Division, austerity, the gig economy: migration isn’t our biggest labour market problem

Policymakers are beginning to wake up to the cold reality of what Brexit means for immigration. They are right to be alarmed, says Emma Carmel. The gig economy and London’s growth as a financial centre have changed Britain’s labour market radically. Trying to manage it through visas and work permits will stretch a state already buckling under the strain of austerity

Peace and Prosperity for the Digital Age? the Colonial Political Economy of European AI Governance

We are not short of alarming accounts of the global power asymmetries and detrimental environmental, social, and political effects fostered and amplified by the production, design, and use of artificial intelligence technologies (AITs). From 'surveillance capitalism' [66], via the 'black box society' [50], 'automated inequality' [22], 'algorithms of oppression' [47] to 'extractive politics' [17]; from the 'Californian ideology' [4] of 'Big Tech' in Silicon Valley to the world of start-ups and specialist public sector contractors, like Palantir and Clearview, scholars highlight a wild west of disruptive technological innovation that has gone largely untamed. The whole globe is embroiled in its production and effects while the costs of 'externalities' are paid by others: through large-scale environmental degradation from rare metal mining [17], intensive carbon consumption [19], underpaid and underemployed click workers [3], [58], [61], violations of privacy and data protection [5], [48], and the amplification of societal biases in automated decision-making (a useful collection in a 2021 special issue of it Fordham Law Review).</p

Peace and Prosperity for the Digital Age? the Colonial Political Economy of European AI Governance

We are not short of alarming accounts of the global power asymmetries and detrimental environmental, social, and political effects fostered and amplified by the production, design, and use of artificial intelligence technologies (AITs). From 'surveillance capitalism' [66], via the 'black box society' [50], 'automated inequality' [22], 'algorithms of oppression' [47] to 'extractive politics' [17]; from the 'Californian ideology' [4] of 'Big Tech' in Silicon Valley to the world of start-ups and specialist public sector contractors, like Palantir and Clearview, scholars highlight a wild west of disruptive technological innovation that has gone largely untamed. The whole globe is embroiled in its production and effects while the costs of 'externalities' are paid by others: through large-scale environmental degradation from rare metal mining [17], intensive carbon consumption [19], underpaid and underemployed click workers [3], [58], [61], violations of privacy and data protection [5], [48], and the amplification of societal biases in automated decision-making (a useful collection in a 2021 special issue of it Fordham Law Review).</p

A large pericardial effusion and bilateral pleural effusions as the initial manifestations of Familial Mediterranean Fever

Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF) is a condition characterized by recurrent febrile poly-serositis. Typical presentations of the disease include episodes of fever, abdominal pain and joint pains. Chest pain is a less common presentation. We report a case of FMF which presented with a large pericardial effusion and bilateral pleural effusions in a lady who had no positive family history and negative genetic testing.peer-reviewe

Public Policy and Artificial Intelligence: Vantage Points for Critical Inquiry

This chapter introduces three key lines of critical inquiry to address the relationship of artificial intelligence (AI) and public policy. We provide three vantage points to better understand this relationship, in which dominant narratives about AI’s merits for public sector decisions and service provision often clash with real world experiences of their limitations and illegal effects. First, we critically examine the politicaldrivers for, and significance of, how we define AI, its role and workings in the policy world; and how we demarcate the scope of regulation. Second, we explore the AI/policy relationship, by focusing on how it unfolds through specific, but often contradictory and ambivalent, practices, that in different settings, combine meaning, strategic action, technological affordances, as well as material/digital objects and their effects. Our third vantage point critically assesses how these practices are situated in an uneven political economy of AI technology production, and with what implications for global justice

Limits and Contentions of EU Migration Governance:: Reflections on the Juncker Commission and Beyond

This article shows how the new European Commission (2014-2019) has prioritised issues of migration and mobility in the European Union. It explains the key measures promised by the Commission, and how these relate to existing migration and mobility governance (MMG) and its dynamic political context. An interpretive policy analysis is undertaken in order to expose the trajectories of the Union's MMG, and the ways in which these are contested. In particular, the article explains how the emphasis in the Commission and Council on enhancing the operational coherence in asylum and border control represents a strong centripetal force in migration governance. In contrast, mobility of EU citizens within the EU is subject to centrifugal, welfare protectionist, forces. In this latter domain, the Commission is set for an ongoing struggle in its assertion of a Union-wide approach. Finally it is argued that the result is a contingently Europeanised governance of mobility and migration. This establishes a highly unstable and contested political ordering of social, economic and political relations in the Union. These cut across conventional distinctions between the interests of member states and Commission. Together, these issues should lead us to explore more systematically how the «high politics» of Council and Commission are linked to the everyday practices of migrants, and their experience of EU policy

