Poor Citizens Research Articles

Fines, Fees, and Fundamental Rights

The US Department of Justice’s investigation into the Ferguson, MO police department blew the lid off of a hidden, nationwide scandal. Too many police departments and courts all over the country were using predatory fines and fees to extract wealth from their communities’ poorest citizens. In many states, these abuses were inextricably bound up with deeply entrenched patterns of racist law enforcement. After Ferguson, it felt like a long overdue reckoning was near at hand. Seven years after the DoJ published its Ferguson report, have we made any progress? Did the reckoning ever happen? This paper draws upon nationwide research by the National Center for Access to Justice (NCAJ) at Fordham Law School to provide some insight into this question. NCAJ’s Fines and Fees index ranks all 50 states based on whether they have adopted policies that are essential to any rights-respecting approach to monetary sanctions. Overall, the results are grim—not nearly enough has changed and some states are trending in the wrong direction. On the other hand, there has been widespread progress on some issues. There are reasons for optimism, and there are lessons in the data for activists who want to think pragmatically about how to realize change.

Accounting for population density in econometric accessibility

This paper proposes an adjusted econometric approach to quantity accessibility. The metric can have significant benefits in allowing to account for inequality in evaluating transport interventions in an agent-based setting. Econometric accessibility, in its traditional form, is a place-based metric allowing us to account for the benefit of participating in an activity and the cost of getting to the particular activity. However, it does not account for the number of people affected by the (in)accessibility. The approach employed in this paper overcomes that criticism.Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan in South Africa is used to illustrate the effect that accounting for population density has on the accessibility metric. It succinctly captures the known inaccessibility experienced by many poor citizens on the periphery of the urban area.

КАТАЛОГИ ИЗДАТЕЛЬСТВА М. О. ВОЛЬФА КАК ИСТОЧНИК ПО ИСТОРИИ ДЕТСКОЙ КНИГИ В РОССИИ

Maurycy Wolff is one of the first Russian publishers who chose literature for children and youth as their “specialty”. The source base letting study of this aspect of his activity includes documents of the Joint Stock Publishing Company by M. Wolff (Central State Historical Archive of St. Petersburg); M.Wolf’s personal fund (Russian State Archive of Literature and Art); public anniversary reports for the 10th and 25th anniversary of the company; polemical articles and notes in periodicals; catalogs and bookstore invoices. The article focuses on the latter type of sources. The work provides a quantitative and qualitative analysis of Wolff’s catalogs from 1856 to 1897. The article reveals the dynamics of the number of publications for children; their number is correlated with other genres and types of literature. The main trends of Wolff’s publishing practices are identified. They involve his awareness of activities in the field of children’s literature as a special social mission; implementation of the practice of book classifications according to children’s age and levels of a child’s reading skills; publication of richly illustrated editions as a way of solving special aesthetic tasks: expanding of the content of the catalogs (detailed abstracts, quotations from works, expert opinions, etc.) to purposefully influence the tastes of the Russian public; perception of the catalog as a communication tool with various social strata of potential buyers (parents, heads of educational institutions, residents of capitals and provinces, wealthy and poor citizens, etc.).

Социальное казначейство как новое направление повышения эффективности бюджетных расходов на реализацию мер социальной поддержки российских граждан

The subject of the study is a complex of financial and social relations arising in the process of providing citizens with social support measures through the use of new information and communication technologies. The purpose of the work is to identify new tools that contribute to improving the effectiveness of providing social support measures in Russia. The article analyzes budget expenditures for the implementation of social support measures for low-income households on the example of one of the subjects of the Russian Federation. Through the analysis, the reasons for the low efficiency of budget expenditures in terms of support for low-income households have been established. A comprehensive review of a new mechanism for providing social support measures to poor citizens in the field of social protection in the form of a social treasury has been carried out. The prerequisites for the creation of a unified social platform that contributes to improving the efficiency and targeting of the provision of state (municipal) services, taking into account foreign experience in the field of creating a unified social register, are determined. The main components of the social treasury that ensure the coherence and efficiency of its functioning are identified. It is established that the social treasury is a tool that contributes to the acceleration of the provision and receipt of services in a proactive mode, reducing transaction costs. The main reasons hindering the development of digitalization in the sphere of obtaining state (municipal) services by citizens and, consequently, improving the process of providing social support measures to the population are identified. The main expenses, the need for which is due to the development and introduction of new tools for the implementation of social protection of the population in Russia, as well as the projected benefits from their implementation, are identified.

