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"Policy Reform"
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Bargaining power : health policymaking from England and New Zealand
This monograph applies Kingdon's Multiple Streams Framework to two policymaking episodes of implementing pay for performance in general practice, conducted in England and New Zealand. The Framework's explanatory power for policymaking in Westminster majoritarian jurisdictions is tested and, based on rigorous comparative analysis, recommendations are made for its refinement. The monograph also offers striking lessons for policymakers about how to negotiate successfully with general practitioners.
Book
How Schools Meet Students' Needs
Meeting students' basic needs - including ensuring they have access to nutritious meals and a sense of belonging and connection to school - can positively influence students' academic performance. Recognizing this connection, schools provide resources in the form of school meals programs, school nurses, and school guidance counselors. However, these resources are not always available to students and are not always prioritized in school reform policies, which tend to focus more narrowly on academic learning. This book is about the balancing act that schools and their teachers undertake to respond to the social, emotional, and material needs of their students in the context of standardized testing and accountability policies. Drawing on conversations with teachers and classroom observations in two elementary schools, How Schools Meet Students' Needs explores the factors that both enable and constrain teachers in their efforts to meet students' needs and the consequences of how schools organize this work on teachers' labor and students' learning.
eBook
Titles, conflict, and land use
The Amazon, the world's largest rain forest, is the last frontier in Brazil. The settlement of large and small farmers, squatters, miners, and loggers in this frontier during the past thirty years has given rise to violent conflicts over land as well as environmental duress. Titles, Conflict, and Land Use examines the institutional development involved in the process of land use and ownership in the Amazon and shows how this phenomenon affects the behavior of the economic actors. It explores the way in which the absence of well-defined property rights in the Amazon has led to both economic and social problems, including lost investment opportunities, high costs in protecting claims, and violence. The relationship between land reform and violence is given special attention. The book offers an important application of the New Institutional Economics by examining a rare instance where institutional change can be empirically observed. This allows the authors to study property rights as they emerge and evolve and to analyze the effects of Amazon development on the economy. In doing so they illustrate well the point that often the evolution of economic institutions will not lead to efficient outcomes. This book will be important not only to economists but also to Latin Americanists, political scientists, anthropologists, and scholars in disciplines concerned with the environment.
eBook
An Education in Politics
Since the early 1990s, the federal role in education-exemplified by the controversial No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB)-has expanded dramatically. Yet states and localities have retained a central role in education policy, leading to a growing struggle for control over the direction of the nation's schools.In An Education in Politics, Jesse H. Rhodes explains the uneven development of federal involvement in education. While supporters of expanded federal involvement enjoyed some success in bringing new ideas to the federal policy agenda, Rhodes argues, they also encountered stiff resistance from proponents of local control. Built atop existing decentralized policies, new federal reforms raised difficult questions about which level of government bore ultimate responsibility for improving schools.
Rhodes's argument focuses on the role played by civil rights activists, business leaders, and education experts in promoting the reforms that would be enacted with federal policies such as NCLB. It also underscores the constraints on federal involvement imposed by existing education policies, hostile interest groups, and, above all, the nation's federal system. Indeed, the federal system, which left specific policy formation and implementation to the states and localities, repeatedly frustrated efforts to effect changes: national reforms lost their force as policies passed through iterations at the state, county, and municipal levels. Ironically, state and local resistance only encouraged civil rights activists, business leaders, and their political allies to advocate even more stringent reforms that imposed heavier burdens on state and local governments. Through it all, the nation's education system made only incremental steps toward the goal of providing a quality education for every child.
eBook
Who is the drug user activist?: recounting the conceptualisation of drug user activism in the United Kingdom
The British model of harm reduction has been referenced as a pioneering approach to substance use in Europe. While many have described the development of UK drug policy through different governments, few studies have focused on the role that drug user activists played in the UK drug policy reform movement. We examine the different conceptualisations of UK drug user activists in literature, including published academic journals and grey literature (news articles, podcasts, websites and unpublished dissertations). We describe the different conceptualisations of ‘the drug user activist’ based on chronological periods relevant to drug policy, namely: Pre-Misuse of Drugs Act (1870–1971), Misuse of Drugs Act (1971–1988), Thatcherite and AIDS crisis (1988–1998), New Labour and Internet (1998–2010), and Contemporary (2010 to present).
In the 1900s, we see a shift from drug users portrayed as victims coming from privileged backgrounds to middle class people who displayed problematic behaviours. After the passage of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, drug user activists started to organise themselves and deliver education and outreach services. This was further amplified during the AIDS crisis and the Thatcherite era where drug users were involved in developing what later became the model for the public health approach to substance use. Drug user engagement with the government was strengthened during the New Labour government with the formation of the National Treatment Authority. Outside of government, drug users formed alliances which were crucial in ensuring accountability from the government. Upon the abolishment of the NTA, the organisations of drug users weakened. Drug user activists continued their initiatives, albeit on a smaller scale, while trying to rebuild the drug user movement. Further forms of documentation are needed to develop a more holistic historical account of drug user activism in the UK.
Journal Article
Research on the Impact of the Reform of “Three Plots of Land” in the Yellow River Basin on Food Security
The Yellow River Basin serves as China’s core food security zone and a vital ecological barrier. However, while the “three plots of land” reform has revitalized land resources, it has also exerted complex effects on the allocation of grain production factors. Scientifically assessing the actual impacts of this policy reform on food security and identifying optimization pathways has become a critical issue for safeguarding national food security. Using panel data from 101 county-level administrative units in the Yellow River Basin covering 2010–2023, this study employs a difference-in-differences model and a moderation effect model to systematically evaluate the impact of the “three plots of land” reform policy on food security. By introducing new-type urbanization and agricultural modernization as moderating variables, it further reveals the regional heterogeneity of the policy’s operational mechanisms. The study finds that (1) the “three plots of land” reform policy significantly enhances food security levels, (2) both new-type urbanization and agricultural modernization positively amplify policy effects through moderation mechanisms, and (3) regional heterogeneity tests considering geographical location and climate conditions reveal a spatial gradient pattern of “midstream > downstream > upstream” in policy effects, clarifying the logic of regional heterogeneity. Accordingly, the “three plots of land” reform policy in the Yellow River Basin should be deepened by formulating differentiated policies based on regional heterogeneity. A moderation mechanism should be established where agricultural modernization and new urbanization synergistically support food security, comprehensively enhancing food security safeguarding capabilities.
Journal Article