Corruption in Kazakhstan and the quality of governance

In Kazakhstan, uncover of numerous corruption scandals involving government officials has become almost a normal feature of life. Behind the high-profile acts of waging a battle against corruption, however, is a serious and systemic phenomenon. The most endemic form of corruption is the various transfers of funds in the state structures and national companies which remain opaque and thus unaccounted for. There are questions about the volumes and spending of revenues earned from natural resources, and there is no independent monitoring and control of the flow of funds in national oil and gas companies. The main actors involved in the shadow economy are state officials and informal pressure groups, who distribute resources among themselves, and accumulate wealth by way of legalising informal incomes or obtaining official business using connections. While important decision making is carried out among the close circles of the elite, formal institutions remain weak and ineffective.

Governance Structure Choices in Supply Chain Management Evidence from Spanish and Chinese Pork Chain Cases

The author participated in the 6 th EU Framework Project ―Q-pork Chains (FP6-036245-2)‖ from 2007 to 2009. With understanding of work reports from China and other countries, it is found that compared with other countries, China has great problems in pork quality and safety. By comparing the pork chain management between China and Spain, It is found that the difference in governance structure is one of the main differences in pork chain management between Spain and China. In China, spot-market relationship still dominates governance structure of pork chain, especially between the numerous house-hold pig holders and the great number of small slaughters. While in Spain, chain agents commonly apply cooperatives or integrations to cooperate. It also has been proven by recent studies, that in quality management at the chain level that supply chain integration has a direct effect on quality management practices (Han, 2010). Therefore, the author started to investigate the governance structure choices in supply chain management. And it has been set as the first research objective, which is to explain the governance structure choices process and the influencing factors in supply chain management, analyzing the pork chains cases in Spain and in China. During the further investigation, the author noticed the international trade of pork between Spain and China is not smooth since the signature of bi-lateral agreement on pork trade in 2007. Thus, another objective of the research is to find and solve the problems exist in the international pork chain between Spain and China. For the first objective, to explain the governance structure choices in supply chain management, the thesis conducts research in three main sections. 10 First of all, the thesis gives a literature overview in chapter two on Supply Chain Management (SCM), agri-food chain management and pork chain management. It concludes that SCM is a systems approach to view the supply chains as a whole, and to manage the total flow of goods inventory from the supplier to the ultimate customer. It includes the bi-directional flow of products (materials and services) and information, and the associated managerial and operational activities. And it also is a customer focus to create unique and individual source of customer value with an appropriate use of resources, leading to customer satisfaction and building competitive chain advantages. Agri-food chain management and pork chain management are applications of SCM in agri-food sector and pork sector respectively. Then, the research gives a comparative study in chapter three in the pork chain and pork chain management between Spain and China. Many differences are found, while the main difference is governance structure in pork chain management. Furthermore, the author gives an empirical study on governance structure choice in chapter five. It is concluded that governance structure of supply chain consists of a collection of rules/institutions/constraints structuring the transactions between the various stakeholders. Based on the overview on literatures closely related with governance structure, such as transaction cost economics, transaction value analysis and resource-based view theories, seven hypotheses are proposed, which are: Hypothesis 1: Transaction cost has positive relationship with governance structure choice Hypothesis 2: Uncertainty has positive relationship with transaction cost; higher uncertainty exerts high transaction cost Hypothesis 3: The relationship between asset specificity and transaction cost is positive Hypothesis 4: Collaboration advantages and governance structure choice have positive relationship11 Hypothesis 5: Willingness to collaborate has positive relationship with collaboration advantages Hypothesis 6: Capability to collaborate has positive relationship with collaboration advantages Hypothesis 7: Uncertainty has negative effect on collaboration advantages It is noted that as transaction cost value is negative, the transaction cost mentioned in the hypotheses is its absolute value. To test the seven hypotheses, Structural Equation Model (SEM) is applied and data collected from 350 pork slaughtering and processing companies in Jiangsu, Shandong and Henan Provinces in China is used. Based on the empirical SEM model and its results, the seven hypotheses are proved. The author generates several conclusions accordingly. It is found that the governance structure choice of the chain not only depends on transaction cost, it also depends on collaboration advantages. Exchange partners establish more stable and more intense relationship to reduce transaction cost and to maximize collaboration advantages. ―Collaboration advantages‖ in this thesis is defined as the joint value achieved through transaction (mutual activities) of agents in supply chains. This value forms as improvements, mainly in mutual logistics systems, cash response, information exchange, technological improvements and innovative improvements and quality management improvements, etc. Governance structure choice is jointly decided by transaction cost and collaboration advantages. Chain agents take different governance structures to coordinate in order to decrease their transaction cost and to increase their collaboration advantages. In China´s pork chain case, spot market relationship dominates the governance structure among the numerous backyard pig farmer and small family slaughterhouse 12 as they are connected by acquaintance relationship and the transaction cost in turn is low. Their relationship is reliable as they know each other in the neighborhood; as a result, spot market relationship is suitable for their exchange. However, the transaction between large-scale slaughtering and processing industries and small-scale pig producers is becoming difficult. The information hold back behavior and hold-up behavior of small-scale pig producers increase transaction cost between them and large-scale slaughtering and processing industries. Thus, through the more intense and stable relationship between processing industries and pig producers, processing industries reduce the transaction cost and improve the collaboration advantages with their chain partners, in which quality and safety collaboration advantages be increased, meaning that processing industries are able to provide consumers products with better quality and higher safety. It is also drawn that transaction cost is influenced mainly by uncertainty and asset specificity, which is in line with new institutional economics theories developed by Williamson O. E. In China´s pork chain case, behavioral uncertainty is created by the hold-up behaviors of great numbers of small pig producers, while big slaughtering and processing industries having strong asset specificity. On the other hand, ―collaboration advantages‖ is influenced by chain agents´ willingness to collaborate and chain agents´ capabilities to cooperate. With the fast growth of big scale slaughtering and processing industries, they are more willing to know and make effort to cooperate with their chain members, and they are more capable to create joint value together with other chain agents. Therefore, they are now the main chain agents who drive more intense and stable governance structure in China‘s pork chain. For the other objective, to find and solve the problems in the international pork chain between Spain and China, the research gives an analysis in chapter four on the 13 international pork chain. This study gives explanations why the international trade of pork between Spain and China is not sufficient from the chain perspective. It is found that the first obstacle is the high quality and safety requirement set by Chinese government. It makes the Spanish companies difficult to get authorities to export. Other aspects, such as Spanish pork is not competitive in price compared with other countries such as Denmark, United States, Canada, etc., Chinese consumers do not have sufficient information on Spanish pork products, are also important reasons that Spain does not export great quantity of pork products to China. It is concluded that China´s government has too much concern on the quality and safety requirements to Spanish pork products, which makes trade difficult to complete. The two countries need to establish a more stable and intense trade relationship. They also should make the information exchange sufficient and efficient and try to break trade barriers. Spanish companies should consider proper price strategies to win the Chinese pork market

