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.

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)

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)

Global Economy, Global Justice explores a vital question that is suppressed in most economics texts: "what makes for a good economic outcome?" Neoclassical theory embraces the normative perspective of "welfarism" to assess economic outcomes. This volume demonstrates the fatal flaws of this perspective--flaws that stem from objectionable assumptions about human nature, society and science. Exposing these failures, the book obliterates the ethical foundations of global neoliberalism. George DeMartino probes heterodox economic traditions and philosophy in search of an ethically viable alternative (...) to welfarism. Drawing on the work of Amartya Sen, DeMartino proposes the egalitarian principle of the "global harmonization of capabilities" to guide economics. This principle provides a basis for resisting oppression the world over while nevertheless demanding respect for cultural diversity. DeMartino puts this principle to work adjudicating contemporary debates over global policy regimes, and completes thebook with a set of deeply egalitarian global policies for the year 2025. Global Economy, Global Justice 's engaging prose will appeal to those seeking to understand the intersection between economics and political philosophy. Its focus on the normative foundations of contemporary policy disputes makes it unique in the literature on globalization. (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)

In some severely uncertain situations, 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 which offers especially strong reasons to guard against individual and collective misfortune.

This chapter examines public policy as it applies to public education for students with disabilities in the United States. Public policy with respect to ‘special education’ has made important strides in the past half century and is not unjust in the explicit ways that it used to be. However, current US public special education policy is still unjust insofar as it is an instance of what Guy Adams and Danny Balfour call ‘administrative evil.’ Addressing this administrative evil will require both (...) procedural changes in special education and addressing the ‘micropolitics’ of individualized educational plan meetings. (shrink)

Social policy, broadly understood, is an intervention by government or other public institution designed to promote the well‐being of its members or intended to rectify perceived social problems. Governmental policy can issue from legislative, executive, or judicial actions. Regulations and rules governing major public establishments, such as universities or medical institutions, and directed at promoting the aims of the larger social body can also be considered instruments of social policy. Social policy is sometimes understood more narrowly as interventions of the (...) state in the domain of distribution or redistribution, when action has been thought necessary to correct for the instability inherent in a given social structure or created by pressures for social change. In this sense, it pertains to welfare policies aimed at the poor. In this article, we will deal primarily with social policy in the broad sense, reserving a brief discussion at the end on social policy in the narrow sense, as welfare policy. (shrink)

In 1937 Joan Robinson proposed that “when capitalism is rightly understood, the rate of interest will be set at zero and the major evils of capitalism will disappear”. A permanent zero rate would abolish capitalist profit except in limited cases, leaving nearly all output to be claimed by labour as wages. It would allow capital to be allocated on the basis of prospective social benefit rather than short-term profitability and a collateral basis that favours the wealthy. It would remove some (...) of the economic pressure to use resources unsustainably. So why not do this? I argue that the few available philosophical arguments for positive interest rates are unsatisfactory. Those who want a just and sustainable form of capitalism should target net zero for the interest rate. (shrink)

I develop and argue for a kind of externalism about certain kinds of non-doxastic attitudes that I call policy externalism. Policy externalism about a given type of attitude is the view that all the reasonable policies for having attitudes of that type will not involve the agent's beliefs that some relevant conditions obtain. My defense primarily involves attitudes like hatred, regret, and admiration, and has two parts: a direct deductive argument and an indirect linguistic argument, an inference to the best (...) explanation of some strange ways we use certain conditionals. The main thought throughout is that attitudes we reason with, like belief, are very different from attitudes we don't reason with, in a way that constrains the former but not the latter. Finally, I investigate some consequences of policy externalism, including that it secures the possibility of genuine conditional apologies. (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)

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)

Douglas proposes a new ideal in which values serve an essential function throughout scientific inquiry, but where the role values play is constrained at key points, protecting the integrity and objectivity of science.

