Justification For Policies Research Articles

World experience of investing in agriculture: adaptation to modern realities of the Republic of Kazakhstan

The goal – is to develop proposals for adapting the world experience in financing agriculture to the realities of Kazakhstani economy. Methods – statistical, comparative analysis, comparison, generalization of results. Results – positive aspects of the world practice of investing in agricultural sector and possibility of using its levers and tools in domestic conditions have been identified. Emphasis is placed on one of the main problems of competitiveness of any state - ensuring self-sufficiency of the national economic system. The features of attracting investments in agro-industrial complex of the republic, current state and trends in expansion of investment activity are analyzed. Measures for the effective management of inv estment processes are proposed. The problems of investment provision of the country's AIC are shown. As a result of the lack of effective market infrastructure, high riskiness, and relatively weak dynamics of making profit from investments, agro-industrial production has a low investment attractiveness, which, in turn, repels a significant part of investment resources to other industries that quickly pay off. The international experience has been studied and directions of public support for agriculture in foreign countries have been determined. Conclusions – in order to attract and develop investment funds, it is necessary to use regulatory methods aimed at improving the effectiveness of investment activities, which must correspond to the appropriate level of economic development of the State. The authors state that the guarantee of food security directly depends on the amount of investment in agricultural sector, which allows creating additional jobs, taking a leading position in the world market, and increasing export potential. Justification of investment policy in each State should be the result of a thoughtful and purposeful choice, taking into account the distinctive features of potential investors and specifics of particular economic situation.

Education as an Effective Component of Political Development and Socio-Economic Prosperity in Society

This article shows the importance of education. Education forms a personality that is able to realize its potential in the process of development throughout life. The purpose of the article is to determine the features of the formation of a personality that strives for self-realization, which is possible only in the educational influence on the personality. The relevance of the article is due to the need for social development, which is the result of a combination of many components that form the basic needs of every person. The theoretical and methodological basis of the article is devoted to the justification of socio-economic policy in the coverage of the educational process, the discussion and systematic analysis form the essence of the thesis that the world is an effective component of the political development and socio-economic prosperity of society, which leads to the need to control the processes that occur in education. The research used an integration method of synthesis of the figurative structure of the educational process and analysis, characteristics of education as a political phenomenon and socio-economic development. The methods of synthesis, analysis and interpretation of educational technologies are used. The research findings confirm the thesis about education as a factor of political and socio-economic development. The results of the research do not exhaust all possible options, but they are the basis for proving the main goal.

Legitimizing discourses within favela tourism

Urban slums, especially in the Global South, have become popular attractions for tourists interested in sites off the beaten track and more authentic encounters with local culture. This practice has drawn attention from the media and extensive academic research, pointing out its controversial character due to the uneven power relations between hosts and guests and the commodification of poverty to turn it into a tourist attraction. Though acknowledging this pitfall, this work takes a different approach. We argue that tourism has agency in co-producing meanings and values in the process of making and consuming slums as tourist places. Within this process, the cultural capital of slums may find new avenues of legitimization. We critically analyze how discursive practices may valorize and legitimize slums as spaces for cultural production and consumption and the role of tourism in ordering, valuing, and visualizing vernacular cultural landscapes. The paper examines the case of favelas in Rio de Janeiro open to tourist visitation. Using as sources 79 articles from virtual media outlets (a mainstream, hegemonic newspaper, and a popular grassroots publication), official social media accounts, and tourism policies, we leverage Foucauldian discourse analysis and scrutinized the data, drawing insights on three categories of legitimization: authorization, rationalization, and moral evaluation. Our main findings show that tourism is often portrayed as a justification for securitization policies, as well as for fiscalization and formalization processes. Tourists were perceived to have authority in evaluating and valorizing slums’ cacophonic landscape beyond the evaluations of hegemonic social and political elites, which makes for a potential avenue of legitimization. However, in employing a more critical scope, two questions resonate: (1) who benefits from the valorization of slums’ cultural capital and, (2) who decides on the social validity of emergent cultural elements?

