Diffusion of Variegated Neoliberalization processes in Euro-Mediterranean policies: a strategic relational approach

ABSTRACT

Recent contributions to the study of neoliberalism have made considerable advances in transcending the dichotomy between understandings of the concept either as an ‘ideology’ or as a monolithic ‘structure’. In particular, the Variegated Neoliberalization (VNLT) approach has proposed an understanding of neoliberalism that relies on a path-dependent moment (i.e. the ‘uneven development of neoliberalization’) which is then followed by a path-shaping moment (i.e. the ‘neoliberalization of regulatory uneven development’). Such a perspective allows us to understand both systemic and contingent tendencies in neoliberalization processes across different geographies, transcending the socially constructed North–South divide. However, the VNLT approach has encountered a number of critiques, particularly in relation to its treatment of agency. In order to transcend these critiques and propose a more nuanced understanding of ways agents reflexively and recursively interpret and deepen – or refrain from deepening – neoliberal norms, I turn to the Strategic-Relational Approach (SRA) proposed by [Jessop, B. (2001). Institutional re(turns) and the strategic – relational approach. Environment and Planning A, 33(7), 1213–1235]. Through the SRA, it becomes possible to pinpoint both instances of ‘structured coherence’ and ‘patterned incoherence’ resulting from agential reflexivity in different contexts of neoliberalization. I will therefore turn to cases where these two patterns can be observed in the context of Euro-Mediterranean policies – that is, Morocco’s ‘structured coherence’ due to its internalized and deepening neoliberalization, and Egypt’s ‘patterned incoherence’ as a result of its still uneven development of neoliberalization.     

Taking stock: parents' reasons for and against having a third child

In developed countries with below-replacement fertility, the proportion of people who have at least three children make a substantial difference to the aggregate level of fertility. This study, based on 40 in-depth interviews with Australian parents of two children, analyses what factors influence the decision to have a third child. Using a grounded theory method of qualitative analysis, the study finds that parents who have decided to stop at two children are more able to articulate their reasons than are parents who are considering having a third child. The reasons for stopping include age and health; work and finances; and the capacity to parent another child. The weighing up of multiple factors is evidence of parents taking stock of personal and financial resources when making complex family formation decisions. The reasons for having a third child are expressed with far less elaboration and are more guarded and personal. We conclude that there is less shared or familiar language for articulating the value of family relationships. The contemporary context is one in which parents are attempting to manage risks related to having children, including the personal and financial implications of time out of the workforce. This study finds a persistent story of limited resources among parents of two children. Policies aimed at increasing fertility need to address this perception of limited resources through direct measures like affordable childcare and more generally through greater government and community support for families.     

Mainstreaming disability in policies: the Flemish experience

Although research on gender mainstreaming (GM) is extensive, literature on disability mainstreaming (DM) is scarce. This article builds on the experience of GM to explore the conditions affecting DM, focusing on the first Flemish policy cycle of DM (2010–2014) in two policy domains: employment and education. We found no substantive difference in the conditions necessary for the successful implementation of DM compared with that of GM. Also, developments specific to the policy domains had more influence on the inclusive character of policies than did the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities or the Flemish approach to DM.     

Intercultural education and academic achievement: a framework for school-based policies in multilingual schools

The paper reviews quantitative and qualitative research evidence regarding the relationship between intercultural education and academic achievement among students from socially marginalized communities. Intercultural education is conceptualized as including a focus both on generating understanding and respect for diverse cultural traditions and challenging inequitable distribution of resources and educational opportunities across social groups. As such, intercultural education incorporates notions such as critical literacy and culturally responsive education. By definition, socially marginalized communities have experienced social exclusion and discrimination, often over generations. Thus, educators who adopt an intercultural education orientation are also committed to challenging the operation of coercive relations of power within their school environments. The operation of societal power relations that affect marginalized group students’ academic achievement can be conceptualized along a continuum ranging from structural/societal, through structural/educational, to interpersonal. Structural/societal forms of discrimination are largely outside the scope of what educators can influence directly (e.g. housing segregation). However, the research evidence suggests that educators have considerable power to resist and challenge coercive power relations operating at both structural/educational (e.g. curriculum materials) and interpersonal (e.g. classroom interactions) dimensions of the continuum. Thus, the proposed framework represents an explanatory model to account for patterns of school success and failure among marginalized group students and a predictive model to specify educator behaviors that are likely to promote academic achievement.     