How can philosophy of science be of more practical use? One thing we can do is provide practicable advice about how to determine when one empirical claim is relevant to the truth of another; i.e., about evidential relevance. This matters especially for evidence-based policy, where advice is thin—and misleading—about how to tell what counts as evidence for policy effectiveness. This paper argues that good efficacy results (as in randomized controlled trials), which are all the rage now, are only a very (...) small part of the story. To tell what facts are relevant for judging policy effectiveness, we need to construct causal scenarios about will happen when the policy is implemented. (shrink)

English in Indonesia has foreign language status. Nevertheless, the language is greatly significant to the country due to its numerous regional and global appeals. The current language policy of Indonesia ensures that the language is taught to children from junior high school level. However, as a reflection of a language that has not been prioritised in school curriculum, school leavers largely have limited grasp of the language by the time they enrol into university programmes. This study attempts to highlight institutional (...) practices in student enrolment into and graduation from English programmes. It is also concerned with issues that are perceived to have derived from the policy. Based on interviews with 23 academics from five universities in Central Java, the majority of whom are administrators, policy-related issues of the English language are identified in this paper. Findings include communication skill difficulties faced by English majors and the juxtaposition of state and private universities in terms of student recruitment. The findings are significant in informing stakeholders such as policy makers, administrators, language instructors, and other practitioners about the impact of language policy and planning on practices in higher education institutions in Central Java and in assisting future decision-making processes whereby the consequences are far-reaching. (shrink)

Policy analyses begin with a systematic overview of the policy problem they address. This includes a comprehensive discussion of the nature and context of the problem, and the institutional and behavioral factors responsible for its emergence. Problem statements must also explain why the status quo is bad or undesirable, why it is something that governments, rather than private actors, should address, and establish that the relevant government institutions have the legitimacy to intervene. In this chapter, I provide an overview of (...) the principal types of policy problems that it is morally appropriate for governments to address. Each type denotes a class of states of affairs that (1) are bad, undesirable, or unjust, (2) the government is particularly well-suited to address, and (3) arise from spheres of action over which the relevant government institutions have the right to intervene. I begin with a discussion of collective action problems, that is, states of affairs in which action by rational and self-interested private actors is collectively self-defeating. I then argue for two additional types of policy problems. First, since the goal of government action is the construction of a just legal order, not merely an efficient one, states of affairs which are unjust constitute an additional type of policy problem. Relatedly, second, whereas analyses of collective action problems typically presuppose the existence of effective government institutions which can address them, such institutions may be deficient and/or unjust. A third type of policy problem is therefore deficient government institutions. -/- . (shrink)

1. Ethics and public policy .Jonathan.Boston,.Andrew.Bradstock,.and.David.Eng Introduction This book is about ethics and public policy. ...

Who gets to decide what it means to live a healthy lifestyle, and how important a healthy lifestyle is to a good life? As more governments make preventing obesity and diet-related illness a priority, it's become more important to consider the ethics and acceptability of their efforts. When it comes to laws and policies that promote healthy eating--such as special taxes on sugary drinks and the banning of food deemed unhealthy--critics argue that these policies are paternalistic, and that they limit (...) individual autonomy over food choices. In Healthy Eating Policy and Political Philosophy: A Public Reason Approach, Anne Barnhill and Matteo Bonotti show that both paternalistic justifications for healthy eating efforts and anti-paternalistic arguments against them can be grounded in perfectionist views that overly prioritize some values over others. The authors therefore propose a more inclusive, public reason approach to healthy eating policy that will be appealing to those who take pluralism and cultural diversity seriously, by providing a framework through which different kinds of values, including but not limited to autonomy and health, can be factored into the public justification for healthy eating efforts. Additionally, the book adopts a 'farm to fork' approach to the ethics of healthy eating efforts: it engages with theories and debates in political philosophy, considers the implications of different theoretical positions for healthy eating efforts, and then develops a concrete tool for assessing policies that will be of interest to both scholars and policymakers. As well as offering a novel normative analysis of healthy eating policy, the authors offer a new theoretical framework that will be applicable to a wide range of public policy scenarios. (shrink)

