Policy Vision Research Articles

Biomass for energy in the EU – The support framework

This paper aims to produce a quantitative approach on the overall measures and on public support framework for biomass for energy, based on the EU countries reports under RED and existing literature. The way in which the support for biomass is implemented in the EU energy sector is not similar across EU countries. Feed-in tariffs and feed-in-premiums are still the dominant support schemes for the deployment of bioelectricity, whereas subsidies remain the main support for bioheat. Furthermore, a vast number of EU countries apply mandatory blending quotas for biofuels for transport. The paper shows that biomass for energy has a key role within the EU policy support for RES, in which targets are the main drivers, together with overarching biomass guidelines to anticipate any environmental constraints. Stable support showed the highest effectiveness in the past and remains the key factor for biomass deployment beyond 2020. The renewed targets need to be accompanied by long-term support measures and a commonly shared policy vision. A further harmonization of public bioenergy support towards a single EU cleaner energy market is recommended. This implies four policy actions for all EU countries: in-depth efficiency review, integration with RED-2, compatible sustainability guidelines and local impact assessments.

From rhetoric to reality: Examining the policy vision and the professional process of enacting Learning for Sustainability in Scottish schools.

Learning for Sustainability (LfS), as conceived by Education Scotland and the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS), spans all curricular areas and it is positioned as the responsibility of all - teachers, learners and educational leaders (Scottish Government 2016). Yet, such comprehensiveness has the potential to render the term and its purpose equivocal and perfunctory. Our experience working with teachers in this area suggests that the concept and term ‘Learning for Sustainability’ are not widely understood, leading teachers to raise questions about the relevance of LfS policy in relation to their everyday professional practice. Beginning from this position our paper explores the tension between the policy vision and the professional reality. We follow three lines of enquiry: first, we outline the existing policy architecture in Scotland; second, we examine the basic understanding of the terminology and conceptual understanding of LfS across Scotland through a recent study conducted by Kirk (2017); third, we review a professional learning programme we have developed and deployed across Scotland. We suggest four key areas for change that would support the enactment of LfS within Scottish schools and so realise some of the potential the LfS agenda affords - namely, high quality professional learning, motivated staff working with others, interdisciplinary learning tailored to the needs of the students, and leadership within a clear strategic framework. We conclude with a note of caution, that although there is evidence that LfS can have a positive impact on attainment, helping learners to strive towards ‘sustainable futures’ is too important to be reduced to the current narrow national focus on attainment outcomes.

Agency at/of the waterfront in New York City: Vision 2020 and New York 2140

ABSTRACT From literary fiction to planning and policy visions, narratives frame, question, and shape the future and our possibilities to act upon it. This paper approaches the question of narrated agency in future narratives through the lens of the New York waterfront, explored here as a site for enacting and critiquing the possibility to act towards the future. Who is described as having the possibility to act at the waterfront, and to what extent is the water seen as a force in its own right? This essay addresses these questions by examining two key texts imagining a future New York City: the New York Comprehensive Waterfront Plan Vision 2020 (2011) and Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York 2140 (2017). It argues that both texts gesture towards an acknowledgement of possible agency of the water, while continuing to reiterate an instrumental relationship with the environment that focuses on processes of appropriation, distribution and production. Ultimately, this essay considers the implications for the implied readers’ agency, and for their possibilities to take meaningful action to interact with, and make changes in, their relationship with the water.

Cultura digital, cultura hacker e novas formas de atuação de movimentos sociais: um estudo de caso sobre o Ônibus Hacker

Este trabalho tem como objetivo investigar como a cultura hacker e a cibercultura impactam as atuais lutas por mudanças sociais e políticas e a visão dos membros do Ônibus Hacker acerca de seus modos de organização e significados de horizontalidade, abertura e flexibilidade organizacionais. Também se buscou entender como a ética hacker poderia trazer respostas a questões presentes em grupos de ações coletivas, como problemáticas relacionadas à estrutura organizacional, individualidade e cooperação entre pessoas com visões de políticas distintas.

