Policy Content Research Articles

Determination of the state of methodological support for the study of state anti-corruption policy in Ukraine

Determination of the state of methodological support for the study of state anti-corruption policy in Ukraine

Teaching Family? Care/Work Policy in Selected Family Courses in Canada's Research-Intensive Universities.

To what degree is explicit care/work policy taught in family courses in Canada's leading research-intensive universities? We analyze family courses in sociology departments and in political studies and women's/gender studies programs in Canada's 15 R1 universities to make a contribution to the scholarship of teaching and learning. This national scan marks a methodological innovation from curriculum studies that generally adopt a single-program or single-site focus. From a Canadian universe of 74 family courses, we identify 15 whose formal course calendar description explicitly addresses care/work family policy (measures to reconcile caring for young children with employment, through early learning and childcare, parental leaves, and child benefits). Sociology predominates among courses where family policy is taught, yet care/work policy content is not common. Given growing concerns about the care crisis and the care deficit in Canada, the low profile of care/work family policy content in family courses is significant. This study sheds light on the value of national postsecondary education curricular reviews and suggests that family curriculum renewal is warranted.

중국 일대일로의 동진정책과 한국에의 시사점

Since the Belt and Road Initiative was first proposed in 2013, it has mainly pursued a westward strategy, but since then, China has continued to expand its regional scope. In 2017, the Northern Sea Route was included in the Belt and Road Initiative, and in 2018, taking advantage of the easing of tensions on the Korean Peninsula, the Liaoning provincial government expanded the scope of the Belt and Road Initiative to include the Korean Peninsula and other Northeast Asian countries. As a result, the eastbound route of the Belt and Road became richer in content as the Northeast Asia Economic Corridor was added to the existing Sino-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor. This study focuses on the eastward strategy and examines the background of promoting the eastward strategy, the main contents of the eastward policy promoted in the three northeastern provinces, and the achievements in the three northeastern provinces since the BRI initiative has been implemented. In addition, it draws conclusions and examines the implications for Korea.

Can a feminist foreign policy be undone? Reflections from Sweden

Abstract In 2022, Sweden retracted its feminist foreign policy (FFP). What are the consequences for Swedish foreign policy and for FFPs elsewhere? We published an extensive report on the Swedish FFP in 2023, based on a survey that went out to all Swedish diplomats, interviews with more than 30 key foreign policy officials, and hundreds of steering documents from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. The article draws out new insights from the report. The retraction is likely to result in a deprioritization of gender equality in Swedish foreign policy. Sweden will likely lose its international leadership role on gender issues. However, FFPs may be more resilient than anticipated because of how foreign policy is governed. Governments that wish to retract FFPs are constrained by three key governance features: First, international agreements and soft law on women's rights place demands on policy content. Second, the decentralized nature of foreign policy implementation allows considerable autonomy on the ground, so that implementors may continue to work with gender equality. Third, longstanding international expectations for Sweden as a gender equality champion create a role-based constraint. These factors contribute to the ‘stickiness’ of FFPs, suggesting that a retraction is unlikely to result in a wholesale abandonment of gender equality activities. The article also examines the enduring legacy of the Swedish FFP beyond its formal retraction, highlighting adoption of FFPs by a growing number of states in different parts of the world.

