Digital Commons Network^™

Review Of The International Play Policies And Their Contribution To Supporting A Child's Right To Play, Fiona Armstrong, David Gaul

Articles

Play is recognised as a fundamental children's right protected by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Despite legal and constitutional requirements for ensuring children's right to play, there are few international policies dedicated to play. This paper seeks to use a critical discourse analysis lens to compare the current international policies dedicated to play and identify examples of good practice and perceived barriers to the successful development and implementation of play policies.

An Evaluation Of Ireland’S Sustainable Freight Transport Policy, Xu Zhang, Eoin Plant, Nikolaos Valantasis Kanellos

Articles

Background: The Irish government has put forth sustainable transport policy measures, yet the emphasis is mainly on the active travel and sustainable mobility for passenger transport. Contrariwise, freight transport has not received equal consideration in policy measures, regulatory frameworks, and support schemes towards the low-carbon transition. This study seeks to address this imbalance. Methods: The paper proposes an adaptation of the ASI framework for freight transport and assesses the applicability of a number of international sustainable transport measures based on their potential sustainability impact if adopted in Ireland. The research applied a Policy Delphi Method to a heterogeneous …

Re-Thinking The Coronavirus Pandemic As A Policy Punctuation: Covid-19 As A Path-Clearing Policy Accelerator, John Hogan, Michael Patrick Howlett, Mary P. Murphy

Articles

This article joins with others in this special issue to examine the evolution of our understanding of how the coronavirus disease (COVID)-19 pandemic impacted policy ideas and routines across a wide variety of sectors of government activity. Did policy ideas and routines transform as a result of the pandemic or were they merely a continuation of the status quo ante? If they did transform, are the transformations temporary in nature or likely to lead to significant, deep and permanent reform to existing policy paths and trajectories? As this article sets out, the literature on policy punctuations has evolved and helps …

Racial Profiling: Past, Present, And Future, David A. Harris

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It has been more than two decades since the introduction of the first bill in Congress that addressed racial profiling in 1997. Between then and now, Congress never passed legislation on the topic, but more than half the states passed laws and many police departments put anti-profiling policies in place to combat it. The research and data on racial profiling has grown markedly over the last twenty-plus years. We know that the practice is real (contrary to many denials), and the data reveal racial profiling’s shortcomings and great social costs. Nevertheless, racial profiling persists. While it took root most prominently …

An Empirical Investigation Of Third Party Consumer Litigant Funding, Ronen Avraham, Anthony J. Sebok

Articles

This is the first large-scale empirical study of consumer third-party litigation funding in the United States. Despite being part of the American legal system for more than two decades there has been almost no real data-driven empirical study to date. We analyzed funding requests from American consumers in over 100,000 cases over a twelve year period. This proprietary data set was provided to us by one of the largest consumer litigation funder in the United States.

Our results are striking and important. We find that the funder plays an important role in the American legal system by screening cases. Our …

The Critical Juncture Concept’S Evolving Capacity To Explain Policy Change, John Hogan

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This article examines the evolution of our understanding of the critical junctures concept. The concept finds its origins in historical intuitionalism, being employed in the context of path dependence to account for sudden and jarring institutional or policy changes. We argue that the concept and the literature surrounding it—now incorporating ideas, discourse, and agency—have gradually become more comprehensive and nuanced as historical institutionalism was followed by ideational historical institutionalism and constructivist and discursive institutionalism. The prime position of contingency has been supplanted by the role of ideas and agency in explaining critical junctures and other instances of less than transformative …

Discursive Constructions Of Professional Identity In Policy And Regulatory Discourse, Gerard Fealy, Josephine Mary Hegarty, Martin Mcnamara, Mary Casey, Denise O'Leary, Catriona Kennedy, Pauline O’Reilly, Rhona O’Connell, Anne-Marie Brady, Emma Nicholson

Articles

Aim

To examine and describe disciplinary discourses conducted through professional policy and regulatory documents in nursing and midwifery in Ireland.

