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Income‐based educational inequality is a global issue. In Australia, schools in the relatively large private sector charge a range of fees, with public schools also exhibiting considerable income differences. Using a nationally representative sample in the Australian Survey of Social Attitudes, we examined the public's fairness perceptions of income‐based educational inequality and how their fairness perceptions are related to self‐interest (particularly regarding social class) and ideological orientations. We found that people hold diverse views about the fairness of income‐based educational inequality and that the number of people who perceived it as unfair was almost double the number of those who perceived it as fair. Respondents categorised as upper/upper‐middle‐class were, however, more likely to perceive income‐based educational inequality as fair, while agreement with government responsibility for economic well‐being was associated with a negative view of income‐based educational inequality. Implications of these findings for the promotion of socially just and equitable education are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2023, Austria continued to experience low levels of democratic satisfaction. This was particularly beneficial for the populist right‐wing Freedom Party of Austria/Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ) in regional elections and opinion polls, as well as for parties not previously represented in the federal Parliament. After the regional elections in Lower Austria and Salzburg, the FPÖ assumed government responsibility and entered a coalition with the Austrian People's Party/Österreichische Volkspartei in both states. Approval ratings for the governing parties remained low. The Social Democratic Party of Austria/Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs concluded its long‐standing internal directional debate with a change in leadership, albeit accompanied by mishaps. In terms of domestic policy, parties were able to reach a consensus, particularly on the abolition of official secrecy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have extensively explored policy feedback effects on mass publics. However, research exploring how one policy's implementation affects public preferences for another remains limited. This study proposes a novel cross‐domain policy feedback framework, emphasizing functional and normative interdependence as two mechanisms yielding cross‐domain resource and interpretive effects. We use multiple sets of nationally representative survey data and archival records from China, a context deeply rooted in filial piety culture. We employ a fuzzy regression discontinuity design and multilevel regressions to explore the effects of the one‐child policy on public preferences for old‐age support. The findings indicate that individuals subjected to more stringent enforcement exhibit increased support for the government assuming the responsibility for old‐age support. These changes largely stem from the reduction in their actual and desired number of children. The findings have significant implications for mass feedback research and reform efforts regarding population planning and public pension systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This research investigates engagement for refugees within the German socio‐political landscape. Following the arrival of one million forced migrants from Ukraine to Germany in 2022, we conducted two surveys on those who volunteered in support. The first was on general engagement (N = 2000) and the second was on individuals who provided homestay accommodation (N = 3682). Our analysis explores the driving motivations for different types of engagement, comparing individuals involved in political activities with those engaged in social‐humanitarian activities. We find that value‐based motivations impact both political and social‐humanitarian engagement, with universalism driving political engagement and benevolence linked to social‐humanitarian involvement. Further, differing motivations and types of engagement align with varying beliefs about the role of the state, suggesting that individuals engaged politically believe in increased state responsibility, contrasting with views held by socially engaged individuals. These findings are contextualized within the broader literature on engagement and migration regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public warning failure is an undertheorized concept. A shared definition of public warning failure is needed to help stakeholders assess responsibility in the aftermath of government nonuse, misuse, or misunderstanding of public warning systems, especially mobile device‐based systems that have become a critical element of the public warning ecosystem. Although some uncertainty in the disaster information environment is inevitable, a shared definition of public warning failure could help clarify the roles and responsibilities of government officials and agencies across the arc of disaster communication: public preparation, hazard detection, warning message creation, message dissemination, and public response monitoring. In the context of earthquake early warning system performance, warning failure has been defined as false alert, missed alert, inaccurate alert, no alert, and late alert. Building upon this typology, in this essay, we propose an all‐hazards definition of public warning failure, illustrate it using a conceptual model, and assess the conceptual model using examples drawn from media reporting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) remains a critical topic for the forestry sector due to increasing societal expectations about the sustainable use of forests. This paper presents an updated review of the history, current state, and future opportunities for CSR in the forest sector. Drawing from cases of CSR in practice, the review focuses on CSR's role in firms' performance and reputation capital. As opposed to popular theoretical conceptualisations, firms' choice of CSR criteria, indicators, and implementation tools remain heavily weighted toward environmental concerns. Our findings suggest that CSR benefits a firm's reputation, but the review is less categorical on CSR's more direct or tangible effects in the short‐ or longer term. The review thus identifies progress in the field but concludes that opportunities exist to exploit CSR in the forestry sector more thoroughly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of issues associated with urban/commensal rats and mice (property damage, management costs, and health risks) press upon research on these animals. While the demography of commensal rodents is mostly studied, the need for understanding factors influencing their natural morbidity/mortality is also stressed. In this respect, more attention is expected to be paid to immunity, the physiological mechanism of defense against host survival threats (pathogens, parasites, diseases). Commensal rats and mice carry numerous pathogens