User Information Sharing and Hospital Website Privacy Policies

Hospital websites frequently use tracking technologies that transfer user information to third parties. It is not known whether hospital websites include privacy policies that disclose relevant details regarding tracking. To determine whether hospital websites have accessible privacy policies and whether those policies contain key information related to third-party tracking. In this cross-sectional content analysis of website privacy policies of a nationally representative sample of nonfederal acute care hospitals, hospital websites were first measured to determine whether they included tracking technologies that transferred user information to third parties. Hospital website privacy policies were then identified using standardized searches. Policies were assessed for length and readability. Policy content was analyzed using a data abstraction form. Tracking measurement and privacy policy retrieval and analysis took place from November 2023 to January 2024. The prevalence of privacy policy characteristics was analyzed using standard descriptive statistics. The primary study outcome was the availability of a website privacy policy. Secondary outcomes were the length and readability of privacy policies and the inclusion of privacy policy content addressing user information collected by the website, potential uses of user information, third-party recipients of user information, and user rights regarding tracking and information collection. Of 100 hospital websites, 96 (96.0%; 95% CI, 90.1%-98.9%) transferred user information to third parties. Privacy policies were found on 71 websites (71.0%; 95% CI, 61.6%-79.4%). Policies were a mean length of 2527 words (95% CI, 2058-2997 words) and were written at a mean grade level of 13.7 (95% CI, 13.4-14.1). Among 71 privacy policies, 69 (97.2%; 95% CI, 91.4%-99.5%) addressed types of user information automatically collected by the website, 70 (98.6%; 95% CI, 93.8%-99.9%) addressed how collected information would be used, 66 (93.0%; 95% CI, 85.3%-97.5%) addressed categories of third-party recipients of user information, and 40 (56.3%; 95% CI, 44.5%-67.7%) named specific third-party companies or services receiving user information. In this cross-sectional study of hospital website privacy policies, a substantial number of hospital websites did not present users with adequate information about the privacy implications of website use, either because they lacked a privacy policy or had a privacy policy that contained limited content about third-party recipients of user information.

The Impact of the Double Reduction Policy on China's K-12 Education Industry: An Empirical Analysis Based on the Difference-in-Differences Method

The Double Reduction Policy introduced by the Chinese government in 2021 imposed unprecedented restrictive measures on privately-run extracurricular training institutions providing compulsory education subjects. Numerous education enterprises involved in K-12 business were profoundly affected. To explore the impact of the policy on education enterprises and the industry, this paper employs the Difference-in-Differences method for analysis. The findings reveal that the "Dual Reduction" policy led to an 8.165% decline in the profit margin of education enterprises, accompanied by a significant reduction in the number of employees, with an assessed decrease of 31.57%. Further analysis of the impact mechanism indicates that the policy's effect on the number of employees lags behind its impact on profit margin. Based on these results, the study suggests the optimization of the content and implementation approach of education policies to minimize negative impacts and to incorporate high-quality education resources provided by education enterprises through more comprehensive measures.

An analysis of Nepal's Draft Mental Health Acts 2006-2017: competing values and power.

This qualitative study maps the process of drafting and consulting on Nepal's mental health legislation from 2006 to 2017. A total of 14 people were interviewed and interviews were analysed thematically. These themes were subsequently interpreted in light of Shiffman and Smith's policy analysis framework, as the process was found to be at the agenda-setting stage. Two groups of actors were identified with different views on appropriate policy content and how the policy process should be conducted. The first group included psychiatrists who initiated and controlled the drafting process and who did not consider people with psychosocial disabilities to be equal partners. The psychiatrists viewed forced detention and treatment as upholding people's right to health and lobbied the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) to pass the draft acts to parliament. The second included the rights-based civil society actors and lawyers who saw the right to equality before the law as of utmost priority, opposed forced detention and treatment, and actively blocked the draft acts at the MoHP. There is no clear legal definition of mental health and illness in Nepal, legal and mental capacity are not differentiated, and people with mental and behavioural conditions are assumed to lack capacity. The analysis indicates that there were few favourable conditions to support the progression of this policy into law. It is unclear whether the drafters or blockers will prevail in the future, but we predict that professionals will continue to have more input into content than service users due to national policy dynamics.

Calibration and specification in policy practice: Micro-dimensions of policy design

Three aspects of policy success – programme implementation, policy solution feasibility and political legitimacy and support – need to be at the front of mind when policies are formulated. Many uncertainties endemic to policy-making surround these issues and present considerable public management challenges. Many of these problems, however, are linked to the poor conceptualization and understanding of policy content on the part of policy-makers, something for which policy scholars must share some blame. This is especially true with respect to the existing literature on the micro-level aspects of policies; the level at which goals and policy instruments are concretely implemented in the form of specific policy targets and tool calibrations. While these latter subjects have been examined in the past by luminaries such as Eleanor Ostrom, Guy Peters, Peter Hall and Lester Salamon, their insights into this level of policy-making have been glossed over in the mainstream policy sciences and the significance of their work for real-world policy analysis insufficiently appreciated. This article sets out a framework of policy calibrations and specifications that reconciles and incorporates these insights in order to enhance the chances of policy success through improved policy design.