Background

A key tenet of discourse theory is that group identities are constructed in public discourses and these discursively constructed identities become social realities. Professional identities can be extracted from both the explicit and latent content of discourse. Studies of nursing's disciplinary discourse have drawn attention to a dominant discourse that confers nursing with particular identities, which privilege the relational and affective aspects of nursing and, in the process, marginalize scientific knowledge and the technical and body work of nursing. …

Interculturalism In Higher Education In Ireland: An Analysis From A Strategy, Policy And Practice Perspective, Brid Ni Chonaill

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Education is instrumental in preparing students to participate in increasingly diverse Irish, European and global societies, with higher education having a part to play in the process. Issues around migration and cultural diversity have gained less attention in the higher education sector in Ireland than at primary and post primary level with a few notable exceptions. Higher education is regarded as having a “critical role” to play in terms of “enriching Ireland’s cultural life, nurturing our understanding of our own national identity and that of other cultures and belief systems” [1]. Influenced by developments at European Union level, the approach …

Board Rooms And Jail Cells- Assessing Ngo Approaches To Private Environmental Governance, Joshua Galperin

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Staff of the Nature Conservancy often find themselves in corporate board rooms. Staff of Greenpeace often find themselves in jail cells. The Nature Conservancy (TNC) prides itself on its non-confrontational, collaborative deal making, partnering closely with corporations like chemical giant Dow and agricultural lightning rod Monsanto. Both Dow and Monsanto, in fact, are members of TNC’s Business Council along with the likes of BP, Shell, and Cargill. Greenpeace, on the other hand, prides itself on direct action, civil disobedience, and non-violent confrontation. Greenpeace has launched combative operations against Dow, Monsanto, and other TNC collaborators. While business partners praise TNC’s cooperative …

Artificial Intelligence Policy: A Primer And Roadmap, Ryan Calo

Articles

Talk of artificial intelligence is everywhere. People marvel at the capacity of machines to translate any language and master any game. Others condemn the use of secret algorithms to sentence criminal defendants or recoil at the prospect of machines gunning for blue, pink, and white-collar jobs. Some worry aloud that artificial intelligence will be humankind’s “final invention.” This essay, prepared in connection with UC Davis Law Review's 50th anniversary symposium, explains why AI is suddenly on everyone's mind and provides a roadmap to the major policy questions AI raises. The essay is designed to help policymakers, investors, technologists, scholars, and …

Using Rapid Reviews In Nursing And Midwifery Research: An Example From A Study Commissioned To Inform Policy-Making, Denise O'Leary, Mary Casey, Laserina O’Connor, Diarmuid Stokes, Gerard Fealy, Denise O’Brien, Rita Smith, Martin Mcnamara, Claire Egan

Articles

Aim: To illustrate the potential use of rapid review approaches in nursing and midwifery research by presenting a worked example from a study conducted to inform policy decision making.

Background: Rapid reviews, which can be defined as outputs of a knowledge synthesis approach that involves modifying or omitting elements of a systematic review process due to limited time or resources, are becoming increasingly popular in health research. This paper provides guidance on how a rapid review can be undertaken and discusses the strengths and challenges of the approach.

Data source and research design: Data from a rapid …

A Discursive Institutionalist Approach To Understanding The Changes To The Irish Social Partnership Policy After 2008., John Hogan, Nicola A. Timoney

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Employing the critical juncture theory (CJT), a discursive institutionalist approach, this paper examines the nature of the changes to social partnership policy at the end of the decade of the 2000s. Did these changes constitute a transformation in social partnership policy, or were they a continuation of a previously established policy pathway? The CJT consists of three elements – economic crisis, ideational change, and the nature of the policy change – that must be identified for us to be able to declare with some certainty if the changes to social partnership policy constituted a critical juncture. In this context, ideational …

Arts And Humanities Research, Redefining Public Benefit, And Research Prioritization In Ireland, Andrew Gibson, Ellen Hazelkorn

Articles

This article looks at the effects of a national policy of research prioritization in the years following Ireland’s economic crisis. A national research prioritization exercise initiated by policymakers redefined the purpose of higher education research, and designed policies in line with this approach. Placing research for enterprise to the fore, it emphasized the economic value that subjects could return on state investments. This article examines the post-crisis policy of prioritization, its relationship with and effects on arts and humanities research, and how the notion of the benefit of research can be broadened while still addressing economic needs. It draws on …

Efficacy Of A National Hydrological Risk Communication Strategy: Domestic Wastewater Treatment Systems In The Republic Of Ireland, Paul Hynds, Owen Naughton, Eoin O'Neill, Simon Mooney