This study presented the policy of functional integration of the product planning team as a strategy for the development of the pharmaceutical industry in Palestine. The study population consists of all the workers in companies operating in the field of medicine in Palestine, which are (5) companies producing in the West Bank only for pharmaceuticals used by these companies, which are (296) employees, and was used a simple random sample to choose the sample and size (87) employees of the study (...) population, and to achieve the objectives of the study (87) questionnaires were distributed. The descriptive analytical method was used, and SPSS was used to answer and discuss the study's questions. The results showed that there is a significant relationship between the effectiveness of the policy of product development and the competitiveness of pharmaceutical companies in Palestine (West Bank), where the policy of product development efficiency accounts for 56.6% of the total change in the competitiveness of companies. The product quality component was most influential at all levels of product development effectiveness policy, followed by product identification, product cost reduction, packaging and product deletion. The weakest areas of strategic direction in pharmaceutical companies in Palestine (West Bank) are 67%. The weakest aspects of job integration are: non-regular meetings of representatives of different positions to participate in any project related to product development, to achieve spatial convergence of members of the product planning policy team in offices, laboratories and workplaces. (shrink)

This paper extends scholarship on multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) in the context of corporate social responsibility in three ways. First, I outline a framework to analyze the strength of couplings between actors participating in MSIs. Characterizing an MSI as consisting of numerous local networks that are embedded in a wider global network, I argue that tighter couplings (within local networks) and looser couplings (between local networks) coexist. Second, I suggest that this coexistence of couplings enables MSIs to generate policy outcomes which (...) address the conditions of a transnational regulatory context. I argue that MSIs’ way of organizing enables them to cope with three challenges: the stability, flexibility, and legitimacy of governance. Reflecting on these challenges, the article identifies a number of problems related to MSIs’ role in transnational governance. Third, I discuss the UN Global Compact as an illustrative case and examine problems and opportunities related to its stability, flexibility, and legitimacy. (shrink)

Cognitive enhancement may be defined as the amplification or extension of core capacities of the mind through improvement or augmentation of internal or external information processing systems. Cognition refers to the processes an organism uses to organize information. These include acquiring information (perception), selecting (attention), representing (understanding) and retaining (memory) information, and using it to guide behavior (reasoning and coordination of motor outputs). Interventions to improve cognitive function may be directed at any of these core faculties.

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)

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)

How can philosophy of science be of more practical use? One thing we can do is provide practicable advice about how to determine when one empirical claim is relevant to the truth of another; i.e., about evidential relevance. This matters especially for evidence-based policy, where advice is thin—and misleading—about how to tell what counts as evidence for policy effectiveness. This paper argues that good efficacy results (as in randomized controlled trials), which are all the rage now, are only a very (...) small part of the story. To tell what facts are relevant for judging policy effectiveness, we need to construct causal scenarios about will happen when the policy is implemented. (shrink)

It is often stated that optimal global climate policy requires global harmonization of marginal abatement costs – i.e., a single carbon price throughout the world. Chichilnisky and Heal (1994) have shown quite generally that this is only the case if distributional issues are ignored, or if lump-sum transfers are made between countries. Else, a policy in which different regions face different carbon prices may be superior to one with a single global carbon price from a welfare point of view. Still, (...) most integrated assessment models (IAMs) assume away distributional issues and report a single optimal carbon price. We calculate utilitarian-optimal carbon prices under zero cross-regional lump-sum transfers in the multi-region IAM NICE. The result is optimal global climate policy with different regional carbon prices in which the poorest regions face initially low prices, while the richest regions face very high prices from the outset. This entails significant welfare gains over the standard single price optima commonly reported, which, as we argue briefly in conclusion, can be improved upon still by allowing international trading in the corresponding emissions allocations. (shrink)

