Public Policy Conference Research Articles

Well-being in Wellington: a report on the June 2012 Wellbeing and Public Policy Conference

International interest in including a broad range of measures of well-being in national accounts and in using well-being research to inform policy making was greatly stimulated by the Stiglitz report (Stigliz, Sen and Fitoussi, 2008). The essential message of this report was that if we want wellbeing to feature as one of our country’s outcomes it has to be measured and monitored appropriately to test its responsiveness to public policy interventions. In order to bring these issues to a New Zealand audience, editors from the International Journal of Wellbeing organised the Wellbeing and Public Policy conference held at Victoria University of Wellington over the three days of 13–15 June 2012.

Journal of Accounting and Public Policy Conference

Journal of Accounting and Public Policy Conference

Conferências de políticas públicas: um sistema integrado de participação e deliberação?

A teoria democrática contemporânea abriga pelo menos duas abordagens que vinculam a presença de espaços participativos à qualidade da democracia. Ambas, a abordagem participativa e a deliberativa, apostam na centralidade destes espaços para conferir legitimidade às decisões políticas que vinculam uma coletividade. Ao apostarem na centralidade da participação e da discussão para a legitimidade do processo decisório, tais abordagens tornam-se ferramentas analíticas úteis para analisarmos mais uma inovação democrática no Brasil contemporâneo: as Conferências de Políticas Públicas. O objetivo deste artigo é avaliar a estrutura institucional destas conferências para aferir como estes espaços integram diferentes tipos de ação e se eles conseguem formar um sistema integrado de participação e deliberação, entre os diferentes níveis da federação.

The Squared Circle of Participatory Democracy: Scaling-up Deliberation to the National Level

This paper takes issue with the question of scaling up deliberation in connection to that of enlarged participation. Its aim is to argue that deliberation can be feasible and effective in wide participatory experiments, and therefore it can scale up to the national level and affect public decisions once the appropriate institutional design is in place. I propose feasibility and effectiveness as two overlapping dimensions of scaling-up deliberation. As for the feasibility dimension, I will argue that the institutional design of large participatory experiments should allow the kind of deliberation found in minipublics to scale up accordingly to three criteria: space, volume and actors. As for the effectiveness dimension, I will argue that large participatory experiments should provide that the deliberation process follows the criteria of transformation and impact in order to scale-up local preferences to the national level and make sure they affect policymaking. Such theoretical framework will be tested against the empirical background provided by the world’s largest participatory experiment known to date, the National Public Policy Conferences in Brazil.

Advancing the Study of Marketing's Impacts on Society: JPP&M as a Keystone of the Academic Infrastructure

William L. Wilkie is the Nathe Professor of Marketing (e-mail: wwilkie@ nd.edu), and Elizabeth S. Moore is the Notre Dame Associate Professor of Marketing (e-mail: emoore@nd.edu), University of Notre Dame. As Thomas Kinnear describes in his opening essay, the first issue of Journal of Public Policy & Marketing (JPPM it was intended that this journal would be first-rate right from the beginning. For example, among the institutions represented on the small original editorial board were Berkeley, Yale, Harvard (two members), Michigan, Florida, the Federal Trade Commission, Texas, American, North Carolina, Wisconsin (two members), and two Canadian universities. The focus was clearly and narrowly delineated as directed only to the intersection of marketing and public policy; for example, papers on social marketing and not-for-profits were excluded from consideration. The creators planned to publish only one issue per year, but it would be strong and, in addition to competitively submitted papers, would also include invited work from leading experts in this specialized area of the marketing field. After more than a quarter century, the journal has evolved and grown. As explained in the essays, it has expanded its original strict focus on public policy to become a centerpiece for the broader recognized subfield of marketing and society. Some 600 articles have been published in JPPM it is the primary publication for policy makers in government and not-for-profits seeking understanding of particular issues involving consumers, marketing, and competition. Each academic area relies on the key elements of its academic infrastructure—an association, a conference, and a journal—to facilitate the development of contributions to knowledge. This infrastructure allows scholars to not only disseminate their work to others but also meet others with common interests and learn from them and their work. This structure allows scholars to plan extended research undertakings confidently with the knowledge that there are institutional entities that will welcome our efforts. In the case of the marketing and society subfield, the creation of JPP&M in 1982 began this process of infrastructure development for the subfield. (This was followed by the initiation of the Marketing & Public Policy Conference and the formation of the American Marketing Association’s “Marketing and Society Special Interest Group” in the late 1980s and early 1990s.) Thus, thanks to the continuing presence of JPP&M, researchers interested in studying the impacts marketing is having on the world have had a venue in which to pursue this significant area of scholarship for almost 30 years. However, all has not been smooth sailing, and JPP&M has actually been more important than many of us may have realized during this period—a point we take up in the following section.