Social attitude toward sustainable development in 2025: A case for reinforcing scenario design

This paper shows the role that some foresight tools, such as scenario design, may play in exploring the future impacts of global challenges in our contemporary Society. Additionally, it provides some clues about how to reinforce scenario design so that it displays more in-depth analysis without losing its qualitative nature and communication advantages. Since its inception in the early seventies, scenario design has become one of the most popular foresight tools used in several fields of knowledge. Nevertheless, its wide acceptance has not been seconded by the urban planning academic and professional realm. In some instances, scenario design is just perceived as a story telling technique that generates oversimplified future visions without the support of rigorous and sound analysis. As a matter of fact, the potential of scenario design for providing more in-depth analysis and for connecting with quantitative methods has been generally missed, giving arguments away to its critics. Based on these premises, this document tries to prove the capability of scenario design to anticipate the impacts of complex global challenges and to do it in a more analytical way. These assumptions are tested through a scenario design exercise which explores the future evolution of the sustainable development paradigm (SD) and its implications in the Spanish urban development model. In order to reinforce the perception of scenario design as a useful and added value instrument to urban planners, three sets of implications –functional, parametric and spatial— are displayed to provide substantial and in-depth information for policy makers. This study shows some major findings. First, it is feasible to set up a systematic approach that provides anticipatory intelligence about future disruptive events that may affect the natural environment and socioeconomic fabric of a given territory. Second, there are opportunities for innovating in the Spanish urban planning processes and city governance models. Third, as a foresight tool, scenario design can be substantially reinforced if proper efforts are made to display functional, parametric and spatial implications generated by the scenarios. Fourth, the study confirms that foresight offers interesting opportunities for urban planners, such as anticipating changes, formulating visions, fostering participation and building networks

