Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Sport Diplomacy And Uk Soft Power: The Case Of Mount Everest, Richard Woodward

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Sport is widely acknowledged as an important contributor to the United Kingdom’s soft power resources. This article aims to broaden and deepen our understanding of sport and soft power in the United Kingdom through a case study of British expeditions to, and the eventual conquest of, Mount Everest. Based on original archival research, the article demonstrates that British state institutions intervened systematically and strategically to expedite, and massage the story of, the ascent of Everest to burnish British prestige and present a favourable image to the world. In doing so, the article provides evidence that sport has been intrinsic to …

Liminal Entrepreneuring: The Creative Practices Of Nascent Necessity Entrepreneurs, Lucia Garcia-Lorenzo, Paul Donnelly, Lucia Sell-Trujillo, J. Miguel Imas

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This paper contributes to creative entrepreneurship studies through exploring ‘liminal entrepreneuring’, i.e., the organization-creation entrepreneurial practices and narratives of individuals living in precarious conditions. Drawing on a processual approach to entrepreneurship and Turner’s liminality concept, we study the transition from un(der)employment to entrepreneurship of 50 nascent necessity entrepreneurs (NNEs) in Spain, the United Kingdom, and Ireland. The paper asks how these agents develop creative entrepreneuring practices in their efforts to overcome their condition of ‘necessity’. The analysis shows how, in their everyday liminal entrepreneuring, NNEs disassemble their identities and social positions, experiment with new relationships and alternative visions of themselves, …

Introduction, Lorcan Sirr

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Over many decades, it has been rare for a week to pass without housing-related issues being close to, or at, the top of news and political agendas. As everybody has to live somewhere, housing – and its related elements of property, building, planning and finance – is a topic in which everybody has both a stake and an opinion. It is the most personal of subjects – in many respects, our housing shapes our lives.

How Foreign Firms Transformed Ireland’S Domestic Economy, Paul Donnelly

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Today, Ireland is host to 1,033 multinational corporations. They directly employ 152,785 and account for 70 per cent or €122.5bn of exports. It’s a story that has its roots in the 1940s.

Pathologies In International Policy Transfer: The Case Of The Oecd Tax Transparency Initiative, Richard Eccleston, Richard Woodward

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The importance of international organizations to the development and diffusion of international policy norms is widely recognized but is increasingly tempered by an appreciation of the pathologies of policy transfer. Using a case study of the OECD’s campaign to promote transparency in global tax affairs, this paper identifies a new and relatively distinctive form of dysfunctional policy transfer. Specifically it argues that international organizations face bureaucratic incentives to promote weak or lowest common denominator standards in order to maximize their prospects of brokering successful international agreements. However the paper also notes that while international organizations may have a short-term interest …

Rapid Change Without Transformation: The Dominance Of A National Policy Paradigm Over International Influences On Ecec Development In Ireland 1995-2012, Noirin Hayes, Bernie O'Donoghue Hynes, Toby Wolfe

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The rapidity of change in Irish early childhood policy over the last 20 years is clear to observers (OECD 2004). What may be debated is how significant the changes are. In this paper, we analyse changes in early childhood education and care policy in Ireland since 1995, using Hall’s (1993) typology of policy change to help understand how policies and institutions could change so much in appearance without changing their fundamental features or underlying philosophy. We demonstrate that, despite extensive change, a traditional policy paradigm has held constant, where the State’s role in direct service delivery remains limited, the State …

Link Levy To Services- Not Urban Middle Class Assets, Tom Dunne

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Paying any tax is an unwelcome burden, but in Ireland many have a particular aversion to taxes on their homes. We are not alone in this. Elsewhere, taxes on homes are also unpopular; witness the People's Initiative to Limit Property Taxation which forced the California state government to cut property taxes. Nevertheless, residential property taxes remain an almost universal feature of developed countries because of compelling economic arguments for them. Also, local property taxes are regarded as the best means of funding local government.

Rarely, it seems to me, is there such a distance between what the public wants and …

Who Benefits From Early Childcare Subsidy Design In Ireland?, Bernie O'Donoghue Hynes, Noirin Hayes

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Best Newcomer Article

The design of policy tools reveals underlying biases that are not easily identified in policy documents. A review of two early childhood education and care subsidies in Ireland aimed at different target populations exposes differential treatment of children, parents and service providers. It also demonstrates how in a split system ‘early education’ is prioritised over ‘childcare’. The designs serve to reinforce stereotypes that enable the powerful and advantaged to accrue benefits while those perceived to be less deserving are burdened through the maldistribution of resources.

