International diffusion of regulatory governance: EU actorness in public procurement

This paper attempts to go beyond actor‐centered explanations of the European Union's (EU) presence in regulatory politics by examining the role of the EU in the diffusion of regulatory norms and practices. We explore the international diffusion of public procurement policy, to which multiple organizations and especially the EU and the World Trade Organization have made an active contribution. Using the “opportunity‐presence‐capability” scheme, we argue that the EU is actively co‐shaping the global agenda on public procurement, mainly as a result of the “opportunity” and “presence” dimensions of its global actorness and its role in the horizontal diffusion of public procurement regulations between international organizations. For “EU as a global actor” literature to offer valuable explanations, an in‐depth analysis of its relationship with other international organizations, such as the World Trade Organization, reveals significant interactions and the co‐shaping of policy agendas.     

Does public debt matter for human capital development? Evidence from Nigeria

An inquiry into the impact of external and domestic borrowings is considered timely for Nigeria, given the growing public debt profile amid deteriorating human capital development. Using data from 1990 to 2021, the study estimates the effects of domestic and external debts on Nigeria's human capital development. The study employed the fully modified ordinary least squares and canonical cointegration regression as the main estimation technique and the robustness check, respectively. The study discovered that domestic and external debt, economic growth and debt servicing exert positive and significant influence on human capital development in Nigeria while environmental pollution has an inverse and significant impact on human capital development in Nigeria. Premised on the outcomes, policy suggestions aimed at enhancing human capital development in Nigeria have been put forward.     

The ‘problem’ with youth: young people,citizenship and the community

Fears that we are experiencing a crisis in citizenship have been increasingly directed towards youth. Popular political and government rhetoric has frequently positioned young people as a threat to the healthy functioning of citizenship and democracy. Policies have been implemented to educate them and control their behaviour, particularly in their local communities, in an attempt to foster them as citizens deemed appropriate to join adult society. This article provides evidence to the contrary, of young people who wish to be part of their local communities and incorporated in the development of relationships of mutual trust and respect. In this context it is argued that the New Labour government's approach to renewing citizenship for the modern age is contributing to the alienation of young people from any sense of inclusive citizenship. It is put forward that if we are truly concerned with the engagement and empowerment of young people, what is needed is a broader definition of citizenship that enables them to participate as young citizens and respects their voices as an important part of a fair society. This, it is argued, would entail a departure from currently dominant conceptions of citizenship towards, instead, a cultural citizenship approach.     

Governance Arrangements for Transboundary Issues: Lessons from the Food Waste Programs of Italian Regions

Focusing on transboundary issues contributes to highlighting how new governance modes can emerge from increasing interdependence and complexity in public policies. This article analyzes food waste as a transboundary issue that cuts across different policy subsystems (PSs), intersects multiple levels of government, and calls into question consolidated policy making for new modes of governance. The analytical framework provides a multidimensional approach and a new typology of governance arrangements to be used in empirical research. Evidence from an Italian case study and an empirical investigation of 20 regional food waste programs shows that regions can adopt different driving ideas and can activate a variety of governance arrangements and differentiated, as well as viable, modes of integration between consolidated PSs. The article argues that different tool mixes combined with different levels of governance complexity may lead to a variety of governance arrangements and a differentiated likelihood of policy integration.     

Rationality,Normativity and Practices: Towards a More Inclusive Concept of Reason

Gonzalez Arnal attempts to make apparent certain relationships that exist between knowledge and rationality that, in her opinion, further the traditional relation of exclusion between women and reason. She argues that by challenging these relationships we can obtain a better understanding of what reason actually is, and this will allow us to develop a concept of rationality that does not exclude women and other communities.     

Alcohol-related problems and collegiate drinking patterns

Six kinds of collegiate problem drinking were examined utilizing a ceptualized relationship among the variables of student religious commitment, parental attitude toward drinking, neutralization of drinking behavior, drinking before college, anticipated ethos of college life, social orientation in college, and quantity-frequency of alcohol consumption. Self-administered questionnaires were collected from 534 college students and analyzed by path analysis, which explained up to 47% of the variation in certain kinds of problem drinking. The strongest single predictor of problem drinking was found to be quantity and frequency of consumption, but precollege drinking was also important.