Empowering refugees and asylum seekers in the Italian agriculture sector by linking social cooperative entrepreneurship and social work practices

The present study investigated the potential of social cooperative activities and social work practices in the Italian agriculture sector in promoting sustainable integration forms for refugees and asylum seekers. The study adopted a qualitative approach using case study as the main research method. As the results show, the complexity and diversity of needs of refugees and asylum seekers make collaboration between formal and informal actors increasingly necessary for generating a common knowledge and support networks. The article argues that integrated approaches to refugees’ socio‐economic integration are needed to free them from the need for assistance and thereby help them regain their autonomy. The case study presented gives insight into the potential of small‐step experiences towards sustainable development and, linked to this, the integration of refugees and asylum seekers based on self‐organisation and cooperation, considering the well‐being of all citizens in the broader context.     

Containing uncertainty: sexual values and citizenship

This essay reflects on one dimension of the challenge of being a queer ethicist. Can we have norms/values without liberal assumptions that might undo the important contributions of queer theory? The reemergence of appeals to "citizenship" in lbgt and queer debates serves as illustrations of this question. Reading Weeks's Invented Moralities: Sexual Values in an Age of Uncertainty(1995), while considering various scholars who have engaged the issue of sexual citizenship since, enables me to illustrate some of the issues that emerge around ethics and queerness at this particular moment. My argument is that attempts to offer constructive ethical engagement in the end often contain challenges rather than successfully address them. Critically examining Weeks's intervention into what he sees as our "loss" of moral authority and ethical concerns to the right wing is helpful for queer ethical conversations that consider available theoretical and philosophical models of claiming citizenship as a way of claiming values in uncertain times. Weeks (1995; 1998), Richardson (2000), Bell and Binnie (2000), and Phelan (2001) provides helpful guides to the struggle with tensions that faces us in lbgt/queer debates of citizenship.     

Worker Remittances and Capital Flows to Developing Countries

Worker remittances constitute an increasingly important channel for the transfer of resources to developing countries. Behind foreign direct investment, remittances are the second‐largest source of external funding for developing countries. Yet, literature on worker remittances has traditionally focused on the impact of remittances on income distribution within countries, on the determinants of remittances at a micro‐level, or on the effects of migration and remittances for specific countries or regions. Macroeconomic determinants and effects of remittances have received more attention only recently. Hence, the focus of this paper is on the macroeconomic determinants of remittances and on differences in these determinants between remittances and other capital flows. We find that remittances respond more to demographic variables while private capital flows respond more to macroeconomic conditions.     

Ethics of resource allocation: instruments for rational decision making in support of a sustainable health care

Objective: In all western countries health care budgets are under considerable constraint and therefore a reflection process has started on how to gain the most health benefit for the population within limited resource boundaries. The field of “ethics of resource allocation” has evolved only recently in order to bring some objectivity and rationality in the discussion. In this article it is argued that priority setting is the prerequisite of ethical resource allocation and that for purposes of operationalization, instruments such as “need assessment” and “health technology assessment (HTA)” are essential worktools for making more rational decisions. Thresholds (deduced from the need assessment and HTA) are—within this context—guiding but not binding principles. Method: Discussion of theoretical concepts of not only priority setting, need assessment and HTA complemented by practical examples for showing the challenges and the need, but also the chances of a more explicit and transparent policy of resource allocation in health care. Results: Priority setting in health care is based on the values of equity, justice and solidarity. Health packages decisions are determined from medical need (the severity of the condition) and/or the appropriateness of medical interventions (their cost-effectiveness). With growing awareness that originally effective and cost-effective services and programmes are eventually provided inappropriately, the focus is shifting towards the organisational aspects of provision and application. Therefore, need assessment is based on the distinction of health care needs from demand, supply, or actual care. Additionally HTA provides the evidence on health care interventions in a way that it becomes obvious who benefits from an intervention and who definitely does not benefit, but eventually is harmed. Conclusions: Health services research on effective and cost-effective interventions and research/monitoring of performance that the effective and cost-effective services are provided appropriately are of increasing importance for guiding the decision-making process on priority setting and need assessment. Effective healthcare for all is sustainable, if we start to put expenditures in perspective and focus health policies and research strategies on managing expectations through patient information and a more realistic notion of medical advancements and, on the other hand, on encouraging need-based and cost-effective innovations.

