This book approaches the problems and circumstances confronting blacks in the context of black values, the black community, and the role of government. ^BContents:: The Black Community's Values as a Basis for Action; The Community as Agent of Change; and The Government's Role in Meeting New Challenges.

Closing the Gap for U.S. Hispanic Youth looks at the circumstances of non-college bound youth and focuses specifically on Hispanicsóone of the nation's largest, youngest, fastest growing, and most at-risk populations. The book presents data on the potential and status of Hispanic youth, and explores a number of options and practical next-steps for the consideration of the public and private sectors to ensure that Hispanics are integrated into the new workplace.

Volume 25, Issue 2, February 2025, Page 1-2.

The involvement of ethicists, philosophers or others who might qualify as ‘moral experts’ in policy-development, where they are sometimes, typically as members of a committee, given an advisory role, is often seen as problematic, for several reasons. First, there may be doubts as to the very existence of moral experts, and it may be hard to know who the moral experts are. Next, even if these problems are solved, giving experts a special role in policy-making might be problematic (...) from a democratic point of view, if it involves politicians deferring to the moral judgements of experts. The paper considers possible replies to this problem of moral deference. One reply is that moral deference is unnecessary, because even moral non-experts are well equipped to assess the arguments offered by moral experts; I argue that this reply underestimates the complexity of moral arguments. Another reply is that if moral experts are simply given the ‘technical’ role of clarifying which concrete positions that follow from the values which decision-makers already accept, deference is not problematic. I will argue that this reply underestimates how a given set of moral values underdetermines which concrete positions follow from it. Finally, I will consider and defend the reply that since policy decisions are subject to a requirement that they be justified within the limits of public reason, and since these limits include a requirement that the justification be accessible, moral experts are barred from providing policy advice which rests on too complex moral arguments. (shrink)

The literature addressing bias and fairness in AI models (fair-AI) is growing at a fast pace, making it difficult for novel researchers and practitioners to have a bird’s-eye view picture of the field. In particular, many policy initiatives, standards, and best practices in fair-AI have been proposed for setting principles, procedures, and knowledge bases to guide and operationalize the management of bias and fairness. The first objective of this paper is to concisely survey the state-of-the-art of fair-AI methods and (...) resources, and the main policies on bias in AI, with the aim of providing such a bird’s-eye guidance for both researchers and practitioners. The second objective of the paper is to contribute to the policy advice and best practices state-of-the-art by leveraging from the results of the NoBIAS research project. We present and discuss a few relevant topics organized around the NoBIAS architecture, which is made up of a Legal Layer, focusing on the European Union context, and a Bias Management Layer, focusing on understanding, mitigating, and accounting for bias. (shrink)

Background Higher education institutions, particularly universities of technology, are ideally situated to advance critical inquiry and implementation of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) and digital transformation. This is a fundamental mission of higher education and universities of technology, to act as generators and incubators of technological innovation and educating and training the innovators of tomorrow in responsible and ethical conduct. In this brief communication, we will set out to outline policy positions for actors (at policy-making level as well (...) as those in university management and governance) in higher education institutions to consider in order to support responsible and sustainable digital transformation. Moreover, here we outline our position that it is time for a paradigm shift in digital transformation that attempts to separate it from neoliberal economic models and mindsets, and looks to alternative epistemologies and political economies (and ontologies) for ecologically sustainable and ethical digital transformation. Here we propose a concept of bifurcation, or a radical break or fork, or series of forks, from the deleterious and unsustainable practices and systems of the past that have led to a global ecological emergency. We propose to use an interdisciplinary notion of bifurcation in order to underline the need to facilitate and foster a radical change of recent culture and late-modern societies – supported and enabled by the best digital technologies that we do have and fostering also the inception and implementation of innovative new technologies fit for the purpose of this bifurcation. (shrink)

International commercial arbitration is widely regarded as an effective mechanism for resolving cross-border disputes due to its efficiency, neutrality, and enforceability. However, the enforcement of arbitral awards is subject to public policy exceptions, as recognized in the New York Convention 1958 (Article V(2)(b)) and the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration (Articles 34, 36). The concept of “public policy” lacks a uniform definition, leading to varying interpretations across jurisdictions. Some adopt a restrictive approach, limiting public policy (...) to fundamental principles of justice and morality, while others extend it to regulatory concerns. Vietnamese law codifies this principle under Article 68 of the Law on Commercial Arbitration 2010, allowing courts to annul awards violating “nguyên tắc cơ bản của pháp luật Việt Nam” (“fundamental principles of Vietnamese law”). Unlike the broad “public policy” terminology in international instruments, Vietnam’s phrasing introduces interpretative challenges. The absence of a statutory definition has led to inconsistent judicial applications, sometimes annulling awards based on procedural or substantive legal grounds without clear criteria. This divergence from international standards raises concerns over legal predictability in arbitration enforcement. The linguistic and legal translation of “public policy” into domestic law thus plays a crucial role in shaping Vietnam’s arbitration landscape, affecting its international arbitration credibility. (shrink)