Assessing the governance of the health policy-making process using a new governance tool: The case of Lebanon

Background: In the international agenda, it has become common to assert that the assessment of health system governance using a practical tool is crucial. This approach can help us better understand how health systems are being steered as well as to identify gaps in the decision-making process and their causes. The authors developed a new assessment tool, the Health Policymaking Governance Guidance Tool (HP-GGT), that was designed to be conceptually sound and practical. This tool enables policy-makers and stakeholders to systematically review and assess health system governance at policy-making level. This article presents first use of the HP-GGT in Lebanon, together with generated results, recommendations, and discusses how these results improve governance practices when initiating new health policy formulation processes.Methods: The HP-GGT, which is a multidimensional structured tool, was used retrospectively to assess and review the process used to develop a new mental health strategy; this process was compared against consensus-based good governance principles, focusing on participation, transparency, accountability, information and responsiveness. The assessment was conducted through face-to-face interviews with 11 key informants who were involved in the development of the strategy.Results: The HP-GGT enabled policy-makers to reflect on their governance practices when developing a mental health strategy and was able to identify key areas of strengths and weaknesses using good governance practice checklists given by the questions. The insights generated from the assessment equipped the national policy-makers with a better understanding of the practice and meaning of policy-making governance. Identifying weaknesses to be addressed in future attempts to develop other national health policies helped in this regard. Using the tool also increased awareness of alternative good practices among policy-makers and stakeholders.Conclusions: Assessing a health policy formulation process from a governance perspective is essential for improved policy-making. The HP-GGT was able to provide a general overview and an in-depth assessment of a policy formulation process related to governance issues according to international good practices that should be applied while formulating health policies in any field. The HP-GGT was found to be a practical tool that was useful for policy-makers when used in Lebanon and awaits applications in other low- and middle-income countries to further show its validity and utility

Beyond welfare chauvinism and deservingness. Rationales of belonging as a conceptual framework for the politics and governance of migrants’ rights

This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Cambridge University Press in Journal of Social Policy on 24/7/2020. The published version can be accessed here: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047279420000379 The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.This article argues that the politics and governance of migrants’ rights needs to be reframed. In particular, the terms “welfare chauvinism”, and deservingness should be replaced. Using a qualitative transnational case study of policymakers in Poland and the UK, we develop an alternative approach. In fine-grained and small-scale interpretive analysis, we tease out four distinct rationales of belonging that mark out the terms and practices of social membership, as well as relative positions of privilege and subordination. These rationales of belonging are: temporal-territorial, ethno-cultural, labourist, and welfareist. Importantly, these rationales are knitted together by different framings of the transnational contexts, within which the politics and governance of migration and social protection are given meaning. The rationales of belonging do not exist in isolation, but in each country, they qualify each other in ways that imply different politics and governance of migrants’ rights. Taken together, these rationales of belonging generate transnational projects of social exclusion, as well as justifications for migrant inclusion stratified by class, gender and ethnicity

IPR Policy Brief - Temporary agency work in the UK today: Precarity intensifies despite protective legislation

In the last quarter of 2014, the UK unemployment rate reached its lowest level for more than six years (5.8%). However, this fall in unemployment was accompanied by a rise in temporary, insecure and precarious work for both British and migrant workers.Temporary agency work (TAW), which reached a historical high during the recent financial crisis (Forde and Slater 2014), constitutes a significant part of this job-growth. Estimates on the number of temporary agency workers in the UK economy vary.Labour Force Survey (LFS) data point to 321,165 temporary agency workers in the UK in 2012 constituting 1.27% of the employed workforce (Forde and Slater 2014). In the same year, the British government, as well as the employers’ organisation Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC 2014) jointly estimated the number of agency workers at around 1.1 million.‘Jobs-to-Rent’, research by Dr Thanos Maroukis (Department of Social and Policy Sciences, University of Bath), analysed interviews with British and migrant temporary agency workers about their experiences in three sectors of the UK labour market: the hospitality, healthcare and food industries. Over the last decade, significant policy initiatives, notably the European Union Agency Worker Regulations (AWR), have sought to mitigate the precariousness and vulnerability of temporary agency workers.However, Jobs-to-Rent found that agencies and companies use legal loopholes and exemptions to circumvent regulatory protections for these workers. In doing so, these employers intensify the employment insecurity and precarious living conditions of agency workers