Probing the Aftermyth of Seattle : Canadian Public Opinion on International Trade, 1980-2000 (Working Paper 12)

This is a revised version of a paper presented to the 2000 National Policy Research Conference, Ottawa, December 1, 2000.

A voice for change? Trust relationships between ombudsmen, individuals and public service providers

There has been a debate for years about what the role of the ombudsman is. This article examines a key component of the role, to promote trust in public services and government. To be able to do this, however, an ombudsman needs to be perceived as legitimate and be trusted by a range of stakeholders, including the user. This article argues that three key relationships in a person’s complaint journey can build trust in an institution, and must therefore be understood as a system. The restorative justice framework is adapted to conceptualize this trust model as a novel approach to understanding the institution from the perspective of its users. Taking two public sector ombudsmen as examples, the article finds that voice and trust need to be reinforced through the relationships in a consumer journey to manage individual expectations, prevent disengagement, and thereby promote trust in the institution, in public service providers, and in government.

A view, different proposals: Concept of gender and public policy

This article analyzes the meaning of “gender” as a category of analysis in public policy. The concept has been transferred from the feminist theories and this has meant that the United Nations and European Union have incorporated the inequality as a structural inequality and an issue justice. So, the feminist demands enter the political agenda as an integral project which is characterized by the adoption of the gender perspective and its application from a transversal methodology (“gender mainstreaming”). In this sense, the "gender ideology" is a new paradigm against the “patriarchal ideology”. Now, political actions should be articulated in a double movement of correction and promotion to achieve real equality in societies more democratic and ultimately more just.

Sound Art and Public Engagement in the Built Environment: Reflections from an Architecture Center

This article explores the deployment of sound in architectural-curatorial and community engagement contexts through the work of PLACE, a multidisciplinary not-for-profit architecture center in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The author, who worked with PLACE and contributed to the projects discussed here, contextualizes architecture centers and their relationship with sound before examining the specific case of sound and sound art in Northern Ireland and case studies of projects delivered by PLACE. Specifically, the article evaluates two sound installation artworks and three community engagement projects for young audiences. As a means of curating urbanism and architecture, sound-art-as-public-art affords useful strategies to examine, describe or critique the environment as alternatives to traditional architecture exhibition formats. Sound’s temporality and materiality allow sound art works to exist as temporary sculptural interventions in the urban sphere, with attendant implications for public art procurement and urban acoustics. Rich territories of engagement are opened when using sound in a community participatory context.

Shared Photography: (Photo)journalism and political mobilisation in Rio de Janeiro's favelas

One of the most important civic phenomena emerging from favelas in Rio de Janeiro today is “community (photo)journalism”, which is practised by favela residents who are trained in journalistic and artistic techniques to raise critical awareness and promote political mobilisation in- and outside favelas. This paper looks at some of the work produced at one training place for community photographers, the agency-school Imagens do Povo (“Images of the People”) in Nova Holanda, a favela located in Rio’s North Zone. Using an ethnographic approach, this article first provides an account of the working practices of the School and its photographers. This is followed by a discussion of a small sample of their photographic work, for which we employ a social semiotic paradigm of image analysis. This methodological synergy provides insights into how these journalists document long-term structural as well as “spectacular” violence in favelas, while at the same time striving to capture some of the “beauty” of these communities. The paper concludes that this form of photographic work constitutes an important step towards a more analytical brand of journalism with different news values that encourage a more context-sensitive approach to covering urban violence and favela life.

KEYWORDS: alternative media, Imagens do Povo, multimodality, news values, photojournalism.

Personal and Public Involvement Consultation Scheme (PDF 149KB)

The current structure of the health and social care system in Northern Ireland has its origins in the Review of Public Administration (RPA) which was initiated by the Northern Ireland Executive in June 2002. The purpose of RPA was to review Northern Ireland’s system of public administration with a view to putting in place a modern, citizen-centred, accountable and high quality system of public administration. The structure was designed to be more streamlined and accountable and aimed at maximising resources for front-line services and ensuring that people have access to high quality health and social care. Another key feature is the placement of public health and wellbeing firmly at the centre of the system, with a greater emphasis on prevention and support for vulnerable people to live independently in the community for as long as possible.  

