Pastoral Criticism, Structural Collaboration: The Role of Ecclesial Power Structures in Modernization and Economic Individualization

This article analyzes the complex processes of modernization and individualization, as well as how the church has structurally fostered individualization despite its public criticism. First, the article demonstrates how modernization and individualization have gradually restructured human self-understanding into an economic image of humanity: the human person as homo oeconomicus. Second, this article examines the church's relation to modernity, and specifically its critiques of liberalism and economic individualism. However, the church has often generated the conditions and structures for individualization, and by extension the processes of acceleration and economization of the life-world that it criticizes. Three areas in intra-ecclesial discourse that foster individualization are examined: the interiorization of faith, ecclesial centralization and clerical bureaucracy, and the promotion of corporatism and digital immediacy. The article concludes by examining recent papal efforts at structural reform and the degree to which they address previously entrenched problems and point toward a renewed, non-economic anthropology.

Corruption could derail Mauritanian president's agenda

Significance Despite significant progress on reform, serious grievances persist among sections of the population. Meanwhile, an ongoing corruption case against former President Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz presents challenges for the incumbent. Impacts Abdelaziz will remain in pre-trial detention after his lawyers failed in a fourth bid to secure his provisional release. Foreign coverage of Mauritania focuses on the Abdelaziz case, but domestically, social and economic justice matters at least as much. Addressing long-standing concerns, such as land rights and the legacy of past repression in the south, will require deep structural reform.

Performance Prediction of the Ferrous Metal Smelting and Rolling Processing Industry in Supply-Side Structural Reform in China

Supply-side structural reforms and environmental protection policies have a great impact on the ferrous metal smelting and rolling processing industry. This paper uses a grey model that introduces a fractional-order cumulative generating operator to study the development of ferrous metal smelting and rolling processing enterprises under the influence of supply-side structural reform in order to derive the future development trend of the industry. The forecast results show that from 2018 to 2022, the number of enterprises and substitute enterprises, inventory, finished products, and assets and liabilities decreases; the scale of income of metal smelting and rolling processing industry increases. The results can serve as a reference for policy makers and industry investors.

Has the Economic Structure Optimization in China’s Supply-Side Structural Reform Improved the Inclusive Green Total Factor Productivity?

One of the goals of China’s supply-side structural reform is to improve total factor productivity (TFP). Considering the problems of environmental deterioration and income disparity faced by China, this paper first incorporates environmental pollution and income disparity as undesirable outputs into the TFP analysis framework, and extends the concept of inclusive green TFP (henceforth IGTFP).We measure and analyze the IGTFP in China’s provinces from 1995 to 2017 using the Malmquist–Luenberger index, and then examine, for the first time, the impacts of economic structural optimization in the supply-side structural reform on the IGTFP. The results are shown as follows. First, China’s national IGTFP index is significantly smaller than the traditional TFP index. That is, the traditional TFP without the constraints of environmental pollution and income disparity overestimates China’s real TFP. Second, there are significant regional differences in China’s IGTFP, the average annual growth rate of IGTFP shows a gradual downward trend from east to west. This would further exacerbate the regional imbalance in China’s economic development. Third, among the structural factors in economic structure optimization, industrial structure and energy structure are negatively correlated with the IGTFP, while factor structure, labor structure and urban–rural structure are all positively correlated with the IGTFP. These results imply that the economic structure optimization driven by supply-side structural reform will improve China’s IGTFP.

Evaluating the structural reform of outpatient psychotherapy in Germany (ES-RiP trial) - a qualitative study of provider perspectives

Background Access to outpatient mental healthcare can be challenging for patients. In Germany, a national structural reform was implemented in 2017 to accelerate and enhance access to outpatient psychotherapy and reduce waiting times. During the first phase of the study ‘Evaluation of a structural reform of the outpatient psychotherapy guideline (ES-RiP)’ and embedded into a process evaluation, the implementation was to be evaluated through assessing general practitioners’ (GPs) and psychotherapists’ (PTs) perspectives regarding utilization of provided new measures, and perceived potential for optimization. Particular focus was on patients with a comorbidity of mental disorders and chronic physical conditions (cMPs). Methods This exploratory cross-sectional qualitative study used on-site and online focus group discussions and semi-structured telephone interviews with GPs and outpatient PTs. Generated data were analyzed using thematic framework analysis. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze participant characteristics collected via a socio-demographic questionnaire. Results Perspectives on the structural reform were heterogenous. GPs and PTs considered the component of timely initial psychotherapeutic assessment consultations beneficial. GPs disapproved of their deficits in detailed information about the structural reform and exchange with outpatient PTs. Improvement suggestions included structured short information exchange and joint quality circles. The overall number of available outpatient PTs in rural areas was perceived as insufficient. For patients with cMPs, GPs saw patient barriers for therapy access and continuity in low intrinsic motivation, physical impediments and older age. PTs also saw patient challenges regarding low intrinsic motivation and keeping scheduled appointments. They considered post-reform administrative efforts to be high and reported that the regulations (conformity) lead to planning difficulties and financial losses. Reform elements were tailored to fit in with PTs key therapy areas. Stronger networking and joint lectures were suggested as remedy for the currently still limited exchange with GPs. Unlike the GPs, PTs emphasized that accepting patients into psychotherapeutic treatment was independent of a possibly present chronic physical disease. Conclusions The findings contribute to understanding the integration of the delivered structural reform into daily care processes and provide an indication about reached targets and potential improvements. Further phases of the ES-RiP study can build on the findings and broaden insights. Trial registration Registration-ID DRKS00020344 (DRKS German Register of Clinical Trials.

Covid-19 as natural intervention: Guilt and perceived historical privilege contributes to structural reform under conditions of crisis

The Covid-19 pandemic has been described as an unmasking of persistent racialized inequalities linked to South Africa’s oppressive past. However, such observations lack empirical support. Here we examined whether Covid-19 lockdown conditions encouraged greater perceptions of continuing structural racism together with motivational and behavioral support for social justice, and whether guilt or empathic concern undergirded such responses. A national sample of White South Africans’ data suggest that the pandemic served as a natural intervention, fostering greater acknowledgment of structural racism and support for redress through increased awareness of historical privilege and guilt in response to Black hardship. Guilt furthermore predicted a social justice motivation in relief efforts, whereas empathic concern predicted only charity motivation. These results suggest that ‘White guilt’ is more consequential than empathic concern in contributing to structural reform, but would require longer-term processes to support the translation of its motivational push into sustainable contributions to social justice.