102 research outputs found
Competitiveness and sustainability: can âsmart city regionalismâ square the circle?
Increasingly, the widely established, globalisation-driven agenda of economic competitiveness meets a growing concern with sustainability. Yet, the practical and conceptual co-existenceâor fusionâof these two agendas is not always easy. This includes finding and operationalising the ârightâ scale of governance, an important question for the pursuit of the distinctly transscalar nature of these two policy fields. âNew regionalismâ has increasingly been discussed as a pragmatic way of tackling the variable spatialities associated with these policy fields and their changing articulation. This paper introduces âsmart (new) city-regionalismâ, derived from the principles of smart growth and new regionalism, as a policy-shaping mechanism and analytical framework. It brings together the rationales, agreed principles and legitimacies of publicly negotiated polity with collaborative, network-based and policy-driven spatiality. The notion of âsmartnessâ, as suggested here as central feature, goes beyond the implicit meaning of âsmartâ as in âsmart growthâ. When introduced in the later 1990s the term embraced a focus on planning and transport. Since then, the adjective âsmartâ has become used ever more widely, advocating innovativeness, participation, collaboration and co-ordination. The resulting âsmart city regionalismâ is circumscribed by the interface between the sectorality and territoriality of policy-making processes. Using the examples of Vancouver and Seattle, the paper looks at the effects of the resulting specific local conditions on adopting âsmartnessâ in the scalar positioning of policy-making
The Gompertz-Pareto Income Distribution
This work analyzes the Gompertz-Pareto distribution (GPD) of personal income,
formed by the combination of the Gompertz curve, representing the overwhelming
majority of the economically less favorable part of the population of a
country, and the Pareto power law, which describes its tiny richest part.
Equations for the Lorenz curve, Gini coefficient and the percentage share of
the Gompertzian part relative to the total income are all written in this
distribution. We show that only three parameters, determined by linear data
fitting, are required for its complete characterization. Consistency checks are
carried out using income data of Brazil from 1981 to 2007 and they lead to the
conclusion that the GPD is consistent and provides a coherent and simple
analytical tool to describe personal income distribution data.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, LaTeX. Accepted for publication in "Physica A
Locating regional health policy: Institutions, politics, and practices
Poverty reduction and health became central in the agendas of Southern regional organisations in the last two decades. Yet, little is known about how these organisations address poverty, inclusion and social inequality, and how Southern regional formations are engaging in power constellations, institutions, processes, interests and ideological positions within different spheres of governance. This article reviews academic literatures spanning global social policy, regional studies and diplomacy studies, and the state of knowledge and understanding of the âplaceâ of regional actors in health governance as a global political practice therein. It identifies theoretical and thematic points of connection between disparate literatures and how these can be bridged through research focusing on the social policies of regional organisations and regional integration processes. This framework hence locates the contributions of each of the research articles of this Special Issue of Global Social Policy on the regional dimension of health policy and diplomacy in relation to Southern Africa and South America. It also highlights the ways in which the articles bring new evidence about how social relations of welfare are being (re)made over larger scales and how regional actors may initiate new norms to improve health rights in international arenas engaging in new forms of âregionalâ diplomacy
Regional actorness and interregional relations:ASEAN, the EU and Mercosur
The European Union (EU) has a long tradition of interregional dialogue mechanisms with other regional organisations and is using these relations to project its own model of institutionalised actorness. This is partly motivated by the emerging actorness of the EU itself, which benefits from fostering capable regional counterparts in other parts of the world. This article advances the argument that actorness, which we conceptualise in terms of institutions, recognition and identity, is a relational concept, dependent on context and perception. Taking the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Common Market of the South (Mercosur) and their relations with the EU as case studies, this article demonstrates that the actorness capabilities of all three organisations have been enhanced as result of ASEAN-EU and Mercosur-EU relations. However, there are clear limits to the development of the three components of regional actorness and to the interregional relations themselves. These limits stem both from the type of interregionalism at play and from the different regional models the actors incorporate. While there is evidence of institutional enhancement in ASEAN and Mercosur, these formal changes have been grafted on top of firmly entrenched normative underpinnings. Within the regional organisations, interactions with the EU generate centrifugal forces concerning the model to pursue, thus limiting their institutional cohesion and capacity. In addition, group-to-group relations have reinforced ASEAN and Mercosur identities in contrast to the EU. The formation of such differences has narrowed the scope of EU interregionalism despite the initial success of improved regional actorness
The political nexus between water and economics in Brazil:A critique of recent policy reforms
The reform of water policies in Brazil has involved a combination of regulatory norms and economic-incentive instruments. Nonetheless, contrary to its formal objectives, the process has largely failed to prevent widespread environmental impacts and growing spatial and sectoral conflicts. The main reason for such failures is the perverse influence of market rationality, which is particularly evident in the reorganization of the public sector, the quantification of the monetary value of water, and the payment for environmental services
The Normative Agency of Regional Organizations and Nonâgovernmental Organizations in International Peace Mediation
This article analyzes the increasingly prominent role of regional organizations (ROs) and nonâgovernmental organizations (NGOs) in promoting norms in mediation processes. In particular, we seek to understand the processes by which RO and NGO mediators promote the inclusivity norm to negotiating parties and the outcomes that result. We employ the concepts of local agency and social practices in examining the normative agency of ROs and NGOs in promoting and redefining the inclusivity norm. Through illustrative case studies of peace processes in South Sudan and Myanmar, we argue that ROsâ and NGOsâ mediation practices reflect their claims to alternative resources of power, such as longâstanding expertise and insider status in the context, and build congruence with strong local norms. We provide nuanced theoretical insights on RO and NGO mediatorsâ claims to agency and provide empirical illustrations on how these claims contribute to constitutive changes to norms
Comparing regional organizations in global multilateral institutions:ASEAN, the EU and the UN
Structural change brought about by the end of the Cold War and accelerated globalisation have transformed the global environment. A global governance complex is emerging, characterised by an ever-greater functional and regulatory role for multilateral organisations such as the United Nations (UN) and its associated agencies. The evolving global governance framework has created opportunities for regional organisations to participate as actors within the UN (and other multilateral institutions). This article compares the European Union (EU) and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as actors within the UN network. It begins by extrapolating framework conditions for the emergence of EU and ASEAN actorness from the literature. The core argument of this article is that EU and ASEAN actorness is evolving in two succinct stages: Changes in the global environment create opportunities for the participation of regional organisations in global governance institutions, exposing representation and cohesion problems at the regional level. In response, ASEAN and the EU have initiated processes of institutional adaptation
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