Transparency Efforts Research Articles

Gregory of Tours and the Paternity of Chlothar II: Strategies of Legitimation in the Merovingian Kingdoms

Taking the succession of the young Chlothar II as a case study, this article investigates the methods of legitimation and delegitimation available to a king’s supporters and detractors in the Merovingian kingdoms. Through a close reading of the Histories of Gregory of Tours, which is the principal source for these events, this study suggests that Gregory himself attempted to undermine Chlothar’s position by raising doubts about the boy’s paternity and by calling attention to the transparent efforts of his mother, Queen Fredegund, to establish her son’s legitimacy (as well as her own marital fidelity). These efforts included the appropriation of certain customs such as the naming, baptism, and baptismal sponsorship of heirs. The example of Chlothar II’s contested succession illustrates how elites within Merovingian society established or removed a king from the throne by arguing over membership to the ruling family—a process that left the family itself secure. Insights are then made into the political theory and system that enabled such stability, including the role of female agency therein.

Removing the Veil: Price Transparency in Interventional Radiology

In 2011, national health care expenditures totaled $2.7 trillion, doubling in the span of a decade and accounting for 18% of the United States gross domestic product (1). Experts recognize that current spending trends are unsustainable and that a multifaceted approach to health care reform is necessary. Price transparency provides one avenue through which cost containment may be achieved, as “price opacity” tends to be the norm in the current health care market (2–4). A recent study found that only 16% of randomly selected US hospitals were able to provide pricing information for total hip arthroplasty, a common elective surgical procedure (3). This lack of cost clarity complicates patient and clinician efforts to factor financial considerations into health care utilization decisions. Although legislation addressing price transparency was notably absent from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, several other federal bills have been recently introduced to assist patients in obtaining pricing information (5). Additionally, more than half of all states have considered or pursued legislation to require price transparency in medicine (6). Price transparency efforts are likely to affect all health care providers, including interventional radiologists, so familiarity with this topic is of paramount relevance. This article will review the rationale behind price transparency, discuss its potential for curbing rising health care costs, and consider the impact of greater price transparency on interventional radiologists.

Information Transparency for Health Care Consumers: Clear, but Effective?

Information Transparency for Health Care Consumers: Clear, but Effective?

Infotopia

In Infotopia, citizens enjoy a wide range of information about the organizations upon which they rely for the satisfaction of their vital interests. The provision of that information is governed by principles of democratic transparency. Democratic transparency both extends and critiques current enthusiasms about transparency. It urges us to conceptualize information politically, as a resource to turn the behavior of large organizations in socially beneficial ways. Transparency efforts have targets, and we should think of those targets as large organizations: public and civic, but especially private and corporate. Democratic transparency consists of four principles. First, information about the operations and actions of large organizations that affect citizens’ interests should be rich, deep, and readily available to the public. Second, the amount of available information should be proportionate to the extent to which those organizations jeopardize citizens’ interests. Third, information should be organized and provided in ways that are accessible to individuals and groups that use that information. Finally, the social, political, and economic structures of society should be organized in ways that allow individuals and groups to take action based on Infotopia’s public disclosures.

Transparency and Business in International Law — Governance between Norm and Technique

This essay considers transparency and business in international law as a matter of the dynamic tension between norm and technique in the management of systems and the masses of the population they serve. It is divided into two parts. After this Introduction, Part II critically examines transparency in international and transnational regulatory and governance regimes. It considers both hard and soft law frameworks. Section II. A considers public sources of transparency regulation, concentrating on two: the OECD framework and the recently endorsed Guiding Principles of Business and Human Rights. Sections II.B through II.D examine transparency and governance beyond the state, considering (i) hybrid governance efforts represented by the ISO and Global Compact systems (Section II.B), (ii) private third party non-corporate governance regimes represented by the GRI and third-party certification programs (Section II.C), and (iii) private corporate governance transparency regimes (Section II.D). Part III then examines transparency in action. Part III.A explores environmental disclosure by BP before and after the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill of 2010. Section III.B examines Apple, Inc.’s transparency efforts in the context of managing the labor issues of its supply chains. Section III.C critically examines transparency as regulation and action within the framework developed in this Introduction, focusing particularly on the way in which the characteristics of transparency as norm, technique and property fundamentally shape both its character and the parameters within which reform is possible.

