Charitable Organizations in Singapore: From Clan Based to State Facilitated Endeavors

Singapore, with a five million population, has a vibrant charitable sector with over 2000 registered charities attracting approximately USD$2.18 billion in annual donations. How did Singapore’s charitable sector achieve its current level when it has been, in the past, segregated along mainly religious, race and clan-based communities? This paper explores this question by piecing together the current ecosystem, regulatory and tax infrastructure which facilitates the charitable sector in Singapore. Central to the development of the charitable sector has been the Singapore government’s role of being a gatekeeper, regulator and enabler of charities. In analysing the government’s role in the charitable sector, this paper locates Singapore’s charitable sector within the literature on government and nonprofit organization relations which has been described at times being cooperative, complementary, confrontational, and co-optive. These astute observations ring true with respect to the Singapore government’s relationship with the charitable sector. For organizations which pursue purposes consistent with state’s vision of public good, the state’s relationship with these charities has been largely cooperative and complementary. However, even within charities considered by the state to further public good, there is a strong element of co-optation where the state wields significant direct and indirect power over the charitable sector by way of provision of funding and board composition. In contrast, nonprofit organizations which engage in aims inconsistent with the state’s perceived public interest are, by law, unable to register itself as charities and enjoy corresponding fiscal benefits. Such nonprofit organizations also typically do not receive state funding. This demonstrates the confrontational nature of the state’s relationship with these nonprofit organizations. Through a close analysis of the laws, codes, media reports and academic literature on the charitable sector, the central thesis of this paper is that the charitable sector in Singapore is essentially a state facilitated endeavor.

When Cities Lobby

When Cities Lobby tells the story of what happens when city officials rely on professional lobbyists to represent their interests in state government. In a political environment characterized by intense urban-rural polarization and growing hostility between cities and state legislatures, the ability to lobby can be a powerful tool for city leaders seeking to amplify their voices in state politics. The cities that lobby at the highest rates include large urban centers that have been historically underrepresented in our federal system—and, increasingly, blue-leaning cities engaged in preemption battles against Republican-led legislatures. But high-income places have also figured out how to strategically use lobbyists, and these communities have become particularly adept at lobbying to secure additional grant money and shift state funding in a direction that favors them. How did we end up with a system where political officials in different levels of government often choose to pay lobbyists to facilitate communication between them, and are the potential benefits worth the costs? When Cities Lobby demonstrates that the answer is deeply rooted in both the nature of the federal system and the evolution of the professional lobbying industry. And while some states have recently debated measures to restrict lobbying by local governments, these efforts will likely do more harm than good in the absence of structural reforms to the lobbying industry more broadly.

The Institutionalisation of Political Science in Post-Yugoslav States: Continuities and New Beginnings

The institutionalisation of political science in the four countries emerged after the break-up of Yugoslavia—Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, and Slovenia—has not been a uniform process. Despite the discipline’s foundation at almost the same time and in the same state, there are considerable differences among them in terms of stability and autonomy. Some of the most salient, albeit certainly not all are numbers of institutions, professors, students and study programs, development of political science fields, state funding, and hiring procedure. Our investigation on the roots of differences between them covers two periods. The first one deals with the Communist Yugoslav period, when the first institutions of political science were founded, and the discipline went through three decades of development under autocratic regime. Second period deals with the following three decades of institutionalisation, from first multi-party elections in 1990 until 2020. We finish the chapter with concluding remarks which could also be perceived as a guideline for further research in the field.

