Specific Institutional Arrangements Research Articles

More than medicine: antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as a social and political challenge that can be overcome

ABSTRACT Growing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) threatens modern medicine and global food security through the gradual loss of effective antibiotics and other crucial drugs and chemicals. This dispiriting but inexorable development presents daunting social and political challenges because it arises from how drugs are produced and people everywhere in the world use them. Results of monumental international efforts led by United Nations and European Union bodies to create common purpose and concerted actions against AMR since the early 2010s are so far discouraging. Declarations and plans have proliferated. But social factors such as national and local politics have stymied effective action. Nevertheless, countries in Europe demonstrate that AMR mitigation is politically possible. This article draws on contributions to the SI on AMR politics and governance to illustrate how. Specific institutional arrangements, cultural values, and leadership commitments have had strong impacts on the degree of success of AMR policies. In turn, these factors represent important political conditions that some policymakers have successfully navigated. Hence, the SI’s contributions can offer policy leaders and entrepreneurs clues for domestic and local political efforts to control AMR.

Whistleblowing – an extension of working life democracy? The case of Norway

Working life relations are in a continuous state of change. So are the institutions of working life democracy. In Norway, three well-established components of working life democracy have been in place since the 1960s and 1970s, developing along different institutional tracks: collective bargaining at the national level, employee representation on the boards, and employee participation in protection of health and safety in the work environment. From 2007, legal protection of whistleblowing was included in the Working Environment Act (WEA), anchored in specific institutional arrangements. Before the turn of the century, a common assumption was that whistleblowing mainly targets irregular, even criminal, dispositions of the enterprise. After the inclusion in the WEA, data from Norway from the years 2016 to 2022 demonstrate that to a large extent, psycho-social problems have become the object of whistleblowing. However, institutional specificities limit the handling of social interaction problems by the traditional work environment arrangements. Against the background of its separate institutions for the handling of grievances, it is argued that whistleblowing, along with freedom of expression, are parts of a fourth track of democratization. Even though the institutional setup of whistleblowing has been revised twice since 2007, the findings indicate that additional revisions are still desirable.

The SMart cooperative model and scale-up experience: spreading social innovation in the cultural field across Europe

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore how, in a context of economic, political, social and environmental transitions, SMart, a cultural and artistic social enterprise (CASE), has developed a relevant cooperative model to contribute to mitigate the structural labour precariousness of artists and creators.Design/methodology/approachThe research design includes a mixed-method approach that combines qualitative and quantitative methodologies with emphasis on the former. Namely, the organisation is SMartbe and its replication across nine European countries was studied as a revelatory case study. Five main types of techniques were deployed in the course of this research, including desk review, direct (participant) observation, interviews, focus group and questionnaire (Likert-scale survey).FindingsCASEs constitute a specific institutional arrangement that offers innovative labour arrangements for cultural workers and artists to fight against precariousness. Social enterprises are embedded in the social and solidarity economy and stand at the crossroads of markets, civil society and the public, which places them in a critical position: depending on the logic, actors and contexts at play, social enterprises can ensure to varying degrees the general interest through their social mission, their sustainability via the real participation of all their stakeholders and the carrying out of economic activities that are fully consistent with their mission.Originality/valueIt is within this type of sustainability and participation that transformative social innovation can emerge within CASEs. Their potential to contribute to transformative social innovation is based on its four objectives: cultural (to imagine human, participative and sustainable alternatives); social (to achieve a social –including the environment – mission and join the ecosocial transition); participatory (empowering and impacting the public sphere); and economic (being financially sustainable and fair).

College Is Not the Great Equalizer in Japan

This study represents the first systematic account to test the hypothesis of college as the great equalizer in Japan by analyzing the three-way association among class origin, destination, and education. The authors use data from the Social Stratification and Social Mobility surveys and the Japanese Life Course Panel Surveys. By applying the entropy balancing technique, the authors estimate the heterogeneous causal effect of college education on occupational attainment by the father’s occupation. The results indicate that college education does not function as a great equalizer in Japan. There is no clear evidence to suggest that the occupational returns to a college education are greater among those from less advantaged families than those from more advantaged families. The authors argue that the equalizing effect of a college education is not apparent, because of the specific institutional arrangements of the educational system and the labor market in society.

