Polanyi in Brussels or Luxembourg? Social rights and market regulation in European insurance

The decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union to ban sex discrimination in insurance has shown the potential reach of the principle of non‐discrimination. This paper discusses the different positions taken by participants in the policy process leading up to the decision, in order to reveal the potential and limitations of non‐discrimination as the basis for market‐regulatory social policy. It is shown that the European Commission's initial support for prohibiting insurance discrimination faltered with the realization that the measure would have little efficacy as a distributive social policy. It was left to the Court to assert that non‐discrimination rights are constitutive for European markets, regardless of their functional and instrumental limitations. The Court's focus was on the market‐integrative potential of rights as sources of norms for the conduct of insurance relationships. It is argued that this form of constitutive regulation is distinct from distributive social policy as it does not require that outcomes are egalitarian, but, rather, that the processes governing market relations should respect fundamental rights.     

Economic liberalisation,market institutions and labour rights

What effect do pro‐market economic policies have on labour rights? Despite significant debate in policy and academic circles about the consequences of economic liberalisation, little is known about the labour rights effects of pro‐market policies. Extant literature has focused only on the possible outcomes of market‐liberalising policies, such as trade and investment flows, rather than directly assessing market‐friendly policies and institutions. Moreover, this line of research has found mixed results on how these outcomes influence labour conditions. To provide a comprehensive assessment of this linkage, this article combines data on five distinct policy areas associated with economic liberalisation with data on labour rights for the period 1981–2012. The results indicate that pro‐market policies – except the ones involving rule of law and secure property rights – undermine labour rights. Thus while there are some positive economic and political outcomes associated with market‐supporting policies, economic liberalisation comes at the cost of respect for labour rights.     

Paradise Paved? Reflections on the Fate of Social Citizenship in Canada

The aim of this paper is to assess the potential of the concept of social citizenship for articulating progressive policy development in Canada. I argue that the revisioning of social citizenship is hampered by a recent notion that it is part of the superseded welfare policy paradigm of the past. Many analysts characterize a shift in the objectives of Canadian social policy as a move away from a 'golden age' policy paradigm, which emphasized the social rights of citizenship, to a neo-liberal paradigm promoting market citizenship. I suggest that there is an overstatement in the current literature of the extent to which social citizenship rights were ever realized, or even pursued, in Canada. There are two tendencies toward over-generalization in the literature that obscure a more complex picture of social policy development in Canada. The first concerns the relationship between social policy and the social rights of citizenship. The blurring of these two concepts underlies some of the overstatement in the literature about the past implementation of social citizenship rights. The second tendency to over-generalization relates to the observation of a paradigm change in social policy orientation. While things may be shifting, there are grounds to believe that this is largely a within-paradigm intensification--from mean and lean, to meaner and leaner. Finally, I suggest that the conceptual foundations of the social rights of citizenship must be re-worked in a way that acknowledges contestation over the terrain and quality of the 'social' and that challenges the distinctness and priority of the 'market'. There is a continuing need to strengthen and promote the social rights of citizenship as a discursive and practical challenge to neo-liberal interpretations of the 'good' society as a 'market' society. This would involve contesting the claim that the market is the arbiter of the quality of life, and claiming the market itself as a social arena.     

水权与水权的界定--水资源利用的产权经济学分析

在公有水权基础上实行可交易水权制度涉及到三个重要环节,即水权的界定、水价以及水权运作规则和水资源管理,其中水权的界定是水资源市场形成和运行的前提条件,没有排他性水权的确立,水权的让渡和交易是不可能的.本文从产权经济学的理论出发,分析水权的清晰界定与水资源市场的关系,并在此基础上分析水资源利用中的各种水权关系,指出进一步界定和明晰水资源的配水量权是实现水权制度创新的前提条件.     