The Futurists of Beijing: Alvin Toffler, Zhao Ziyang, and China's “New Technological Revolution,” 1979–1991

This article examines former Chinese Premier and General Secretary Zhao Ziyang's policies to respond to a “New Technological Revolution,” which resulted from a most unlikely influence: the prominent American writer Alvin Toffler and other futurists. Drawing on previously unstudied materials and internal Chinese sources, this article demonstrates how Zhao and other senior Chinese officials interpreted and deployed these ideas to advocate for distinctive and influential policies. This policy vision of actionable futurism shaped science and technology policy during the 1980s—especially the major 863 Program to develop advanced technologies—and had great importance in China's economic transformation. In explicating Zhao's role, this account revises the often-repeated Deng Xiaoping–centered story of the 863 Program's origins and reassesses this major initiative, which exemplifies how new expectations about the future, shaped by the transnational movement of ideas, became centrally important to the Chinese leadership's decades-long agenda for China's modernization. This examination also illustrates the distinctiveness of Zhao's policy vision, frequently effaced by official Deng-centered narratives, and the fluidity of conceptions of modernization in this period. The article concludes by suggesting the enduring relevance of these ideas about the future for the current era of Chinese state-led investment in new technologies.

IMPLEMENTATTION OF THE COMMON EUROPEAN SECURITY AND DEFENCE POLICY IN THE CONTEXT OF ITS MILITARY ASPECT

This paper examines the importance and specificities of the common European security and defence policy. The realization of the common European security requires the establishment of a joint European defence. The national security and defence strategies of EU member states are an expression of a concrete implementation of a pan-European policy vision in this area, refracted through the national features of each country. The common stance and purpose of the different countries presuppose cooperation and joint action in the fight against international terrorism, and by virtue of the tasks they perform, intelligence agencies are called upon to play a leading role in this fight.

COMMON EUROPEAN SECURITY AND DEFENCE POLICY

This paper examines the importance and specificities of the common European security and defence policy. The realization of the common European security requires the establishment of a joint European defence. The national security and defence strategies of EU member states are an expression of a concrete implementation of a pan-European policy vision in this area, refracted through the national features of each country. The common view and purpose of the different countries presuppose cooperation and joint action in the fight against international terrorism, and by virtue of the tasks they perform, intelligence agencies are called upon to play a leading role in this fight.

Разногласия Якутии, Дальнего Востока И Центра По Вопросу: административно-территориального разграничения в контексте национальной политики

The article revisits the national and territorial delimitation of the northeastern regions of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) in the 1920s and early 1930s. On the example of the Yakut Autonomous Republic within the RSFSR, the authors present a complex vision of early Soviet nationality policy that problematizes the existing interpretations of the postimperial accommodation of diversity by territorial ethnofederalism. The ongoing historiographic debate about early Soviet nationality policy is framed by the competing visions of its primary subjects: prerevolutionary national elites or the Bolshevik regime and the experts in its service. The article uncovers the importance of the economic regionalization debate in disputes about "indigenization" and territorial national autonomy politics in the 1920s and early 1930s as a factor that is inseparable from national projects. It equally affected the reasoning of politicians and experts at the local level and in Moscow. Specifically, the article explores the negotiation of borders of Yakut (Sakha) national territorial autonomy in the context of the economic regionalization debate in the Soviet Union and in the framework of the relationship between the Soviet center, regional authorities of the Far Eastern region and Yakut Autonomous Republic, and activists of smaller Eastern Siberian nationalities. The article provides a detailed discussion of ambiguous applications of the category of indigenous peoples in the regional context and in the framework of early Soviet politics, showing that Yakut claims of indigeneity were often countered by the promotion of smaller Siberian indigenous peoples by the Far Eastern regional authorities.