Knowledge of causal laws is expensive and hard to come by. But we work hard to get it because we believe that it will reduce contingency in planning policies and in building new technologies: knowledge of causal laws allows us to predict reliably what the outcomes will be when we manipulate the factors cited as causes in those laws. Or do they? This paper will argue that causal laws have no special role here. As economists from JS Mill to Robert (...) Lucas and David Hendry stress, along recently with philosophers like James Woodward and Sandra Mitchell, they can do the job only if they are invariant under the manipulations proposed. But then, I shall argue, anything that is invariant under the proposed manipulations will do this job equally well. There seems to be nothing special about causal-law knowledge in and of itself that makes it particularly valuable for policy and technology prediction. What seems to matter is invariance alone, not causality. But what guarantees invariance and how do we know when it will obtain? Here certain kinds of causal laws do have a special place – those underwritten either by what I have called ‘nomological machines’ or by what I have called ‘capacities’. Capacities and nomological machines have a double virtue that makes them invaluable for policy planning. First, the causal laws they give rise to will be invariant so long as they obtain; and second, they typically have visible markers we can come to recognize that tell us when they obtain. The markers for nomological machines are shakier than those for capacities, though, since capacities are often tied to markers by well-established empirical laws. Capacities have their own drawback however, which is the final topic of this paper: the causal laws that are guaranteed by a capacity connect the obtaining of a capacity with its exercise. But Hume argued that no distinction can be made between the obtaining of a power and its exercise. (shrink)

In this paper, we study the relationship between Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU) and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions. Using an extensive dataset from 23 countries consisting of 6800 firm-year observations, we provide strong evidence that EPU increases firms’ CO 2 emissions. Our main inference is robust when using alternative measures of CO 2 emissions and EPU, alternative econometric specifications and samples, and several approaches to control for possible endogeneity. In a set of additional analyses, we first show that (...) a board’s characteristics (i.e., board gender diversity and board independence) significantly moderate the studied relationship. Second, cross-country characteristics (i.e., government effectiveness, control of corruption, and democracy) seem important in the relationship between EPU and CO 2 emissions. Our findings significantly contribute to the debate on firms’ ethical responsibility in managing climate change and CO 2 emissions. (shrink)

Generative AI systems using GANs and diffusion models are reshaping artistic practice and policy. This article focuses on the United States and asks: How do recent federal and state policy instruments governing generative AI in artistic expression align with public discourse in mainstream news and Reddit between July 2024 and June 2025? We synthesize U.S. developments on authorship, fair use/transformative use, personality rights, and deepfakes, incorporate new case law and U.S. Copyright Office reports, and offer a compact comparative (...) note on the EU AI Act. Using TF-IDF keywording and VADER sentiment on 287 news items and 3921 Reddit posts, we map convergences (broad support for provenance/labeling; concern for image/voice cloning) and divergences (co-authorship and training-data compensation). We argue that narrowly tailored provenance requirements and clearer standards for AI-assisted authorship would reduce uncertainty without chilling legitimate artistic practice. Limitations, include English-language scope, platform bias, and the use of bag-of-words semantics. Our findings motivate policy designs that reconcile legal safeguards with creative experimentation. (shrink)

Over the last decade, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been defined first as a concept whereby companies decide voluntarily to contribute to a better society and cleaner environment and, second, as a process by which companies manage their relationship␣with stakeholders (European Commission, 2001. Nowadays, CSR has become a priority issue on governments’ agendas. This has changed governments’ capacity to act and impact on social and environmental issues in their relationship with companies, but has also affected the framework in which CSR (...) public policies are designed: governments are incorporating multi-stakeholder strategies. This article analyzes the CSR public policies in European advanced democracies, and more specifically the EU-15 countries, and provides explanatory keys on how governments have understood, designed and implemented their CSR public policies. The analysis has entailed the classification of CSR public policies taking into consideration the actor to which the governments’ policies were addressed. This approach to the analysis of CSR public policies in the EU-15 countries leads us to observe coinciding lines of action among the different countries analyzed, which has enabled us to propose a ‹four ideal’ typology model for governmental action on CSR in Europe: Partnership, Business in the Community, Sustainability, and Citizenship, and Agora. The main contribution of this article is to propose an analytical framework to analyze CSR public policies, which provide a perspective on the relationships between governments, businesses, and civil society stakeholders, and enable us to incorporate the analysis of CSR public policies into a broader approach focused on social governance. (shrink)

Wicked problems are tricky to solve because of their many interconnected components and a lack of any single optimal solution. At the science–policy interface, all problems can look wicked: research exposes the complexity that is relevant to designing, executing and implementing policy fit for ambitious human needs. Expertise in philosophical research can help to navigate that complexity.

