Search results for "Policy Analysis"

Foreign Aid to Education in Sub-Saharan Africa : How Useful Is It?

1988

International audience

Latvia in search of a social policy model

1996

Contemporary Role of SMEs in Employment in Manufacturing and Service Industries

2017

Abstract. Analysis made in the article allows to conclude that the SME sector of high-tech manufacturing industries plays growing role in solving the problems of employment in developed countries. However, the major problem is that it is capable for only partial compensation of the loss of jobs in labour intensive sectors of the economy. Accumulation of knowledge of the population in industrialized countries together with high levels of computer literacy contributes to the revitalization of business services sellers that are mainly small sized businesses. In the era of fast growing technology industries, in particular related to IT sector, the role of SMEs in economy is increasing as they a…

Multilevel Governance and Participation: Interpreting Democracy in EU-programmes

2014

This article offers an ethnographically oriented, interpretive approach for the research into the democratic qualities of multilevel governance (MLG). The complex and networked MLG arrangements, such as the European Union's (EU) participatory policy practices, are changing the traditional roles of public administration and politics in ways we cannot yet fully foresee. Especially, the impact on democracy is subject to debate. With two case studies, this article seeks to shift the focus of the discussion on the democratic possibilities of MLG from theoretical analysis to empirical research into local and mundane experiences concerning EU policy implementation. The cases studied are the rural …

Foreign and Security Policy

2015

In early 2014 the foreign and security policy discourse in the Baltic region was transformed as a resurgent and assertive Russia annexed Crimea and launched covert operations in eastern Ukraine.1 Observers were quick to point out that events in Ukraine eerily paralleled the 1940 occupation of the Baltic states. The traditional security concerns about Russian intentions in the region that the Baltic states had increasingly suppressed over the previous 20 years once again rushed to the surface. The post-existential era of Baltic foreign and security policy that had marked the decade that followed accession to the EU and NATO seemed to have come to an end.

Europeanisation of VET – the Spanish Vocational Education and Training system and the influence of European education policy

2021

The paper discusses the development of Spanish Vocational Education and Training (VET) over the past four decades and the extent to which and ways in which joining the European Economic Communities...

La matriz de análisis de políticas con datos eficientes: evaluación de la rentabilidad del cultivo del arroz

2008

This paper combines policy analysis matrix and data envelopment analysis techniques to model the analysis of profitability from farming. Policy analysis matrices are computed for a sample of rice growers located in the wetland of the Albufera (Eastern Spain) under observed conventional and profit-efficient farming conditions. While conventional analysis points to a lack of profitability, farmers are shown to make positive profits at private and social prices when data reflecting efficiency adjustments are used in the analysis. The main conclusion is that the usefulness of the policy analysis matrix might be substantially enhanced by simulating profitability after efficiency-improving manage…

Farewell to leadership? Ideas of hegemony and counter-hegemony in the Americas

2014

Mainstream International Relations and Foreign Policy Analysis have often concentrated on material factors and actors’ preferences, leaving out ideational dynamics. However, US–Latin American relations in general seem fraught with ideas, narratives and historical references re-articulated from time to time on both sides. In his campaign, Barack Obama announced a fresh start of US–Latin American relations, promising to “restore American leadership in Latin America”, at the same time creating “a new partnership for the Americas”, combining two narratives in US–Latin American policy. “Leadership”, enshrined in the Monroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt corollary, which declared Latin America the “…

Testing for a Political Bias in Freedom House Democracy Scores: Are U.S. Friendly States Judged To Be More Democratic?

2012

Several scholars have criticized the Freedom House democracy ratings as being politically biased; do countries indeed incorrectly receive better ratings that have stronger political ties with the United States? Starting from the assumption that other indices of democracy can be used as benchmark data, different estimation strategies are employed to gauge whether differences between a number of alternative indices of democracy and the FH ratings can be explained in a systematic manner by variables that record relationships between the U.S. and the countries under investigation. Differentiating between the period before 1989 and after 1988, I obtain consistent evidence of a substantial bias i…

Determinants of health policy impact: comparative results of a European policymaker study.

2003

This article will use a new theoretical framework for the analysis of health policy impact introduced by Rütten et al. (2003). In particular, it will report on a comparative European study of policymakers' perception and evaluation of specific determinants of the policy impact, both in terms of output (implemented measures) and outcome (health behaviour change). Policy determinants investigated are goals, resources, obligations and opportunities as related to the policymaking process.Theory is applied to a comparative analysis of prevention and health promotion policy in Belgium, Finland, Germany. The Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland. The study is MED2-part of a project that has developed…