Public/Social Policy

In January 2018, Ghana celebrated 25 years of parliamentary democratic governance: the most enduring of all the Republican parliamentary democracies in the country’s history. While the last 25 years of multiparty parliamentary democracy in Ghana has been stable, it has had its own governance problems. For instance, since 1993, Ghana has almost become a two-party state, with the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) dominating and alternating power on a two four-year terms basis. This dominance by the two main political parties, coupled with some lapses in our 1992 constitution and Parliament’s apparent acquiescence to the Executive, appears to have compromised the oversight functions of the Ghanaian Parliament.

In Ghana, bills, loans and infrastructural agreements mostly emanate from the President/Executive and must be approved by Parliament through a five-stage process of debate and committee assessments.

This is one of the crucial functions of Parliament in terms of overseeing the activities of the Executive. Due to weaknesses in the oversight, representative and legislative roles of the Parliament of Ghana, Parliament it has come under scrutiny in recent times by civil society organisations, marginalized groups and other interest groups, including Odekro.

The report begins with a focus on Speaker Oquaye’s agenda to transform Parliament. The Speaker, in his inaugural address following a unanimous approval by Parliament, mentioned a 9-point ambitious agenda he aims to achieve during this tenure. Odekro assesses the Speaker’s progress in this regard.

Also, the report looks at the volume and speed of passage of Bills and policy priorities of Akufo-Addo’s government along specific sectors. It also evaluates the extent to which parliamentary committees engaged relevant publics in the consideration of important Bills. This is followed by gender related matters in Parliament and the dynamics of MP-Constituent relations.

The final part of the report evaluates the absenteeism patterns of MPs and attempts an explanation for inability of Speakers to enforce Article 97(1)(c).

This Malayalam article attempts to make visible the phenomenon of housework, which has remained invisible in much of social life, social science discourse and policymaking. The secondary status accorded to housework and its implications for individuals, society and women as a group are analysed here. The significance of this at a national-international level, the necessity of including housework in national income accounting and the relevance of further studies in this area are touched upon.

This article discusses the phenomena of cyberbullying especially among young people. The discussion, based on an interdisciplinary study in the fields of brain studies, child development, psychology, social policy, victimization and Internet studies, probes the troubling phenomenon of cyberbullying which may result in suicide. It is argued that adolescents are more vulnerable than adults because they lack maturity with respect to capacities such as thrill seeking, impulse control, peer pressure, reward sensitivity, cognitive processing, rational decision-making and long-term planning. The article suggests remedies to counter online social ills and argues for responsible cooperation between parents, schools, governments, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and social networking sites.

Course Description: This course discusses the development and structure of the welfare state from a comparative historical and political sociological perspective. Locating the welfare state within the broader context of the development of capitalism as a world systemic phenomenon, the course traces the scholarly discussions on the causes of the welfare state development and the functions of the welfare state. The course discusses the structural (economic or demographic) and political determinants of welfare state development, putting greater emphasis on the latter. As such, political legitimacy, electoral competition, political containment of unrest and political mobilization of popular support will be considered as critical factors shaping welfare policies. In a sense, the course is on the politics of welfare state. It will analyze the development of modern welfare states in the west and in developing countries, with a specific emphasis on so-called emerging markets. Welfare states in China, India, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, Indonesia and Turkey will be analyzed. In addition, the course will also pose more technical questions including the policy specific characteristics of existing welfare regimes.

What is the state of the research on crowdsourcing for policymaking? This article begins to answer this question by collecting, categorizing, and situating an extensive body of the extant research investigating policy crowdsourcing, within a new framework built on fundamental typologies from each field. We first define seven universal characteristics of the three general crowdsourcing techniques (virtual labor markets, tournament crowdsourcing, open collaboration), to examine the relative trade-offs of each modality. We then compare these three types of crowdsourcing to the different stages of the policy cycle, in order to situate the literature spanning both domains. We finally discuss research trends in crowdsourcing for public policy and highlight the research gaps and overlaps in the literature.

What are the similarities and differences between crowdsourcing and sharing economy? What factors influence their use in developing countries? In light of recent developments in the use of IT-mediated technologies, such as crowdsourcing and the sharing economy, this manuscript examines their similarities and differences, and the challenges regarding their effective use in developing countries. We first examine each individually and highlight different forms of each IT-mediated technology. Given that crowdsourcing and sharing economy share aspects such as the use of IT, a reliance on crowds, monetary exchange, and the use of reputation systems, we systematically compare the similarities and differences of different types of crowdsourcing with the sharing economy, thus addressing a gap in the current literature. Using this knowledge, we examine the different challenges faced by developing countries when using crowdsourcing and the sharing economy, and highlight the differences in the applicability of these IT-mediated technologies when faced with specific development issues.