We analyse insufficient epistemic pluralism and associated problems in science-based policy advice during the COVID-19 pandemic drawing on specific arguments in Paul Feyerabend’s philosophy. Our goal is twofold: to deepen our understanding of the epistemic shortcomings in science-based policy during the pandemic, and to assess the merits and problems of Feyerabend’s arguments for epistemic pluralism as well as their relevance for policy-making. We discuss opportunities and challenges of integrating a plurality of viewpoints from within and outside science (...) into policy advice thus contributing to discussions about normative issues concerning evidence and expertise in policy-making. (shrink)

In Sweden, efforts to govern end-of-life care through policies have been ongoing since the 1970s. The aim of this study is to analyse how policy narratives on palliative care in Sweden have been formulated and have changed over time since the 1970s up to 2018. We have analysed 65 different policy-documents. After having analysed the empirical material, three policy episodes were identified. In Episode 1, focus was on the need for norms, standards and a psychological end-of-life care (...) with the main goal of solving the alleged deficiencies within end-of-life care in hospital settings. Episode 2 was characterised by an emphasis on prioritising end-of-life care and dying at home, and on the fact that the hospice care philosophy should serve as inspiration. In Episode 3, the need for a palliative care philosophy that transcended all palliative care and the importance of systematic follow-ups and indicators was endorsed. Furthermore, human value and freedom of choice were emphasised. In conclusion, the increase of policy-documents produced by the welfare-state illustrate that death and dying have become matters of public concern and responsibility. Furthermore, significant shifts in policy narratives display how notions of good palliative care change, which in turn may affect both the practice and the content of care at the end of life. (shrink)

With more organizations committing their policies to sustainable and inclusive agricultural development, it becomes important to understand the underlying meaning, politics, and intentions that underpin these policy goals. Agroecology offers a comprehensive agenda for transforming the food system toward more equitable, sustainable, and self-reliant communities. Food system development discourse appears to mediate agroecological possibilities, yet we lack methodological and theoretical approaches through which to evaluate this. With this research, we combined Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) with a typology of agroecological (...) discourse to analyze the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) policy on self-reliance. We tested this approach on the self-reliance policy framework because, depending on how self-reliance is discursively positioned, it can align with agroecological transformation. Findings reveal how the United States’ emphasis on inclusivity, locally driven agendas, and environmental concerns could be entry points for agroecology. However, through careful reading using CDA and the agroecological typology, our analysis reveals how USAID’s discourse suggests a highly problematic environment for supporting agroecology that forecloses on agroecology’s multifunctional outcomes by prioritizing market-led and technocratic development approaches. Our research contributes theoretically and methodologically by revealing how our unique approach could be extended to identify agroecological possibilities in seemingly aligned texts and to evaluate agroecological alignment in policy discourse that explicitly prioritizes agroecology. (shrink)

Governments are increasingly using randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to evaluate policy interventions. RCTs are often understood to provide the highest quality evidence regarding the causal efficacy of an intervention. While randomization plays an essential epistemic role in the context of policy RCTs however, it also plays an important distributive role. By randomly assigning participants to either the intervention or control arm of an RCT, people are subject to different policies and so, often, to different types and levels of (...) benefits. In this paper, I identify one necessary condition as well as a set of sufficient conditions for the permissible use of random assignment by government agencies. I argue first that random assignment is permissible only if it is consistent with governments’ duty to realize morally important outcomes. I argue second that random assignment is permissible in cases where investigators are in a state of genuine equipoise regarding all arms of the experiment and the policy to which people have a claim of justice. Finally, I defend a set of conditions under which random assignment is permissible in cases where one or more arms of a policy RCT are reasonably expected to be either superior or inferior to this policy. (shrink)

The value sensitive design (VSD) approach to designing transformative technologies for human values is taken as the object of study in this chapter. VSD has traditionally been conceptualized as another type of technology or instrumentally as a tool. The various parts of VSD’s principled approach would then aim to discern the various policy requirements that any given technological artifact under consideration would implicate. Yet, little to no consideration has been given to how laws, regulations, policies and social norms engage (...) within VSD practices. Similarly, how the interactive nature of the VSD approach can, in turn, influence those directives. This is exacerbated when we consider machine ethics policy that have global consequences outside their development spheres. What constructs and models will position AI designers to engage in policy concerns? How can the design of AI policy be integrated with technical design? How might VSD be used to develop AI policy? How might law, regulations, social norms, and other kinds of policy regarding AI systems be engaged within value sensitive design? This chapter takes the VSD as its starting point and aims to determine how laws, regulations and policies come to influence how value trade-offs can be managed within VSD practices. It shows that the iterative and interactional nature of VSD both permits and encourages existing policies to be integrated both early on and throughout the design process. The chapter concludes with some potential future research programs. (shrink)

