Empathy at the intersections of care: articulating a critical approach to the ethics of international development

With the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set to expire in 2015, focus has turned to a new framework which might replace them. Heavily influenced by the Human Capabilities Approach (HCA), the MDGs reflected a relatively static, liberal understanding of what ‘human development’ is meant to signify (prioritising notions of freedom, individual capability and justice). Not an evaluation of the MDGs per se, this project suggests instead that critical reflection on the ethical underpinnings of any approach is key to articulating a future vision for development. I argue for a contrasting line of ethical thought, the ethics of care (which prioritise notions of context, vulnerability and relationship), suggesting how it could be more fully embodied in development practices. I further suggest that an emphasis on human empathy would serve to strengthen the values of responsibility and responsiveness which care (and development) ethicists champion. To this end, I first describe the ethical context (the HCA) within which the MDGs have operated; I then challenge its rationalistic or agentic biases and highlight the importance of human vulnerability, relationship and trust. I outline key elements of care theory (responsibility to ‘the other’, relational agency and ‘context’) and further argue that empathy should take a more central place in it. I finally describe empathy in practice (i.e. those programmes which foster empathic learning and understanding) and empathy in promise (by combining lessons drawn from the discussions above with deliberative democratic theory). Across these connected arguments, therefore, I describe a collaborative-expressive, praxeological ethics of international development; an ethics based in expressed need over abstract right, in the pluralism of development goals, in empathic deliberation on these needs and goals, and in the fostering of relationships of care and trust; necessary for any meaningful, future vision of human development – of ‘self’ and ‘distant other’ – to take form

A Cloud-Based Tool for Integrating Occupational Risk Assessment Within Management Systems for {SMEs}

About 67% of workers employed in the industrial and service sectors in the European Union are currently contracted by Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), which represent the economic heart of the European economy. However, this strength is counterbalanced by a considerably higher overall accident rate compared to Large Enterprises (LEs), and this trend seems to be confirmed worldwide. Moreover, most available tools for risk assessment and occupational health and safety (OHS) management are originally designed to fit the needs of LEs, resulting in a gap for SMEs. Therefore, the effective management of OHS in SMEs has become a crucial issue for researchers, practitioners and policymakers, aiming to improve the social and economic sustainability of small companies. The main purpose of this study is to provide guidelines to implement effective risk assessment processes and integrate them with OHS management systems in SMEs. A literature analysis of risk assessment and OHS management in SMEs highlights the main findings and gaps. Then, the three-phases methodology adopted is presented, outlining the main steps and outputs of the project. Finally, the web-based software tool for OHS risk analysis and management, designed to answer the specific needs of SMEs, is presented

A Cloud-Based Tool for Integrating Occupational Risk Assessment Within Management Systems for SMEs

About 67% of workers employed in the industrial and service sectors in the European Union are currently contracted by Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), which represent the economic heart of the European economy. However, this strength is counterbalanced by a considerably higher overall accident rate compared to Large Enterprises (LEs), and this trend seems to be confirmed worldwide. Moreover, most available tools for risk assessment and occupational health and safety (OHS) management are originally designed to fit the needs of LEs, resulting in a gap for SMEs. Therefore, the effective management of OHS in SMEs has become a crucial issue for researchers, practitioners and policymakers, aiming to improve the social and economic sustainability of small companies. The main purpose of this study is to provide guidelines to implement effective risk assessment processes and integrate them with OHS management systems in SMEs. A literature analysis of risk assessment and OHS management in SMEs highlights the main findings and gaps. Then, the three-phases methodology adopted is presented, outlining the main steps and outputs of the project. Finally, the web-based software tool for OHS risk analysis and management, designed to answer the specific needs of SMEs, is presented

On the social state of the E.U. : (the ethic of care, the open method of co-ordination, and the future of European social policy-making)

The following study presents an analysis of historical and current trends within social policy development at the European level. Recognizing the success which the E U has achieved in economic and monetary union since the Treaty of Rome (1957); recognizing the varying levels of success which individual member countries have achieved in terms of their own welfare state policies, I ask what conditions might be necessary in order to achieve comparable success for social policy development and provision at the Union level. While recognizing the existence of myriad interpretations of the integration process (from neo-functionalism to intergovernmentalism, corporatism to pluralism), as well as the many tensions and social cleavages at play within the various societies of the Union, this study focuses on only two ethical/theoretical paradigms, and on two methods of governance which can or could be used for future European social policy development. These are the Ethic of Justice and the Ethic of Care, and the Community Method (or hard law approach) and the Co-Ordination Method (or soft law approach), respectively. The two principal questions addressed in this study are: 1) Which theoretical paradigm is best suited to address the complex process of European social policy integration? and 2) Which method, or mode of governance, would best operationalize this chosen normative paradigm? In attempting to answer these questions, the works of John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, Jeremy Waldron and David Miller (justice), as well as those of Joan Tronto, Olena Hankivsky, Christine Koggel and Selma Sevenhuijsen, are discussed. An overview of the historical developments of integration within the social policy field is also offered as a means of emphasizing the continuity that exists within various soft law traditions of E U policy development. I also propose three different criteria of responsiveness with which to evaluate the two paradigms and governance methods. Finally, as a means of drawing upon the positive attributes of each theoretical framework and mode of governance, two hybrid or compromise solutions are proposed and analyzed, namely a Principled Ethic of Care and the Open Method of Co-Ordination.Arts, Faculty ofPolitical Science, Department ofGraduat

