Why do Ministers Ask for Policy Evaluation Studies? The Case of the Flemish Government

Policy evaluations can be set up for multiple purposes including accountability, policy learning and policy planning. The question is, however, how these purposes square with politics itself. To date, there is little knowledge on how government ministers present the rationale of evaluations. This article is the first to provide a diachronic study of discourse about evaluation purposes and encompass a wide range of policy fields. We present an analysis of evaluation announcements in so-called ministerial policy notes issued between 1999 and 2019 by the Flemish government in Belgium. The research fine-tunes available evidence on catalysts for conducting evaluations. The Flemish public sector turns out to be a strong case where New Public Management brought policy evaluation onto the agenda, but this has not resulted in a prominent focus on accountability-oriented evaluations. We further show that policy fields display different evaluation cultures, albeit more in terms of the volume of evaluation demand than in terms of preferences for particular evaluation purposes.The politics and administration of institutional chang

Effects of long-acting bronchodilators and placebo on histamine-induced asthma symptoms and mild bronchusobstruction

SummaryStudy objectiveAccurate perception of airway caliber remains an important issue in asthma management. The way bronchodilation is perceived is partly related to the perception of the efficacy of bronchodilators in relieving complaints. In the present study, we compared the effects of salmeterol, formoterol and placebo on relief of histamine-induced asthma symptoms and mild bronchusobstruction.MethodsIn this randomized controlled, double blind study, 30 asthmatics were challenged with histamine until forced expiratory volume in 1s (FEV1) fell with ⩾20%. Subjects received salmeterol, formoterol or placebo after the histamine provocation. Pulmonary function (FEV1) and asthma symptoms (Asthma Symptom Checklist, Borg Dyspnea Scale) were assessed 5 and 20min later.ResultsFEV1 improved significantly more in the salmeterol and formoterol group than in the placebo group (P<0.001, P<0.001 and P<0.05, respectively). Salmeterol and formoterol were not different with regard to the pulmonary function recovery. No significant differences were found between the effects of salmeterol, formoterol and placebo on any of the symptom responses at the different time points.ConclusionsWe conclude that after a histamine-induced mild bronchusobstruction, a similar asthma symptom recovery occurred when inhaling salmeterol, formoterol or placebo, despite better recovery of pulmonary function in the active drug conditions

Sharing Like We Mean It: Working Co-operatively in the Cultural and Tech Sectors.

A hybrid research report and co-op primer, Sharing Like We Mean It: Working Co-operatively in the Cultural and Tech Sectors is based on a survey of 106 co-operatives in Canada, the UK, and the US. It offers a snapshot of the co-op landscape in creative industries, explores what co-operative work can look like in practice, and features profiles of several worker co-operatives. Our survey results confirm that the co-operative model is a promising strategy for mitigating individualized patterns of work, democratizing work relationships, and providing satisfying work in creative industries contexts. Co-ops are not a magic solution to systemic work problems. But the co-op model – in conjunction with other pro-worker policies and organizations – holds potential to democratically remake work in ways that have yet to be fully realized, or widely tested, in creative industries

The Co-operative Alternative and the Creative Industries: A Technical Report on a Survey of Co-operatives in the cultural and technology sectors in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

This report presents the findings of a 2019 online survey of co-operatives in creative industries in Canada, the UK, and the US. This survey was an international collaboration between the SSHRC-supported project, “Pathways beyond Precarity in the Cultural and Creative Industries: Sustainable Livelihoods and Cultures of Solidarity,” and the British Academy-supported project, “Mapping Cultural Co-operatives.” This technical report is a companion to our community publication, Sharing Like We Mean It: Working Co-operatively in the Cultural and Tech Sectors. Whereas the latter presents select findings for workers who are new to co-ops, this technical report provides a fuller account of the results for co-op researchers, associations, policymakers, and other interested readers. Our survey was initiated in the context of research on cultural work. Scholars have produced extensive evidence of the precarity faced by workers in creative industries, including arts and culture, media and communication, and information technology. As the perils of Big Tech and the precarity of cultural work have become increasingly contentious, the need to explore and enact worker-centered strategies for democratizing labour and sustaining livelihoods has become urgent—all the more so in the face of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which has hit self-employed cultural workers particularly hard. While the co-operative model has recently begun to receive more attention among researchers seeking alternative work structures for the cultural and tech sectors, knowledge of the co-op landscape in the creative industries and the conditions of work therein remains limited. Building on Dave Boyle and Kate Oakley’s reflections on the complementarities of co-ops and creative industries, this report summarizes findings from our 2019 survey of creative-sector co-ops in Canada, the UK, and the US. In undertaking this survey, we set out to generate a preliminary portrait of co-op presence in creative industries; working conditions within creative-sector co-ops; the benefits of working co-operatively; reasons why cultural and tech workers choose the co-op option; and creative-sector co-ops’ involvement in the wider co-operative movement. As further described in Sharing Like We Mean It: Working Co-operatively in the Cultural and Tech Sectors, the results of our survey confirm that the co-op model is a promising strategy for mitigating individualized patterns of work, democratizing work relationships, and providing satisfying work in creative industries contexts. While co-ops are not a magic solution to systemic work problems, our research is suggestive of co-ops’ potential to remake work in ways that have yet to be fully realized, or widely tested, in creative industries