There are now several proposals for introducing random elements into the process of funding allocation for research, and some initial implementation of this policy by funding bodies. The proposals have been supported on efficiency grounds, with models, including social epistemology models, showing random allocation could increase the generation of significant truths in a community of scientists when compared to funding by peer review. The models in the literature are, however, fairly abstract. This paper introduces some of the considerations that (...) are required to build on the modelling work towards a fully-fledged policy proposal, including issues of cost and fairness. (shrink)

There are extensive literatures on two kinds of non-anthropocentric values: animal welfare and such environmental goods as biodiversity and ecosystem integrity. These values are also widely recognized and have influenced public policy. But there is no generally accepted overarching conception of the welfare of life on Earth. Such conceptions are described here, their potential utility is explained, and various objections and difficulties are addressed. So broad a conception of welfare must have multiple components, including an expansive conception of physical (...) health and, for sentient life forms, a conception of hedonic well-being. These are incommensurable, so methods are needed for accommodating and aggregating incommensurable values. Such methods are described. Finally, three problems of application are briefly discussed: establishing well-grounded measures of welfare, obtaining the data necessary to use them, and making the results intelligible to decision-makers and the public. (shrink)

Chinese universities have actively engaged in knowledge production about other countries and played crucial roles in training professionals for the country’s foreign policy community since the founding of the People’s Republic (PRC). For decades, the transformations of the PRC’s international and area studies programs have not only reflected the shifting demands of top decision-makers but also influenced the interactions among scholars, academic institutions, government agencies, business elites, and the general public. This article analyzes the ups and downs of China’s (...) international and area studies programs in the second half of the 20th century and how they were closely intertwined with the country’s shifting priorities in foreign policy, overseas Chinese affairs, and higher education. Primarily focusing on the case of Southeast Asian Studies (SEAS), this paper explores how the PRC’s area studies programs interacted with the country’s foreign policy during the 1955–1965 and post-1978 periods. Despite the changing geopolitical dynamics after 2000, the academic infrastructure and particular institutional culture formed in these two phases remain essential to our understanding of China’s area studies initiatives today. (shrink)

The focus of this chapter is public policy and consequentialism, especially issues that arise in connection with the environment – i.e. the natural world, including non-human animals. We integrate some of the existing literature on environmental economics, welfare economics, and policy with the literature on environmental values and philosophy. The emphasis on environmental policy is motivated by the fact that it is arguably the most philosophically interesting and challenging application of consequentialism to policy, as it includes (...) all the challenges of valuing the distribution of human wealth and power, and has the further challenge of putting these consequences on the same scale as consequences for human health, non-human animals, and nature. We suggest that standard methods of (economic) policy analysis provide a good approximation of correct welfarist analysis, except that they must be supplemented with methods for valuing animal wellbeing and tradeoffs with human wellbeing. We then provide the needed methods. (shrink)

According to the norm of policy equipoise, it is permissible to randomly assign participants to two or more interventions in a public policy randomized controlled trial (RCT) when there is meaningful uncertainty among the relevant expert community regarding which intervention is superior. While this norm is gaining traction in the research ethics literature, the idea of interventional superiority remains unclear. Is one intervention superior to another if it is reasonably expected to realize one outcome of interest more effectively, (...) even though there is uncertainty regarding other outcomes of interest? Or must an intervention be reasonably expected to realize all outcomes of interest more effectively? I address this question in this paper. My aim is to develop and defend an account of interventional superiority for policy RCTs that are authorized, funded, or conducted by government institutions. I defend the greatest value view, according to which one intervention is superior to another if and only if it is reasonably expected to more effectively realize a set of outcomes with greater value. (shrink)

This chapter considers the speculative prospect of superintelligent AI and its normative implications for governance and global policy. Machine superintelligence would be a transformative development that would present a host of political challenges and opportunities. This chapter identifies a set of distinctive features of this hypothetical policy context, from which it derives a correlative set of policy desiderata (efficiency, allocation, population, and process)—considerations that should be given extra weight in long-term AI policy compared to in other (...) policy contexts. This chapter describes a desiderata “vector field” showing the directional change from a variety of possible normative baselines or policy positions. The focus on directional normative change should make the findings in this chapter relevant to a wide range of actors, although the development of concrete policy options that meet these abstractly formulated desiderata will require further work. (shrink)

Why do policies fail? How can we objectively choose the best policy from two (or more) competing alternatives? How can we create better policies? To answer these critical questions this book presents an innovative yet workable approach. Avoiding Policy Failure uses emerging metapolicy methodologies in case studies that compare successful policies with ones that have failed. Those studies investigate the systemic nature of each policy text to gain new insights into why policies fail. -/- In addition to (...) providing intriguing directions for research, this book also suggests a bold new standard for evaluating policies. While this method is broadly generalizable, specific examples are provided showing how to develop better Economic Policy, Military Policy, and Constitutional Organizations. This book shows scholars, researchers, and policy analysts how to develop more effective policies so that we may achieve our highest aspirations and avoid the horrendous failures of the past. (shrink)