Should states restrict recipient choice amongst relevant and available COVID-19 vaccines?

Several COVID-19 vaccinations have been authorised worldwide. Whilst some vaccines are contraindicated for certain age groups or health conditions, there are often multiple clinically suitable authorised vaccine brands available. Few states have allowed recipients to choose amongst them, though there are multiple reasons why choice would be valued. We consider the policy justifications for state controls on recipient choice amongst COVID-19 vaccine brands, focusing on European countries and drawing on the UK context as an example. We contrast justifications for not offering choice at the height of the early pandemic crisis, and as some states seek to de-escalate their response and transition towards living with COVID-19. We argue that in the latter context public expectations of choice between available vaccine brands and platforms may rise, but that several considerations may justify continued restrictions on choice. A key factor which states should continue to take into consideration is the global nature of the pandemic. Insofar as offering recipient choice at a national level might exacerbate global inequity in vaccine distribution, states retain a normative and legal justification for restricting choice amongst available and clinically suitable vaccine brands.

Ініціатива Китаю “Один пояс – один шлях” між недбалістю Обами і песимізмом Трампа

Since the inception of the Belt Road Initiative (BRI) by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 2014, its relations with the United States have entered into a new phase of rivalry and defiance in an eclectic array of political, economic, and security issues and concerns. In examining the BRI factor in US-China relations, this paper juxtaposes the Barak Obama administration’s mild China policy and its cold response toward BRI as well as Donald Trump’s administration’s harsh China policy and its pessimism toward the initiative. In particular by studying and comparing Obama’s presidency (2009–2017) as a Democrat and his approach to the inception of BRI in 2014 by China to that of the Republican candidate and president Trump (2017–2020) we can observe variant approaches, policies, rhetoric and stance on how to deal and respond to it. It then draws on realist and liberal theoretical frameworks, to identify cooperative and confrontational tendencies in US-China relations, thereby offering an assessment on how the US receives BRI. These two variant approaches are significant in understanding the numerous objectives and justifications of internal and external policies on the overall US response to China’s recent growing political, social, and economic clout and influences. This article, therefore, argues that although Obama and Trump have a united voice against BRI, both presidents represent two variant political and party objectives, policies, and approaches towards BRI and China in general.

Animal pollination increases stability of crop yield across spatial scales.

The benefits of animal pollination to crop yield are well known. In contrast, the effects of animal pollination on the spatial or temporal stability (the opposite of variability) of crop yield remain poorly understood. We use meta‐analysis to combine variability information from 215 experimental comparisons between animal‐pollinated and wind‐ or self‐pollinated control plants in apple, oilseed rape and faba bean. Animal pollination increased yield stability (by an average of 32% per unit of yield) at between‐flower, ‐plant, ‐plot and ‐field scales. Evidence suggests this occurs because yield benefits of animal pollination become progressively constrained closer to the maximum potential yield in a given context, causing clustering. The increase in yield stability with animal pollination is greatest when yield benefits of animal pollination are greatest, indicating that managing crop pollination to increase yield also increases yield stability. These additional pollination benefits have not yet been included in economic assessments but provide further justification for policies to protect pollinators.

Popular geopolitics and political memoir: Geopolitical expertise and force majeure as foreign policy justifications in Tony Blair's A Journey

Political memoirs are not only popular with a general readership, they can also be useful historical source material. The place, form and function of geopolitics within them have been seldom explored, especially in the context of critical geopolitics. This article redresses this balance by arguing that geopolitics is a crucial salient in representations of foreign policy in that it is both a marker of expertise, power and authority, and an effective force majeure, allowing memoirists to depict constraints on action. These conclusions are reached through a theorisation of the form of memoirs in the light of recent innovations in popular geopolitics, in which I propose that they be studied via socio-discursive and fictive categories, in order to discern modes of representation and interactions with audience in justifying and explaining controversial foreign policies. The case study which demonstrates this concerns former UK prime minister Tony Blair’s, 2010 memoir, A Journey, a paradigmatic text in terms of how geopolitics functions in the above modes, particularly in his representations of globalisation, the War on Terror and the UK's relationships with the USA and Europe. By bringing together approaches from popular geopolitics and discursive theories of memoirs, I am able to make an original contribution that highlights the importance of political space within one particular and popular literary form and how this is used to justify past foreign policies.

