Representative Bureaucracy, Institutional Support, and Clientele Need: The Case of Undocumented Students

The theory of representative bureaucracy posits that passive representation is associated with improvements in policy outcomes for represented groups. This research examines the institutional conditions under which representative bureaucracy is enhanced or limited. It posits that the benefits of representation will be enhanced when institutional supports are stronger and when clientele need is greatest. Using a unique longitudinal, multi-level dataset, this paper tests competing theoretical conditions (including resource constraints, and task difficulty) under which representative bureaucracy is enhanced or constrained. The analysis tracks student-level performance of 400,000 undocumented students in Texas public schools from 2003 to 2011 providing a powerful empirical test as well as practical policy implications for administrators. It finds that the effects of representation are strongest when resources are abundant and clientele need is greatest. This suggests representative may be even more valuable to organizations than previously thought.

Institutional Rent in Metallurgy: Ways of Use

The article describes the possible use of institutional rent of the largest metallurgical companies associated with their non-market advantages. The author identifies the channels for obtaining such rent, including differences in the tax burden, difference in the rates of involved financial resources for companies operating in different institutional conditions, state support and benefits from peculiarities of the vertical organization of production. Some estimates of institutional rent are obtained and questions are raised about the income and expenses level, fair for the economy, of the companies that receive it. The directions, in which large companies spend the received rent, are highlighted; it is emphasized that withdrawal of "windfall revenues" can be made only after they are compared with non-market expenses of companies, imputed by the state. At the same time, information on such costs is scattered, inaccurate and therefore requires serious assessment and monitoring. The author substantiates an approach wherein the state and big business are interested to seek a mutually beneficial use of the received institutional rent.

The Reorientation of Thailand’s National R&D Programmes - Limits and Challenges

<p>Since 2016 Thailand has recognised a significant transition in research and innovation policy, with government increasingly acknowledging the importance of national R&amp;D programmes and favourable institutional conditions as determinants to overcome middle income trap. Drawing a lesson-learned from successful experiences of South Korea and Japan, the Thai government decided to experiment the national large-scaled mission-oriented R&amp;D programme, known as ‘Spearhead R&amp;D Programme’. This novel innovation financing scheme was designed to accelerate the commercialisation and economic impact of R&amp;D outputs. From the outset, it was clear that the outcome and impact of Spearhead R&amp;D Programme was yet to be realized. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the reorientation of Thailand’s research and innovation landscape with the focus on the efficiency of operation in relation to the objective of the Spearhead R&amp;D Programme. It is found that the Spearhead R&amp;D Programme is equipped with four novel conceptual and operational features including strategic national STI agenda, R&amp;D commercialization, multi-year budget allocation and proactive research management. Yet, there were also potential limits and challenges that need to be addressed to move the Programme towards greater sectoral contribution with open innovation and flexibility in policy learning.</p><p> </p><p>Keywords: Research &amp; Innovation Reform, Mission-oriented R&amp;D Programme, Policy Experiment, Catch-up, R&amp;D Commercialisation, Thailand</p>

School security management – ethical, psychosocial and institutional conditions

School security – of students, teachers, and other staff – is a critical issue in education policy. Due to the multiplicity of threats in the school environment, this issue still occupies a leading place in the discussion on education and forces constant care to improve this state. The headmaster manages school safety. The style of performing this duty is significant. The article discusses school security management, emphasizing the participatory method, which assumes the involvement of all educational entities in decision-making processes. Moreover, the prepared material presents many legal bases and other documents regulating safety rules and obligations to act in an emergency. Various educational programs and projects were also presented, which would be worth getting interested in to improve safety in schools.

Selected aspects of ensuring energy security in the municipality

In a modern democratic state, it is fully justified that local governments influence on energy policy. The most serious reasons for municipalities to pursue their energy policy include implementing principles such as decentralization, subsidiarity, autonomy, and independence by local governments. It should be remembered that local governments are public authorities acting to meet the local communities’ needs. In the Polish institutional conditions, local governments may be jointly responsible for the national energy policy only if they can create local energy policy based on their energy potential. Bearing in mind the above, the relationship between the local energy policy and the national energy policy is different for each commune, depending on a given territorial unit’s specific conditions. The specificity and quality of these relationships are also determined by the municipal authorities, which can approach the policies they create strategically or rely on improvisation. In the first case, local governments plan and implement specific activities that make up the energy policy process, while in the second case, they wait for the activity and involvement of government administration bodies.