Government agencies and nonprofit organizations have increasingly turned to randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to evaluate public policy interventions. Random assignment is widely understood to be fair when there is equipoise; however, some scholars and practitioners argue that random assignment is also permissible when an intervention is reasonably expected to be superior to other trial arms. For example, some argue that random assignment to such an intervention is fair when the intervention is scarce, for it is sometimes fair to use (...) a lottery to allocate scarce goods. We investigate the permissibility of randomization in public policy RCTs when there is no equipoise, identifying two sets of conditions under which it is fair to allocate access to a superior intervention via random assignment. We also reject oft-made claims that alternative study designs, including stepped-wedge designs and uneven randomization, offer fair ways to allocate beneficial interventions. (shrink)

This paper analyses empirical evidence of efforts to enable Spanish micro and small manufacturing companies to boost their labour productivity rates through the development of the main pillars of their corporate social responsibility policies. This study aims to develop new approaches and sensibilities towards work from an ethical, values and CSR perspective, showing how internal dimensions of CSR, such those related to relationships with employees and responsibility in processes and product quality, can improve labour performance and labour efficiency, thereby contributing (...) to a better society. The results of a sample of 929 small businesses indicate that the social responsibility policies that most contributed to a short-term increase in labour productivity are those related to internal aspects of the company, in particular its involvement in the quality of processes and products, promotion of innovation and employee care. However, the impact on labour productivity of CSR policies related to external factors, such as relationship with stakeholders and environmental concern, could not be empirically proven in this paper. (shrink)

Philosophers have expressed concerns about elite capture at various stages of the democratic decision-making process. However, there has been no sustained normative analysis of government-driven feedback platforms that enable different actors to formulate recommendations for revising or canceling existing laws and policies. My article addresses and fills this gap. I contend that government-driven feedback platforms serve a dual purpose of influencing the policy-making process and demonstrating that decisions are open to revision. I also argue that these feedback platforms are (...) intended to generate a normatively salient, forward-looking, and balanced integration of technical knowledge and local knowledge, establishing the epistemic foundation for future deliberation. I then provide three normative standards that serve as a guide to balance expert knowledge with citizens' experience and values. (shrink)

This chapter describes and analyses the EU migration-development nexus. From a theoretical perspective, the chapter will show that the EU migration-development nexus, across the thirty years of its existence, displayed only minor policy change and that the nexus represents a cross-sectoral policy subsystem in the European Union. The chapter will also analyse the nexus funding.

This book brings together emerging perspectives from organization theory and management, environmental sociology, international regime studies, and the social studies of science and technology to provide a starting point for discipline-based studies of environmental policy and corporate environmental behavior. Reflecting the book’s theoretical and empirical focus, the audience is two-fold: organizational scholars working within the institutional tradition, and environmental scholars interested in management and policy. Together this mix forms a creative synthesis for both sets of readers, analyzing how (...) environmental policy and organizational practices are shaped, spread and contested. (shrink)

The vulnerability of LGBTIQ+ persons is accelerated by the intersecting forms of discrimination they face in multiple and overlapping ways. A constellation of factors increases the vulnerability of intersex persons and non-binary and gender-diverse persons. With limited visibility, they have been subjected to historical discrimination in varying contexts (legal, policy, social, cultural, political, workplace, etc.). Recent case law before the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union opens up the space for interaction (...) with the lived experiences of these two groups and critical thinking on the interpretation of human rights law in Europe. (shrink)

Breastfeeding policies and the production of motherhood: a historical–cultural approach This paper revisits some of the aspects that allow us to situate historically the process that has been called the ‘politicization of women's breasts’. It is part of a broader research project being undertaken in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, which is studying information from the educational material used in the National Campaign for the Incentive of Breastfeeding. The methodological approach used is cultural analysis, and its theoretical basis is informed (...) by feminist studies and cultural studies, from a poststructuralist perspective. Knowledges and practices that produce notions of maternity are problematized to argue that current political and economic arrangements have necessitated a redefinition of motherhood. This re‐signification of motherhood has transferred to women the duty of solving an array of problems that were previously considered government's responsibility, in particular those related to the physical and emotional development of infants. (shrink)