Building A World-Class System In Ireland’S Financial Crisis, Ellen Hazelkorn

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Irish higher education faces particular difficulties given the severity of its economic crisis. Like other countries, it is engaged in significant system restructuring coupled with managed policy direction. Where Ireland does differ is in its emphasis on a 'whole of country strategy' and commitment that teaching and research go hand-in-hand. This paper looks at the fortunes and mis-fortunes of Irish higher education.

An Evaluation Of The Community Childcare Subvention Scheme Using Policy Design Theory, Bernie O'Donoghue Hynes, Noirin Hayes

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This paper utilises Policy Design Theory to evaluate policy tool design and selection in Ireland in order to look beyond policy goals and rhetoric to the meanings and assumptions within policy design. A review of the Community Childcare Subvention Scheme (CCSS) reveals it to be an ‘incentive’ tool that is structured around a negative social construction of the target populations as ‘dependants’ with little capacity to solve their own problems. While immediate policy objectives are met through the design of the CCSS, if viewed in a wider context of overall national policy objectives a range of negative side-effects are evident …

Handle With Care, Ellen Hazelkorn

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This article discusses the impact of rankings on higher education.

Contribution Of Tertiary Education To Human Capital Development, Labour Market And Skills In The State Of Victoria, Australia, Ellen Hazelkorn

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This chapter examines how effectively TAFE Institutes and universities in the State of Victoria contribute to meeting the social and economic needs of the population in terms of opportunities to study and relevance of the qualifications offered. It identifies some key achievements and areas for improvement. The chapter closes with a series of recommendations that include the need for a greater system approach to tertiary education in order to support sustainable regional development and the role that the State of Victoria can play in this strategy.

Do University Rankings Measure What Counts, Ellen Hazelkorn

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The article discusses the impact of rankings on higher education.

Rankings And The Battle For World-Class Excellence: Institutional Strategies And Policy Choices, Ellen Hazelkorn

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Global rankings are creating a furore wherever or whenever they are published or mentioned. They have become a barometer of global competition measuring the knowledge-producing and talent-catching capacity of higher education institutions. These developments are injecting a new competitive dynamic into higher education, nationally and globally, and encouraging a debate about its role and purpose. As such, politicians regularly refer to them as a measure of their nation’s economic strength and aspirations, universities use them to help set or define targets mapping their performance against the various metrics, while academics use rankings to bolster their own professional reputation and status. …

Attitudes To Rankings: Comparing German, Australian And Japanese Experiences, Ellen Hazelkorn

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Drawing on an international survey of HE leaders during 2006, and interviews with HE leaders and stakeholders in Germany, Australia and Japan during 2008, it describes and compares the reaction and response to rankings by HEIs in Germany, Australia and Japan, with particular attention to institutional strategy and planning, benchmarking and quality assurance, student admissions and faculty recruitment and morale. The chapter argues cross-national comparisons/global rankings are an inevitable feature of globalisation, the international battle for talent, and strategies for national competitiveness.

Smart Growth: A Buffer Zone Between Decentrist And Centrist Theory?, Dorothy Stewart, Lorcan Sirr, Ruth Kelly

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The context for planning at the turn of the 19th century, in a newly industrialized world, was based on the need to find solutions to overcrowding and dire urban conditions. Planning decisions made in the post-World War II period were primarily motivated by the desire to reconstruct war torn cities. The forces of influence for planning and development in modern advanced capitalist societies are arguably set within the context of sustainable development. Many developed countries have witnessed a dramatic change in their territorial structures. Urban centres are extending into rural areas and surrounding hinterland, where large tracts of land are …

Land Value Taxation: Persuasive Theory But Practically Difficult, Tom Dunne

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While the theoretical case for Land Value Taxation is regarded as being very persuasive, most people looking closely at the idea form the view that the practical difficulties of introducing it into an established modern economy are compelling. Nevertheless, in Europe and America the ideas put forward by George continue to influence many people discussing issues around land use planning, urban development and methods of funding infrastructure and local government.

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

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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 …