Labour market innovations and policy learning : report on Switzerland

This paper analyses learning and implementation of labour market reforms in Switzerland.

Best practice report on policy learning infrastructures in innovative labour market policies

This report synthesizes the findings of 11 country reports on policy learning in labour market and social policies that were conducted as part of WP5 of the INSPIRES project, which is funded by the 7th Framework Program of the EU-Commission. Notably, this report puts forward objectives of policy learning, discusses tools, processes and institutions of policy learning and presents the impacts of various tools and structures of the policy learning infrastructure for the actual policy learning process. The report defines three objectives of policy learning: evaluation and assessment of policy effectiveness, vision building and planning, and consensus building. In the 11 countries under consideration, the tools and processes of the policy learning, infrastructure can be classified into three broad groups: public bodies, expert councils, and parties, interest groups and the private sector. Finally, we develop four recommendations for policy learning: Firstly, learning processes should keep the balance between centralisation and plurality. Secondly, learning processes should be kept stable beyond the usual political business cycles. Thirdly, policy learning tools and infrastructures should be sufficiently independent from political influence or bias. Fourth, Policy learning tools and infrastructures should balance out mere effectiveness, evaluation and vision building.

Policy learning in Europe : social policy and labour market reforms in 11 countries

This report compares policy learning processes in 11 European countries. Based on the country reports that were produced by the national teams of the INSPIRES project, this paper develops an argument that connects problem pressure and politicization to learning in different labor market innovations. In short, we argue that learning efforts are most likely to impact on policy change if there is a certain problem pressure that clearly necessitates political action. On the other hand, if problem pressure is very low, or so high that governments need to react immediately, chances are low that learning impacts on policy change. The second part of our argument contends that learning impacts on policy change especially if a problem is not very politicized, i.e. there are no main conflicts concerning a reform, because then, solutions are wound up in the search for a compromise. Our results confirm our first hypothesis regarding the connection between problem pressure and policy learning. Governments learn indeed up to a certain degree of problem pressure. However, once political action becomes really urgent, i.e. in anti-crisis policies, there is no time and room for learning. On the other hand, learning occurred independently from the politicization of problem. In fact, in countries that have a consensual political system, learning occurred before the decision on a reform, whereas in majoritarian systems, learning happened after the adoption of a policy during the process of implementation.

Jatkuu ensi viikolla : television draamasarjan tuotantotavat ja tuottajuus

Opinnäytetyö on monimuototyö, joka koostuu kirjallisesta osasta sekä teososasta. Kirjallisessa osassa tutkin television draamasarjan tuotantoa ja tuotantoketjuja Suomessa ja Yhdysvalloissa. Käsiteltävänä on myös tuottajuus Suomessa ja se, miten tuotantotavat ovat muuttuneet viimeisen kymmenen vuoden aikana. Kirjallinen osa taustoittaa aluksi television katsomista Suomessa sekä käy läpi sarjamuotoisen televisiokerronnan synnyn Amerikassa sekä sen tulemisen Suomeen. Kolmannessa luvussa selvitetään amerikkalaista monimutkaista tv-tuotantokulttuuria käymällä läpi tv-sarjan tuotantoketju ideasta televisioensi-iltaan ja selventämällä käsikirjoittajien ja tuottajien työnkuvia sikäläisessä tuotantotiimissä. Neljännessä luvussa käsitellään kotimaisia tuotantokäytäntöjä ja -ketjuja sekä käydään läpi tuottajan roolia ja tehtäviä sekä niissä tapahtuneita kehityksiä ja alan muutoksia. Luvussa viisi pohditaan draamasarjaa sisällöllisesti sekä laadulliselta tasolta että kerronnalliselta kannalta. Kuudennessa luvussa pohditaan voisiko suomalainen ja amerikkalainen tuotantotyyli ottaa jotenkin oppia toisistaan, ja mitkä ovat eri tuotantomallien edut ja haitat. Lopussa tiivistetään opinnäytetyön tärkeimmät havainnot ja pohditaan vielä, mitkä ovat tekijän mahdollisuudet päästä eteenpäin oman sarjaidean kanssa. Lähdemateriaalina on käytetty amerikkalaista tuotantoon ja käsikirjoittamiseen liittyvää kirjallisuutta sekä suomalaista käsikirjoitus- ja mediakulttuurikirjallisuutta. Merkittävinä kotimaisina lähteinä toimivat alan ammattilaisten haastattelut. Työn myötä lukijalle selviää, kuinka suomalainen ja amerikkalainen televisiosarja syntyy. AV-alan työntekijöille ja opiskelijoille kiinnostavana tietona on alalla tapahtuneiden muutosten kartoittaminen sekä erityisesti tuotanto-opiskelijoille tuottajan roolin vahvistuminen. Opinnäytetyön teososa on myyntikansio tekijän omalle kuusiosaiselle tv-draamasarjaidealle.