that evoke diverse immune responses. The state of immunity in commensal house mice is studied in great detail, owing to the use of laboratory strains in biomedical research. Because commensal rats are, compared to mice, carriers of more zoonotic agents, rats' immunity is studied mainly in that context. Some of these zoonotic agents cause chronic, asymptomatic infections, which justified studies of immunological mechanisms of pathogen tolerance versus clearance regulation in rats. Occurrence of some infections in specific tissues/organs pressed upon analysis of local/regional immune responses and/or immunopathology. A survey of immunological activity/responses in commensal rats is given in this review, with mention of existing data in commensal mice. It should throw some light on the factors relevant to their morbidity and lifespan, supplementing the knowledge of commensal rodent ecology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of World Water Policy is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study investigates the effectiveness of collaborative governance in the context of state and local government responses to the COVID‐19 pandemic in Florida. Our analysis uncovers how local authorities have successfully adapted to implement policies to increase resilience and address the crisis, despite facing challenges, constraints, and limitations. Our findings underscore the significance of considering unique local characteristics when addressing pandemics and shed light on the potential influences of state‐level actors on Home Rule. Notably, research examining the interplay between state decisions and Home Rule during a pandemic is scarce. We utilize Florida as a case study to examine local government responses to COVID‐19, employing a qualitative analysis of data from webinars hosted by the Florida League of Cities and media reports on local government actions. To substantiate our findings and encourage further research, we apply the collaborative governance framework in the context of local government administrative responsibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate Social Responsibility and the Welfare State: The Historical and Contemporary Role of CSR in the Mixed Economy of Welfare. Corporate Social Responsibility and the Welfare State: The Historical and Contemporary Role of CSR in the Mixed Economy of Welfare. [Extracted from the article]

Though safe drinking water for all is a global public health goal, disparities in access persist worldwide. We present a critical review of primary‐data based environmental justice (EJ) studies on drinking water. We examine their findings in relation to the broader EJ and drinking water literatures. Using pre‐specified protocols to screen 2423 records, we identified 33 studies for inclusion. We organized our results using the following questions: (1) what sampling and data collection methods are used; (2) how is (un)just access to water defined and measured; (3) what forms of environmental injustice are discussed; (4) how are affected communities resisting or coping; and (5) what, if any, mechanisms of redress are advocated? We find that while many studies analyze the causes and persistence of environmental injustices, most primary‐data studies on drinking water are cross‐sectional in design. Many such studies are motivated by health impacts but few measure drinking water exposures or associated health outcomes. We find that, while distinct types of injustice exist, multiple types are either co‐produced or exacerbate one another. Recognitional injustice is emerging as an undergirding injustice upon which others (distributional or procedural) can take hold. Tensions remain regarding the role of the state; redress for inequitable water access is often presumed to be the state's responsibility, but many EJ scholars argue that the state itself perpetuates inequitable conditions. The accountability for redress under different forms of water governance remains an important area for future research. This article is categorized under:Human Water > Methods [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Achieving the United Nations (UN) sustainable development goals (SDGs) at country and local levels—and ensuring "no one is left behind"—requires that nation states commit to solving complex social and societal challenges through collaborative, democratic means. Technocratic and bureaucratic procedures alone are insufficient. In addition to satisfying international actors, governments must discharge integrated democratic accountability through inclusive stakeholder engagement with and between diverse and locally embedded social actors and institutions. Democratic accountability requires recognizing and preserving social complexity and plurality mediated through public dialogues between actors and institutions. Concurrently, global initiatives like the SDGs offer opportunities for the UN's member states to show their sincerity to international principles and standards while engaging with local practices that promote democratic means of resolution and policy implementation. This research analyzes how public sector audit can potentially support and hold a government accountable for its international pledges to SDGs, including stakeholder engagement. In India, the public sector auditor has proactively undertaken a performance audit on that government's "preparedness to implement SDGs." This research demonstrates how the government is held accountable for its policies and actions on SDGs, through analyzing the interrelated actions of India's two key democratic institutions—the Supreme Audit Institution and Public Accounts Committee. We make recommendations for improving state accountability for SDGs through national level policies, mechanisms and processes of stakeholder engagement and dialogues. At an international level, we argue for the UN to develop more effective mechanisms to hold governments accountable for policies and progress on their SDG commitments. Such mechanisms could include regular progress and performance audits and monitoring both nationally and internationally. These could contribute to improved leadership and integrated policy‐making across layers and levels within a nation state. We also highlight the areas for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This commentary engages the articles in the "Citizenship, Solidarity, and Nonbelonging" forum by discussing three points: citizen participation in and challenges to bureaucratic practices; the spatialities of citizenship and belonging; and the potentials for co‐optation of civic mobilization vis‐à‐vis the privatization of state responsibilities. It concludes that citizen mobilizations can effectively structure the terms of the debate and create new forms of belonging in the wake of inherited injustices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Article 8 of the Paris Agreement introduces obligations upon the Parties to the Agreement "with respect to Loss and Damage associated with adverse impacts of climate change." According to Paragraph 52 of