A Bilingual Longitudinal Analysis of Privacy Policies Measuring the Impacts of the GDPR and the CCPA/CPRA

Privacy policies are the main mechanism for websites to describe their practices in collecting and processing visitors' personal data. Their format and content are subject to legal requirements that have changed due to recent new privacy regulations including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA). Studying how privacy policies are adapted to such regulatory change can help identify shortcomings in implementing the law and inform future legislatory initiatives. Existing work in this area mostly studied effects of the GDPR on privacy policies or the "Do Not Sell My Personal Information" link mandated by the CCPA. Methodologically, insights were mainly drawn from English-language privacy policies using keyword-based analyses or machine learning classifiers. In this work, we address this research gap and conduct a bilingual study of privacy policies in English and German that investigates the effects of the GDPR and CCPA/CPRA on privacy policy content, using established methods from corpus linguistics that are language-independent and do not rely on keyword lists or classifiers that may date quickly. We find that, unlike for the GDPR, the CCPA's requirements were not yet widely implemented when it first became enforceable but only with its amendment, the CPRA. Before that, websites used more than 60 variants of the "Do Not Sell" link instead of the mandated wording and did not prominently reference individual rights granted by the CCPA/CPRA. While companies outside California and the US did adapt their disclosures to the CCPA/CPRA, this was limited to English-language policies and did not spill over to policies in German. For GDPR enforcement, we find websites to increasingly rely on legitimate interests to justify data collection, raising concerns whether individuals' interests in the privacy of their personal information are still sufficiently considered.

LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT AS THE BASIS FOR THE AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT AND THE AGRARIAN POLICY IMPLEMENTATION IN THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA

The development of modern democratic states implies respect for the principle of subsidiarity, which means bringing down decisions and their execution to the local level. The decisions regarding the use of agrarian potential in the Republic of Serbia are still under the jurisdiction of the central government authorities, which contributes inadequately to the overall stability and development of agriculture in modern geopolitical correlations. The goal of this paper is to point out to the necessity of understanding the need to enable as much as possible the authorities at the local self-government level of the Republic of Serbia to implement the strategic goals of agrarian policy while improving permanently their agricultural capacities. Based on the research on the opinions of relevant state and local authorities and on empirical and theoretical arguments, the authors support this claim and provide a new perspective for the content of agrarian policy, as well as the development of the rich agricultural potential that the Republic of Serbia has at its disposal.

Astin의 모형을 활용한 대학기본역량진단 (2015~2021) 평가기준 분석

The purpose of this study is to analyze the evaluation criteria of the university basic competency assessment for universities based on Astin's learner-centered ease of use perspective. For this purpose, the I (Inputs) - E (Environment) - O (Outcomes) model of Astin (1993) and the analytical framework proposed by Kim Hyung-ran and Kim Seok-woo (2019) in their study on the analysis of evaluation indicators were reorganized according to the direction of the study. The main data for the analysis of the evaluation criteria are the indicators of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd cycles of the university basic competency assessment, and the evaluation indicators are categorized into I (educational inputs), E (learning environment), and O (educational outcomes) processes and university functions and roles according to their nature. The policy implications derived from the analysis of the evaluation indicators of the basic competency assessment of universities are as follows. First, it is necessary to propose education policies that support institutional stability so that universities can invest in creating a learning environment and create value. Second, future university assessments should be conducted in a way that builds on the discourse of ease of access to education. Third, university assessment should serve as a support mechanism that leads to synergistic change by focusing on the learner-centered value of ease. Fourth, the policy frame and content of university assessment need to be harmonized. Fifth, future university assessment criteria should be used as a basis for providing directions for future university education based on the concept of learner-centered ease of use.

Evaluation and Analysis of Synergy between Energy and Environmental Policies in Coal Resource-Rich Areas

The policy synergy of coal resource-rich areas directly affects the process of regional green transformation and high-quality development. Shanxi, Shaanxi and Inner Mongolia are important coal energy bases, and studying the energy and environmental policies of these three provinces is of great significance to sustainable development. Using social network analysis, the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic model and textual similarity methods, we conducted a synergistic study of policy issuance subjects and policy text contents of Shanxi, Shaanxi and Inner Mongolia from both horizontal and vertical perspectives. The results show that: (1) in the policy subject dimension, Shanxi had the highest degree of synergy, but overall the synergy in all three provinces was insufficient, and the number of multi-subject joint texts was relatively small; (2) in the policy content dimension, the textual similarity and goal consistency between Inner Mongolia and the Central Government were better than that of Shaanxi and Shanxi. Therefore, the region of “Shanxi–Shaanxi–Inner Mongolia” should improve the synergistic ability of policy issuance subjects; it should also pay attention to the linkage and refinement of the policy content, and make flexible innovations based on the compatibility with the Central policy incentives, to better promote the low-carbon and green transformation of coal resource-rich areas.

