Results Of Reform Research Articles

The impact of subtle resistance to regional crop specialization: The case of maize farming in Rugeramigozi Marsh-Rwanda

In the framework of the professionalization of the agricultural sector in Rwanda, a number of agricultural reforms including regional crop specialization, mono-cropping, use of improved seeds and chemical fertilisers among others have been initiated and have substantially contributed to the increase of agricultural products at the Rwandan local market. Even though the reform outcomes were promising, smallholder farmers had at the outset of the reform implementation opposed to the way crops were selected for their marshland and their reaction has influenced the reform implementation. This article explores the experience smallholder farmers have gone through during the initiation of new selected crops for their marshland, their reactions to the use of the mandatory seeds and the impact of their reactions. Findings reveal that farmers‘ discontents have slowed down cultivating maize because their preferred crop – the rice – considered more profitable was disregarded. To deter the implementation of growing maize, smallholder farmers have used strategic defiance in form of subtle argumentation, strategic silence, strategic apathy or indifference, ironical strategy among others and the impact of their stratagems have led to the amendment of the decision of growing undesirable crop(s) in their marshland. The latest data collected in October 2017 and January 2018 reveal clearly the blurred intentions behind farmers‘ reactions observed during the 2010 – 2012 research – they bring to light what they didn‘t dare to disclose then. This article shows finally that in any agricultural reform design, planners should consider all aspects upholding smallholder farmers‘ advantages and these are identifiable only if they participate proactively in the reform planning and implementation phases.

German and Italian Pensions: Similar Roots, Different Reform Paths, Comparable Trajectories?

The article employs a multi-level analytical framework to analyse pension reforms in Germany and Italy between 2011 and 2018, thereby focusing on the role played by the European Union. Whereas the EU is able to react to crises and prevent major deviations from its priorities, its influence has been uneven in the face of policy reversals and its capacity to spur the convergence of the two political economies has been limited. On one hand, the Commission’s recommendations to rebalance pension spending have not been fully followed in either country. On the other, pension-related interventions can only do so much to reduce labour market frictions (a problem particularly felt in Italy). Theoretically, the article innovates the literature on pensions in three respects. First, the study employs a three-level game, where not only the EU and policymakers interact, but also financial markets have an influence. Second, the article provides evidence of the persistent political nature of EU pension policymaking. Consequently, both EU and domestic policymakers have margins to interpret the rules. Third, the piece shows that the EU has little direct influence on reform outcomes. Contingent factors, such as the economic cycle, play a role in shaping the economic indicators of pensions.

Teacher Unions, Political Machines, and the Thorny Politics of Education Reform in Latin America

Existing research on developing countries emphasizes the decisive power of teacher unions in education politics. Yet that power varies, and a full understanding of the roots of union power and the sources of cross-national variation requires deeper analysis of organizational dynamics within unions. This analysis supports four arguments. First, teachers have a range of advantages in overcoming obstacles to collective action. Second, unions are not all alike; they vary widely, from interest groups (in Chile, Brazil, and Peru) to powerful political machines (in Mexico and Ecuador). Third, the source of this variation lies in factors (e.g., influence over teacher hiring) that shift power within unions from members to leaders in political-machine unions. Fourth, analyzing the dimensions of variation helps explain the different outcomes of recent reforms to teacher careers in Latin America, especially in highlighting the staunch opposition from political-machine unions.

Organizing as negotiation: the construction of a pathway in Norwegian mental health services

