Social Risk Political Rationality And Official Responsibility

A Subtle Balance critically reflects on major trends and enduring challenges over the last four decades of public policy and governance. During this time, a tension has existed between two aims for public decisions: that they be based on the best available evidence and analysis, and that they be fully democratic. This period has seen a continuing drive for more direct citizen engagement in decision-making and governments trying to address major policy issues through novel consultative and collaborative processes. In essays that offer detailed and novel insights into the recent history of specific issues in social policy, environmental policy, and processes of policy advice and decision-making, contributors elaborate on how these trends have played out in diverse areas of practice, what their consequences have been, and how specific institutional reforms could reset the requisite balance between expertise, evidence, and democracy in Canadian public policy. Inspired by the wide-ranging contributions to scholarship and practice of A.R. (Rod) Dobell, A Subtle Balance draws on the influences of distinguished scholars and sophisticated practitioners of public policy to assess recent changes in governance. Contributors include Martin Bunton, Barry Carin, Ian Clark, Rachel Culley, Rod Dobell, Lia Ernst, Jill Horwitz, John Langford, Justin Longo, Michael Prince, Harry Swain, Charles Ungerleider, Josee van Eijndhoven, Michael Wolfson, and David Zussman.

Conflicts of interest in both the public and private sectors have become a major matter of public concern world-wide. The OECD Guidelines define a conflict of interest as occurring when a public official has private-capacity interests which could improperly influence the performance of their official duties and responsibilities. However, identifying a specific conflict of interest in practice can be difficult. And resolving the conflicting interests appropriately in a particular case is something that most people find even more challenging. The Toolkit focuses on specific techniques, resources and strategies for: Identifying, managing and preventing conflict-of-interest situations more effectively; and Increasing integrity in official decision-making, which might be compromised by a conflict of interest. This Toolkit provides non-technical, practical help to enable officials to recognise problematic situations and help them to ensure that integrity and reputation are not compromised. The tools themselves are provided in generic form. They are based on examples of sound conflict-of-interest policy and practice drawn from various OECD member and non-member countries. They have been designed for adaptation to suit countries with different legal and administrative systems. FURTHER READING: Managing Conflict of Interest in the Public Service: OECD Guidelines and Country Experiences

This book explores ethical interpretations of biotechnology and examines whether sufficient consensus exists or is emerging to enable this technology to occupy a stable role in the techno-economic, social, and cultural order. It employs a wide range of social theories to evaluate risks.

Despite the enormous influence of Michel Foucault in gender studies, social theory, and cultural studies, his work has been relatively neglected in the study of politics. Although he never published a book on the state, in the late 1970s Foucault examined the technologies of power used to regulate society and the ingenious recasting of power and agency that he saw as both consequence and condition of their operation. These twelve essays provide a critical introduction to Foucault's work on politics, exploring its relevance to past and current thinking about liberal and neo-liberal forms of government. Moving away from the great texts of liberal political philosophy, this book looks closely at the technical means with which the ideals of liberal political rationalities have been put into practice in such areas as schools, welfare, and the insurance industry. This fresh approach to one of the seminal thinkers of the twentieth century is essential reading for anyone interested in social and cultural theory, sociology, and politics.

Policy-making has always involved uncertainty; however the presence of unknowns has become far more conspicuous and problematic in recent times. One important way in which policy-makers have increasingly sought to deal with such uncertainty is through approaches rooted in understandings of risk. This book comprises a rather diverse collection of six chapters, alongside one more explicitly theoretical introduction, each taking up a distinct perspective in scrutinising the relationship between policy, risk and uncertainty. Important concerns addressed within these different studies include: how risk-governance policies are shaped by risk awareness (or a lack thereof) and the mediating role of trust; the framing of policy through an emphasis on particular risks and the corresponding impact on societal beliefs, discourses and institutional power; the organisational processes which lead to some risks being tackled while others are neglected; and processes of (de-) politicising uncertainty at the interface between scientists and policy-makers. Contributors explore trans-national institutions, national bodies, and local government – within diverse geographical contexts including China, Brazil, the Baltic Sea, Australia, the UK, and Europe. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Risk Research.

Foucault is often thought to have a great deal to say about the history of madness and sexuality, but little in terms of a general analysis of government and the state.; This volume draws on Foucault's own research to challenge this view, demonstrating the central importance of his work for the study of contemporary politics.; It focuses on liberalism and neo- liberalism, questioning the conceptual opposition of freedom/constraint, state/market and public/private that inform liberal thought.

An exceptional showcase of interdisciplinary research, Critical Inquiries for Social Justice in Mental Health presents various critical theories, methodologies, and methods for transforming mental health research and fostering socially-just mental health practices. Marina Morrow and Lorraine Halinka Malcoe have assembled an array of international scholars, activists, and practitioners whose work exposes and disrupts the dominant neoliberal and individualist practices found in contemporary mental research, policy, and practice. The contributors employ a variety of methodologies including intersectional, decolonizing, indigenous, feminist, post-structural, transgender, queer, and critical realist approaches in order to interrogate the manifestation of power relations in mental health systems and its impact on people with mental distress. Additionally, the contributors enable the reader to reimagine systems and supports designed from the bottom up, in which the people most affected have decision-making authority over their formations. Critical Inquiries for Social Justice in Mental Health demonstrates why and how theory matters for knowledge production, policy, and practice in mental health, and it creates new imaginings of decolonized and democratized mental health systems, of abundant community-centred supports, and of a world where human differences are affirmed.

Engin F. Isin and the volume's contributors explore the social sites that have become objects of government, and considers how these subjects are sites of contestation, resistance, differentiation and identification.