The local configuration of a science and innovation policy : a city into the nanoworld

Local trajectories and arrangements play a significant role because the development of a research field, such as nanoscience and nanotechnology, requires substantial investments in human and instrumental resources. But why are there often concentrated in a limited number of places? What dynamics lead to such concentration? The hypothesis is that there is an assemblage of heterogeneous resources through the action of local actors. The chapter will explore, from an Actor Network Theory (ANT) perspective, how the local emergence of research dynamics from: the revival of local traditions, the local and national action of institutional entrepreneurs, controversial dynamics, and researchers' arrangements to involve other actors. It will examine how they connect up with each other and mutually commit themselves to the development of new technologies. It will focus on the role of narratives in this assembling: how were the local narratives of the past mobilized and to what effect.

Health care workers' influenza vaccination: motivations and mandatory mask policy

BACKGROUND: Vaccination of health care workers (HCW) against seasonal influenza (SI) is recommended but vaccination rate rarely reach >30%. Vaccination coverage against 2009 pandemic influenza (PI) was 52% in our hospital, whilst a new policy requiring unvaccinated HCW to wear a mask during patient care duties was enforced. AIMS: To investigate the determinants of this higher vaccination acceptance for PI and to look for an association with the new mask-wearing policy. METHODS: A retrospective cohort study, involving HCW of three critical departments of a 1023-bed, tertiary-care university hospital in Switzerland. Self-reported 2009-10 SI and 2009 PI vaccination statuses, reasons and demographic data were collected through a literature-based questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, uni- and multivariate analyses were then performed. RESULTS: There were 472 respondents with a response rate of 54%. Self-reported vaccination acceptance was 64% for PI and 53% for SI. PI vaccination acceptance was associated with being vaccinated against SI (OR 9.5; 95% CI 5.5-16.4), being a physician (OR 7.7; 95% CI 3.1-19.1) and feeling uncomfortable wearing a mask (OR 1.7; 95% CI 1.0-2.8). Main motives for refusing vaccination were: preference for wearing a surgical mask (80% for PI, not applicable for SI) and concerns about vaccine safety (64%, 50%) and efficacy (44%, 35%). CONCLUSIONS: The new mask-wearing policy was a motivation for vaccination but also offered an alternative to non-compliant HCW. Concerns about vaccine safety and efficiency and self-interest of health care workers are still main determinants for influenza vaccination acceptance. Better incentives are needed to encourage vaccination amongst non-physician HCW.

High-Speed Rail: lessons for policy makers from experiences abroad

In April 2009, the US government unveiled its blueprint for a national network of high-speed passenger rail (HSR) lines aimed at reducing traffic congestion, cutting national dependence on foreign oil and improving rural and urban environments. In implementing such a program, it is essential to identify the factors that might influence decision making and the eventual success of the HSR project, as well as foreseeing the obstacles that will have to be overcome.

A Pragmatic Intellectual: Dutch Fabians, Boekman, and Cultural Policy in the Netherlands, 1890-1940

Around 1900, the notion of community art (gemeenschapskunst) served to crystallize Dutch social democratic thinking about the role of the arts in society. Drawing on the pragmatism of leading social democrats like Wibaut, and drawing on his formal education in economics and statistics, the self‐made social democrat Emanuel Boekman redressed the utopian meaning of community art to signify the dissemination of "good" culture over all layers of society in his influential 1939 dissertation on the relation of the state to the arts. Being about facts rather than opinions, Boekman set the boundaries of his work to exclude a substantial discussion of the meaning of "good" culture. On the one hand, this pragmatism helped Boekman to gain support for government intervention for the arts over most of the political spectrum. On the other hand, Boekman thus pre‐empted discussions about the tension between "quality" and "accessibility" of the arts that haunts cultural policy in the Netherlands to this day.