The Covid-19 pandemic has shaken the world. It has presented us with a series of new challenges, but the policy response may be difficult due to the severe uncertainty of our circumstances. While pressure to take timely action may push towards less inclusive decision procedures, in this paper I argue that precisely our current uncertainty provides reasons to include stakeholders in collective decision-making. Decision-making during the pandemic faces uncertainty that goes beyond the standard, probabilistic one of Bayesian decision theory. (...) Agents may be uncertain not just about factual properties of the world, but also about how to model their decision problems and about the values of the possible consequences of their options. As different stakeholders may have irreconcilable disagreement about how to resolve these uncertainties, decision-making procedures should take everybody’s perspectives into account. Moreover, those communities that are hit harder by the pandemic are also those that are typically excluded from knowledge production. Thus, in the face of Covid-19 uncertainty, both democratic and epistemic considerations highlight the importance of stakeholders’ inclusion in policy decision-making. (shrink)

As we observed, various parts of India are facing “heatwaves” owing to abrupt climate change that takes place due to massive usage of carbon emissions leading to the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) focusing on “carbon neutrality”. As a result, the paper will explore the evolving policy and legal regulatory landscape governing the deployment of AI in carbon management practices. Authors in this paper seek to discuss the functionality of AI in carbon reduction and sequestration by delving into the intricacies (...) of policy frameworks at international, regional, and national levels. The paper will begin with the authors analyzing the key directives, agreements, and initiatives shaping AI integration into carbon management strategies, emphasizing the alignment with global climate goals such as the Paris Agreement. It would help the readers to understand the burning issue since its known significant inception. Additionally, the authors also contemplate the legal challenges and ethical considerations accompanying AI applications in carbon management. It explores pertinent issues of data privacy, algorithm transparency, accountability, and liability, offering insights into the evolving juris-prudence surrounding these matters. Authors have considered drawing on case studies and best practices; the research highlights successful regulatory approaches and identifies areas requiring further development. Its under-scores the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration among policymakers, legal experts, technologists, and environmental stakeholders to navigate the complex terrain of AI-enabled carbon management responsibly and sustain-ably. Finally, while concluding the chapter, the authors have taken the liber-ty to gauge the feasibility and accuracy of understanding the policy and legal frameworks necessary to harness the full potential of AI in addressing the pressing challenges of carbon emissions and climate change mitigation. (shrink)

In the so-called "New Economy," the creation and development of new business ventures carries significant public policy and social policy implications. The patterns of job creation and technology commercialization embody important assumptions about the roles and responsibilities of govemment and private enterprise. This study defines and compares the stmctural and policy underpinnings of two leading institutional frameworks for new venture development: the Anglo-American model and the Nordic approach.

Among a sea of possibilities, there is no one clear solution to achieving policy integration. The chapter presents some possible ways to advance integration based on the three Finnish and three German cities studied. In a nutshell, the advice revolves around ensuring sufficient financial and scientific resources, advancing national and international policy diffusion via cities, battling barriers and using institutional possibilities to integrate the sectors, and promoting research on the core themes of sustainable housing. Each of these points (...) is tied together in the last piece of advice, visioning the future: how do we begin to generate ideas of what sustainable housing would look like in 2060? (shrink)

The rapid penetration of information technology in our lives, the growing demand for electronic resources in addition to traditional forms of publication in accordance with the demands of the information society directly makes the replenishment of library collections, especially university, electronic resources. necessity. From this point of view, the realization of library policy is relevant. Currently, modern library collections are completed with traditional print resources, as well as electronic resources according to the requirements of the time. The replenishment of (...) library collections is a continuous process carried out in the direction of meeting the ever-growing information needs of users. In general, the process of acquisition of electronic resources provides access to the world information market, providing convenient, easy search and retrieval of information without limitations in time and space. It is during this process that the basic principles of acquisition should be taken into account. In particular, the information needs of university users should be analyzed, the typology of readers should be studied, attention should be paid to the issues of technical support in order to provide access to electronic resources. From this aspect the article deals with the main criteria of selection and evaluation, which are important to take into account in the process of collecting the funds of the university library with electronic resources. At the same time, the importance of the policy of completing electronic resources and the main principles of this policy are widely explained. (shrink)

Supporting families of people with developmental disabilities from culturally diverse backgrounds is receiving increased attention in the era of globalisation. However, there is little information about how disability policy and cultural values work together to support families. This article examined how disability policy and Chinese cultural values influence family care of children and young people with developmental disabilities. By comparing qualitative interview data from Chinese families in Taipei (15) and Sydney (10), we analysed how their expression of cultural (...) values in family care differs by policy context, relative to ethics of care claims for recognition, rights and redistribution. We found that positive expressions of Chinese culture in family care fade if policies do not complement them. Policies can alleviate potential tension with cultural values in three ways: reinforcing family capacity to care; ensuring the rights of both family caregivers and people with disabilities; and extending care choices for families. These approaches resonate with ethics of care principles. We argue that culturally responsive disability policy for families means working with cultural values to achieve ethics of care. This implies that incorporating principles of ethics of care could inform cultural responsiveness in disability policy development. (shrink)

