Judicialization and Health Policy in Colombia: The Implications for Evidence‐Informed Policymaking

The existence of the tutela mechanism and the endemic weaknesses of the legislative and executive branches of the Colombian state have led to a de facto judicialization of health policymaking. The objective of evidence‐informed policy is to identify effective policy approaches and legitimize policy decisions. Questions arise about the basis on which judges take decisions with significant policy and budgetary consequences, and the forms of evidence they use to inform these. This article focuses on the extent to which courts take account of research evidence in judgements and assesses the implications for health policy in Colombia. We place these discussions in the context of a broader analysis of the ongoing reforms to the Colombian health system and the most recent literature on evidence‐informed policymaking. The judicialization of health policymaking offers a suboptimal means to achieve the objective of evidence‐informed policymaking. The emergence of a range of evidence advisory bodies in recent years is an attempt to address the issue of judicialization alongside the other constitutional and political weaknesses Colombia faces.     

Reconceptualizing Major Policy Change in the Advocacy Coalition Framework: A Discourse Network Analysis of German Pension Politics

How does major policy change come about? This article identifies and rectifies weaknesses in the conceptualization of innovative policy change in the Advocacy Coalition Framework. In a case study of policy belief change preceding an innovative reform in the German subsystem of old‐age security, important new aspects of major policy change are carved out. In particular, the analysis traces a transition from one single hegemonic advocacy coalition to another stable coalition, with a transition phase between the two equilibria. The transition phase is characterized (i) by a bipolarization of policy beliefs in the subsystem and (ii) by state actors with shifting coalition memberships due to policy learning across coalitions or due to executive turnover. Apparently, there are subsystems with specific characteristics (presumably redistributive rather than regulative subsystems) in which one hegemonic coalition is the default, or the “normal state.” In these subsystems, polarization and shifting coalition memberships seem to interact to produce coalition turnover and major policy change. The case study is based on discourse network analysis, a combination of qualitative content analysis and social network analysis, which provides an intertemporal measurement of advocacy coalition realignment at the level of policy beliefs in a subsystem.     

Re‐equilibration of fluid inclusions in diagenetic‐anchizonal rocks of the Ciñera‐Matallana coal basin (NW Spain)

Thermally re‐equilibrated fluid inclusions are reported in natural fissure quartz (qtz1) from polymineralic veins in the diagenetic‐anchizonal clastic sedimentary rocks of the Ciñera‐Matallana coal basin (Variscan, NW Spain). Euhedral quartz formed during early fissure opening from an immiscible fluid mixture composed of a low salinity aqueous solution and a CH₄‐rich vapour phase, at temperatures of about 110–120°C and pressures ranging from 15 to 56 MPa. Five textural types of re‐equilibration are recognised in progressive order of inclusion modification: scalloped, hairy, annular‐ring shaped, haloes and decrepitation clusters. These textures resulted from a combination of brittle fracturing and dissolution and re‐precipitation of quartz, with preferential loss of water. The thermal peak was short‐lived, but was high enough to induce extensive decrepitation of fluid inclusions in vein quartz throughout the entire basin. Enhanced temperatures can be related to the intrusion of diorites in the basin. Careful analysis of textural features in fluid inclusions from diagenetic and very low‐grade metamorphism environments constitutes a useful tool for recording basin thermal history.     

Symbolic Meanings and the Feasibility of Policy Images: Relocating Military Bases to the Periphery in Israel

This article is aimed at crafting an interpretive policy analysis as a predictive tool by using the proposal to relocate Israeli military bases. Since the mid‐2000s, the Israeli government has promoted a new plan to transfer military bases from urban areas and central regions to the southern metropolitan area in the Negev desert. The economic and operational logic behind the program is unclear and prompts serious debate about nationality, ethnicity, economic gaps, and the environment in the Negev. This area epitomizes marginality in Israel, both socially and geographically, and is characterized by conflicts between Jews and Bedouins. Thus, the program can be regarded as one involving policy images, where potential participants lack the information necessary for understanding the goals of the policy. This paper proposes a new methodology based on interpretive policy analysis for conducting a pilot study to evaluate the feasibility and practicality of the proposed program. We use this methodology to analyze the symbolic meanings that local organizations attribute to the program with the goal of predicting their response to this program. Thus, the relocation plan serves as a template on which to develop and test the IPA‐informed evaluative methodology, which is applicable to other cases.     