Organization of the state dental service in Ukraine: historiographical analysis

Background. The historical chronology of the creation of the state system of dental care organization in Ukraine reveals the first steps of formation and further development of dentistry as an integral part of scientific and clinical medicine. In 1920, a fundamentally new organizational and economic model of dental care with state funding was introduced in Ukraine, which provided for the coverage of the entire population of the country. The long history is the best basis for the analysis of the passed evolutionary way of dental care development in Ukraine. Objective: to study the historiography of dentistry formation as an independent discipline of scientific and clinical medicine, organization of the state dental service in Ukraine based on the results of research of archival materials of normative-legal documents. Materials and methods. Materials of the main archival documents of the Central State Historical Archives of Ukraine in Kyiv for 1919–1920 were studied and analyzed. The materials of the study were the main normative-legal documents regulating dental care: Order of the People’s Commissariat of Health of the Ukrainian SSR No. 3 dated April 5, 1920 “On the organization of dental sections at the provincial health departments”; Order of the People’s Commissariat of Health of the Ukrainian SSR No. 4 dated April 10, 1920 “On the organization of state dental care”; instructions to paragraph 2 of the Order of the People’s Commissariat of Health of the Ukrainian SSR No. 4 dated April 10, 1920 “On state dental care”; instruction “On the issues of the decision of dentistry in state outpatient clinics” approved by the People’s Commissariat of Health of the Ukrainian SSR on April 13, 1920; “Plan for the organization of dental care provision to the population of Ukraine” approved by the People’s Commissariat of Health of the Ukrainian SSR on June 26, 1920. The research methods were the historical one, which involves the study of the creation, formation and development of objects in chronological order; and historical-critical one, which involves the extraction of reliable information from historical sources, the reconstruction of historical facts in order to study the history of events. Results. On the basis of archival materials of normative-legal documents of the Central State Historical Archives of Ukraine in Kyiv, a historical-critical analysis of the creation of the state system of dental service organization in Ukraine for 1919–1920 was conducted. The orders, directives and instructions approved by People’s Commissariat of Health of the Ukraine reveal the first steps in building and implementing a new organizational and economic model of dental care. The created healthcare system was based on the provision of social medical dental care by the state to every citizen of Ukraine. Conclusions. Historiographical analysis of normative-legal documents reveals the formation of dentistry as an integral part of highly qualified medical care. The introduced new organizational and economic model of providing social dental care to the population of Ukraine was based on the principles of gratuitousness, availability, proficiency, integration and prevention of dental diseases. Dental care for the population of Ukraine included the construction of a network system of state outpatient clinics, dental departments as a part of multidisciplinary clinics, dental departments and offices in hospitals, which were subordinated to the provincial odontological subdepartments and the People’s Commissariat of Health of the Ukrainian SSR. The new model of state regulation was grounded on the planning and control of the provision of social dental care on the basis of state funding. The main tasks of the created healthcare system were the introduction of organizational measures aimed at mass coverage of free dental care for the citizens of Ukraine. An important area of dental care was the creation of school offices for the prevention of dental di-seases of the oral cavity in organized children’s groups.

The State and Media Financing: Bulgaria and the Mediterranean Media Model

The study examines the applicability of the comparative framework of Hallin and Mancini (2004) with their three models of media‒politics relations (Mediterranean or Polarized Pluralist Model, North/ Central European or Democratic Corporatist Model, and North Atlantic or Liberal Model) to a post-communist country like Bulgaria. The answer to this question is sought through a study of the role of the state in relation to the media system, particularly the state funding of media in its various forms. The analysis leads to the conclusion that the Bulgarian media system is most similar to the Mediterranean Model due to the power of еtatism (the state finances public media, and the government buys media love through state and municipal advertising). At the same time, ineffective media regulation favors media concentration and the instrumentalization of large government media groups. The processes of rapid liberalization, privatization and deregulation in the media sector after 1989 brought Bulgaria closer to the countries included in the Liberal Model. Therefore, its media system is hybrid to some extent, but the similarities with the Mediterranean Model remain in the lead. The clientelism through which they are tamed, resp. corrupt the media, brings Bulgaria closer to the Latin American countries where it is much stronger than in the Mediterranean region (Hallin, Papathanassopoulos 2002). The concluding part predicts that, in the future, the analysis of the Bulgarian media system can be enhanced with a study of the applicability of the concepts of the “captured liberal model” of the media (in Latin America) and the “captured media” in the post-communist world.

