Local and territorial determinants in the realization of public–private–partnerships: an empirical analysis for Italian provinces

ABSTRACT

Relational networks and intangible factors are crucial elements for the competitiveness of a territory. Public–Private–Partnerships (PPPs), in particular, allow for the provision of goods and services that favour the exploitation of complementarities between public and private resources. They aim at promoting an increase in the overall efficiency of investment projects through a complex mechanism that distributes risk and revenues among stakeholders. This paper examines the local and territorial determinants of PPPs through an econometric analysis based upon Italian municipal data, grouped at the provincial level. Using a tobit model, we analyse the relationship between the realization of successful PPP initiatives and different sets of factors, including less analysed local and territorial determinants. We stress the role of the local management of infrastructure assets, the administrative efficiency of local authorities and the diffusion of previous local development initiatives. Local management and territorial context factors explain most of the occurrence of successful PPP initiatives in the pre-crisis period while usual determinants (infrastructure endowment and financial distress) display a weaker effect.     

HISTORICAL JUSTICE THROUGH REDRESS SCHEMES?

The Swedish redress scheme intended for victims of historical child abuse in out-of-home care compensated only 46% of claimants who sought economic compensation for past harms. This article explores the reasons behind this comparatively low validation rate by investigating a) how the eligibility criteria of the Redress Act were evaluated by the Redress Board; and b) the justifications and underlying values used when applications were rejected with reference to the fact that reported abuse was not deemed to be sufficiently severe according to past standards. Victim capital, which determines how vulnerable or credible a victim is perceived to be by others, as well as competence and narration, are essential aspects for this type of legal proceeding. The article demonstrates that the claimants had to traverse a complicated web of criteria to be awarded compensation. The outcomes for claimants were affected by how the past was conceptualized in this legal setting, what competences the victims themselves possessed, what competence and resources the administrative system offered, and the extent to which the decision-making process fragmented victims’ narratives.     

Geographies of relational coordination in venture capital firms

ABSTRACT

Venture capital (VC) firms are crucial actors in entrepreneurial ecosystems. Through the development towards a digital economy, they have gained further relevance, which caused the VC industry to diversify in terms of business models. This article offers a new heuristic to study the VC industry by developing a classification of VC firms. By drawing on a framework of different dimensions of relational distance in investment relations, different types of relational coordination are identified by comparing VC firms in Germany. The types of VC business models are found to produce relational geographies of investing as they relate with their portfolio startups in different ways. A relational perspective on VC thus provides the opportunity to step beyond pure territorial approaches on VC.     

“长于姜水”、“都陈”与“葬于长沙”——炎帝传说流衍途径考察

在炎帝传说流衍的过程中,逐渐形成其"长于姜水"、"都陈"与"葬于长沙"的说法。诸说之间似乎缺乏必然的联系,但均有历史与文化的渊源。早在先秦时期,炎帝传说在东、西方流传之时,亦有缘起于南方说流行。随着东汉后期"三皇五帝"系统整合工作的完成,以及魏晋时期以现实生活中的帝王为标准,对传说中古帝王的生平事迹、都城、陵墓所在等关键环节的再次整合,尽管依旧保留着相当浓郁的传说色彩,然而炎帝的人格化倾向却日益凸现,这是古代帝王传说演变过程中一个值得关注的历史文化现象。"姜水"、"陈"与"长沙",似乎可以被理解为炎帝传说流衍过程中三个重要的地理标志,各地不同的炎帝传说借此得以整合,最终形成一个与黄帝并称的华夏民族始祖形象。     

Forging a Frontier: Social Capital and Canada's Mounted Police, 1867–1914

This article examines the role of the North West Mounted Police in creating communities in the Canadian Prairies during the first decades of Confederation. Despite being created as an institution of law enforcement, the Mounted Police acted more often as a social bonding agent, creating the necessary conditions and organizations required to establish permanent communities otherwise isolated from one another. As the only federal presence in the frontier, the force evolved into an autonomous institution of cultural stability, performing vital services and advocating for frontier objectives to the government in Ottawa.     

Entrepreneurship dynamics and economic cycles: an analysis for local systems and industrial districts

ABSTRACT

We propose a research framework that expressly takes into account the moderating and differentiated influence that can be exerted on the dynamics of entrepreneurship capital by both the type of local system and the economic situation. Moreover, we investigate whether industrial districts are a more favourable context for the evolution of the entrepreneurship capital. We apply this framework to data of municipalities, grouped in local labour systems, of three Spanish regions and in two sub-periods of, respectively, crisis (2007–2011) and incipient recovery (2011–2014). Results are consistent with a set of sensible relations that can be extracted from the background literature.     

Marginalized for a lifetime: The everyday experiences of gulag survivors in post-Soviet Magadan

Over the past decade notions of social capital have become embedded in the social development lexicon, often presented as the ‘missing link’ within development theory. Much social capital‐based research takes Robert Putnam's theorization of the subject as its starting point. Putnam's work argues that social capital can be measured by a region's levels of trust and civic engagement. While its use, and conceptualization, has undergone much academic debate, often formal institutions still employ this very narrow, and arguably Western‐centric, reading of the subject. This paper argues that while at the micro‐level social capital has little to do with the civic engagement and trust theories posited by Putnam, it still has relevance to the lives of marginalized individuals and is an important factor in their continued survival. To explore this, drawing on extensive qualitative research conducted in Magadan, Moscow and St Petersburg, I critically examine the construction of everyday survival strategies among Gulag survivors living in Russia's far northeast city of Magadan. Denied a return to their ‘homeland’ upon their release, this group experienced considerable marginalization in the post‐Stalin period. This was exacerbated when the collapse of the Soviet Union saw pensions in the far northeast of Russia fall to below 50% of the state‐set subsistence minimum. The paper demonstrates the importance of social capital to this group by showing how their survival is based on far more than interactions with formal and informal organizations.     

Children’s independent mobility: the role of school-based social capital

ABSTRACT

Research has documented the decline in children’s independent mobility (CIM) globally. CIM is a measure of the level of a child’s freedom to move about his or her local neighbourhood without direct adult supervision. This paper explores the effectiveness of three intervention programmes to change travel behaviours of children to and from school in 26 Catholic primary schools in a range of urban and regional settings in Victoria, Australia. Using pre and post intervention surveys with 1600 students and parents, and interviews with school principals, we measured the influence of a range of individual, social, and built environment factors on the effectiveness of these intervention programmes. The degree of social connectedness of the school and the individual was found to have the most impact on the effectiveness of the intervention programmes to change behaviours, while the interventions themselves were not greatly effective without being embedded in a supportive school culture.     

The transnational one-child generation: family relationships and overseas aspiration between China and the UK

ABSTRACT

Education-motivated migration from East Asia is regarded as a family capital accumulation project where middle class families reproduce their socioeconomic advantage at a transnational level. This study focuses on one-child generation migrants from mainland China who came to study in the UK as teenagers or young adults but remained to work as professionals after their education. Caught between the British social/employment system and the Chinese family system, the one-child migrants showed a fragmented sense of belonging and a high level of uncertainty in the migration plan. The pervasive Confucian family culture in these transnational families also calls for an expanded conceptualisation of the term ‘children’ and a long-term observation of their mobility curve in the project. This paper incorporates rational motivation with human complexity in the context of transnational reality, thus it contributes to a more nuanced understanding of changing intergenerational relationships in the transnational family capital accumulation project.