Vietnam, with a geographical proximity and a high volume of trade with China, was the first country to record an outbreak of the new Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 or SARS-CoV-2. While the country was expected to have a high risk of transmission, as of April 4, 2020—in comparison to attempts to contain the disease around the world—responses from Vietnam are being seen as prompt and effective in protecting the interests of its citizens, (...) with 239 confirmed cases and no fatalities. This study analyzes the situation in terms of Vietnam’s policy response, social media and science journalism. A self-made web crawl engine was used to scan and collect official media news related to COVID-19 between the beginning of January and April 4, yielding a comprehensive dataset of 14,952 news items. The findings shed light on how Vietnam—despite being under-resourced—has demonstrated political readiness to combat the emerging pandemic since the earliest days. Timely communication on any developments of the outbreak from the government and the media, combined with up-to-date research on the new virus by the Vietnamese science community, have altogether provided reliable sources of information. By emphasizing the need for immediate and genuine cooperation between government, civil society and private individuals, the case study offers valuable lessons for other nations concerning not only the concurrent fight against the COVID-19 pandemic but also the overall responses to a public health crisis. (shrink)

The social sciences playa variety of multifaceted roles in the policymaking process. So varied are these roles, indeed, that it is futile to talk in the singular about the use of social science in policymaking, as if there were one constant relationship between two fixed and stable entities. Instead, to address this issue sensibly one must talk in the plural about uses of dif ferent modes of social scientific inquiry for different kinds of policies under various circumstances. In some cases, (...) the influence of social scientific research is direct and tangible, and the connection between the find ings and the policy is easy to see. In other cases, perhaps most, its influence is indirect-one small piece in a larger mosaic of politics, bargaining, and compromise. Occasionally the findings of social scientific studies are explicitly drawn upon by policymakers in the formation, implementation, or evaluation of particular policies. More often, the categories and theoretical models of social science provide a general background orientation within which policymakers concep tualize problems and frame policy options. At times, the in fluence of social scientific work is cognitive and informational in nature; in other instances, policymakers use social science primarily for symbolic and political purposes in order to le gitimate preestablished goals and strategies. Nonetheless, amid this diversity and variety, troubling general questions persistently arise. (shrink)

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)

This chapter concentrates mainly on biomedical cognitive enhancements, but many of the remarks apply equally to enhancements that work on non‐cognitive capacities, and to non‐biomedical means of enhancement. Proponents of a positive right to enhancements could argue their case on grounds of fairness or equality, or on grounds of a public interest in the promotion of the capacities required for autonomous agency. The societal benefits of effective cognitive enhancement may turn out to be so large and unequivocal that it would (...) be economically efficient to subsidize enhancement for the poor, just as the state now subsidizes education. The example on iodine deficiency illustrates that cognitive enhancement policy need not center on preparing the ground for sophisticated, yet‐to‐be‐realized technologies. “Smart policy” should, rather, take as its starting point the recognition that effective cognition is not only subjectively valuable to individuals, but also delivers significant social, cultural, financial, and scientific benefits. (shrink)

Resumo: A violência doméstica contra as mulheres é um mal que atinge todo o mundo e que é prati- cado comumente no interior das residências, pelas pessoas de seu convívio íntimo. Apesar da grande subnotificação, as polícias estaduais recebem alta demanda de denúncias dessa natureza. Diante das dificuldades de atuação policial inerentes a essa violência, uma estratégia de prevenção e intervenção a ser considerada é a entrevista motivacional: uma abordagem colaborativa que visa a mudança de comportamento baseada em estímulos com (...) foco na ambivalência. Baseamo-nos na premissa de que essa abordagem vem mudando comportamentos nocivos em várias áreas com resultados promissores, inclusive na violência doméstica, podendo, assim, contribuir para a interrupção do ciclo da violência. Esse artigo, fundamentado em pesquisa bibliográfica de abordagem qualitativa, analisa em que medida a entrevista motivacional pode ser aplicada pela polícia nos casos de violência doméstica contra a mulher. (shrink)

