The Brazilian organic food sector: Prospects and constraints of facilitating the inclusion of smallholders

The Brazilian organic food sector has experienced important growth during the last two decades. Brazilian smallholders, however, are facing huge challenges to enter and benefit from this growth in a sustainable way. Combining the lens of New Institutional Economics and socio-anthropology, we analyze six experiences of Brazilian smallholders who converted to organics in the 1990s’. Three different food systems are featured in this analysis: an alternative food system, which is strongly interwoven with the Brazilian Agro-ecological movement and two commercial food procurement systems oriented towards domestic and an export markets driven mainly by supermarket chains. The analytical focus was on 1) the governance of these food systems, 2) the constraints farmers are facing within these food systems and, 3) the benefits that they can expect from market inclusion. We highlighted the roles that NGOs, Faith-based organizations and public-related agencies play in supporting the inclusion of smallholders into all three food systems. We confirmed the arguments in support of pursuing the agro-ecological development based model in Brazil, but underlined that there is a critical lack of support for farmers included in the commercial market-oriented food systems. Such a lack is even more critical as the food systems driven by expanding supermarket chains are characterized by strong asymmetric power relations at the expense of smallholders. Considering the reluctance of NGOs and Faith-based organizations to support these farmers, we call for efforts to be made to provide a policy framework to enable public-related entities to secure sustainable inclusion into these systems and exit strategies for those experiencing exclusion from these highly competitive food systems.     

Multiculturalism and welfare state integration: Swedish model path dependency

The present article offers an account of Swedish integration policies in the post-war period. The theoretical purpose is to assess Christian Joppke’s hypothesis that recent trends of integration policy convergence have rendered the national model approach analytically useless. The analysis shows that Sweden deviates, in some important respects, from the European trend by not formulating demands that link integration achievements to immigrants’ access to fundamental rights. The conclusion is that the Swedish case does not support Joppke’s hypothesis, but rather indicates that path dependency of national models is a valid explanation to ongoing developments. It is argued that the Swedish exception should be understood as an expression of the persistent impact of a policy logic according to which integration requires that all citizens have equal and universal access to certain fundamental rights. The article builds on general comparisons with European policy developments and uses Denmark as a more specific reference point.     

Europeanisation and the Youth Guarantee: The case of France

In 2013, the European Council approved the Youth Guarantee (YG) to counteract youth unemployment. Because of its specific features, the YG is useful for understanding whether the EU has triggered policy change in national youth unemployment policies. Contrary to most of the literature on similar topics, we focused in this study on the effect of this specific European measure rather than on broader EU strategies or policies. The study contributes to the literature by qualifying the degree of fit/misfit and suggesting a counterfactual analysis, using the case of France. We first situate the article within the broader Europeanisation debate and present our research design. The second section introduces the policy structure of the YG and investigates youth unemployment policy in France, prior to and after the European initiative. The third section discusses whether the French youth unemployment policy would have been developed in the same way without the YG. A final section concludes.     

The impact of the European Youth Guarantee on active labour market policies: A convergence analysis

The European Union’s (EU) Youth Guarantee aims to improve the labour market situation of young people. Rather than prescribing a uniform policy model, it acknowledges that supportive measures need to align with national, regional and local circumstances. It thus seeks to promote mutual policy learning through the open method of coordination. As an innovative measure, the EU has deployed funding programmes to support the domestic measures related to the Youth Guarantee. We therefore examined in this study whether this mix of recommendations and financial incentives has entailed a convergence of member state policies. Our analysis of policy outputs for the period 2007?2014 yields a mixed empirical picture. There is catching‐up convergence regarding policies’ sectoral coverage but increasing divergence concerning the number of adopted policy instruments. The first two years of financial incentives did not produce any effect on enhancing policy experimentation among less active member states. We offer an optimistic and a pessimistic interpretation of these findings.     

新世纪新阶段民族政策宣传教育的指南——解读《党和国家民族政策宣传教育提纲》

本文解读了<党和国家民族政策宣传教育提纲>颁布的对象、目的、意义及基本内容,指出了<提纲>是我党在全国各族广大干部群众中进行马克思主义民族观教育的重要举措,是在民族工作中贯彻落实科学发展观的具体表现,新世纪新阶段民族政策宣传教育的指南.     

Evaluation from a Gender+ Perspective as a Key Element for (Re)gendering the Policymaking Process

ABSTRACT

Feminist scholars have challenged the neutrality of policymaking processes and the outputs resulting from these processes. However, some elements of policymaking have not been studied as well as others. In this article I explore the concept of evaluation from a gender+ perspective as an essential step for a complete gender mainstreaming strategy, which can help to identify gender issues that should be integrated into the content of evaluated policies and to ensure gender does not get lost in the policymaking process. This exploration is carried out by relying on feminist policy and evaluation studies.     

Supervision of students in social care education: practice teachers’ views of their role

This paper presents findings from research about how practice teachers in social care education in Ireland view their role, in particular what elements they prioritise and what they see as relatively unimportant. The aim of the research was exploratory, seeking to discover commonalities and differences in how practice teachers saw their role in the supervision of social care students. Q methodology was used to compare the participants’ viewpoints. Twenty practice teachers, from varying practice backgrounds and levels of experience, sorted statements outlining aspects of the practice teacher’s role, during individual interviews. Analysis indicates participants had two ways of conceptualising the role. One focuses within the agency, prioritising students’ awareness of the clients using the social care service and policies as guiding practice. The second encapsulates a broader view of learning beyond the agency, focusing on the practice teacher assisting the student to integrate theory with practice and using reflection as a learning tool. Conclusions are drawn in relation to social care education.     

我国公共政策执行手段的选择、确定问题及改进

在政策执行过程中,有效的政策执行手段对政策目标的顺利实现意义重大。通常使用的政策执行手段有五种,政策执行手段具有某些作用特性。选择、确定合适的政策手段,必须遵循一定的标准和原则。我国公共政策执行手段选择、确定方面存在着一些问题,需要加以改进。     

教师教育政策公平的现实困境与有效路径

长期以来,我国东部发达地区、城市以及重点学校、公办学校优先发展的教师教育政策与战略从客观上造成了教师教育的区域、城乡、校际失衡,以至于教师教育政策陷入公平困境。而统筹教师教育的区域、城乡与校际均衡发展则成为教师教育政策公平的可能进路。     

以绿色金融政策促进绿色消费发展

在市场经济条件下促进经济绿色化发展,金融机制是推进绿色消费的基本手段。通过发展绿色金融、创新绿色消费金融机制、完善绿色信贷制度、建立绿色保险体系、构筑绿色社会信用体系等,并配以相应的环境经济政策和产业准入政策,促进绿色消费发展,发挥其引导和促进作用。