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Zusammenfassung Ziel: In allen Ländern des Westens ist die Haushaltslage im Gesundheitswesen heute äußerst angespannt, weshalb nun ein Reflexionsprozess begonnen hat, wie mit begrenzten Haushaltsmitteln der größtmögliche gesundheitliche Nutzen für die Bevölkerung erzielt werden kann. Erst in jüngster Zeit ist die “Ethik der Mittelzuweisung” als Arbeitsgebiet entwickelt worden, mit dem Ziel, eine gewisse Objektivität und Rationalität in die Diskussion zu bringen. In diesem Artikel argumentieren wir, dass eine ethische Mittelzuweisung Prioritätssetzungen erfordert und dass Instrumente wie Bedarfeinschätzung (Need Assessment) und Bewertung medizinischer Verfahren [Health Technology Assessment (HTA)] wesentliche Arbeitswerkzeuge zur Erzielung rationaler Entscheidungen sind. Schwellenwerte (abgeleitet aus Need Assessment und HTA) dienen in diesem Zusammenhang als leitende, jedoch nicht bindende Prinzipien. Methode: Diskussion theoretischer Begriffe der Prioritätssetzung, Bedarfeinschätzung und HTA, ergänzt durch praktische Beispiele zur Darstellung der Herausforderungen des Bedarfs nach, aber auch der Chancen für eine explizitere und transparentere Politik der Mittelzuweisung im Gesundheitswesen. Ergebnisse: Prioritätssetzung im Gesundheitswesen basiert auf den Werten Gleichheit, Gerechtigkeit und Solidarität. Entscheidungen über Versorgungspakete richten sich nach der medizinischen Bedarfslage (Schwere der Erkrankung) und/oder der Angemessenheit medizinischer Eingriffe (Kosteneffektivität). Mit der wachsenden Erkenntnis, dass ursprünglich effektive und kosteneffektive Leistungen und Programme am Ende unangemessen bereitgestellt werden, richtet sich die Aufmerksamkeit mehr auf Organisationsaspekte der Bereitstellung und Anwendung. Need Assessment basiert daher auf der Unterscheidung zwischen Bedarf im Gesundheitswesen und Nachfrage, Angebot oder tatsächlicher Versorgung. HTA fasst dann die Evidenz zu Eingriffen seitens des Gesundheitswesens zusammen, sodass offenbar wird, wem ein Eingriff nützt und wem er mit Sicherheit nicht nützt, sondern am Ende schadet. Schlussfolgerungen: Forschungen der Gesundheitsdienste zu effektiven und kosteneffektiven Eingriffen sowie die Erforschung/Erfolgskontrolle einer angemessenen Bereitstellung effektiver und kosteneffektiver Dienste sind von wachsender Bedeutung für die Information des Entscheidungsprozesses zur Prioritätssetzung und Bedarfseinschätzung. Eine effektive Gesundheitsversorgung für alle bleibt tragbar, sofern wir beginnen, Ausgaben in Perspektive zu setzen und gesundheitspolitische Entscheidungen und Forschungsstrategien darauf ausrichten, Erwartungen zu lenken, indem wir die Patienten informieren und eine realistischere Einschätzung medizinischer Fortschritte fördern, und uns zugleich auf bedarfsorientierte und kosteneffektive Innovationen konzentrieren.

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Résumé Objectif : Dans tous les pays occidentaux, les budgets de santé publique sont soumis à de fortes contraintes, ce pourquoi un processus de réflexion a commencé sur la question de savoir comment obtenir avec des moyens limités la plus grande utilité possible pour la population en termes de santé. Ce n’est que récemment que « l’éthique de l’allocation des ressources » a été développée pour apporter une certaine part d’objectivité et de rationalisme dans la discussion. Le présent article soutient que l’attribution de priorités est la condition préalable indispensable à l’allocation des ressources et que des instruments tels que l’évaluation des besoins (need assessment) et l’évaluation des technologies de la santé (ETS/HTA) sont des outils essentiels pour parvenir à des décisions plus rationnelles. Les valeurs seuils (déduites de l’évaluation des besoins et de l’ETS) servent dans ce contexte de principes directeurs, mais non contraignants. Méthode : Discussion sur les notions théoriques d’attribution de priorités, d’évaluation des besoins et d’ETS, complétée par des exemples pratiques mettant en évidence les défis et les besoins, mais aussi les chances d’une politique d’allocation des ressources de santé plus explicite et transparente. Résultats : L’attribution des priorités dans le domaine de la santé se base sur les valeurs d’équité, de justice et de solidarité. Les décisions relatives à des ensembles thérapeutiques sont déterminées par le besoin médical (gravité de la maladie) et/ou le caractère opportun des interventions médicales (efficacité des coûts). Avec la prise de conscience que des services et des programmes initialement opérationnels et efficaces en termes de coûts sont appliqués de manière inappropriée, l’attention se porte sur les aspects organisationnels de l’attribution et de l’application. L’évaluation des besoins se base par conséquent sur la distinction entre les besoins de santé provenant de la demande, de l’offre et de l’approvisionnement effectivement fourni. L’évaluation des technologies de la santé procède à une synthèse des preuves faisant apparaître qu’une intervention de santé est utile à un patient, lui est en toute certitude inutile, voire préjudiciable. Conclusions : Les recherches des services de santé sur les interventions efficaces en termes de thérapie et de coûts, de même que la recherche/le suivi des performances sur une fourniture appropriée de services efficaces en termes de thérapie et de coûts revêtent une importance croissante pour guider le processus décisionnel sur l’attribution des priorités et l’évaluation des besoins. Une couverture de santé efficace pour tous n’est viable que si nous commençons à mettre les dépenses en perspective et à concentrer les politiques de la santé et les stratégies de recherche sur la gestion des attentes, en informant les patients et en promouvant une estimation plus réaliste des progrès médicaux, et d’autre part en encourageant les innovations fondées sur les besoins et sur le rendement des coûts.

