scholarly journals Philanthropy to the rescue? Detroit’s schools and urban policymaking under austerity

2021 ◽  
pp. 239965442110426
Author(s):  
Dan Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Emergency Management ◽  
Urban Policy ◽  
Public School System ◽  
Democratic Accountability ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
Political Contributions ◽  
Municipal Governments ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
The Us ◽  
Decision Making Processes

As municipal governments in the US struggle under austerity, philanthropic elites have seemingly come to the rescue. Their money has not come without strings attached, however. By leveraging political contributions and donations to non-profits, philanthropists have moved beyond funding services and into the promotion of their preferred policies to cash-strapped municipalities. This has meant that the super-wealthy can now set the terrain of urban policy debates in cities struggling under austerity, ignoring democratic processes and often working to actively co-opt or stifle dissent. Through a study of the politics surrounding an impending bankruptcy of the Detroit public school system in the mid-2010s, this article provides crucial insights into the nature of elite-led urban policymaking under conditions of racialized austerity. Specifically, it focuses on how competing coalitions of liberal and conservative philanthropists used their wealth and influence to define the parameters of the policy debate over the future of Detroit’s schools. In doing so, these coalitions constrained the ability of residents with alternative visions to participate in decision-making processes and promoted a market-based system of schooling that served Detroit students poorly. This result must be understood as facilitated by the city’s context of racialized austerity, as manifested both through the financial crisis facing Detroit’s schools and through the system of emergency management used to take over Michigan’s majority-Black municipal institutions. These findings highlight that as philanthropic funding and influence have grown under conditions of racialized austerity, we must critically examine their effects on policymaking and on systems of democratic accountability.

scholarly journals Irreconcilable Differences? Tourette Syndrome, Disability, and Definition in Democratic Policy Debates

2009 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Newman
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Tourette Syndrome ◽  
Public School System ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
Explicit Model ◽  
Deliberative Process ◽  
The Public ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
Disability Law ◽  
Recent Policy

This paper examines a recent policy debate by means of a particular rhetorical approach. That approach, based on the strategic use of word definitions and repetition, is applied to the deliberative process underlying attempts to provide appropriate special education accommodations for students with Tourette Syndrome (TS) in the U.S. public school system. Thus, this paper’s goals are threefold: to present and apply an explicit model for arguing and advocating with definitions; to examine how an advocacy organization has participated in civic deliberations about disability law in the public schools; and to offer this approach as a model for future advocacy work.

The regional dimensions of state failure

2010 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 951-972 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEFAN WOLFF
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Analytical Model ◽  
International Security ◽  
State Failure ◽  
The Political ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
Empirical Observation ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
Definition Of

AbstractThe academic and policy debate on state failure reaches back to the early 1990s. Since then, its empirical and analytical sophistication has grown, yet the fact that state failure is a regional phenomenon, that is, that it occurs in clusters of geographically contiguous states, has largely been overlooked. This article first considers the academic and policy debates on state failure in the Political Science/International Relations and Development Studies literatures, and offers a definition of state failure that is derived from the means of the state, rather than its ends. Subsequently engaging with existing scholarship on the concept of ‘region’ in international security, the article develops a definition of ‘state failure regions’. Further empirical observation of such regions and additional conceptual reflections lead to establishing an analytical model for the study of state failure regions and allow indentifying a number of concrete gains in knowledge and understanding that can result from its application.

Local Governments

2021 ◽  
pp. 303-328
Author(s):  
Jeffrey S. Sutton
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Home Rule ◽  
Municipal Governments ◽  
Division Of Powers ◽  
The Us ◽  
One Step ◽  
Us Constitution ◽  
State And Local

The US Constitution never mentions “city,” “county,” or “township,” not even “local” or “municipal” governments. It concerns itself only with sovereign entities. Because local governments “cannot claim to be sovereigns” and because whatever power a local government has tends to flow from its state, that sounds like the end of the matter. But local governments still exercise sovereign powers, including law enforcement, eminent domain, education, taxing, zoning, and other indispensable “attributes of sovereignty.” Even if the US Constitution does not mention cities by name and even if cities cannot claim sovereign status, the federal charter still has ample consequences for municipal governments. This chapter takes vertical separation of powers one step further, to federalism within federalism. It explains the division of powers between state and local governments and chronicles disputes that have arisen between them. If, in modern America, like-minded people increasingly gravitate to similar states, the same is true within states, whether in cities, suburbs, or rural areas. Home rule and other local allocations of power sometimes allow people in these communities to express their distinct political preferences and live under them, too.

scholarly journals Examining the Effectiveness of Current Information Laws and Implementation Practices for Accountability of Outsourced Public Services