Equality and human rights: siblings or just rivals?

This article is based on a speech given at the Social Justice and Public Policy conference on 6 December 2006 in London. The author was until recently Chair of the Commission of Racial Equality and has now been appointed as Chair of the new Commission for Equality and Human Rights in Britain. The article sets out his views on the relationship between equality and human rights. It argues that choices need to be made in politics and public policy in managing tensions between diverse individuals and groups, and that these choices should be guided by consistent principles rather than made on an ad hoc basis. These issues are likely to become more, rather than less, significant through the 21st century.

Use of Redd Counts to Detect Trends in Bull Trout (Salvelinus conf luentus) Populations

Bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus) is a species of growing interest in the Pacific Northwest (J.S.). It was recently proposed for listing under the Endangered Species Act (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 1997); however, uncertainty and debate regarding the status of remaining populations continues. Biologists throughout the region have expressed concern regarding the loss of historical populations and the risks facing those that remain (Howell & Buchanan 1992; Rieman & McIntyre 1993), but published data demonstrating such problems are few. A variety of monitoring data are available from management agencies but, as with other species (e.g., Pechmann et al. 1991; Reed & Blaustein 1995), time series are often short or highly variable, potentially limiting the power of simple tests for trends in the data. As a result, in a recent public policy conference regarding the future management of bull trout and the lands influencing their habitats, some argued that there is little statistically supported evidence that populations are declining and therefore no clear risk of extinction. The most consistent and extensive monitoring information we could locate for bull trout is represented by redd (nest) counts maintained by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game and the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. We used the data provided by these agencies to determine whether the patterns within and among populations suggest any trends and to evaluate the difficulty of detecting potentially important trends. Bull trout associated with three large lake systems in the Clark Fork River basin of northern Idaho (Pend Oreille Lake) and northwestern Montana (Flathead and Swan lakes) exhibit a migratory life history (Rieman & McIntyre 1996) analogous to that of anadromous salmonids. Adults spawn and juveniles rear in tributary streams. Juveniles

Remarks on Evolving Payment System Issues

GOOD MORNING, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of the Federal Reserve Board and the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, I would like to welcome you to our Payment Systems Research and Public Policy Conference. I am particularly pleased to greet our guests from overseas. I believe the international participation in this conference reflects the growing worldwide interest, not only of bankers and policy makers but also of researchers, in payment system issues. The increased attention to these issues reflects recent deep-seated political changes as well as economic developments. Many of the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, for example, are rebuilding payment systems to support market economies. These countries-are interested in very fundamental questions of payment system policy and design. The European Union countries are also grappling with basic payment system issues as a result of the steps being taken toward monetary union. At the same time, central banks in the G-10 countries have continued to emphasize the importance of controlling and reducing payment and settlement risks in global financial markets. Recently there has also been extensive interest surrounding market efforts to develop new electronic banking and payment products for consumers, including efforts to introduce stored-value payment cards, potentially secure payment mechanisms for the Internet, and new versions of home banking products. In view of all this current and prospective change, I would like to make a few remarks about three topics; money, the payment system infrastructure, and payment system risk. My aim is to provide some general background for your discussions over the next two days.

Research, Marketing and Social Issues Come Together at the 6th Annual Marketing & Public Policy Conference

Research, Marketing and Social Issues Come Together at the <i>6th Annual Marketing &amp; Public Policy Conference</i>

A public policy conference for psychologists.

A public policy conference for psychologists.

THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE: ACADEMY STUDY OF THE DELIVERY OF HEALTH CARE TO CHILDREN

The delivery of health care has become one of the most talked about subjects in medical circles in recent years. Governmental agencies, labor groups, insurance companies, and consumer groups also have become concerned about it. The Brookings Institution began a short series of public policy conferences for physicians in the fall of 1967, their first venture into the field of health. The delivery of care has been discussed from many standpoints in all of them. Within the Academy we have become increasingly aware of the shortcomings of our present "system" of medical practice as it relates to children. It is not that the system is altogether bad. It seems that primarily there are too few pediatricians and family physicians and the ones available are not well distributed. Certain aspects of the investigation of the problems of practice have been and are being studied by the Council on Pediatric Practice, which has been in existence since 1964. The urgency and necessity of doing even more was pointed out in the Spring of 1967 by the report of an ad hoc committee of the Executive Board, the chairman of which was Dr. John MacQueen. This then led to the appointment of an ad hoc committee of the Academy to study means of approaching this complex problem. This committee recommended a detailed investigation which would require the services of a chairman who was experienced and who could devote at least one half of his time to it. Dr. Carl Fischer of Philadelphia was selected for this position.