The framing and governance of climate change adaptation projects in Lao PDR and Cambodia

This study explores the way climate change adaptation projects in Cambodia and Lao PDR have been framed. Four frames were identified: inadequate infrastructure; information deficits; limited planning capacity; and insecure access. In all frames, there was internal coherence among: the problems identified; the form solutions are expected to take; and who should be included and in what roles. All projects claimed to be addressing the needs of farmers vulnerable to climate change. The infrastructure, information, and capacity frames are apolitical and privilege expert knowledge, whereas the access frame places rights and justice issues centrally, and thus holds more potential for addressing the root causes of vulnerabilities and supporting more just distribution of resources and power. Framing can interact with how projects are governed, for example, through assigning roles to actors based on types of solutions prescribed. The extent and direction of frame elaboration also depend on how a project is governed. Meeting local needs and objectives, for example, is constrained when external actors have too much influence in project governing structures, and initial project plans written from afar are followed too narrowly. This study shows that frames are an important part of the governance of adaptation projects.     

Politics and policy of Artificial Intelligence

While recent discussions about Artificial Intelligence (AI) as one of the most powerful technologies of our times tend to portray it as a predominantly technical issue, it also has major social, political and cultural implications. So far these have been mostly studied from ethical, legal and economic perspectives, while politics and policy have received less attention. To address this gap, this special issue brings together nine research articles to advance the studies of politics and policy of AI by identifying emerging themes and setting out future research agenda. Diverse but complementary contributions in this special issue speak to five overarching themes: understanding the AI as co-shaped by technology and politics; highlighting the role of ideas in AI politics and policy; examining the distribution of power; interrogating the relationship between novel technology and continuity in politics and policy; and exploring interactions among developments at local, national, regional and global levels. This special issue demonstrates that AI policy is not an apolitical field that can be dealt with just by relying on knowledge and expertise but requires an open debate among alternative views, ideas, values and interests.     

The negative relationships between employee resilience and ambiguity,complexity, and inter-agency collaboration

Employee resilience (ER) is often needed to face demands inherent in public sector work. Some types of demands, however, may hinder its development, rather than provide the type of challenging adversity from which resilience can develop. Public sector job demands have been a long-standing issue for public workplaces and employees but are also growing in salience as organisations face an increasingly variable, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment. Drawing on the Job Demands–Resources model and the challenge/hindrance stress literature, this multi-level study of Aotearoa New Zealand civil servants (n = 11,533) in 65 public sector organisations shows that ER is negatively affected by demands such as job insecurity, unclear job and organisational goals, and inter-agency collaboration. However, organisational resource constraints are positively associated with ER. This study identifies core PA job and organisational demands that hinder ER and offers practical implications and suggestions for further research.

Points for practitioners

• Job role ambiguity, job insecurity, unclear organisational goals, and inter-agency collaboration are common job and organisational demands in public sector workplaces.
• For employees, these demands are stressors that employees do not feel they control, and may therefore hinder employee resilience: the ability to learn, adapt, and leverage networks in the face of challenges.
• Surprisingly, resource constraints, where employees have to ‘do more with less’, might help employees develop ER.
• While inter-agency collaboration has potentially many benefits, it appears to have negative spillover effects on employees unaware of it or not involved in it.
• To encourage ER, agencies should clarify both organisational and job goals, and assure job security, control, competency development, and supervisor support.