BackgroundIn 2015, a decision was made to implement clinical pathways in Norwegian mental health services. The idea was to construct pathways similar to those used in cancer treatment. These pathways are based on diagnosis and evidence-based medicine and have strict timeframes for the different procedures. The purpose of this article is to provide a thorough examination of the formulation of the pathway “mental illness, adults” in Norwegian mental health services. In recent decades, much research has examined the implementations and outcomes of different mental health sector reforms and services in Western societies. However, there has been a lack of research on the process and creation of these reforms and/or services, particularly how they emerge as constructs in the contexts of policy, profession and practice.MethodsA qualitative single case study design was employed. A text and document analysis was performed in which 52 articles and opinion pieces, 30 public hearing responses and 8 political documents and texts were analysed to identify the main actors in the discourse of mental health services and to enable a replication of their affiliated institutional logics and their views concerning the clinical pathway. Additionally, ten qualitative interviews were performed with members of the work group responsible for designating the pathway “mental illness, adults”.ResultsThis article shows how the two main actor groups, “Mental health professionals” and “Politicians”, are guided by values associated with a specific logic when understanding the concept of a clinical pathway (CP). The findings show that actors within the political field believe in control and efficiency, in contrast to actors in mental health services, who are guided by values of discretion and autonomy. This leads to a debate on the concept of CPs and mental health services. The discussion becomes polarized between concern for patients and concern for efficiency. The making of the pathway is led by the Directorate of Health, with health professionals operating in the political domain and who have knowledge of the values of both logics, which were taken into consideration when formulating the pathways, and explains how the pathway became a complex negotiation process between the two logics and where actors on both sides were able to retain their core values. Ultimately, the number of pathways was reduced from 22 to 9. The final “Pathway for mental illness, adults” was a general pathway involving several groups of patients. The pathway explains the process from diagnosis through treatment and finalizing treatment. The different steps involve time frames that need to be coded, requiring more rigid administrative work for compliance, but without stating specific diagnostic tools or preferred treatment strategies.ConclusionsThis article shows that there is also a downside of having sense making guided by strong values associated with a specific institutional logic when constructing new, and hopefully better, mental health care services. This article demonstrates how retaining values sometimes becomes more crucial than engaging in constructive debates about how to solve issues of importance within the field of mental health care.

Recruitment to STEM studies: The roles of curriculum reforms, flexibility of choice, and attitudes

Many countries are trying to increase the recruitment to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) studies. Some have implemented curriculum reforms to this end, others may do so. Using experiences from curriculum reforms in Germany, the Netherlands and, in particular, Sweden, we consider a proposal from the Royal Society in England about a broader curriculum for 16–19‐year‐olds, involving more mathematics and science. In Sweden, a curriculum reform in 1995, for 16–20‐year‐olds, increased the academic content of vocational programmes, including mathematics and science, such that they provided eligibility to university studies. Another reform, in 2011, reinstated the distinctions between vocational and academic programmes and made courses yielding university eligibility compulsory for academic programmes only. Using longitudinal student population data for 1986–2017, we assess the reform outcomes through before‐after comparisons. The 1995 reform was followed by decreased recruitment to STEM studies while the opposite was true for the 2011 reform. A reform in Germany requiring students to study more mathematics was not very successful, either. We connect the positive consequences following the 2011 reform to the extensive Swedish opportunities to change study path. Including the option to attend a 1‐year ‘add‐on’ education programme, enabling students with non‐STEM upper secondary background to conduct STEM university studies, changes to STEM programmes dominate changes away from them. Accordingly, we recommend more, not less, flexibility in programme choice, preferably coupled with efforts to improve female STEM attitudes, which have proved effective in Sweden.

Conservation and privatization decisions in land reform of New Zealand’s high country

SummaryNeoliberal land reforms to increase economic development have important implications for biodiversity conservation. This paper investigates land reform in New Zealand’s South Island that divides leased state-owned stations (ranches) with private grazing leases into state-owned conservation land, private land owned by the former leaseholder and private land under protective covenant (similar to conservation easement). Conserved lands had less threatened vegetation, lower productivity, less proximity to towns and steeper slopes than privatized lands. Covenants on private land were more common in intermediate zones with moderate land-use productivity and slope. Lands identified with ecological or recreational ‘significant inherent values’ were more likely to shift into conserved or covenant status. Yet among lands with identified ecological values, higher-threat areas were more likely to be privatized than lower-threat areas. This paper makes two novel contributions: (1) quantitatively examining the role of scientific recommendations about significant inherent values in land reform outcomes; and (2) examining the use of conservation covenants on privatized land. To achieve biodiversity goals, it is critical to avoid or prevent the removal of land-use restrictions beyond protected areas.

Towards a holistic land law evaluation in sub-Saharan Africa: A novel framework with an application to Rwanda’s organic land law 2005

Land laws provide a legal basis for addressing a country’s land-related strategies and are the central land policy instruments through which governments realise land policy objectives. Considering their vital role, it is imperative that land laws be evaluated to ensure that policy objectives are followed and that the laws are not ineffective or counterproductive. The extant literature, however, provides only a fragmentary basis for evaluation. The present study addresses this gap and constructs a novel framework to support the holistic evaluation of land law performance in the context of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The framework was developed through a review of systematically selected literature on land laws in SSA. Four key evaluation perspectives emerged: land access; land tenure; land use and development; and land administration institutions. The framework was then used to assess the overall performance of Rwanda’s Organic Land Law (OLL) 2005 through a content analysis of secondary data on the land reform outcomes. The OLL application suggests that the framework may provide stakeholders with insights into the overall effects of land law and potential areas of improvement. However, the framework must be further explored in various cases of SSA countries to validate its functionality.