David Ricardo – recognized leader in classical political economy (to the 250th anniversary of his birth)

Introduction. David Ricardo is a very prominent figure in the history of economic thought. He is a recognized leader in classical political economy and a reputable financier in both Britain and Europe in the first half of the XIX century. He is rightly considered one of the creators of the labor theory of value, he has brought it to its logical conclusion. The scientist made a significant contribution to the development of a scientific method for studying economic phenomena.Purpose of the research is to generalize the economic views of a prominent scientist on economic phenomena and processes, the action of economic laws that ensure the balance of a market economy and the basic principles of economic liberalism; analyze the Ricardo’s views on the laws of social wealth distribution between three classes of society and the impact of the existing distribution of income on the growth of wealth.Methods. The methodological basis of the study are such general scientific methods as analysis, synthesis, induction and deduction, which were used to assess the views, conclusions and recommendations of the scientist to ensure market equilibrium and increase the material wealth of society; historical – to understand the essence of the evolution of existing views on the labor theory of value, the theory of money and land rent; combining the abstract method with quantitative analysis to determine the quantitative characteristics of economic phenomena; positive and normative – to study the main and distinctive features in the views of representatives of classical political economy.Results. It has been researched the David Ricardo’s scientific work and it has been established that he was a prominent representative of classical political economy, a follower and at the same time an opponent of certain theoretical positions of Adam Smith. It was found that the most important ideas of economic theory have been reflected in his labor theory of value, the theory of capital and money, the theory of income distribution, tax theory and the theory of comparative advantage in international trade. It was established that the scientist had made a significant contribution to the development of the scientific method of research, in particular, by introducing the method of convergence from the abstract to the concrete and widespread use of the method of scientific deduction. According to the scientist, the subject of political economy should be the study of the laws of distribution of income between classes of society in the form of rents, profits and wages. D. Ricardo made a significant contribution to the justification of free trade policy in the international sphere, the importance and profitability of foreign trade for countries.Discussion. The prospect for further research is a deeper and more detailed analysis of the methods used by the scientist in the study of economic phenomena and processes. This will allow assessing the Ricardo’s contribution to the formation and development of economics more objective.

Addressing gambling harms by reducing the supply of electronic gambling machines: a comparative study of Italy and Finland

BackgroundElectronic gambling machines (EGMs) are amongst the most harmful forms of gambling. The high availability of EGMs is also linked to increased consumption. To reduce the burden of EGMs on public health, policies to reduce their numbers have recently been introduced in Italy and Finland. This study compares the aims and justifications of these legislative changes, as well as their overall impacts on total consumption.MethodsThe objectives and justifications of policies to reduce the number of EGMs were based on qualitative media analysis. The impacts on total consumption were measured using financial figures provided by gambling providers in Italy and Finland.ResultsResults show that the reductions in EGM numbers were justified in terms of public health concerns in both countries, but the amplitude of policies varied. In Italy, the reductions were more ambitious than in Finland, and included reductions in the number of gambling locations. The financial data nevertheless indicated that the reductions may not have been significant enough.ConclusionsPublic health concerns were initially highlighted in the media discussions, but eventually in both countries reduction policies were less ambitious due to industry lobbying and state revenue interests. The reductions therefore do not appear to have been effective in reducing total consumption and the burden on public health.