Gender differences and equality issues in Europe: critical aspects of gender mainstreaming policies

Gender mainstreaming is the major global strategy for the promotion of gender equality. Clear intergovernmental mandates for gender mainstreaming have been developed for all the major areas of work of the United Nations and the European Commission, including disarmament, poverty reduction, macro-economics, health, education and trade. The evaluation of equal opportunities mainly focuses on qualification measures for unemployed women and improvements in childcare facilities, and on consideration of gender mainstreaming in other policy areas as well as macro-economic effects on employment and unemployment of women. It is evident that the promotion of qualification measures and childcare facilities increases the activity rate of women, although there remain doubts about the quality and sustainability of many measures and the impact on families. In particular this article focuses on the relation between gender mainstreaming and equality issues to examine whether and how the debate on the topic is a real way to improve equality without missing gender differences and women's rights.     

Evaluating a basic-needs strategy and population policies: the BACHUE approach

The BACHUE model, a dynamic simulation technique developed within the International Labour Organization's World Employment Program, has been applied to the Philippines. The model simulates behavior and consequences in a number of key areas: fertility, marriage, migration, savings and expenditure, and labor force participation for households and a macro-model for demand, ouput, employment, and income. The design and development of the model are discussed in detail. The model was run for a series of 13 experiments ranging from nationlization of modern sectors, increasing self-employment, movement toward labor-intensive techniques, changes in growth rates of various sectors, and a reduction in fertility by 2% over 1976-1985, an increase over the 1% assumed in the base run. Runs R-2 to R-11 all showed that a change in basic needs is associated with significant declines in fertility, largely because of increasing education and decreasing mortality. Better economic conditions in rural areas also reduced migration. R-13 which examined the effects of a family planning program of moderate size on ultimate fertility, showed that even by year 2000 the effects were small. The population is reduced 5% over the run which assumes negative income tax and government subsidies to poor families but the gain in income per adult is less than 4%. Any real improvement in income as the result of family planning will take 40-50 years to achieve. Economic incentives, on the other hand, have much faster demographic results. The models also show that rural-urban migration is responsive to policy changes. Planners are cautioned that the model is not a picture of the entire range of human behavior but is an adjunct for use in analyzing interaction between policies.     

Child protection: a new approach in South Australia

This paper argues the case for an integrated approach to child protection services, embracing children's safety, risk and needs and incorporating formal assessment instruments. It then provides a brief overview of the new child protection system in South Australia. The steady rise in child abuse/neglect reports raises questions about how best to provide child protection services. Analysis of South Australian data suggests that much of the rise can be attributed to an increase in reports of neglect and emotional abuse and an increase in re‐notifications. This in turn raises questions about the traditional investigative approach. In 1995 Messages from Research advocated that agencies re‐focus on children's needs and concentrate less on investigations into safety and risk. The critical question is how to distinguish families requiring investigation from those needing support. The latest research suggests that such decision‐making in child protection is generally inconsistent and unreliable. This paper argues that statutory agencies should use formal assessment tools to determine the level and nature of their interventions. These arguments have been critical in the development of the new child protection model in SA, which relies on a centralized intake, differential response to reports and the structured decision‐making system. Initial evaluation of the new model indicates improvements in consistency of initial screening and responses to children in danger. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The role of non-profit organisations in migration policies: Spain and Italy compared

The aim of the paper is to investigate the relation between Non-Profit Organizations (NP) and immigration. In particular, we examine the services offered to immigrants in Italy and Spain, both noted for their similar patterns of migration. In these countries immigration is characterised by a lack of the so-called “real” (not just legislative) measures that take the needs of immigrants into consideration. Even though emergency policies exist to meet various contingencies, lack of awareness of population movements is probably behind the “absence” of the state.The hypothetic and causal connection between the NP sector and immigration will be studied using selected data. The positive results of the analysis are the first stage in considering the possible substitution of state institutions by the NP sector, with regard to immigrants.     

English in contemporary Sweden: Perceptions,policies, and narrated practices

This paper compares trends in Sweden's language planning and language policies, and particularly the rationale underlying recent government legislation, to actual language use at the ‘grass roots’ of society, in order to investigate the extent to which academic and official rationales are confirmed by observed language practices. The passing of the Swedish Language Act of 2009 followed debates in academia and the media which not infrequently characterised English as a major threat to the survival of Swedish. However, despite the strong belief in the utility of English widely held in Sweden, the Swedish language is the preferred language of Swedes as well as immigrants in most domains. These results reveal a contradiction between the arguments put forward by a number of academics, educators and journalists concerning the ‘threat’ of English, and the language practices of ordinary folk in their daily lives.     