Economic crisis, labour market reform and socio-economic outcomes in Eastern Europe

ABSTRACT The 2008 crisis was not only regionally uneven in its economic effects but also led to uneven labour market reforms in eastern European countries. As a result, the socio-economic impact of the global financial crisis and political reactions to it varied considerably among post-communist states. Nevertheless, there have been some common trends in their macroeconomic performances, labour market reforms and welfare outcomes. These trends have important implications for future economic policy actions at this critical juncture in the coronavirus pandemic.

Humanization of the Siberian prison and power: lessons from the imperial period of Russian history

In 2020, the implementation of the 10-year concept for the development of the penal system, aimed at the humanization of prisoner welfare, was ended. The article examines the political result of a closely related reform – the gradual humanization of the Siberian prison in the 19th - early 20th century. The authors believe that the outcome of the prison reform in Russia, in contrast to Europe, was characterized by a weakening of the state power. Given the poverty of the Russian people, their disenfranchisement and unemployment, the material conditions in the reformed prisons were often better than those of law-abiding citizens at liberty. On the one hand, this hindered the reduction of crime rates, but, on the other hand, caused misunderstanding in Russian society, exacerbated the sense of injustice and projected it onto the state authorities.

The European Court of Human Rights on the ‘Access to a Lawyer’ Directive 2013/48/EU: the Quest for a Coherent Application of the Right to a Legal Assistance in Europe?

The right to a custodial legal assistance has always been considered a key procedural guarantee in criminal proceedings, which allowed for the effective realisation of other ‘due process’ rights of the suspected or accused person. The ‘Access to a lawyer’ Directive 2013/48/EU is one of the outcomes of the massive legal reform which followed the famous Salduz ruling (2008), where the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) prominently stated that the accused shall be provided with assistance of counsel since the initial stages of police interrogation. At the same time, scholars have not paid attention to the possible effects of Directive 2013/48/EU on the practice of the Strasbourg Court. The aim of this paper is to shed light on the way the ‘Access to a lawyer’ Directive is perceived by the ECtHR, given the incredible uncertainty surrounding this issue. The author argues that - paradoxically - the Directive text seems to have had significant impact on the Ibrahim, Simeonovi, Beuze lines of reasoning, framing possible derogations from maximum guarantees of access to a lawyer stemming from the earlier Salduz judgement. Even though the ECtHR tends to avoid direct analysis of the Directive 2013/48/EU provisions, it seems to have accepted the lowest level of protection provided by this EU Law act. This could be rather problematic for the non-EU Convention signatories’ criminal justice systems, being encouraged to follow the standard of procedural guarantees stemming from the EU legal order - which these states preferred not to join (or were not allowed to join).

Demarginalizing the intersection of caste, class, and sex

This article examines two decisions of the Supreme Court of India: Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan, which formulated a set of directives for the prevention of sexual harassment of women at workplaces; and the National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India, which recognized “third gender” persons and directed the state to provide them with affirmative action. Within a wider application of human rights and fundamental rights that are guaranteed in the Constitution of India, both these court decisions relied on a nondiscrimination category of sex. This article recovers the underpinnings of caste and class that are latent, obscure, and omitted in these decisions. The conceptual framework of “intersectionality” is useful in making this recovery, and for showing the application of intersectional approaches toward more transformative formulations of law reform and judicial outcomes.

RATIONAL CHOICE INSTITUTIONALISM, CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM, AND CONSTITUTION MAKER IN INDONESIA

Most political literature argues that outcomes in Indonesian constitutional reform 1999-2002 were determined mainly by the political actors. Notwithstanding the existing research providing insightful evidence, there is still a gap in which those literature discount the role of the party system in shaping and constraining the way the political actors within a party behave. Drawing on one of the new institutionalism concepts – ‘rational choice institutionalism' – the argument puts forth here is that Indonesian multi-party system (independent variable) forced the political parties (intermediary variable) to form a winning-coalition which finally produced a compromised outcome (dependent variable) of constitutional reform on the articles about relations between president and legislature.