Tradable Permits for Common‐Pool Resources: An Assessment

Scholars often attribute deterioration in common‐pool resources (CPRs) to ill‐defined property rights and suggest privatization and tradable permit markets as a solution to the commons problem. CPRs are heterogeneous, differing in physical characteristics and use patterns. Regulating their use requires tailored policy solutions that cohere with these characteristics. This paper examines factors that contribute to a well‐performing tradable permit market. While the literature offers rich empirical analyses of individual tradable permit markets, it has not provided an analytical framework enabling comparative analysis of these markets. This paper develops and employs an analytical framework for comparing across markets. The comparative analysis of market performance suggests that markets are not successful in all environmental problems and all demand situations. Further, it shows that even some markets frequently cited as exemplary successes have been that for nonmarket‐related reasons. On the other hand, this comparative analysis identifies sources of success for markets that partial analytical frameworks would have predicted to fail.     

The politics of Artificial Intelligence regulation and governance reform in the European Union

This paper explores political drivers and policy process of the reform of the framework for Artificial Intelligence regulation and governance in the European Union (EU). Since 2017, the EU has been developing an integrated policy to tighten control and to ensure consumer protection and fundamental rights. This policy reform is theoretically interesting, raising the question of which conceptual approaches better explain it, and it is also empirically relevant, addressing the link between risk regulation and digital market integration in Europe. This paper explores the policy reform mainly by using two case study methods—process tracing and congruence procedure—using a variety of primary and secondary sources. It evaluates the analytical leverage of three theoretical frameworks and a set of derived testable hypotheses concerning the co-evolution of global economic competition, institutional structure, and policy preferences of domestic actors in shaping incremental approach to AI regulation in the EU. It is argued that all three are key drivers shaping the reform and explain the various stages of the policymaking process, namely problem definition, agenda-setting, and decision-making, as well as the main features of the outcome.

     

On the Development of Public–Private Partnerships in Transitional Economies: An Explanatory Framework

This article develops a generic framework to explain the environment for public–private partnership (PPP) development in transitional economies. The framework stands on a tripod that includes the market, the operating environment, and the government, each containing several factors that support aspects of PPPs. The authors apply the framework to analyze the results of a multicountry survey in an effort to identify key factors that facilitate PPP development in transition countries. The identified factors are market potential, institutional guarantee, government credibility, financial accessibility, government capacity, consolidated management, and corruption control. The framework and identified factors may serve as effective tools to diagnose and monitor PPP development in a broader array of countries. The framework is applied in analyzing data from four transitional economies and several advanced economies. The efficacy of the framework is further justified by its explanatory power of PPPs’ practicality and is largely confirmed by results from a sensitivity test.     

Beyond the Social Market: Rethinking Capitalism and Public Policy

Despite its worthy motives, social market philosophy provides neither a useful analytical framework for understanding modern capitalism, nor the policy tools to address our present economic and social predicament. The concept of ‘market failure’, with its underlying assumption of market equilibrium, does not capture the systemically adverse outcomes of collective market forces. A more sophisticated understanding of capitalist economies, and the societies in which they exist, would recognise that the market economy is a dynamic but not self‐regulating system. It is embedded in, and impacts on, four other economies – of the natural environment, of family and care, of voluntary association, and of the public sector – which operate under different motivations and allocative principles. The role of government is central, to balance the values created by different kinds of institutions and to constrain the dynamic impacts of market forces. A number of policy conclusions are offered arising from this framework.     

Market imperfections,government imperfections,and policy mixes: policy innovations in Singapore

Proper roles for government and market in addressing policy problems may be assessed by considering the duality between market imperfections and government imperfections. The potential of government interventions or market mechanisms as core policy instruments can be eroded by fundamental deficiencies deeply rooted in either government or market as social institutions. The impacts of such deficiencies are much more extensive than postulated by the existing theories. Analysis here, based on policy innovations in land transport and health care in Singapore, suggests how policy mixes might become the norm of response for addressing policy problems found in a range of sectors. The analytical framework presented may help to distinguish among different policy mixes according to their effectiveness, but also provides some useful guiding principles for policy design.     