Liberal Democracy: Between Epistemic Autonomy and Dependence

Understanding the relationship between experts and laypeople is crucial for under-standing today’s world of post-truth and the contemporary crisis of liberal democracy. The emergence of post-truth has been linked to various phenomena such as a flawed social and mass media ecosystem, poor citizen education, and the manipulation tactics of powerful interest groups. The paper argues that the problem is, however, more profound. The underlying issue is laypeople’s inevitable epistemic dependence on experts. The latter is part and parcel of the “risk society” in which people question the scientific consensus and thus are able to manipulate the facts. It is a powerful weapon in the hands of illiberal democrats, though liberal democrats can make no use of it. The latter downplay the problem of citizens’ epistemic deficits and of the epistemic asymmetries be-tween them. The third and fourth generations of deliberative democrats are a perfect example. The paper argues that the concepts of interactional expertise and epistemic dependence explain why understanding between experts and laypeople is impossible. The said phenomena undermine liberalism’s unrealistic assumptions concerning citi-zens’ decision-making competence.

Perspectives For Using Food Stamps As An Instrument Of Social Support Of The Poor In The Russian Federation

Providing social support to poor citizens is one of the most effective tools for reducing poverty. The article discusses the creation of a system of food assistance to poor citizens as one of the most effective measures of social support aimed at reducing poverty. Various ways of organizing this system are shown, domestic and foreign experience is analyzed, conclusions about its strengths and weaknesses are drawn, practical recommendations are given for organizing a food aid system in the form of a system of specialized food cards (food stamps or coupons) in the Russian Federation at the federal level. The potentiality of stimulating economic growth and supporting national agriculture with through the same program is also considered. The effect of the food cards implementation on poverty reduction has been modeled

The Turkmen-style economic development

The resource-rich and state-led Turkmen economy has grown very fast since the beginning of the twenty-first century. The authorities have produced a number of various programmes and strategies aimed at improving the standard of living of the citizens and achieving sustainable and inclusive development. Officially, nearly 80% of the national budget in Turkmenistan has been annually allocated for social needs. However, instead of creating opportunities and improving access to these opportunities for the citizens, the authoritarian government chose income redistribution and social spending. The paper identifies key features of the economic development in Turkmenistan and was written base on a critical analysis of state-controlled and independent news websites. The main feature of the Turkmen-style economic development is the growing deprivation of ordinary people. Poor citizens are getting poorer while the president’s relatives and patronage networks are getting richer. Huge gaps between the rural and urban population and tribal divisions have been observed in the country. Moreover, the Soviet-style work holidays continue. Despite significant improvements in infrastructure, provision for education and health care still remains poor in Turkmenistan. The government expenditure for social needs means investment in infrastructure, not human capital.

Diversity in Unity: A Face off with Health Sector of BRICS Nations

The thirteenth summit of BRICS nations was held recently under the chairmanship of India on 9th September 2021. No doubt it was a moment of pride which needs to be celebrated on political front, as all the five BRICS nations reiterated their commitment of enhancing intra-BRICS cooperation under the three pillars - political and security, economic and financial, and cultural & people-to-people exchanges, but have we got holistic pride as well? No, as we are far behind from three nations of BRICS; Federation of Russia, China and Brazil if we look at our health sector. A pertinent question arises why we lack compatibility with BRICS nations in health sector? If we look at the period from 2005 to 2019 the current health expenditure (per cent of GDP) is well below in India in comparison to other BRICS nations. The low expenditure affects the health-related amenities in terms of availability of beds, physicians, nurses and mid-wives etc. Thus, it puts pressure on the general public to spend more on health. This in turn increases out-of-pocket expenditure of poor citizens. The paper tries to examine the expenditure incurred by BRICS nations on health sector and find out the health services such as; availability of beds, physicians, nurses and mid-wives etc. It also examines the relationship between health expenditure and out of -pocket expenditure. The study will try to evaluate how healthy are the citizens of BRICS nations on the basis of few selected indicators related to physical health. It will look at the pertinent question; where India stands amongst all the nations of BRICS? In the concluding part policy aspects will be discussed so that each member nation can improve in the areas where it lacks so that overall health of the citizens of BRICS nations can go up. This will not only strengthen the bond amongst these nations but also make them prosper more as healthy human resource is the backbone of any nation.