Articles

A significant body of research has focused on the role of domestic wastewater treatment systems (DWWTSs) as sources of human-specific aquatic contaminants in both developed and developing regions. However, to date few studies have sought to investigate the awareness, attitudes and behaviours of DWWTS owners and the efficacy of associated communication initiatives. The current study provides an examination of a public national engagement campaign undertaken in the Republic of Ireland which seeks to minimise the impact of DWWTSs on human and ecological health via concurrent inspection and information dissemination. Overall, 1634 respondents were surveyed using a ‘‘before and after” study …

Eating Is Not Political Action, Joshua Galperin, Graham Downey, D. Lee Miller

Articles

Food and environment are cultural stalwarts. Picture the red barn and solitary farmer toiling over fruited plains; or purple mountains majesty reflected in pristine waters. Agriculture and environment are core, distinct, American mythologies that we know are more intertwined than our stories reveal.

To create policy at the interface of such centrally important and overlapping American ideals, there are two options. Passive governance fosters markets in which participants make individual choices that aggregate into inadvertent collective action. In contrast, assertive governance allows the public, mediated through elected officials, to enact intentional, goal oriented policy.

American mythologies of food and environment …

An Intersectional Approach To Race/Ethnicity, Sex, And Age Disparity In Federal Sentencing Outcomes: An Examination Of Policy Across Time Periods, Jeffrey Nowacki

Articles

Approaches to intersectionality stress the importance of recognizing multiple, intersecting inequalities. As such, recent sentencing research has examined the changing role of extra-legal characteristics on United States federal sentencing outcomes in the aftermath of recent policy changes (e.g., United States v. Booker), but scholarship has less often examined these characteristics at the intersections of race/ethnicity, gender, and, especially age. This article uses an intersectional approach to examine the influence of these characteristics net of legally-relevant characteristics. Using ordinary-least squares regression procedures, the author examines the role of the joint effects of extra-legal variables on sentence length decisions across four distinct …

Resolving The Policy Paradox: The Case Of Biofuel Production In Ireland, Alan Gilmer, Mark J. Mcgarrity, Vivienne Byers

Articles

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to determine the status of policy design and policy implementation in the biofuel sector in Ireland. The focus of the work addresses the overarching operational context of the biofuel sector in Ireland and the role of different actors in shaping and resolving inconsistencies in policy outlook and practice. Design/methodology/approach – This study used a qualitative research approach involving a series of semi-structured interviews with members of the relevant sub-groups concerned. This study sought to address two questions – whether current or proposed policy is likely to affect consumption of indigenous biofuel feedstocks …

Experiences Of Computer Science Curriculum Design: A Phenomenological Study, Art Sloan, Brian Bowe

Articles

This paper presents a qualitative study of twelve computer science lecturers’ experiences of curriculum design of several degree programmes during a time of transition from year-long to semesterised courses, due to institutional policy change. The background to the study is outlined, as are the reasons for choosing the research methodology. The main findings are presented and the implications of the study described. The methodology chosen was hermeneutic phenomenology. The data were the texts of interview transcripts of the twelve participant lecturers. The experiences that emerged from analysis of the data grouped naturally in identifiable and presentable themes and these themes …

Critical Legal Studies In Intellectual Property And Information Law Scholarship, Peter Goodrich, Sonia K. Kayal, Rebecca Tushnet

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No abstract provided.

Stasis And Change In Environmental Law: The Past, Present And Future Of The Fordham Environmental Law Review, Gerald S. Dickinson

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The past twenty years of environmental law are marked as much by legislative stasis as by profound change in the way that lawyers, policymakers, and scholars interact with the field. Although no new federal legislation was passed over the past two decades, much has changed about the field of environmental law. This change is the result of a set of conceptual and legal challenges to the field posed by intellectual and policy movements that took root in the early 1990s. The intellectual and policy movements that have most profoundly shaped the field of environmental law in the past twenty years …

Crisis And Policy Change: The Role Of The Political Entrepreneur, John Hogan, Sharon Feeney

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This paper seeks to investigate the inner mechanics of policy change. It aims to discover how ideas enter the political arena, and how endogenous forces within the policy making environment transform ideas into new policies. The central hypothesis is that in times of crisis, new ideas emanate from a number of change agents, but in order for any of these ideas to enter the institutional environment, one specific agent of change must be present: the political entrepreneur. Without political entrepreneurs, ideational change, and subsequent policy change, would not occur. The paper sets out a framework for identifying and explaining the …

Whats Wrong With Higher Education Policy?, Ellen Hazelkorn

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No abstract provided.