Inverse kinematics of a 6 DoF human upper limb using ANFIS and ANN for anticipatory actuation in ADL-based physical Neurorehabilitation

Objective: This research is focused in the creation and validation of a solution to the inverse kinematics problem for a 6 degrees of freedom human upper limb. This system is intended to work within a realtime dysfunctional motion prediction system that allows anticipatory actuation in physical Neurorehabilitation under the assisted-as-needed paradigm. For this purpose, a multilayer perceptron-based and an ANFIS-based solution to the inverse kinematics problem are evaluated. Materials and methods: Both the multilayer perceptron-based and the ANFIS-based inverse kinematics methods have been trained with three-dimensional Cartesian positions corresponding to the end-effector of healthy human upper limbs that execute two different activities of the daily life: "serving water from a jar" and "picking up a bottle". Validation of the proposed methodologies has been performed by a 10 fold cross-validation procedure. Results: Once trained, the systems are able to map 3D positions of the end-effector to the corresponding healthy biomechanical configurations. A high mean correlation coefficient and a low root mean squared error have been found for both the multilayer perceptron and ANFIS-based methods. Conclusions: The obtained results indicate that both systems effectively solve the inverse kinematics problem, but, due to its low computational load, crucial in real-time applications, along with its high performance, a multilayer perceptron-based solution, consisting in 3 input neurons, 1 hidden layer with 3 neurons and 6 output neurons has been considered the most appropriated for the target application.

Dynamics in the governance of collective irrigation systems: Evidence from field experiments in Nicaragua.

In this paper, we investigate the real demand for climate protection when the purely individual perspective of existing revealed preference studies is relaxed. This is achieved in two treatments; first, we determine the information subjects receive about the demand revealed by other subjects in a similar decision making situation, second, collective action is implemented whereby all subjects are required to purchase the group?s median quantity at a given price. Participants in the experiment were offered the opportunity to contribute to climate protection by purchasing European Union Allowances. Allowances purchased were withdrawn from the European Emissions Trading Scheme. In our experiment, information about other subjects? behaviour has no treatment effect on the demand for climate protection. Under collective action however, the probability of purchasing allowances is higher compared to the reference treatment situation, an individual contribution mechanism. Furthermore, we observe a strong correlation between subjects? demand and their expectations about other participants? behaviour. When collective action is not available, subjects? e xpectations are consistent with free rider behaviour.

The Spanish water ?pressure cooker?: Threading the interplay between resource resilient water governance outcomes by strengthening the robustness of water governance processes.

This paper uses the metaphor of a pressure cooker to highlight how water problems in Spain are highly geographical and sectorial in nature, with some specific hotspots which raise the temperature of the whole water complex system, turning many potentially solvable water problems into ?wicked problems?. The paper discusses the tendency for water governance to be hydrocentric, when often the drivers and in turn the ?solutions? to Spanish water problems lie outside the water sphere. The paper analyzes of the current water governance system by looking at water governance as both a process, and its key attributes like participation, trans- parency, equity and rule of law, as well as an analysis of water governance as an outcome by looking at efficiency and sustainability of water use in Spain. It concludes on the need to have a deeper knowledge on the interactions of water governance as a process and as an outcome and potential synergies and arguing that water governance is an inherently political process which calls for strengthening the capacity of the system by looking at the interactions of these different governance attributes.

Dynamics in the governance of collective irrigation systems: Evidence from field experiments in Nicaragua.

The objective of this study is to analyze the common pool resource appropriation and public good provisiondecisions in a dynamic setting, testing the differences in behavior and performance between lab and field subjects. We performeda total of 45 games in Nicaragua, including 88 villagers in rural communities and 92 undergraduate students. In order to analyze sequential decision making, we introduce a dynamic and asymmetric irrigation game that combines the typical social dilemmas associated to irrigation systems management.In addition, in 9 out of 22 villagers’ groups, we implemented a treatment that included the disclosure of subjects’ appropriation of the common pool resource. The results reveal that the provision of individuals’ appropriation level results in higher appropriation in subsequent rounds. In addition, the results show that non-treated villagers provide more public good than treated villagers but if compared with students the differences are not significant. The results also suggest that appropriation levels are below the Nash prediction of full appropriation, but above the social efficient level. This results in an efficiency loss in the game that can be explained to a large extent by individual decisions on appropriation and public good contribution and by group appropriation behavior.