Advantages and risks of opening the land market in Ukraine

The relevance of the study is due to the abolishment of the moratorium on the sale of agricultural land and the risks arising from the land market opening in Ukraine. The paper aims to identify the effectiveness of land mortgages for the agricultural sector of the economy and determine the mechanisms of state policy aimed at legal groundwork to guarantee rights of landowners. The comparative analysis of the land market development in the Central European states contributed to identifying system-based state management of land market formation processes, which had a positive effect on the land reform outcomes in these states. The analysis results confirmed the timeliness of the land market opening in Ukraine, which is related to the chosen economic and political course. The investment attractiveness of the Ukrainian agro-industrial complex is due to high productivity of lands and is supported with the possibility of mortgaging agricultural land. Neutralization of factors hindering the foreign investment attracted to agricultural business will contribute to the attraction of efficient technologies and highly productive use of the agricultural land in Ukraine. Some measures aimed at the land relations transformation in Central Europe do not consider the peculiarities of the Ukrainian agricultural sector. In particular, it is not reasonable to sell agricultural land to foreigners. Assessment of certain provisions of the Law of Ukraine ‘On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine on the Conditions of Agricultural Land Transactions’ No. 552-IX shows the inevitability of abuse by foreign-owned banking institutions of the possibility to alienate the lands pledged under any loan agreements. Criminalization of evasion from the alienation of agricultural land as collateral will prevent the risks of acquiring Ukrainian agricultural lands by foreign-owned banking institutions. It is concluded that the banking system will only perform the functions of an investor in the agricultural sector of the economy, so there is a need to strengthen the state regulation of the land market in Ukraine.

Legal System Reform and Challenges on Assurance of Human Rights Standards in Vietnam

Since the Doi Moi (Vietnam’s economic reform) in 1986 to date, Vietnam has continuously made efforts to reform its legal system to better adapt with requirements to develop in different historical periods. Vietnam considers ensuring fundamental human rights as one of the cross-cutting goals in national development policies and strategies. It is undeniable that the outcomes of legal system reform had a positive impact on all aspects of life and on the assurance of human rights and citizen’s rights in particular. However, due to the effects of e international integration and 4.0 industrial revolution the emergence of new-generation trade agreements (FTAs), the current legal system in Vietnam has revealed certain limitations that need to be improved in order to better guarantee fundamental rights. With the objective to bring about the general picture of legal reform on human rights in the recent years in Vietnam, this article will focus on introducing the legal system and its impact on the assurance of human rights standards and highlighting the priorities that need to be revised.

Secondary vocational education for IT-industry personnel training: achievements and prospects

The article explores the problem of personnel training for the IT-industry in the secondary vocational education system based on both the statistics analysis and national experience; determines the main trends and the reform outcomes; identifies the best practices for training and potential strategies as well. The conclusion emerges that the secondary vocational education is becoming increasingly important as a part of the lifelong learning strategy. Personnel training for the IT-industry under the incredibly accelerated technological changes requires the same rapid adaptation, combinations of high cost-effectiveness and training flexibility, traditional and advanced training aids, extensive use of the most sophisticated information and communicative resources, formation of not only professional competences but spiritual and personal qualities of the future specialists, creation of conditions for self-development and self-improvement. In this context, the need for the use of the best national and global training practices adapted to the Russian environment has been emphasized in the paper. The current experience analysis has shown that the extensive interaction between business and educational institutions would ensure the formation of staff capacities for high-tech companies.

Tax reform of 2019 in Uzbekistan

This article discusses how the tax reforms affect the budget and business atmosphere in Uzbekistan. The country has already implemented several tax methods but few of them have made the economy flourish. Yet, recent changes differ from previous ones with these reforms reflecting the experiences of those countries whose economy is highly affected by the tax in a positive way. In order to dramatically decrease the tax burden on companies and individuals, the number of direct taxes has been cut hoping to open the hidden economy in the country. However, the meaning of direct taxes has been moved into indirect ones such as VAT. Below we will do our best to analyze the outcomes of the previous tax reforms and offer some taxation mechanisms which can help the economy of the country.

