scholarly journals The effect of politician-constituent conflict on bureaucratic responsiveness under varying information frames

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annabelle Sophie Wittels
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Participation ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Us ◽  
Bureaucratic Responsiveness ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
The Uk

Public participation in rulemaking has long been regarded as an integral part of a functioning democracy. It is however unclear how governments and administrations influence the throughput of public participa- tion, and on a micro-level the decisions of bureaucrats tasked with acting upon such input. In representative democracies the policy positions of elected politicians can divert from public opinion. In addition, public participation initiatives do not commonly attract a fully representative set of society. Thereby demands from the participating public and political principals can diverge. Bureaucrats are then faced with conflicting input. Given bureaucrats’ discretion to manage public participation processes and their outputs, how can we expect them to act? Will they act accord- ing to the wishes of their political principal, will they side with the public or choose to divert. I use a survey experiment with senior bureaucrats in the US and the UK to test this. Further, I assess whether information frames alter such behaviour and whether this varies with the presence of citizen-politician conflict. I find that conflict leads bureaucrats to adopt more of an adviser role, but that information frames have no significant effect.

Archaeologists and the Dead

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Ethical Considerations ◽  
International Context ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Experience Effect

This volume addresses the relationship between archaeologists and the dead, through the many dimensions of their relationships: in the field (through practical and legal issues), in the lab (through their analysis and interpretation), and in their written, visual and exhibitionary practice--disseminated to a variety of academic and public audiences. Written from a variety of perspectives, its authors address the experience, effect, ethical considerations, and cultural politics of working with mortuary archaeology. Whilst some papers reflect institutional or organizational approaches, others are more personal in their view: creating exciting and frank insights into contemporary issues that have hitherto often remained "unspoken" among the discipline. Reframing funerary archaeologists as "death-workers" of a kind, the contributors reflect on their own experience to provide both guidance and inspiration to future practitioners, arguing strongly that we have a central role to play in engaging the public with themes of mortality and commemoration, through the lens of the past. Spurred by the recent debates in the UK, papers from Scandinavia, Austria, Italy, the US, and the mid-Atlantic, frame these issues within a much wider international context that highlights the importance of cultural and historical context in which this work takes place.

scholarly journals Regulating health professional scopes of practice: comparing institutional arrangements and approaches in the US, Canada, Australia and the UK

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Leslie ◽  
Jean Moore ◽  
Chris Robertson ◽  
Douglas Bilton ◽  
Kristine Hirschkorn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Professional ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Swot Analysis ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
Scope Of Practice ◽  
Comparative Case Study ◽  
Specific Reference ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Uk

Abstract Background Fundamentally, the goal of health professional regulatory regimes is to ensure the highest quality of care to the public. Part of that task is to control what health professionals do, or their scope of practice. Ideally, this involves the application of evidence-based professional standards of practice to the tasks for which health professional have received training. There are different jurisdictional approaches to achieving these goals. Methods Using a comparative case study approach and similar systems policy analysis design, we present and discuss four different regulatory approaches from the US, Canada, Australia and the UK. For each case, we highlight the jurisdictional differences in how these countries regulate health professional scopes of practice in the interest of the public. Our comparative Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT) analysis is based on archival research carried out by the authors wherein we describe the evolution of the institutional arrangements for form of regulatory approach, with specific reference to scope of practice. Results/conclusions Our comparative examination finds that the different regulatory approaches in these countries have emerged in response to similar challenges. In some cases, ‘tasks’ or ‘activities’ are the basis of regulation, whereas in other contexts protected ‘titles’ are regulated, and in some cases both. From our results and the jurisdiction-specific SWOT analyses, we have conceptualized a synthesized table of leading practices related to regulating scopes of practice mapped to specific regulatory principles. We discuss the implications for how these different approaches achieve positive outcomes for the public, but also for health professionals and the system more broadly in terms of workforce optimization.

scholarly journals Party Responsiveness to Public Opinion in Young Democracies

2021 ◽  
pp. 003232172199363
Author(s):  
Raimondas Ibenskas ◽  
Jonathan Polk
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
The Public ◽  
National Surveys ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Established Democracies ◽  
Expert Surveys ◽  
Cross National

