Challenges of research in rural poverty: lessons from large field surveys

This practical note highlights lessons learnt during the data collection of two large field surveys as part of the ongoing “Sindh Union Council and Economic Strengthening Support” (SUCCESS) programme in southern Pakistan. The experience is discussed in terms of language barriers, the educational status of households, dealing with people’s expectations and non-cooperation, and the weather conditions. The note also highlights the practice of public sharing of data in real-time to improve the design and implementation of future surveys, especially those measuring poverty and quality of life.     

Administrative reform assistance and democracy promotion: exploring the democratic substance of the EU’s public administration reform principles for the neighbourhood countries

International donors, particularly the European Union (EU), vehemently endorse institution-building and public administration reform (PAR) in their work on democracy support. Still, the linkages between externally sponsored reform and advancement of democratic governance in beneficiary countries constitute a blind spot in our understanding of democratization. This article contributes to examining this relationship by exploring the democratic substance of the EU’s PAR portfolio for the neighbourhood countries. The aim of the article is to focus attention on the PA–democracy interface in the study of democracy promotion by elaborating a conceptual framework for exploring the nature of externally supported administrative reforms and the substantive content of democracy being advanced. By using the OECD/SIGMA’s (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development/Support for Improvement in Governance and Management) PAR framework for the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) countries as a case study, this article demonstrates how the EU’s approach to programming PAR accommodates elements from several formats of democratic governance while the conceptualization of the democratic effects of the PAR principles remains vague. The article concludes by highlighting the need for closer examination of the potentials and limits of external PAR strategies in democracy support, and for attuning the EU’s PAR design to its democratic implications.     

Public support for coercive diplomacy: Exploring public opinion data from ten European countries

Scholarship has increasingly acknowledged the importance of public attitudes for shaping the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy. Economic sanctions emerged as one of CFSP's central tools. Yet despite the emergence of sanctions as a popular instrument in the EU foreign policy toolbox, public attitudes towards sanctions are yet to be studied in depth. This article explains public support for EU sanctions, using the empirical example of sanctions against Russia. It looks at geopolitical attitudes, economic motivations and ideational factors to explain the variation in public support for sanctions. The conclusion suggests that geopolitical factors are the most important, and that economic factors matter very little. Euroscepticism and anti‐Americanism play an important role in explaining the support for sanctions at the individual level.     

Enabling collaborative synthesis in multi-partner programmes

Multi-partner consortia have emerged as an important modality for knowledge generation to address complex sustainability challenges. Establishing effective multi-partner consortia involves significant investment. This article shares lessons from the Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia (CARIAA), which aims to support policy and practice for climate change adaptation through a consortium model. Key lessons include the need to facilitate collaborative spaces to build trust and identify common interests, while accepting that this is not a guarantee of success; the importance of programmatic leadership to achieve synthesis; and the value of strategic planning in supporting motivation and alignment between partners.     

Measuring Policy Success: Evaluating Public Sector Reform in Bhutan

There has been resurgence in evaluation of policy, reflected mostly by an increase in ex ante studies. Although there is a shift towards ex post evaluation, this has been gradual, resulting in a paucity of ex post evaluation literature. To address this gap, we apply a revisionist approach to evaluate a major public sector reform in the Bhutanese civil service. We conclude that it provides a more holistic approach for ex post evaluation policy, and also a more nuanced evaluation which moves us beyond the narrow binary view of success or failure in reform.     

The changing dynamics of policy experiment in Singapore: does the 2011 general election make a difference?

The city-state of Singapore is proactive in harnessing policy experimentation to incubate innovations, transfer knowledge and facilitate collaborations across different public sectors. Given the country’s strong knack for pragmatism, international practices and lessons are usually first tested and adapted in policy experiments before scaling up to nationwide policies. Singapore’s practice of policy experimentation, however, has also demonstrated evolution over time. This article reviews the evolving role of experimentation in Singapore’s policy decision-making and implementation, and analyses pilot programmes in public housing to elicit the key attributes and commonalities of its policy experiments. It finds that policy experiments have been increasingly used after the 2011 general election, which witnessed a radical political rebalancing in Singapore’s governance history. Pilot projects have thus transformed from a utilitarian to citizen-centric, design-thinking approach after 2011. Pilot programmes are used for multiple purposes in policy innovations, among which civil service mentoring, knowledge transfer and cross-boundary collaboration are the values primarily pursued. The article discusses the contributions of the findings to the literature and policy implications for practitioners.     