Growth and Public Transportation Investments: Growth Management Strategies to Reduce Transportation Capital Costs In and Near Midwestern Urban Areas, 1995

Transportation and land-use are independent, inter-active systems. Land-use patterns shape local transportation demand, but transportation systems in turn influence land-use patterns. In attempting to satisfy transportation demand created by existing land-use patterns, transportation planners directly, if not always consciously or intentionally, influence future land-use patterns. This study examines that complex relationship. The purpose of the study was threefold: to compile the body of knowledge already existing; to apply this body of knowledge to the context of midsize cities in the Midwest; and, to make the knowledge accessible both to transportation planners and to public officials who make key decisions about land use.

Integrity and public sector governance : a democratic deficit?

Controlled Vocabulary Enhancement through Crowdsourcing: Project Andvari, Micropasts, and Public Quality Assurance

Proceedings paper published by Society of American Archivists. Presented at conference in 2015 in Cleveland, OH (http://www2.archivists.org/proceedings/research-forum/2015/agenda#papers). Published by SAA in 2016.

Economic growth and public and private investment returns

We study the macroeconomic effects of public and private investment in 17 OECD economies through a VAR analysis with annual data from 1960 to 2014. From impulse response functions we find that public investment had a positive growth effect in most countries, and a contractionary effect in Finland, UK, Sweden, Japan, and Canada. Public investment led to private investment crowding out in Belgium, Ireland, Finland, Canada, Sweden, the UK and crowding-in effects in the rest of the countries. Private investment has a positive growth effect in all countries; crowds-out (crowds-in) public investment in Belgium and Sweden (in the rest of the countries). The partial rates of return of public and private investment are mostly positive.

Disentangling patient and public involvement in healthcare decisions:why the difference matters

Patient and public involvement has become an integral aspect of many developed health systems and is judged to be an essential driver for reform. However, little attention has been paid to the distinctions between patients and the public, and the views of patients are often seen to encompass those of the general public. Using an ideal-type approach, we analyse crucial distinctions between patient involvement and public involvement using examples from Sweden and England. We highlight that patients have sectional interests as health service users in contrast to citizens who engage as a public policy agent reflecting societal interests. Patients draw on experiential knowledge and focus on output legitimacy and performance accountability, aim at typical representativeness, and a direct responsiveness to individual needs and preferences. In contrast, the public contributes with collective perspectives generated from diversity, centres on input legitimacy achieved through statistical representativeness, democratic accountability and indirect responsiveness to general citizen preferences. Thus, using patients as proxies for the public fails to achieve intended goals and benefits of involvement. We conclude that understanding and measuring the impact of patient and public involvement can only develop with the application of a clearer comprehension of the differences.

Timeliness, efficiency and public procurement in hip surgery in Italy

Considering different perspectives, the scope of this thesis is to investigate how to improve healthcare resources allocation and the provision efficiency for hip surgeries, a resource-intensive operation, among the most frequently performed on the elderly, with a trend in volume that is increasing in years due to population aging. Firstly, the effect of Time-To-Surgery (TTS) on mortality for hip fracture patients is investigated. The analysis attempts to account for TTS endogeneity due to the inability to fully control for variables affecting patient delay – e.g. patient severity. Exploiting an instrumental variable model, where being admitted on Friday or Saturday predicts longer TTS, findings show exogenous TTS does not have a significant effect on mortality. Thus suggesting surgeons prioritize patients effectively, neutralizing the adverse impact of longer TTS. Then, the volume-outcome relation for total hip replacement surgery is analyzed, seeking to account for selective referral, which may be present in elective surgery context, and induce reverse causality issue in the volume-outcome relation. The analysis employs a conditional choice model where patient travel distance from all regions' hospitals is used as a hospital choice predictor. Findings show the exogenous hospital volume significantly decreases adverse outcomes probability, especially in the short run. Finally, the change in public procurement design enforced in the Romagna LHA (Italy) is exploited to assess its impact on hip prostheses cost, surgeons' implant choice, and patient health outcomes. Hip prostheses are the major cost-driver of hip replacement surgeries, hence it is crucial to design the public tender such that implant prices are minimized, but cost-containment policies have to be weighted with patient well-being. Evidence shows that a cost reduction occurred without a significant surgeons’ choices impact. Positive or no effect of surgeons specialization is found on patients outcomes after the new procurement introduction.