Are political parties in young democracies responsive to the policy preferences of the public? Compared to extensive scholarship on party responsiveness in established democracies, research on party responsiveness in young democracies is limited. We argue that weaker programmatic party–voter linkages in post-communist democracies create incentives for parties to respond to their supporters rather than the more general electorate. Such responsiveness occurs in two ways. First, parties follow shifts in the mean position of their supporters. Second, drawing on the research on party–voter congruence, we argue that parties adjust their policy positions to eliminate previous incongruence between themselves and their supporters. Analyses based on a comprehensive dataset that uses expert surveys, parties’ manifestoes and election surveys to measure parties’ positions, and several cross-national and national surveys to measure voters’ preferences provide strong support for this argument.

THE LEGAL STATUS OF CENTRAL BANK INVESTMENTS UNDER ENGLISH LAW

1998 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 374-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
WILLIAM BLAIR
Keyword(s):  
Legal Status ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Central Banks ◽  
The Public ◽  
State Immunity ◽  
The Us ◽  
English Law ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Special Provision ◽  
Made In

Central banks have enormous sums of money in various forms of investments. When claims are made either against the banks themselves, or against other governmental bodies, issues arise as to whether these assets can be attached, and made available to satisfy judgments. The article explains how central banks are treated in English law. It explains the special provision made in respect of their assets under the State Immunity Act 1978. There is wide immunity from attachment, though questions can arise as to the ownership of such assets. The UK legislation is, in some respects, wider than its counterpart, the US Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act 1976. Recent case law is described in which the English courts have recognised that the public responsibilities of central banks have to be taken account of when determining the extent of their liability to attachment.

Revealing public opinion towards COVID-19 vaccines with Twitter data in the United States: a spatiotemporal perspective (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tao Hu ◽  
Siqin Wang ◽  
Wei Luo ◽  
Mengxi Zhang ◽  
Xiao Huang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
The United States ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Sentiment ◽  
Spatiotemporal Trends ◽  
The Us ◽  
Key Events

BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed a large, initially uncontrollable, public health crisis both in the US and across the world, with experts looking to vaccines as the ultimate mechanism of defense. The development and deployment of COVID-19 vaccines have been rapidly advancing via global efforts. Hence, it is crucial for governments, public health officials, and policy makers to understand public attitudes and opinions towards vaccines, such that effective interventions and educational campaigns can be designed to promote vaccine acceptance OBJECTIVE The aim of this study is to investigate public opinion and perception on COVID-19 vaccines by investigating the spatiotemporal trends of their sentiment and emotion towards vaccines, as well as how such trends relate to popular topics on Twitter in the US METHODS We collected over 300,000 geotagged tweets in the US from March 1, 2020 to February 28, 2021. We examined the spatiotemporal patterns of public sentiment and emotion over time at both national and state scales and identified three phases along the pandemic timeline with the significant changes of public sentiment and emotion, further linking to eleven key events and major topics as the potential drivers to induce such changes via cloud mapping of keywords and topic modelling RESULTS An increasing trend of positive sentiment in parallel with the decrease of negative sentiment are generally observed in most states, reflecting the rising confidence and anticipation of the public towards vaccines. The overall tendency of the eight types of emotion implies the trustiness and anticipation of the public to vaccination, accompanied by the mixture of fear, sadness and anger. Critical social/international events and/or the announcements of political leaders and authorities may have potential impacts on the public opinion on vaccines. These factors, along with important topics and manual reading of popular posts on eleven key events, help identify underlying themes and validate insights from the analysis CONCLUSIONS The analyses of near real-time social media big data benefit public health authorities by enabling them to monitor public attitudes and opinions towards vaccine-related information in a geo-aware manner, address the concerns of vaccine skeptics and promote the confidence of individuals within a certain region or community, towards vaccines

Big Data Analytics and the Accessibility of Public Inquiries

2020 ◽  
pp. 217-230
Author(s):  
Philip Garnett ◽  
Sarah M. Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Data Analytics ◽  
Big Data Analytics ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Uk

In this chapter, Garnett and Hughes focus on the role of big data in accessing information from public inquiries. Looking at the Chelsea Manning court martial in the US and the Leveson Inquiry in the UK, they argue that the manner in which information pertaining to inquiries is made public is, at best, unsatisfactory. They propose a variety of means to make this information more accessible and hence more transparent to the public through employing big data techniques.