KEBIJAKAN UPAH MINIMUM UNTUK PEREKONOMIAN YANG BERKEADILAN: TINJAUAN UUD 1945

The aim of this research is to determine the progress of minimum wage policy inIndonesia, and their linkage to the 1945 Constitution article 27 act 2. The implemen-tation of minimum wage policy in accordance with that constitution, at least shouldbe a few things to do. This includes needs such as decent living as a component ofminimum wage determination. Furthermore, it needs to fill the necessity of transpar-ent effort and intense socialization of benefit provision in the minimum wage. Inaddition it must be clear about the protected status of workers in minimum wagepolicy. The last is the enforcement and strict penalties for companies that do not applythe appropriate minimum wage policy.Keywords: 1945 Constitution article 27 act 2, Minimum Wage Policy, Enfrocement,

Don’t 'Screw Joe the Plummer': The Sausage-Making of Financial Reform

This article employs section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Act, popularly known as the Volcker rule, to examine agency level activity during the pre-proposal rulemaking phase – a time period about which little is known, despite its importance to policy outcomes. By capitalizing on transparency efforts specific to Dodd-Frank, I am able to access information on agency contacts whose disclosure is not required by the APA and, therefore, not typically available to researchers. I analyze the roughly 8000 public comment letters received by FSOC in advance of its study regarding Volcker rule implementation, and the meeting logs of the Treasury Department, Federal Reserve, CFTC, SEC, and FDIC prior to the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. This analysis reveals significant public activity, but also a stark difference in investment by financial institutions versus other actors in influencing Volcker rule implementation. It also reveals a greater unity of interest among financial market participants than would be suggested by press reports and the provision’s legislative history. Finally, the data shed light on the efficacy of the notice and comment process as a means for federal agencies to engage the general public.

Achieving Foundation Accountability and Transparency: Lessons From the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's <I>Scorecard</I>

· The purpose of this article is to help foundations in their accountability and transparency efforts by sharing lessons from one foundation’s journey to develop a scorecard.

KEBIJAKAN UPAH MINIMUM UNTUK PEREKONOMIAN YANG BERKEADILAN: TINJAUAN UUD 1945

The aim of this research is to determine the progress of minimum wage policy inIndonesia, and their linkage to the 1945 Constitution article 27 act 2. The implemen-tation of minimum wage policy in accordance with that constitution, at least shouldbe a few things to do. This includes needs such as decent living as a component ofminimum wage determination. Furthermore, it needs to fill the necessity of transpar-ent effort and intense socialization of benefit provision in the minimum wage. Inaddition it must be clear about the protected status of workers in minimum wagepolicy. The last is the enforcement and strict penalties for companies that do not applythe appropriate minimum wage policy.

KEBIJAKAN UPAH MINIMUM UNTUK PEREKONOMIAN YANG BERKEADILAN: TINJAUAN UUD 1945

The aim of this research is to determine the progress of minimum wage policy inIndonesia, and their linkage to the 1945 Constitution article 27 act 2. The implemen-tation of minimum wage policy in accordance with that constitution, at least shouldbe a few things to do. This includes needs such as decent living as a component ofminimum wage determination. Furthermore, it needs to fill the necessity of transpar-ent effort and intense socialization of benefit provision in the minimum wage. Inaddition it must be clear about the protected status of workers in minimum wagepolicy. The last is the enforcement and strict penalties for companies that do not applythe appropriate minimum wage policy.Keywords: 1945 Constitution article 27 act 2, Minimum Wage Policy, Enfrocement,

Using ICTs to create a culture of transparency: E-government and social media as openness and anti-corruption tools for societies

In recent years, many governments have worked to increase openness and transparency in their actions. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are seen by many as a cost-effective and convenient means to promote openness and transparency and to reduce corruption. E-government, in particular, has been used in many prominent, comprehensive transparency efforts in a number of nations. While some of these individual efforts have received considerable attention, the issue of whether these ICT-enabled efforts have the potential to create a substantive social change in attitudes toward transparency has not been widely considered. This paper explores the potential impacts of information and ICTs – especially e-government and social media – on cultural attitudes about transparency.