     

Contested memories: efforts of the powerful to silence former inmates' histories of life in an institution for 'mental defectives'

This paper discusses the barriers encountered in undertaking an oral history project with survivors of a total institution for 'mental defectives' in the province of Alberta, Canada. Powerful social actors were able to bar access to survivors through legal guardianship orders, and to make access to the institution and its grounds and to publicly archived materials quite prohibitive to the researcher. In addition to overt efforts on the part of powerful social actors to block the project, concerns about the potential to discredit survivor narratives led to changes in the research design. Specifically, research and literature about the 'acquiescence' of intellectuals with intellectual impairments led the researcher to broaden the sources for this history as a preemptive strategy. Despite these barriers, survivors of the institution provided a rich and powerful testimony to the brutality of institutionalization, and provide us with an emancipatory history from the perspectives of those most oppressed by disability policies and practices.     

Akteure der Gentrification und ihre Ortsbindung:

Relations between residential quality and place attachment of people involved in the gentrification process of an old inner city housing area in East Germany were asked by a questionnaire. As part of a neighbourhood monitoring process, a total of N = 295 subjects of the urban revitalization area of Magdeburg-Buckau participated in the study. Perceived residential quality was measured with an adapted German version of the “Residential Satisfaction Scale” (Bonaiuto et al. 1999), place attachment with a German version of Bonaiuto et al. (1999) “Neighbourhood Attachment Scale”. The empirical findings revealed that those residential preferences which are relevant for gentrification, such as buildings’ aesthetic pleasantness and presence of green areas, are significant predictors of both pioneers’ and gentrifiers’ place attachment. For all residential groups social cohesion was a significant predictor of place attachment, whereas the length of residence was a significant predictor of place attachment only for those who had lived in the area for a long time (i.e., lower class people and high-class people of high education).     

Meso-modeling of leadership: Following James G. (Jerry) Hunt's lead in integrating micro- and macro-perspectives of leadership

This introduction provides a tribute to James G. (Jerry) Hunt as leader of leadership scholars, along with an overview to The Leadership Quarterly special issue on meso-modeling of leadership. Our tribute traces Jerry's evolution from a right-brain, defrocked engineer to a pioneering leadership scholar. Through early and sustained scholarly contributions regarding the importance of context to leadership, Jerry paved the way for meso-modeling perspectives on leadership, such as those reflected in this special issue. We conclude by highlighting the contribution of nine articles that serve to further Jerry's legacy through the advancement of conceptual and empirical insights into meso-level leadership processes.     

Non nested model selection for spatial count regression models with application to health insurance

In this paper we consider spatial regression models for count data. We examine not only the Poisson distribution but also the generalized Poisson capable of modeling over-dispersion, the negative Binomial as well as the zero-inflated Poisson distribution which allows for excess zeros as possible response distribution. We add random spatial effects for modeling spatial dependency and develop and implement MCMC algorithms in $R$ for Bayesian estimation. The corresponding R library ‘spatcounts’ is available on CRAN. In an application the presented models are used to analyze the number of benefits received per patient in a German private health insurance company. Since the deviance information criterion is only appropriate for exponential family models, we use in addition the Vuong and Clarke test with a Schwarz correction to compare possibly non nested models. We illustrate how they can be used in a Bayesian context.     

Multiple motives of pro-social behavior: evidence from the solidarity game

The article analyses experimental “solidarity games” with two benefactors and one beneficiary. Depending on their motive for giving—e.g., warm glow, altruism, or guilt—the benefactors’ response functions are either constant, decreasing, or increasing. If motives interact, or if envy is a concern, then more complex (unimodal) shapes may emerge. Controlling for random utility perturbations, we determine which and how many motives affect individual decision making. The main findings are that the motives of about 75% of the subjects can be identified fairly sharply, that all of the motives discussed in the literature co-exist in the population, and that for any given individual no more than two motives (out of six motives considered overall) are identified. We conclude that a unifying motive for solidarity cannot be derived even when we allow for individually heterogeneous parameterization: different subjects give for different reasons and all existing social preference theories are partially correct.