Government Paternalism

Author(s):  
Julian Le Grand ◽  
BILL New

Should governments save people from themselves? Do governments have the right to influence citizens' behavior related to smoking tobacco, eating too much, not saving enough, drinking alcohol, or taking marijuana—or does this create a nanny state, leading to infantilization, demotivation, and breaches in individual autonomy? Looking at examples from both sides of the Atlantic and around the world, this book examines the justifications for, and the prevalence of, government paternalism and considers when intervention might or might not be acceptable. Building on developments in philosophy, behavioral economics, and psychology, the book explores the roles, boundaries, and responsibilities of the government and its citizens. It investigates specific policy areas, including smoking, saving for pensions, and assisted suicide. It then discusses legal restrictions on risky behavior, taxation of harmful activities, and subsidies for beneficial activities. The book pays particular attention to “nudge” or libertarian paternalist proposals that try to change the context in which individuals make decisions so that they make the right ones. It argues that individuals often display “reasoning failure”: an inability to achieve the ends that they set themselves. Such instances are ideal for paternalistic interventions—for though such interventions might impinge on autonomy, the impact can be outweighed by an improvement in well-being. Finally, the book rigorously considers whether the state should guide citizen decision making in positive ways and if so, how this should be achieved.

2018 ◽  
pp. 178-189
Author(s):  
Grishma Soni ◽  
Prachi V. Motiyani

As we all know that food is the basic Human necessity, without which no one can survive. Making food available for all the people in the world is now days becoming a complex issue. The availability food is decreasing as a result of increase in population that will result in food insecurity or malnutrition. Indian constitution interprets the right to food as part of right to life, which is fundamental human right. Change in climate, the impact of globalization, Global Warming, Carbon dioxide emission from fuel etc. also affects the right to food of many people. This paper examines the situation prevailing in India and looks into the obligations and initiatives by the government of India to ensure Right to Food and make suggestions for addressing the issue and examines the possible way to make the scheme workable to achieve food security.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (21) ◽  
pp. 9091
Author(s):  
Luis Miguel Lázaro Lorente ◽  
Ana Ancheta Arrabal ◽  
Cristina Pulido-Montes

There is a lack of concluding evidence among epidemiologists and public health specialists about how school closures reduce the spread of COVID-19. Herein, we attend to the generalization of this action throughout the world, specifically in its quest to reduce mortality and avoid infections. Considering the impact on the right to education from a global perspective, this article discusses how COVID-19 has exacerbated inequalities and pre-existing problems in education systems around the world. Therefore, the institutional responses to guaranteeing remote continuity of the teaching–learning process during this educational crisis was compared regionally through international databases. Three categories of analysis were established: infrastructure and equipment, both basic and computer-based, as well as internet access of schools; preparation and means of teachers to develop distance learning; and implemented measures and resources to continue educational processes. The results showed an uneven capacity in terms of response and preparation to face the learning losses derived from school closure, both in low-income regions and within middle- and high-income countries. We concluded that it is essential to articulate inclusive educational policies that support strengthening the government response capacity, especially in low-income countries, to address the sustainability of education.


Author(s):  
Julian Le Grand ◽  
Bill New

This chapter examines the impact of actual paternalistic policies, some of which are already in place, on well-being and autonomy. It first describes four principal types of policy intervention that are potentially paternalistic: interventions involving legal restrictions, those involving taxation or negative financial incentives, those involving subsidy or positive financial incentives, and those arising from libertarian paternalism. It then discusses three areas where paternalistic interventions could be (and/or have been) considered: smoking, pensions, and assisted suicide. In the cases of pensions and smoking, the chapter argues that there is evidence of significant reasoning failure, which justifies some form of intervention, provided that the impact on autonomy can be minimized. With respect to assisted suicide, there is relatively little evidence of reasoning failure for the individuals concerned, and hence paternalistic intervention to prevent assistance is not justified.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 242-250
Author(s):  
Novianita Rulandari