Television and culture in Putin's Russia: remote control

This book examines television culture in Russia under the government of Vladimir Putin. In recent years, the growing influx into Russian television of globally mediated genres and formats has coincided with a decline in media freedom and a ratcheting up of government control over the content style of television programmes. All three national channels (First, Russia, NTV) have fallen victim to Putin’s power-obsessed regime. Journalists critical of his Chechnya policy have been subject to harassment and arrest; programmes courting political controversy, such as Savik Shuster’s Freedom of Speech (Svoboda slova) have been taken off the air; coverage of national holidays like Victory Day has witnessed a return of Soviet-style bombast; and reporting on crises, such as the Beslan tragedy, is severely curtailed. The book demonstrates how broadcasters have been enlisted in support of a transparent effort to install a latter-day version of imperial pride in Russian military achievements at the centre of a national identity project over which, from the depths of the Kremlin, Putin’s government exerts a form of remote control. However, central to the book's argument is the notion that because of the changes wrought upon Russian society after 1985, a blanket return to the totalitarianism of the Soviet media has, notwithstanding the tenor of much western reporting on the issue, not occurred. Despite the fact that television is nominally under state control, that control remains remote and less than wholly effective, as amply demonstrated in the audience research conducted for the book, and in analysis of contradictions at the textual level. Overall, this book provides a fascinating account of the role of television under President Putin, and will be of interest to all those wishing to understand contemporary Russian society.

Transformation of Health Care at the Front Line

CONCERN ABOUT ESCALATING COSTS AND THE quality of health care delivered in the United States continues to mount. This has led to an increasing focus on pay-for-performance, valuedriven health care and public reporting of quality and cost information. However, several authors have questioned the effectiveness of pay for performance and public reporting to improve patients’ outcomes and have highlighted the potential for unintended negative consequences. Currently, frontline clinicians are exposed to disparate pay-for-performance programs that are often uncoordinated and not clearly aligned with producing better outcomes for patients. Evidence is produced at an astonishing rate, but its incorporation into clinical practice is difficult. For patients, the current transparency efforts often have little useful information for decisions regarding a specific disease and selection of clinician or treatment option. However, policy makers and purchasers are faced with an underperforming health care system and untenable cost estimates, so maintaining the status quo is not an option. Recently, 82% of Americans indicated that the health system needs fundamental change or complete restructuring. Health care is now at a critical fork in the road. One option is to continue down a path that too often frustrates clinicians, confuses patients, and fails to align incentives with improving quality and value. The other is to take the path that aligns quality and value efforts with care where it matters, at the front line with clinicians and patients. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has a role to play in developing the science of measurement, research on quality improvement, and informing how to transform the system successfully, but leadership and collaboration from all stakeholders and a clear vision are needed. The approach described in this Commentary is by no means exhaustive. Each key driver to engage and enable frontline clinicians and their patients to transform care and achieve better outcomes could be the subject of multiple articles, but at the least, a vision must be outlined, the best path and methods to make progress debated, and the focus shifted to the front line of care. Quality Measurement and Payment The multitude of quality organizations (eg, National Quality Forum, National Committee for Quality Assurance, Ambulatory Care Quality Alliance) have each made contributions to the quality enterprise, but there is a need to move beyond simply developing more measures and to focus on developing high-priority measures such as those that influence outcomes on high-prevalence diseases, demonstrate baseline performance variability, and have potential mechanisms to improve results. A mix of process and outcome measures is needed, but measures should increasingly focus on patient-centered outcomes, including appropriate risk adjustment that is improved over time. Occasionally, a given measure may not be appropriate because of patient preference or clinician knowledge of information not captured in claims or electronic data. In these cases, exception reporting should be allowed to minimize “unfair penalization” and the potential unintended consequence of clinicians avoiding complicated cases. However, exception reporting will need to be monitored so it is truly the exception and provides information for requisite refinements. The measurement enterprise needs to be linked to a strategy for capturing high-priority data with minimal workflow disruption. Instead of chart review–based measurement, functional electronic health records (EHRs) are needed, along with patient registries that capture quality measurement data, such as monthly reports, to provide feedback to clinicians. Measurement is the first step in clinicianand practice-based improvement. Current measures often focus on individual patientclinician interactions at a single point in time and, therefore, undervalue teamwork and patient outcomes over time. Measures focused on adherence to process in single interactions, when implemented widely, may have unintended negative consequences for patients. Measures need to focus more on the patients’ outcomes over an episode of care, such as from hip fracture through recovery. If a patient with