Colonial legacies, land policies and the millennium development goals: Lessons from Cameroon and Sierra Leone

This paper undertakes a comparative analysis of the land policies of Cameroon and Sierra Leone and arrives at the following conclusions: 1] the land policies of the two countries embody the politico-administrative philosophies of their erstwhile colonial master nations; 2] despite their marked differences, the policies share some features in common; and 3] land policies are critical in efforts to achieve the millennium development goals (MDGs). The analysis further shows that: 1] the land policy of Sierra appears better positioned than Cameroon’s to guarantee access to land for all as well as ensure environmental sustainability; and 2] Cameroon’s land policy appears to outperform Sierra Leone’s with respect to fulfilling the preconditions for eradicating extreme poverty and hunger by ensuring land tenure security, maintaining uniform land laws, and facilitating land markets.     

Fathers at work: explaining the gaps between entitlement to leave policies and uptake

ABSTRACT

Why are fathers in Scotland unlikely to use the full range of leave benefits available to them? Taking a capabilities approach allows us to explore the perspective that some fathers may experience an agency gap and thus not have the capabilities to utilise entitlements. This paper addresses the question empirically using a mixed-methods design which includes: analysis of data from the Growing up in Scotland study, 20 in-depth qualitative interviews with fathers of young children working in the public sector in dual-earner couples, as well as an audit of extra-statutory benefits offered to fathers by employers. We argue that the reliance on an extra-statutory leave system in the UK explains at least part of the gap between fathers’ entitlement to and uptake of statutory leave, as such benefits are not routinely available to all parents. The extra-statutory entitlement is more than just a ‘top-up’ to the statutory; it is rather a conversion factor for the take up of statutory entitlement, by fathers. Organisational cultural norms support many employed fathers in taking a couple of weeks leave post-birth, but longer leave duration for fathers is not yet a usual parenting practice in Scotland, particularly lower down the income distribution.     

Reconsidering work time: a multivariate longitudinal within-couple analysis

Dual-earner couples now work significantly more hours than in the past, but few couple-level studies examine whether work hours are linked to mental health and quality-of-life outcomes. In 2001, Jacobs and Gerson proposed that combined spouse work hours would better predict outcomes than would spouses’ individual work hours. Longitudinal data from a random sample of 211 dual-earner couples with children partially support this hypothesis. Our findings suggest that future research on dual-earner couples’ work hours should be couple-level and longitudinal, estimate both linear and non-linear relationships, and include multiple positive and negative outcomes as well as subjective indicators of the meaning of work hours.     

A multi-level cost–benefit approach for regulatory decision support in food safety and quality assurance scenarios

In complex policy decision situations where policy objectives cannot be reached alone through the aggregate actions of individual actors, the classical approaches for measuring the effects of regulatory initiatives such as cost–benefit analysis do not provide the information necessary for decision support. This paper discusses a framework for a multi-level analysis approach that could provide decision support in multi-level policy decision situations.     

Limits and challenges for the participation of migrants' associations in state development policies in Morocco and Mexico

In many developing countries, migrants play an important role by supporting their local communities in their places of origin. An extensive literature has made visible their contribution to local development, thus revealing their involvement in the provision of social services or the construction of infrastructures. In this paper we illustrate the extent and scope of this task and the types of actions that migrants have started up in different countries of the world in general, and the cases of Morocco and Mexico in particular, to examine the achievements and limitations of both states' policies and migrants' associations in regard to their involvement in local development initiatives.     

Analysing the effect of public health campaigns on reducing excess weight: a modelling approach for the Spanish Autonomous Region of the Community of Valencia

Excess weight is fast becoming a serious health concern in the developed and developing world. The concern of the public health sector has lead to the development of public health campaigns, focusing on two-fold goals: to inform the public as to the health risks inherent in being overweight, and the benefits of a change in nutritional behaviour. Recent studies indicate that the effects of the average public health campaign on the target community is around 5%. In this study we aim to quantify the effect of different public health campaigns on lifestyle behaviour in the target populations in order to bring about weightloss in a significant number of people over the next few years.This study is based on recent works that consider excess weight as a consequence of the transmission of unhealthy lifestyles from one individual to another. Following this point of view, first a mathematical model is presented. Then, policies based on public health campaigns addressed to stop people gaining weight (prevention; this type of policy acts on individuals in order to maintain their weight and to stop an increase in weight) and, policies addressed to overweight individuals to reduce their weight (treatment; these campaigns act on overweight and/or obese individuals in order to reduce their weight) are simulated in order to evaluate their effectiveness. The study concludes that combination of preventive plus treatment campaigns are more effective than considering them separately.     