Del plan a la realidad: gobernanza y toma de decisiones en los procesos de regeneración urbana. El caso de Boston = From plan to reality: governance and decision-making in urban regeneration processes in Boston

En las últimas tres décadas, las dinámicas de restructuración económica a nivel global han redefinido radicalmente el papel de las ciudades. La transición del keynesianismo al neoliberalismo ha provocado un cambio en las políticas urbanas de los gobiernos municipales, que han abandonado progresivamente las tareas de regulación y redistribución para centrarse en la promoción del crecimiento económico y la competitividad. En este contexto, muchas voces críticas han señalado que la regeneración urbana se ha convertido en un vehículo de extracción de valor de la ciudad y está provocando la expulsión de los ciudadanos más vulnerables. Sin embargo, la regeneración de áreas consolidadas supone también una oportunidad de mejora de las condiciones de vida de la población residente, y es una política necesaria para controlar la expansión de la ciudad y reducir las necesidades de desplazamiento, promoviendo así ciudades más sostenibles. Partiendo de la hipótesis de que la gobernanza de los procesos de regeneración urbana es clave en el resultado final de las operaciones y determina el modelo de ciudad resultante, el objetivo de esta investigación es verificar si la regeneración urbana es necesariamente un mecanismo de extracción de valor o si puede mejorar la calidad de vida en las ciudades a través de la participación de los ciudadanos. Para ello, propone un marco de análisis del proceso de toma de decisiones en los planes de regeneración urbana y su impacto en los resultados de los planes, tomando como caso de estudio la ciudad de Boston, que desde los años 1990 trata de convertirse en una “ciudad de los barrios”, fomentando la participación ciudadana al tiempo que se posiciona en la escena económica global. El análisis se centra en dos operaciones de regeneración iniciadas a finales de los años 1990. Por un lado, el caso de Jackson Square nos permite comprender el papel de la sociedad civil y el tercer sector en la regeneración de los barrios más desfavorecidos, en un claro ejemplo de urbanismo “desde abajo” (bottom-up planning). Por otro, la reconversión del frente marítimo de South Boston para la construcción del Distrito de Innovación nos acerca a las grandes operaciones de regeneración urbana con fines de estímulo económico, tradicionalmente vinculadas a los centros financieros (downtown) y dirigidas por las élites gubernamentales y económicas (la growth machine) a través de procesos más tecnocráticos (top-down planning). La metodología utilizada consiste en el análisis cualitativo de los procesos de toma de decisiones y la relación entre los agentes implicados, así como de la evaluación de la implementación de dichas decisiones y su influencia en el modelo urbano resultante. El análisis de los casos permite afirmar que la gobernanza de los procesos de regeneración urbana influye decisivamente en el resultado final de las intervenciones; sin embargo, la participación de la comunidad local en la toma de decisiones no es suficiente para que el resultado de la regeneración urbana contrarreste los efectos de la neoliberalización, especialmente si se limita a la fase de planeamiento y no se extiende a la fase de ejecución, y si no está apoyada por una movilización política de mayor alcance que asegure una acción pública redistributiva. Asimismo, puede afirmarse que los procesos de regeneración urbana suponen una redefinición del modelo de ciudad, dado que la elección de los espacios de intervención tiene consecuencias sobre el equilibrio territorial de la ciudad. Los resultados de esta investigación tienen implicaciones para la disciplina del planeamiento urbano. Por una parte, se confirma la vigencia del paradigma del “urbanismo negociado”, si bien bajo discursos de liderazgo público y sin apelación al protagonismo del sector privado. Por otra parte, la planificación colaborativa en un contexto de “responsabilización” de las organizaciones comunitarias puede desactivar la potencia política de la participación ciudadana y servir como “amortiguador” hacia el gobierno local. Asimismo, la sustitución del planeamiento general como instrumento de definición de la ciudad futura por una planificación oportunista basada en la actuación en áreas estratégicas que tiren del resto de la ciudad, no permite definir un modelo coherente y consensuado de la ciudad que se desea colectivamente, ni permite utilizar el planeamiento como mecanismo de redistribución. ABSTRACT In the past three decades, the dynamics of global economic restructuring have radically redefined the role of cities. The transition from keynesianism to neoliberalism has caused a shift in local governments’ urban policies, which have progressively abandoned the tasks of regulation and redistribution to focus on promoting economic growth and competitiveness. In this context, many critics have pointed out that urban regeneration has become a vehicle for extracting value from the city and is causing the expulsion of the most vulnerable citizens. However, regeneration of consolidated areas is also an opportunity to improve the living conditions of the resident population, and is a necessary policy to control the expansion of the city and reduce the need for transportation, thus promoting more sustainable cities. Assuming that the governance of urban regeneration processes is key to the final outcome of the plans and determines the resulting city model, the goal of this research is to verify whether urban regeneration is necessarily a value extraction mechanism or if it can improve the quality of life in cities through citizens’ participation. It proposes a framework for analysis of decision-making in urban regeneration processes and their impact on the results of the plans, taking as a case study the city of Boston, which since the 1990s is trying to become a "city of neighborhoods", encouraging citizen participation, while seeking to position itself in the global economic scene. The analysis focuses on two redevelopment plans initiated in the late 1990s. The Jackson Square case allows us to understand the role of civil society and the third sector in the regeneration of disadvantaged neighborhoods, in a clear example of bottom-up planning. On the contrary, the conversion of the South Boston waterfront to build the Innovation District takes us to the big redevelopment efforts with economic stimulus’ goals, traditionally linked to downtowns and led by government and economic elites (the local “growth machine”) through more technocratic processes (top-down planning). The research is based on a qualitative analysis of the processes of decision making and the relationship between those involved, as well as the evaluation of the implementation of those decisions and their influence on the resulting urban model. The analysis suggests that the governance of urban regeneration processes decisively influences the outcome of interventions; however, community engagement in the decision-making process is not enough for the result of the urban regeneration to counteract the effects of neoliberalization, especially if it is limited to the planning phase and does not extend to the implementation of the projects, and if it is not supported by a broader political mobilization to ensure a redistributive public action. Moreover, urban regeneration processes redefine the urban model, since the choice of intervention areas has important consequences for the territorial balance of the city. The results of this study have implications for the discipline of urban planning. On the one hand, it confirms the validity of the "negotiated planning" paradigm, albeit under public leadership discourse and without a direct appeal to the leadership role of the private sector. On the other hand, collaborative planning in a context of "responsibilization" of community based organizations can deactivate the political power of citizen participation and serve as a "buffer" towards the local government. Furthermore, the replacement of comprehensive planning, as a tool for defining the city's future, by an opportunistic planning based on intervention in strategic areas that are supposed to induce change in the rest of the city, does not allow a coherent and consensual urban model that is collectively desired, nor it allows to use planning as a redistribution mechanism.