the Conference of the Parties' Decision, Article 8 is not a basis for liability or compensation. Therefore, the problem is whether violation of obligations leads to a state responsibility. Using a dogmatic method, this research contends that "recognizing the significance of averting, minimizing, and addressing Loss and Damage" means acceptance of responsibility for a breach of obligations. Although the means of seeking reparation would not be compensation, States are obliged to eliminate sources of damage and take precautionary measures to address loss and damage. Notwithstanding this, placing the issue of loss and damage under the Agreement into a separate article can reflect to a great extent the significance of the matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social policies in China have expanded rapidly since the early 2000s, broadening welfare provisions aiming to improve citizens' well‐being in a context of rapid development and increasing inequality. How people see the role of the government in the provision of welfare is important to policy‐making in an authoritarian state, such as China, because regime legitimacy is tied to evaluations of government performance. To what extent have welfare attitudes changed as a new Chinese social security system has emerged? Drawing on nationally representative datasets from the China Inequality and Distributive Justice Survey Project for 2004, 2009 and 2014, this study finds that support for government provision of welfare has increased substantially within all population groups since 2004. Furthermore, traditional social cleavages, such as the urban–rural divide, seem to lose strength as a predictor of redistributive preference, possibly 'deactivating' these social cleavages as vehicles of political mobilisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the beginning of the COVID‐19 pandemic, governments around the world employed militaristic metaphors to draw attention to the dangers of the virus. But, do militaristic metaphors truly affect individuals' perceived threat of the COVID‐19 virus and increase their support for corresponding restrictive policies? This study assessed the effects of fictitious newspaper articles that described COVID‐19 policies using similarly negatively valenced metaphors but with differing militaristic connotations (e.g., "war" vs. "struggle"). Overall, data from three framing experiments (N = 1114) in Germany and the United States indicate limited evidence on the effectiveness of the tested militaristic metaphors. In the U.S. context, the non‐militaristic concept of struggle was consistently more strongly associated with the desired outcomes than militaristic metaphors were. In Studies 2 and 3, we also tested whether reporting using a narrative or straightforward facts had additional influence on the framing effect. A congruency effect of the use of a narrative and of warfare metaphors was found in the German sample, but not in that of the United States. Results of post‐experimental norming studies (N = 437) in both countries revealed that the metaphor of war is associated with people ascribing greater responsibility to their governments, whereas the concept of struggle triggers a sense of individual responsibility. These results are discussed in terms of the usefulness and appropriateness of militaristic metaphors in the context of a pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, We Media's chaotic behavior has emerged one after another. How to properly supervise We Media and effectively manage its violations has become an urgent problem in the process of national governance system and governance capacity building. From the three aspects of opportunity, motivation, and control methods, this paper analyzes the relevant stakeholders and their relationships in the process of We Media information dissemination. It constructs a tripartite evolutionary game model of government, We Media, and public participation, which focuses on the analysis of the equilibrium point of the game model and carries out simulation experiments to explore the influence of government responsibility constraints on the evolution results. The research results show that government regulation plays an important role in restricting We Media's information release. When the government's willingness to regulate increases, We Media will be punished more if it violates rules. In order to reduce the cost of punishment and other factors, We Media will reduce the willingness to violate the rules. After the occurrence of social hot events, the public is more willing to be guided by positive information from We Media, prompting the government to choose strict supervision strategies, effectively reducing the violations of We Media and achieving the Pareto optimum. According to the research results, this paper puts forward reasonable countermeasures to realize the comprehensive governance pattern of noncompliance of We Media and correct guidance of public emotional cognitive behavior under responsibility constraints. The research results provide theoretical support and decision-making basis for We Media information management and control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. There is a need to assess the 2009 new healthcare reform in China on hypertension prevention. It helps to control from the perspectives of multisectoral participation, government responsibility assignment, performance assessment, and service delivery. Design. Interrupted time-series study. Setting. 31 provinces in mainland China. Primary and Secondary Outcome Measures. Based on the content analysis of publicly available policy documents from 31 provinces regarding hypertension prevention and control, we analyzed the changes brought by the 2009 new healthcare reform through four quantitative indicators, including multisector participation (MP), main department responsibility coverage (MDRC), primary department assessment indicator coverage (MDAIC), and service type coverage (STC). We compared the changing trends of four indicators before and after 2009. Results. Nationally, MP, MDRC, and STC grew rapidly and increased to 88.9%, 96.4%, and 77.8%, respectively, in 2017, higher than MDAIC (36.9%). This growth was accelerated by the new healthcare reform, with the highest acceleration in MP (β3 = 6.345, p < 0.001), followed by MDRC (β3 = 3.829, p < 0.01), STC (β3 = 3.799, p < 0.001), and MDAIC (β3 = 3.585, p < 0.001). The MP and MDRC trend changes were higher in the central and western regions than in the east after the reform. Conclusions. Our research showed that the new healthcare reform had a positive effect in promoting multisectoral participation in preventing and controlling hypertension in China, improving the responsibility mechanism, and expanding the types of services provided. The government should lead the coordination and implementation of multidepartmental responsibilities and mobilize nonhealth departments to continuously participate in the prevention and control of chronic diseases by improving incentive and evaluation mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I discuss David Shoemaker's recently published piece "Responsibility: The State of the Question. Fault Lines in the Foundations." While agreeing with Shoemaker on many points, I argue for a more unified diagnosis of the seemingly intractable debates that plague (what I call) "responsibility studies." I claim that, of the five fault lines Shoemaker identifies, the most basic one is about the role that the notion of deserved harm should play in the theory of moral responsibility. I argue that the deep divide between those theorists who affirm and those who deny that moral responsibility is essentially about the justification of desert thus understood can be traced to the disagreement about whether the focus on the reactive attitudes by itself entails that moral responsibility has nothing to do with traditional questions about desert and free will. I then show that the seeming intractableness of the other four fault lines Shoemaker identifies is expectable and explicable in light of this more basic disagreement. After this diagnostic work, I conclude by suggesting a solution to the "morass" that has taken over responsibility studies: theorists working in the field should acknowledge that it has effectively bifurcated into two discrete subareas, which I suggest calling "retribution studies" and "interpersonal studies." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The functioning of the convention of collective ministerial responsibility in British government during the period 2010–19 is assessed by examining, in turn: the convention's historical context, its operation during the period of the 2010–15 Conservative‐Liberal Democrat coalition government, and its application during 2015–19 in the extraordinary circumstances of the Brexit fissures. The key variables and causal factors which historically affected the implementation of the convention continued to have relevance in this period, during which it further evolved under the relative tensions of coalition politics and the more severe strains of fundamental policy differences on a matter of strong political salience. In spite of the stresses placed upon the convention's operation during this extraordinary period, it remains viable as a core feature of the constitution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I study a class of macroeconomic models in which all firms can costlessly choose any price at each date from an interval (indexed to last period's price level) that includes a positive lower bound. I prove three results that are valid for any such half‐closed interval (regardless of how near zero the left endpoint is). First, given any output sequence that is uniformly bounded from above by the moneyless equilibrium output level, that bounded output sequence is an equilibrium outcome for a (possibly time‐dependent) specification of monetary and fiscal policy. Second, given any specification of monetary and fiscal policy in which the former is time‐invariant and the latter is Ricardian (in the sense of Woodford 1995), there is a sequence of equilibria in which consumption converges to zero on a date‐by‐date basis. These first two results suggest that standard macroeconomic models without pricing bounds may provide a false degree of confidence in macroeconomic stability and undue faith in the long‐run irrelevance of monetary policy. This paper's final result constructs a non‐Ricardian nominal framework (in which the long‐run growth rate of nominal government liabilities is sufficiently high) that pins down a unique stable real outcome as an equilibrium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A fundamental pillar of community‐driven restoration projects is motivation, without which initiatives are doomed to fail. However, technical knowledge and funding are also important factors for success. In this work, we present three case studies of post‐fire restoration projects driven by local communities in Central Chile to assess whether motivation and proactive actions were sufficient to carry out successful restoration projects. We found that while in the three cases motivation was essential for starting restoration actions, the level of technical knowledge, the ability to connect with academic institutions, and the capability to secure funding played key roles in the projects' results. We identified three key factors that should be present to increase community‐driven restoration success: (1) appropriate technical knowledge and expertise to set suitable restoration objectives and activities; (2) adequate capabilities and networks for procuring financial and technical resources; and (3) capacity to apply for available funding to ensure resources for later phases. Ensuring the concurrence of these three factors cannot be the sole responsibility of local communities. Instead, it should be a shared responsibility between government agencies and academic institutions to develop strategies that help develop links between experts and local communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of the study is to signify the impact of corporate social responsibility performance on state‐owned and non‐state‐owned enterprises' performance. The contributive concept of CSR performance has been formulated while contemplating total tax, staff expenditure, public welfare expenditure, social cost and total equity. To contemplate with deep insight, the moderating role of innovation input and output has been substantiated through empirical results. The data of 502 listed companies on Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan has been endorsed for years 2009–2018. Empirical underpinnings reveal that corporate social responsibility performance boosts the non‐state‐owned enterprises' performance vehemently while state‐owned enterprises have proclaimed insignificant results. Comprehensively, innovation input has decelerated the Non‐state owned Enterprises' performance while innovation output has remained insignificant. Specifically, leverage has been signified as the most deterrent vehicle for declining the Non‐State Owned Enterprises' performance. Intuitively, the theoretical contribution is manifested while deducing the implicative aspect of legitimacy theory which emphasizes on the adoption of corporate social responsibility. Implicatively, the study recommends to ameliorate the corporate structure of state‐owned enterprises comprehensively so that advantage of corporate social responsibility may be attained vigorously. Doubtlessly, empirical results are reliable and authenticated due to the execution of GMM and 2SLS instrumental regressions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses two questions: First, how does the value of human dignity distinctively bear on a state's responsibilities in relation to migrants; and, secondly, how serious a wrong is it when a state fails to respect the dignity of migrants? In response to these questions, a view is presented about the distinction between wrongs that violate cosmopolitan standards and wrongs that violate the standards that are