Ordoliberalism Revisited

The recent publication of Kenneth Dyson’s book Conservative Liberalism, Liberalism, Ordo-Liberalism, and the State offers an occasion to reconsider the body of ideas known as ordoliberalism. The books reviewed here represent much of the most recent scholarship in English on the subject. In this essay, I undertake two tasks: first, to clarify what the term properly refers to and in particular how it is related to “neoliberalism,” and, second, to consider its influence on postwar German policies and institutions. I argue that much of the recent discussion of ordoliberalism and neoliberalism overlooks important differences between early ordoliberal thinking and the ideas associated with neoliberalism. Over time, as neoliberalism evolved and particularly as it became an ideological justification for policies and institutions justifying the accumulation of concentrated market power, these differences have become wider even as they have been obscured by misreadings of ordoliberalism. A better understanding of ordoliberalism can also provide insights relevant to the contemporary debates about the crisis of liberal democracy and capitalism. Is it in fact a “third way” for ordering an economy, an alternative to neoliberalism and socialism?

The diffusion of energy technologies. Evidence from renewable, fossil, and nuclear energy patents

Technology innovation is widely recognised as a critical means in tackling climate change and fulfilling energy policy objectives. The objective of this paper is twofold: first, to provide a descriptive analysis of innovation in energy technology across countries and sectors and over time; and second, to explore the determining factors of patented knowledge diffusion of energy technologies by distinguishing between renewables and other energy patents, i.e., fossil and nuclear patents) thorough a regression analysis. The data employed in this paper consists of an original database on renewables and other energy patents applied by firms in the period 1990–2015 and contained in PATSTAT. By drawing on patent citations as an indicator of knowledge diffusion and focusing on characteristics extracted from patent documents, a set of econometric models is estimated. Our results show that those patents containing more citations to previous scientific literature and patents attain greater diffusion. Joint patents with other firms or universities exert a negligible effect on technology regarding renewables. Co-ownership with universities has a negative effect on the diffusion of other types of energy technology. Several policy implications can be determined from our results: for example, the justification for policies oriented towards enhancing the incorporation of scientific knowledge and co-inventorship in energy innovation.

Strategic complementarities, geographical agglomeration, and firm investment

We estimate the effect of strategic complementarities (measured by the geographical agglomeration of firms) on firm investment. Individual firm investment responds significantly to industry investment in agglomerated industries, whereas the response is null in dispersed industries. Industry-region sales do not explain the differential effect between these two types of industries. These results have been overlooked in the literature, provide a justification for regional and industry policies, and challenge the stable unit treatment value assumption (SUTVA) required in potential outcome analysis.

Early Career Researcher: From Managerial Construct to Socio-Epistemic Reality

The article presents the results of the study of young scientists (early career researchers) and their role in the functioning of research teams and the academic system. It shows why this topic has not only applied relevance connected with the theoretical justification of science policy but also concerns fundamental issues of philosophy of science. The nature of the structural organization of scientific teams and the scientific community as a whole is discussed. It is argued that science shares with other social institutions a socio-epistemic hierarchy, involving the division of participants into more and less experienced ones, performing certain functions in accordance with the available amount of knowledge and skills. It is shown that this hierarchy is supported by the system of division of labor in science, but does not lead to the formation of a rigid structure, which is reflected in the mismatch of social and cognitive hierarchies of research teams. It is also shown that the contribution of young scientists to the overall scientific result can not only be great due to the appearance of young geniuses. Scientific youth performs a number of cognitive and social functions that are system-forming and are not duplicated at other levels of the scientific hierarchy. These functions may undergo changes depending on the general state of both a separate research area and the scientific system as a whole. This makes the research of scientific youth promising for studying the transformations of science as a social institution and a cultural and historical phenomenon, in particular, for analyzing scientific communications that constitute the scientific community as a collective subject of scientific knowledge, and changes in scientific ethos.

