Gender mainstreaming and the Common Agricultural Policy

While there are many case studies looking at gender mainstreaming in national contexts, this article offers a pan-European perspective to examine how a stated commitment to gender equality at this meta-level works in practice. The European Union’s (EU) stated commitment to gender mainstreaming the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is critically reviewed. The article reviews theoretical literature on gender mainstreaming, considers the position of women in agriculture across Europe, and examines efforts by the EU to gender mainstream the CAP. It argues that at best, gender mainstreaming focuses on the symptoms of gender inequality in agriculture rather than the causes. Because of this, gender mainstreaming cannot be transformative in this context. Little thought has been given to the practical difficulties of actually gender mainstreaming a policy such as the CAP. The EU’s priority for the CAP focuses on the mainstream business goal of a viable agricultural industry and does not pay any heed to gender inequalities in agriculture. In short, the stated commitment to gender mainstreaming is empty rhetoric

The place(s) of student voice in 14-19 education policy reform: reflections on consultation and participation

Certain policy areas with considerable impact on young people's educational experiences and achievements, notably assessment and qualifications, do not involve consultation with young people to any meaningful extent. Findings from a national study, which included focus groups with 243 students in the 14-19 phase, are presented with respect to student consultation and participation in such policy areas. A lack of meaningful consultation regarding what students see as ‘higher level’ policy agendas was found (such as qualifications provision, choice or structure). Students are therefore ‘voiceless’ in relation to major qualifications reforms

Choice of contracts in the British National Health Service: An empirical study

Following major reforms of the British National Health Service (NHS) in 1990, the roles of purchasing and providing health services were separated, with the relationship between purchasers and providers governed by contracts. Using a mixed multinomial logit analysis, we show how this policy shift led to a selection of contracts that is consistent with the predictions of a simple model, based on contract theory, in which the characteristics of the health services being purchased and of the contracting parties influence the choice of contract form. The paper thus provides evidence in support of the practical relevance of theory in understanding health care market reform. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Stakeholder Participation in Marine Spatial Planning:Lessons from the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary

Stakeholder participation is advanced as a key element of marine spatial planning (MSP) by the U.S. Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force. It provides little guidance, however, regarding stakeholder participation. We argue that much can be learned from existing ecosystem-based marine management initiatives. The Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, which utilizes an advisory council to facilitate stakeholder participation, is evaluated in this article with a view to identifying key lessons for new MSP initiatives. A set of criteria, derived from collaborative planning theory, is employed to evaluate the effectiveness of this approach. The advisory council meets some criteria for effective stakeholder participation but is found to be lacking in key elements, including shared purpose and interdependency. Benefits associated with stakeholder participation are constrained accordingly. Deficiencies in the design of the council and its decision-making procedures, requiring attention in order to facilitate more effective stakeholder participation in new MSP initiatives, are highlighted. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Targeting poverty: Lessons from monitoring Ireland's national anti-poverty strategy

In 1997 the Irish government adopted the National Anti-Poverty Strategy (NAPS), a global target for the reduction of poverty which illuminates a range of issues relating to official poverty targets. The Irish target is framed in terms of a relative poverty measure incorporating both relative income and direct measures of deprivation based on data on the extent of poverty from 1994. Since 1994 Ireland has experienced an unprecedented period of economic growth that makes it particularly important to assess whether the target has been achieved, but in doing so we cannot avoid asking some underlying questions about how poverty should be measured and monitored over time. After briefly outlining the nature of the NAPS measure, this article examines trends in poverty in Ireland between 1987 and 1997, Results show that the relative income and deprivation components of the NAPS measure reveal differential trends with increasing relative income poverty, but decreasing deprivation. However, this differential could be due to the fact that the direct measures of deprivation upon which NAPS is based have not been updated to take account of changes in real living standards and increasing expectations. To test whether this is so, we examine the extent to which expectations about living standards and the structure of deprivation have changed over time using confirmatory factor analysis and tests of criterion validity using different definitions of deprivation. Results show that the combined income and deprivation measure, as originally constituted, continues to identify a set of households experiencing generalised deprivation resulting from a lack of resources.

Identifying childhood deprivation:How well do national indicators of poverty and social exclusion in Ireland Perform?