Punishment Policy in the American States from 1890 to 2008: Convergence,Divergence, Synchronous Change,and Feed‐Forward Effects

This analysis of the patterns of change in the use of incarceration by the American states from 1890 through 2008 focuses on multiple themes particularly relevant to an understanding of policy arenas in which the social constructions of target populations play an important role. Specifically, the study examines whether the states have adopted more similar incarceration levels over time (converged), whether they tend to change in the same direction at the same time (synchronous change), and whether they tend to stay in the same relative positions vis‐à‐vis one another, such that the historical policy position has long‐term implications for later policy positions (“feed‐forward” effects). The results indicate that, in spite of a century of social, political, and economic integration, the policy positions of the states have not exhibited a sustained convergence toward a common level of incarceration, but have undergone cycles, with some periods of convergence followed by periods of divergence. Change has generally been synchronous—as states tend to move in the same direction at the same time as if propelled by national forces even though incarceration levels are determined by state and local policy and the use of discretion by criminal justice officials. The results also indicate a profound “feed‐forward” effect in that the position of the states vis‐à‐vis one another historically has substantial predictive power for their position in subsequent years.     

Navigating the Social Safety Net: A State‐Level Analysis of the Relationship between Medicaid and Consumer Bankruptcy

The social safety net in the United States consists of a variety of programs administered by both federal and state governments. Although the populations served by social programs such as Medicaid and consumer bankruptcy likely overlap, policymakers tend to look at individual programs unilaterally and often fail to communicate appropriately with legislators and political leaders at differing levels of government. The result of such an incremental approach to policy reform is a fragmented social safety net system in the United States. In this study, the relationship between two social programs belonging to the larger social safety net is examined, and recommendations for policymakers are offered.     

Early pan‐Arabism in Egypt's July revolution: the Free Officers' political formation and policy‐making, 1946–54

Between 1952 and 1970, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Egypt's Free Officers Movement established the paradigmatic pan‐Arabist revolution from above. Yet it has become something of a cliché to maintain that the Free Officers had no blueprint of action before seizing power and that they later instrumentalised pan‐Arabism in their foreign policy, thinly veiling their actual commitments to Egyptian nationalism and imperialism. By contrast, this contribution underlines the impact of the British colonial context on the Free Officers' political formation and their early identification with pan‐Arabism in turn. Drawing on pamphlets, speeches, media output and memoirs, it shows that the Free Officers developed a distinctive form of anticolonial nationalism that emphasised social justice and invoked overlapping Egyptian and Arab identities. Their aspirations for liberation thus entailed a connected foreign policy and nation building programme in which pan‐Arabism was a prime – and early – component.     

The Use of Small‐Angle X‐Ray Diffraction Studies for the Analysis of Structural Features in Archaeological Samples

X‐ray diffraction or scattering analysis provides a powerful non‐destructive technique capable of providing important information about the state of archaeological samples in the nanometer length scale. Small‐angle diffraction facilities are usually found at synchrotron sources, although the potential of a laboratory source is also described. Specific examples of analysis using X‐ray diffraction of historic parchment, archaeological bone, a Central Mexico style pictograph and microdiffraction of calcified tissues are used to show the scope and versatility of the technique. Diffraction data is capable of giving fundamental structural information as well as quantifying the remodelling of structures influenced by environmental factors.     

The Supply of Glass at Portus Ilicitanus (Alicante,Spain): A Meta‐Analysis of HIMT Glasses

Portus Ilicitanus (Picola, Alicante) was the main sea harbour of the Roman Colonia Iulia Ilici Augusta and as such played a crucial role in the supply of fundamental commodities to the Iberian Peninsula. Excavations yielded large quantities of glass in fourth‐ and early fifth‐century contexts. Elemental analysis of 60 samples by laser ablation – inductively coupled plasma – mass spectrometry (LA–ICP–MS) confirmed that the glasses were imported from the Eastern Mediterranean. A majority of the glasses correspond to the HIMTa primary production group, which originates from Egypt. The statistical evaluation of published data of 589 HIMT glasses further revealed differential distribution patterns of the HIMTa and HIMTb subtypes between the Eastern and Western Mediterranean, suggesting chronological trends that are linked to wider geopolitical changes. This demonstrates the need for systematic large‐scale approaches to identify supply patterns and possible factors underlying geographical differences and/or chronological developments.     

Circulating Stories: East Timorese in Australia and Questions of Post‐Independence Identity

During the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, diasporic groups played a central role in the campaign for self‐determination. Throughout the occupation, East Timorese in Australia maintained a strong sense of long‐distance nationalism, which drove, directly or indirectly, communal and social activities. The fight to free East Timor was at the core of the exiles' collective imagination, defining them as a largely homeland‐focused community. However, in the aftermath of the independence, the role and position of the diaspora have been less clear and the exiles have struggled to redefine their relationship with their home country. Personal experiences upon return and perceptions of political, cultural, economic, and social development (or lack thereof) have led to renewed questioning of identity and belonging. This article explores the renewed questioning of identity and belonging embedded in people's ‘circulating stories’ of change, sacrifice and return.     