RATING OF THE SCIENTIFIC INFLUENCE OF ST. PETERSBURG PSYCHOTHERAPISTS WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF EVIDENCE-BASED PSYCHOTHERAPY

За последние 30 лет произошла революция в психотерапии под влиянием методологии доказательного подхода. Во всем мире преимущество получили методы доказательной психотерапии. Скорость внедрения результатов исследований в практику предопределяется феноменом научной влиятельности. Для определения данного феномена автор предлагает использовать процентиль по ядру РИНЦ. Впервые был составлен рейтинг научной влиятельности психотерапевтов Санкт-Петербурга. Всего в рейтинге представлен 31 специалист (процентиль по ядру РИНЦ от 4 до 51) из 12 организаций, расположенных по средней величине процентиля по ядру РИНЦ следующим образом: 1) Научный медицинский исследовательский центр психиатрии и неврологии им. В. М. Бехтерева — 16,1; 2) Петербургская школа психотерапии и психологии отношений — 17,7; 3) Санкт-Петербургский государственный педиатрический медицинский университет — 31,0; 4) Северо-Западный государственный медицинский университет им. И. И. Мечникова — 39,5. Важно отметить, что в рейтинг попали негосударственные организации, которые в отличие от государственных не имеют доступа к прямому государственному финансированию научных исследований. Методы психотерапии в рейтинге представлены следующим образом: психоанализ — 8,7; позитивная динамическая психотерапия — 17,7; когнитивно-поведенческая психотерапия — 31,3 и личностно-ориентированная (реконструктивная) — 31,6. Полученные результаты могут учитываться руководителями коммерческих структур, учреждений здравоохранения и образования при составлении перспективных планов, а также врачами и психологами при выборе образовательных программ профессиональной переподготовки в области психотерапии. Over the past 30 years, there has been a revolution in psychotherapy under the influence of evidence-based methodology. The methods of evidence-based psychotherapy have gained preference all over the world. The rapidity of implementation of research results into practice is predetermined by the phenomenon of scientific influence. To determine this phenomenon, the author proposes to use the RSCI (Russian Science Citation Index) core percentile. The rating of the scientific influence of St. Petersburg psychotherapists was compiled for the first time ever. In total, the rating includes 31 specialists (with the 133 RSCI core percentile from 4 to 51) representing 12 organizations, ranked in accordance with the average RSCI core percentile as follows: 1) Scientific Medical Research Center for Psychiatry and Neurology named after V. M. Bekhterev — 16.1; 2) St. Petersburg School of Psychotherapy and Psychology of attitudes — 17.7; 3) St. Petersburg State Pediatric Medical University — 31.0; 4) North-Western State Medical University named after I. I. Mechnikov — 39.5. It is important to note that the rating includes non-governmental organizations, which, unlike state-run ones, do not have access to direct state funding for scientific research. Methods of psychotherapy are presented in the rating as follows: psychoanalysis — 8.7; positive dynamic psychotherapy — 17.7; cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy — 31.3, and personality-oriented (person-centered) psychotherapy — 31.6. The results obtained can be taken into account by the heads of commercial structures, health care and educational institutions when drawing up long-term plans, as well as by doctors and psychologists when choosing educational programs for professional retraining in the field of psychotherapy.

‘You couldn’t have a heart and want to strike’: Mobilising workers in England’s social care sector

This article uses John Kelly’s mobilisation framework, with its foundational concept of injustice, to explore workers’ propensity towards unionism in England’s outsourced social care sector. Drawing on 60 interviews with union organisers and officers, care workers, support workers and care company managers, this research highlights the difficulties of union organising in the sector and explores theorisations of mobilising. The research contends that for mobilisation theory to provide insight into relationships between work and unionism, varieties of injustice and collectivism need to be contextualised. Paid care provision generates both employment-related injustices and care-related injustices, which lead to divergent collective identities and attitudes towards unions. An absence of a coherent entity for workers to attach blame to – within a context where private providers frequently remain reliant on state funding levels – affects whether injustice and collectivism progress to mobilisation and unionisation.