Contemporary Policy Challenges Identity in the EU

The author of the article attempts to use the theories of the European identity, memory politics, identity politics by placing them in the context of the European (international) security. The author considers it fundamentally important to pay attention not so much to the threats to European identity, but to how identity is used to legitimize foreign policy of the European Union. The article highlights such perspectives of this problem as the confrontation inside the EU on the politics of memory and identity and the justification of the EU foreign policy towards Russia by the need to protect the European identity and European values. The author uses the discourse-analysis and identity research methods. The main emphasis is placed on the competitiveness of identity politics and the possibilities of using it for political purposes, to legitimize solutions to ensure the security of the European Union and the world as a whole.

Harm and Helmets: How Harmful Social Costs Fail to Justify Paternalistic Health and Safety Regulations

Mill’s harm principle and the financial externalities of risky behavior are routinely invoked to justify health and safety regulation. However, this approach fares poorly when subjected to theoretical scrutiny. First, it is false: individuals engaging in risky behavior do not harm others. Second, even if risky behavior were harmful to others, the argument from harmful externalities does not imply safety-enhancing policy interventions, at least not without additional appeals to paternalism. Third, focusing on the economic impacts of accidents invites perverse victim-blaming attitudes toward accident victims that undermine democratic values and justice. To improve our moral understanding of health and safety regulation, I sketch a theory of public policy justification grounded in the controversies which attract our attention to paternalistic polices in the first place. On this account, justificatory arguments are plausible if they identify goods that individuals genuinely affirm on their own terms, are sensitive to causal responsibility and imbalances between restraint and protection, and comparatively engage with possible policy alternatives. Illustrating the shortcomings of one dominant approach to public policy justification and reorienting us toward the controversies that policy justifications need to confront reflect two ways that political theory can help enhance justice in public policy design and articulation.

Definitions Matter: Dynamic Policy Framing of the Arts in Boston’s Sustainable Cultural Development

Cultural sustainability has become a fourth pillar in sustainable development studies. Different from the research approach to embedding culture into conventional sustainable discourse, this article argues that the sustainability and resilience issues within the arts and cultural sector should be paid more attention to. Putting the arts and cultural sector in urban settings, sustainable cultural development entails dynamic policy framing and changing policy justifications in response to an evolving socioeconomic and political environment. Taking the policy framing of the arts as an analytical lens, this paper aims to investigate this dynamic change and key driving factors through an in-depth case study of Boston’s urban cultural development. This article finds that different definitions of the arts are associated with different arts-based urban development strategies across four stages of cultural development in Boston spanning a period of over 75 years. The working definition moved from art to the arts, then to the creative arts industry, and eventually to cultural assets and creative capital. The policy framing of the arts keeps evolving and layering in pursuit of more legitimacy and resources regarding groups of stakeholders, field industry components, types of industrial structure, and multiple policy goals. This dynamic policy framing has been driven by arts advocacy groups, policy learning process, urban leadership change, and cultural institutional change, allowing Boston to draw on a growing and diversifying set of cultural resources in pursuit of sustainable cultural development.

Has the international climate regime promoted climate justice? Evidence from Clean Development Mechanism projects in China

ABSTRACT Climate justice has provided a normative justification for international climate change policy, but how it is to be pursued and transmitted in policymaking and policy implementation remains controversial. This study builds a theoretical link between the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), an international carbon trading scheme, and local sustainable development in China. This article uses a panel data set of the attributes of 4,429 CDM projects hosted in China from 2004 to 2015, together with socio-economic factors at the provincial level. The study’s findings support the contention that the dual objectives of carbon emission reduction and sustainable development benefits cannot be fulfilled simultaneously, though technology may remedy this trade-off, and the effect of the CDM on local sustainable development varies across Chinese regions. This article helps elucidate the localizing process of climate justice and contributes to justice theories and the literature while aiding public managers and practitioners in international climate governance. Key policy insights Emission reductions for investment countries of CDM were achieved at the expense of local SD benefits in China. CDM exacerbated the differences among Chinese regions in achieving SD goals due to uneven economic and social conditions. Technology innovation can remedy the negative impact of CDM, governments thus should attach importance to technology and use CDM projects to accelerate technological transfers and innovation. Local governments should be encouraged to formulate and use local policies and processes to guide actions on CDM and to ensure their consistence with the prospect of the international mechanism by including the essence of justice. Developing countries should improve their institutional or organizational capacity to promote sustainable social development and to better tackle climate change. Investment of CDM projects or other international mechanisms should expand the budget expenditure, not limited to simple carbon trade, for improving the climate adaptation capacity of developing countries.