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan I Waugh ◽  
Stuart N Hodkinson
Keyword(s):  
Public Services ◽  
Government Expenditure ◽  
Regulatory Reform ◽  
Freedom Of Information ◽  
Democratic Accountability ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
Private Companies ◽  
Private Finance Initiative ◽  
Accountability Gap ◽  
Information Requests

Abstract Recent events linked to outsourcing such as the Grenfell Tower disaster in June 2017 and the collapse of Carillion in 2018 have again highlighted the challenges of maintaining democratic accountability of government expenditure where public services are contracted out to private companies. Although not the only focus of policy debate, pressure is building from both parliamentarians and the Information Regulator to extend UK information laws to the rapidly expanding number of private companies holding major public sector contracts. However, there remains a lack of evidence as to the nature and extent of this accountability gap and the implications for legislative reform. This article presents findings on non-compliance from a comprehensive field experiment using Freedom of Information requests on the Private Finance Initiative model of outsourcing. We demonstrate the limits of Freedom of Information as a tool for accountability and argue both legislative and regulatory reform are needed to enable proper public scrutiny of outsourced public services.

Emergency Preparedness

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter D Hurd ◽  
Stephenie Lukas ◽  
Ardis Hanson
Keyword(s):  
Emergency Management ◽  
Emergency Response ◽  
Emergency Preparedness ◽  
Disaster Preparedness ◽  
Community Pharmacists ◽  
Pharmacy Students ◽  
Rapid Responses ◽  
The Us ◽  
National Response

Pharmacists, and pharmacy students, normally have a limited exposure to the principles and structures of emergency management necessary to help coordinate effective and rapid responses. However, pharmacists’ work in disaster preparedness has taken many focuses. Community pharmacists develop emergency preparedness manuals, organize health-system pharmacy teams to respond to terrorism attacks, and identify essential actions for effective emergency response. This chapter focuses on the US health care system and emergency preparedness within its borders, starting with basic terminology and concepts and then moving onto the key components of U.S. National Response Frameworks and the role of pharmacists in the Frameworks and larger emergency preparedness and planning efforts.

scholarly journals Mapping gentrification and displacement pressure: An exploration of four distinct methodologies

Urban Studies ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 004209802090301 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Preis ◽  
Aarthi Janakiraman ◽  
Alex Bob ◽  
Justin Steil
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Urban Policy ◽  
Risk Models ◽  
Policy Documents ◽  
Theory To Practice ◽  
Housing Costs ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Cities

As housing costs continue to increase across many cities in North America and Europe, local governments face pressure to understand how housing’s rising cost is changing neighbourhoods and to ensure that everyone can access a home they can afford. To confront displacement concerns, cities are adapting models developed within academia to identify neighbourhoods that may be susceptible to gentrification and displacement. We compare four gentrification and displacement risk models developed by and for the US cities of Seattle, Washington; Los Angeles, California; Portland, Oregon; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and apply all four methodologies to one city, Boston. We identify the geographic areas of agreement and disagreement among the methods. The comparison reveals striking differences between the models, both in inputs and outputs. Of the 18 variables considered among the four models, only two variables appear in all four models. In the resulting maps, the four methods identified between 25 and 119 of the 180 Boston census tracts as at risk of gentrification and displacement, or as currently gentrifying. There are only seven tracts that all four models agreed were either gentrifying or at risk of gentrification and displacement. The findings indicate a need for cities to consider critically the assumptions of the models that are included in urban policy documents, as indicators and thresholds have major impacts on how neighbourhoods in the liminal space of gentrification and displacement are characterised. This novel comparison of United States local government analyses of gentrification provides insight as modelling moves from theory to practice.

scholarly journals The Post-Coronavirus World in the International Tourism Industry: Application of the Theory of Planned Behavior to Safer Destination Choices in the Case of US Outbound Tourism

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (18) ◽  
pp. 6485
Author(s):  
Heesup Han ◽  
Amr Al-Ansi ◽  
Bee-Lia Chua ◽  
Beenish Tariq ◽  
Aleksandar Radic ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Planned Behavior ◽  
Planned Behavior ◽  
Subjective Norm ◽  
Tourism Industry ◽  
Perceived Knowledge ◽  
The Us ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Travel Decision ◽  
Psychological Risks ◽  
Psychological Risk

The tourism industry has been seriously suffering from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis ever since its outbreak. Given this pandemic situation, the major aim of this study is to develop a conceptual framework that clearly explains the US international tourists’ post-pandemic travel behaviors by expanding the theory of planned behavior (TPB). By utilizing a quantitative process, the TPB was successfully broadened by incorporating the travelers’ perceived knowledge of COVID-19, and it has been deepened by integrating the psychological risk. Our theoretical framework sufficiently accounted for the US tourists’ post-pandemic travel intentions for safer international destinations. In addition, the perceived knowledge of COVID-19 contributed to boosting the prediction power for the intentions. The associations among the subjective norm, the attitude, and the intentions are under the significant influence of the tourists’ psychological risks regarding international traveling. The comparative criticality of the subjective norm is found. Overall, the findings of this study considerably enhanced our understanding of US overseas tourists’ post-pandemic travel decision-making processes and behaviors.