Modernization Comes Back to Town

When Alvin Hansen first used the term “mixed economy” in 1947 to define the ideal outcome of Keynesian reform, economists were unimpressed. Its formula—a full-employment, low-profit economy, neither capitalist nor socialist, led by private enterprise but with the state playing a large and increasing role—seemed both rosy and vague. After all, the Nazi economy had been mixed, and if ordo-liberals were correct, Hansen’s outcome might only be a waypoint on the road to serfdom.1 By 1950 the term was a Cold War mantra, recited with equal enthusiasm by corporate flacks and vital center liberals as the Free World’s answer to the command economy of the Soviet Union. Missionaries dispatched by Point IV and the World Bank were already at work in Latin America trying to discover what precise mix of state planning and private stimulus would generate the most growth. The 1948 urban uprising known as the Bogotázo made Colombia the focus of activity. A crew of castaway New Dealers hopped southbound Pan Am flights to take up the challenge. This is a book about the peripatetic origins of policies and expertise. Modernizing schemes and their ideologies do not originate in one place and travel to another, in Offner’s telling, but rather it is in the circular transmission from North to South America and back again that loose prescriptions are sorted into plans, plans into programs, and programs into inescapable realities. Lauchlin Currie, a Brains Truster fleeing McCarthyism, and David Lilienthal and Gordon Clapp, former TVA executives, were among those ready to apply the unclear lessons of their recent experience to the misery of Colombia.

Cross-dimensional network of democracy promotion: public administration reform in post-Euromaidan Ukraine

ABSTRACT The article seeks to explain why the restructuring of the Ukrainian public administration – a key element in democracy promotion – has been patchy, in spite of EU’s substantial investment in the reform process. On the basis of analyzing EU and Ukrainian documents as well as process-tracing and interviews with stakeholders, the paper highlights limitations of explaining the outcome of Ukrainian civil service reform exclusively through functional cooperation, structural factors or civil society mobilization. Drafting and passing new public administration legislation was impossible without civil society mobilization; high-level intergovernmental pressure or functional cooperation would not have been able to achieve this on their own. Subsequent challenges with the implementation process show that the active involvement of civil society does not automatically lead to effective reform. Ultimately, it is the collaboration – often across informal channels – between high-level diplomats and state-representatives, actors involved in functional cooperation and civil society activists that makes reform possible.

Under pressure. Economic constraints, electoral politics and labour market reforms in Southern Europe in the decade of the Great Recession

AbstractEven when subject to comparable exogenous constraints during the Eurozone crisis and in its immediate aftermath, governments in Southern Europe have pursued distinct labour market reform agendas. What room for manoeuvre did governments of crisis‐struck peripheral countries really have in shaping their labour market reform strategies, and how can we account for the observed variation? We address these questions by making a twofold contribution to the debate on the political economy of austerity in the Eurozone periphery. First, through the first systematic analysis of all labour market and collective bargaining (CB) reforms implemented in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece over 2009–2019, we identify those elements of core labour market deregulation common across Southern European countries (namely, the loosening of employment protection for workers on open‐ended contracts and the decentralisation of CB to the firm level); and those elements of variation, both cross‐country and cross‐party, in the content of corollary labour market interventions that accompanied this core deregulation. Second, we explain these similarities and variations in reform outcomes as the product of the interaction of two factors: economic constraints and electoral dynamics. We argue that the implementation of the common core of deregulation is linked to the exogenous pressure to improve export competitiveness to which Southern European countries have been subjected since the crisis. Through the combination of survey data analysis and qualitative evidence, we then show empirically how the variation in the corollary measures accompanying deregulation is linked to the class composition of the electoral social blocs Southern European partisan governments rely on or aim to assemble. Based on this analysis, we identify four ideal‐typical labour market reformist strategies attempted by Southern European governments during the decade of the Great Recession. The analysis highlights that although domestic politics plays a crucial role in shaping structural adjustment under crisis conditions, not all reform strategies are equally viable within the framework of Economic and Monetary Union.

Civil service reforms in Hong Kong and Thailand: similar goals, different paths

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the strategies of civil service reforms in Hong Kong and Thailand. It seeks to identify the drivers of reforms in the two cases and explain the divergence in processes that were intended to achieve similar ends.Design/methodology/approachThis paper adopts a case study approach along with a thorough review of the literature. It is based on secondary materials, including academic studies, government publications and websites, and media reports. It compares approaches, strategies and outcomes of civil service reforms in Hong Kong and Thailand.FindingsCivil service reforms in Hong Kong focused on improving management through the implementation of New Public Management (NPM) principles, while governance values were prominent in civil service reforms in Thailand.Originality/valueThis paper compares civil service reforms in two dissimilar Asian cases. It highlights the impact of global trends on traditional bureaucratic organizations and reform strategies, and recognizes the impacts of traditions, culture and capacity on civil service reforms.