Public Wi‐Fi provision by Australian local government authorities

Investment by Australian local government authorities (LGAs) in public Wi‐Fi (PWF) provision has grown substantially in recent years. PWF represents the first significant venture of LGAs into telecommunications, a field of national jurisdiction, and thus is a precursor of wider local investment in digital communication technologies, particularly the Internet of Things and other ‘smart city’ infrastructure. However, there has been little published analysis of PWF provision and use in Australia. This knowledge gap limits understanding of the rationales, business models, and uses and impact of investment in these networks and offers little guidance for local authorities and communities contemplating wider ventures in the field of digital networks. This article draws on a national survey of PWF provision by LGAs, together with interview data and critical analysis of policy and institutional settings, to present an overview of local PWF provision in Australia. The analysis highlights some familiar problems associated with LGA infrastructure investment and service delivery, as well as some novel challenges posed for local managers by digital communication networks. Following an empirical mapping of PWF provision in Australia, we explore three significant themes that our research in this field highlights: accountability and transparency, competence in the field of information and communication technologies (ICT) and evaluation.     

The gender politics of executive candidate selection and reselection

This research provides new theoretical and empirical insights into the gender politics of the springboards to chief executive office. The extremely masculinised composition of the relatively few top national executive positions has posed a serious impediment to empirically assessing the conditions that may facilitate women's under-representation and men's over-representation. To overcome this constraint, this study looks at the top regional executive office across four West European countries that present a multilevel state structure – namely Austria, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom. Using two original datasets, the article examines the ways in which the selection and reselection of regional prime ministerial candidates is shaped by individual, organisational and institutional factors that produce heterogeneous experiences and career opportunities across sex. The results show that women have not shattered the glass ceiling at the regional level and pinpoint the fact that they are held to higher standards, benefit less from the political resources they possess and are more dependent on the decision environment in which parties select executive candidates. The conclusion is that the rules of the game guiding selection and reselection processes are strongly biased towards men.     

Cost‐Effectiveness of Early Childhood Interventions to Enhance Preschool: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in Head Start Centers Enrolling Historically Underserved Populations

We evaluate the cost‐effectiveness of two early childhood interventions that use instructional coaching and parent coaching as levers for improvement. The study design allows us to compare the individual effects of each intervention as well as their combined effect on student outcomes. We find that teachers receiving instructional coaching improve their use of evidence‐based instructional practices, while families receiving parent coaching show increases in numerous responsive parenting behaviors associated with positive child outcomes. Both interventions demonstrate positive impacts on students, but only parent coaching shows statistically significant effects across a range of student outcomes. Instructional coaching alone is substantially less costly and may therefore be the most cost‐effective of the three treatment conditions; however, small sample sizes limit our ability to reach definitive conclusions. Policy simulations suggest that implementing these interventions could raise the overall cost‐effectiveness of Head Start by at least 16 percent.     

Alternative South–South development collaboration? The role of China in the Coega Special Economic Zone in South Africa

Aid, in the form of financial aid and investment, has become increasingly prevalent in both bilateral and multilateral partnerships in the BRICS. In Africa, the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation provides the official framings for forms of development assistance to the continent, with financial forms of aid available through the New Development Bank and the China–Africa Development Bank (CADFund). This article explores how Chinese international development assistance has influenced South Africa's economic growth and development strategies and is reshaping South Africa as “gateway” to Africa and continental leader. Special economic zones (SEZs) have become a prioritised form of BRICS development collaboration particularly in terms of Chinese trade and investment expansionism into Africa through South Africa. Chinese international development assistance and foreign direct investment in South Africa in particular are very notable and have been strengthened during the Chinese official state visit prior to the Johannesburg BRICS Summit in 2018. The article critically analyses the development policy discourse on BRICS spearheading an alternative model of South–South international cooperation by examining the Coega SEZ in South Africa, hailed as the most SEZ in Africa. The article critically examines the development alternative potential of the Coega SEZ.     