America's health care dilemma: not a pretty sight

2007 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-346
Author(s):  
DAVID WILSFORD
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
Us Congress ◽  
Critical Junctures ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Right

As the American right wing’s control of national (and local) politics implodes in the United States, there is the inevitable hope wafting in the air as policy specialists and other political activists on the other side of the divide anticipate capturing the US presidency at the end of 2008 to go with the center-left’s majorities won in the US Congress at the end of 2006. And so, health care reform is once again on the march! Alas, if Max Weber was wise to have observed that ideas run upon the tracks of interests, implying clearly that some good ideas die their death because they do not find the right track of interests, while some tracks of interests go nowhere for lack of the right idea, the health policy debate still provides a Technicolor demonstration that the mish and mash of this and that is not yet pointing the country in any particular direction, regardless of election outcomes in 2006 and 2008. Worse yet, in spite of the great sociologist Reinhard Bendix’s demonstration in his masterwork Kings orPeople (1978) that non-incremental transformations often occur at critical junctures of a nation’s history due to the diffusion effects of ideas from abroad, there is no evidence in the current (or past) American debate that the country has ever learned anything at all or thinks it has anything at all to learn from the way these problems are grappled with, and more successfully, elsewhere. (Oh, let’s just take Japan, France, Germany, Spain, Canada, the UK, and a handful of other countries as quick examples.)

Assessing Hospital Disaster Readiness Over Time at the US Department of Veterans Affairs

2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Der-Martirosian ◽  
Tiffany A. Radcliff ◽  
Alicia R. Gable ◽  
Deborah Riopelle ◽  
Farhad A. Hagigi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Phase I ◽  
Emergency Management ◽  
Phase Ii ◽  
Veterans Affairs ◽  
Assessment Tools ◽  
Department Of Veterans Affairs ◽  
The Us ◽  
Two Phases ◽  
Hospital Readiness ◽  
Over Time

AbstractIntroductionThere have been numerous initiatives by government and private organizations to help hospitals become better prepared for major disasters and public health emergencies. This study reports on efforts by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Veterans Health Administration, Office of Emergency Management’s (OEM) Comprehensive Emergency Management Program (CEMP) to assess the readiness of VA Medical Centers (VAMCs) across the nation.Hypothesis/ProblemThis study conducts descriptive analyses of preparedness assessments of VAMCs and examines change in hospital readiness over time.MethodsTo assess change, quantitative analyses of data from two phases of preparedness assessments (Phase I: 2008-2010; Phase II: 2011-2013) at 137 VAMCs were conducted using 61 unique capabilities assessed during the two phases. The initial five-point Likert-like scale used to rate each capability was collapsed into a dichotomous variable: “not-developed=0” versus “developed=1.” To describe changes in preparedness over time, four new categories were created from the Phase I and Phase II dichotomous variables: (1) rated developed in both phases; (2) rated not-developed in Phase I but rated developed in Phase II; (3) rated not-developed in both phases; and (4) rated developed in Phase I but rated not- developed in Phase II.ResultsFrom a total of 61 unique emergency preparedness capabilities, 33 items achieved the desired outcome – they were rated either “developed in both phases” or “became developed” in Phase II for at least 80% of VAMCs. For 14 items, 70%-80% of VAMCs achieved the desired outcome. The remaining 14 items were identified as “low-performing” capabilities, defined as less than 70% of VAMCs achieved the desired outcome.Conclusion:Measuring emergency management capabilities is a necessary first step to improving those capabilities. Furthermore, assessing hospital readiness over time and creating robust hospital readiness assessment tools can help hospitals make informed decisions regarding allocation of resources to ensure patient safety, provide timely access to high-quality patient care, and identify best practices in emergency management during and after disasters. Moreover, with some minor modifications, this comprehensive, all-hazards-based, hospital preparedness assessment tool could be adapted for use beyond the VA.Der-MartirosianC, RadcliffTA, GableAR, RiopelleD, HagigiFA, BrewsterP, DobalianA. Assessing hospital disaster readiness over time at the US Department of Veterans Affairs. Prehsop Disaster Med. 2017;32(1):46–57.

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