Defining quality in a divided sector: A review of policy and practice in early childhood settings in New Zealand from 2008 to 2018

This review examines major changes in the early childhood sector during the National-led government from 2008 to 2017, with discussion of the possible future under the new Labour-led government. The changing pattern of provision and access to quality early childhood services for families is critiqued, along with changes in funding models, qualifications, and professional development. The revision of Te Whāriki is examined, together with tensions between the revised curriculum and the early childhood centre regulations. Specific issues such as regulatory changes around group size and licences and choices for families are explored. This review concludes with an examination of the potential of the new strategic plan, highlighting the tensions within the terms of reference and consideration of directions for research that may help inform the vision for policy and practice laid out in the strategic plan.

The Social Policy Vision of Political Parties in Modern Turkey

The Social Policy Vision of Political Parties in Modern Turkey

The Strategic Choice of ROK Facing the Sino-US Competition

President Donald Trump’s vision for US foreign policy can be summed up in two words: “America First” and isolationism. In the name of national interests, Trump’s America has not only treated its allies with a tint of harshness or contempt, but also defined China as a “revisionist” or “competitor.” Most of all, the Trump administration has intensified frictions and conflicts with China in all domains. Sino-US competition is the biggest external factor influencing the present and future situation of the Korean peninsula. As an ally of the USA and a strategic partner of China, the Republic of Korea (ROK) has clearly felt the pressure from the increasingly fierce competition between China and USA. On the one hand, it is difficult for ROK to disengage from military dependence on the USA. On the other hand, it is also inconceivable for ROK to terminate its political and economic cooperation with China. A series of policy measures implemented by the Moon Jae-in administration deserves some credit for strengthening the confidence that ROK can exert its diplomatic autonomy and flexibility and control its destiny. This article argues that, in an era of China–USA competition, ROK needs to find a way to avoid strategic dilemmas and make its diplomatic decisions more effective, only by judging accurately the changes of the geopolitical and geoeconomic climate in East Asia and anticipating reasonably the trajectory of China–USA competition.

Pax Ottomanica No More! The “Peace” Discourse in Turkish Foreign Policy in the Post‐Davutoğlu Era and the Prolonged Syrian Crisis

AbstractTurkey's eight years between 2008 and 2016 has been dominated by Ahmet Davutoğlu's vision of foreign policy, which was derived from his multi‐edition book Strategic Depth (2000). In order to be able to present itself in its larger periphery as a pro‐active, trustworthy actor, Davutoğlu argued, Turkey needed to change the foreign‐policy paradigms with which it was stranded. As the Strategic Depth vision unfolded, it drew explicit parallels between modern Turkey and the Ottoman neighborhood policy. Turkey‐Syria relations since 2008 had been providing the seekers of neo‐Ottomanist tendencies in the contemporary Turkish foreign policy with abundant examples, because Syria, once an Ottoman territory and always a challenge to modern Turkey, came to be the first poster country in the shift towards Turkey's imperial awakening. In the post‐Davutoğlu era, however, the rhetoric and practices of the past eight years seemed suddenly to disappear from the use of the Turkish agents of foreign policy; the new code of terms and actions to replace the Strategic Depth version is yet to be decided. This study seeks to pin down the neo‐imperialist character of Turkey's foreign‐policy discourse of the aforementioned eight years and contribute to discussions of the Turkish aspiration of neo‐Ottomanism with focus on the Syrian crisis through the Justice and Development Party's re‐invented peace discourse. In doing so, it aims to find out and elaborate on the current tendencies of Turkish foreign policy, which are no longer as explicit and articulated as they were during Davutoğlu's ministry and prime ministry. As Turkey's cross‐border operation to Syria — the Euphrates Shield — ends and another one in Idlib begins, a discursive analysis stretching from Davutoglu's diplomatic “zero problems” with Damascus to the military use of ground troops and air force is timely. Such an endeavor would be essential in understanding the spectacular swing from one edge to the other in Turkey's inclination over a phantasmagorical empire.