Investments in higher education during distance learning

Финансирование высшего образования в России осуществляется из государственных и негосударственных источников. Государственное финансирование образования традиционно является доминирующим, однако его размеры недостаточны для надлежащего материально технического обеспечения учебного процесса и научно-технической деятельности. Проблема финансирования высших учебных заведений в России особенно обострилась вследствие финансово-экономического кризиса. С одной стороны, сократились возможности бюджетного финансирования ВУЗОВ и, как следствие, уменьшился уровень заработной платы профессорско-преподавательского состава, снизились расходы бюджета на научные исследования, приостановления бюджетного финансирования льготных кредитов на строительство жилья для научно педагогического и педагогического персонала; с другой стороны – относительно возросла доля средств специального фонда, заработанных собственно государственными высшими учебными заведениями. На данный момент большинство механизмов финансирования высшего образования, доказавших свою эффективность в развитых странах, все еще недостаточно распространены в России или недостаточно активно используются высшими учебными заведениями. В частности, практически не используется потенциал грантового финансирования, государственно-частного партнерства и тому подобное. Ученые называют практическое отсутствие в стране практики государственного стимулирования участия корпоративного сектора в финансировании высшего образования «структурными перекосами», хотя мировой опыт свидетельствует об осознании на микроуровне важности компетенции работников, что стимулирует инвестирование работодателями в повышении их образовательного уровня. Financing of higher education in Russia is carried out from state and non-state sources. State funding of education has traditionally been dominant, but its size is insufficient for proper material and technical support of the educational process and scientific and technical activities. The problem of financing higher education institutions in Russia has become particularly acute due to the financial and economic crisis. On the one hand, the possibilities of budgetary financing of universities have decreased and, as a result, the salary level of the teaching staff has decreased, budget expenditures on scientific research have decreased, the suspension of budget financing of concessional loans for housing construction for scientific, pedagogical and teaching staff has decreased; on the other hand, the share of special fund funds earned by state higher education institutions themselves has increased relatively. At the moment, most of the mechanisms for financing higher education that have proven their effectiveness in developed countries are still not widespread enough in Russia or are not actively used by higher education institutions. In particular, the potential of grant financing, public-private partnerships, and the like is practically not used. Scientists call the practical absence in the country of the practice of state incentives for the participation of the corporate sector in the financing of higher education "structural distortions", although world experience shows that the micro-level awareness of the importance of the competence of employees, which encourages employers to invest in improving their educational level.

GRADUATION FROM HIGHER AND VOCATIONAL SCHOOL DOES NOT ALWAYS END WITH EMPLOYMENT

In the article - "Graduation from higher and vocational school does not always end with employment" – it is discussed the problem of youth unemployment and the reason for this is the incompatibility of the higher and vocational education system in Georgia with the requirements of the labor market. Youth is dominant among the unemployed population of Georgia. They graduate from vocational schools or colleges but do not work according to their professions, it is proved by labor market research, as well as by 2017 survey of the Department of Vocational Education of the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia, in their conclusion part it was mentioned 56.2 graduates in employment. The authors of the article mention the demand-labor imbalance in the labor market as the first reason for youth unemployment, and one of the reasons for the lack of knowledge and skills, in the market among young people is the lack of state funding for education. With such small resources, higher and vocational schools find it difficult to hire highly qualified professional teachers, which obviously reduces the quality of teaching. Due to low funding, vocational and higher education institutions (especially in the private sector) make savings mainly on wages. An hourly salary of 5-10 GEL is considered as normal with them. Only the low-qualified teachers come to such payment. The authors consider that almost half of the graduates are unemployed precisely because of their low level of knowledge. The authors consider the test method of knowledge control as the second reason and believes that this method makes it impossible to assess the depth of knowledge of the student. The article ends with a summarizing conclusion. Key words: Employment; Youth unemployment; High education; Vocational education; Labor Market; Demand-supply in the labor market.

A deeper look at predicting outcomes for future educators

Because educator licensure is gained by passing licensure examinations in most states, scores on high stakes tests are determining factors as to who will be teaching in America’s classrooms. Due to a focus on program graduation rates, state funding cuts, and production of quality teachers, it is vital that teacher preparation programs produce the quality and quantity of teachers needed to fill the educator deficit. The purpose of the study was to analyze various performance variables of pre-service teachers enrolled in a teacher preparation to identify predictors of performance on required licensure examinations. Findings of the study revealed there is a relationship between Praxis I: Reading scores and Praxis II scores, Praxis I: Writing scores and Praxis II scores, Praxis I: Mathematics scores and Praxis II scores, GPA and Praxis II scores, and CBASE scores and Praxis II scores. The strongest relationships that exist between variables and Praxis II scores are initial Praxis I: Reading scores and overall CBASE scores.