What will work? the Costa Rican experience using silos in achieving universal health care 2000

The study of comparative and development administration frees governments from their parochial confines. It opens vistas onto global experiences of what has worked well for others elsewhere and enlarges the range of possible choices that might be made to improve domestic performance. After the World Health Organization in 1977 had adopted the goal “Health for All in the Year 2000,” the Pan American Health Organization opted for the strategy of achieving it though local health systems (SILOS). Costa Rica, the most likely candidate for successful implementation, adopted SILOS in the late 1980s but has run into many difficulties in making SILOS a reality. The difficulties and the impact that SILOS have made on the national health service of Costa Rica are examined and several lessons are drawn to illustrate once again how difficult comparative and development administration are in practice.     

Geopolitics in Russia—science or vocation?

The author describes the development of geopolitical studies in Russia after the Soviet breakup. He identifies two main schools of geopolitical analysis, Traditionalist and Revisionist. Traditionalism is inspired by old European and Russian geopolitical theories and views the world through the lenses of confrontation over power and resources. The revisionist school, on the other hand, adopts a considerably broader definition of what constitutes geopolitics by proposing to study various forms of organizing space on a global scale. According to the paper’s central argument, the Russian geopolitics, while having emerged as a vocation, it is yet to turn into a full-fledged academic discipline. It continues to lack coherent and scientifically testable theoretical propositions and needs a broad discussion of its issues with the participation of both traditionalists and revisionists.     

Will HIV become a major determinant of fertility in Sub‐Saharan Africa?

A widely used demographic model of fertility, based on the proximate determinants, is described. The model is fitted for three contrasting sub‐Saharan African countries, using data from the 1980s round of Demographic and Health surveys, to establish a baseline profile of fertility for the period immediately before any widespread behavioural changes in response to the spread of HIV can plausibly have taken place. Regional variations in the relative significance of the different proximate determinants are noted, and considered in a discussion of the mechanisms through which HIV could influence future fertility levels. It is tentatively suggested that severe HIV epidemics are most likely to exert a downward pressure on fertility. More empirical data are required to test this theory.     

The social science of human rights: the need for a ‘second image reversed’?

What are the causes of state-initiated human rights violations? Are intra-national factors alone causally responsible for the emergence of human rights crises in the developing world? This article critically examines contemporary social science literature on the causes of human rights compliance and violations, particularly in the fields of international relations and comparative politics. It underscores the finding that the current research agenda on human rights has yet to fully recognise the causal and constitutive links between transnational and domestic factors in generating variations in states’ level of compliance. The main goal of the paper is to analytically explore the possibilities of generating social scientific research that recognises the interactive causal dynamics among extra-national and domestic variables as they jointly produce cross-national variations in the quality of a state’s compliance with human rights norms. Based on a critical analysis of the current scholarship in human rights research, the paper offers several pathways the academy must traverse in order to enhance our understanding of the causal underpinnings of human rights violations in the global South.     

Рublic Procurement in Russia: What Hinders Innovation?

ABSTRACT

Using public procurement to foster innovation is a widespread practice worldwide. However, in Russia public procurement has had no significant impact on developing innovation. Empirical research with expert interviews and qualitative and quantitative data analysis has revealed the reasons for poor performance to promote innovation, including tough anti-trust and anti-corruption rules, limited use of tenders as well as “life-cycle cost” criteria, and poor management by the procuring agencies. The analysis revealed the contradiction between the rules designed for fighting corruption and monopolies and the need to stimulate innovation through procurement.     

When does science persuade (or not persuade) in high-conflict policy contexts?

Researchers struggle to understand the relationship between science and policy positions, especially the complicated interplay among the various factors that might affect the acceptance or rejection of scientific information. This article presents a typology that simplifies and guides research linking scientific information to policy positions. We use the typology to examine how characteristics of both scientific information and policy actors' existing policy positions affect the likelihood of changing, maintaining or reinforcing those policy positions. We analyse data from surveys conducted in 2015 and 2017 of policy actors engaged in contested policy debates over shale oil and gas development in Colorado, US. Our findings confirm expectations that policy actors will most likely maintain and reinforce their policy positions in response to scientific information. Our data also show that changes in policy positions depend on policy actors' risk perceptions, perceived issue contentiousness, networks and experience with science.