Social Conflict and Competing State Projects in the Semi‐Periphery: A Strategic‐Relational Analysis of the Transformation of the Mexican State into an Internationalized Competition State

Abstract: This article draws on the strategic‐relational approach in state theory and examines the transformation of the Mexican state into internationalized competition state. It does so by analyzing the rise of the neoliberal forces and the neoliberal state project inside Mexico during the 1970s while taking into account the important modifications in the international division of labor and the evolving international regulation. These developments resulted in the transformation of the Mexican state into an internationalized competition state which adopts a Ricardian strategy of competition and is characterized by the tendencies towards the denationalization of statehood and the internationalization of policy regimes.     

The ethno‐religious ambitions of the Roman Catholic Church and the ascendancy of communism in post‐war Poland (1945–50)

ABSTRACT. This paper differentiates between centrifugal and centripetal aspects of ethno‐nationalism to help account for the ascendancy of communism in the immediate aftermath of World War II in Poland. It argues that the directing of social antipathy to defined out‐groups allowed the Polish Workers' Party (PPR) to manage social anger and that the Roman Catholic Church's ethno‐religious agenda was aligned with the PPR's ethno‐nationalist policy. Furthermore, it is contended that the Church's toleration of hostile actions directed at minority communities supported the PPR's management of social anger. The paper concludes that the Church, despite its manifest intentions and contrary to contemporary perceptions, played a role in the PPR's achievement of hegemony.     

Life at the end of the Holocene moist phase in south‐east Arabia — the Late Neolithic site of Jebel Thanais 1 (JTH1)

The surface site of Jebel Thanais 1 is located in the Emirate of Sharjah (U.A.E.) at the western flank of the Jebel Faya/Jebel Buhais anticline structure. A dense scatter of lithic artefacts and fireplaces indicates Stone Age settlement activities in this area. Radiocarbon dates obtained from fireplaces date the occupation of the site to both the beginning and the very end of the fifth millennium cal. BC. During the second half of the fifth millennium the deterioration of climatic conditions in south‐east Arabia had a noticeable impact on settlement patterns and subsistence strategies. While coastal habitation sites from this time are well known along the shores of the Oman peninsula, only a few poorly dated sites allow insights into habitation and raw material procurement strategies and lithic technology in the interior. Investigations into the spatial structure of the site and an analysis of lithic finds will contribute to a better understanding of this period.     

Typologies of Advantage and Disadvantage: Socio‐economic Outcomes in Australian Metropolitan Cities

Australia's metropolitan cities have undergone significant social, economic and demographic change over the past several decades. In terms of socio‐economic advantage and disadvantage these changes, which are often associated with globalisation, wider economic and technological restructuring, the changing demographics of the population and shifts in public policy are not evenly dispersed across cities, but represent a range of often contrasting outcomes. The current paper develops a typology of socio‐economic advantage and disadvantage for locations across Australian metropolitan cities. More specifically, the paper takes a range of Australian Bureau of Statistics data and uses a model‐based approach with clustering of data represented by a parameterised Gaussian mixture model and discriminant analysis utilised to consider the differences between the clusters. These clusters form the basis of a typology representing the range of socio‐economic and demographic outcomes at the local community level.     

Reaching across: institutional barriers to cross‐ethnic parties in post‐conflict societies and the case of Northern Ireland

This paper investigates the paradox in post‐conflict societies of continued marginality of cross‐ethnic parties despite significant convergence in public attitudes and identities. In so doing, it examines the argument that parties that attempt to reach across the divide are constrained by consocational institutions designed to accommodate rival identities in such environments. The paper explores this puzzle in the context of Northern Ireland, drawing upon qualitative evidence from elite interviews and focus groups collected in 2012 and 2013. It concludes that cross‐community parties operating in the region do encounter formal institutional barriers, but that such barriers only partially explain the phenomenon and an interplay between formal and informal constraints underlies their position of relatively limited electoral success.     