The American Eugenics Record Office

In the first decades of the twentieth century, American researchers at the Eugenics Record Office utilized a theoretical framework that combined humoral and Mendelian principles of inheritance to measure, trace, and predict the intergenerational transmission of an expansive net of morally charged heritable traits. Their reductive understanding of Mendelian principles—guided by class- and race-based prejudices—allowed them to paint a portrait of a nation that was bifurcated by ‘good’ and ‘bad’ strains of the population and threatened by the presence of ‘degenerate families’. This article examines the theoretical and methodological strategies and the technologies of display and ‘scientific’ legitimization that brought into being the category of ‘degenerate families’ and provided the justification for social policies that controlled marriage, limited immigration, and sterilized tens of thousands of Americans.

EU or UK Child-Sponsored Family Reunification Policy: Who’s Right? Whose Rights?

Abstract The increase in numbers of children travelling unaccompanied to Europe has provoked a sensitive debate as to how to treat their family members. While EU Member States generally grant family reunification for unaccompanied minors, the UK has opted to permit reunion in only ‘exceptional circumstances’. Widely criticised, the UK government counters that child-sponsored family reunification creates incentives for unaccompanied migration that place children at risk. This article explores both policies from a human rights perspective. It suggests that, as regards children reaching Europe, EU policy is more consistent with human rights norms. However, UK policy raises legitimate questions about obligations towards children beyond Europe’s borders. A rights-based justification for either EU or UK policy can be constructed, but requires recourse to additional principles on the balancing of rights among different groups of children. Clearer articulation and scrutiny of these principles could strengthen the rights rationale for child-sponsored family reunification.

Assessing and strengthening budgetary security of regions and their amalgamated hromada in an unstable economy: A case for Ukraine

An essential determinant of the economic growth of regions and amalgamated hromada is budgetary security, the weakening of which causes the strengthening of financial imbalances of territories and the emergence of budget risks and threats in different time lags. The paper aims to assess budgetary security of regions and amalgamated hromada in Ukraine in an unstable economy. The assessment of budgetary security and risks of areas and amalgamated hromada is carried out based on a multidimensional statistical analysis of budget indicators, calculation of the aggregate indicator of budget risks, and the level of budgetary security by a multiplicative method. The study sample included the regions of Ukraine and 22 amalgamated hromada in terms of cities of regional significance, urban, township, and rural territorial assemblies, which are represented by different areas in Ukraine. According to the assessment, Poltava, Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, and Mykolaiv oblasts are characterized by a low level of budget risks, which indicates high budget stability. On the other hand, the strengthening of budget imbalances, deterioration of the strength of local budgets, in particular in 2019–2020 in urban amalgamated hromada (Druzhbivska and Malovyskivska (6-8 points)); in village areas (Malynivska (5 points), Steblivska (7-7 points)); in rural amalgamated hromada (Chmyrivska (8-7 points)). The study results can serve as an analytical basis in the practice of local governments in the development and justification of regional and local budget policies, the nature of inter-budgetary relations, the formation of regional development strategies, etc. AcknowledgmentsThe study has been conducted within the framework of Applied Research “Financial determinants of the provision of economic growth in the regions and Amalgamated hromada based on the behavioral economy” with the support of the National Research Foundation of Ukraine (M. Dolishniy Institute of Regional Research of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the Grant Reg. No. 2020.02/0215, 2020–2022).