Critical Analysis of OTT Platforms in the light of Censorship Laws in India

The goal of the study paper is to perform a thorough and critical analysis of Over-The-Top (OTT) platforms in India with a particular focus on their content and the difficulties presented by the changing censorship landscape. Concerns about content control have increased due to the explosive expansion of OTT platform usage and the consumption of digital media. The study starts out by giving a general overview of the OTT market in India, charting its development, and analyzing its effects on traditional media. The paper discusses the development of streaming services, content delivery systems, and the elements influencing their enduring appeal to a wide range of audiences. The research then examines the censoring laws and rules that currently apply to India's conventional media, movies, and broadcasting. It examines the issues given by the decentralized and international nature of OTT material as well as how these rules, developed before to the OTT era, relate to the digital medium.Analysis of OTT content's impact on the younger generation and prospective implications on social norm formation receives special focus.Finally, the research provides a critical assessment of the status quo and recommendations for policy makers, content creators and OTT platforms to balance creative freedom with responsible content curation.

The Development of China’s English Education Policy in Primary and Middle Schools Within the Framework of Language-In-Education Planning (From 1949 To 2023)

With the burgeoning prevalence of the English language on a global scale, one of the central foci of language-in-education planning research lies in the escalating influence of English on the educational frameworks of virtually all nations worldwide. The intensifying forces of globalization and cultural diversity have contributed to an augmented need for individuals with exceptional levels of English proficiency. Faced with English's preeminence in contemporary society, governments have recognized the critical importance of English instruction in primary and middle schools as a composition of their language-in-education planning. The paper highlights China's English education policy in elementary and secondary schools during the last 50 years. and points out that the evolution of primary and middle school English education has been a process of constant adjusting and modification under the impact of different elements, including national politics, the economy, diplomacy, and society. Based on the characteristics and problems of foreign language education in China today, this paper proposes that policy formulation should increase the participation of local levels, the scope and the depth of the policy content and should also strengthen the supervision and support of policy implementation.

Mapping the policy space of public consultations: evidence from the European Union

ABSTRACT Public consultations strengthen the informational advantage and policy legitimacy of bureaucracies by allowing them to collect and aggregate information on stakeholder preferences. How well consultations perform this function depends on the dimensional structure and complexity of the policy spaces describing them. Building on the research on spatial models of politics, we derive a set of expectations about the dimensional structure and policy content of consultation policy spaces. We assess our argument empirically by analysing 42 consultations organised by the European Commission via online surveys across all policy areas. Using Specific Multiple Correspondence Analysis (SMCA) we find that more than 70% of the analysed consultations present low-dimensional policy spaces characterised by one or two main dimensions, although some also display a three-dimensional space. The substantive content of policy dimensions is consultation-specific and varies greatly across events. Most dimensions capture stakeholder alignments with respect to policy instruments, and only a few with respect to the orientation of the policy regime. The unveiled consultation policy spaces reflect a regulatory model of stakeholder engagement in policymaking. Our findings underscore the challenges and opportunities of information provision, preference aggregation and the identification of stable majority equilibria in the context of public consultations and bureaucratic policymaking.

