20 years of Bologna - a story of success,a story of failure

The Bologna Process is a unique harmonisation process taking place outside the policy-making framework of the European Union. It aims at enhancing the comparability and compatibility of higher education structures and degrees across Europe, as well as to institutionalise quality assurance mechanisms. The aim of this article is to provide a condensed, up-to-date overview of the Bologna Process with regard to structural characteristics, before embedding it into a discussion on processes on voluntary policy convergence and to which extent we should be able to find this kind of policy harmonisation in the realm of the Bologna Process. Related to this are questions why this, in principle, completely voluntary process of policy harmonisation, has appealed to so many countries and why they might or might not feel committed to the implementation of its policies and tools.     

Fluctuating capacity of policy advice in Russia: testing theory in developing country context

ABSTRACT

Theories and concepts developed and empirically tested in the context of North American and Western European countries do not always easily transfer to another political landscape. The concept of “policy advisory system” is not an exception. On the one hand, policy processes and policy styles are not unique for each country; therefore, some generalizations can be made. On the other hand, studding particularities of policy process in a specific country can enrich theories, developed for general cases. Applying existing theories to a new context also goes a long way in verification and potential falsification – the fundamental requirement for a scientific process. This article aims to contribute to the debate on the topic of policy advisory system by comparing the development of three policies in Russia, each involving policy advisors to some extent. Based on this analysis, lessons are drawn regarding the conditions under which policy advisors can impact policy changes in an environment, alternative to “western.”     

农业保险的保障水平与财政补贴政策优化：一个文献综述 *

近年来，我国农业保险快速发展，在保费收入、保障范围和参保农户数量等指标上都取得了举世瞩目的成绩。与此同时，保障水平不高、农业保险“不解渴、不顶用”也一直是各方反映的焦点之一。本文结合了福利经济学和保险经济学中的相关理论，遵循“提高农业保险保障水平必须优化其财政补贴政策”的逻辑主线，对实施财政补贴政策是提升农业保险保障水平的前提条件、有效途径、有力举措和重要渠道进行了梳理和评析。最后，针对现有研究的不足，结合当前的时代背景，对该领域日后的研究重点进行了预测，并进一步探讨了其优化路径。     

Overcoming the ‘tyranny of the urgent’: integrating gender into disease outbreak preparedness and response

ABSTRACT

This article contributes to discussions on the gender dimensions of disease outbreaks, and preparedness policies and responses, by providing a multi-level analysis of gender-related gaps, particularly illustrating how the failure to challenge gender assumptions and incorporate gender as a priority at the global level has national and local impacts. The implications of neglecting gender dynamics, as well as the potential of equity-based approaches to disease outbreak responses, is illustrated through a case study of the Social Enterprise Network for Development (SEND) Sierra Leone, a non-government organisation (NGO) based in Kailahun, during the Ebola outbreak.     

Lessons from Nigeria for improved thinking and working politically in the extractives sector

Despite the wealth that comes from being the biggest oil producer in Africa, Nigeria has some of the worst development indicators in the world. From 2011 to mid‐2016, the DFID‐funded Facility for Oil Sector Transparency and Reform (FOSTER) programme's unique design aimed to reduce incentives for the capture of oil revenue by elites and international oil companies, restoring the potential of those revenues to accelerate economic and social development. This article asks what lessons FOSTER's successes and failures offer for improved “thinking and working politically” (TWP). It examines the outcomes from five “clusters” of interventions: three viewed by the FOSTER team as successes and two as failures. The article identifies factors for successful TWP‐based programming, including the need for local ownership rooted in staff with a combination of technical expertise, a deep knowledge of the local political context and excellent networking abilities. The research used a qualitative and inductive approach. Field research was undertaken with 44 semi‐structured qualitative interviews during one month of fieldwork in Abuja and Lagos. The research also included reviews of FOSTER's internal documentation and evaluation frameworks, as well as analysis of newspaper articles and grey literature on the oil sector in Nigeria. The project offers important lessons for politically informed programming about how interventions were implemented (process), what was actually done (content) and how the project responded to changes in context that created or blocked opportunities for reform (responsiveness). The article identifies factors for successful TWP‐based programming, including the need for local ownership rooted in staff with a combination of technical expertise, a deep knowledge of the local political context and excellent networking abilities. The findings have important implications for programme design. They demonstrate the value of built‐in flexibility that allows staff to choose and switch the partners they work with and the channels they work through. They also show that a key aspect of TWP‐based programming is implicit acceptance that some failure may be unavoidable, since this permits staff to balance risk against opportunities. Finally, a better understanding of FOSTER's failures reveals the challenges of a TWP‐based approach and the trade‐offs it demands.     

The practice of deliberative policy analysis in the context of political and cultural challenges: lessons from Thailand

ABSTRACT

This article draws upon insight from a study of those involved in introducing deliberative policy analysis in Thailand at the city scale and presents lessons for both policy practitioners and scholars. The design of each deliberative forum differed, depending on lessons learned from previous forums and the consensus that emerged as a result of deliberation amongst forum facilitators. The underlying principle of this kind of deliberative design is to make deliberative processes authentic, by avoiding coercion, inclusive, by engaging stakeholders who bring forth different ideas, and impactful. To make these forums more exciting, deliberative practices are often linked to other attractive discourses, such as those surrounding smart cities, creative spaces and inclusive development. The case of Thailand sheds light on emerging challenges involved in the practice of deliberative policy analysis in the context of both national political regimes that are not democracies and those in the East.     

Anticipated Ethics and Regulatory Challenges in PCORnet: The National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network

PCORnet, the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network, seeks to establish a robust national health data network for patient-centered comparative effectiveness research. This article reports the results of a PCORnet survey designed to identify the ethics and regulatory challenges anticipated in network implementation. A 12-item online survey was developed by leadership of the PCORnet Ethics and Regulatory Task Force; responses were collected from the 29 PCORnet networks. The most pressing ethics issues identified related to informed consent, patient engagement, privacy and confidentiality, and data sharing. High priority regulatory issues included IRB coordination, privacy and confidentiality, informed consent, and data sharing. Over 150 IRBs and five different approaches to managing multisite IRB review were identified within PCORnet. Further empirical and scholarly work, as well as practical and policy guidance, is essential if important initiatives that rely on comparative effectiveness research are to move forward.     

Community care for adults with severe mental disorders in rural China: A case study

In China, family care is the dominant form of care for people with mental disorders. Since 2004, the government has been developing a community‐care model that places more responsibility on community organisations and the local governments at the provincial, municipal and county levels for the provision of formal care. As a large number of people with severe mental disorders live in rural China, this case study was conducted in a rural county in order to examine the development of community care. It was found that, although family care remains dominant, families’ need for formal care is increasing. Community services have improved, but their development is constrained by several contextual and micro factors. In this study, it is argued that the community‐care model introduces a process of reconfiguration of the relative responsibility for care among the family, social organisations and the government, but progress depends on further administrative and fiscal reforms.     

Narrating Sustainability in Canadian Health Care Reform Discourse

In Canada, as in other industrialized welfare states, definitions of health system sustainability reflect different goals and correspondingly diverse ways of understanding exactly what is to be sustained and how. In this article, we report on results from a survey of documents and groups involved in and/or concerned about sustainability of the healthcare system. We identify four broad narratives of sustainability in Canadian healthcare reform discourse, and explore what these different sustainability narratives tell us about the character and contours of these often‐fractious debates. We argue that sustainability itself may not be a paradigm shift, as has been suggested, but a plot device that helps to steer the story in a particular direction, ‘black‐boxing’ certain aspects of context and emphasizing others.