Changes in the governance system for higher education in Peru to meet the challenges of the 21st century

The competition in markets, the distribution of limited resources based on productivity and performance, and the efficient management of universities are changing the criteria of trust and legitimacy of the educational system in Peru. Universities are perceived more as institutions of the public sector, while the services they offer must rather contribute to the modernization of the emerging society and the knowledge economy. Higher Educations reforms - initiated in the 1980s - have been inspired by the successful university organizations that have managed to change their governance and addressed to transform certain bureaucratic institutions into organizations capable of playing active role in this global competition for resources and best talent. Within this context, Peruvian universities are facing two major challenges: adapting themselves to new global perspectives and being able to develop a better response to society demands, needs and expectations. This article proposes a model of governance system for higher education in Peru that gives a comprehensive solution to these challenges, allowing dealing with the problems of universities for their development and inclusion within the global trends. For this purpose, a holistic and qualitative methodologic approach was developed, considering an integrated method which considered educational reality as a whole, understanding its facts, components and elements that affects its outcomes. It is proposed to define a policy for university education in Peru that permeates society, by changing the planning model from a social reform model to a policy analysis model, where the Peruvian State acts as sole responsible for responding to the demanding society as its legal representative complemented with some external and independent bodies that define the basis of best practice, as it is being done in many university models worldwide.