Well-functioning modern democracies depend largely on expert knowledge and expert arrangements, but this expertise reliance also causes severe problems for their legitimacy. Somewhat surprisingly, moral and political philosophers have come to play an increasing role as experts in contemporary policymaking. The paper discusses different epistemic and democratic worries raised by the presence of philosopher experts in contemporary governance, relying on a broad review of existing studies, and suggests measures to alleviate them. It is argued that biases philosophers are vulnerable to (...) may contribute to reducing the quality of their advice, and that the characteristics of philosophers’ expertise, and controversies around what their competences amount to, make it hard to distinguish proper from less proper philosopher experts. Reliance on philosopher experts may also intensify democratic worries not least due to the depoliticization pressures that the introduction of ethics expertise tends to give rise to. Still, philosophers have competences and orientations that policy discussions and democratic deliberations are likely to profit from. Worries about philosopher experts may moreover be mitigated by means of a proper design of expert arrangements. Confronted with the genuine epistemic risks and democratic challenges of contemporary governance any quick fix is obviously unavailable, but when institutionalized in the right way philosophers’ involvement in present-day policymaking bears significant promise. (shrink)

In some severely uncertain situations, as exemplified by climate change and novel pandemics, policymakers lack a reasoned basis for assigning probabilities to the possible outcomes of the policies they must choose between. I outline and defend an uncertainty-averse, egalitarian approach to policy evaluation in these contexts. The upshot is a theory of distributive justice that offers especially strong reasons to guard against individual and collective misfortune.

This introductory chapter presents fundamental concepts to better understand the policy process during democratic backsliding under illiberal populists’ rule. This framework emphasizes institutional hardball tactics, whereby leaders stress and push the boundaries of institutional constraints, producing policy outcomes that diverge from democratic expectations. We identify political polarization as an essential enabler of institutional hardball tactics, as it creates an environment in which illiberal populists can draw political dividends from attacks on institutions. The disruptive effects created by illiberal populists (...) playing institutional hardball under political polarization result in policy dismantling, disengagement with policy problems, and scapegoating of minority groups within the policy agenda. These outcomes render the policy process unusual, unstable, and unpredictable, deviating from conventional frameworks envisioned in stable pluralistic democracies. (shrink)

Alaskan communities are facing complex challenges associated with energy security and changing environmental and climatic conditions. They require access to affordable, sustainable, and renewable energy resources to navigate their changing landscapes. With unprecedented investments and commitments from the federal and state governments to bolster energy resiliency in urban and rural communities, renewable energy development in the waters offshore Alaska could become a reality within two to three decades. Offshore wind is the most feasible option for renewable energy production for the (...) Alaska Outer Continental Shelf, including the federal waters of Cook Inlet. This paper asks: to what extent does the applicable, legal regulatory regime potentially facilitate a just and equitable renewable energy transition for Alaska's Railbelt grid? Framed in the umbrella concept of inclusive governance, the author compares conceptual tenets of energy justice, participatory stakeholder planning, and collective action against the legal framework that directs the federal decision-making process. The analysis demonstrates deficits in the current federal legal mandates and process and recommends how the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management can expand its existing tools to account for energy justice, improve participation, and proactively design and implement collective action for planning and siting offshore wind energy projects. If energy regulators expand how they apply the legal mandates and leverage innovative policies and regulations, they can increase energy justice, improve stakeholder participation, and achieve inclusive governance for a renewable energy transition in the region serviced by Alaska's Railbelt electrical grid. (shrink)