The story circle as a practice of democratic, critical inquiry

The authors of this essay have been committed practitioners and teachers of Philosophy for Children in a variety of educational settings, from pre-schools through university doctoral programs and in adult community and religious education programs. The promotion of critical thinking has always been a primary goal of this movement. But communal practices of critical thinking need to include other kinds of democratic conversation that prompt us to see others as full-fledged persons and to be curious about how our being in community with them makes growth and self-correction possible. As we continue to experiment and innovate in new contexts we see ourselves continuing the inquiry around expanding the inclusivity of conversations about basic human concerns. In this essay we describe an inclusive strategy called the story circle, that was first developed as a method of popular education in Denmark and was then adapted as a tool of social change among poor and dis-empowered American citizens in Appalachia. Story circles were later utilized in a philosophical living-learning community and most recently coupled with Lipman and Sharp’s dialogue method of the community of philosophical inquiry (CPI). The authors of this paper have combined story circles with the community of philosophical inquiry in a variety of contexts. In each iteration, telling one’s own story and listening carefully to the stories of others can be equally revelatory actions.

THE PROBLEM OF THE EMERGENCE OF SLUMS AND METHODS FOR ARCHITECTURAL SOLUTION

This article raises questions about the need to provide housing for poor citizens or to create opportunities to improve their housing conditions. The causes of illegal development and slum areas are determined as well as architectural methods for their solution in various countries of the world.
 This problem has long been known and affects many countries and, in particular, the Kingdom of Morocco. There, it is exacerbated by the imperfection, and sometimes absence, of legislative documents, corruption and unwillingness of the authorities to deal with this issue that is vital for the country. Disappointing statistics on the spread of slums and the situation of people living there are given. The statistics of the growth of illegal development in the city of Casablanca are given as an example.
 The experience of dealing with this problem in other countries (on the example of Chile, Mexico, Germany) is considered. To solve this problem, a social housing complex in Iquique, Quinta Monroy, was erected in Chile. The decision was very successful and a similar social project was repeated in Mexico. The residential complex in Dessau Tertin, designed by Walter Gropius (Bauhaus), was also considered. Concerning this complex, the successful use of local building materials and modern (at that time) technologies was noted, as well as the simplicity of solutions.
 The findings cited the main causes of the emergence and proliferation of slums in the world and in the Kingdom of Morocco in particular. The main reasons for the spread of illegal construction should be considered: population migration and rapid demographic growth, inaction and corruption of the responsible governing and control bodies for reconstruction and construction, the lack of qualified technical specialists and engineers, complicated legal and administrative stages, the creation of unstructured residential communities, and the limited income of most citizens. It is noted that in Morocco, one of the main reasons for the emergence of illegal development is the population migration of the country’s population in search of work. This is especially true for agricultural workers.

The party road to representation: Unequal responsiveness in party platforms

AbstractThis paper explores a major road to substantive representation in democracies, by clarifying whether demands of rich and poor citizens are taken up in the electoral platforms of political parties. Doing so constitutes a substantial broadening and deepening of our understanding of substantive representation – broadening the countries, issue‐areas and years that form the empirical basis for judging whether democracies manifest unequal representation; and deepening the process of representation by clarifying a key pathway connecting societal demands to policy outcomes. The paper hypothesises that party systems in general will respond more strongly to wealthy than to poor segments of a polity. It also hypothesises that left parties will more faithfully represent poorer and less significantly represent richer citizens than do right parties. We find substantial support for these expectations in a new dataset that combines multi‐country, multi‐issue‐area, multi‐wave survey data with data on party platforms for 39 democracies.