Good-Bye To The Celtic Tiger?, Ellen Hazelkorn

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No abstract provided.

Equity And Efficiency In Intellectual Property Taxation, Xuan-Thao Nguyen, Jeffrey A. Maine

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This article examines the federal income tax regime governing intellectual property using normative criteria in evaluating taxes: equity and efficiency. The article first evaluates the current intellectual property tax scheme in terms of horizontal equity, identifying differences in tax treatment of what appear to be similar intellectual property activities. It argues that disparate tax treatments between seemingly similar intellectual property owners signal that flaws may exist in the tax system. The article then assesses the efficiency of the intellectual property tax system, examining numerous tax subsidies for intellectual property and their effectiveness in promoting economic growth. It argues that many …

Microfinance Managers Consider Online Funding: Is It Finance, Marketing, Or Something Else?, Deborah Burand

Articles

Online platforms are changing the way we engage with the world. Facebook links, eBay auctions, ePal chats, even Second Life avatars—these are all online platforms that connect people, ideas, products, and markets. These platforms shape who we connect with as well as how we connect. This concept extends to philanthropy: Online philanthropy is changing the nature of how and where people give.1 An outgrowth of online philanthropy is online social investing. Kiva.org is one of the best known online lending and investment platforms. Since its launch in 2005, Kiva has grabbed the attention (and wallets) of over 350,000 online lenders, …

An Anthology Of Enterprise Policy In Ireland, William Gorman, Thomas Cooney

Articles

Ruane and Gorg (1996: 37) remarked that 'any careful comparison of the Irish economy with other economies in the European Union immediately focuses on two key features of Ireland's pattern of industrial development: the enormous significance of foreign direct investment (FDI) and the very high export ratios in the Irish manufacturing sector among foreign-owned companies. These two features have not developed by accident, but are directly related to the industrial strategy which Ireland has pursued over the past forty years, namely, of promoting export-led growth in Irish manufacturing through various incentives and of encouraging foreign companies to establish manufacturing plants …

Need For Social Policy To Recognise That People Are Excluded When They Cannot Afford To Give Their Children A Holiday, Bernadette Quinn

Articles

This research investigated how access to an annual holiday can benefit children living in poverty and their families. It studied children who had the opportunity to avail of a child-centred, structured group holiday provided by three NGOs. Study participants were drawn from a cross-section of disadvantaged areas in Dublin, comprising two inner-city and four suburban areas. Data collection involved 75 children and 35 guardians in the first stage, and 27 children and 16 guardians in subsequent stages. In total, 16 families participated in all stages of the research process, which used qualitative methods, including focus groups, in-depth interviews and observation. …

Institutional Mission Vs. Policy Constraint?: Unlocking Potential, Ellen Hazelkorn

Articles

The research-intensive and competitive knowledge society is putting HEIs (higher education institutions) under the spotlight. While many HEIs around the world do not proclaim or wish to be research-intensive institutions the majority desire to intensify their research activity because it is seen as a sine qua non of higher education. Accordingly, HEIs are busy making critical strategic choices concerning human resources, the research environment, the teaching-research nexus, organisational and management structure, and funding. Governments are also making choices, using policies and financial instruments to help shape institutional mission, priorities and HE systems. But if governments genuinely desire to widen access …

Capture And Counteraction: Self- Help By Environmental Zealots (Allen Chair Symposium 1996: The Future Of Environmental And Land-Use Regulation), James E. Krier

Articles

Self-help is a largely neglected topic in American legal studies.1 With the exception of a survey by a group of law students published a dozen years ago,2 there appears to be little, if anything, in our legal literature that confronts the subject in a systematic way.3 This is so, at least, if one defines self-help as I do. To me, the term refers to any act of bypassing the formal legal system in order to get what one wants.

An Introduction To Mandatory Hiv Screening Of Newborns: A Child’S Welfare In Conflict With Its Mother’S Constitutional Rights—False Dichotomies Make Bad Law, Paris R. Baldacci

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No abstract provided.