Politicization of non-political events

Spatial analysis and social network analysis typically take into consideration social processes in specific contexts of geographical or network space. The research in political science increasingly strives to model heterogeneity and spatial dependence. To better understand and geographically model the relationship between “non-political” events, streaming data from social networks, and political climate was the primary objective of the current study. Geographic information systems (GIS) are useful tools in the organization and analysis of streaming data from social networks. In this study, geographical and statistical analysis were combined in order to define the temporal and spatial nature of the data eminating from the popular social network Twitter during the 2014 FIFA World Cup. The study spans the entire globe because Twitter’s geotagging function, the fundamental data that makes this study possible, is not limited to a geographic area. By examining the public reactions to an inherenlty non-political event, this study serves to illuminate broader questions about social behavior and spatial dependence. From a practical perspective, the analyses demonstrate how the discussion of political topics fluсtuate according to football matches. Tableau and Rapidminer, in addition to a set basic statistical methods, were applied to find patterns in the social behavior in space and time in different geographic regions. It was found some insight into the relationship between an ostensibly non-political event – the World Cup - and public opinion transmitted by social media. The methodology could serve as a prototype for future studies and guide policy makers in governmental and non-governmental organizations in gauging the public opinion in certain geographic locations.

Teoría y práctica de la diplomacia de celebridades : origen, desarrollo y límites de un concepto

Recientemente el mundo ha sido testigo de como las celebridades del espectáculo aparecen en los medios de comunicación comentando sobre asuntos políticos y humanitarios, el motivo de dichas apariciones es que cada día los famosos están interviniendo en temas internacionales de orden político y diplomático en un esfuerzo por solucionar algunas de las más graves crisis a las que se enfrenta el mundo en las últimas dos décadas, este fenómeno es conocido como Diplomacia de celebridades. El presente es un análisis acerca de este concepto en cuanto a su origen, desarrollo y alcance, apartir de la óptica del poder blando y ciertas condiciones que permiten la existencia del fenómeno, tales como el avance de las tecnologías digitales y de comunicación, fama de alcance global y nuevos espacios y actores en el ejercicio de las Relaciones Internacionales. La hipótesis sostiene que los famosos realizan una actividad no oficial y utilizan elementos como el poder blando, el dinero y los medios de comunicación para realizarla, tal y como lo haría una ONG. Ellos se identifican con una causa o un tema y utilizan los medios de comunicación como infraestructura para adentrarse en los escenarios de política internacional y promoverla a nivel de gobiernos y opinión pública. Usualmente los emprendimientos sociales y políticos de las celebridades suelen ser efectivos, sin embargo se enfrentan a campos donde su inexperiencia puede llevarlos al fracaso, la falta de comprensión de situaciones muy complejas puede considerarse otra limitante a la que se enfrentan los famosos, puesto que su mensaje o sus esfuerzos se distorsionan al no conocer los matices de una situación y de esta manera generar más perjuicios que beneficios.

Análisis de algunos de los actores que influyeron en el rol desempeñado por los Estados Unidos durante el genocidio en Sudán durante el periodo 2001 – 2009.

Los principales actores que influenciaron el rol de de los Estados Unidos durante el genocidio de Sudán estuvieron determinados por el lobby del petróleo y de la goma arábiga, los grupos de interés y opinión pública y las organizaciones de derechos Humanos, ente otros. Muchos de ellos contribuyeron a que Estados Unidos estableciera estrategias a través de los canales multilaterales, de manera directa en Naciones Unidas e indirecta a través de la Unión Africana y unilaterales a partir de la ayuda Humanitaria y bloqueos económicos contra Sudán. , no solo satisficieron y protegieron los intereses de la potencia estadounidense, sino que se logro de manera parcial la protección a los civiles, culminando con el referéndum de secesión del Sudán del sur y a que el presidente Omar- Bashir sea reclamado ante la corte penal internacional para responder por las atrocidades cometidas bajo su mandato.