first Obama term, the article faults the Obama Administration for not articulating clearly the legal and policy justifications for its more aggressive national security policies, and for doing little to clarify the historical record regarding torture and the use of electronic surveillance under the Bush Administration.

SOLUÇÃO DO PROBLEMA OU PROBLEMA DA SOLUÇÃO? STF, CNJ E A JUDICIALIZAÇÃO DA SAÚDE

O Supremo Tribunal Federal se tornou um ator incontornável na formulação e execução de políticas públicas. Uma das políticas sociais que mais envolve a Corte nesta função é a saúde pública. Acionado sobretudo como instância recursal, a Corte viu o volume de casos em saúde crescer de forma significativa nos últimos 20 anos. Ao longo deste período, sua jurisprudência e sua atuação institucional foram, ao mesmo tempo, uma resposta e uma causa deste crescimento. De um lado, em suas decisões, a Corte sustenta um posicionamento sistematicamente favorável a demandas individuais, decidindo pelo provimento de demandas que requerem medicamentos, insumos e tratamentos mesmo quando experimentais ou fora das listas e protocolos clínicos do SUS. De outro lado, esta posição coexiste com a atuação estrutural do Conselho Nacional de Justiça, que não só criou comitês interdisciplinares para reduzir e qualificar a judicialização da saúde, mas passou a monitorar a atuação de juízes e tribunais e exigir que decisões judiciais incorporassem justificativas técnicas. Neste artigo, sustento que compreender esta atuação contraditória da Corte, e suas limitações, é um passo imprescindível para entender a judicialização da saúde como um todo. Ora como “parte do problema”, ora como “gestora” da sua “solução”, o STF ocupa uma posição única que lhe permite desenhar grande parte dos incentivos institucionais que fundamentam as decisões das demais instâncias do Judiciário. Se a Corte, contudo, não aponta um caminho claro, ela perde a oportunidade de afetar e controlar o fenômeno ou de potencialmente contribuir para a construção de uma política de saúde mais eficiente e justa.

DIFFERENTIATION OF HUMAN POTENTIAL QUALITY IN REGIONS OF UKRAINE: DEMOGRAPHIC AND HEALTH ASPECTS

This study describes a method for evaluating the quality of human potential within Ukraine’s current conditions, by looking at the demographic and valeologic (healthy living) component. This research was conducted on the basis of Ukraine’s regional data. In addition to measuring the level of quality development according to this component, the method aims to classify regions on its basis. Such classification is a justification for regional policies geared at human development and for distribution of resources by region. The study uses a discriminant analysis as well as some methods of taxonomic analysis. As a result of the analysis, Ukrainian regions were divided into four groups. The method applied in this research is universal and can be used to assess and classify regions according to other components of human potential quality, provided that relevant indicators are applied. It can also be approved and implemented in other countries because the statistical database is quite unified in terms of indicators that are included in the analysis.

Avoiding Prison Bars, But Gaining a Bar to Inheritance: A Statutory Solution for the Insane Slayer Through a Comparative Approach

If a solution cannot be found within states, it’s time to look outside our own borders. This Article does just that. With murder amongst family members slowly becoming a frequent phenomenon, comes the burden of determining inheritance. This burden grows exponentially, however, when the slayer is later found not guilty by reason of insanity as a result of a mental illness at the time of the killing. States have grappled with their treatment of the insane slayer in different ways, either by letting them inherit due to their lack of intent, or by refusing to let them inherit under public policy justifications. By arguing that the insane slayer should be able to inherit due to their lack of intent at the time of the killing and the uncontrollable genetic inheritance of their mental illness, this Article is the first to present a solution for the insane slayer through a comparative approach. Specifically, by adopting statutory language from the Forfeiture Act of 1995 No. 65 in New South Wales, Australia. This piece of legislation weighs the conduct of the offender, the conduct of the deceased, the effect of the rule on the defendant and other persons, and any other matters the court finds material. As a result, this Act exudes the discretion, subjectivity, and fairness that the traditional American slayer statute lacks. By consolidating language from the Forfeiture Act of 1995 and traditional American slayer statutes, the statutory solution proposed in this Article has the potential to protect the insane slayer in ways other laws have failed to do.