Navigating stigma through everyday city-making: Gendered trajectories, politics and outcomes in the periphery of Lima

Over the last two decades, a growing body of scholars from the fields of psychology, sociology, law and public health have devoted their attention to examining how and why stigma operates as a form of discrimination, paying particular attention to ethno-racially stigmatised groups. However, less attention has focused on how ordinary women and men engaged in peripheral urbanisation processes are stigmatised through multiple material, social and political mechanisms and with a myriad of outcomes. Building on this literature, and drawing on the trajectories of a man and a woman living in the periphery of metropolitan Lima, I explore how stigmatisation shapes the daily lives of poor and impoverished citizens as they try to find a place in the city, and how and why their everyday practices contribute, or not, to the transformation of stigma traps. I argue that the everyday city-making practices of the ‘unsheltered’ are inextricably linked to the politics of bare citizenship. As those stigmatised become individualised, isolated and undermined, they also are deprived of being part of a collective experience, and are deeply challenged to reclaim their agency as entitled citizens. The wider the range of stigmatisation mechanisms at work, the more difficult it is for those subjected to stigma to counteract them, as they become disadvantaged in a broad range of domains: from social relations, to tenure security, access to services and infrastructure, livelihood opportunities, and psychological and physical wellbeing. I further contend that a deep examination of the material world – the dwelling, the neighbourhood and the city – and of the practices and imaginaries that produce this material world, opens a window into the micro-politics of how stigma is negotiated, apportioned and resisted in the everyday lives of those who are politically and materially unsheltered.

THE GENESIS OF THE SOCIAL FUNCTION OF TAXES

The article is devoted to the substantiation of the existence of the social function of taxes. The relevance of the study is based on the fact that taxes levied on individuals should be simultaneously elements of the tax and social policy. The social function is identified, as a rule, only with the redistribution of income between rich and poor citizens. The study reveals other aspects of the social impact of taxes. The author not only gives a definition of the social function of the tax, but also reveals the mechanism of its implementation in foreign practice. In the course of the research, general methods of cognition and private scientific methods of cognition (tabular and graphical method) were used.

Where Do the Less Affluent Vote? The Effect of Neighbourhood Social Context on Individual Voting Intentions in England

A widely accepted finding in the literature on political participation is that individuals living in poorer neighbourhoods are less likely to vote than those living in more affluent neighbourhoods. Yet, why some poor residents of the most deprived neighbourhoods are more likely to vote than others is still understudied. This article presents a new theoretical framework arguing that when they believe that most others vote in the neighbourhood, poor citizens are more likely to follow their example than wealthy citizens. To empirically test these claims, I develop a two-level multilevel model using survey data and the Index of Multiple Deprivation for England. My findings point to the higher importance of a social norm of voting for the political behaviour of poor individuals than wealthy individuals. Social norms define which behaviour is right and proper. They are enforced through social interactions with others.

A Tale of Two Pandemics: Economic Inequality and Support for Containment Measures in Peru

Research suggests that the coronavirus pandemic disproportionately affected poor communities. However, relatively little is known about how this differential impact affected support for, and compliance with, COVID-19 lockdown policies. This article examines the relationship between socioeconomic inequalities and public opinion towards COVID-19 containment measures in Peru. Despite the strict quarantine measures adopted by the government of Peru, the country struggled to contain the spread of the disease. We designed and implemented a nationally representative survey in Peru and found that economically vulnerable sectors are more likely to oppose the quarantine and are more likely to defy the stay-at-home recommendations to leave home and go to work. Our contribution highlights that poor citizens’ housing and economic conditions can explain why the poor are more likely to react negatively to COVID-19 lockdown policies.

Constructing Conflict: The Politics of Job Creation Policy, Precarious Work, and Citizenship in South Africa’s Construction Industry

The paper examines the politics of state job creation policy in South Africa. We focus on the construction industry, which is a major sector for job creation policy, especially through a large scale public works programme. We argue that, while the creation of jobs is framed by government as a path towards dignity and social inclusion for poor and unemployed citizens, the precarious reality of low-wage work in the construction industry undermines the potential pro-social effects of wage employment. Beneficiaries of job creation policy often experience frustration and alienation, and the construction sites on which they work are often marked by conflict and disruption. We describe two different forms that this conflict takes, on the one hand demanding wage work as a citizenship right, on the other eschewing generalized citizenship claims in favour of particularistic and exclusionary demands for jobs based on localized identities. These seemingly contradictory but intertwined types of conflict show the complexity of the relationship between state job creation and citizenship rights in an industry and an economy defined by precarious forms of employment.

