Ice Ice Baby: The De Facto Termination of Parental Rights by an Enforcement Agency

The current administration's zero tolerance stance on illegal immigration has resulted in the separation of thousands of families and the de facto termination of parental rights. While undocumented parents were always at risk of detainment, expanded immigration enforcement under the Trump administration has greatly increased that risk. Detainment has directly and indirectly resulted in the prolonged separation of parents from their children. This Note proposes a Department of Homeland Security Regulation that will require ICE to use the least restrictive methods to achieve its goals while emphasizing efforts to keep families together.     

Linking democratic anchorage and regulatory authority: The case of internet regulators

Scholars and practitioners have repeatedly questioned the democraticness and the authority of transnational multi‐stakeholder organizations, especially those that regulate the internet. To contribute to this discussion, we studied the “democratic anchorages” and the regulatory authority of 23 internet regulators. In particular, we conducted a fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis assessing whether and which anchorages correspond to necessary and/or sufficient conditions for exerting regulatory authority. Our results show that strong anchorage in democratic procedures is specifically relevant for this outcome. Further, we find that weak anchorage in democratically elected politicians leads to high regulatory authority, confirming the significance of non‐state actors in this policy field. More generally, our findings support but also qualify expectations about the compatibility and mutual reinforcement of democratic quality and regulatory authority at the transnational level.     

Does the Feldstein–Horioka puzzle exist among South Asian countries? A regime‐switching approach

A plethora of literature has been undertaken to study the validity of the Feldstein–Horioka (FH) puzzle. However, divergent views continue to persist in the FH puzzle literature. This study explores the empirical validity of the FH puzzle in the case of South Asian countries using annual data from 1960 to 2017. Both panel data approach and Markov‐switching regression approach are used to empirically analyze the FH puzzle. The results of the cointegration test confirm the long‐run relationships between saving and investment in the selected South Asian countries. The results of Markov‐switching regression confirm that the saving‐retention coefficient has shifted from high to low values and also from low to high values. Thus, the FH puzzle exists for a particular time period and mostly depends on the regime shifts in the South Asian countries. The results of panel fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) and dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) methods also confirm that FH puzzle holds for the South Asian countries. Therefore, the study suggests that any saving promotion policies are desirable for enhancing investment among the South Asian regions.     

Exploring the Effects of North–South and South–South Research Collaboration in Emerging Economies,the Colombian Case

International research collaboration (IRC) is associated with both positive and negative effects on the performance of research in emerging economies. While some authors claim that North–South collaborations improve scientific quality and visibility for Southern countries, others claim that it may entail the reorientation of research to comply with Northern agendas. South–South collaborations are thought to increase the focus on local affairs, therefore leading to a relatively small number of scientific international publications appearing in “high quality” journals. Research on the impact of IRC beyond publications in international journals has been neglected despite the importance of other products in knowledge creation. This research uses a broad range of scientific outputs to empirically assess such assumptions and explore the outcomes of IRC in Colombia. Results from multivariate regressions and nonparametric analyses show that, contrary to common assumptions, Colombian research teams collaborating with partners from the global South report higher scientific production, while those collaborating with Northern countries seem to contribute to local knowledge the most.     

Public administration reform for Aboriginal affairs: An institutionalist analysis

Persistent underperformance of public policy and program implementation in Aboriginal affairs is widely recognised. We analysed the results of two case studies of attempted reforms in public administration of Aboriginal primary health care in the Northern Territory, using a framework based on the institutionalist and systemic racism literatures, with the aim of better understanding the sources of implementation failure. Implementation of the agreed reforms was unsuccessful. Contributing factors were as follows: strong recognition of the need for change was not sustained; the seeds of change, present in the form of alternative practices, were not built on; there was a notable absence of sustained political/bureaucratic authorisation; and, interacting with all of these, systemic racism had important consequences and implications. Our framework was useful for making sense of the results. It is clear that reforms in Aboriginal affairs will require government authorities to engage with organisations and communities. We conclude that there are four requirements for improved implementation success: clear recognition of the need for change in ‘business as usual’; sustainable commitment and authorisation; the building of alternative structures and methods to enable effective power sharing (consistent with the requirements of parliamentary democracy); and addressing the impact of systemic racism on decision-making, relationships, and risk management.     

An analysis of budget compliance measurement in South African local government best‐practice financial management technical assistance programs, 2001—2003

South Africa's local government financial management best‐practice technical assistance program (known as MFMTAP) was to reform municipal financial management; achieve credible, realistic budgets and prevent financial failure. We consider whether a budget compliance procedure, developed by National Treasury (NT) to measure funding requirements compliance with the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA) focusing on ‘realistic’ revenue budgeting, improves our understanding of technical assistance effectiveness. We assess a metropolitan municipality's compliance before, during and after advisory assistance. The compliance procedure was robust. Potential exists for wider application to assess best‐practice technical assistance (BPTA) program financial reform effectiveness. The findings from this single, important sample suggest that MFMA funding requirements are not being sustained 4 years after MFMTAP commencement, attributable to either BPTA performance or termination effects. We conclude that MFMA financial performance can be assessed by the procedure, from analysis of the metropolitan municipality performance assisted by a BPTA advisor for approximately 3 years. The analysis raises questions about BPTA program reform sustainability, but we add the caveat that conclusions cannot be drawn from a single sample metropolitan municipality, but a larger sample need be used for further methodology development to confirm its efficacy. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Transatlantic Institutions: Can Partnership be Engineered?

The transatlantic alliance is widely viewed as being in a state of decline. Conflict over the war in Iraq highlighted a growing divergence between the Bush administration and European Union governments in their attitudes towards multilateralism. The rift severely tested institutions created to manage bilateral EU–US relations in the aftermath of the cold war. This article examines how well this institutional architecture has held up. It scrutinises the limitations of networked governance in transatlantic relations and acknowledges the quandary of trying to manufacture partnership using imperfect institutions. The Brussels–Washington channel is only one among many through which transatlantic relations flow, but we argue that it continues to gain in importance. Despite the limits of institutional engineering, we conclude that the US and the EU remain each other's most important ally.