The author draws on the policy analysis literature to delineate the linkage between conceptualization of risk and the formulation and proposed solution of risk-related policy problems. Two concepts of risk are identified: a concept of risk as a physically given attribute of hazardous technologies and a concept of risk as a socially constructed attribute. The argument is advanced that the social construction of risk provides a firm, theoretical basis for the design of policy. The discussion links the perception, manage ment, (...) and communication of risk to the more fundamental issue of the nature and role of science and technology. (shrink)

If philosophers of science advise government on science policy, it will have to be from a descriptive theory of scientific validity taken as hypothetically normative, as in naturalized epistemology. While logical positivism denied any normative import for the practice of science, in the area of "operational definitions" it had an unfortunate influence in psychology and sociology, and one that persists in the accountability movement. Not all philosophy of science issues have implications for the justificatory practice of scientists. For example, both (...) anti-realists and realists condone scientific quarreling about unobserved particles. Many young philosophers of science are now contributing to a sociology of scientific validity which, taken in a hypothetically normative manner, will produce recommendations on science policy. (shrink)

Global policy transfer has become increasingly popular in recent years, and one recent example of such policy transfer is the England–China Teacher Exchange, which was initiated in 2014 with the explicit aim of raising attainment in maths in English primary schools by trialling concepts used in Shanghai schools, Shanghai rising to the top of the PISA rankings in 2009. However, as this paper will argue this is an overly simplistic attempt to transfer a policy between two wholly different contexts, the (...) lack of success of the policy seen in the very limited impact on student attainment in the participating schools. Whilst such policy transfer has increasingly taken place in the context of isomorphism and global pressures to adopt policy from high performing education systems, it is argued that policy needs to be explicitly reconsidered in terms of the local context it is being imported into if it is to be embedded in an effective manner, as well as rooted firmly in research. It is also argued that the England–China Teacher Exchange reflects a broader ideological focus in coalition government policy on the marketisation of education alongside the PISA rankings, rather any wider consideration of how this particular policy would drive up standards. (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)

The American Policy Sciences, Complexity and the Crisis of Government: On the Social Embeddedness of Concept Formation in the Social Sciences. By analyzing debates about social “complexity” in the American policy sciences and in intellectual discourse of the 1970s, this article draws attention to the social embeddedness of concept formation and theory building in the social sciences. In the 1970s, a new concept of social “complexity” emerged in the social sciences, when scholars transferred and adapted elements of complexity theory from (...) mathematics, computer science, cybernetics, and general systems theory to refine social theory. The article analyzes the context and conditions in which this transfer occurred. It shows that the scholarly debates about social complexity were entwined with broader public-political discourses, dealing in particular with the challenges of government and public policy in the advanced Western democracies. The discourse on complexity among social scientists had additional layers of meaning: even in academic discourse, “complexity” was also used as a buzzword and as a metaphor. (shrink)

The paper is an attempt to analyse the benefits that remote work could bring in the development of the country. It is organized in three parts. In the first part it engages with the concept of public policy, how it is shaped and should be done to make visible problems that need to be addressed. The second part analysis the benefits of teleworking and potential models for city organization and population distribution to support country development. The last part analyses the (...) case of Albania to discover that remote work, demography, and country development are concepts not yet analyzed in connection for exploring the benefits they could bring. The paper concludes that government should invest in developing human resources in the field of digitalization, so that the number of employees who could telework and companies that could use that expertise is increased. In this way, companies and staff do not necessarily need to locate in the capital or big cities but could locate in medium size cities and periphery. This would contribute to the development of currently neglected areas and decrease living expenses in big cities, making thus more affordable the life for the low-income workers. In doing so, not only the living conditions will improve but the gap between centre and periphery will narrow down and lead to a better distribution of economic benefits across country. (shrink)