distinctive to a particular community; about when and how the contested concept of human dignity might be engaged; and, elaborating a three‐tiered and lexically ordered scheme of state responsibilities, about how we should assess the seriousness of a state's failure to respect the dignity of migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Goals are important for the effective execution of public trust responsibilities by state inland fisheries bureaus, but formulating meaningful goals is not simple. Often bureaus look to their past and to their sister bureaus in neighboring states when crafting goals for their own freshwater resources. Herein, we review the goal themes of fisheries bureaus using publicly available documents and guided by previous literature. We test whether goals exhibit geographic patterns, presuming that differences and similarities in climate, natural resources, and people determine, to various degrees, the goal themes across the United States. We identified nine distinct goal themes, but found that they do not form clear geographic patterns, which contrasts with a similar analysis conducted in the 1970s. Since the 1970s, fisheries bureau goals have expanded and regionalism in goals has vanished. We suggest that changes in perspectives and communication technology, as well as provisions within nationwide funding mechanisms, have led to goals becoming more homogenous across the USA and more diverse within each bureau. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This article critically engages with Mol, Moser, and Pols' notion of "tinkering" care (2010) as "attentive experimentation." I explore the limits of tinkering care for United Kingdom and New Zealand military veterans who participated in British nuclear bomb testing in the Pacific. Although the British state has assured the men that they were exposed to safe levels of radiation, test veterans continue to believe their ill health is service related. Over fifty years of seeking care and recognition, the test veterans have dealt with multiple state actors and medical professionals who have successively taken over responsibility for their care and their claims. Each new agent seeks novel ways to fine tune service provision, biomedical knowledge about the men's illnesses, as well as their experiences of care. All the while, they offer no final endpoint to claim making, knowledge production, care provisions, and compensation. This approach is starkly in contrast to the urgent temporality within which aging veterans seek definitive decisions, care, and recognition that reduces (rather than extends) their engagements with the state. This article thus considers the moments and circumstances when actors actively work against the unsettled, experimental qualities of care in order to feel truly cared for. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do international laws affect citizens' willingness to accept refugees? In full and partial democracies, citizens' attitudes can influence national policy. A growing literature suggests that international institutions can influence citizens' attitudes on foreign policy issues, and therefore lead to policy change, but those studies are almost entirely confined to domestic human rights and U.S.‐based respondents; none consider refugee policy. Using data from a survey experiment administered in September 2017 via face‐to‐face interviews with 1,335 citizens of Turkey, we investigate how international norms affect citizens' willingness to accept refugees. Our findings are surprising: reminding people about the government's responsibility under the Refugee Convention to accept refugees triggers a backfire effect, decreasing support for accepting them. This effect appears driven by respondents who support the incumbent AKP Party and by lower‐educated respondents. We therefore provide evidence that international refugee law—and perhaps international institutions generally—can trigger a political backlash, undermining the very policies that they promote. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Supreme Court's decision in Riegel v. Medtronic immunized medical device manufacturers from certain types of state product liability claims. However, this immunization applies only when the devices underlying those claims have been approved through the Food and Drug Administration's most rigorous—and costly—review process, premarket approval (PMA). Exploiting this decision, we examine whether manufacturers strategically respond to this new immunity. We find evidence that, following Riegel, approvals for high‐risk product categories increase relative to the comparable change for low‐risk categories, suggesting that firms are sensitive to the newly immunized risk. We additionally find evidence that physician treatment patterns with respect to medical devices also change, consistent with Riegel shifting liability away from device manufacturers and toward physicians. The analysis provides evidence that sophisticated actors respond to changes in their expected legal liability and that technical legal decisions have important ramifications for the provision of healthcare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Raqeeb v Barts NHS Foundation Trust, the latest of a number of cases concerning whether a child can travel abroad for treatment that doctors in the UK do not consider to be in their best interests, the High Court held that the hospital had acted unlawfully by failing to consider the child's rights under EU law when refusing to allow her to travel. Although this derogation could be justified on public policy grounds, as such treatment was, on the facts, in her best interests, no further interference with her rights was justified. In making this finding, the court recognised the 'stress' that such a case placed on the best interests test, lending weight to the argument for moving instead to a risk of significant harm threshold for judicial intervention in parental decisions, which better accounts for legitimate differences of value and strikes a better balance under Article 8 ECHR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The obligation of States to provide full reparation for internationally wrongful acts, including by full compensation, is one of the bedrock principles of international law. The article challenges this principle for cases where compensation is crippling for the responsible State or its peoples, which can occur when State responsibility is implemented before international courts and tribunals. The International Law Commission's decision not to qualify full reparation for instances of crippling compensation in its influential Articles on State responsibility was an unpersuasive legal position to adopt in 2001, and its rationale has aged badly. However, the failure by States and other actors to challenge it in the following two decades signified its endorsement by the international legal process. Nevertheless, the case against the permissibility of crippling compensation in modern international law can still be made, both on a case‐by‐case