Politics and Public Policy
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Item‘Sustainable’ Rather Than ‘Subsistence’ Food Assistance Solutions to Food Insecurity: South Australian Recipients’ Perspectives on Traditional and Social Enterprise Models(MDPI, 2018-09-21)South Australian (SA) food charity recipients’ perspectives were sought on existing services and ideas for improvement of food assistance models to address food insecurity. Seven focus groups were conducted between October and November 2017 with 54 adults. Thematically analysed data revealed five themes: (1) Emotional cost and consequences of seeking food relief; (2) Dissatisfaction with inaccessible services and inappropriate food; (3) Returning the favour—a desire for reciprocity; (4) Desiring help beyond food; and, (5) “It’s a social thing”, the desire for social interaction and connection. Findings revealed that some aspects of the SA food assistance services were disempowering for recipients. Recipients desired more empowering forms of food assistance that humanise their experience and shift the locus of control and place power back into their hands. Some traditional models, such as provision of supermarket vouchers, empower individuals by fostering autonomy and enabling food choice in socially acceptable ways. Improvement in the quality of existing food assistance models, should focus on recipient informed models which re-dress existing power relations. Services which are more strongly aligned with typical features of social enterprise models were generally favoured over traditional models. Services which are recipient-centred, strive to empower recipients and provide opportunities for active involvement, social connection and broader support were preferred. View Full-Text
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ItemMaterial deprivation and capability deprivation in the midst of affluence: The case of young people in Australia(Elsevier, 2017-06-30)This paper presents Australian young people's perspectives on deprivation that they experience in the space of food and clothing. Amartya Sen's Capability Approach is used to characterise this as absolute capability deprivation. Lack of adequate food and clothing denies young people the capability to avoid shame and severely inhibits the intrinsically important capabilities of social participation and engagement in education. We use data obtained from groupwork and in-depth interviews with 193 young people to explore young Australians' experience of severe deprivation in food and clothing. Their stories are integrated with data on severe deprivation collected in a nationally representative survey of 9–14 year olds (N = 5440). The survey data show that food and clothing deprivation is notable among young people who are marginalised in other respects, for example, young people with disability, young carers and Indigenous young people. The analysis shows that the experience of severe deprivation in the space of food and clothing is associated with feelings of shame, exclusion from participation, and low levels of engagement with education. We consider how neoliberal constructions of poverty exacerbate young people's experience of deprivation, while at the same time undermining the contemporary political agenda of maximising human capital development.
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ItemSustainability of telecentres in developing countries: Lessons from Union Digital Centre in Bangladesh(Elsevier, 2018-03-09)This study examines operational sustainability of a major telecentre initiative - the Union Digital Centre (UDC) in Bangladesh - from the perspective of public-private-people’s partnership (PPPP). Given the rising incidence of dropout of private entrepreneurs causing premature closure of telecentres, it is important to understand and identify key variables that affect sustainability of the scheme. In appreciation of the difficulty associated with operationalisation of the term ‘sustainability’ in this study we adopt ‘operational sustainability’ as an alternative to investigate the dynamics of sustenance. We have reviewed key literature about various dimensions of sustainability and their interrelationships in order to develop hypotheses about sustainability of the UDC and factors associated with it. Drawing on data collected from a survey of 538 private entrepreneurs and 41 interviews with government officials we show the extent to which various elements of the UDC eco-system contribute to its sustainability. The application of a structural equation model confirms that both financial and social outcomes of the UDC depend largely on inputs and contributions of various stakeholders. The paper concludes that effective engagement of private entrepreneurs is critical, as is governmental patronage, for ensuring operational sustainability of partnership-based telecentres like the UDC.
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ItemSingapore's Lee Kuan Yew: Traveling Light, Traveling Fast(The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014)
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ItemCorruption(Cengage, 2014)
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ItemWhen Experts and Diplomats Agree: Negotiating Peer Review of the UN Convention Against Corruption(Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc., 2012-10)The UN Convention Against Corruption is the only truly global convention in corruption control. Separate and rather difficult negotiations were conducted on a mechanism for the implementation of the treaty. These negotiations broke ground by providing, for the first time, peer review of a United Nations treaty. This article, which is based on the authors' close observations and interviews with key participants, seeks to show how the dynamics between technical experts and diplomats led to a resolution that would not have occurred if either the technical experts or the diplomats had acted alone. KEYWORDS: corruption, peer review, United Nations, negotiation impasse, experts, diplomats.