Adoption level of Near-Miss Management Systems in the industrial sector: an exploratory survey

Near miss events are usually identified as adverse events that could have turned into incidents/injuries, but by chance resulted in a harmless situation. The importance of near-miss analysis lies in the roots of the events since they usually share the same causes of accidents occurring at the workplace. Therefore, they can represent a useful source of information to understand the causes of potential accidents/injuries for applying more effective preventive actions. Despite this, near-miss management systems (NMMSs) are still not so widespread in all industrial sectors, and they are mostly adopted in a few specific sectors, such as construction, mining, chemical, and nuclear industries. This study, carried out in collaboration with the Italian National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work (INAIL) by involving a sample of Italian companies in the industrial sector, presents the preliminary results of a survey aiming to understand the current level of adoption of NMMSs. After an introductory section, the survey is composed by two sections: the first addresses companies already adopting NMMSs, while the second considers companies still not analysing near-miss events. The objective is to outline the state of adoption of NMMSs in several industrial sectors: after this analysis, the aim is to outline drivers and barriers identified by companies in adopting the systems as well as possible strategies to support their diffusion in the industrial secto

Sustainable occupational safety and health interventions:A study on the factors for an effective design

Effective interventions are a priority in continuously changing occupational environments, particularly in companies struggling to manage health and safety in the workplace. Practitioners may consider practical solutions for Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) improvement as a panacea for all major problems. However, they may overlook a range of other factors that affect the success of such solutions. The way in which a solution is developed, designed, implemented, and evaluated determines its impact. Participatory interventions are one way of ensuring better results. Consequently, this study proposes a way of establishing sustainable, effective, and efficient interventions by defining the required processes and actively involving responsible actors (i.e., who, when, and how). A national OSH intervention for introducing a near-miss management system, funded by the Italian National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work (INAIL), is used as a reference because its development process includes an accurate design stage. Based on this intervention, a multistep design process is built to answer how (how the intervention will persist by defining the context, processes, and scenarios), who (who will be the responsible actors actively participating), and when (when actors will be involved) questions. The design process established for the intervention, although within a specific context, provides clues to discriminant factors that would enable effectiveness in general interventions, and the proposed system for near-miss management generates insights that may be generalizable to other OSH interventions developed in different environments.</p

Managing Occupational Health and Safety in SMEs: an Evolutionary Web-based Tool

Even though several guidelines have been proposed by public organizations about how to design an Occupational Health and Safety management system (OHSMS) customized to Small- and Medium-size Enterprises (SMEs), an approach integrating and OHSMS with the risk assessment under a unified and shared logic still misses. This paper presents an evolutionary OHS tool for SMEs that combines the advantages of a simplified procedure to develop a risk analysis and outline a set of risk prevention and protection measures at workplace, such as the one proposed by the Italian legislation, with the advantages of a simplified OHS management model. It is assumed that a software tool could be the preferential way to allow a wide diffusion and an effective application of this model. The online structure also enables distributing OHS-related information directly from institutional databases. This information, provided within the same software tool used for risk assessment and OHS management, can significantly support in particular SMEs with a poor experience

The Sailport Project: A Trilateral Approach to the Improvement of Workers’ Safety and Health in Ports

This work presents a novel method for the improvement of safety and health in ports. Traditional and consolidated approaches to this goal are based on questionnaires and training activities that Local Health Authorities and the National Institute for Insurance against Accidents offer to the personnel of the companies that work in the port. We propose to complement this method by means of quantitative and pervasive measuring of risks related to safety and health. For the former, we propose a system that measures the collision risk in relevant areas of the port by means of cameras. For the latter, workers wear inertial measurement units and EMG electrodes to estimate the biomechanical overload. The results of these three actions are then merged and presented to the selected companies to make corrective actions, in order to reduce the safety and health risks for the port workers