Since the beginning of 2020, the world has been shocked by the Corona Virus Diseases (Covid-19) pandemic which has spread rapidly throughout the world, infecting more than forty million people, causing more than one million deaths by October 2020. This pandemic has an impact on the education world where all levels of education from kindergarten to postgraduate are required to carry out distance learning through online-based classes. Various problems then arise in distance learning because not all students have the facilities and infrastructure needed in its implementation, even causing casualties. This research examines and discusses the phenomenon of Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on the education world in Indonesia. The purpose of this research is to find out government policies in overcoming learning problems in a pandemic situation and finding the right policies so that learning can still be carried out effectively, how the supervision needs to be done by the government so that teaching and learning activities can run effectively and how the teaching communication strategies in using online media so that the delivery of material by lecturers can be easily understood by students. From the research results, several conclusions were obtained. The Minister's policy to carry out the online learning process still faces various challenges in its implementation; The learning process from home must always be monitored through good cooperation between students, parents, and educators, especially for primary and secondary education; and by using some appropriate learning communication strategies, the online teaching and learning process can be carried out more effectively because it does not take up a lot of time and space.


Author(s):  
Engr. Jose Marie B. Dipay

This disquisition was conducted to design, flourish and beforehand perpetrate the Automatic Trash Segregator with Mobile Application. Specifically, it identified the dilemmas encountered in dissociating the junk by the purchasers; the right features of the machine that can be improved to address the dilemmas encountered, and the respondents’ level of espousal of the user toward the enhanced machine when it comes into the field of performance, portability, operability, and efficacy. Today, solid-junk management conditions in the developing world are often quite dire and reminiscent of those found in the enhanced world several generations ago. As the world becomes more urbanized and enhanced consumption rates are on the rise. An inevitable consequence of more consumption is the rapid increase in thenumber of junk that is produced. The impact of inadequate solid junk management practices on natural and human environments is now being acknowledged.Qualitative-quantitative disquisition method was used for this disquisition that utilized a researcher made questionnaires and many interview questions. Traditional junk segregation that may lead to have poor junk disposal, filthiness all over the environment, destruction of the land that our farmers use to grant food for the country, burden of working on junk collection or landfill works and importance for the cleanliness of the country are the dilemmas encountered in dissociating the junk by the purchasers. There are many respondents for this disquisition; I have ten (10) street sweepers and six (6) janitor and janitress and fifty (50) trash collectors. The government or other authorities will accommodate the suitable use of the propose machine to avoid having a problem in dissociating. The schools should also be having a seminar about how the technology helps in make our life easier, with this, they will get an idea to improve or to grant better machine that the proponent made. It is also recommended to have a sensor for biodegradable, thus having more classification in automatic way. There are many possible suitable features for this machine that can be enhanced to address the dilemmas encountered, first is the use of sensors to make the process of junk segregation quick and easy. Next one is the last possible feature, saying that successfully enhanced unit would be a stand-alone machine that will allow a one-at-a-time processing of solid junks, dissociating biodegradable and non-biodegradable. The respondents’ ratings for Automatic Trash Segregator with Mobile Application were extremely receivable in terms of performance (4.62); portability (4.52); operability (4.68); and efficacy (4.59).


Author(s):  
Jacques de Jongh

Globalisation has had an unprecedented impact on the development and well-being of societies across the globe. Whilst the process has been lauded for bringing about greater trade specialisation and factor mobility many have also come to raise concerns on its impact in the distribution of resources. For South Africa in particular this has been somewhat of a contentious issue given the country's controversial past and idiosyncratic socio-economic structure. Since 1994 though, considerable progress towards its global integration has been made, however this has largely coincided with the establishment of, arguably, the highest levels of income inequality the world has ever seen. This all has raised several questions as to whether a more financially open and technologically integrated economy has induced greater within-country inequality (WCI). This study therefore has the objective to analyse the impact of the various dimensions of globalisation (economic, social and political) on inequality in South Africa. Secondary annual time series from 1990 to 2018 were used sourced from the World Bank Development indicators database, KOF Swiss Economic Institute and the World Inequality database. By using different measures of inequality (Palma ratios and distribution figures), the study employed two ARDL models to test the long-run relationships with the purpose to ensure the robustness of the results. Likewise, two error correction models (ECM) were used to analyse the short-run dynamics between the variables. As a means of identifying the casual effects between the variables, a Toda-Yamamoto granger causality analysis was utilised. Keywords: ARDL, Inequality, Economic Globalisation; Social Globalisation; South Africa