The public face of interest group lobbying on immigration: Who responds to and who ignores what they say

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (5) ◽  
pp. 543-556
Author(s):  
Michael J Donnelly ◽  
Md Mujahedul Islam ◽  
Justin Savoie
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Immigration Policy ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Demographic Groups ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Unions ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Group Environments

A main avenue for influencing public policy available to unions and business is public opinion campaigning. As groups with substantial credibility in the minds of the public, unions and employers have the potential to move immigration attitudes and, thereby, have a long-term indirect influence on immigration policy. The article asks, first, who is (not) convinced by arguments from business or labour leaders and second, what messages are most convincing. We present the results of a survey experiment in three very different immigration regimes and interest group environments (Canada, the UK and Germany). The results suggest that the net effects of public arguments are small, but vary widely across demographic groups.

scholarly journals One issue, different stories: The construction of GMO issues on Chinese, American and British mainstream media portals

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 255-275
Author(s):  
Yiqin Ruan ◽  
Jing Yang ◽  
Jianbin Jin
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Genetically Modified Organisms ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
New York Times ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Uk

Biotechnology, as an emerging technology, has drawn much attention from the public and elicited hot debates in countries around the world and among various stakeholders. Due to the public's limited access to front-line scientific information and scientists, as well as the difficulty of processing complex scientific knowledge, the media have become one of the most important channels for the public to get news about scientific issues such as genetically modified organisms (GMOs). According to framing theory, how the media portray GMO issues may influence audiences’ perceptions of those issues. Moreover, different countries and societies have various GMO regulations, policies and public opinion, which also affect the way media cover GMO issues. Thus, it is necessary to investigate how GMO issues are covered in different media outlets across different countries. We conducted a comparative content analysis of media coverage of GMO issues in China, the US and the UK. One mainstream news portal in each of the three countries was chosen ( People's Daily for China, The New York Times for the US, and The Guardian for the UK). We collected coverage over eight years, from 2008 to 2015, which yielded 749 pieces of news in total. We examined the sentiments expressed and the generic frames used in coverage of GMO issues. We found that the factual, human interest, conflict and regulation frames were the most common frames used on the three portals, while the sentiments expressed under those frames varied across the media outlets, indicating differences in the state of GMO development, promotion and regulation among the three countries.

scholarly journals MAPPING LEGAL RESEARCH

2012 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 651-676 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathias M. Siems ◽  
Daithí Mac Síthigh
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
General Result ◽  
Law Schools ◽  
Legal Research ◽  
The Us ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Relationship

This article aims to map the position of academic legal research, using a distinction between “law as a practical discipline”, “law as humanities” and “law as social sciences” as a conceptual framework. Having explained this framework, we address both the “macro” and “micro” level of legal research in the UK. For this purpose, we have collected information on the position of all law schools within the structure of their respective universities. We also introduce “ternary plots” as a new way of explaining individual research preferences. Our general result is that all three categories play a role within the context of UK legal academia, though the relationship between the “macro” and the “micro” level is not always straight-forward. We also provide comparisons with the US and Germany and show that in all three countries law as an academic tradition has been constantly evolving, raising questions such as whether the UK could or should move further to a social science model already dominant in the US.

How Priming Innocence Influences Public Opinion on Police Misconduct and False Convictions

2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 174-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen M. Donovan ◽  
Charles F. Klahm
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Police Misconduct ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Police Use Of Force ◽  
The Public ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Nationally Representative

Issues of innocence have become more salient to the public in recent years, including the problem of police misconduct. However, citizens also tend to be supportive of the police, perceiving them as ethical, honest, and trustworthy. Using a survey experiment with a nationally representative sample, we explore the degree to which public opinion toward police misconduct is influenced by priming respondents on the issue of innocence. We find that reminding citizens of these issues increases their willingness to admit police misconduct that contributes to this problem by roughly 7 percentage points overall. Moreover, this effect is driven by conservatives and, to a lesser extent, moderates, presumably because liberals do not need priming. In contrast, the efficacy of the prime was not affected (i.e., moderated) by the race of the respondent. We place these results in the context of the current debate regarding police use of force as well as the ideological divide in rhetoric surrounding the recent string of high-profile police shootings.

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