Between regulatory field structuring and organizational roles: Intermediation in the field of sustainable urban development

Recent contributions in the domains of governance and regulation elucidate the importance of rule‐intermediation (RI), the role that organizations adopt to bridge actors with regulatory or “rulemaking” roles and those with target or “rule‐taking” roles. Intermediation not only enables the diffusion and translation of regulatory norms, but also allows for the representation of different actors in policymaking arenas. While prior studies have explored the roles that such RIs adopt to facilitate their intermediation functions, we have yet to consider how field‐level structuring processes influence (and are influenced by) the various and changing roles adopted by RI. In this study we focus on the mutually constitutive relations between field‐level change processes and the evolving roles of RIs by studying the rise of the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI)/Local Governments for Sustainability, an RI serving as a bridge for sustainable urban development policies between the United Nations and local authorities. Using ICLEI as an illustrative case, we theorize four different processes of regulatory field structuration: problematization, role specialization, marketization, and orchestrated decentralization. We discuss their implications for RI roles in the field and further theorize the changing dynamics of trickle‐up intermediation processes as an RI gains power and influence.     

Terrorism,violence against the public,and the media: The Australian approach

This paper examines the balance between the apparently competing objectives of government and the media in the general area of violence against the public and details the Australian model for handling issues associated with terrorism and the media. Australia's counterterrorism strategy may be considered holistic, going beyond the idea of a comprehensive capability for response to an actual public incident to include preventive measures and enhancement of the national security environment, suggesting that all elements of the society, including the media, regard security as a cooperative endeavor. These elements have been developed in the “National Anti‐Terrorist Plan” (NATP), developed by Australia's Standing Advisory Committee on Commonwealth/State Cooperation for Prevention against Violence (SAC‐PAV). For the past several years, the SAC‐PAV has been developing a basic strategic guide to provide structure for its many activities, and the committee has agreed that the NATP requires a fourfold strategy for dealing with the media: (1) public communication policies and guidelines, (2) incorporating media response and incident management strategies, (3) media training, and (4) physical controls. In addition, the SAC‐PAV has formulated a set of guidelines for the media to apply when covering terrorist incidents, indicating clearly what crisis managers and counterterrorism response organizations expect of media handling of public crises.     

State,Society and Markets in Argentina: The Political Economy of Neodesarrollismo under Néstor Kirchner, 2003–2007

The national Peronist social contract in Argentina has a long history rooted in syndicalism and populism. However, Menemismo in the 1990s, El Argentinazo in December 2001, and Kirchnerismo post crisis have all served to change the fundamental framework of the Argentine economy, the social underpinnings of that economy and how it intersects with global capital. This article is an attempt to identify the nature of Kirchner's administration through analysis of political economy, therefore seeking to facilitate a deeper understanding of the developmental nature and impact of the Kirchner administration of 2003–2007.     

Mediation and Culture: The Example of the ICC International Commercial Mediation Competition

The International Commercial Mediation Competition is organized by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Paris, which held the event for the eighth time in February 2013. As the competition has grown, participation has become more and more diverse and thus mediation and negotiation have become more and more cross‐cultural. This led the ICC to invite external research on culture at the competition in February 2011. In this article, I discuss this student competition, the external research project question, and the culture of the competition. I also identify some of the further cultural issues raised by referring to relevant research on conflict and mediation across cultures, and conclude with some thoughts on how better to conceptualize the field of cross‐cultural mediation in terms of a systems approach.     

Decision‐making during international crises: A reexamination

The purpose of this research note is to reexamine the methods and codings of crisis decision‐making processes performed by Herek, Janis, and Huth in 1987, and thereby to discuss the role of the case survey method as a means to build theory in the study of foreign policy. The research reported here uses a somewhat different measure of decision‐making process quality and a slightly expanded list of data sources than were used by Herek and his colleagues. It reevaluates a subset of the cases explored in the previous study. This research note largely confirms the analysis of crisis decision‐making processes presented in the previous study, though it notes and discusses some discrepancies. Furthermore, this reexamination seeks to contribute to our understanding of crisis decision‐making processes by using a different conceptualization of decision‐making process quality and thus a different coding procedure.