Author(s):  
_______ Naveen ◽  
_____ Priti

The Right to Information Act 2005 was passed by the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) Government with a sense of pride. It flaunted the Act as a milestone in India’s democratic journey. It is five years since the RTI was passed; the performance on the implementation frontis far from perfect. Consequently, the impact on the attitude, mindset and behaviour patterns of the public authorities and the people is not as it was expected to be. Most of the people are still not aware of their newly acquired power. Among those who are aware, a major chunk either does not know how to wield it or lacks the guts and gumption to invoke the RTI. A little more stimulation by the Government, NGOs and other enlightened and empowered citizens can augment the benefits of this Act manifold. RTI will help not only in mitigating corruption in public life but also in alleviating poverty- the two monstrous maladies of India.


Author(s):  
Xueli Wei ◽  
Lijing Li ◽  
Fan Zhang

Pumping elephantThe COVID-19 pandemic has adversely affected the lives of people around the world in millions of ways . Due to this severe epidemic, all countries in the world have been affected by all aspects, mainly economic. It is widely discussed that the COVID-19 outbreak has affected the world economy. When considering this dimension, this study aims to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the world economy, socio-economics, and sustainability. In addition, the research focuses on multiple aspects of social well-being during the pandemic, such as employment, poverty, the status of women, food security, and global trade. To this end, the study used time series and cross-sectional analysis of the data. The second-hand data used in this study comes from the websites of major international organizations. From the analysis of secondary data, the conclusion of this article is that the impact of the pandemic is huge. The main finding of the thesis is that the social economy is affected by the pandemic, causing huge losses in terms of economic well-being and social capital.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine V Talbot ◽  
Pam Briggs

Abstract People with dementia can experience shrinkage of their social worlds, leading to a loss of independence, control and reduced well-being. We used ‘the shrinking world’ theory to examine how the COVID 19 pandemic has impacted the lives of people with early to middle stage dementia and what longer-term impacts may result. Interviews were conducted with 19 people with dementia and a thematic analysis generated five themes: the forgotten person with dementia, confusion over government guidance, deterioration of cognitive function, loss of meaning and social isolation, safety of the lockdown bubble. The findings suggest that the pandemic has accelerated the ‘shrinking world’ effect and created tension in how people with dementia perceive the outside world. Participants felt safe and secure in lockdown but also missed the social interaction, cognitive stimulation and meaningful activities that took place outdoors. As time in lockdown continued, these individuals experienced a loss of confidence and were anxious about their ability to re-engage in the everyday practises that allow them to participate in society. We recommend ways in which the government, communities and organisations might counteract some of the harms posed by this shrinking world.


2021 ◽  
pp. 092405192199274
Author(s):  
Cathérine Van de Graaf

Fair procedures have long been a topic of great interest for human rights lawyers. Yet, few authors have drawn on research from other disciplines to enrich the discussion. Social psychological procedural justice research has demonstrated in various applications that, besides the final outcome, the manner in which one’s case is handled matters to people as well. Such research has shown the impact of procedural justice on individuals’ well-being, their acceptance of unfavourable decisions, perceptions of legitimacy and public confidence. The ECtHR has confirmed the desirability of these effects in its fair trial jurisprudence. Thus far, it remains unclear to what extent the guarantees offered by Article 6(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights (the right to a fair trial) coincide with the findings of empirical procedural justice research. This article aims to rectify this and uncover similarities between the two disciplines.


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