In the context of the significance that the life-cycle has been afforded in social policy discussion in Ireland, current national measures of poverty and social exclusion have been criticised for failing to capture such phenomena accurately in relation to particular stages of the life-course. In this paper we have taken advantage of the inclusion of a special module on childhood deprivation in EU-SILC 2009 to create reliable measures of both household basic deprivation and childhood deprivation. Overall, our analysis leads us to the conclusion that those exposed to childhood deprivation are generally a sub-set of the children captured by population indicators. Adopting a multidimensional and dynamic perspective on household resources and deprivation enables us to capture the large majority of children exposed to childhood deprivation. Restricting our attention to childhood deprivation would lead us to miss out on a significant number of children living in households experiencing basic deprivation but not exposed to childhood deprivation. It would be unwise to assume that such deprivation has no consequences for children. While there is clearly a value in supplementing existing national measures with child specific indicators, it would not appear sensible to rely solely on the latter.

Measurement-based Policy-driven QoS Management in Converged Next Generation Networks

Policy-based management is considered an effective approach to address the challenges of resource management in large complex networks. Within the IU-ATC QoS Frameworks project, a policy-based network management framework, CNQF (Converged Networks QoS Framework) is being developed aimed at providing context-aware, end-to-end QoS control and resource management in converged next generation networks. CNQF is designed to provide homogeneous, transparent QoS control over heterogeneous access technologies by means of distributed functional entities that co-ordinate the resources of the transport network through policy-driven decisions. In this paper, we present a measurement-based evaluation of policy-driven QoS management based on CNQF architecture, with real traffic flows on an experimental testbed. A Java based implementation of the CNQF Resource Management Subsystem is deployed on the testbed and results of the experiments validate the framework operation for policy-based QoS management of real traffic flows.

Conceptualising elder abuse across local and global contexts: Implications for Policy and Professional Practice on the island of Ireland.

Social policy and professional practice across the island of Ireland is dominated by the WHO (2002) definition of elder abuse and national and professional interpretations of what constitutes elder abuse. Top down, generalist knowledge of the abuse of older people have facilitated paternalistic and protectionist policies and services designed to protect older vulnerable adults across the Republic of Ireland (ROI) and Northern Ireland (NI). However a qualitative study involving 58 older people in six focus groups held across Ireland highlights an alternative understanding of elder abuse grounded in the subjective experiences of older people across urban and rural communities on the island. Indigenous ways of knowing offer a broader and more inclusive understanding of the experience of elder abuse (Lafferty 2012; Dow and Joosten 2012) together with opportunities for the prevention of ageism and the empowering of older people across the jurisdictions.

Climate Change, national politics and grassroots action: an introduction

Climate change continues to dominate academic work within green/environmental politics. Indeed, there appears to be almost an inverse relationship between the lack of political leadership on tackling climate change and the growth in ever more sophisticated academic analyses of this complex and multifaceted problem. There is an increasing disjunction between the growth in our knowledge and understanding of the ethical, political, economic, sociological, cultural, and psychological aspects of climate change and the lack of political achievement in putting in place clear and binding targets, an agreed decarbonisation roadmap, and associated regulatory and policy instruments with enforcement. This gap might be taken as evidence that we do not need more reports on climate change. To quote that most unlikely of green politicians, Arnold Schwarzenegger, former Governor of California: ‘The debate is over. We know the science. We see the threat. And we know that the time for action is now’ (California Energy Commission 2007, p. 1). This special issue focuses on a variety of ways in which climate change is conceptualised in normative political and ethical theory, and addressed in policy and regulations.

‘Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt’: Solidarity between generations in the Irish crisis

Ireland has gained a reputation for peaceable acceptance of austerity following a European Union/International Monetary Fund bailout in 2010. While proponents of austerity praise Ireland’s stoicism, critics of global capitalism argue that individuals and families are paying for mistakes made by elites. However, little is known about the strategies people adopt to cope with cutbacks to welfare entitlements. Drawing on a study of solidarity between generations living in Ireland in 2011–12, this article explores the lived experience of economic crisis and austerity. One hundred interviews with people of all ages and socio-economic backgrounds are analysed using constructivist grounded theory. Data show how austerity impacts differentially according to socio-economic status. While solidarity between generations leads to re-distribution of resources within families, providing some security for people with access to family resources, it reinforces inequality at societal level. We conclude that reliance on family promotes ‘coping’ rather than ‘protesting’ responses to austerity.