Yang kita ketahui pada kehiduan panti asuhan kegiatan anak-anak yatim piatu masih jarang sekali mengapresiasikan kehidupan sosialnya di lingkungan sekitar, sehingga mereka tak dapat berinteraksi dengan wilayah luar panti asuhan. Masih banyak yayasan panti asuhan yang sulit bersilaturahmi dengan panti asuhan lain. Olah raga adalah salah satu ajang yang digemari semua golongan mulai dari anak-anak, remaja, dewasa, sampai orang tua pun ikut mengemari olah raga. Olah raga juga dapat menjadi suatu fasilitas yang dijadikan sebagai bentuk solidaritas bagi kehidupan bermasayarakat. berbagai survei yang telah di buktikan olah raga mampu menghilangkan rasa egois atau rasisme yang sering dilakukan oleh pihak yang tidak mampu bersosialisasi terhadap lingkungan.

This research is a survey and exploratory study to present a conceptual model for the sustainable development of Iran based on social entrepreneurship. Its approach for conceptual modeling is based on Path Analysis through Multiple Regression Method. The study has benefited from five questionnaires (four for the Delphi Method's rounds and another for the conceptual modeling itself). The statistical population of conceptual modeling section includes three public organizations of Iran: "State Welfare Organization," "Department of Environment," and "Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare," which reflect the pivotal SD concepts of society, environment, and hence social economy, respectively. After setting a conceptual framework, the preliminary conceptual model was formed accordingly. Each path on the model was equal to a hypothesis. Finally, a statistically significant SD-based conceptual model of social entrepreneurship, which passed goodness-of-fit by Coefficient of Determination (R 2) was presented.

Can Crowdsourcing be used for policy? Previous work posits that the three types of Crowdsourcing have different levels of potential usefulness when applied to the various stages of the policy cycle. In this paper, we build upon this exploratory work by categorizing the extant research with respect to Crowdsourcing for the policy cycle. Premised upon our analysis, we thereafter discuss the trends, highlight the gaps, and suggest some approaches to empirically validate the application of Crowdsourcing to the policy cycle.

Crowdsourcing is rapidly evolving and applied in situations where ideas, labour, opinion or expertise of large groups of people are used. Crowdsourcing is now used in various policy-making initiatives; however, this use has usually focused on open collaboration platforms and specific stages of the policy process, such as agenda-setting and policy evaluations. Other forms of crowdsourcing have been neglected in policy-making, with a few exceptions. This article examines crowdsourcing as a tool for policy-making, and explores the nuances of the technology and its use and implications for different stages of the policy process. The article addresses questions surrounding the role of crowdsourcing and whether it can be considered as a policy tool or as a technological enabler and investigates the current trends and future directions of crowdsourcing.

Franks, P.E. (2005) A Warning on the Decay of Social Fabric in South Africa, Final Panel Discussion, Third South African Public Management Conversation, African peer review mechanism, Fancourt Hotel, George, Western Cape South Africa, 7-9 December.
For the text see:
https://www.academia.edu/43897730/A_Warning_on_the_Decay_of_Social_Fabric_in_South_Africa_TEXT_2005_
At the time (2005) I was told by a Director General that I was being "too critical". One of those who expressed appreciation for what I had said was Thabo Mufamadi who commented, "Hey, it sounds just like Limpopo, Peter!" Others just looked at me with hatred in their eyes.

https://soundcloud.com/user-!""#!/peter-e-franks-a-$arning-on-the-decay-of-
Social-fabric-in-south-africa
Audio length: 11m38s

The purpose of this paper is to reexamine from a multidimensional perspective the possible existence of a single path that could have conditioned the degree of welfare state development (WSD) in Latin America. Economic/industrial development, trade-openness, democracy and the strength of leftist parties-labour movement are used as explanatory variables in the qualitative comparative analysis. In contrast to previous findings, this paper shows that there is no evidence of a common path followed by countries with a relatively high/medium WSD. Nevertheless, countries that experienced a low economic/industrial development combined with a low democratic experience were conditioned to have a low WSD.

Roma Sport 2020 è uno scenario socio-economico che illustra
gli interventi prioritari da realizzare da oggi al 2020 a Roma
allo scopo di ristrutturare l'ambiente urbano e ripensare le relazioni
sociali e gli stili di vita adottando l'ottica olistica e armonizzante
dello sport, qui inteso come fenomeno globale e potenziale fonte
di benessere individuale, sviluppo economico e sostenibilità sociale.
Lo scenario è stato realizzato mediante una variante metodologica
della tradizionale tecnica Delphi ideata dall'Autore e da lui descritta
nel precedente numero di questa rivista.
[ISSN: 1125-1891]

This research is a survey and exploratory study to present a conceptual model for the sustainable development of Iran based on social entrepreneurship. Its approach for conceptual modeling is based on Path Analysis through Multiple Regression Method. The study has benefited from five questionnaires (four for the Delphi Method’s rounds and another for the conceptual modeling itself). The statistical population of conceptual modeling section includes three public organizations of Iran: "State Welfare Organization," "Department of Environment," and "Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare," which reflect the pivotal SD concepts of society, environment, and hence social economy, respectively. After setting a conceptual framework, the preliminary conceptual model was formed accordingly. Each path on the model was equal to a hypothesis. Finally, a statistically significant SD-based conceptual model of social entrepreneurship, which passed goodness-...

An article on terrorism as it affects Nigerian economy and the need for welfare of Nigerian Army and Forces which is germane to the morale of the fighting troops as their victory goes a long way not only to end the insurgency but to put a stop to the menace causing setback in the economy of Nigeria.