The influence of civil society institutions on the fiscal policy of the state

This article is devoted to the analysis of the influence of civil society institutions on fiscal policy in the Russian Federation. The paper examines the structure of civil society in Russia, examines the place and role of its various institutions (primarily the institute of public control) in the system of legal guarantees for the implementation and protection of both the system of constitutional principles and the system of human and civil rights and freedoms, the rights and legitimate interests of public associations, as well as other non–governmental non-profit organizations. The article analyzes the essence and content of the fiscal policy of the state, its place and role in the state policy of the Russian Federation. The paper examines the main factors influencing the formation and development of the fiscal policy of the Russian state. This article uses a number of scientific research methods: formal-logical; historical-legal; comparative-legal; statistical; sociological; method of analyzing specific legal situations. The authors analyzed various approaches to defining the concepts of civil society and fiscal policy of the state, developed and justified the author's definitions of these concepts. The paper substantiates the role of civil society in the system of factors determining the directions of development of the fiscal policy of the Russian Federation. The article analyzes the main directions of the impact of various civil society institutions on the formation and development of the fiscal policy of the Russian Federation. The paper formalizes and explores the main problems that hinder the optimization of the processes of influence of civil society institutions on the processes of formation and development of the fiscal policy of the Russian state. The authors have developed and substantiated a system of measures to resolve these problems aimed both at the development of Russian civil society as a whole and at optimizing fiscal policy in the Russian Federation.

Coalitions and repertories in the strategic action field of the people affected by the Rio Doce disaster

The collapse of the Fundão dam of the Samarco, Vale, and BPH Billiton mining companies in 2015 resulted in the spillage of unprecedented tailings in the Rio Doce Basin, Brazil. It was a disaster of multiple dimensions, generating conflicts between the affected community, mining companies, the government, and the justice system in the search for solutions to recover and repair the damage. Meanwhile, a governance system was created to conduct disaster responses and conflict resolution between those actors. In this article, we investigate how skilled actors in the affected field act to influence disaster governance by producing consequences for policy decisions. The analysis highlights the role of coalitions and action repertories in cooperative and conflicting relationships in the affected people's field. Through mixed-method research, four years of the socio-environmental disaster (2015–2019) were examined through interviews with activists, documentary research, and analysis of protest events. The main argument is that the mobilization of non-state actors in the affected field has influenced disaster governance and the content of compensation policies. Mobilization combined social skills and action repertoires and formed political coalitions to influence decision-making processes. The article contributes to expanding the understanding of the dynamics of political disputes among non-state actors, proposing to broaden the understanding of the repertoires of non-state actors in coalitions to generate consequences for political decisions.

Attention to disability in child protection policies across four liberal welfare regimes

ABSTRACT How child protection and welfare policies address the disability community is a matter of utmost importance and urgency in the context of well-established inequalities. We present a policy content analysis of national policy documents across the United States, Northern Ireland, Australia, and the Republic of Ireland through the theoretical frame of a welfare regimes typology. Key findings include the conflation of disability with vulnerability in all but one context. Also evident is a lack of overt definition of disability, and opportunities for developing specific jurisdictional guidance and regulations focussed on embedding best practices in supporting disabled clients at all system levels.

Exploring Collection Development Policies at R1 Research University Libraries

This article documents the structure, content, and components of collection development policies (CDPs) at R1 research universities using content analysis. Of the 146 R1 research universities in the 2021 R1 classification cycle, just under 60% had a publicly accessible CDP. The most used title for a CDP was “Collection Development Policy.” Over half of the CDPs had a section for material formats and gifts or donations. Many documents discussed space and budgets within the policies. If an academic library does not have a document, library staff should create a document for the library and update it annually.

Paradigmatic stability, ideational robustness, and policy persistence: exploring the impact of policy ideas on policy-making

Abstract In the policy world, the idea of ideational robustness deals with why and how policy elements can be maintained over time and the implications this has for government strategy and activity. Past approaches to ideas and their influence on public policy stressed the disparate roles of multiple policy mechanisms such as path dependency or the nature of policy networks in either driving policy change forward or ensuring persistence of a policy. Ideational robustness on the other hand allows for the possibility of some changes occurring in policy environments and components while motivating cognitive and normative policy ideas are adapted and retained. While ideational persistence has often been identified as a source of policy stability, the possibility that some ideas allow lesser or greater levels of change in policy components while basic policy content remains more or less intact (ideational robustness) is much less well understood. The article reviews the literature on policy change and stability which highlights the influence of different policy processes on overall policy dynamics and the role played by policy learning in promoting ideational robustness. Using evidence from military doctrines and procurement in Canada and Australia, the study finds that the two countries drew different defence policy lessons from the end of the Cold War which contributed heavily to the extent of robustness of their defence policy ideas. The case studies show that ideational robustness is important but also that its study must be combined with that of other policy mechanisms and processes in order to explain overall policy change patterns.