Environmental injustice in Clean Water Act enforcement: racial and income disparities in inspection time

Decades of research has documented that people of color and low-income experience disproportionate environmental burdens, with recent empirical studies showing these burdens are exacerbated by disparities in government regulatory enforcement. Scholars’ attention to enforcement disparities as a source of environmental injustice highlights that government behavior may contribute to ongoing inequities in environmental outcomes. To date, studies analyzing enforcement disparities have employed statistical models to either estimate the probability that a federal or state agency performs an enforcement action or the total number of such actions over some duration of time. In this study, we adopt an alternative approach that analyzes the duration of time it takes for government officials to inspect a facility to determine if there is a difference based on the demographics of the host community. Specifically, we study administrative data from state implementation of the U.S. Clean Water Act (CWA), which we couple with demographic information around large, regulated facilities to analyze the relationship between response time and community characteristics. Estimating event history models, we find that state regulators’ inspection response time is slower toward noncompliant facilities located in communities that have higher percentages of poor and Hispanic citizens. With respect to Black communities, state regulators’ response time to noncompliant facilities is no different than compliant facilities. Collectively, these results indicate that state regulators are not prioritizing CWA facilities that violate performance requirements when they are in environmental justice communities.

SISTEM INFORMASI PENDATAAN KELUARGA MISKIN DENGAN PARAMETER PENGHASILAN DAN KONDISI RUMAH DI DESA HUTARAJA

An information system is one of the systems that are currently a very appropriate tool. This information system is expected to help everything dealing with the population such as data collection on poor family residents. The current condition in the Hutaraja village head's office is that the data collection system for poor families is still running manually. Where in the application of this data collection system there are several things that become obstacles. The obstacles that occur are in terms of effectiveness, time efficiency, and accuracy of the data collection process. The current form of data collection report is still manual in nature which can complicate the process of finding data, and the possibility of data loss results from the data collection. With the above reasons, the writer tries to provide alternative solutions to the problem by making an application of data collection on poor families that will be made systematically and computerized. This writing will also explain the stages of work, starting from the process of analysis, planning, design using the PHP programming language (Hypertext Preprocessor), Boostrap Framework, and MYSQL database, with the aim to find out what data is input and output on the running system. With the existence of an information system on the collection of poor families, it is expected to be able to minimize the constraints that occur in the previous system and assist in the completion of the data collection of poor citizens and properly stored reports.

Making Unequal Democracy Work? The Effects of Income on Voter Turnout in Northern Italy

AbstractIn many democracies, voter turnout is higher among the rich than the poor. But do changes in income lead to changes in electoral participation? We address this question with unique administrative data matching a decade of individual tax records with voter rolls in a large municipality in northern Italy. We document several important findings. First, levels of income and turnout both dropped disproportionately among relatively poor citizens following the Great Recession. Second, we show that within‐individual changes in income have an effect on participation, which is modest on average due to diminishing returns, but can be consequential among the poor. Third, we find that declining turnout of voters facing economic insecurity has exacerbated the income skew in participation, suggesting that income inequality and turnout inequality may reinforce each other. We discuss the theoretical implications of these results, set in a context with strong civic traditions and low barriers to voting.

Effectiveness of Arbitration as an Alternative Dispute Resolution in Bangladesh

The structured legal system of Bangladesh is costly and takes a long time to complete. As a result, poor citizens in rural areas can seldom seek justice through the formal judicial process. The costs of hiring a lawyer, the time and money expended in court, and the amount of talent, schooling, and experience needed to litigate all act as roadblocks to justice. As a result, poor people prefer or have no choice but to use conventional justice systems such as Shalish. However, Shalish is a very informal type of local judicial practice that heavily influences rural society’s power structure. With time, people with special interests and musclemen dominate the informal justice system at the village level. Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) had arisen in the Indian subcontinent to improve the village justice system's condition. For the past 35 years, the state-led rural justice system, such as Shalish and village court, has played an essential role in resolving petty rural litigation, but at a sluggish and informal pace. In the evolving landscape of rustic political influence, this age-old court is having difficulty dispensing justice to the countryside citizens. The study looked at the existing rural informal justice systems in Bangladesh, especially the Union Parishad-led ADR, and argued that, if adequately enabled and revamped, this justice system could be a desirable alternative to the formal system of justice for people living in rural areas. The study aimed to recognize the obstacles that the Union Parishad faces in dispensing justice, both directly and indirectly (UP).