basis and at the level of customary secondary rules of State responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article suggests that lawyers and courts are largely oblivious to scientific insights regarding the value and limitations of latent fingerprint evidence. It proceeds through a detailed historical analysis of the way fingerprint evidence has been reported and challenged. It compares legal responses with mainstream scientific research. Our analysis shows that fingerprint evidence is routinely equated with categorical proof of identity notwithstanding scientific warnings that such an approach is 'indefensible'. We find that legal challenges to latent fingerprint evidence have been uniformly focused on adjectival issues (e.g. compliance with enabling legislation), leaving the validity and accuracy of this subjective comparison technique virtually unexamined since its first reception at the very beginning of the twentieth century. Lack of legal engagement with validity, error and scientific research suggest that adversarial procedures have not worked effectively to secure scientifically reliable expert evidence and that legal personnel struggle with elementary scientific reasoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MPA Karlsruhe – a strong partner in a strong association The establishment of technical safety testing facilities is a response to several devastating accidents of buildings and technical products at the beginning of industrialization. The safety of citizens is not only the responsibility of the manufacturers of products, but also the responsibility of the state, because of guaranteeing the safety of its citizens. The material testing institutes established for this purpose not only check the quality or conformity of certain products due to defined requirements, but also provide an opportunity to promote business and strengthen university locations. The 100‐year history of the MPA Karlsruhe clearly proves this symbiosis and also demonstrates that the MPA Karlsruhe is a competent partner with outstanding expertise. In addition, MPA Karlsruhe is an important and committed member of the VMPA. The future of MPA Karlsruhe and the future of material testing in general is also determined by dealing with the challenge of digitization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As voluntary third‐party certification systems become an increasingly accepted part of international frameworks for forest governance, some state forestry agencies are following the private sector in seeking certification of their forest management activities. We ask how the roles and responsibilities of state forest management agencies interact with the processes and mechanisms established by certification systems. To answer this question, we review existing research to propose a conceptual framework composed of eight issues of particular relevance to states: regulation, transnationalism, sovereignty disputes, partnerships and competition, mainstreaming, effectiveness, equity, and legitimacy and trust. We then use this framework to analyze experience in Quebec, Canada, where the state agency initially sought certification and then abandoned this plan after facing difficulties meeting the requirements pertaining to indigenous rights. Our framework helps to understand possible complementarities between state and non‐state systems, but also highlights challenges for reconciling state roles and responsibilities under certification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses solutions proposed to the problem of orphan works. Orphan works are copyrighted works whose owners are difficult or impossible to identify and/or locate after carrying out a diligent search. The first and foremost aim of providing a solution for the problem of orphan works is to regain the goal of copyright protection, which is to enable the public to access and benefit from protected works. This article examines various solutions that have been adopted by different countries. It also analyses solutions that are under examination for introduction into law, such as limited liability in the United States. The authors reveal that the adoption of a solution by any country requires careful study to introduce the most appropriate approach. It was also found that solving the problem of orphan works would benefit both users and copyright holders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I discuss five major fault lines in the foundations of responsibility theory—a relatively new field—fault lines traceable to P. F. Strawson's groundbreaking "Freedom and Resentment." They are about the proper methods and content of responsibility theory, and disputes over these foundational issues have led to a messy and wildly divergent set of theories and approaches in the field. My aim is simply to identify and sort out these fault lines so that we can at least agree on the source of our disagreements, and so that we may also perhaps realize the pressing need to address these fault lines first, in order to help resolve some of our downstream disputes and nurture responsibility theory into a more unified and theoretically sophisticated philosophical enterprise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Significant reforms to Australia's adult safeguarding laws and practices are in the process of occurring in the context of increasingly market‐oriented social care provision and rising human rights consciousness. Recent safeguarding developments have included federal regulatory reforms concerning disability and aged care service provision, together with significant reform activity stemming from a national inquiry into elder abuse. Despite this national activity, adult safeguarding continues largely to be an arena of state and territory responsibility. This article examines recent reform developments and asks how safeguarding laws and practices can be reformed to take account of increased federal involvement in social care regulation and the more market‐oriented ways in which social care is being provided. The article argues that while state and territory safeguarding laws and practices are unlikely to become uniform, 10 principles ought to guide continued adult safeguarding reform. These principles seek to balance respect for the autonomy of individuals with society's obligation to support those in need. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: We examine how prior experience with government agencies shapes citizens' assessments of government performance. In Louisiana, two extreme weather events, 11 years apart, required intervention from the state and federal government: Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the 2016 floods. Were Louisianans' attitudes toward government response shaped by their prior experiences during a natural disaster? Methods: We use an original survey of Louisianans to assess the role of Katrina experience in performance assessments of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Louisiana state government in 2016. Results: We find a significant negative relationship: flood aid applicants in 2016 rated state government much lower, but only if they also applied for Katrina aid. Conclusions: Those with personal experience with FEMA hold lower expectations of state government performance, which deteriorated under the Jindal Administration, and look to the federal government for support. Prior experience with government agencies establishes expectations of responsibility that endure years later. