Mužskosť ako diskurzívna konštrukcia. Nemecké literárnovedné analýzy mužskosti v 21. storočí

The first studies which introduced the category of masculinity into German literary science in the context of contemporary interdisciplinary gender research, perceiving it as a social and cultural construct, were published shortly after the turn of the century. The paper lays out the basic theoretical approaches to masculinity in literary texts presented in relevant German literary works of the second decade of the 21st century. In contemporary literary analyses, it is not only a question of revealing masculine power structures in literary texts, but also of criticising one-sided and stereotypical constructs of male identity. Attention is focused on the combination of masculinity and emotionality, but also on the relationship between masculinity and fatherhood or on the literary reflections of the changes in the conventional status of man as a breadwinner, public actor and creative intellectual. Literary masculinities are understood as products of literary narratives.

Rent-seeking Practices in the Housing Development Approval Process

The lengthy, uncertain and onerous planning approval process in various countries around the world has prompted frustrated housing developers to seek influence by paying off approving officials. A research was conducted in Malaysia to investigate in greater detail this rent-seeking phenomenon by asking six fundamental questions. Rich data were obtained by interviewing 22 housing developers and consultants who work for them. Developers engage in rent-seeking behaviours to overcome genuine and artificial hurdles when applying for development approval. All approving agencies, though not all their staff, reciprocate to such behaviours. The monetary value of the payoffs depend on the rank of the public actor and project features. The higher the office holder is, the larger is the expected pay-off. Big and complex development projects in urban centres have a higher pay-off tag. Low value items television sets and car repairs serve to support normal lifestyle whereas high value items such as golfing and holiday trips support lavish lifestyle. Establishing good rapport is a prerequisite to the rent seeking and giving exchange. Elements which help foster reciprocity by state actors to housing developers’ rentseeking behaviours include low civil servant salary and high living cost, and weak punitive action. Common ethnicity facilitates nuanced communication by the latter, but common religion may dampen the former’s enthusiasm to accept any payoffs. Eventually house buyers and the general public are the casualties by virtue of higher house prices and substandard infrastructure. Given the combination of inherent features of the planning system and certain elements that impinge on state actors both of which promote rent-seeking practices, a realistic law enforcement solution is to prioritise illicit market-state exchanges involving grossly distorting rent extraction and pecuniary rewards of significant magnitude rather than total eradication of the practice.

From Open Data to Smart City

This article is the result of an action-research carried out on the territory of the Rennes metropolis (SmartRennes project). We propose a description and analysis of the governance of the smart city based on qualitative approach. Contrary to the idea of a centralised smart city strongly managed by one public actor, we note that the Rennes-style Smart city is the result of governance distributed between different poles. We provide complementary methods of description of this governance: a historical vision of smart city’s actions and measures, an analysis of the values and issues raised by the stakeholders and a network analysis of governance. Based on qualitative surveys, these results demonstrate the value of a monographic approach in the study of urban innovation and smart city.

Public Agency in Changing Industrial Circular Economy Ecosystems: Roles, Modes and Structures

Value creation in the circular economy (CE) is a result of co-creation. In the industrial context, the theme of collaboration has been studied extensively on a company-to-company basis, but related public agency remains unexplored. Still, circular actions happen in societal contexts where public actors and logics are constantly present, enabling the change toward more sustainable actions. For systematic discovery of the topic, the following research questions are considered: (a) What roles can a public actor have in an industrial CE ecosystem? (b) What are the relationship modes a public actor can have? (c) In what kind of actor structures may the roles and modes occur? The study relies on two multiple case studies in the international (Study 1) and Finnish eco-industrial parks (Study 2) contexts. The results are based on qualitative content analysis conducted with both primary and secondary data. As a result, six distinct roles—operator, organizer, financer, supporter, policymaker, and regulator—and two modes—facilitative and dirigiste—for public agency in industrial CE ecosystems were identified. The roles depict the concrete means used by public actors whereas the modes depict the characteristics of these actions. Finally, exemplar organization models for the recognized roles and modes in industrial CE ecosystems were examined. The study provides insights into how public actors can contribute to sustainability transitions among their territories and helps practitioners to better understand the premises for public–private interaction.

Bridges to sustainable health systems: public-private interaction for market access

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the market access (MA) of ethical drugs, the underlying public-private interaction (PPI) between pharmaceutical companies and public actors, and the implications for the sustainability of the health system. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative interpretivist approach was selected. Interviews were carried out as the primary method of data collection: 27 interviews were conducted with 13 key informants from the pharmaceutical industry. Findings The perspective of MA evolves from formal negotiation with the public actor at various levels to PPI, which should include aspects of interactions with other actors in the network. Conceptualization in these terms is fundamental because it allows an understanding of the implications in terms of the sustainability of the health system. Originality/value The paper discusses MA by highlighting the shift from a “market access as formal negotiation” perspective to a “public-private interaction for market access” perspective, in which the focus is on the content of the interaction and the representation of the network of relevant actors for MA. It contributes to the debate on the sustainability of health systems by suggesting the adoption of a medium-to-long-term approach to economic and social sustainability based on PPI; it adopts an industrial marketing approach and contributes to the recent debate on PPI.

The Governance of Public–Nonprofit Service Networks: Four Propositions

By integrating literature on governance processes with literature on network integration, we investigate the governance of mandated lead-organization public–nonprofit service networks. We argue that the relationship between the governing public actor and the participating nonprofit organizations as well as the governance processes involved are dependent upon the level of integration that is established in the network in terms of the centrality of the leading public agency and the density among the nonprofit actors. We formulate four propositions and distinguish archetypes of governance that guide further research and practice.

Representation of Children’s Views in Finnish Newspaper Media Across Three Decades

As the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) celebrates its thirtieth anniversary,it is relevant to explore how understandings of children’s rights have appeared duringthese three decades. As a key public actor in society, the media provides an interesting field inwhich to study the salience of children’s rights in societal and public discussions. Thus, in this article,we examine how children’s views are represented in «Helsingin Sanomat», the main nationalnewspaper of Finland, in 1997, 2007, and 2017. This examination is based on articles 12 and 13of the UNCRC, where it is stated that children have the right to express themselves in all mattersaffecting them. The data collection for this article was based on a systematic random samplingmethod of these issues in the years mentioned above, and a systematic content analysis was alsoapplied. The results show that, somewhat surprisingly, in 2017, less than a third of news storiesconcerning childhood and children reported children’s views on the matter, while in 2007, almosthalf of news stories reported on children’s views. Based on the data, it appears that macro-levelissues remained within adults’ sphere of discussion during these years.