Give the Emperor a Mirror: Toward Developing a Stakeholder Measurement of Organizational Transparency

The concept of organizational transparency has vaulted to prominence in recent years. While the virtues of transparency have been tied to trust and credibility, there have been no efforts to measure this abstract concept. Guidelines exist to help organizations be more transparent, but the real test is how stakeholders perceive an organization's transparency. This paper focuses on developing a stakeholder measurement of organizational transparency. Factor analyses, structural equation models, and reliability alphas on the measurement items indicate the instrument measures three transparency reputation traits (integrity, respect for others, openness) and four transparency efforts (participation, substantial information, accountability, and secrecy).

Blood Money: Sovereignty and Exchange in Kathy Acker

ion, such as bodily fluids, alienation can be banished. Shapiro's (mis)appropriation of Goux's analysis of exchange is instructive here. For Goux, exchange value is absolutely alienating, regardless of concrete form it takes, because of tyrant,... a frozen mediation, in [exchange] relation, which alienates subjects as it dominates relations (163). In a familiar poststructuralist move, Goux argues that coherence of universal value form is governed by an excluded other, a controlling trope that is able to guarantee consistency of system only by remaining its substitutive logic. The commitment underlying Shapiro's claim that alienation is a local and relative effect of a particular form of exchange value-legal tender-rather than a property of exchange itself, is articulated by Hayek, for whom equilibrium of catallaxy is an emergent property of exchange not given in advance. Goux's structural third entity governing exchange corresponds, in Hayek, to an actual governor, Federal Reserve. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.192 on Thu, 25 Aug 2016 04:26:01 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 494 C O N T E M PO RA RY L IT E RAT U R E between immediacy of tribal exchange and universal value form of free market exchange, enabling Acker to imagine social world as a market without an outside, organized solely by desire of individuals. For Acker, as for Hayek, value is always entirely subjective, attaining stability through spontaneous order of catallaxy, which both writers describe in metaphors drawn from nature and biology. Individual exchanges are microeconomic cells of catallaxy; subject's desire funds vast war of private mirror of our sexuality (26). Interference with functioning of this market, any attempt to institute an outside to administer market relations, is for Acker, as it is for Hayek, a transparent effort to transform social life into an authoritarian organization (Gray 36). The authoritarian impulse takes many forms in her late novels: traditional morality, nuclear family, gender identity, police. But form of control most feared by Acker, and most revealing of her commitments, is represented as attempt of a government agency to pollute bloodstream and disrupt exchange and flow of blood by introducing an alien code, a virus, into it. In Empire of Senseless, once Algerians turn themselves into pirates, establishing a society where there is limit but economic, they tell deposed rulers, no longer will you work ... creating AIDS, by doing so controlling all (71). Of course, in real world, AIDS can be seen as corrupting or preventing union, but special horror of virus as a governmental instrument of controlling union depends on a fictional context where blood is money. In this image of legal tender as conspiracy, Hayek's concern with private money is reproduced by Acker's concern with pure blood. What is at stake is possibility of a radically free market, the anarchy of private enterprise, where universal values and undistorted forms of exchange are founded within rather than without body, and where free individuals encounter limit but economic.

North Korea and the U.S. Grand Security Strategy

Despite North Korea's atrocious human rights record and the transparent effort to blackmail the United States and its allies with its nuclear and long-range ballistic missile capabilities, Washington has treated Pyongyang with a remarkable degree of forbearance. In fact, rather than imposing on North Korea even a modest level of economic sanctions, let alone responding militarily to provocations, the United States has promoted economic and diplomatic engagement with Pyongyang. This essay analyzes how the United States has handled North Korea in the post-Cold War security environment and important structural factors that constrain Washington's policy toward Pyongyang despite the primacy of American power in the international system.

Warren Halloran and the Lady Denman Heritage Complex at Jervis Bay

Having been to Bill Kitson’s brilliant Museum of Lands, Mapping and Surveying in Queensland, I couldn’t let Russell Wenholz get away with his blatant attempts at publicising this superb establishment without making an equally transparent effort to bring to the attention of all surveyors and their friends the existence of another magnificent complex which highlights the skills and achievements of our illustrious forefathers at Huskisson, Jervis Bay, on the New South Wales south coast.