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Authoritarian predispositions are associated with a preference for order, certainty, and security. Using data from European Social Surveys (ESS), we show that this association extends to attitudes towards redistributive policies. We demonstrate that support for redistributive policies that emphasize the government's responsibility to provide old age, health, and unemployment benefits are positively associated with authoritarian predispositions. We also provide evidence that perceived economic threats moderate this relationship such that, for individuals who perceive higher levels of economic threat, the relationship between authoritarian predispositions and support for government responsibility is stronger. These results show that authoritarian predispositions are not only associated with social preferences but also attitudes towards economic policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary With Public Administration Reform in Vietnam comes more local government responsibility for policy making. Building on the results of a multiple case study research on housing and infrastructure upgrading projects in four cities of Vietnam, it has been confirmed that the community participation and local government capacity in urban housing and infrastructure upgrading projects are positively related. The level of community participation in urban housing and infrastructure upgrading projects is influenced by local government capacity, and in turn, it has effects on the outcomes. There are some important aspects for the enhancement of the level of community participation. These are effective leadership, the financial resources aspect, and communication/information exchange. Moreover, based on the patterns of community participation in urban upgrading projects, it has been found that participation is strongly supported by government actors in these four cases, and a process of coproduction between the local government and the affected communities has taken place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The rise of regional governments in Europe has been often espoused on democratic grounds. Yet the democratic promise of political decentralization should be evaluated in light of its potential undermining effects upon the essential mechanism to make accountability work: citizens’ capacity to assign responsibility for policy outcomes. People may get it wrong when assigning responsibility because they are not sure who is responsible for policy outcomes when powers are vertically fragmented between different levels of government and/or simply because their responsibility judgements are biased by political beliefs, which act as lenses through which attribution is filtered. How can we then make electoral accountability work in decentralized systems? This paper will explore this question by delving into the most important theoretical and empirical challenges in the study of attribution of responsibility and electoral accountability in decentralized contexts. At the theoretical level, there is still need of a better understanding of the relationship between federal institutional conditions and individuals’ use of cognitive bias to cope with institutional complexity when assigning responsibility. The empirical challenge is to overcome the lack of comparable individual‐level data on responsibility attribution for a broad range of country cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is the state a collective agent? Are citizens responsible for what their states do? If not citizens, then who, if anyone, is responsible for what the state does? Many different sub-disciplines of philosophy are relevant for answering these questions. We need to know what 'the state' is, who or what it's composed of, and what relation the parts stand in to the whole. Once we know what it is, we need to know whether that thing is an agent, in particular a moral agent capable of taking moral responsibility for its actions. We have to know what it takes for it to be capable of moral responsibility, e.g., what the functional equivalents in groups (or in that kind of group in particular) are of knowledge, intention, foreseeability, recklessness, and so on. And once we've established that it is an agent, and is responsible for what it does, we have to explain whether and in what way this implicates members, i.e., whether state responsibility distributes to the (compositional) members of states, whoever they may be ('citizens' is one possibility, but there are many). Answers to these questions come from metaphysics, social ontology, action theory, epistemology, political theory, and ethics. In what follows, we'll give an outline of some different ways of answering these questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the role of debt maturity is analysed in a framework that blends a number of key macro-economic factors with a process of estimating an optimal debt maturity maximising net present value. The purpose is to reduce the real value of government liabilities for a highly indebted country, as for example in the case of Greece, over a 35-year period. The conclusion that emerges is that management of debt maturity is an essential component of the equilibrium policy and, as such, it can play an important role both in implementing tax smoothing programmes and in reducing costs associated with debt financing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International development operates as a system of meetings. This essay shows how meetings work within aid regimes to structure responsibilities for implementation, to situate projects within funding streams, and to realize the effects of scale. Where donor aid is increasingly allocated to support national plans which are the responsibility of recipient governments, the monitoring of outcomes requires the instantiation of project forms within and across existing state institutions. This involves the delineation of distinct sectors and their scale of operation, alongside the maintenance of relations with external funders. Drawing on ethnographic material from the Kenyan health sector, we show how development projects are realized as tangible social institutions through the structure of formal meetings. Meetings mark the temporality and trajectory of development as a set of planned activities contributing to specific targets. In the context of specific projects they become fora where commitment to development goals of participation, capacity-building, and effective management can be demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping is becoming a matter of