Institutionalizing EU strategic spatial planning into domestic planning systems: trajectories of change in Italy and England

ABSTRACT

This paper proposes approaching the emergence and evolution of the Europeanization of national planning using conceptual frameworks from historical institutionalism in order to shed light on the mechanisms and trajectories of domestic change arising from the influence of EU strategic planning. It seeks in particular to examine Europeanization in terms of the extent to which EU spatial planning has become a driving force for institutional changes in very different national planning systems. Returning to the changes that occurred in the Italian and English planning systems in the last two decades, the author provides insight into the attempts to insert and transpose EU spatial planning concepts and instruments into domestic systems, dealing with path dependency and European influence. By reading these processes from a historical institutionalist perspective, the paper aims to enhance understanding of the relative influence of European spatial planning on national planning systems, identifying mechanisms and trajectories of domestic change in different planning systems. Key findings concern the diverse modes and degree of institutionalization of EU strategic spatial planning, examining tendencies to replace the status quo through displacements in England and to progress through a path-dependent trajectory in Italy.     

Institutionalizing infrastructure: photo-elicitation of cultural-cognitive knowledge of development

Infrastructure that goes unused – for example, after constructing the first water, electricity, sewers or road infrastructure in an infrastructure-poor community – is a common issue in new infrastructure development in the global south. In this case, while infrastructure has diffused, it has not become institutionalized. To better understand this problem, photo-elicitation methods are used to explore cultural-cognitive frames used by research respondents as they create and explain photograph symbols that represent change in their built environment. For example, respondents advocate for infrastructure they have reason to believe outsiders will provide as they evaluate the infrastructure against local utility in an early phase of institutionalization. Respondents also frame the research undertaking as an opportunity to actively diffuse infrastructure practices they have recently adopted themselves. By making these and other frames explicit, the photo-elicitation method reveals the elusive cultural-cognitive pillar of institutionalization and also provides insight into sources of self-reporting bias. The method also has particular advantages for research dealing with disadvantaged respondents, reduces issues of free recall bias and increases the length and depth of research interviews. Given the relative novelty of this method in construction research, its theory, advantages and limitations are discussed in some depth.     

中国共产党舆论监督法制化建设浅论

中国共产党自成立之初至今,始终高度重视新闻舆论监督工作。“欢迎监督,相信人民,倡导民主,主张讲真话、不说假话,要求人民敢于批评,政党要乐于接受批评”——这是党的舆论监督工作的出发点和落脚点。“实事求是”是指导舆论监督工作正确开展的思想武器;“坚持党对舆论监督工作的绝对领导”是保证党的舆论监督工作始终健康、     

域外大学史研究：制度化历程与学术范式变迁

从制度化水平和学术范式的变迁两个方面衡量,可以将大学史研究领域的发展划分为七个阶段.严格意义的大学史研究出现于19世纪,并在下半叶形成第一波热潮.20世纪初教育史学科在教育院系的初步制度化为大学史研究的发展提供了一定的空间,但在20世纪前40年大学史研究处于相对沉寂状态.20世纪50年代,随着教育在社会中的地位变得越来越重要,很多专业的历史学家开始介入大学史研究,此后二三十年该领域进入复苏期.20世纪80年代,大学史专门研究期刊的创办标志着这一领域初步实现了制度化的过程.从学术范式而言,大学史研究经历了思想史范式、社会史范式和文化史范式相继兴起的过程,但它们之间并非取代的关系.随着全球化进程的进一步推进,全球史的研究范式开始崛起,成为新的学术热点.     

Technology or methodology? Quantitative historical social research in Germany

Historical social research has developed with the availability of computer technology and has received increasing acceptance with the use of PCs. Methodological standards created by empirical social research are transferred to historical matters. Major contributors are: extension of the factual basis of history, correction of misjudgements, opening of whole groups of mass sources to historical research and bridging the gap between theory and empirical knowledge in the science of history. It complements a philosophical historiography without replacing it. In Germany historical social research has developed outside the traditional university institutes; the Zentrum fur Historische Sozialforschung and Quantum e.V. in Cologne are the major institutions in this context.Heinrich Best (D. Phil.) is a professor of sociology at the University of Cologne. He is director of the Social Science Information Centre (Bonn), director of the scientific advisory board of the Centre for Historical Social Research at his university, and president of the Association for Quantification and Formal Methods in Historical Social Research. Among his publications are Die Männer von Bildung and Besitz (1990) and Computers in the Humanities and Social Sciences (1991).     

Stability of vocabulary performance by schizophrenics.

After 13 additional years of institutionalization, 31 schizophrenic men and 36 schizophrenic women were retested with the Wechsler Bellevue vocabulary test, Form I. No Significant decline was found in vocabulary performance. The findings did not support the hypothesis that prolonged institutionalization induces intellectual deterioration. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

论社会组织对政治参与制度化的作用

政治参与制度化的涵义包含制度化参与以及参与制度化两个维度。这表明政治参与制度化的关键因素是制度供给以及制度效力的实现。除了政府的制度供给之外,社会组织对政治参与制度化起着重要作用。一方面,社会组织能够吸纳新兴社会阶层、规范网络政治参与以及完善参与渠道;另一方面,社会组织有利于提高政治参与制度的执行力,充分实现其效力。实现政治参与制度化的必要途径是政府与社会组织在互动过程中展开协同合作。     

Analyzing the problem of unsustainable health information systems in less-developed economies: Case studies from Tanzania and Mozambique

Most of donor-supported information technology (IT)–based projects developed or implemented in less-developed economies (LDEs) end up as complete or partial failures or unsustainable. Notably, a number of intra-organizational and external factors are associated with this problem, including inadequate infrastructure and human resource capacity, fragmented donor policy, and lack of policies to manage the sustainability problem. Accordingly, IT initiatives are often donor-driven, top-down, and hijacked by top managers who (normally) do not have adequate skills, but have enormous power to enforce such initiatives across organizational hierarchies.

In analyzing the concepts from sustainability and institutionalization, key insights towards a better understanding of the problem of unsustainability are developed. It is argued that health information systems (HISs) become sustainable if they are institutionalized in the sense of being integrated into the everyday routine of the user organization. However, a sustainable HIS should also be flexible enough to allow changes as the user needs change. Moreover, introduction of a new HIS is not only a technical change, but requires the cultivation and institutionalization of a new kind of culture.

Through a comparative case analysis of the HIS development and implementation processes in Tanzania and Mozambique, we have identified two sets of relationships, between the Ministry of Health (MoH) and donor agencies and between the MoH and software development agencies as critical and contributing factors to the unsustainability of a HIS. Given this setting, we highlight three key strategies for dealing with the problem of unsustainability in LDEs: (a) integration of a HIS, (b) local shaping of new cultures, and (c) cultivation approach to systems development. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

加强反腐倡廉制度建设的对策思考

建立健全与社会主义市场经济体制相适应的教育、制度、监督并重的惩治和预防腐败体系是我们党对执政规律和反腐倡廉工作规律认识的进一步深化,是从源头上防治腐败的根本举措。实践表明,近年来反腐败和党风廉政制度建设在惩治和预防腐败体系尚处于薄弱环节,迫切需要在加强反腐倡廉基本制度建设的基础上,进一步完善反腐倡廉相关法律和规范国家工作人员从政行为的制度,对违纪违法行为的惩处制度,反腐败领导体制、工作机制。