Is prioritisation of funding in elite sport effective? An analysis of the investment strategies in 16 countries

Abstract Research question: This paper explores the extent to which nations prioritise elite sport funding; whether such nations are more successful than those whose funding is more diversified; and, if the sports that receive the most funding are also the most successful. Research methods: Data on public expenditure for elite sport programmes (2011/2012) were collected on a sport-specific basis in 16 nations (n=445 funded sports). The Herfindahl index and concentration ratios of the four/eight most funded sports (CR4/CR8) are used as proxies for prioritization. Success was measured using top 3 and top 8 places during the Olympic Games and World Championships. Descriptive analysis and linear regression are applied to identify the relationship between the distribution of funding and success. Results and findings: Generally, all sample nations are prioritisers. Nations with smaller total elite sport budgets tended to prioritise more. There is a slight negative association between the distribution of funding within a country and subsequent success, indicating that the sample countries that prioritise more tended to be less successful. Sample nations that diversify their funding more, are found to be successful in a wider range of sports. In addition, the data illustrated only low allocative efficiency for some nations. Implications: The study produced ambiguous conclusions that prioritisation as a deliberate strategic choice is an efficient way to invest funding. The findings have important implications for high performance managers and suggests that a more diverse resource allocation policy may help to avoid unintended negative consequences. Keywords: Targeted funding; elite sport policy; allocative efficiency; prioritisation; SPLIS

Dyspnea-related cues engage the prefrontal cortex - evidence from functional brain imaging in COPD

Dyspnea is the major source of disability in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). In COPD, environmental cues (e.g. the prospect of having to climb stairs) become associated with dyspnea, and may trigger dyspnea even before physical activity commences. We hypothesised that brain activation relating to such cues would be different between COPD patients and healthy controls, reflecting greater engagement of emotional mechanisms in patients. Methods: Using FMRI, we investigated brain responses to dyspnea-related word cues in 41 COPD patients and 40 healthy age-matched controls. We combined these findings with scores of self-report questionnaires thus linking the FMRI task with clinically relevant measures. This approach was adapted from studies in pain that enables identification of brain networks responsible for pain processing despite absence of a physical challenge. Results: COPD patients demonstrate activation in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) which correlated with the visual analogue scale (VAS) response to word cues. This activity independently correlated with patient-reported questionnaires of depression, fatigue and dyspnea vigilance. Activation in the anterior insula, lateral prefrontal cortex (lPFC) and precuneus correlated with the VAS dyspnea scale but not the questionnaires. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that engagement of the brain's emotional circuitry is important for interpretation of dyspnea-related cues in COPD, and is influenced by depression, fatigue, and vigilance. A heightened response to salient cues is associated with increased symptom perception in chronic pain and asthma, and our findings suggest such mechanisms may be relevant in COPD

Academics, Cultural Workers and Critical Labour Studies

The aim of this paper is to locate academics within the sights of critical labour studies, and, in particular, the contemporary interest in cultural workers. Despite a growing literature about - and in response to - the transformation of the University there have been few attempts to study academics as workers. This paper argues that there are a number of parallels between academic work and the much more well-documented experiences of work in the cultural and creative industries. The paper examines the increasing experience of precariousness among academics, the intensification and extensification of work, and the new modes of surveillance in the academy and their affective impacts. The aim of the article is to build on the critical lexicon of studies of cultural labour in order to think about academic work as labour and to generate new ways of thinking about power, privilege and exploitation. It argues for the need for a psychosocial perspective that can understand the new labouring subjectivities in academia

The Cosmos of a Public Sector Township: Democracy as an Intellectual Culture

The public sector plays an important role in responding to the rights of citizens and evolving norms of social interest (Qu 2015). Qu argues that the nature of public enterprise is never final and there is a constant negotiation between the private and the public emergence of life and rights. One such space where the tension between the private and the public manifests itself is the public sector township or the residential colony in India. The sociality of hierarchy in public sector organizations manifest itself in the public sector township and may nurture everyday aspirations, angsts and divides. The officer lives in a bigger hone, in a bungalow, and the clerk lives in a smaller home, many times with a larger family. [excerpt