Rationality of the Tax System and Taxation Principles in the Context of Contemporary Fiscal Crisis (Analysis from the Perspective of the New Institutional Economics)

Abstract The paper presents, in the synthetic way, the issue of the rationality of the tax system and taxation principles in relation to the clearly visible fiscal crisis in the 21st century caused by, among others, COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis which is theoretical (descriptive, comparative) was carried out by using tools indicated in the area of New Institutional Economics (NIE). Attention was devoted primarily to the importance of specific institutional arrangements, broadly understood as the “rules of the game” applicable in the political and economic spheres, and related to the problems of public finances. Research has shown that the appropriate design of tax rules may contribute, to some extent, to limiting the fiscal crisis. Tax policy, and even more broadly, fiscal policy, may determine the formula in which the economic achievements regarding compliance with tax principles and fiscal rules can be implemented. What is primarily important is the legal framework (one of the most important formal institutions) within which state policy in the field of public finances should be implemented.

Decentralization and Corruption in Public Service Delivery: Local Institutional Arrangements That Can Help Reduce Governance Risks

Abstract Decentralization reform has both advantages and risks. Bringing service delivery “closer to the people” can improve information flows and strengthen accountability, but it may also leave systems vulnerable to elite capture and corruption by municipal government officials. While past research has acknowledged the possibility of corruption under decentralization, relatively little work has connected those risks to features of these reforms or specific local institutional arrangements. To explore the conditions that can help mitigate the risks of corruption under decentralization, we study the case of health sector reform in Honduras where municipal governments, associations, and NGOs each serve as intermediary-managing organizations under a common decentralized health service delivery model. We argue that three types of institutional arrangements reflecting local accountability practices serve as checks on the authority granted through decentralization and can help guard against corruption: external supervision, civil society engagement, and public participation. Empirically, we draw on data from more than 600 street-level bureaucrats, valuable but under-utilized informants about municipal corruption, across a matched sample of 65 municipalities with contrasting forms of administration. We find that reported corruption is highest under decentralization led by municipal governments, as compared to association- or NGO-led varieties. Both external supervision and civil society engagement help attenuate the positive association between decentralization and corruption, but public participation does not. Overall, this research highlights the importance of considering reform features and local conditions when designing policies to help manage risks and support effective social sector decentralization.

Legitimation of earnings inequality between regular and non-regular workers: A comparison of Japan, South Korea, and the United States

This study explores functions of labor market institutions in perpetuating earnings gap between different categories of workers with focusing on people’s views of earnings gap between regular and non-regular workers in Japan, South Korea, and the United States. An original cross-national factorial survey was conducted to measure the extent to which respondents admit earnings gap among workers with different characteristics. We found that Japanese and South Korean respondents tended to justify the earnings gap between regular and non-regular workers. In Japan, non-regular-worker respondents accepted the wide earnings gap against their economic interests, which was explained by assumed difference in responsibilities and on-the-job training opportunities. Specific institutional arrangements contribute to legitimating earnings gap between different categories of workers by attaching status value to the categories.

Limitations of institutional dimension in existing sustainability assessment tools: From the perspective of territory

Cities face considerable fundamental sustainability challenges, and scholars have developed many sustainability assessment tools (SATs) to assess and address these problems. As an important pillar of the tools, the institutional dimension, though added to one of the main dimensions, needs to be stressed more in the existing studies, especially in the field of political geography. Territory, as one of the core concepts of political geography, is considered an essential practical perspective of institutional issues. This paper aims to clarify the limitations of the institutional dimension in SATs from the perspective of territory. Nineteen SAT tools are filtered and reviewed after refining the concept of institutional sustainability. Their categories and indicators are divided into four themes in order to clarify the intent of the institutional dimensions. After documentary analysis, we argue that the main shortcomings of the existing research are the need for more balanced integrality and spatial embeddedness of institutional indicators in the tools. The institutional dimension should be first considered before defining other dimensions through more detailed explanations than the existing one and should lay the roots in the specific institutional arrangements. This paper suggests that the preferential consideration for institutional dimension and the appropriate increase of its specific gravity can be considered in future SAT optimization and development. Some sociological approaches, like grounded theory, can be regarded as an introduction to form institutional indicators based on specific institutional arrangements. This study can provide an opportunity to improve the existing sustainability assessment tools or develop new tools to reflect more holistic understandings of institutional sustainability.