Do pro-market economic reforms drive human rights violations? An empirical assessment, 1981–2006

Liberals argue that economic policy reforms will benefit most in terms of better access to goods, less inflation and better economic opportunities. Critics of market reforms, among them Marxists, critical theorists, skeptics of globalization as well as a large portion of the NGO community, see the majority as losers from such reform, expecting resistance that would lead to political repression. They suggest that free-market policy reforms are analogous to “swallowing the bitter pill.” We make use of the change in the Index of Economic Freedom as a measure of market liberalizing reforms, employing data from a panel of 117 countries for the period from 1981–2006. Our results show a strong positive association between reforms towards more free markets with regard to governments’ respect for human rights, controlling for a host of relevant factors, including the possibility of endogeneity. The results are robust in relation to sample size, alternative data and methods, and a sample of only developing countries; and they are substantively quite large. Our results support those who argue that freer markets generate better economic conditions and higher levels of social harmony and peace, and it seems as if getting there is less problematic than people generally think—in fact, halfhearted measures and backsliding that prolong crises could be more dangerous to human rights.     

Social conflict over property rights: the end,a new beginning,or a continuing debate?

The ownership and control of private land is a core social value in the United States. Public planning can be seen as conflicting with this value. The long-standing tension between private property rights and public planning was heightened in the 1990s with the emergence of the so-called private property rights movement. This movement seeks to limit governmental authority over privately owned land through a multi-level strategy of legal, policy, political, and public relations actions. This paper explores the historical basis for this conflict, the legal framework within which it functions, and contemporary policy battles.

The paper concludes that there may be no final outcome to this debate. Property rights activists are impassioned and believe their view of history and law is correct. I argue that it may be best to see debate about land use and property rights as one of the central vehicles for a continual reframing of core values in the American experience.     

我国儿童早期照顾政策框架构建——基于资源平等理论视角

我国儿童早期照顾领域存在照顾责任公私分担失衡、照顾资源分布不均、照顾劳动性别分工和代际分工不合理等现象,亟待公共政策干预。立足我国现实,以德沃金的资源平等理论作为伦理基础,可提出儿童早期照顾政策的伦理依据,即以保障儿童与母亲权利为核心原则,以保障父母工作-家庭平衡、祖辈老年权益为辅助原则。在政策分析中,首先基于政策网络模型,阐述政策行动者的网络定位及他们在网络间的互动关系,厘清不同行动者之间的资源与权力交换机制;然后利用图尔敏结构模型,提出具有开放性和包容性的政策方案,并最终形成旨在保障儿童和照顾者权利、促进家庭和社会发展的我国儿童早期照顾政策框架。     

Policy Entrepreneurs,Issue Experts,and Water Rights Policy Change in Colorado

Policy entrepreneurs can influence policy changes and decisions. These people invest their time, knowledge, and skills into promoting policies with which they agree. This paper investigates the influence that entrepreneurs had in the case of recreational water rights policy in Colorado to build a model of policy entrepreneurship. Almost 20 Colorado communities have constructed white‐water kayak courses to boost their local economies. In twelve of these communities, construction was followed by community pursuit of a new form of water right—the recreational in‐channel diversion. This case study is relevant to many areas of environmental policy and management where policies are transitioning from traditional consumptive uses of the resource to nonconsumptive uses. This policy change was not a given in Colorado communities, with recreational water rights requiring significant investments of community resources. These research findings conclude that policy entrepreneurs were influential to policy change, but the most important actors were expert entrepreneurs who hold expertise in water resource matters.     

A new typology for R&D laboratories: Implications for policy analysts

Science policy analysts have traditionally classified R&D laboratories as government, private, or university. The authors argue that this view is outmoded and provides little help in understanding the rapidly changing environment of R&D laboratories. They provide and test an alternative scheme designed to cope with “sector blurring” and the intermingling of market and political influences on R&D laboratories. The authors also discuss implications of their scheme for a variety of contemporary science policy issues.     