A New Vision for American Foreign Policy

The United States lacks a vision of foreign policy. Complacent from the fall of the Soviet Union and weary from the War on Terror, America lacks a willingness to face the largest threats to democracy, human rights, and open markets in the post-Cold War era. I argue that values, alliance, institutions, and willingness to invest politically and economically should drive American foreign policy in confronting rising authoritarianism. I close with some brief simple examples of policy ideas that flow from this foreign policy framework.

Policy visions of big data: views from the Global South

Government intentions stand at the heart of debates about how big data can and should be used in the Global South. This paper provides new insights by examining the political and economic visions promoted by emerging power governments in Brazil, India and China (the BICs). Doing so is crucial as these countries not only comprise some of the world’s largest populations, but have also demonstrated their initiative in national and international promotion of big data politics. Drawing on a content analysis of strategic and legal documents discussing the use of big data, we identify potential areas for big data cooperation among the BICs by determining the compatibility of national policy visions. Three visions are apparent: data as a force for political liberation or repression, for improving public services and for facilitating development. Successful BIC cooperation is likely related to the latter two, but less probable for the liberation/repression vision. We conclude by identifying the implications of BIC engagement with big data for the Global South more broadly.

Tackling household food insecurity: An essential goal of a national food policy

Eradicating household food insecurity is essential to the articulated vision of a national food policy that aims to promote healthy living and safe food for families across the country. Household food insecurity refers to the insecure or inadequate access to food due to financial constraints. Despite federal commitments to improve the situation, food insecurity in Canada increased between 2007-08 and 2011-12. It currently affects more than four million Canadians, and is particularly grave in Indigenous communities. Food insecurity takes a toll on individuals’ health and well-being, and it is a burden on our healthcare system. The social epidemiology of household food insecurity shows it to be inextricably linked to the social and economic circumstances of households. Federal and provincial policy interventions that improve the financial circumstances of very low income households have yielded reductions of up to 50 percent in household food insecurity prevalence and severity. Yet, prevalence rates remain high. A national food policy represents an invaluable opportunity to address food insecurity in Canada. To do so, this policy must transcend the conventional boundaries of agriculture and agri-food. Addressing food insecurity requires the integration of policy actions across the three levels of government. In addition, performance targets must be established, and ongoing monitoring and evaluation mechanisms implemented, to ensure that policies and programs meant to address food insecurity actually have a meaningful impact.

Medium-scale commercial farms in Africa: the experience of the ‘native purchase areas’ in Zimbabwe

AbstractAcross Africa there has been a growth in medium-sized farms, including in Zimbabwe following the land reform of 2000. What are the prospects of such farms driving new forms of agricultural commercialization? In this article we seek to learn lessons from the past by examining the experience of ‘native purchase areas’, which were established from the 1930s in Zimbabwe. Through a detailed historical study of Mushagashe small-scale commercial farming area in Masvingo Province, the article explores the changing fortunes of farms over time. Historical information is complemented by a survey of twenty-six randomly selected farms, examining patterns of production, asset ownership and accumulation. In-depth interviews explore life histories and changes in social arrangements that have influenced agrarian change. Four broad farm types are identified, including those that are commercialized, projectized, villagized, and held or abandoned. These categories are not static, however, and the article emphasizes non-linear patterns of change. Following Sara Berry, we show how pathways of commercialization are diverse and unpredictable, influenced by interlocking conjunctures of social dynamics, generational changes and political-economic conditions. Commercialization outcomes are dependent on the intersection of relational dynamics and more structural, political economy factors. Bursts of commercialization on these farms are contingent on access to employment by farm owners, labour (hired, squatters and offspring) and, perhaps above all, money to invest. The much-hyped policy vision of a new medium-scale commercial farm sector emerging in Africa therefore must be qualified, and divergent outcomes recognized.