«Youth policy» as an independent term is defined in the scientific literature in the 1960s., which in many ways «was associated with the formation of youth as an independent social force and its self-determination in the socio-political space». By the 1970s XX century youth policy in the vast majority of developed countries is transforming an independent direction of national policy. Youth is a complex, multidimensional and rather controversial social phenomenon. Modern youth acts as the most active and (...) mobile social group, which requires special attention from state institutions in need of socialization and adaptation. At the same time, it is youth that is increasingly viewed today as the most important and promising part of society. It is no accident that already in the mid-60s of the XX century, in the practical activities of a number of international institutions, in particular the UN, a specialized area of cooperation began to develop, in the field of education and social support for the young generation. It should be noted that in the world there are more than 1 billion 800 million young people under the age of 25, which emphasizes the importance of effective youth policy by members of the international community. In the post-bipolar period, youth policy has become one of the priority areas of state policy of most developed countries. A striking example in this regard is the activities of the countries of the European Union (EU) and its structures. Europe is making significant efforts to create a single space in which not only common political institutions, but common values for all Europeans should be formed. And in this process, it is youth that acts as the key object on which measures are aimed at the formation of a pan-European identity. In recent years, the European Union has significantly stepped up youth policy. Its mechanisms were developed (open coordination method), special institutions were formed. It seems extremely relevant to analyze the EU’s activities in this direction, to consider concrete steps taken at the European level to consolidate measures in the field of youth policy. Despite the fact that integration processes in Europe continue, nevertheless, a number of problems have already been accumulated there today, the success of the entire European project will depend on the solution of these problems. In many ways, these problems are connected precisely with the young generation of Europeans, to whom the EU leadership has special hopes. As noted in a recent communiqué of the European Commission, “social and human capital of youth is one of the greatest European assets of the future». Among the studies affecting various aspects of working with young people, one can single out works of S.V. Aleshchenko, V.P. Baskov, Yu.R. Vyshnevskyi, Yu.V. Volkov, T.I. Zaslavskaia, I.M. Ylynskyi, E.Sh. Kamaldynova, A.I., Kovalova, O.A. Koriakovtseva, V.T. Lysovskyi, V.A. Lukov, O.A. Rozhnov, B.A. Ruchkin, S.K. Savin, V.I. Chuprov and several other authors. However, the young generation of Europeans faces serious challenges. The growth of unemployment, absenteeism, deprivation, the growth of radicalism, cultural indifference (including religious) – main youth problems that today require urgent solutions. Moreover, in different EU countries, these problems have varying degrees of severity. Continued heterogeneity continues to be a serious obstacle to pan-European unity. It is likely that youth policy may be another very painful issue for the future of the EU. Thus, it seems necessary to analyze the national and supranational levels of youth policy in the European Union in order to identify their degree of coherence, common goal-setting and specific implementation methods. (shrink)

Large-scale migration is one of the most pressing problems of our time. The extreme solutions of letting nobody in or accepting everyone are unacceptable. The article proposes a humane immigration policy by taking cooperatives as a guide. In the same way members of the cooperative have to acquire a participation certificate, immigrants have to pay an entry fee. The advantages and disadvantages of this proposal for immigration countries, for the migrants, and for the countries of origin are discussed.

This article aims to examine the Lithuanian housing policy system, with a special emphasis on social housing issues. This study is based on 20 semi-structured interviews with the decision makers and recipients of social housing. The analysis reveals the issues related to access to social housing, management and administration issues, problems related to stigmatisation of social housing recipients, and their overall satisfaction with the provided support.The study shows that accessing social housing and living in social housing is not an (...) easy task. Social housing recipients have to wait in queues for a long time, experience stigmatisation and constant fear that they may lose their social housing due to a strict income monitoring. On the other hand, the municipality tries to provide friendly strategies to solve individual cases and looks for the best solutions possible to meet the needs of social housing recipients. The findings show that massive privatisation in Lithuania created a dualistic housing market favouring home ownership and marginalising social housing as a safety net for the most vulnerable people. At the same time, a massive home ownership society formed a safety net for many, with family ties playing a crucial role. Housing safety is offered as a part of social assistance programs for the most vulnerable parts of the population. (shrink)

In Mexico, childcare has been recognized as a public problem. The growing incorporation of women into the labor market, along with poverty and inequalities, has made it necessary to design and implement public actions aimed at meeting the childcare demands that women, in particular, face. One of these public actions is the Programa Estancias Infantiles (PEI), which sought to contribute to the generation of female employment and the satisfaction of the care needs of children under 6 years of age. After (...) 12 years of operation, childcare centers in Mexico have faced significant changes. With the cancellation of this program in 2019, a significant number of women who had been dedicated to childcare for years faced reductions in their salaries and, in many cases, lost their jobs due to changes in public policy and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the federal government led by Andrés Manuel López Obrador emphasized that these changes were not intended to close childcare centers, existing evidence shows that they did contribute to a decrease in the supply of care services for working mothers who do not have social security and live in conditions of poverty. This has also impacted the reduction of spaces where women can be employed and have a source of income to meet their daily needs. Government decisions at the beginning of the program and its cancellation were not oriented to de-feminize childcare. This text is based on the doctoral research “De beneficiarias a actoras política: análisis feminista de las experiencias de siete responsables de estancias infantiles y de las transformaciones de la política de cuidado infantil en México,” which is being developed with the support of the Consejo Nacional de Humanidades, Ciencias y Tecnologías (CONAHCYT). (shrink)

Risk monitoring, knowledge management, and communication skills play a key role in managing volcanic crises, and being the scientific knowledge, the transversal Achilles heel in risk perception, decision-making, general politics, and the main generator of confidence in population. During this study, we analyzed the ethical behavior of the policy in the risk management carried out in Ecuador on the Cotopaxi volcano after its most recent reactivation in 2015. This analysis clearly demonstrates evidence of both an inadequate risk assessment and (...) an inadequate transmission of information to the authorities and afterward to the population, which led to loss of lives and a complicated social and economic situation throughout the affected zones. As a result of this study, important lessons were extracted and are provided here with the aim to prepare technicians and authorities to manage future volcanic crises in a more adequate form. (shrink)