Meeting development goals: evidence from the Civil Society Education Fund

In recent years, the Civil Society Education Fund has supported national education civil society coalitions (NECs) in low-income countries so that they put pressure on governments and donors to implement the Education for All agenda and the Millennium Development Goal on education. This article draws on literature on global governance as well as on an extensive evaluation of the CSEF to explore the actual contribution of this initiative to the activity of NECs. The article highlights the achievements and shortcomings of the CSEF and includes a set of practical recommendations on the role of global civil society in international development processes.     

当代中国政策议程创建模式嬗变分析

政策议程的研究在当前学术界引起了越来越多的关注,但是已有的研究成果表明,这些理论范式较多地从即时的视阈对政策议程的创建过程进行解释,而缺少历时向度的考察与对比研究,因而只能对某一具体的社会问题如何进入政策议程进行个案式的说明,而不能归纳和概括一个特定时期政策议程创建活动的总体特征和一般规律,当然也就难以从宏观层面对不同时期的议程建构模式进行纵向比较分析。因此,推进研究的深入发展亟需将个案式的解释模型上升为一般化的分析框架,通过对不同历史时期的创建活动进行动态化的梳理和比较,实现由单一向度的分析视角向"立体化"、多维度的研究方向转变。基于这一思考,以探究政策议程创建活动的"情境转换"与"过程变迁"及其内在联系为主旨,以政策议程创建模式为分析单元,提出了体制-过程模型,并以此为工具,以改革开放以来不同历史阶段的政策议程创建活动为考察对象,通过对三种政策议程创建模式的特征、过程及其背景的比较分析,力图在探究我国三十年间政策议程创建模式演进的一般规律的基础上对体制-过程模型的应用进行说明和验证。     

养老社会保险制度的反贫困分析——美国的实践及对我国的启示

在不同的社会保障制度模式下,养老社会保险的反贫困功能不一样。不同的养老社会保险制度设计会影响其反贫困功能的发挥。美国的公共养老保险制度——"老年人、遗属和残疾人保险(OASDI)"在计发办法上的累退倾向,在受益对象上不限于退休者本人还包括配偶、遗属和残疾人,在实际给付时关于受益类型、课税、最低和最高收益、随生活成本进行调整等政策规定,对于低收入者保护倾向非常明显。与美国相比,我国目前的养老社会保险存在覆盖面窄、水平偏高,受益水平差异偏大,缺乏不同的受益类型设计等问题。为推动多层次养老保障体系建设,我国养老社会保险制度改革的政策取向应该是降低现有受益水平,扩大覆盖面,并通过覆盖更多的低收入者来增强制度的反贫困效果。同时评估和改革个人账户,以防止养老金差异过大。     

中国台湾的女孩生存问题及其公共政策治理

通过网络、国际会议、期刊等媒介搜集相关资料,首先对中国台湾省的女孩生存问题的态势和原因进行了梳理,发现台湾的女孩生存问题主要由出生性别比反映出来,呈现出总体上升趋势,但主要在略高于正常值的范围内波动;导致台湾女孩生存问题的原因包括根源性原因、条件性原因和直接原因。其次对台湾在女孩生存问题方面的公共政策治理措施及其效果进行了分析,发现台湾不仅采取了针对女孩生存问题的直接措施,也采取了促进妇女发展的间接措施,涉及到法律、政治、经济、人口、文化等各个领域,并建立了确保治理措施付诸于实施的运行机制。这些公共政策治理措施虽然在短期内并没有改变台湾女孩生存问题的现状,但对于提高妇女地位、促进妇女发展产生了一定的积极影响。最后借鉴台湾针对女孩生存问题治理的经验和教训,立足于大陆女孩生存问题及其治理的特点,分别从战略和操作化两个层次为大陆地区女孩生存问题的治理提出了政策建议。