Policy responses at the local level: saying “yes” to accelerated growth

icct Report, December 2016: Foreign Terrorist Fighters

Security and Human Rights ◽

10.1163/18750230-02701015 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 27 (1-2) ◽

pp. 148-186

Author(s):

Tanya Mehra

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Multidisciplinary Approach ◽

Local Level ◽

Terrorist Attacks ◽

Potential Threat ◽

Policy Responses ◽

Current Trends ◽

The Difference ◽

Rehabilitative Measures

This article is based on a paper which was developed for the Global Counterterrorism Forum’s Foreign Terrorist Fighters (ftf) Working Group. It takes stock of the current trends and dynamics related to the ftf phenomenon and identifies some of the gaps that still need to be addressed. The distinction between home-grown terrorists and (returning) ftfs is fading, the difference between isil/Da’esh inspired or directed terrorist attacks is becoming more fluid and the nexus between terrorism and crime is more prominent, which clearly indicates that terrorism can manifest itself in many different ways. The involvement of returning ftfs in some terrorist attacks is a stark reminder of the potential threat returning ftfs pose. The data also indicates a demographic change with a more prominent role of female ftfs and children being recruited and used in hostilities or involved in terrorist attacks. The current trends underline the need for a comprehensive, tailored and multidisciplinary approach including the involvement of stakeholders at the local level to adequately address the evolving aspects of the ftf phenomenon. This paper provides a short overview of policy responses which can broadly be grouped into preventive, criminal, administrative and rehabilitative measures. The ftf related responses could have several human rights implications and states are encouraged to develop a comprehensive approach to address the ftf phenomenon in full respect of human rights.

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Addressing inequalities in education: parallels with health

Social Determinantsof Health ◽

10.1332/policypress/9781447336846.003.0002 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Kirstin Kerr

Keyword(s):

Educational Inequality ◽

Local Level ◽

Educational Inequalities ◽

Policy Responses ◽

The Social ◽

Inequality In Education ◽

Underlying Causes ◽

Recent Policy

This chapter examines similarities in patterns of inequality in education and in health. Using England as a case study, it considers broad patterns of educational inequality and recent policy responses to these, emphasising the need for greater understanding of, and engagement with, the underlying causes of educational inequalities. The chapter first provides an overview of patterns of inequality in educational outcomes before discussing policy responses to educational inequalities in England. It argues that a central part of efforts to address educational inequalities must be for education, as a field, to think and act more comprehensively in ways that parallel thinking about the social determinants of health. It also highlights the important role of schools in leading the development of innovative responses to educational inequalities at a local level and concludes with an analysis of overlaps between educational and health inequalities and the responses needed to address these.

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A Patchwork of Intra-Schengen Policing: Border Games over National Identity and National Sovereignty

Theoretical Criminology ◽

10.1177/1362480619871615 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 24 (1) ◽

pp. 110-131 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Maartje Van der Woude

Keyword(s):

National Identity ◽

National Security ◽

Local Level ◽

State Power ◽

European Level ◽

National Sovereignty ◽

Member States ◽

Freedom Of Movement ◽

Policy Responses

By focusing on these “article 23 SBC checks”, this article will argue that the Schengen Agreement and the Schengen Border Code are—and always have been—incomplete policy responses to the tension that was felt from the very beginning of “Schengen” between (national) security and freedom of movement. In fact, by drawing from the work of Wonders on the flexibilization of state power which interlinks with Mofette’s and Valverde’s work on jurisdiction and interlegality as well as with the ideas around conscious incompleteness of agreements and regulation, the article will argue that member states as well as enforcement agencies have been consciously using the interplay between the normative regime on the European level and the normative regime and implementation and execution thereof on the national and local level.

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Deliberate Differentiation by the Chinese State: Outsourcing Responsibility for Governance

The China Quarterly ◽

10.1017/s0305741019000420 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 240 ◽

pp. 880-905

Author(s):

Taiyi Sun

Keyword(s):

Civil Society ◽

Public Goods ◽

Field Experiment ◽

Local Governments ◽

Local Level ◽

Civil Society Organizations ◽

Advocacy Groups ◽

Government Officials ◽

Policy Responses ◽

Chinese State

AbstractDo authoritarian governments’ responses towards different civil society organizations (CSOs) reflect policy differentiations? Building on the existing literature of graduated control, diversification of civil society, and consultative authoritarianism, this paper utilizes an online field experiment,1 and interviews with government officials and CSO leaders to demonstrate that local governments have the tendencies to intentionally treat different CSOs with different policy responses, referred to as “deliberate differentiation” in this paper. However, contrary to what the existing literature would suggest, this study reveals that at the local level, such differentiation is driven more by the state's interest in extracting productivity and outsourcing responsibility for the provision of public goods and less by the state's need to acquire information from CSOs, including politically sensitive advocacy groups.