The construction of communicative (in)competence in autism: a focus on methodological decisions

Research on people diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (henceforth autism) is often based upon biomedical understanding. Such understanding tends to view the characteristics related to autism diagnosis, such as the lack of or atypical use of speech, as a sign of incompetence that can be reduced as an underlying pathology of an individual. However, little research has explicitly investigated how methodological decisions in research might influence the perception of these characteristics. This paper draws on two separate research cases involving minimally verbal children with autism to examine how methodological decisions in research design, data collection, data analysis, and data interpretation influence the construction of communicative (in)competence in these children. The paper encourages researchers to carefully consider and reflect on the methodological decisions they make throughout the research process.     

Mechanisms for participation in the public system of social services in Spain: opportunities for the development of social work with a citizenist approach

ABSTRACT

This article presents an analysis of the opportunities for participation of citizens in the public system of social services in Spain and their impact on the design, implementation, execution and evaluation of public policies of social services at a municipal level. The study also involved performing a comparative analysis of cases, assessing the impact, in terms of contributions and possibilities of the councils, upon the increased democratization of local public policies in terms of social welfare and the improvement of the efficiency with which social services and benefits are managed. The results of these investigations permit us, first of all, to present the diverse opportunities on offer for participation at a regional level in social services in Spain and then to identify, from its participants, dimensions that intensify processes of democratization and therefore help to improve efficiency of public well-being policies at a municipal level. In the case of the autonomous communities, we must highlight the changes that new social services laws have brought about in terms of widening citizens’ participation and opening up feedback for users of the system at a local level. In addition, this article discusses the role of different typologies and explores mechanisms, bodies and processes of participation that are applied in the design, management and assessment of social services policies at a local level. Finally, we determine which factors help to increase the efficiency of social public policies, as revealed by increases in citizens’ participation in local governance.     

Public relations and lobbying: New legislation in Slovenia

This article reviews lobbying in the political sciences and public relations literature, and it also provides a conceptualization for the regulatory practices of lobbying around the world. Then, it presents the newest law on lobbying instituted in 2010 in the Republic of Slovenia, the Integrity and Prevention of Corruption Act. This Act treats lobbying in two ways: (1) as a communication technique used by interest groups to privately influence government officials and (2) as a process of access to information by the same interest groups. This inconsistency follows the same trend for lobbying regulation in Europe and raises important questions regarding lobbying practice and regulation. Lobbying is fundamentally a public relations practice exercised in private and public sectors, and it uses direct and indirect communication between interest groups and their respective government.     

Policies and practices of diversity: reimagining possibilities for new discourses

The processes of globalization have demanded that emergent countries include issues of diversity into their political, economic and educational agendas. Consequently, educational institutions have started, in order to adscribe to requests made by transnational organizations (UNESCO, the World Bank and OECD), to include diversity as a priority to develop curricular proposals and policies for education. This article critiques how diversity discourses have been produced and circulated through public policies within the Chilean educational context. The design of new special education policies in Chile provides a critical context for the uses of diversity, how it is framed and what are the discourses associated with diverse educational contexts. The discussion is organized around two main questions: what are the main discourses of diversity produced by policies and practices and what do policies on diversity do?     

Attitudes and Saving in Individual Development Accounts: Latent Class Analysis

This exploratory study focuses on classifying attitudes toward institutional features of Individual Development Accounts (IDAs). The study also examines the extent to which attitudes change and how they are associated with saving in IDAs. While attitudes toward IDAs were generally positive, latent class analysis (LCA) found three groups at Wave 3: highly positive, moderately positive, and mixed opinion. The study found dynamic changes in attitudes at 18 months and 48 months after the baseline interview. While 63% of participants showed no changes in attitudes, 22% changed their attitudes negatively and 15% positively. Participants with highly positive attitudes at both 18 months and 48 months had significantly more savings than participants without highly positive attitudes, suggesting that attitudes may influence saving outcomes in IDAs.