The Emergence of Precarious Employment as a Determinant of Health in Europe and the Relevance of Contextual Factors: A Critical Research Synthesis.

Precarious employment as a determinant of health remains on the rise in Europe, in contrast to the European Pillar of Social Rights. Research in epidemiology, public health, and occupational health research has debated the health impacts of precarious employment. A number of studies have concluded that precarious employment contributes to poor health. More recent research has focused on the contextual influences of the association between precarious employment and health. Accordingly, we argue that the welfare state and the specific institutional arrangements on the national level determine and mediate the extent of the association between precarious employment and health. This research synthesis: (a) debates explanations for the rise of precarious employment in Europe, (b) illustrates how precarious employment has risen in Europe since the 1980s, (c) indicates empirical findings of the association between precarious employment and health in Europe, (d) discusses how research explains between-country differences of the association between precarious employment and health, and (e) presents empirical findings on the contextual determinants of the association between precarious employment and health in Europe.

Closed Loop, Open Borders: Wealth Inequality and Uneven and Combined Development In India

The purpose of this article is to offer an alternative perspective to worsening wealth disparity in India. It does so by critically applying the framework of uneven and combined development in a novel way. It develops two analytical constructs based on internal and external forces that collectively contribute to increasing wealth inequality. The internal force is a closed loop in which the state privileges rent-seeking activities as a response to uneven development in the first place. The external force comprises open borders that not only facilitate wealth and capital flight, which is linked to rent-seeking activities but also deprives the economy of critical resources for development. Together, the specific institutional arrangements associated with the closed loop and the siphoning off of wealth under open borders in the form of capital flight to the global economy exacerbate wealth inequality.

Early Medieval Commons? Or How the History of Early Medieval Europe Could Benefit from a Necessary Conversation: The Case From NW Iberia

In 2016, M. Laborda-Pemán and T. De Moor issued a call to advance the conversation between commons scholars and historians. This paper argues that in order to further this conversation, in the case of Western Europe more attention needs to be paid to the centuries preceding the blossoming of the commons in the high Middle Ages. It focuses on NW Iberia to show that in this case, as in others, such developments need to be assessed against the processes triggered by the collapse of the Roman Empire. On the basis of the extant sources, and building upon some of the concerns of critical institutionalism, it then considers some of the theoretical avenues that could facilitate such a dialogue: addressing the multifunctional, socially embedded nature of institutions; the weight of social inequalities and power relations in their configuration and functioning; the role of conflict in the definition of norms and their transformation over time; and the discursive practices aimed at legitimising specific institutional arrangements.

The Fractured Centre: ‘Two-headed government’ and threats to the peace process in Myanmar

AbstractThis article analyses the evolving nature and dynamics of the relationship between the centre and the periphery by examining how semi-democratic reforms have shaped and influenced the peace negotiation process between the government and ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) since 2011. We demonstrate that while the 2008 constitution has reduced restrictions on political, economic, and cultural activities in Myanmar, it has also inevitably produced a ‘two-headed government’ after the main opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), took charge in 2016 and was forced to share power with the military. This ‘two-headed’ government is the result of the historical distrust between the NLD and the army, combined with the NLD's lack of a clear strategy in dealing with EAOs. This has enabled the army to assert its well-articulated and hardline approach—without itself having an effective strategy or the capacity to end the country's armed insurgencies or bring the peace process forward. We show that the split at the centre has produced inertia and weakened the ability of the central government to formulate and implement effective policy, and further undermined the prospects for national reconciliation. Situating this case study within the wider literature of centre–periphery relationships and democratic transition, this article offers a nuanced and comprehensive analysis of how specific institutional arrangements at the centre in semi-democratic settings affect relations in both the centre and the periphery, as well as centre–periphery relationships.

