Political public relations within foreign affairs: Ireland’s public diplomacy campaign for a security council seat

This study investigates the storytelling discourse in Ireland’s public diplomacy campaign to win a seat on the UN Security Council. It dissects public relations materials to ascertain what system, identity, and issue narratives constructed the narrative component of Ireland’s UNSC campaign. Results of a strategic narrative analysis suggest Ireland built the campaign around themes of Empathy, Partnership, and Independence. System narratives featured Ireland as a revisionist actor seeking to rebalance the UN toward more equal and participatory representation. Identity narratives emphasized Ireland as a small island-state whose past of economic hardship and struggle for independence drives its desire to help those in need globally. Issues narratives highlighted Ireland’s commitment to global peacekeeping, fighting climate change, and promoting humanitarian aid through gender equality, food security, and refugee assistance. Findings elucidate the strategic storytelling role of public relations and public diplomacy communications within foreign affairs.

Barriers and facilitators to the introduction of import duties designed to prevent noncommunicable disease in Tonga: a case study

Background In Tonga, import duties were lowered on tinned fish and seafood in 2013 and raised on soft drinks, dripping and other animal fats. Additional import duties were applied to soft drinks and dripping and other fats in 2016 and duties were also applied to high fat meats, mutton flaps and turkey tails. The objective of this study was to describe barriers to and facilitators of these import duties from a policy-maker perspective. Methods A case study was conducted to analyse implementation of policies originally modelled by the Pacific Obesity Prevention in Communities project to reduce mortality in the Kingdom of Tonga. Policymakers (n = 15) from the Ministries of Revenue, Health, Finance and Labour and Commerce involved in the development and implementation of Tonga’s food-related policies participated in key-informant interviews. Results The main facilitator of import duties were strong leadership and management, cross-sector collaboration, awareness raising and advocacy, nature of the policy, and the effective use of data to model policy impacts and inform the general public. The absence of clear lines of responsibility and a decline in collaboration over time were identified as barriers to implementation of the import duties. Conclusion In a small Island state implementing import duties to prevent non-communicable disease can be straight forward providing policymakers and the community have a shared understanding of the health and economic costs of NCDs.

Shared Mobility Services in Malta: User Needs and Perceptions

Malta is a small island state home to nearly half a million inhabitants. It is a major tourist destination in the Mediterranean, with visitor numbers totalling 2.6 million in 2018. There are 799 vehicles for every thousand inhabitants and the modal split shows a 74.6% reliance on the car. Ownership and use of private cars are at an all-time high in Malta. This dependence on the car has increased congestion and given rise to parking issues in many localities, taken-up limited space in the urban area, increased air and noise pollution, and created accessibility problems for pedestrians and cyclists. Shared mobility services (bicycle, car, scooter sharing) have been introduced in Malta very recently. Malta is one of the case study sites in the CIVITAS DESTINATIONS project, which focused on sustainable mobility in tourist destinations. As part of the project, a survey was conducted to understand the awareness and acceptance of these shared mobility services by Maltese residents (n = 1,100). Insights from this survey used to understand user needs and perceptions in light of such mobility innovations and what might encourage people to start using them as an alternative to private car use.

Civil service in an emerging democracy: the case of the Maldives

<p>The establishment of a statutory civil service has been an important element of democratisation in the small-island state of the Maldives, an emerging democracy. “Civil service”, “democratisation”, and “small-island states” are terms discussed widely in the contemporary literature, though not in an integrated manner. By synthesising these terms using relevant literature, in a case study approach with qualitative data, this study primarily aims to analyse the development of a civil service model as part of a process of democratisation in the Maldives. The study also aims to identify how certain features of small-island states could affect both democratisation and the development of a civil service in the Maldives. The analysis reveals five main findings. Firstly, the development of the civil service model and the negotiation of the civil service Act were part of the democratisation process but were in the hands of political elites and involved no wider public participation. This was consistent with Welzel's model of mass responsive democratisation and Huntington's transplacement model - which proposes that while mass protests and other expressions of opinion are important in triggering democratisation processes, these processes are at some stage moved forward by negotiation or consensus within or between elites. Secondly, the civil service Act that emerged was a mix of pre-existing codes of practice which had some specifically Maldivian elements but drew on other regional administrative codes, together with borrowings based on research into the current civil service laws of other countries. The result was a law which was founded on some principles commonly described as “Weberian” but adapted to Maldivian circumstances. Thirdly, the choices that the lawmakers made regarding the civil service model were motivated by a number of different considerations but the dominant agenda was securing a politically neutral civil service largely insulated from the direct patronage of the political executive. This was a result of a wider elite negotiation on the future extent of executive power. Thus, the issue in drafting that turned out to be most important was setting the boundary between the political arm and administrative arm of the executive; many detailed provisions that were not relevant to the dominant agenda were carried over from previous Maldivian codes or drawn from the codes of other jurisdictions, in either case with little debate. Fourthly, the transition to democracy is not complete in the Maldives. The process is still relatively unstable and fragile. In particular, although the civil service is now more firmly founded in law and there is less scope for arbitrary political intervention, there is a continuing contest between the political arm and the administrative arm of the executive over the boundaries between them. This ongoing contest continues to be critical for the prospects of stable democratisation. Lastly, islandness and smallness did not have a major direct bearing on the process of democratisation in the Maldives, although islandness was to some extent a factor in the design of the constitutional architecture. Furthermore, smallness and social cohesiveness is presently not enough to counter the growing polarisation of society which may constitute a threat to the stability of this fragile emerging democracy. The Maldives being a small-island state did not have a significant impact on the choice of the civil service model. Nonetheless, the social closeness of the small Maldivian society may inhibit the separation of public and private life that is important for institutionalising a professional civil service. These findings and others in this research add to the body of exemplary knowledge regarding the relationship between the main theoretical concepts of civil service, democratisation, and small-island states, and demonstrate that the framework developed from this scholarship is useful for other case studies embodying similar concepts.</p>