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The Effect of Shelter-in-Place Orders on Social Distancing and the Spread of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Study of Texas

Frontiers in Public Health ◽

10.3389/fpubh.2020.596607 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 8 ◽

Author(s):

Marco A. Castaneda ◽

Meryem Saygili

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

Local Level ◽

New York Times ◽

The State ◽

County Level ◽

Social Distancing ◽

The Public ◽

Policy Responses ◽

Current State ◽

Daily Data

Objectives: We study how the state-wide shelter-in-place order affected social distancing and the number of cases and deaths in Texas.Methods: We use daily data at the county level. The COVID-19 cases and fatalities data are from the New York Times. Social distancing measures are from SafeGraph. Both data are retrieved from the Unfolded Studio website. The county-level COVID-related policy responses are from the National Association of Counties. We use an event-study design and regression analysis to estimate the effect of the state-wide shelter-in-place order on social distancing and the number of cases and deaths.Results: We find that the growth rate of cases and deaths is significantly lower during the policy period when the percentage of the population that stays at home is highest. The crucial question is whether the policy has a causal impact on the sheltering percentages. The fact that some counties in Texas adopted local restrictive policies well before the state-wide policy helps us address this question. We do not find evidence that this top-down restrictive policy increased the percentage of the population that exercised social distancing.Discussion: Shelter-in-place policies are more effective at the local level and should go along with efforts to inform and update the public about the potential consequences of the disease and its current state in their localities.

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A place-based approach to population sustainability: Demographic and economic change at the local level in Fife, Scotland

Local Economy The Journal of the Local Economy Policy Unit ◽

10.1177/02690942211057439 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 026909422110574

Author(s):

David McCollum ◽

Hebe Nicholson ◽

Paula Duffy

Keyword(s):

Economic Change ◽

Local Level ◽

Population Ageing ◽

National Scale ◽

Policy Responses ◽

Policy Debates ◽

Demographic Challenges ◽

Local Stakeholders ◽

Population Sustainability ◽

Policy Measures

Population sustainability is a prevalent yet nebulous concept within academic and policy debates surrounding the nature and consequences of demographic and economic change. This research seeks to add nuance to understandings of population sustainability in ageing societies. The fiscal challenges posed by population ageing mean that more and more states are implementing specific policies in response to it, with limited degrees of success thus far. This investigation examines place-based understandings of population sustainability on the part of local stakeholders in a region of Scotland, a country facing significant demographic challenges and which is enacting policy measures specifically aimed at promoting population sustainability. The findings suggest that the on-the-ground realities of population sustainability are nuanced and complex. As such, there is scope for greater attention to the diversity and complexities of population and economic change at the sub-national scale in broader academic conceptualisations of and policy responses to the increasingly pressing issue of population sustainability.

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Local newspapers and coronavirus: conceptualising connections, comparisons and cures

Media International Australia ◽

10.1177/1329878x20956455 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1329878X2095645

Author(s):

Kristy Hess ◽

Lisa Jane Waller

Keyword(s):

Government Policy ◽

News Media ◽

Local Level ◽

Media Industry ◽

Community Newspapers ◽

Policy Responses ◽

Local Newspapers ◽

The Social ◽

Essential Services ◽

Analogical Approach

Within weeks of the nation-wide COVID-19 shutdown, more than 200 regional and community newspapers across Australia announced they could no longer keep their presses running due to the unprecedented crisis. A drain in advertising spend, a broken business model and the refusal of digital behemoths to pay for content were blamed for their collapse, ironically as audiences’ demand for credible news and information soared across the globe. There is no doubt the COVID-19 crisis has widened existing, deep cracks in the news media industry. In response this article sets out to explore possible solutions and strategies for local newspapers in the post-pandemic media landscape. We take an analogical approach to argue some of the issues that emerged during COVID-19 and strategies used to fight the global health pandemic also present valuable lessons for the preservation of public interest journalism and news at the local level. We conceptualise five coronavirus-related themes that resonate with a much-needed innovations agenda for local newspapers in Australia: (1) support for essential services, (2) warnings of complacency against an evolving biological threat, (3) appreciating the power of the social (4) coordinated government/policy responses and (5) ‘we are all in this together’.

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Do You Want to See the Tree? Ignore the Forest

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1027/1618-3169/a000240 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 61 (3) ◽

pp. 205-214 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Nicolas Poirel ◽

Claire Sara Krakowski ◽

Sabrina Sayah ◽

Arlette Pineau ◽

Olivier Houdé ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Visual Recognition ◽

Local Level ◽

Local Information ◽

Visual Environment ◽

Global Information ◽

Focus Attention ◽

Global Level ◽

Hierarchical Stimuli ◽

Priming Paradigm ◽

The One

The visual environment consists of global structures (e.g., a forest) made up of local parts (e.g., trees). When compound stimuli are presented (e.g., large global letters composed of arrangements of small local letters), the global unattended information slows responses to local targets. Using a negative priming paradigm, we investigated whether inhibition is required to process hierarchical stimuli when information at the local level is in conflict with the one at the global level. The results show that when local and global information is in conflict, global information must be inhibited to process local information, but that the reverse is not true. This finding has potential direct implications for brain models of visual recognition, by suggesting that when local information is conflicting with global information, inhibitory control reduces feedback activity from global information (e.g., inhibits the forest) which allows the visual system to process local information (e.g., to focus attention on a particular tree).

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