increasing concern. Two issues arise in particular. The first issue concerns the elaboration of rules on this subject. In this regard, Annex VI of the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships ( MARPOL), amended in 2011, constitutes a key instrument because it was the first legally binding climate change instrument since the Kyoto Protocol. The second issue relates to effective compliance with relevant rules. While the flag State has the primary responsibility to implement relevant rules concerning the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping, the flag State responsibility alone is inadequate to secure effective compliance with relevant rules. Thus, there is a need to examine the question whether and to what extent coastal and port States can regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vessels in international law. This article seeks to address these two issues. The article concludes that while port States can perform a valuable role in effectuating global rules provided in MARPOL Annex VI, port State control encounters several challenges. Thus, securing compliance with relevant rules should be an important issue in the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political liberalism offers perhaps the most developed and dominant account of justice and legitimacy in the face of disagreement among citizens. A prominent objection states that the view arbitrarily treats differently disagreement about the good, such as on what makes for a good life, and disagreement about justice. In the presence of reasonable disagreement about the good, political liberals argue that the state must be neutral, but they do not suggest a similar response given reasonable disagreement about what justice requires. A leading political liberal, Jonathan Quong, has recently offered a rebuttal to this asymmetry objection. His reply rests on an innovative distinction between justificatory and foundational disagreement. Quong claims that disagreements about justice in a well ordered society are justificatory while disagreements about the good are foundational, and suggests that this fact blocks the asymmetry objection. We assess Quong's solution and argue that it fails to justify legitimate state action on matters of justice but not the good. We conclude that the asymmetry objection continues to undermine political liberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though genuine (voluntary, deliberate) consent of the governed does not occur in modern states, political legitimacy still requires something that does what consent does. Dereification of the state (recognizing that citizens continually create their state), combined with a defensible notion of moral responsibility, entails citizens' moral responsibility for their state. This implies that we may treat citizens morally as if they consented to their state, yielding a moral equivalent of consent of the governed, and a conception of political legitimacy applicable to modern states thought legitimate. It implies that legitimate states have a moral right to rule, and their citizens have a prima facie moral obligation to obey the law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies have drawn attention to the political contingencies of the media's political agenda-setting influence, finding, for instance, that issues from the media agenda are more likely to attract attention if a party enjoys ownership of the issue. Supplementing the debate on why political parties respond to news, it is argued in this article that ownership is only part of the picture and that policy responsibility, together with news tone, constitutes a stronger explanation of news politicisation. Opposition parties respond to bad news because they reflect negative developments in social problems for which the government could be held responsible. The government responds to good news that reflects positive developments in social problems because this could politicise policy success, but is also forced to react when news explicitly address government responsibility and thereby threatens its image as responsive and competent. Furthermore, it is shown that news tone and policy responsibility condition the incentive to politicise owned issues from the media agenda. Thus, opposition parties will not politicise owned issues when news is good because this could draw attention to government success, while government is unable and unwilling to prioritise owned issues when news is bad and instead is likely to make use of its ownership strengths when news is good and the pressure to respond is low. The arguments are tested on a large- N sample of radio news stories from Denmark (2003-2004). Opposition response is measured through parliamentary questions spurred by the news stories, while government response is indicated by references to these stories in the prime minister's weekly press meeting. Results confirm the expectations, suggesting that parties care more about the tone of news stories and the type of attention they might produce, rather than what type of issues they could serve to politicise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Salween borderlands can be conceptualised as spaces of exception where contradictory outcomes of state actions lead to state violence. The Burmese and Thai states have maintained their sovereign power and responded to economic regionalisation through violent practices in particular spaces. The political conflicts between the Burmese junta and ethnic minorities in the Salween borderlands have become war zones. The Burmese government in association with the Thai state and transnational dam investors has imposed the Salween dam projects on the Salween borderlands and people in the form of a terrorising state. The border people have experienced fear, danger and military violence, which has become part of the violence in everyday life. This paper provides an ethnographic study focused on specific events involving an explosion and death in a particular place and time on the Salween borderland. It shows the suffering of the border people in relation to sovereign power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent literature has shown that the long established link between economic performance and electoral outcomes is conditioned by a country's institutions and government, what is often termed 'clarity of responsibility'. In this article two distinct dimensions of the clarity of the political context are identified: institutional and government clarity. The first captures the formal dispersion of government power, both horizontally and vertically. The second captures the cohesion of the incumbent government. Analysing survey data from 27 European countries, it is shown that voters' ability to hold governments to account, for both the economy and management of public services, is primarily influenced by the extent to which there is an identifiable and cohesive incumbent, whereas formal institutional rules have no direct impact on performance voting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]