Italy: Old and New Territorial Claims

The question of sub-state nationalism in Italy assumes some peculiar characteristics because territorial fractures have existed since the birth of the Italian nation-state, and in recent decades new sub-state nationalist movements were born on the edge of these cleavages. Although some sub-state nationalist groups are seeking apparently new declinations of the nationalist claim, the majority moves according with the traditional sub-nationalist ideology. The devolvement of powers is one of the successful strategies to disempower the centrifugal pressures coming from ethno/regionalist/sub-state parties and movements and to accommodate ethno-regional claims. At the same time, it responds to a functional reorganization of the state. But, of course, autonomy is not independence and it does not imply any form of recognition of national identity. On the one hand, there is a functional problem of governance and of optimal scale for policy decisions. On the other hand, there are the claims of identity/cultural type. When these two levels overlap it is highly likely that independence movements will emerge. In border regions and islands, this overlap could have relied on fractures present for a long time and on the presence of sufficiently recognized and shared cultural markers; but at the same time, the specific institutional arrangements and accommodations have reduced the strength of the protests. Conversely, in the case of the Northern League, the attempt to invent an ethno-cultural identity failed, leaving space first for pure territorial claims, which have had great success, and then for a transformation still underway from a territorial party into an anti-immigrant and antiEurope Italian party. At the same time, all these strains point out the weakness of the Italian nation-state, both under the identity profile and the institutional one, and the need to define it in new terms.

Shareholders' control rights, family ownership and the firm's leverage decisions

We investigate the association between controlling shareholders' ownership (CS_Own) and firms' leverage decisions in the Singaporean context. We examine whether the impact of ownership concentration on leverage differs across excess and lower control. We report that shareholders with excess control prefer leverage financing for an optimal capital structure and focus on value maximisation rather using leverage as a tool of minority shareholders' expropriation. Our analysis shows that firms capital structure significantly influences by the coalition of shareholders particularly decisions about leverage financing in addition to the firms' specific characteristics and institutional arrangements. Our empirical evidence shows that controlling shareholders with a lower fraction of equity are more concerned about limited holding thus prefer leverage over equity financing to inflate their equity stake to protect them from the potential takeovers and mergers. We report that capital structure decisions in Singapore are linked with the trade-off between the controlling shareholders' target of mitigating firm risk and their non-dilution entrenchment needs. Further, we found an inverted U-shaped association between control ownership and leverage financing. In terms of moderating effect of family-controlled ownership, our findings exhibit that leverage financing is less pronounced for family firms in Singapore due to the under-diversified investment portfolio.

Who moves from fixed-term to open-ended contracts? Youth employment transitions in a segmented labour market

This article explores the career effects of fixed-term employment among Polish youth, taking into account specific legal and institutional arrangements affecting both the incidence of temporary jobs and the chances of moving into more stable employment contracts. The aim of the analysis is twofold. First, it seeks to assess whether temporary contracts serve as a stepping-stone to stable employment or a trap leading to fragmented careers consisting of recurrent short-term jobs. Second, it identifies the factors which increase the chances of successful labour market integration. Both issues are addressed through a quantitative analysis of retrospective career data for a cohort of respondents aged 21–30 from two waves of the Polish Panel Survey (POLPAN), 2008 and 2013. Results suggest that temporary employment is not restricted to entry-level jobs and acts as a trap rather than a stepping-stone. In addition, the opportunities for moving from fixed-term to open-ended contracts appear to have deteriorated over the years. However, gaining early on-the-job experience, especially in occupations involving highly complex tasks, may improve the chances of attaining job stability.

Financialization in the making of the new Wuhan

The miraculous growth of China, particularly in its large cities, has received much attention in recent decades. Most literature, however, concentrates on large and developed coastal regions or globalizing cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen; far less is known about central or western cities, where the unprecedented growth and new construction are also taking place. Moreover, little is known about the actual process of their city making, especially from a financial perspective. To address these gaps, in this article we examine the making of the new Wuhan, capital city of Hubei Province and central China, to interrogate the actual process by which underdeveloped or developing Chinese cities resort to financialization to achieve planning aims, build new spaces, and fund infrastructures. Through case studies, fieldwork, and interviews conducted during the past several years in the contexts of three typical projects - Zhongshan Avenue (ZA), East Lake Greenway (ELG), and 27 Riverside Business District (RBD) - we examine their modalities, evaluate their effects, and articulate specific institutional arrangements: the local financing platform (LFP), the project land package, and various actual efforts to construct these projects. Through these case studies, we contribute to the literature on urban China by highlighting the close relationship between planning strategies and urban financialization. Our findings highlight China’s ‘state entrepreneurism’, especially the active role of the local states when producing new spaces. We call for further attention to the variegated modalities and effects of financialization across different contexts, in particular that of emerging Chinese cities.