Disassembling connections: A comparative analysis of the politics of slum upgrading in eThekwini and São Paulo

This paper presents an innovative comparison that works creatively with the entangled spatialities of policy mobilities, drawing on a city-to-city cooperation between São Paulo (Brazil) and eThekwini (South Africa) municipalities for the exchange of slum upgrading expertise. The proposed comparative tactic entails tracing the establishment of this connection in order to disassemble the constituent flows and localities merged within it. Subsequently, by posing questions to one another, a relational comparison of the trajectory of slum upgrading policy in each locality is composed, unearthing the political and institutional conditions that preceded the existence of the connection per se. In that sense, both eThekwini and São Paulo are considered equivalent starting points from which local actors engaged in circulating ideas and mobilised slum upgrading policies. This paper not only brings a fresh approach to comparative methods – incorporating political contexts and their extensive overlapping networks of relations alongside a focus on particular policy trajectories – but also contributes to furthering global urban studies in two other ways. First, it provides insight into the processes by which policies are put on the move and localised (or not). Second, it demonstrates how repeated instances of urban practice may be unravelled by allowing each context of policy formation, with its distinctive trajectory of slum upgrading, to speak to one another. In this regard, the comparative analysis identified how, in both São Paulo and eThekwini, the consolidation of democracy was followed by the development of more technocratic approaches to the detriment of earlier slum upgrading initiatives focussed on community empowerment.

Les Enfants Perdus

Following the deaths of fourteen children at a children’s residential facility in Froissy in November 1968, a moment of national interest in France in the challenges facing disabled children led parents’ associations to press for systemic reform. Concomitantly, social critiques following the protests of May 1968 focused on poor institutional conditions as evidence of society’s failures. Though government inquiry into the incident placed the blame on the proprietors, media reports and advocates asserted the failure of the French government to protect the disabled. This viewpoint aligned with the rhetoric of reformers seeking to dismantle institutions to instigate social change. However, an alliance of reformers and parents’ groups did not materialize, even after the important reforms of the law of 30 June 1975. That law articulated the government’s commitment to the equality of disabled citizens, but it had limited impact due to its failure to address conditions for the mentally disabled.

Vocational guidance and assistance system for the employment of persons with disabilities and persons with disabilities within the framework of the international movement “Abilimpix”

Human health and well-being largely depend on a sufficient standard of living, educational opportunities and participation in social and social life, and successful professional activities. It should be recognized that in the surrounding society it is in these areas of life that people with disabilities and disabilities are especially disadvantaged, but not neglected by society and the state. Currently, in the Russian Federation, the State programme Accessible Environment is being implemented to support and assist persons with disabilities and disabilities, with the aim of creating legal, economic and institutional conditions conducive to the integration of persons with disabilities into society and improving their quality of life. The programme contains three subprogrammes that are effectively implemented in modern society, namely: (1) Ensuring the accessibility of priority facilities and services in priority areas of life of persons with disabilities and other mobile populations; (2) Improvement of the system of comprehensive rehabilitation and habilitation of persons with disabilities; (3) Improvement of the state system of medical and social expertise. The organizers of the Abilimpix social movement were able to demonstrate to people with disabilities their individual capabilities and prospects for accessibility to all types, forms and means of obtaining knowledge and professional skills, their effective application in practice.

Bullying Victimization and Its Impact on Delinquency: The Case of Asian American Adolescent

Despite a great deal of research on Asian American students that mainly highlight the eccentric academic performance, previous research has not deeply shed light on the obstacles that Asian American students face in their life path. One of them that those previous studies pay less attention to is bullying victimization many Asian American students experience due to their racial and ethnic status in the U.S. Using the data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) targeting Asian American students aged between 12 and 18, this research aims to examine (1) how serious it is for Asian American adolescents to commit delinquent activities due to bullying victimization and (2) how much impact each social institution makes on young Asian Americans’ potential criminal activities after being victimized by bullying. The results suggest that bullying experience makes its victims having a higher risk of engaging in criminal activities. Especially, physical bullying makes a considerable impact on the future delinquent behavior of Asian American adolescents that leads to commit various crimes ranged from serious violent crime to nonserious misdemeanor crime. In addition, certain institutional conditions also increase the risk of criminal offense committed after being victimized by bullying, such as a consistent interaction with delinquent peers but decrease the chance of engaging in criminal activities despite having bullying victimization, such as a tight parental supervision.

Conditions for cross-border policy transfer and cooperation: Analysing differences between higher education and vocational training

Against the backdrop of an increasingly interconnected world as well as the growing role of inter- and supranational organizations, policy transfer has become a widespread phenomenon, not least in the realm of education. While policy transfer research has focused predominantly on isolated education sectors, less is known about the overall institutional conditions that favour or inhibit policy movement in different education sectors. We argue that the conditions for cross-border policy synthesis, as a central form of policy transfer, differ systematically between the two main education sectors preparing for labour market entry, namely higher education (HE) and vocational education and training (VET). Taking the case of the cross-border region of France, Germany and Switzerland as an example, the institutional analysis shows that demand-side, programmatic, contextual and application conditions are more favourable towards cross-border policy synthesis in HE than VET.