International Power and Local Action – Implications for the Intersectionality of the Rights of Women with Disability

The recent United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) reframes how policy responds to disability, difference, interdependence and rights. We examine how Australian disability activists used the CRPD to advocate for the intersectional rights of women with disability. We applied a framework from Zwingel's conceptualisation of mutually constituting global norms to analyse the intersectionality of rights represented in three stages of the CRPD process – during the drafting, the wording in the Convention, and the periodic review. We found that disability activists were able to shape the gendering of disability through their targeted representation as people with lived experience. This expertise filled a knowledge gap in the policy process valued by the actors at other policy levels. Extending Zwingel's concept of global discourse translation, it also suggests that the dynamic contribution continues in the international interpretation of the CRPD itself.     

Citizenship—the real democratic deficit of the European union? 1

Given the pressures of globalisation, the nation state is limited in its control over public policy agendas, particularly in the field of social policy. The response of domestic governments to the heat of international competition has been to create more flexible, post‐welfare state economies. A significant consequence of this development is the removal of social rights and the acceleration of social exclusion. This gap which has opened up could be filled by the European Union, but it has so far failed to take a leading role in this regard.

So, as European citizens we should be concerned that the forces which operate to balance the harsher effects of the free market have been lost at the European, supranational level. There are three central reasons why this is the case: (1) the European Union consists of 15 member states with competing, historically rooted understandings of social protection and, therefore, social rights; (2) defining social rights is traditionally a state‐derived function and as such, the absence of an EU state means the absence of comprehensive citizen protection; (3) these two factors are magnified by the relative weakness of the supranational institutions and democratic deficit between the key EU institutions (weak vis‐à‐vis member state governments and with regard to the supremacy of the market).

The combination of these problems has meant that the European Union has not taken the primary role in providing the kind of social protection that we used to enjoy in the domestic context. The result of this is a situation in which the market is determining both the level and even the kind of rights that we are entitled to, thus we are citizens of a European market and not of a European state.

As a state‐derived function, and without a European state, social and citizen rights are being neglected. As a consequence, unless citizen protection is developed through an intergovernmental or supranational framework, it is difficult to see how governments can honour their responsibility to safeguard their people.     

Mexican migration policies after IRCA

The evolution since 1964 of Mexican government policy regarding migrant workers in the US is discussed. For a decade after the "bracero" program was terminated by the US, the Mexican government attempted to encourage creation of another legal framework for migration, regarded as inevitable whether legal or clandestine. Around 1974-75, a more distant attitude, termed the "policy of no policy," acquired considerable support in Mexican government and academic circles. The no-policy strategy allowed Mexico to achieve certain objectives regarding migration without prompting US intervention in its internal affairs, as for example by a linkage of US migration policy to specific Mexican government actions. The 1986 passage of the US Immigration Reform and Control Act effectively ended the no-policy strategy that had allowed the Mexican government to count on the continued emigration of Mexican workers without compromising its position of promoting respect for migrant rights. The unilateral change in the status quo by the US led to substitution of the "policy of dialogue," a clear signal of the Mexican government's search for a new migration agreement. The policy of dialogue has entailed greater discussion of the two traditional Mexican objectives regarding migration. Some progress has apparently been made concerning migrant rights, but the second and less explicit objective, that of preventing abrupt changes in US immigration policy and in migratory flows, is harder to judge. The atmosphere of freer public debate in Mexico is politicizing migratory policy.     

Human Rights in a Post‐Brexit UK

This special issue was written to reflect on the current role of human rights in the United Kingdom, seventy years after the United Nations General Assembly voted in favour of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Human rights are explored by the authors in this issue from a wide variety of perspectives. Some authors are critical of the failure of the state to implement human rights principles in practice; others lament how human rights often appear of little relevance to most people’s lives in the UK. The overall message, however, remains consistent: a human rights framework brings many positive elements to our country, ensuring it is a society where individuals, no matter their actions or characteristics, are treated with dignity.