NATIONAL MARKET OF METAL PRODUCTION: DIRECTIONS OF POLICY FORMATION OF COMPETITIVE DEVELOPMENT

Topicality. The importance of the mining and metallurgical industry in the conditions of globalization and internationalization of world market of raw materials and commodity market is to provide metal-intensive industries with high-quality raw materials. The article deals with the tendencies of development of the world market of metal products. The dynamics of the commodity structure of world exports of the main kinds of metal products is analyzed. The growth of volumes of world consumption of raw material products, especially iron ore, was revealed. The dynamics of the commodity structure of the domestic export of metal products is analyzed. Possible ways of reducing the level of dependence of the metallurgical industry of Ukraine on the foreign economic situation are considered. The main directions of the state policy forming of competitive development of the metallurgical industry have been developed and proposed. Aim and tasks are to substantiate the main ways of forming and implementing the policy of competitive development of the metallurgical industry of Ukraine on an innovative basis. Research results. The article provides a comprehensive analysis of world trends and trends for 2000-2016: production and consumption of steel; export of basic types of metal products; geography of export flows of metal products, as well as the dynamics of development of domestic and external consumption. On the basis of the analysis, the strategic vision of the state competition policy of the metallurgical industry is presented. The purpose of the State Program for Modernization and Development of the Metallurgical Industry of Ukraine until 2027 should be: modernization of production capacities on the basis of identifying priority areas of structural reorganization of the industry focused on the production of environmentally friendly and competitive metal products. The proposed strategy for the development of the industry should be formed on the priorities of the concept of neoindustrialization of the national economy based on: own resources; new technologies; active domestic demand. They are the decisive factors that can bring the metallurgical industry to the path of economic growth and global competitiveness. Conclusions. The metallurgical industry of Ukraine should be a catalyst for sustainable growth of the economy at the expense of the innovative way of development as a result of the triple interaction of education, science and business with state support and improvement of the institutional environment.

SDGs, health and the G20: a vision for public policy

Abstract Ensuring ‘health for all’ remains a persistent and entrenched global challenge. G20 governments are in a position to elevate the priority accorded to health, and acknowledge the centrality of health to attaining the SDGs. The authors call on G20 leaders to build nations that are more inclusive and less divided, by: adopting a Health- in-All-Policies approach, prioritizing the most vulnerable, engaging citizens in policy processes, and filling health data gaps.

A brief history of worker's health in Brazil's Unified Health System: progress and challenges.

This article draws on current understandings of workers' health in Brazil that emerged concomitantly with advances in the field of public health. It describes the institutional trajectory of the field of workers' health within the Unified Health System (SUS), emphasizing the challenges faced in developing actions in the sphere of workers' health surveillance. It synthesizes the often tortuous path taken over the last 30 years between multiprofessional training processes, coordination between different levels of the SUS, interinstitutional support, especially from public universities, and interaction with participatory processes. It provides an overview of progress and challenges in the face of continuous changes in working conditions and work organization and the limited effectiveness of government policies designed to address occupational health risks. Finally, it suggest that progress has come out of the intertwining of social and academic movements, with the opening up of institutional spaces that transform the SUS, reviving the underlying principles of participation and health promotion in broad vision of state policy.

“For the Protection of Christianity?”

Over the course of Russia’s post-Soviet development, the Russian Orthodox Church has become a significant actor in social and political relations in Russia. This text deals with the ways in which the Russian Orthodox Church’s relationship toward the West has developed and how the Church features in the state’s official policy toward the West. This paper, which is based mainly on an analysis of primary sources (state and Church documents, media), is structured chronologically. Important landmarks in it include Vladimir Putin’s entrance into the position of president and Kirill’s entrance into the position of the Moscow patriarch. The study shows that, at present, the state and the Church rhetoric are almost identical and both focus on the defense of Russian foreign policy visions and plans.