Intergenerational Solidarity and Justice in Ireland: towards a new national dialogue

Gross domestic product plummets. Unemployment soars. Large-scale emigration reemerges after a decade of labor-market driven immigration. The International Monetary Fund and European Union are called to bail out the economy. Indebtedness haunts households in the aftermath of a spectacular housing market crash. The Celtic Tiger is firmly consigned to history books as Ireland’s economic fortunes have waned with unprecedented rapidity. The trials of the economy and policy are highly visible in the media and political debates. However, we know little about how these public travails are reflected in the private sphere where the recession is translated into mass emigration of young workers, defaults on mortgages, former twoearner households turning into no-earner families, and cutbacks in health and social care services that leave many younger and older citizens without the supports on which they could rely.

Right-Wing Violence in Germany: Assessing the Objectives, Personalities and Terror Trail of the National Socialist Underground and the State's Response to It

In the last five years the forces of organised right-wing extremism have made electoral advances across many states in contemporary Europe. Germany has not been immune and the extreme right party, the National Democratic Party of Germany won its first seat in the European Parliament since 1989. The recent successes of the extreme right pose issues for European society about tolerance and immigration policy, but this scene has also been associated with an upsurge in racially motivated political violence and acts of right-wing terrorism. Much of this violence is perpetrated by small neo-Nazi styled groups. This paper looks at the most notorious and recent of such groups to emerge in Germany, the National Socialist Underground. The paper explores the origins and personalities behind this terror cell, provides derails of its criminal activities and murder spree, and questions why it took so long for the authorities to identify the NSU.

Estimating the incidence, prevalence and true cost of asthma in the UK: Secondary analysis of national stand-alone and linked databases in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales-a study protocol

Introduction Asthma is now one of the most common long-term conditions in the UK. It is therefore important to develop a comprehensive appreciation of the healthcare and societal costs in order to inform decisions on care provision and planning. We plan to build on our earlier estimates of national prevalence and costs from asthma by filling the data gaps previously identified in relation to healthcare and broadening the field of enquiry to include societal costs. This work will provide the first UK-wide estimates of the costs of asthma. In the context of asthma for the UK and its member countries (ie, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales), we seek to: (1) produce a detailed overview of estimates of incidence, prevalence and healthcare utilisation; (2) estimate health and societal costs; (3) identify any remaining information gaps and explore the feasibility of filling these and (4) provide insights into future research that has the potential to inform changes in policy leading to the provision of more cost-effective care.

Methods and analysis Secondary analyses of data from national health surveys, primary care, prescribing, emergency care, hospital, mortality and administrative data sources will be undertaken to estimate prevalence, healthcare utilisation and outcomes from asthma. Data linkages and economic modelling will be undertaken in an attempt to populate data gaps and estimate costs. Separate prevalence and cost estimates will be calculated for each of the UK-member countries and these will then be aggregated to generate UK-wide estimates.

Ethics and dissemination Approvals have been obtained from the NHS Scotland Information Services Division's Privacy Advisory Committee, the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage Collaboration Review System, the NHS South-East Scotland Research Ethics Service and The University of Edinburgh's Centre for Population Health Sciences Research Ethics Committee. We will produce a report for Asthma-UK, submit papers to peer-reviewed journals and construct an interactive map.

European Recommendations for Primary Prevention of Congenital Anomalies: A Joined Effort of EUROCAT and EUROPLAN Projects to Facilitate Inclusion of This Topic in the National Rare Disease Plans

Congenital anomalies (CA) are the paradigm example of rare diseases liable to primary prevention actions due to the multifactorial etiology of many of them, involving a number of environmental factors together with genetic predispositions. Yet despite the preventive potential, lack of attention to an integrated preventive strategy has led to the prevalence of CA remaining relatively stable in recent decades. The 2 European projects, EUROCAT and EUROPLAN, have joined efforts to provide the first science-based and comprehensive set of recommendations for the primary prevention of CA in the European Union. The resulting EUROCAT-EUROPLAN 'Recommendations on Policies to Be Considered for the Primary Prevention of Congenital Anomalies in National Plans and Strategies on Rare Diseases' were issued in 2012 and endorsed by EUCERD (European Union Committee of Experts on Rare Diseases) in 2013. The recommendations exploit interdisciplinary expertise encompassing drugs, diet, lifestyles, maternal health status, and the environment. The recommendations include evidence-based actions aimed at reducing risk factors and at increasing protective factors and behaviors at both individual and population level. Moreover, consideration is given to topics specifically related to CA (e.g. folate status, teratogens) as well as of broad public health impact (e.g. obesity, smoking) which call for specific attention to their relevance in the pre- and periconceptional period. The recommendations, reported entirely in this paper, are a comprehensive tool to implement primary prevention into national policies on rare diseases in Europe.