Social distance in Bosnia‐Herzegovina and the North Caucasus region of Russia: Inter and intra‐ethnic attitudes and identities*

ABSTRACT. This article examines attitudinal differences and similarities among ethnic groups in conflict‐affected societies. Conventional wisdom tells us that societies that have experienced violent struggles in which individuals of different ethnic groups have (been) mobilized against each other are likely to become polarized along ethnic lines. Indeed, both policy‐makers and scholars often assume that such divisions are some of the main challenges that must be overcome to restore peace after war. We comparatively examine this conventional wisdom by mapping dimensions of social distance among 4,000 survey respondents in Bosnia‐Herzegovina and the North Caucasus region of Russia. The surveys were carried out in December 2005. Using multidimensional scaling methods, we do not find patterns of clear attitudinal cleavages among members of different ethnic groups in Bosnia‐Herzegovina. Nor do we find patterns of clear ethnic division in the North Caucasus, although our social distance matrices reveal a difference between Russians and ethnic minority groups.     

Geophysical and Archaeological Investigation of the Survivor‐Camp of the Antelope (1783) in the Palau Islands,Western Pacific

Survivor‐camps were an unavoidable and particular category of terrestrial shore‐camp when European scientific, mercantile and imperial interests began to impinge significantly on the islands of the Pacific Ocean. In 1783 the packet Antelope was wrecked in the Palau Islands and the account of the ‘new’ archipelago, first published in 1788, was, after Cook's voyages, the most popular Pacific text in the late‐18th century. The results of archaeological and geophysical research at the camp reported here contribute to a nuanced account of early culture contact and of survivor‐camp behaviour, demonstrating the significance of shore‐camp remains for understanding maritime societies. © 2010 The Authors     

Studying Incremental Institutional Change: A Systematic and Critical Meta‐Review of the Literature from 2005 to 2015

Since the early 2000s, theorizing on incremental institutional change has made inroads in comparative historical analysis. In particular, the ideas, concepts, and theory introduced by Kathleen Thelen and her collaborators have been widely adopted by scholars. These scholars are not, however, univocally positive about the theory. Three main critiques have been plaguing the theory since its early days: the concepts it builds on lack clarity, the model of agency it uses is too static, and the theory lacks analytical power overall. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analysis method, this article presents a meta‐analysis of the peer‐reviewed empirical literature from 2005 to 2015 that applies this theory. It seeks to better understand the reach of the critiques expressed, as this may provide a starting point for improvement. It finds considerable quantitative support for the critiques, and uncovers an additional problematic issue: the tendency for concept stretching and concept proliferation by scholars seeking to overcome the shortcomings of the theory. Paradoxically, concept stretching and proliferation only further reduce the analytical power of the theory. The article concludes with suggestions for improvement of the development and application of the theory.     

Mining Archaeology and Micro‐Raman Analysis Associated with ESEM‐EDX: Toward a Chrono‐Spatial Definition of Ore Consumption in a Pyrenean Medieval Workshop, 14th–16th Centuries

The rapid expansion of non‐ferrous metallurgy in the late Middle Ages (14th–15th centuries) enhanced ore demand, which was supported by mining intensification. Metallurgical workshops developed various supply strategies based on geological, political and economic constraints. This is particularly true for the Pyrenean multi‐metals workshop of Castel‐Minier (Ariège, France), where recent excavations unearthed an exceptional corpus of non‐ferrous ores. A specific analytical methodology combining micro‐Raman spectroscopy and environmental scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X‐ray (ESEM‐EDX) was set up to study these artefacts. This composite methodology permitted the fast characterization of both mineral and gangue as well as a discussion of their economic potential. Ores identified were compared with ancient mines in neighbouring mining districts in order to sketch a geography of the mineral resources available to medieval metallurgists. Moreover, a chrono‐stratigraphic study of ore distribution in Castel‐Minier revealed the supply strategies, technological choices as well as spatializing of copper and lead metallurgies.     

Polycentric Transformation in Kenyan Water Governance: A Dynamic Analysis of Institutional and Social‐Ecological Change

Beginning in 2002, Kenyan water governance transitioned from a monocentric, top‐down system to one exhibiting traits of polycentricity. In this paper, we investigate the changes made to water policy following the 2002 reform, outcomes produced in a collection of community‐ and catchment‐level user groups in the Mount Kenya region, and the conformance of these changes and outcomes with principles of polycentricity. A new framework is used to capture the complex institutional arrangements and interactions existing before and after the polycentric transformation. Unlike many previous polycentricity studies, the present research focuses primarily on the outcomes of the polycentric shift and determines if these correspond to predictions from polycentricity theory. We utilize survey data collected in 2013 from water managers, as well as archival research to interrogate congruence with principles of polycentricity. This study contributes to the broader discussion on polycentricity in two fundamental ways: (i) It documents the functioning of a water management system following a top‐down imposed polycentric reform, and (ii) It empirically inspects whether these polycentric reforms have produced benefits predicted by polycentricity theorists, such as experimentation by local water users, increased collective action, and improved coordination between levels of management.