scholarly journals Re-thinking the coronavirus pandemic as a policy punctuation: COVID-19 as a path-clearing policy accelerator

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Hogan ◽  
Michael Howlett ◽  
Mary Murphy

Abstract This article joins with others in this special issue to examine the evolution of our understanding of how the coronavirus disease (COVID)-19 pandemic impacted policy ideas and routines across a wide variety of sectors of government activity. Did policy ideas and routines transform as a result of the pandemic or were they merely a continuation of the status quo ante? If they did transform, are the transformations temporary in nature or likely to lead to significant, deep and permanent reform to existing policy paths and trajectories? As this article sets out, the literature on policy punctuations has evolved and helps us understand the impact of COVID-19 on policy-making but tends to conflate several distinct aspects of path trajectories and deviations under the general concept of “critical junctures” which muddy reflections and findings. Once the different possible types of punctuations have been clarified, however, the result is a set of concepts related to path creation and disruption—especially that of “path clearing”—which are better able to provide an explanation of the kinds of policy change to be expected to result from the impact of events such as the 2019 coronavirus pandemic.

Author(s):  
Isabelle Torrance

Abstract Tom Paulin’s Greek tragedies present extremes of bodily abjection in order to service of a politics of resistance that is tied, in each case, to the political context of the drama’s production. The Riot Act (1984), Seize the Fire (1989), and Medea (2010), share a focus on the degradation of oppressed political groups and feature characters who destabilize the status quo. Yet the impact of disruptive political actions is not ultimately made clear. We are left wondering at the conclusion of each tragedy if the momentous acts of defiance we have witnessed have any power to create systemic change within politically rigged systems. The two 1980s plays are discussed together and form a sequence, with The Riot Act overtly addressing the Northern Irish conflict and Seize the Fire encompassing a broader sweep of oppressive regimes. The politics of discrimination in Medea are illuminated by comparison with similar themes in Paulin’s Love’s Bonfire (2010). Unlike other Northern Irish adaptations of Greek tragedy, Paulin’s dramas, arrested in their political moments, present little hope for the immediate future. Yet in asking us to consider if individual sacrifice is enough to achieve radical change they maintain an open channel for political discourse.


2021 ◽  
Vol 235 ◽  
pp. 02046
Author(s):  
Chun Feng ◽  
Fei Lei ◽  
Zhijun Luo

With its advantages of low cost and high efficiency, e-commerce is not only favored by ordinary consumers, but also effectively promotes SMEs to find business opportunities and win the market. This article starts with the development scale of China’s e-commerce industry and the status quo of export trade, and measures the overall index of China’s e-commerce industry development level from 2008 to 2018 through empirical methods to analyze its impact on China’s export trade. The results show that the development level of the e-commerce industry has a significant positive impact on China’s export trade. Finally, it analyzes the existing problems in the development of China’s e-commerce industry.


Curationis ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Fourie ◽  
H. C. J. Van Rensburg

Problems have been accumulating in South African health care for well over three centuries yet when it comes to resolving the crisis by means of appropriate policy measures, one becomes aware of the powers at play and the interests at stake in maintaining the status quo, thus obstructing much initiative in the process of reform.


2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (22) ◽  
pp. 2423-2424
Author(s):  
Glenn E. Simmons

I am just starting my career as a cancer biologist, but I have always been a Black man in America. This means that I have always inhabited a world that generally disregarded my existence in some form or another. It is June 17th, 2020 and protests have been happening for weeks since the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The current state of America may be uneasy for some, but for many Americans, the looming threat of exclusion and violence has been an unwelcome companion since birth. This letter is not about a single person, but the Black academic’s experience of race inside and outside of the academy during a time of social upheaval. I have trained in a variety of institutions, big and small, and all the while acutely aware of the impact of my Blackness on my science. The intent of the following is to provoke the reader to reflect on how we as a nation can move toward radically positive change and not incremental adjustments to the status quo. The views expressed are my own and are the result of years of personal experience observing the anti-Black standard in America.


1979 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 331-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian L. D. Forbes

In recent times the historiography of the Wilhelmine Reich has clearly reflected the influence of Eckart Kehr and of later historians who have adopted and developed his work. The Rankean dogma of the Primat der Aussenpolitik (primacy of foreign policy) has been replaced by a new slogan, Primat der Innenpolitik (primacy of domestic policy). The resultant interpretive scheme is by now quite familiar. The social structure of the Bismarckean Reich, it is said, was shaken to its foundations by the impact of industrialization. A growing class of industrialists sought to break the power of the feudal agrarian class, and a rapidly developing proletariat threatened to upset the status quo. The internecine struggle between industrialists and agrarians was dangerous for both and for the state, since the final beneficiary might be the proletariat. Consequently agrarians and industrialists closed their ranks against the common social democrat enemy and sought to tame the proletariat, which had grown restive under the impact of the depression, by means of a Weltpolitik which would obviate the effects of the depression, heal the economy, and vindicate the political system responsible for such impressive achievements. Hans-Ulrich Wehler and others call this diversionary strategy against the proletarian threat social imperialism; and this, it is said, is the domestic policy primarily responsible for Wilhelmine imperialism.


2011 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Baldwin ◽  
Valia Kordoni

Our purpose in this special issue is partly to reflect on the status quo and, in the process, identify potential areas where greater crossover between the fields of linguistics and computational linguistics can and perhaps should occur. It is also, however, to highlight sub-areas of computational linguistics where that crossover is happening, and can be seen to have enhanced the linguistic and computational linguistic impact of the research.


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