Does accessible technology need an ‘entrepreneurial state’? The creation of an EU market of universally designed and assistive technology through state aid

EU State aid law has sought to enable people with disabilities to obtain employment, yet has not been explicitly included in the toolbox of policy options to improve the availability and choice of accessible technology within the EU Internal market. This seems to be the consequence of an inherent bias against State intervention in the market, which is mostly unwelcome since it can limit open and free competition. This also reiterates the ‘less-aid’ policy and the purely economic approach to State aid professed by the European Commission. Against this background, this article discusses the potential for EU State aid policy to foster both ‘design for all’ and innovative assistive devices for people with disabilities. It seeks to argue that the goal of an EU-wide market of accessible technology can be achieved using EU State aid law. In particular, this article aims to highlight that a more targeted use of EU State aid law can lead developers to increase the production of accessible goods, to adjust or reduce prices and to provide consumers with a greater degree of choice in a greater number of marketplaces. Whilst it adopts a legal approach, this analysis relies inter alia on economic evidence and recalls the pamphlet recently published by Mazzuccato, from which the title of this work has drawn inspiration.     

U.S. Foreign Aid and Foreign Policy: Building Strong Relationships by Doing It Right!

Foreign aid policies cannot be more successful than their implementation, which inherently involves people and institutions. But people have their own interests and cultural frameworks, and institutions are inevitably grounded in culture and politics. Inattention to the agendas of individuals involved on both sides of foreign aid to Central and Eastern Europe played a major role in its shortcomings. A recent court decision holding two Harvard university scholars guilty of defrauding the U.S. government while running a flagship project to reform the Russian economy underscores the pitfalls in outsourcing traditional functions of government to small, well-connected groups that are not fully accountable in serving the public interest. Drawing on the author's experience studying informal systems and networks over several decades, this article illuminates the importance of foreign policy and aid relationships—how they are set up, who wins and who loses, and how their lack of accountability can contribute to the derailment of nation-building and constructive relations among countries.     

经济援助：国家形象构建的新动因

经济实力是构成一个国家国力的最基础、最关键的部分。不言而喻,提高自身经济发展水平,保持强 大的经济实力,实施经济援助,是国家构筑强势形象的一个有利因素。     

State transformation and the domestic politics of foreign aid in Taiwan

Abstract

This article challenges the dominant narrative that overlooks the role of domestic factors in Taiwanese foreign aid in favour of politics cast at the cross-Strait and international levels. It examines the emergence and effects of partisan politics on Taipei's foreign aid policies, including aid budgets and the motivation for providing foreign aid. It argues that, rather than the cross-Strait conflict as such, it was contests and rivalries among Taiwan's political parties and government agencies – underpinned by ongoing projects of state building – that shaped the variable objectives, policies and processes of Taipei's foreign aid-giving.     

The domestic politics of international development in South Korea: stakeholders and competing policy discourses

Abstract

The paper examines the domestic politics surrounding South Korea's foreign aid policy. It delineates the institutional characteristics and strategic interests of key government and non-government stakeholders, and suggests an analytical framework to comprehend the country's aid policy regime. It suggests that two competing policy discourses exist – one emphasising ‘intellectual leadership’ and the other ‘ethical leadership’ as the key principle of aid policy. In practice, the country's political leadership promulgates a complex amalgam of these discourses in alignment with their own political imperatives and interests. The paper discusses ‘Global Saemaul Undong’ as such an example under the incumbent Park Geun-Hye administration.     

环境损害司法鉴定费制度的完善

环境损害司法鉴定在生态环境保护案件的审判中是关系责任认定和赔偿额度的关键证据。通过对最高人民法院发布的81件生态环境保护典型案例进行分析,结果发现司法鉴定机构收费不规范、不公开、价格虚高的现象普遍存在,高昂鉴定费已经成为当事人申请鉴定或者法院委托鉴定的难题。为破解该困境,环保部门、司法部门等相关部门应尽快从厘清鉴定费的性质入手,合理确立鉴定费负担原则,制定环境损害司法鉴定收费标准,同时建立健全环境损害司法鉴定评估资金保障机制,使环境损害鉴定评估真正成为环境保护与生态修复的助推器。     

Do Sanctions Always Stigmatize? The Effects of Economic Sanctions on Foreign Aid

A prevalent view among both scholars and policymakers is that economic sanctions stigmatize and isolate their targets. According to this perspective, the stigma associated with economic sanctions should signal to foreign aid donors that they should be more cautious and restrained in providing assistance to sanctioned states. We test this signaling-based theory via a large-n analysis of the impact that sanctions imposed by the United States and those supported by the United Nations (UN) had on the aid flows of 133 recipient states from 1960–2000. Contrary to expectations, our results indicate that being subject to sanctions supported by the UN does not have a negative effect on target states’ aid flows, and being sanctioned by the United States actually has a positive effect on them. We explore two potential explanations for our puzzling findings based upon donor self-interest and donor altruism via a scoping analysis of eight sanctions cases in which target states received greater than expected aid flows. Our findings suggest that theories based upon donor self-interest represent the most promising explanation for why individual donors may increase their aid to sanctioned states.     

Using Digital Data Gathering to improve data collection

One of the ways in which aid actors have responded to the growing need for good quality data to inform decision-making processes has been to invest in information communication technology to improve data collection and analysis. The specific information communication technology approach that has been used by Concern Worldwide is Digital Data Gathering. This refers to gathering data using an electronic handheld device such as a smartphone or data pen. As with any approach it has its advantages and limitations. This article shares the lessons and challenges that Concern has had in the utilisation of Digital Data Gathering.     

法律援助与改善民生

法律援助是民生之依,完善的法律援助制度能够在实现司法公正的同时,保障人权,调和社会矛盾,维护社会稳定,促进社会的发展。     

Striking Home: Ideal-Type of Terrorism

ABSTRACT

This essay presents some preliminary notes in an anthropological perspective on terrorism. The following aims to be a questioning review of issues that haunt informed students of terrorism, and yet also an introductory text to the study of terrorism. It is revisionist but didactic. The essay is based on extended research of Palestinian and Israeli terrorism cases, and on critical integration of the literature on terrorism. It offers an alternative approach to the problem of the definition and distinct character of terrorism, expands on overlooked aspects of terrorism, like its relationship to the concept of “home,” emphasizes under-theorized subjects, like the randomness of the targets, and discusses hitherto untouched topics, like the “bad death” of terrorism’s victims. Terrorism is examined in terms of liminality and hybridity, and consequently as more subversive than coercive, threatening our ontological security no less than our physical security.