Civil service in an emerging democracy: the case of the Maldives

<p>The establishment of a statutory civil service has been an important element of democratisation in the small-island state of the Maldives, an emerging democracy. “Civil service”, “democratisation”, and “small-island states” are terms discussed widely in the contemporary literature, though not in an integrated manner. By synthesising these terms using relevant literature, in a case study approach with qualitative data, this study primarily aims to analyse the development of a civil service model as part of a process of democratisation in the Maldives. The study also aims to identify how certain features of small-island states could affect both democratisation and the development of a civil service in the Maldives. The analysis reveals five main findings. Firstly, the development of the civil service model and the negotiation of the civil service Act were part of the democratisation process but were in the hands of political elites and involved no wider public participation. This was consistent with Welzel's model of mass responsive democratisation and Huntington's transplacement model - which proposes that while mass protests and other expressions of opinion are important in triggering democratisation processes, these processes are at some stage moved forward by negotiation or consensus within or between elites. Secondly, the civil service Act that emerged was a mix of pre-existing codes of practice which had some specifically Maldivian elements but drew on other regional administrative codes, together with borrowings based on research into the current civil service laws of other countries. The result was a law which was founded on some principles commonly described as “Weberian” but adapted to Maldivian circumstances. Thirdly, the choices that the lawmakers made regarding the civil service model were motivated by a number of different considerations but the dominant agenda was securing a politically neutral civil service largely insulated from the direct patronage of the political executive. This was a result of a wider elite negotiation on the future extent of executive power. Thus, the issue in drafting that turned out to be most important was setting the boundary between the political arm and administrative arm of the executive; many detailed provisions that were not relevant to the dominant agenda were carried over from previous Maldivian codes or drawn from the codes of other jurisdictions, in either case with little debate. Fourthly, the transition to democracy is not complete in the Maldives. The process is still relatively unstable and fragile. In particular, although the civil service is now more firmly founded in law and there is less scope for arbitrary political intervention, there is a continuing contest between the political arm and the administrative arm of the executive over the boundaries between them. This ongoing contest continues to be critical for the prospects of stable democratisation. Lastly, islandness and smallness did not have a major direct bearing on the process of democratisation in the Maldives, although islandness was to some extent a factor in the design of the constitutional architecture. Furthermore, smallness and social cohesiveness is presently not enough to counter the growing polarisation of society which may constitute a threat to the stability of this fragile emerging democracy. The Maldives being a small-island state did not have a significant impact on the choice of the civil service model. Nonetheless, the social closeness of the small Maldivian society may inhibit the separation of public and private life that is important for institutionalising a professional civil service. These findings and others in this research add to the body of exemplary knowledge regarding the relationship between the main theoretical concepts of civil service, democratisation, and small-island states, and demonstrate that the framework developed from this scholarship is useful for other case studies embodying similar concepts.</p>

The New ‘Other’: Islamic Radicalisation and De-radicalisation in Sri Lanka

One of the key terms to understand the nature of violence and conflicts world over is ‘radicalisation’. Sri Lankan case is instructive in understanding various dimensions of Islamic radicalisation and de-radicalisation, especially in South Asia. Though a small state, Sri Lanka has witnessed three radical movements, the latest being Islamic that got manifested in deadly Easter attacks of April 2019. Eco-space for Islamic radicalisation existed in the island for decades, but the rise of ultra-Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism post the end of Eelam War IV acted as a breaking point. The underlying context is perceived insecurity feeling projected by hardline Sinhala-Buddhist elements. In due course, the primary ‘other’ shifted from Tamils to Sri Lankan Muslims. Apart from inter-communal dissonance, international jihadist network also fostered radicalisation process in the island’s Muslim community. Political instability due to co-habitation issues between the then president and the prime minister was a perfect distraction from the core security and development issues. In response to the violent manifestation of radicalisation, de-radicalisation measures by the successive Sri Lankan governments were mostly military in nature. Socio-economic and political components of Islamic de-radicalisation are at the incipient stage, if not totally missing. The article suggests wide-ranging measures to address the issue of radicalisation in the island state.