The spatial evolution-institution link and its challenges for regional policy

ABSTRACT Contemporary economic geography acknowledges that regional economies develop in evolutionary processes, and that institutions matter in this process. Evolutionary dynamics have been classified into six types of path development (path extension, path branching, path diversification, path creation, path importation, and path upgrading) that serve to distinguish how precisely regional economies diversify or upgrade. Shaping these evolutionary dynamics is a major objective policymakers aim to achieve by applying regional policies with an evolutionary ambition such as smart specialization. However, there is a gap in understanding how the specific institutional arrangements found in regional economies condition these different types of path development. The article links path development to institutional context and identifies policy challenges for affecting evolutionary dynamics under the smart specialization approach.

The role of local energy initiatives in co-producing sustainable places

During the first two decades of the twenty-first century, the introduction of policies that promote renewable energy in Western European countries facilitated a shift towards the production of cleaner energy and its decentralisation. Subsidies, incentive schemes, and declining installation costs—combined with rapid technology advances—made the investment in small-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) panels and wind turbines more attractive for individuals and small businesses. Simultaneously, we observe the emergence of citizen initiatives which aim to provide public services across various sectors, including renewable energy generation and distribution. These initiatives, started by citizens, often involve the participation of local residents and prioritise social and environmental goals. In some areas, governments and engaged citizens work together to achieve common goals through citizen–government co-production. In this article, we address the question: how can the co-production of government(s) and citizens, through local energy initiatives, contribute to the shaping of more sustainable places? Using the PlaCI model—a conceptual model of citizen initiatives and their role in shaping sustainable places—we conduct an analysis of WindpowerNijmegen, a citizen-led renewable energy cooperative in the Netherlands. We assess who the relevant stakeholders are, what are the enabling conditions for fruitful collaboration, which new arrangements are established, and how they contribute to shaping more sustainable places. The results indicate that local energy initiatives are place based, conditioned by the characteristics of the physical space needed for the production of renewable energy, specific institutional arrangements, place-based assets and people’s capacities characteristic for the place, and past collaboration.

The Institutional Dimension of Class-based Educational Decision-making: Evidence from Regional Variation in Switzerland

Abstract This article examines to what extent the specific institutional arrangement of an education system moderates the influence of social background on students’ track allocation, and whether this happens via primary or secondary effects of social origin. I tackle the problem of omitted-variable bias by analyzing subnational education systems in Switzerland, a country with a variety of cantonal school systems but otherwise homogeneous institutions. The results show a complex picture. First, even though the absolute transition probability to the highest track is higher in education systems with low stratification for students of higher social background, this does not translate into a relative advantage as in most cantons the odds of transitioning do not differ between high and low social background students. Second, in line with previous research, I observe that the secondary effect of social origin prevails in more stratified education systems. Third, it is not possible to conclude with certainty that specific features of the education system enable high social background parents to disproportionately influence their children’s transition probabilities because the results are not robust.

Young refugees in education: the particular challenges of school systems in Europe

The article confronts comparative research outcomes on factors that helped or hindered the educational success of immigrant youth and second generation in the past decades in several European countries with the institutional responses of European educational systems to the challenges of integrating a substantial number of refugee and other newly arrived children since 2014. Especially studies on the second generation – mostly the offspring of labour migrants – have revealed substantial differences in the long-term effects of specific institutional arrangements in the different systems that can – and should – serve as lessons for the potentially detrimental effects of the ways schools and school systems have reacted to the new influx of immigrant children. In the light of the lessons that could be learned from previous experiences with immigrant children and children of immigrants the article analyses in which way the current responses of different European educational systems to the presence of refugee and other immigrant children reflect these lessons, but also do justice to the particular challenges and specific situations of refugee youth that generally place them at an even higher disadvantage than other migrants. On the other hand, some of the ad-hoc measures for refugee pupils may have the potential of becoming permanent features of the respective educational systems.