Provision of services by public administration: models of regulation

In order to ensure the full realization of rights and freedoms, legitimate interests of citizens, to meet public needs in Ukraine, public authorities (mainly executive) and local governments, as well as other authorized public administration entities provide more than 130 items of various services. The application of laws in the field of service provision is primarily defined by part three of Art. 42 of the Constitution of Ukraine, according to which the state protects the rights of consumers, controls the quality and safety of products and all types of services and works, promotes the activities of public consumer organizations. The article analyzes various types of services provided to individuals and legal entities on the basis of the analysis of the norms of the current legislation of normative-legal acts and scientific views. It is determined that the development of democratic principles in the activities of executive bodies, local governments, their officials is closely linked with the efficiency and quality of services that must meet European principles and standards. It is established that in the current laws and regulations and in domestic legal science there are different approaches to understanding the concept of «service», features of the procedural part of service provision, as well as the fact that current legislation does not contain a definition of «service procedure» and a clear procedure services by public administration. Attention is drawn to certain shortcomings in the regulation of the procedure for providing services by executive authorities and local governments, and it is emphasized that despite certain legal and political difficulties in implementing the Law of Ukraine «On Administrative Procedure», a number of comments were made by the Chief Scientific Expert. The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted this law, which is an important step towards systemic public administration reform and bringing it closer to European principles and standards, and the shortcomings of the public administration's relations with citizens can be eliminated by making a number of changes and additions.

Similar But Different: Constructing Equivalent Protest Measures in Comparative Research

Protest emerges in different forms in different countries. A strategy is presented here to deal with country-specific forms of protest by developing equivalent instead of identical measures in 13 advanced democracies around the world. The main substantive results show, first, a clear distinction between direct forms of protest and organizational actions. Yet the specific compositions of these two modes differ between countries. Second, common cross-national subsets of items comprising only three forms for direct actions (demonstrating, petitioning, boycotting) and also for organizational protest (humanitarian/charitable, self-help, consumer organizations). Third, several forms of protest can be used as country-specific expansions of the common three-item sets. Apparently, constructing equivalent instead of identical measures for protest is most important for the detection of relatively small sets of common cross-national indicators and for the accompanying disclosure of country-specific forms of protest. Due to the small percentages of protesters, applying equivalent measures and identical measures of protest largely produces the same results for the positioning of countries from a cross-national perspective.

Consumer Policy and European Union Politics

The rise of consumer policy is inextricably linked to the emergence of the consumer society after the Second World War. From the mid-1970s the EU became engaged in the issue. It used first and foremost legal means, directives, and regulations. The actors were no longer nation-states, governments, national parliaments, national courts, and national consumer organizations; they became the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union, the European Court of Justice, European organizations, research institutions, and consultancy firms, which interact in a multilevel economy and society.

A European questionnaire-based study on population awareness and risk perception of antimicrobial resistance

ABSTRACT To tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is of outmost importance for the general population to understand the severity and the relevance of different routes of transmission. Respondents of different age groups, educational and occupational backgrounds, area of living, diet and household composition participated in an online survey with questions concerning socio-demographics, personal use of antibiotics, awareness, general knowledge, sources of information, behavior and attitude toward antibiotics, and risk perception on antibiotics and AMR. Descriptive and logistic regression analyses were carried out. A total of 1252 respondents, mainly from EU, participated in the survey. About 57.7% declared they consumed antibiotics in the last year and some misguided behaviors were identified, especially for those not having a food- or health-related background, who more frequently failed in giving the right answer to uncontroversial true/false questions (ANOVA, P < 0.05). The youngest respondents were less confident on the information received from traditional media (OR = 0.425), the national government (OR = 0.462), and consumer organizations (OR = 0.497), while they frequently obtained information from social networks and online media, which could therefore be exploited as a channel for educational campaigns targeting this population group. New measures, strategies and policy agenda at a European level aimed at improving awareness on AMR among targeted community groups must be taken into consideration.

An Integrated Multi-Attribute Model for Evaluation of Sustainable Mobile Phone

Consumer preferences in sustaining and designing a product are a vital driver in a company’s long-term strategy. In a supply chain management (SCM), realizing, configuring and analyzing consumer point of view and making sure the product is highly fitted to the consumer dimensions are essential responsibilities. For this purpose, a sustainable supply chain (SSC) can define a platform in order to reach consumer satisfaction. This paper examines the utility and factors related to the use of a phone in the market incorporating sustainable attributes. We firstly identify main factors and indicators that influence the selection of a sustainable phone. Thereafter, we propose decision analysis tools as decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) and analytical hierarchy process (AHP) for the realization of the cause, effect, and interrelation of the indicators. The comparisons between them report a high similarity while best and worst indicators are in the same positions. Best worst method (BWM) is then formulated in order to achieve optimal ranking and to express the importance. Counting on this information is of special relevance in marketing decision-making, where companies must look for competitive advantages prioritizing its product attributes, attending both to resources and to consumer preferences. For this project, we invited six experts in various areas (information science, consumer organizations, fair trade, public administration-cooperation office and telecommunication) to participate and fill the questionnaires. The results are analyzed by market experts in terms of comparison and conformity.